by Nikita Thorn
He had to try out combinations of what he had learned from his previous abilities, and he had better get a system going so he would not be wasting his energy on something he had already attempted.
Next, he tested a variation of the previous one that had worked, twisting his body more to the left to add even more drive. He found that stepping forward right before the slash produced better results than simply pushing energy down. The cuts left shallow marks on the chains, but there was still something missing. With special abilities, he could always feel energy bursting forth, and this one was nothing close.
“Right foot, both hands,” he muttered, as he waited for his energy again. He was starting to feel the smoke in his lungs, but his health had not started dropping beyond what was already slowly trickling away from his bleeding left leg.
Concentrating his energy down his right leg, he twisted his body left, both hands on the grip of his sword, starting from a low position. He stepped forward at the last second, pushing energy down to the ground. At the same time, he flowed energy to both his hands as he swung the sword diagonally upward with all his might, using strength from his hips to propel it along.
A bout of energy shot down his arms into the sword, through to the slanting cut, and the chain clanked loudly as the blade connected with it.
Congratulations! You have learned a new ability: Upslash. Range: 0.6. Damage: 172. Energy required: 98.
The blade had cut through half the chain, and Seiki only had a split second to be delighted before the fire stand tipped over and spilled its burning embers onto a pile of books. The dry and dusty pages went up merrily in flames. Within moments, a second pile of dry scrolls had caught on fire, and the room was suddenly very bright and hot.
“All right. Way to amp it up,” Seiki said aloud, somehow more amused than irked. At first, he had thought they were going to try and suffocate him, but it seemed that they had decided to burn him alive instead, and he was not even free yet.
The fire was spreading to the rest of the scattered books on the ground, and Seiki waited again rather impatiently for his energy. The move did very high damage. Not quite as high as what he could achieve with a full Slide and perfect Focused Strike combined, but it was much faster to execute and required no start-up time.
As soon as his energy ticked, he Upslashed the chain once more, with better aim and control now that he had had practice. The tip of his Hikari broke through the chain with a clear ring that would have been satisfying had it not been for the heat threatening to smother him. The loosened jaw, freed from the weight pulling it up, fell off his leg and clanged onto the ground behind him.
Seiki took a careful step back, wincing as he pulled his leg off the icy teeth of the other jaw.
Despite trying his best not to let it get to him, in the midst of this inferno, he was starting to have problems convincing his body that this was not real. With his leg still numb and his head spinning from breathing in smoke, he ran toward the exit, clambered up the steps as fast as he could and pushed open the door.
It was locked.
Without even thinking, and in slight panic, Seiki struck it with his bare-handed Focused Strike. The wood splintered from the force of the impact, revealing a fortifying metal sheet in the middle of the door.
Through the haze, he got into position, wondering if Upslash could cut through metal. That was when he realized that his new ability came with a one-minute lockout, and that his energy level was nowhere near the point where he could be using it again.
Seiki turned around and peeked at the flames that had consumed almost a quarter of the room. The black smoke was invading the space, and he had to drop to the ground where the air was still breathable, wondering if he had been too late.
All of a sudden, the door opened. The white light from outside shone in, and the thick smoke poured out over his head through the opening. Seiki heard someone cry in alarm. Not even caring if he would be mistaken for a thief or arsonist, he dashed out and gulped down the fresh air, before starting to cough violently.
Looking up, he saw the back of a Mani Shrine Apprentice in a priest robe running away, yelling, “Fire! Fire!” His feet felt as if they were about to burn, and Seiki dragged himself away from the doorway.
Quest completed: The War Archives [Level 10]. 105 XP gained.
Out of the heat, the air was refreshing cold, and Seiki breathed out in relief, grimly amused by how dramatic his ability quests had been so far. He was quite certain the apprentice had not seen him, and Mitsue’s plan to deliver a dead thief to the Shogun had ended in the full destruction of an ancient library.
Seiki picked himself up and only then noticed the ground was full of gray pigeons, the whole flock of which were bobbing around and gawking at him as if he had had breadcrumbs to offer.
Seiki looked up and saw that further away, sitting with his back to the nearest building on the right, Ippei [Level 10], in his Shinshioka armor, was holding back laughter. “So that’s what you’ve been doing,” said the samurai, before continuing in a more serious tone. “Look at all these birds I sent you.”
The flock of post pigeons milled around Seiki as they waited for him to pick them up. Behind him, a cut scene had started and Master Hora—who was apparently a high-ranking Mani Shrine priest—had arrived with apprentices holding buckets of water. As they put out the fire, the priest started lamenting about the loss of valuable books. They did not even seem to acknowledge that Seiki was there, so he paid them no attention.
Ippei sprang to his feet. “Oh, don’t bother reading,” he said, as Seiki was reaching for the closest bird. “They all pretty much say ‘Drop whatever you’re doing right now and come to the East Gate. There’s something big going on.’”
His eyes were sparkling. “And I mean, big!”
Chapter 02
It turned out that as soon as you picked up one pigeon, the rest of the flock simply flew off as the messages got automatically combined into one very long strip of paper attached to the first pigeon’s leg.
Seiki glanced through it and found that it was pretty much as Ippei had said, with one message in the middle from Fuyu of Ichikeya. She told him that she had found what he might be interested in and that he should come see her when he had the chance.
Ippei claimed that they had no time for that and insisted that they rode east as soon as possible. Soon, Seiki found himself again passing under the wistful azure dragon, with the vibrant grassland ahead of him. The city seemed emptier than usual, and Seiki noticed quite a few people riding out in the same direction, saying something about hoping to be in time.
“How did you find me?” Seiki asked. Before this, Ippei had always had to send a message to ask about his whereabouts.
“When you didn’t answer, I reckoned you must have been instanced somewhere and I wrote to Sasu, who does locating service.” He was on his jet black horse that he had managed to procure after Kentaro had made him pick up Woodcrafting.
This was another thing Seiki could not believe he had not heard of before. “Uh, who?”
“I don’t think anyone has ever seen her.” Ippei laughed. “But you can just pigeon Sasu with a name and attach fifty silvers. She then writes back with the location or, if the person’s not on, their last known location. It doesn’t always work, since there’s always a bit of lag, but you usually get the general area. And that underground door was the only place in Mani Shrine I couldn’t go in, so I figured.”
That was quite expensive for a piece of information, Seiki thought, and he secretly wondered what could be so important that his friend needed to get him to come right now. However, knowing how Ippei liked these mysteries, he did not bother to ask. “How does she know where people are?”
“Locate,” said Ippei. “Free Slot ability.”
“Oh,” said Seiki. This explained why some people seemed to know whether someone was logged in or not. Suddenly, trying to ambush another player at the East Gate was not such a ludic
rous concept anymore. “So much for privacy.”
“It’s not that rare to get, but not a lot of people want to sacrifice a Free Slot for a non-combat ability that is not even that reliable.”
“Is there a way—”
“Yes.” Ippei knew exactly what he was going to ask. “If you have gold to spare, you can buy a charm so that Locate won’t find you—not that you would want to waste a charm slot for that. You can get a non-permanent bag charm version, which lasts for a week and will definitely get looted if you die, so personally I don’t think it’s worth the hassle.” The samurai chuckled. “But for you, it might be worth considering.”
Seiki knew Ippei found the whole business quite amusing. “Haven’t run into any Rogami since,” said Seiki. He had spotted Rieko once on Trade Street a few days ago, but he doubted the obake had spotted him.
“And your shadow folks?”
He meant Shadow Manor. Seiki shrugged. “That’s still… half-settled.”
Ippei shook his head. “Other people would be trying to level as fast as they can but, no, you’d rather go on nature walks. At least, you’re finally Level 10. Tell me you’ve got your backhand.”
“My what?”
“Your fifth ability,” said Ippei. “You know, tennis.”
“Oh.” Seiki scratched the back of his head. “Yeah, Upslash. That was what the underground inferno was.”
“Good. That’s like your Brace, at least against arrows. Our abilities are almost mirrored.” He paused when he saw that Seiki was not entirely following. “You know what it does, right?”
Seiki only now remembered to study his new ability.
Upslash [Seiki – Level 10]: slash diagonally upward, dealing 172 damage to one target in front of the user. The force of the cut also creates a gust of strong wind that affects projectiles within twice the weapon range in front of the user, completely stopping those that would have dealt 20% or less damage of the user’s maximum health, and reducing damage from others over that threshold, up to 80% at pointblank. Requires a weapon to use. 1-minute lockout. Required energy: 98. Ability modification: none. Enhancement: none.
Wind. He had not expected that.
He realized that there was a perfect reason, apart from helping to add a sense of urgency, why the fire stand had tipped over as soon as he had figured out the move. It was a powerful ability that could be used both offensively and defensively, but it was energy-intensive and came with an extremely long lockout time by Seiki’s standards.
“This is why it’s great having a ronin leading the front assault against archer-heavy troops,” Ippei said. “The first volley is pretty much taken care of. Too bad Ryuta wasn’t too much into war games.”
“Up to 80% at pointblank?” Seiki wondered if his friend would know what that meant.
“Let’s say a Level 20 ryoushi shoots you with a Focused Shot. You Parry, you lose all your energy. You block without energy, sword flies. You manage a perfect backhand, letting the wind connect right before the arrow hits your sword, that shot deals only 20% of its original damage, and even as a Level 10 you survive it.”
This was almost too good to be true.
“That’s the best case scenario,” warned Ippei. “It’s an awkward move, and almost impossible to do perfectly. For lethal shots, you’d have a better chance just Sliding out of the way.”
“What do samurai do?”
“We Shout, then we Brace. Shout temporarily boosts our stats, and Brace halves the damage. Much simpler, and with a bigger window, but then it’s more important to have good gear.”
They had reached a fork in the road, with a dense patch of trees to their left, and an open field ahead. This was where Seiki had been before, and he knew that straight ahead in the grass were Wild Boars [Level 11] and Snakes [Level 10], and a bit further to the right would be where he had unintentionally climbed a kodama earlier.
Ippei pulled his horse to a stop as a gray pigeon caught up with him and landed on his shoulder. “Katsumasa,” said Ippei as he grabbed the bird, noting the sender.
The message seemed to bother him. “It’s not there anymore,” the samurai muttered. “That’s impossible.” Ippei thought for a moment before looking at Seiki, and he brightened as a thought crossed his mind. “Your Trade Perk is about to come in handy right now,” he said, nodding toward a tall pine tree on the side of the road. “Think you can see anything?”
Slightly confused, Seiki got off his horse. The pine tree was about thirty feet tall, and he was quite certain he could climb that high. “What am I looking for?” he asked, as he started pulling himself up. His Woodcutting Trade Perk allowed him to spot and grab hold of well-spaced cracks in the trunk, which would break if someone without the skill attempted to climb.
Ippei smiled. “You’ll know when you see it.”
Seiki pulled himself up above the treetops and took a deep breath as the refreshing wind rushed through his hair. It was still afternoon, and the sun was halfway down the western horizon behind him.
“Anything?” screamed Ippei from below.
Seiki looked to the left and his jaw dropped.
“Uh,” he began, not knowing how to put it. “It’s a giant skeleton?”
Perhaps three or four miles away, in the open field beyond the woods, a human skeleton at least forty feet high was flailing its arms about, its mouth gaping wide beneath its hollow eye sockets.
Seiki had fought giant skeletons, but anything of this scale was mind-blowing, and he could only stare in fascination. The skeleton kicked out its left foot, and Seiki squinted and saw that it seemed to be fighting tiny dots of people surrounding it.
Ippei laughed. “Told you it’s big.” Then he shouted. “What percentage?”
Seiki strained his eyes to see.
Gashadokuro [Level Unknown Rare Elite]. HP 2262103/3278420.
Three million health was ridiculous. Seiki had to check twice to make sure, before realizing he had not answered Ippei. “Uh, slightly more than two-thirds.”
The skeleton had stomped its foot down onto a group of people, and Seiki had no doubt it was immediately lethal. Very faint shouts could be heard on the wind as dots of people on tiny horses fled from around its bony toes. Seiki found it difficult to tear his eyes away from such a surreal spectacle.
Ippei seemed high-spirited. “Come on. We’re going to make it.”
“What is that thing?” said Seiki, as he leapt down from the branches and got back on his horse. Ippei had already started galloping off down the path to the left.
“World event,” said the samurai. “It’s like a boss out in the open, and everyone can join in. Actually, the more people, the better. That thing must have been up for at least several hours already and we’re still not close to killing it.”
This was yet another thing Seiki had not heard of before. “Does this happen a lot?”
“First time in this version,” said Ippei happily. “They had a lot of these in Beta, since they were still tuning. I thought they had removed world events, since people were pretty polarized about them.”
“Why?”
Ippei grinned. “The degree of carnage was difficult for some to stomach. You’ll see.”
They followed the path down the dense forest, which was cool and well-shaded under the tall pine trees. After a while, Seiki could start to hear the shouts and noises from the crowd somewhere ahead, and loud thuds on the ground.
“It was around Lake Seikyo earlier,” said Ippei, explaining the message he got from his friend. “He said it appeared during the night, but no one could get close. They must have kited it over closer to the city, so people like us won’t have to fight our way through random monsters just to get to it.”
They rode through the forest and took right at another fork in the road, where someone had put up a handwritten calligraphy sign that said: ‘Skeleton this way. If you’re twenty or higher, report to Kouta.’ Seiki looked at it and caught a glimpse of extra i
nformation: Crafted by Master Calligrapher Chizuru of the Shinshioka Nobles.
“So the Nobles are still active,” Ippei said, in a rather ambiguous tone.
“You know them?”
“They’re one of the oldest clans in existence, and their record on the Nenshou Firefields still stands unbeaten.” He then added casually, “That’s the worst scenario, by the way. You can’t even ride, since your horse is always taking damage.”
The sound of the agitated crowd drew nearer and nearer, and they soon emerged from the thicket. In front of them was a field gently sloping down into a shallow land basin, with pine forests lining the near edge in a large curve. Seiki had known what to expect, but the sight still had him staring.
The skeleton was much larger than he had thought and must have been at least fifty feet high. As it stomped its foot down on another fleeing person, Seiki was certain he had never seen anything so large, so alive, and so violent.
Out of range of the skeleton, in a long disorganized line around the edge of the basin, people in all kinds of armor and gear sat nervously on their horses. From Seiki’s rough estimate, there must have been more than two hundred in total, and he and Ippei slowly made their way further into the wings to make room for more people joining in from behind.
In the middle of the open ground, a group of ten or so people, tiny in comparison to the enemy they were fighting, was shouting and riding as they tried to avoid getting stamped.
The skeleton’s hand swerved down and caught a swordsman and a ryoushi as they were trying to flee, and they let out terrified screams as they were lifted high into the air. The skeleton’s gigantic mouth opened wide as it brought its victims toward its face.
“It’s going to eat them,” said Seiki in horror.
Ippei grimaced. “That’s how it recovers health, and that’s why it’s taking so long.”
At that moment, Daichi of the Kensoku Guards [Level 24] rode forward from the edge and drew his gleaming black bow as he leapt off his horse. The arrow flew, struck the skeleton on its hand, and exploded. The Gashadokuro let out a low grating cry that was unlike anything Seiki had ever heard before, and it dropped its two victims, who were still as they hit the ground. A low kick from the skeleton sent dirt and grass flying around Daichi, immediately killing him and sending his mount galloping off in fright.
