Shin sat calmly on a tree branch watching Inari massacre a horde of hobgoblins, his focus truly on his build. It was a matter he planned to address before the tree hunter party accosted him, and now he finally had the leisure to return to it. He had a number of abilities he’d like to take up the free skill slot he had, but after the tree goblin dungeon, he only had one in mind. Speed.
Quicken was an incredible skill. It did not boost his Agility but the very concept of his speed in all endeavors. The only problem was its cost. At the rate he felt mana leave his body, it was almost twice as costly as Nor. All his other skills revolved around mana already, so this put a significant burden on his mana capacity, even as high as it was now.
But a solution, he found, was in the old bard’s axe. The Chop skill, which magically allowed him to transcend the limits of his body in a way even body supremacy wouldn’t allow, didn’t use mana like his other skills did, but instead he felt his aura drain away as was the case with his Quickstrike.
He had asked Inari and Nor and both had confirmed that their Keen Cut skills drew mostly on aura as well. Nor shed some more light on the matter saying he use to have a cut skill which drew solely on aura and a keen edge skill which drew solely on mana, but both became Keen Cut when he started on the path of knighthood.
Shin didn’t quite understand what made it aura based when it was clearly magical in nature but that was of passing concern. The true importance was there was a second resource pool he wasn’t making enough use of, and what he wanted it to make use of most was speed. A skill like Quicken that drew upon his aura. He stood up and jumped over to Inari who had just about mopped up the entire large tribe.
“Tag in.”
Inari showed some reluctance but dismissed her swords and stood back in a sulk. The hobgoblins maintained more wariness towards the white fox that had nearly slaughtered them whole, but were forced to turn their attention to the charging human as he decapitated one of theirs with ease.
With the hobgoblins baring down on him, Shin stored his weapons and dodged an attack and then another, and another. He made no attempts to strike back at the hobgoblins, emboldening their efforts, but to no avail. Shin only half focused on the now middling threat of normal uncommon monsters, the other half pledged to his body. He twisted and turned, and jolted at odd angles, straining the limits of the speed of his movements and subsequently the coordination of his body.
[You have acquired common tier Footwork lvl. 1.]
‘Minimally increase the speed of steps.’
Shin activated the skill with indifference. He felt the faint increase in speed as he dodged the arrogant lashes of the green monsters, sidestepping one and punching it in the side of its face. Each dodge he made now came with a counter, single or even seven punches. He added in kicks, elbows, knees, thoroughly exploring the effects of the skill.
[Footwork has reached lvl. 2]
He jumped back to Inari with a casual stance. She sped off back towards the hobgoblins, understanding Shin’s intention without the need for words. As the slaughter resumed, Shin evaluated his new skill. His concern about the wording of the skill had proven true. His movement speed increased but only for his stride, with no direct effect on his regular strikes. Somehow the system knew the difference between it.
He had wanted an all encompassing speed increase for every form of movement just as Quicken gave, but he supposed that he shouldn’t have expected too much from a common tier skill, and that he could progress it to how he needed it to be. It was a start.
Inari landed in front of him in delicate precision, the sounds of battle already faded away.
Shin smiled at her then glanced around to find more targets along the way of the dungeon, and stopped. Ten human figures headed right towards them. They seemed to keep to a formation and there was nothing chasing behind, their target increasingly more obvious. Inari perked up, turning in their direction. Shin stood where he was, waiting. An arrow shot straight at his head and Inari effortlessly knocked it away. It was a fast arrow with some weight on it, nothing more.
“Rare!” The archer stopped in his tracks with a yell of fear.
Shin and Inari burst forward at the same time. Inari’s speed much faster, slipping a desperate arrow and slashing the man in two, bow and all. Two red daggers appeared in Shin’s hands as he ducked under the heavy slash of a greatsword and sliced the woman’s thigh where the leather looked thinnest. Blood splashed from the wound, far more than what was normal.
The warrior woman stepped back and slashed down at Shin, his reflection showing in the shinning blade as he spun away before she even moved, his arm spinning with him, slicing deep into her wrist just above the bracers. Tension flared on the Bruiser’s face and was met with a cloud of dust and dirt. She swung wildly, trying to rub her eyes clear and an arrow punctured her skull.
Shin nocked and drew another arrow, aiming it at a fearsome heavily armored squire. He jolted his bow right and loosed an arrow into the throat of a camouflaged spotter, the sword of the knight passing straight through his body and vanished. An arrowed pierced the illusionist’s shoulder before he could cast another spell and two more struck his thighs, bringing him down. Shin stored his bow and ran over to the squirming caster, Inari appearing by his side. The illusionist glanced at them in fear then around the still forest in horrified realization.
“Why did you attack me?”
The illusionist’s attention snapped to Shin but he quickly averted his eyes, some mixture of rage and disgust within the fear that was lost on Shin. The man murmured to himself, his body shaking, failing to answer Shin’s question. He let out a scream as Shin yanked out one of the arrows from his leg.
“Why did you attack me?”
“T-the System! We kill you… it’s like the boss. W-we win…”
“How did you find me?”
“We just knew… We can feel it. I’m sorry… please, j-”
A dagger sunk into his head to the hilt. Shin moved it away as he pulled it back out so the blood wouldn’t splash on him, and glanced at the mark on his right hand. This was something of a problem. He doubted these people were special, which meant likely everyone in the tutorial was the same, however much that was.
Seeing as the party who gathered the goblin emblems were mundanes as far as he could tell, there was without a doubt more than one zone. But that didn’t tell him how many were in his. A thousand, ten thousand, a hundred thousand. Most of them were certainly weaklings but it still cost mana and energy to deal with them, and he had a boss on the loose somewhere to think about.
Shin rose to his feet, seeing another group of figures about three miles away heading towards them, and took off. A dungeon was now a bigger priority than ever. Other players wouldn’t be able to follow him in, he guessed, as there was little other reason for the goblin hunter party to put him in theirs.
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“I need a place to train in peace…” Shin thought as he cleaved through the neck of a sneering attacker.
---
Shin dashed through the forest, a shade under top speed. From all directions he had been hounded the past day by parties looking to claim his head. After the fourth, Inari’s time limit ran out and he decided to save mana as taking them on was like emptying an ocean with a bucket.
Even with his ability to detect everything coming, the sheer number in pursuit meant he had to chose his paths carefully and stay on the move. His body was already straining under the relentless exertion, Vitalize and Cure Wounds keeping it from falling apart. He could fight with a broken body if need be, but preferred not to take that risk. His skills could only heal, not regenerate.
Shin glanced up ahead and veered right for barely a few moments then a bit left again, aiming for the gap between the two groups. Half a minute passed and he took a sharp left deeper into the forest, dozens of enemies spread out up ahead, but in even less time he met the same problem. Shin turned again and stopped in his tracks, enemies, dozens upon dozens encircled him in their trap. Inari and Nor appeared by his side and followed him towards the thinnest part.
“Kill them all.”
An axe and club sword appeared in his hands as the two spirits overtook him. Inari sped ahead to quickly silenced yells. Nor and Shin burst into the carnage and burst in opposite directions. Shin heard the sound of whirling wind as he deflected a throwing knife and disemboweled a lunging rogue with serrated obsidian edges.
Shin’s body flew into a frenzy painting the forrest red. His eyes darted around as quickly and erratically as his limbs with prismatic flashes. He didn’t stop to hear their shouts or inspect their classes. He only saw threats and where to target them. Two arrows struck a tree he passed by and his axe claimed another.
“Monster!”
“Group up!”
Dodging, weaving, feinting, disengaging, provoking, relentlessly as he killed one by one. Seven players rushed towards him. He bent low almost to a starting crouch, then glanced left and pivoted right. The players’ eyes followed him and Nor tore straight through all seven. A bow appeared in his hand as he sniped two people in robes then switched back weapons and followed after Nor.
[Achievement reached: Player Slayer I. 25 attribute points rewarded.]
‘Slay 100 players with a higher stat total.’
Shin threw the points into Vitality without thinking. He could feel his body groaning under the stress but still he pushed himself further as his muscles started to tear and his bones creaked. He and Nor tore down the line of encirclement, blocking and covering for each other against the swarm of enemies.
“Nor.”
Shin drew a rugged black shield which crashed into the hard ground as he crouched behind it. Nor appeared on his back as bolts of mana from a dozen mages battered the shield and ground around him. Dirt exploded, trees broke in two and the impacts sent shockwaves through his body as they knocked him into the air with his shield. The shield slowly flipped through the air revealing his back, and Nor’s tail flurried in front, swatting away the arrows that followed.
Shin let the weight of the shield drop them down, storing the shield just before his feet hit the ground and he sped off, putting distance between the platoon of mages as she circled around them, Nor by his feet. He drew a bow and nocked an arrow wrapped in talismans but before he could aim, screams erupted from the artillery line as Inari tore through them with brutal abandon.
She made straight for Shin and readied her swords against the remaining enemies from the direction she came. A third, maybe a quarter remained, and Shin was reaching the limits even his body would allow. He downed a healing potion and checked his surroundings in the breath of time they had.
“Stick together. Inari in front.”
They took off to the left, avoiding the center where they could be surrounded. The enemy line saw them second and far too late. None even among this horde of players could match the kitsune guardian in raw physical stats and the ones who could last more than a moment fell to her flames.
As the small army thinned, Shin’s focus tightened, and he noticed something. Fear and desperation had replaced the greed and arrogance he had grown used to. Even if they were surrounded by corpses, they still numbered three dozen strong. If not faith in his limits, he failed to see why they wouldn’t turn and run if they lacked hope in the fight. Shin killed as ruthlessly as before as he thought.
“Leave one alive.” He hadn’t felt the need to question any that pursued him since the first but this situation felt odd. There was something he was missing.
The murderous trio mowed down the remaining players whose coordination and team balance plummeted by the second. One of them finally stalled and fled, only for Nor to slice through a leg. The man fell with scream of pain and writhed over to a tree before he realized the boy crouching in front flanked by two spirits and the quiet field of bodies behind them.
“Why are you attacking me?” The man averted his eyes and Shin recognized the same expression as the other he questioned.
“...the… system said…”
“I know that. Why are you attacking me and not the boss?”
The man’s expression dropped, his expression wrapped in fear and despair. “That monster… we can’t… no one can…”
“It’s too strong?” Shin asked with some doubt. As mediocre as they were individually, a group like this could have beaten the Great Goblin Tree Champion eventually, even if they lost most of them.
“It’s a wolf, right?” The man jolted at the words and fell into a muttering mess. “Is it part tree?”
“We can’t… we can’t… kill us all…” The man raised his teary face with pathetic desperation. “Can’t you just die?”
Inari split his head open in a flash and kicked the body away in contempt, an irate frown underneath her mask, the man’s request falling of deaf ears. Shin tilted his head and rose to his feet. He doubted he would have gotten much valuable out of him, making a note to leave two or three next time. Still, although he hadn’t found out much of anything about this roaming stage boss, it must be stronger than even the champion, and if it isn’t a plant type that makes things difficult. More reason yet to reach the dungeon quickly.
Shin jumped up a tree to check for any more problems like the one they just dealt with, and dropped straight down, breaking into a full speed sprint with the buff of Quicken filling his body. The dungeon was near, perhaps he’d make it in time. Nor clung to his back and Inari followed without question, her speed about equal his. Shin cut through the forest, making it to the sandy ground next to the cliff and glanced left, urging his body onward as a black figure blurred through the forest.
The entrance of the dungeon came into sight, decaying bodies of hobgoblins surrounding it, just seconds away. A figure appeared in a blur at a speed Shin’s eyes could barely register, and he came to a sudden sliding stop. In front of them, right between the dungeon, stood a wolf.
Large as a lion with fur as black as night and glowing red eyes. A thick mane coated its shoulders and two long saber teeth pointed down from the top of its snarling mouth, dripping with drool. Loose chains attached to shackles on each ankle floated in the air around it but didn’t make a sound. Two red marks crossed down its face like scars and tattoos like runes lined its sides.
[Worg Ravager (rare) - Greater Peasant]
The ends of its mouth curled into a sneer. “So close. Just a moment away.” It slowly stepped to the left as if goading them to make an attempt.
It took an exaggerated smell of the air. “The scent of spirits. Will you tame me, too?” It mocked.
Shin drew the spirit sealing jar without hesitation and poured his mana into it. A inhaling vortex enveloped the worg, threatening to pull it in, and Shin burst past. The red markings on the worg shone and with a roar, a curtain of fear descended upon them. Inari stopped in her tracks, trembling against invisible chains and Shin’s mana flew into chaos as the jar shattered in his hand.
Nor struggled and with a burst of will raised his head. His body glowed like light and shattered to reveal a superior armored form, and he lunged. The clang of metal sounded as the worg’s claws repelled off the armored sickle weasel’s tail. And Shin watched as the worg bit Nor in two, his body dissolving in the wind. The initial parried attack nothing more than a momentary inconvenience.
Shin’s mind went blank. Something bumped against him and the worg’s claws shredded straight through it, slicing deep into Shin’s arm, knocking him away. Time slowed as Shin watched Inari turn towards him and smile before she too vanished.
Death and tyranny fell upon the land, a suffocating promise of the end. The worg froze, fear reaching deep into the core of its being, the weight of nothing swallowing him alive. Black rose up from Shin’s eyes, creeping to envelope them whole. And a star bloomed within his soul, distinct and familiar.
The black darkness slipped away and the aura of intent vanished as Shin hit the ground. He lunged with all his might into the dungeon entrance as the worg’s maw almost grazed him. The comforting sensation of the portal enveloped him and he fell into the dungeon, crashing into a slump on a dirt wall.
There he sat in a lull. The familiar soul within him faint, but unmistakably Inari’s. But Nor’s bond was gone. He poured mana into the skill to summon Inari but it failed to even activate. He felt for it again. Slowly, very slowly, it was growing, regaining its strength. Shin put his hand where Nor’s soul used to reside, his eyes harboring a strange deepness, his slight smile gone.