Nathan dashed back toward the gate and leaped over the wall with a single bound. He double-checked his stats.
Stats:
Strength: 20 (+92) = 112
Dexterity: 38 (+13) = 51
Constitution: 40 (+40) = 80
Magic: 3 (+15) = 18
Luck: 22 (+66) = 88
Soul: 20 (+30) = 50
Available Stats: 42
Nathan’s hand shook as he hurriedly distributed his available points.
Stats:
Strength: 30 (+92) = 122
Dexterity: 50 (+13) = 63
Constitution: 50 (+40) = 90
Magic: 3 (+15) = 18
Luck: 22 (+66) = 88
Soul: 30 (+30) = 60
Available Stats: 0
His fingers slipped a few times, but for the most part, he’d selected what he wanted. Magic applied specifically to people who used mana to fuel their skills. His skills were fueled by life energy, Emi had said he’d know the difference on instinct—
He was rambling in his mind. He exited the menu.
“Mara!” he yelled. “Mara, where are you!?”
The ground shook. Slowly, at first, then faster and faster. The buildings waved back and forth like pendulums.
Nathan’s heart dropped as a house fell to the ground.
“Nathan!”
Nathan turned around. Mara was in the streets. She had one of her guns half-disassembled—no cleaning supplies, she must’ve been clearing a jammed bullet. Bjorn was beside her, his hammer on his shoulder.
She clicked the top of the gun back into place as she jogged toward him. “What the hell’s happening!?”
He grabbed her shoulders.
“Please, please tell me that you have more bombs,” he said.
“Uh, a few?”
“Enough to clear out ten city blocks in a row?”
Mara’s jaw opened and shut several times.
“No?” she said.
Nathan backed away. The ground continued to shake and the walls behind him creaked.
“You told me you didn’t want anything too big,” she said.
Nathan’s head snapped back to her. “Mara, I was dead wrong. If you have something that can level this place, I’ll use it. Please.”
She blinked. A slow grin formed on her face.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes! Absolutely!”
Mara kicked her feet and looked at the ground. “Maybe I might’ve been collecting some explosive reagents while we were here.”
“What does that mean?” Nathan said.
A wild look entered her eyes. “It means that if you can buy me some time, I can glass this entire town—“
“Not that much!” Nathan said. “Like, just the outside.”
In the distance, the thousands of monsters were getting closer by the second.
“Okay, well, I guess I can do that. Like I said, you just need to buy me some time to mix it.”
Nathan glanced over at the nearby buildings. Several of them had already collapsed. There wasn’t much left to lose by letting Mara go nuts.
“How much time?” Nathan said.
“Five minutes.”
Five minutes wouldn’t be that long under most circumstances… but how am I supposed to divert a horde of monsters, including a bunch of underground giant worms!?
Nathan dashed up to the top of the wall. There wasn’t much time left. With each second that passed, they got closer to the walls—the walls that were looking more and more rickety with each second that passed.
I need bait, I need something they want—
Nathan’s hair rose on end.
He reached into his inventory.
[Scythian Worm]
A bait so powerful that it was able to get a conscious, perfectly rational mafia fish to bite into a piece of metal.
But would it work on monsters, not just fish?
The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
Nathan nearly gagged from the scent.
Here’s hoping!
He put the Scythian Worm on his hook and jumped onto the ground. A second later, he heard something else fall next to him.
Bjorn grunted.
“You need a hand?” he asked.
He doesn’t have enough Dexterity for what I’m planning.
Nathan shook his head. “Stick here by the gate. Make sure nothing gets into the town.”
The ground shook again. Nathan flailed his hands and caught himself from falling.
Bjorn gave a quick nod. “I don’t know what your plan is, but good luck.”
Nathan nodded back and ran out onto the field.
His shirt clung to his back from the sweat. Underneath him, he could feel the ripples of the giant worms approaching him.
Are the worms cannibals? I sure hope so—
His instincts screamed at him. A loud, deep thrum came from just underneath. He sped up and jumped forward and a moment later, a massive worm exploded out of the ground behind him, soil sent flying into the air.
He jumped back to his feet and started running again. Behind him, he could hear a horde of feet chasing after him. He looked around just in time to see every single ant on his tail, their insectoid feed stomping against the ground like racehorses.
Nathan sped away. Underneath, vibrations ran up and through his feet. He gritted his teeth and tilted to the side. The worm burst out of the ground, sailed through then air, and then fell back into the soil with a loud crash.
Three minutes.
His hook, equipped with Scythian Bait, swung in the breeze like a metronome.
Up ahead he spotted Chad and Emi. She shot a fireball at a stray ant, then caught sight of him. When she saw the horde chasing him, her jaw dropped.
Chad, meanwhile, dropped his katana and exchanged it for his phone.
“Holy shit!” Chad yelled. “Nathan, what are you doing!?”
Nathan shouted back, “Some help would be appreciated—!“
Something inside him screeched. He instinctively dodged to the right, barely avoiding a bite from one of the armored werewolves.
“Bro, this is prime content! Hold up—I’m putting a speedrun timer on this!” Chad said.
Nathan resisted the urge to scream profanities at Chad and instead focused on keeping his footing.
Emi tugged Chad’s sleeve. “Chad.”
“What?” Chad said. “Let me get this footage.”
“Chad, they’re getting closer.”
“Just one second—“
A rumbling underneath their feet. Chad looked down, and sucked in a breath.
“Oh, that’s not good,” he said.
Emi broke into a sprint. “RUN!”
Chad stuffed his phone in his pocket, picked up his katana, and ran forward.
A moment later, there was a loud boom and the worm exploded out of the ground. Nathan, Chad, and Emi were now running together.
“Who’s plan was this!?” Emi said.
“My plan!” Nathan said. “My dumb, stupid plan!”
“Nathan, I respect you deeply—“ An ant lunged for Emi’s neck. She jumped into the air, a blast of wind aiding her. “—but this plan is awful!”
Tell me about it!
Nathan leaned forward, dodging an attack from another ant. Chad panted quickly, phone in one hand and katana in the other.
“This is the best footage ever!” he said. “Dude, we’re gonna go viral!“
“PRIORITIES!”
Emi turned around and blasted three fireballs. They flew out and carved lines of destruction through the ants. Off to the left, the horde had somehow looped around and were about to close them off—there was only one direction to go.
Back to the gates.
They ran toward the town. Bjorn stared at the group in the distance. Even from a distance, Nathan could see Bjorn’s eyes squinted in confusion.
“Nathan, the gate’s still shut!” Emi shouted.
“I know!”
“Nathan, we’re about to get pincered off!”
“I know!”
“NATHAN, WE’RE GOING TO DIE!”
“I KNOW!”
Two minutes.
Ahead, the walls trembled violently. Nathan’s stomach twisted as the gates, already splintered from the tremors, gave a final groan and collapsed entirely. Debris rained down like a thunderstorm of splinters and stone. Bjorn, still stationed at the base, lifted his hammer just in time to bat away a chunk of falling timber.
“Well, I guess that solves the gate problem!” Chad said.
“MARA!” Nathan shouted at the top of his lungs. “PLEASE TELL ME YOU’RE ALMOST DONE!”
There was no response for several seconds.
Something was rolling down the main street to the gate. A… catapult? No, multiple catapults. At least ten.
And leading the way was Fuge. Behind her, Mara skipped along, a grin on her face. Dozens of mushroom people pushed the catapults and lined them up. Inside each of the catapults was a barrel.
The siege weapons came to a stop.
“Get ready, Nathan!” Mara cupped her mouth. “You’re about to see something beautiful!”
Oh god.
The catapults were already retracted.
“Fire!” Fuge shouted.
Each of the catapults went off.
“HIT THE DIRT!” Nathan shouted.
He dived to the groun . A loud whistle echoed as the barrels soared through the air.
A crash. A shockwave passed through Nathan’s body and noise slammed into his ears. Dust flew across the ground and he was lifted up and thrown forward like a tumbleweed. Another boom. Then another. He couldn’t see. He couldn’t think. Nothing but noise filled his mind.
Finally, it stopped.
He opened his eyes and pushed himself up. He was covered in dozens of cuts. His body was sore and his vision swam like he’d just been hit with ten batches of those drugs from his tutorial.
He turned his head back around.
They were all gone. The ground had been devestated, with multiple sinkholes having been created. Charred ant bodies covered the dirt. Worm guts covered a section of the battlefield.
“Holy shit,” Nathan said. “We’re alive.”
Chad scurried for his phone and clicked at it. “I think I saved the footage!”
Emi rose from the ground like a zombie. “Mara… is insane… and none of you can tell me otherwise.”
Nathan saw his fishing rod. He walked over and picked it up. He wrinkled his nose at the smell of the Scythian Worm.
It didn’t fall off the hook, that’s pretty amazing.
Nathan took the worm off his hook and stuffed it in his inventory.
A groan echoed from the distance.
----------------------------------------
Nathan approached the foreign noise slowly. He glanced back at Emi and Chad—only to see they were arguing over something. Good. He turned back around.
When he saw what was making the nosie, Nathan’s eyes widened.
One of the corpses wasn’t a corpse.
It was a werewolf monster, giant and muscular like bodybuilder. It was on the ground, eyes fluttering and chest heaving. Nathan breathed out a sigh. He was half-worried that some of the worms had survived. But a werewolf? No problem.
Nathan raised his fishing rod to finish the job.
The werewolf monster’s eyes snapped open. It held out its hands.
“Wait, wait, wait!”
Nathan stopped.
Did the werewolf just…?
Nathan’s fishing rod clattered to the ground. “You can talk!?”
“Yes, I can talk, please don’t kill me!”
Nathan furrowed his eyebrows together and took a slow step backward.
“I didn’t know that you guys could talk,” he said.
The werewolf monster—no, not a monster—pushed himself off the ground. He cast a weary gaze over Nathan.
“You didn’t know?” the werewolf said.
“I thought you were just… mindless animals, like the ants.”
The werewolf shook his head. “No, those creatures are system creations. I’m like you. Someone who was taken from their homeworld and dropped off here.”
“But how did you end up here…?”
The werewolf stared up at the sky.
“We made it to the Sixth Circle, but there was an impossible task. A foe that was beyond us. Beyond anything I’ve ever seen.”
It always comes back to the Sixth Circle…
“And then the System offered you a deal.”
The werewolf’s ears perked up
“Yes, that’s what happened. How did you know?”
“Talking fish.”
“What?”
“Nothing, keep going.”
The werewolf squinted his eyes at Nathan like a particularly confused deer before he shrugged.
“The system offered us a deal. We serve as hireable units for the Raid Subsystem and it would allow us to live. After a long period of deliberation, our leaders agreed to the deal.”
“So you’ve been a mercenary ever since.” Nathan frowned. “Do you have, like, your own town where you wait between battles—?“
“We’re frozen in a void until we’re hired,” the werewolf said. “It’s just one battle to the next, over and over for eternity until I’m finally killed.”
His tone had turned dark. His hands clenched.
That sounds horrible.
“Do you know who hired you?” Nathan said.
“No. I never saw their face. One second I was frozen in the vast expanse of space. The next, I was here with attack orders from the Raid Leader.”
Nathan stared at the werewolf man.
What am I supposed to do with this guy? He’s technically on the opposing team.
But he’s not even really an enemy, is he? He was just forced into this. There’s no reason to kill him.
We should at least imprison him. Make sure he can’t do any damage.
“If you want to kill me,” the werewolf said. “I understand. It’s enough that I got to enjoy this conversation.”
Nathan paused.
“What’s your name?”
“Lupim.”
Nathan’s lips thinned.
“Well, Lupim, Come with me,” he said. “Let’s see if we can get you out of this mess you’re in.”