Cleo’s spear lodged itself in the boar but it didn’t slow the beast down.
Without thinking she let go of her weapon and let herself fall to the side.
The boar grazed her and pushed her further away, but apart from some scratches she was completely unharmed.
She followed the beast with her eyes and watched Alex slash his sword with superhuman speed while simultaneously stepping to the side in one graceful movement.
Impressive…
Squeaking in pain, the boar missed Alex, only some blood from the sword inflicted wound squirting in Alex’s direction.
She turned her head around to see the other boar engaged by her sister and Jack.
Jack was awkwardly stabbing and dodging it, her sister trying her best to support him and get some stabs in from the side as well.
Why is he so bad with the spear? He looks just as bad at it as my sis…
“Stay focused, it’s not over yet. The wounds are too shallow.” Alex spoke grimly.
Her attention snapped back to her own enemy, watching it throw itself against a tree to get rid of her spear, worsening the wound in progress.
It turned around, blood running down its side. Its eyes stared at them full of hatred.
Cleo moved behind Alex for cover, since she was without a weapon.
After its next charge I’ll run for my spear.
“How often can you use your skill?” she asked.
“Once more right now, maybe in a minute a second time. But I can feel that I’ll have to rest longer after that.” Alex replied, the bitterness evident in his voice. “But I’ll try to finish it this time.”
Alex barely finished talking when the boar was already upon them again.
His sword glowed and once again struck out with superhuman speed and… missed.
Only a shallow scratch appeared on the boar’s hide, who had changed its direction in the last second and was now running towards Laira and Jack.
They both cursed at the same time.
“Watch out!” yelled Cleo.
She watched them both look up from their own fight, their eyes widening in shock.
Their boar looked much worse than Cleo and Alex’s, but it was still alive. Now another one would join them in a second.
Alex sprinted forward. Cleo went on to follow him, but he yelled back at her. “Get your spear!”
Fuck!
With a curse she turned around and went to fetch her own weapon.
The scream of her sister rang out behind her.
Shit shit shit! Please be alright sis!
****
Laira stabbed at the boar again and again.
It ignored the shallow wounds Laira was inflicting on it and kept its focus on Jack.
Laira cursed her useless weapon in her mind.
I feel so useless.
But at least Jack was doing a good job dodging it while also inflicting wounds on it.
She was surprised how agile he was, it looked almost superhuman.
His stabs on the other hand all looked weird. If she hadn’t known that he had already killed many boars and got at least one skill, she would have thought it was his first time using a spear.
Not like she was any better. She just tried her best to drive her stick forward as hard as possible, but when she compared it to what she had seen from her sister, it seemed so wrong.
Her sister would shift and twist her body in just the right way to make a stab stronger. It looked so fluid, as if she had done it many times before. Cleo had told her the alignment made using a spear feel much more natural than it otherwise would.
She wished she had also gotten a normal alignment.
So not only do I have the worse weapon, I’m even worse at using it. Great.
A sudden cry from Cleo made her look up. Her eyes widened when she saw the other boar also coming to their side.
Unsure as to how to react, she looked to Jack, only to see him starting to run away, followed by the heavily wounded boar.
She looked back to the incoming boar and fear rushed through her veins when she noticed it was going in her direction and not Jack’s.
With a cry she turned on her heels and also made a dash for the trees.
The angry breaths of the animal followed closely behind her, closing in faster and faster.
Shit shit shit.
She could hear Alex yell loudly behind her, probably in an attempt to distract the beast but it seemed determined to get to her first.
Laira sprinted as fast as she could, panting, her heart feeling like it wanted to jump out of her chest. She weaved through trees and jumped over underbrush but still got cuts all over her from hitting stray branches.
But although she had managed to run away from the beasts at the start of the trial, now she wasn’t as fortunate. Maybe it was because she was now carrying a weapon with her, slowing her down, or maybe it was just bad luck, but this time the boar caught up to her.
“Ahh!”
A sharp pain in her left leg made her trip over. She instinctively rolled herself to the side, preventing the boar from running directly over her, but it only delayed the inevitable.
The boar slid to halt next to her and looked at her for a moment.
Laira could have sworn that she could see a twisted kind of satisfaction reflected in its eyes.
She struggled to get up, but her leg failed her.
The boar attacked again.
She looked death in its eyes and screamed.
“No! NO!”
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****
Fuck, where are they!?
Cleo was running through the forest, following the direction she had seen everyone run in.
She had to readjust her course once already, when she heard Alex yell, but now she was kind of lost again. She just hoped she was still getting closer.
A blinking dot in her vision made her stop.
Focusing it made her quest description appear in front of her again.
Quest: Walking your Path
Be a major contributor to the death of 3 opponents of equal or higher grade, using your aligned weapon [2/3].
Reward: Choose 1 from 3 aligned Copper I skills.
Confused as to why it would show up again, she skimmed it for any changes.
She soon spotted it and a wave of relief washed over her.
It’s now 2 out of 3… which means our boar must be dead.
She was a little surprised that her one stab at the beginning counted as a major contribution, but perhaps Alex was right and first strikes really counted more towards a quest.
Okay, so they shouldn’t be in any great danger anymore.
She slowed down her run a little. Although she had quite good endurance, the chase had made even her get out of breath.
Since it wasn’t as urgent anymore she could afford taking her time and actually try to orient herself.
Maybe I should go back again? Or keep walking forward slowly? God I’m so lost…
She decided that continuing to walk forward was probably the better choice. After all they couldn’t be that far ahead of her, right?
True to her thoughts she soon spotted a glimpse of someone through the trees.
“Hey!” she yelled, speeding up towards the figure.
It turned around and she saw that it was Alex, who was holding a blood covered sword. Closing in, she also spotted the corpse of the boar that granted her the quest progress.
“Are you okay?” she asked, “Did you spot the others?”
He just looked at her, silent. Cleo came to a stop, a few meters away from him.
His face made every hair on her body stand on end.
“What? What’s wrong?”
He opened his mouth, once, twice, without a sound coming out.
“I’m sorry,” he creaked on his third try.
“For what?” she replied, her voice starting to shiver as a terrible thought appeared in her mind.
Alex shook his head and moved to the side, revealing what laid further behind him.
Her sister was on the ground, her limbs in positions they shouldn’t be in, her clothes colored a dark, brownish red. Completely still. Completely… dead.
“No…” she whispered.
“I was too late. I’m sorry.”
Her knees gave out under her. The world blurred. But she forced herself to get closer. She had to see it.
She crawled across the forest floor, tears streaming down her face, but no sound coming from her. The closer she came, the more her head started to hurt.
Then she was next to her sister and she couldn’t stop herself anymore. Her cries resounded through the forest, over and over again. She looked at her blood covered face, at the unmoving, blank eyes and her head felt like splitting open.
She heard Alex yell behind her, but she didn’t care. She didn’t care about him. She didn’t care about the rest of her trial.
Her sister was dead. Dead on the first day, to a stupid boar.
And it was her fault. Why did she agree to let her participate in the fight? She only had her stupid stick.
And why hadn’t she been at her side? Why did she let that stupid jackass be with her?
She would have defended her sister, she would have done everything.
And now it was over.
A rock hit her on her head. The sharp pain cleared her mind a little, enough for her to turn around and finally regard the situation behind her.
Alex was sitting and leaning next to a tree, gesticulating and yelling at her.
What? Why is there a stick in his shoulder?
“...behind cover!”
Alex’s voice started coming through her muddled thoughts, her headache also receding once she wasn’t focused on her sister anymore.
Cover? What cover?
That was when she finally realized what the stick in his shoulder was. A short, feathered bolt.
Her survival instincts made her unsteadily get up, which proved to save her. A burning pain streaked across her back and another bolt embedded itself in a tree behind her with a *thunk*.
She ignored the pain and wobbled towards Alex, collapsing behind a tree next to his.
Although the extra adrenaline did divert her attention a little, she still couldn’t help but think about her sister. Surviving this sudden ambush seemed like such an irrelevant thing compared to the reality of her dead sister.
Her thoughts kept spiraling about what she could have done better.
Why didn’t Jack protect her? He had skills. She didn’t. Why did she have to deal with the boar alone?
“Come out and show yourselves you cowards!” Alex shouted.
The forest replied with silence.
Alex stemmed himself up with a grunt, his new wound clearly quite painful. He grabbed the bolt sticking out of his shoulder with both hands and snapped it off.
He turned to her with a grim look on his face. “There is no use in staying here. I’ll just bleed out slowly. So I’ll charge them. Do your best to survive, kid.” He hesitated briefly. “And again, sorry for everything.”
With those solemn words he went off and ran towards another tree, further in the direction of their attacker.
Cleo simply sat behind her tree, not caring what happened around her.
It wasn’t until another *thunk* and a scream resounded, followed by a new but familiar voice, that she perked up.
“You are such an idiot, Alex.”
Cleo felt like someone threw a bucket of ice water over her head.
Jack?
She peeked around the tree, but she couldn’t spot him. She only saw Alex lying behind another tree, a new bolt sticking out of his leg.
“You bastard!” Alex cried out, “it was you all along? How could you!?”
All along?
Memories of how they had met the duo sprung up in her. How they had told them about chasing an ambusher who had attacked them with… crossbows.
Cleo gnashed her teeth.
I knew that bastard wasn’t aligned with a spear. He looked so stupid using it.
She didn’t understand how he had hidden another weapon though. Was it a skill?
Laughter came from somewhere ahead.
“Yes, and you didn’t realize it all this time! It was hilarious to chase myself, I had to stop myself from laughing so many times!”
This fucker.
The initial shock at the revelation was slowly replaced by hot burning fury.
This asshole almost killed me. And then he killed my sister. He left her to die while he was perfectly capable of dealing with the boars.
She gave her sister one last glance, holding back the tears that threatened to appear again.
“There is one last thing I will do for us, sis.”
She closed her eyes, the image of Jack bright in her mind. “One last thing, then I’ll join you.”
Her eyes snapped back open, burning with determination.
“He will die with us.”
With a sudden movement she jumped away from the tree and sprinted towards Alex.
A bolt whistled through the air next to her head.
She slid to a halt next to Alex. He didn’t even look up.
“You should have run away while I distracted him,” he said weakly.
She looked at his slumped body and his wounds that were leaking blood. He clearly wasn’t going to make it. Nor would he be of any more help fighting Jack.
Clenching her spear, she made a decision.
“I’m sorry, Alex.”
He finally looked up.
She wished he hadn’t.
.
.
.
.
Quest Walking your Path completed!