In her sleep, I heard Izusa trying to mumble something.
“What was that?” I asked. I moved closer so I could hear better.
“….New Fallen… coming… run…” Izusa murmured. Izusa’s mumblings often contained references to running from something, I figured it was related to the last thing she was doing before she fell unconscious. But this was the first time she mentioned ‘New Fallen.’ I didn’t like the sound of it.
“Inventory,” I whispered. The moment the blue screen appeared, I tapped on an icon of a sword.
†Elucidator†
Damage: 150-160
Durability: 1300/1350
Requirements: Level 48+
Additional Attributes: Agility +10
Description: Pitch black sword with grey trim. Once wielded by the Black Swordsman, a legendary dual-wielder along with its companion blade †Dark Repulser†.
The sword was one of the many weapons I had replicated for the battle at Crystalpeak. Despite its power, I would have preferred a spear, but since I didn’t have one after mine broke, I had to make do.
I waited there silently with Mai for around fifteen minutes as the shrieks steadily grew louder.
‘Prepare yourself,’ Mai warned at the end of the wait. ‘They are almost here.’
“They?” I asked.
‘There are two of them. They are currently 1200 meters out and are approaching at 12 meters per second,’ said Mai.
“Can you bring them up on the infrared like you did with the beastmen?” I asked.
‘No. Whatever they are, their temperature isn’t much different than the surrounding environment. I can’t see them with infrared,’ said Mai.
“A cold-blooded creature?” I suggested.
‘Possibly, though they don’t normally operate at these temperatures,’ said Mai. Reptiles and insects preferred warm climates and while this region wasn’t frozen, it wasn’t far from it.
‘1000 meters,’ Mai warned.
I got up and quickly placed the extra firewood I’d collected on top of Izusa’s unconscious body. This was for a worst-case scenario. I didn’t know what I was dealing with, but if it was something too powerful for me to handle, I’d run and hope the firewood was enough conceal Izusa from the pair of shrieking monsters.
‘500 meters.’
I exited the cliff side indentation and put some distance between it and me. If I had to run, it was best not to have my back to a wall.
‘300 meters, they are now within visual range,’ said Mai. A pair of red targeting retina appeared in the middle of my vision, making sure I saw my pursuers before they were on top of me.
‘Hey, it’s not shriekers. It’s streakers. I don’t think the cold has done them any favors though,’ Mai joked though I wasn’t paying much attention. It was no time for levity.
My pursuers, the sources of the hoarse shrieking, were two naked humanoid men. They clearly weren’t beastmen. All beastmen I’d ever seen were large and muscular, like a race of professional body builders, but these New Fallen, assuming Izusa’s ramblings provided the correct term, made anorexics look pleasantly plump. Their freakishly pale white skin hung lose and protruding ribcages and hip bones made them look more like skeletons than people. I would have thought they were men on the brink of starvation if not for the fact they were moving towards me at nearly super human speeds.
“Go away, I don’t want to have to fight you,” I roared. The naked men stopped twenty yards short of me and began to spread apart as if moving to cut off potential escape routes. Still, even with me in sight they didn’t stop their shrieking. Every ten seconds or so one of them would do it. However since they were close, I heard the other words between their shrieks.
“Three… Two… One… Shriek… Fifty-nine… Fifty-eight…” said one of the New Fallen.
“Twenty-seven… Hungry. Food. Kill… Twenty-four… Twenty-three… Twenty-two…” said the other.
“If you’re hungry, I have food.” I quickly summoned a couple loaves of bread from my inventory and tossed it to them. One of the loaves fell a few feet short of the skeletal man on the left while the other bounced off the man on the right. Both loaves were completely ignored.
“Warm flesh… forty-two…,” said the first New Fallen. And as if it was a signal, both of the naked men struck. Despite their thin, frail-looking frames, the New Fallen were fast and in less than three seconds, they were on me.
“Pause,” I said at the last moment activating the powerful Otheristry subskill. The naked men froze just short of their target. They didn’t hold any weapons but their gnarled fingers with thick pointed nails reached out for me.
At my current level of Otheristry, Pause only lasted three seconds and I made the best use of that time as I could. I brought up my blade and slashed through the nearer enemy’s throat in a single smooth stroke.
You gained 1337 EXP
I turned the blade to my second opponent. I drew the sword back slightly in preparation for the slash, but before I could unleash it, Pause ran out.
The second skeletal figure jerked forward as it returned to its full speed in an instant and rammed into me. I fell onto my back and my enemy lay on top of me. My sword lay horizontally between us. One of my hands gripped the hilt while the other pushed against the flat of the blade in a mad attempt to keep the skinny naked man away as his head leaned forward as far as possible. The skeletal figure’s teethed chomped the air repeatedly as it tried to take a bite out of me.
While my arms were occupied with holding the naked man off, his hands were free to strike at me. The naked man’s sharp fingernails scraped across my arms and chest until he found a weak spot. I groaned in pain and spat a mouthful of blood as razor like claws dug into my side, just below the ribs.
‘Oooo… He’s got you by the love handle, I bet you wish you did some crunches now,’ said Mai.
“How do I kill this thing?” I asked Mai.
“Thirteen… Twelve… Eleven…” the naked man continued to count down between snaps of his jaws.
A set of glowing red spots appeared across the naked man’s body. ‘Basically, its weak points are the same as any man: eyes, throat, or abdomen for a fatal strike. Knees and elbows if you wish to limit mobility first.’
“You mean I don’t have to smash its brain?” I asked.
“Two… One… Zero…. Fifty-nine… Fifty-eight…”
‘It’s not a zombie. Despite appearances, as far as I can tell it’s just a man,’ said Mai. This disturbed me, but I didn’t have time to discuss things further. My health bar was growing uncomfortably low.
I lifted my left leg and used it to push of the ground, rolling both me and the naked man over.
‘I didn’t know you preferred being on top,’ said Mai as I used my knees to hold the naked man down so I could free up my sword. The naked man battered at my chest in a final fruitless attempt at stopping me as I drove the sword home, striking straight through his heart.
You gained 2224 EXP
“Well, that wasn’t as bad as it could have been,” I said as I got to my feet. “Inventory.”
I pulled out some of Albert’s beef jerky to help myself recover.
You have ingested a delicious treat.
For the next two hours, you have double health and stamina regeneration.
‘I wouldn’t say that so soon,’ Mai frowned.
“Hmm,” I mumbled, my mouth still too full to form words.
‘Get back to Izusa and clear that wood off her,’ said Mai.
“Why what’s wrong with Izusa?” I said. I rushed to Izusa’s side, threw the wood off her, and checked her pulse. Everything seemed unchanged.
“What’s wrong?” I asked Mai. I heard another series of hoarse shrieks coming from the distance.
‘More are coming, a lot more,’ said Mai. ‘I was paying more attention this time so I heard them from further off and I’m enhancing your hearing right now, otherwise you wouldn’t be able to hear them yet. Still, I can tell th
at they’re heading in this direction. We need to get out of here.’
“How many are there?” I asked.
‘At least 5, it’s possible that there are more who haven’t shrieked yet,’ said Mai.
Two were a challenge but five was another story entirely. I picked up one end of Izusa’s stretcher and ran.
The next hour was exhausting both mentally and physically. Izusa was considerably heavier than I was and while not as bad as trying to carry the beastwoman, dragging the stretcher across the rough ground was difficult. Knotted tree roots covered the forest floor, which made for poor footing as I tried to pull the stretcher over humps.
All the while, I was filled with a growing sense of foreboding. No matter how fast I ran, I knew I wasn’t moving as fast as those naked skeletal men were. Each shriek grew just a little bit louder than the previous and each time I asked Mai how far away they were, the number grew smaller. At first, I hoped that they were all following a preset path that happened to cross my place in the cliffs and once I put some distance from it, the shrieking humanoids would simply pass me by but at this point, I knew that wasn’t the case. They were after me, I was the warm flesh they so hungered for they could detect me from a dozen miles away.
I stumbled on a patch of dry leaves, dropping Izusa’s stretcher as I fell to the ground. As I went down, Izusa rolled over, right off the stretcher.
‘Hurry, they are getting close now, only 3000 meters,’ Mai warned.
“I know… I know,” I said between painful gasps of air.
“I’m not going… to make it… am I?” I grimly realized as I got back on my feet and started trying to shove Izusa back onto the stretcher.
I considered giving up on Izusa. She’d killed many innocent people and deserved whatever would come to her. And without her, I stood a much better chance at getting away. But I couldn’t get Izusa’s half-conscious ramblings out of my head.
Images of my friends in Crystalpeak, Rose, Zelus, Albert, and Titania, flashed through my mind. Then a similar spark flew across the faces of everyone else I’d met there, from the hardworking librarian to the cowardly Archlord. They all faced death and destruction if the war with the beastmen continued.
I heard another shriek. ‘Hurry, they are getting close. Only 2500 meters,’ Mai warned.
I couldn’t let a chance to prevent all that suffering slip away from me. But what could I do? It looked like there was nothing, that the situation was hopeless. I remembered another time I felt that way and knew what I had to do. I didn’t like it, but there was no other way.
“Mai, could you do it?” I asked.
‘Hmmm….?’
“Could you beat all the New Fallen if I let you take over?” I clarified.
After the first time Mai forcefully took over, I promised myself that would be the only time, that I’d never let it happen again. When it happened, I could see and feel everything but controlled nothing. It was like being me and being nothing at the same time. It was a terrifying experience that shattered all trust I had had in Mai. But I saw no other way. In Crystalpeak, Mai had used my body to turn the tide of a battle involving thousands, five of these New Fallen wouldn’t pose a problem for her.
‘I could,’ Mai nodded solemnly, foregoing her jocular nature given the seriousness of what I was offering. ‘But that isn’t necessary at this time.’
“What?” I gasped, not understanding what Mai could possibly be talking about. I looked around. There was nothing but forest in all directions. I saw no way out.
Suddenly, a rope of twigs weaved together dropped in front of me.
“Come quickly. They can’t climb.”
Ch. 6: Robin
I followed the rope up to where it was tied onto a thick tree branch above me. I also made out a faint outline of the man who had spoken, but between the distance and the glare of the sun above, I couldn’t really see any detail.
I knew I didn’t have a chance at carrying Izusa up even with the mystery man’s help so I had to be cleverer about it. I quickly stored a large rock in my inventory and tied the end of the rope around Izusa’s waist.
‘1500 meters,’ Mai warned.
I climbed up the rope, abandoning Izusa for a moment. Once I was up in the tree, I untied the other end of the rope, the one that was around the branch, and retied it around the rock I’d just stored.
‘500 meters, they’ll be here in a minute.’
I dropped the boulder. It was slightly heavier than Izusa so as it fell, she was lifted up to me. I barely managed to get Izusa free of the rope and secured to the branch before the screeching New Fallen arrived. Mai’s initial estimation was off. Five boney, famine ridden men and four similarly desiccated woman charged across the forest floor until they were directly below us. There they continued their shrieking and counting down from 59 as they raised their hands towards us in desperation. A few tried to scale the trunk of the large redwood we were in, but whether it because of brains or focus, they never made it past the first few feet.
“Are you sure they can’t climb?” I asked, turning to my rescuer.
“Yes, quite sure,” my rescuer replied.
It was then that I got my first look at my rescuer. That single glance generated a bolt of terror so great I nearly slipped and fell into the ravenous jaws below.
“Don’t worry. I know what it looks like, but I’m not one of them,” said my rescuer, trying to calm me down. I don’t think it helped much.
My rescuer was another dirty naked man with stark white skin and scraggily overgrown hair and beard. In many ways, he looked like the monsters below. Except while this man was on the thin side, I wouldn’t call him skeletal and he presented none of the mindless aggression of the others. ‘Maybe that’s because he’s better fed than the others,’ I silently thought, not sure if that was a good or bad sign.
“I’m Robin, by the way,” said my rescuer.
“Isaac,” I replied automatically. The conversation suddenly seemed too normal, so I couldn’t help but address the elephant in the tree. “Your skin looks just like theirs.”
Robin winced. “Well, now take it easy, but I look like them because they are what I was to become.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“We all started out normal but because of circumstances they changed, well we all changed, but I only changed partway,” said Robin.
I slid back a bit further down the branch I was seated on.
“Ahh, don’t worry,” said Robin, noticing my movement. “I saw you use your inventory. I’m like you. The ones below are like you. We’re all from Earth. Me, more specifically, from Portland. Like you, I came to this world a year ago, though I suppose seeing you still look, well, like you, my story goes a bit differently than yours. Shortly after I arrived, a massive blizzard encompassed the entire region. I died but that wasn’t the end. My spirit remained trapped inside my frozen body.”
Robin visibly shuddered at the memory. “It was horrible. To be trapped unable to move unable to speak, as the cold bit at every nerve across my entire body. It was an agony beyond your imagination,” said Robin as his eyes grey wet from mere memory.
He was wrong. I could imagine it. I too spent a week trapped in ice, but none of that explained what he was, what the people below were. A cold sweat formed across my body: could what happened to them happen to me. At least I understood why these New Fallen counted down from fifty-nine in all their mutterings. They were counting down the seconds on the clock that appeared in purgatory, the one that displayed the time until you resurrected.
“After that week, I returned to life. I found myself naked, but at least for a short time neither cold nor alone. Other naked resurrectees from Earth surrounded me, all in the same circumstance as myself. All around us were teepee like structures and giant people like the one you have next to you.” Robin pointed to Izusa.
“For a brief moment I was ecstatic. I was no longer cold, no longer in pain, and I was free to move about once again. But then
, my salvation turned to desolation. The native inhabitants didn’t welcome us. They kicked us out of the city and left us out in the cold wilderness without so much as a scrap of food or clothing.”
“Naturally we didn’t survive long out there. We all died and the process simply repeated. Week after week, we all had an hour or two of respite before returning to the endless abyss of icy confinement. It isn’t surprising that many of us went mad,” Robin nodded towards the skeletal figures below.
I understood, somewhat, what Robin and the others had gone through. I had died twice. Both times constituted some of my worst experiences. For that to have gone on endlessly was the most horrible fate I could imagine.
“I can only imagine how you feel, Robin. I see now how lucky I was to arrive in Xebrya, the country south of this one. The people there were far more accepting so I didn’t have to enter such a cycle. I just wonder how you all got out. Why aren’t you still constantly dying and resurrecting?” I asked.
“Over the course of dozens of cycles, we began to develop a resistance to the cold in the form of a skill. Given the depths of cold we were forced to endure, the skill leveled up quickly and after a few more cycles, we were immune to it entirely. I think that is why our skin is so white, as Low Temperature Resistance grew our skin lost its pigmentation,” Robin explained.
“So, you were just lucky enough to retain your sanity, while everyone else had already lost it,” I asked.
“Partially. Even after that dozen or so restarts, while we were all seriously messed up, most hadn’t completely lost it yet,” Robin sighed. “The problem was that the cold was only the first issue we had to bear. The forests here are surprisingly barren and many of the things that do live here are difficult to hunt. A new cycle began only instead of dying from the cold people died of starvation. I was lucky, I have always been good at climbing trees and I was able to find enough fruit and nuts to survive. Inventory.” Robin’s hands moved, tapping on a screen only he could see. A bright pink apple sized fruit appeared and he took a big bite. “Everyone else eventually became like them.”
The Ice Lands Page 9
