Well, it was happening. Sae jumped out of the bush and charged at the monster, while the other party members scrambled to keep up with him. The Bog Walker the team had been tracking that day was in fact in the clearing as Pireni’s skill had predicted. It was slightly larger than the average size Pireni had stated at 7 feet long. The quadruped’s mud-matted brown fur covered its body like a shaggy coat, growing long enough to cover the long claws on its four limbs, but not getting in the way of movement. It yelped in surprise when Sae charged at it, but quickly turned to face him with a snarl on its face, revealing razor sharp teeth and a pair of shining red binocular eyes, confirming its predatory nature. It didn’t take a naturalist to know that it didn’t approve of this intrusion into its territory, and was ready to defend it at the cost of blood. The party’s blood.
Sae quickly closed the distance between the two, and despite his screaming, was able to maintain enough of the element of surprise to capitalize on it with a single unblocked strike. His sword slashed through the Bog Walker’s fur, cleanly parting many of its mud-caked strands, but drawing no blood. The monster let out a roar and countered with a slash of its own claws. Sae jumped back just in time, not letting his chainmail test the blow, and called out to the rest of his team.
“Come on guys! Don’t make me kill this thing myself!”
“We’re here!” shouted Pireni in reply. She set herself some distance behind Sae and got her bow out. Skeya positioned herself equidistant from the other two, ready to recite a chant of healing at a moment’s notice. Artyom followed out slowly, but had already applied his ally strengthening spells the moment Sae charged out of cover.
Artyom wanted to say something to express his disapproval, but decided to keep his mouth shut when Sae needed his full concentration for what was in front of him. As Sae continued to trade blows with the monster to little effect for either side, Pireni nocked an arrow and took careful aim, careful not to commit an act of friendly fire. After several seconds, she let loose, and the arrow hit the Bog Walker on the side. It reeled slightly from the first real damage it had taken during the fight, but not by much and was still easily able to dodge Sae’s next attack. Sae, in his overconfidence on how badly the monster was injured, overextended expecting his next blow to finish it off. His mistake cost him several links in his armor, as the beast took advantage of his misplay and slashed at his midsection with full force, rending many of the metal loops that made up his chainmail.
“You forgot to use your skill, Pireni!” shouted Sae, as soon as he realized what had happened. His armor saved him from any actual injury, save for that to his pride.
“On it, [Piercing Shot]! You forgot to activate your own skill too, you know!” replied Pireni, with frustration evident in her voice.
“Yeah, got you. [Sharpened Edge]!”
While the two were distracted by their argument, the Bog Beast came to two conclusions. First, its blows did very little to the bipedal creature in front of it. The shiny jingly thing on it was made of tougher stuff than its own claws. It would have to get him onto the ground and bite and claw his face off to do any real damage. Second, the other bipedal creature with red hair standing by itself wasn’t wearing any shiny jinglies, nor did it have a shiny sharp stick. Would killing it chase the others away? It decided to test that hypothesis.
Sae looked in confusion when his focus returned back to the battle, only to see that the Bog Walker had abandoned their fight and was running away… straight towards…
“Skeya!” shouted Pireni, the moment she realized what was happening. She tried to pull out an arrow to fire at it, but she wasn’t skilled enough to hit it while it was moving, let alone with the time she had before it reached her friend.
The beast was right in front of Skeya, its maw opened wide ready to feast. She screamed in terror as its jaws were about to tear into her midsection. Everyone watched in terror at the inevitable, resigned to their inability to respond.
All but one. Artyom surrounded himself in a selection of spells he always had at the front of his mind in quick succession. “Speed of the Olympian”, he recited to himself mentally as he took a single step towards the Bog Walker, his pace transformed into one that would put an olympic sprinter to shame. “Tungsten Body!” he shouted as he was within only a few feet from his target, before lifting his right leg up and moving from a mad dash into a flying kick. From Artyom’s practical experience, there was no need to cast a strengthening spell. A combination of high speeds and incredible density would be enough to impart a deadly amount of force. As soon as he connected with the beast, his foot sunk into its deep matted fur until it connected with skin and flesh. Despite the dampening effect reducing the force of the blow considerably, it was still enough to send the beast flying several feet away.
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“Move, get out of here!” Artyom shouted at the others, taking control of the situation. The others looked at him dumbfounded, a combination of relief for Skeya’s fate as well as the abilities Artyom just displayed. “What are you staring at? That thing is still alive and you aren’t safe.”
The others snapped out of their stupor and followed Artyom’s instructions on autopilot. They sheathed their weapons and briskly fled the scene of the battle away from where the Bog Walker was kicked. Artyom gently took Skeya’s hand and led her towards the others. As they made their way away from the site of the battle, Artyom looked back and saw the Bog Walker getting up. Realizing that it was outmatched against him, it decided to let the party run away.
After almost 20 minutes of running, and after Artyom confirmed that the beast wasn’t in pursuit with the use of a life sensing spell, the party fell to the ground in exhaustion. They looked glad that everyone was unharmed. Everyone, of course, except Artyom. Still on his feet and holding a grim expression, he was tempted to turn on his aura of fear to give the rest of the party something to really feel scared of.
“Hey Artyom,” began Sae. “Why didn’t you just finish off the Bog Walker? You had it on the ropes, you could’ve-”
“Sae,” began Artyom calmly.
He looked up inquisically at first, before his face turned to fear upon seeing Artyom’s expression.
“You dumb motherfucker!” shouted Artyom. “I know you’ve never faced a real monster before, but you hold the lives of your teammates in your hands. Did you consider this at any point in your time as an adventurer? That what you say and do, everyone else will follow? And if they die because of a lack of instructions, it’s your fault?!”
Artyom had never heard anyone in this World swear before, but that could’ve just been because he was always in polite company. When lives were on the line, there was no point being polite.
Sae opened his mouth as if to answer, but nothing came out. Artyom could swear tears were going to be coming out instead at this rate.
Artyom took a deep breath. He wanted to lay a verbal beatdown on Sae for shirking his duty as team leader so badly, but then he realized he was still a newbie. He probably became an adventurer with innocent aspirations of becoming a famous hero. Many of the Terran Defense Force’s new recruits were just like that, but they didn’t get put into leadership positions until they had their naivete beat out of them through training and experience. Sae never had that luxury.
“Sae, I know you care about the rest of the team, you want what’s best for all of us,” said Artyom in an incredibly calm and motherly voice. “You charge to the front and make yourself a target so the rest of us won’t get harmed. It just so happened to fail today.”
Sae nodded silently, the tears about to form in his eyes beginning to dry ever so slightly.
“Why do you think that is?”
Sae was silent for a second, then he replied. “Because it went after Skeya?”
“Yes. And why did it go after her?”
Another pause. “She was alone and unarmed?”
This time Artyom was the one to reply with a silent nod. “So how do we change that?”
Sae was silent once again, lost in thought. Artyom was about to interrupt him with the obvious when Skeya spoke.
“Have me be with someone who can defend me?” she asked.
Artyom looked over to her in slight surprise and nodded affirmatively. “Alternatively, we could arm you and make you as dangerous at Sae, but that doesn’t seem to be viable at the moment. So you and anyone else who can’t defend themselves has to be defended.”
“Well, Sae. You’re the team leader, can you plan a solution to this?” asked Artyom.
Sae collected himself and thought for a while. “We could have her next to someone?”
“I can stand next to Artyom!” said Skeya, excitedly.
“The problem with that is my attention is going to be on maintaining my spells, so I won’t be able to pay enough attention to properly protect you. Sae, despite being a wall against monsters, your attention is also going to be occupied. Skeya, stand next to Pireni. She’ll have to be paying attention to everything around her to keep away from enemies, but she’s still capable of keeping you and herself defended. That way, you’ll also still be in view of the rest of us so you’ll know if we get harmed.”
Skeya looked slightly disappointed by this, but she nodded in resolute acceptance.
“While we’re still planning, does anyone else have any complaints or difficulties they’d like to bring up?”
Pireni, as if on cue, spoke up. “Yeah, whenever I try to shoot arrows, I have to try really hard not to hit Sae.”
“Alright, and can you think of any way to avoid that from happening?”
“Well,” began Pireni. “If he weren’t in the way, that would help. So he can either move out of the way, or I can position myself so I’m not facing him!”
“There you go!” responded Artyom. “So all that’s left is me. As a ranger, I’m guessing you’re pretty mobile, right Pireni?”
She nodded in affirmation.
“I’m a quick mover too, so we can stay close together to cover for each other if anything does go for us. Looks like we get to stand next to each other anyway, Skeya.”
The two ladies smiled in response.
Everyone took some time to digest everything that was said. When Artyom thought that some of everyone’s lost confidence had returned to them, he addressed them all.
“So, team leader. Do you think we’re ready for another go?”
Sae’s eyes lit up in determination, and he nodded.