Ivan followed the arrow until it burst into mist and coalesced into a different form. A four-legged form. Standing before him was a blue wolf with slight curls of mist giving the illusion of fur. It also gave the wolf an ethereal appearance, like it was a ghost wolf or something.
Before Ivan could even react, the wolf dashed forward and bit his leg, making him yelp out in pain as he could feel the teeth digging into his thigh, scraping against the bone. When the wolf let go, Ivan looked down at his leg and saw nothing. No blood. No torn pants. Even the pain had faded.
What was this? That wolf wasn’t a wolf! It was a fake wolf, with nasty fake biting teeth!
It dashed at him again, but this time Ivan swung his spear at its face. Unfortunately, it was too close, so the wooden length of the spear hit it instead of the pointy tip. And it did barely anything. The wolf still bit him, causing Ivan to punch the wolf's snout to make it let go.
“Alright. Ok. You wanna go? Let’s go then!” This time when the wolf dashed at him the third time, like a simpleton, Ivan had his spear ready, and he was just about to stab it when.
It dodged!
What was this nonsense? Since when did this thing dodge?!
The stupid blue construct bit him again, in the same leg, in the same spot. Ivan was beginning to see red. He swept his spear back and tried to stab it in its spine, but the wolf pulled back, and the tip instead skidded off the asphalt, missing.
“You little shit!”
Ivan charged at the wolf, and it charged back at him. The thing went for the same leg, and Ivan whipped his spear, managing to scratch its shoulder when the damn thing bit him. But this time, he tackled the wolf, knocking it off its feet. Before it could get back up, Ivan stabbed at its exposed stomach, but instead the spear impacted its back leg as it scrambled upright. Ivan pulled the spear back and struck again, piercing in between its ribs. But it was still alive and bit his hand that was holding the spear, causing him to yelp and let go of the spear while his other hand balled into a fist and punched the wolf in its snout.
The two separated with a growl. Ivan was fine now that it had let go, but the ghost wolf was not doing as well as him. It was panting heavily and was dragging the spear around, as it had gotten stuck in its ribs. Ivan dove for his spear and managed to grab it before the wolf took off with his weapon, although in return he got some real bruises from the hard ground he landed on as well as a scraped elbow.
The wolf yelped in pain as Ivan jerked the spear around until it finally connected with something vital, and the wolf went down with a huff, dead. Hopefully. Although maybe defeated would be a better word, as it didn’t even seem alive in the first place.
To his dismay, the wolf turned into fog once more, splitting down the middle and coalescing into two wolves just as big as the last one.
After much grunting and more phantom pain, the wolves were defeated, and Ivan was breathing hard now, but the wolves split again, two becoming four. And once again he fought them, but it was a real struggle this time, as the wolves were great teammates. Too bad he was on the other team, as each of them grabbed a limb while Ivan desperately thrashed to free himself, kicking one of them in the stomach to finally get free.
He stabbed one, then the other. He kicked and punched and even bit when they got too close to his mouth. Thankfully the phantom wolves didn’t include the sensation and smell of them, or else he might have gagged.
With the four of them defeated, Ivan lay on the ground and carefully watched the mist, waiting to see if it would reform again. Thankfully, it didn’t, instead dissipating.
“Phew.” Ivan breathed out a sigh of relief, and his body relaxed, his head hitting the pavement. A flash of gold appeared in the corner of his eye. Tilting his head to get a better look, he could see Greg stepping out of a golden-coloured portal that closed behind him.
“Da fuck?” That was suspicious. But nobody else seemed to be freaking out about it, so he guessed that was normal now, although a few did shoot Greg some curious looks.
//
Task 4 Continued: [Gather with fellow Warriors, Rangers, and Sorcerers to journey out and complete the counter]
Enemies Defeated: (0/50)
//
“Everybody! Can I get your attention?”
Ivan looked over to a shouting woman dressed in bright colours with a pair of headphones around her neck and a piercing in her nose. She was waving her arms in the air, gathering a crowd around her. What for, he didn’t know. He would rather stay over here.
“I think we should group up to complete task four!”
On second thought, maybe he should go over there.
He gathered together in a crowd of 20 or so people, and upon closer inspection, the brightly dressed woman had a gash in her leg, dyeing her dark pants a darker shade where it was wet with blood.
“Hello. My name’s Amy. So anyways, I think we should strategize on how we want to complete this task.”
There were murmurs of agreement among the crowd, except for 3 people who made their dissent known.
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“Are you crazy?! Why don’t we just stay here? Where it’s safe. The army or police should be coming for us eventually.” A mousy man said, with another woman in the group nodding vigorously.
Amy began to speak. "Well, I don’t know how long this area is going to hold off the monst-”
Before she was cut off by a dark-haired teen. “Are you guys serious? This is life and death! I’m gonna go level up while you losers can stay here and cower!” He turned around, his newly bought cloak fluttering behind him, a sword strapped to his hip. “Don’t wait up, weaklings.”
Someone spoke. “Should we go after him?”
Amy shook her head. “I don’t want to get stabbed by that sword of his. I say we just let him do his thing. Meanwhile, you two don’t have to go with us, but those who are up for it, let’s make a plan on how to complete this task.”
The group took a while to formulate a plan that they all agreed with, but in the end, it was pretty simple. Warriors and Rangers with melee weapons in the front, Rangers with ranged weapons in the back alongside the Sorcerers.
Ivan was wondering what exactly the Sorcerers could even do, as they didn’t hold anything that could count as a weapon. Some books, a little mouse skull, a staff, which he guessed could be used to bash somethings head in.
Thankfully, Amy explained in detail about the sorcerer's way of attacking, as she happened to be one. Apparently Heaven had directed them while in the store to purchase Talismans, which stored spells that could be activated by injecting essence into them. And thankfully they had gotten some practice in while doing the first part of Task 4 by defeating the same ghostly wolves as he had.
“Allow me to demonstrate.” Amy stood up from her crouched position with a small book in hand. Breathing in, the book opened by itself and flipped to a page. The page then lit up in flames and turned to ash as a fireball formed in front of her other raised hand. Then the fireball shot forth at a decent clip, fizzling out on the barrier to the tutorial zone on impact.
There were a few ‘wows’ and a couple ‘cools’ said among the crowd, and Ivan was kicking himself right now. It was that simple? He could have shot a fireball! But… But punching hard was better, even though his physical stats should still be below some of the others. Yeah. Punching stuff was cool. So it’s a fireball. Woopty-doo. Who cares?
After a few more discussions, Ivan was starting to get antsy, waiting around for all these little details that would probably be forgotten the moment they were out there. He couldn’t imagine people following the backup plan should some monsters break through the front line, everybody would probably just run.
Finally, the group moved, leaving just one combatant behind, the mousy man. The woman had been convinced by Amy, but the other guy was just too much of a little bitch to join them. As they got up to move, Ivan tapped on a guy's shoulder next to him that he had found out was named Justin.
“Hey, Justin. Do you know what Greg was doing in that golden portal thingy?”
Justin looked over and nodded his head, loudly whispering to Ivan. “Yeah. Apparently he went to some other place called Treasure Pavilion to complete one of his tasks. I was told he had to buy a plot of land. Which seems pretty weird to me. Also, I didn’t catch your name earlier.”
“Hmm. It's Ivander.” Ivan shook the proffered hand and nodded at Justin.
“Ivander. That’s a unique name. I hope you’ll have my back out there.”
Ivan shrugged. “I guess.”
“You guess? This is a life and death situation, dude. Take it seriously. We could die out there. Oh, shit. We could die.”
“Ok, sure. I got your back.” Ivan patted Justin on the shoulder, urging him to keep moving where he had frozen. As soon as Justin turned away, Ivan rolled his eyes. What a little bitch.
The group got to the edge of the tutorial zone. The only way to tell it was the edge was by the monsters roaming just at the border, marking the tutorial zone as circular.
“Ok everyone.” Amy said from the back. “Let’s rush out on three. One. Two. Three!”
Ivan took a step, then noticed half the group wasn’t moving and stopped right before the edge, standing dangerously close to a pair of nasty-looking claws facing his way.
“What's going on, everybody? I thought we all agreed to go out. We have a plan and everything!” Amy raised her arms in exasperation. “Listen. I don’t want to find out if there's a time limit to these tasks. I mean, it did kinda say these were tasks from Heaven. Like. Heaven. The place I thought was fake just a few hours ago.”
There were a few grumbles at the people who hadn’t moved, and the cowardly girl from earlier walked out of the group. “I can’t! You guys go. I’m out!”
Amy blew out a breath. “Okay. Now, on three. Just ignore anybody who stops. One. Two. Three!”
This time, everybody charged out thankfully.
Ivan was at the front, and he stabbed the first animal in the stomach with his spear. It slipped off the tip and tried to stumble away, but Ivan stabbed it again in the back, this time stopping it for good.
//
You have slain an Earthly Beast!
//
Another beast entered his line of sight, this one with a large black spot on it and the smell of burnt hair hanging around it. He stabbed again, this one hardly putting up a fight as it was already injured.
//
You have slain an Earthly Beast!
//
The next beast was already running away. In fact, all of them were running away.
“Damn it!” How were they going to complete the task if all the beasts ran away? Ivan chased after the lagging stragglers and ignored the shouting behind his back. He caught up quickly, as these animals were still small, running on their short little legs.
He stabbed it. Then stabbed it again. And again. Until finally the message came again. This time with a little something extra attached.
//
You have slain an Earthly Beast!
You have taken a step forward on your Path!
You have gained [1 Stamina]-[1 Might]-[1 Sturdiness]
//
“Ah.” Ivan smiled. Was that an equivalent of levelling up? If so, he was satisfied. He walked back to the group, leaving the remaining beasts to flee.
Justin trotted up to him. “Hey. Why did you leave the group? That wasn’t part of the plan.”
Ivan shrugged. “They were a lot softer than I thought they’d be. And I wanted to level up. Plus, that’s one more kill for the task.” Ivan quickly checked the counter, which was at 11/50, which was lower than he thought it’d be. What were the other people doing? Also, did that cloak guy who went off on his own kill any? Because he thought it should be higher.
"Well, just be careful. We found Stan's body.”
“Who?” Ivan didn’t know a Stan.
“The guy who went out alone.”
Well, that was odd. “How did we not hear him screaming for help?”
Justin shrugged. “The tutorial zone must be soundproofed or something. Anyway, come help with the gathering. Some of the others who chose Alchemist said they can use the bodies for making stuff. It sounds pretty cool.”
Ivan looked over his shoulder. All the beasts that had previously surrounded the zone were gone. “Tch. Overconfident bastards.” He bent down to pick up his kill, some raccoon-lizard hybrid, frowning at his hand, which was now sticky with blood. “Eww.”