And by that I mean that the tan skin of his torso had been reduced to scorched flesh. His hair had been burned away and the burns were bad enough that charred muscle could be seen in multiple places on his body.
Daggers had less than half her HP by now but she still held firm. Her stamina however, was nearly empty.
She shadowed again and struck the centaur, carving deeply into him where his hide had been burnt away; with his natural protection compromised the beast suffered more damage when attacked.
The centaur let out a piercing howl. Things were looking good for us.
Then, Zenhit laughed and disappeared. At the same time, the centaur shone with a blinding white light for two seconds. When darkness came back...
Not only was the beast completely healed, he was also wearing armor which was both disturbing and impressive. It appeared to be made of bone which had grown out of him, multiple bones interweaving into breastplate, greaves and a helmet with a horn sprouting from it. The only reason he didn't look more terrifying, was because he was still stooped forward in order to fit into the low ceilinged corridor.
His spear was gone but something much worse had replaced it: morbs. There were five morbs floating around his head, two green and three pulsating light gray — earth and life magic.
Not only that, his bone gauntlets were flaming.
I looked back and saw Daggers sending throwing knives at some incoming spells. I threw a firebomb at the centaur, but it did less than fifty damage, and didn't slow him down at all.
Walls continued dissolving as we ran. I began to create darkballs to counter the centaur's spells. Daggers' stamina was almost gone by now and Bear was way too far.
Shit.
Running backwards while amassing and throwing darkballs wasn't easy, but it was still much less difficult than I had anticipated. The centaur's morbs formed rather quickly but not as quickly as my own.
The truth is that I wasn't used to fighting against mages. As a mage myself, I felt very vulnerable in fights, especially when my morbs were destroyed mid-air and the enemy could get close to me.
I probably found them so frightening because of what had happened in the Slums. A few spells had been thrown around by the Ruined Mage Kings, and the entire town had been buried, killing nearly everyone in the process.
But it seemed mages weren't always so terrifying. The centaur had slowed his pace to match mine, probably interested in some sort of magical duel. I wasn't about to grant him that though. Before he could decide to make it physical, I gave up on making a stand and started running again, focused on destroying his morbs while doing it.
He let out a bellow of rage and began to chase in earnest.
Being hunted by that intimidating beast through the dark stone corridors wasn't the best experience in my life. The light cast by his flaming gauntlets unnerved me. But in the end, I won. I turned a corner and Bear came into view. Daggers had already disappeared behind him and I did the same.
"Have fun!" I yelled as I ran past him at full speed, a moment later the nearest wall became a pool on the floor as the centaur charged the group.
The zombies, who had been following Bear in single file shouted war cries as the chaotic fight began.
Ironically, the wall-melting trick now worked against the centaur. He had no way to prevent the zombies from flanking and then dog piling him.
It was like something out of a Romero film. There was barely any exposed flesh to bite, but they still overwhelmed the beast completely. The bone armor was punched, kicked and even bitten, the sheer weight of the clinging horde quickly bore the centaur to the ground.
The fiery gauntlets were basically ignored and they found that his underside didn't have any armor. Needless to say, their discovery was bad news for the beast.
He thrashed around, kicked and punched the zombies, but there were too many of them. They ate their way into the poor creature's belly as it screamed in pain and panic.
His resistance grew weaker, until he finally died.
There was no way I wanted to stay near the zombies with only the weakened Daggers and a dubiously loyal Bear to protect me.
Daggers and I sat as far from the zombies as we dared without worry of roaming monsters, as we waited for our spent energy to be restored before restarting our journey.
"How much longer until we get to the castle?" I asked the goblin.
"I not know," he answered.
I frowned. "What do you mean by 'you don't know'?"
"Me never walked this way," he said.
"Wait, what?! So how the hell do you know where to take us?"
"Me feel way. Purple Goblins feel way; mud people open door."
"Oh." That was an interesting system. At least I had taken a member of the most useful of the two species.
The centaur was the most dangerous creatures we saw,. Other than him, only a few slimes appeared and they were ridiculously easy to crush.
"Where do all these monsters come from?" I asked.
"They be created by castle," the goblin answered.
"Huh? How does that work?"
"Master of Castle of Edward create minions. Castle keep minions alive."
My frown deepened. "Why do you need food, then? Aren't you a former minion from the castle?"
"Purple Goblins be cut off castle by new Master," he said sadly.
After a few more questions, I had a clear picture of Edward's Castle. It was like a mix of a traditional dungeon from old games and a summoning game. The Master of the Castle could summon humans or beasts, either individually or in groups, then they would be bound to the castle, which would keep them alive.
There was no respawn though; once the beast died, it would stay dead for good. The Master could still summon others from the same species, sure, but it wouldn't be the same individual.
The goblins even had some legends about living somewhere else before coming to the Castle. It was perhaps a hint that the castle was unable to create new life, but instead abducted and bound these lifeforms from elsewhere.
I wondered, was there mind control involved, or did the Master of the Castle need to negotiate terms of service with the summoned?
Whatever the case was, I was suddenly very interested in conquering the castle. The main reason I hadn't cared about it before was because I didn't have the manpower to keep it, but now this problem was solved. Unless, of course, mind control was involved.
If this castle were essentially a giant mind control device, that made it too similar to what V-Soft had been doing to people. I'd ordered people murdered and begun a war to end that, there was no way I could let something like that continue to exist, even in Valia.
We reached the end of the maze while I had these thoughts in my head. The zombies had caught up and were now close behind us.
There wasn't an imposing door or an awesome portal, or anything like that in the end. It was just more stone. It looked more like another dead end rather than an entrance.
"Are you sure we're at the right place?" I asked.
"Yes, great master! Bring a mud people here and you enter!" The goblin answere
d excitedly. "You release me now, great master?" He asked with hope in his eyes.
I ignored him and asked: "Where does the entrance lead? Up? Down? Directly ahead?"
"Ahead, great master." His hope was still there.
The creature was so wretched that I actually took pity on it. I gave him the remaining four fish. "Go. But if you lied to us, know that I will find you and your death will be slow and painful."
"I not lie, great master." He bowed low. "Thank you, great master!" He took the fish and walked away. I had no idea how he expected to survive, but that wasn't my problem anymore.
I willed my storage ring to give me one of the items Daggers considered to be part of the basic adventurer's kit: a pickaxe.
I had completely missed that the first time I saw Bear after logging back in the game, he had been carrying a backpack in his hands, but now he wasn't. I couldn't even remember when that change had occurred. I felt idiotic for not noticing it. He had no enchanted purse visible, either.
I also threw my pickaxe at one of them, even though they all had their own. "That's a great way to raise both strength and constitution," I lied. Some of them looked slightly more enthusiastic.
Walking past them in that narrow corridor while they were all focused on me was quite unnerving, but damn me if I'd show it. I was a McHolen and I'd rather die than show fear.
Like a boss, I walked with high, confident steps, as if they were little more than dust on the sides of the road.
As soon as I was beyond the column of zombies, I may or may not have hastened my pace.
Bear, Daggers, the still logged-out Ted, and I, began our journey searching for a mythical beast in an underground maze.
Which sounded much more thrilling than it actually was.
Bear complained.
I didn't blame him. After hours, we had only seen a few giant spiders and nothing more.
Bear wasn't convinced.
He kept silent for some time.
He frowned.
I sighed.
I laughed.
Surprisingly, it was Daggers who replied to that.
She didn't answer immediately and we all stopped walking. She looked at us in silence for a long time before finally speaking.
This time, I raised my hands.
I looked into their eyes, or the black shadow that obscured her eyes in Daggers' case. Surprisingly, I meant every word I had said. This talk had started as a way of appeasing Bear — just antagonizing him wouldn't work forever — but in the end, I had admitted that I needed them.
Was I still that emotionally affected by the murders? I mean, I could see how useful this apparent intimacy could be in the future, but I hadn't decided to do it consciously. It made me apprehensive.
Daggers sighed.
Having their support was a great feeling. It was a pity that feeling couldn't last once the police got to me. Or at least that's what my mind was telling me was logical and inevitable. In my heart, I still had an irrational hope that they would stand by my side.
But that was a problem for another time. Before that happened, there were things to do in the game, and the clock was ticking.
The search took hours, but finally, we found an intelligent-looking monster in there.
"Hello, outsiders," the thing said with a beautiful female voice.
Unfortunately, it wasn't a centaur.
18. Plan C
The female talking to us was a... rock? Multiple rocks, actually. Each was bigger than my head, all bound together into a vaguely human shape.
Well, the arms were way too long, scraping the ground and there was no head, but it was humanoid enough.
When it spoke, there was no movement. The voice clearly came from it, but I couldn't see from where.
"Well, hello there, beautiful lady," I said after a moment of shock. "I'm Jack. What's your name?"
"I am Female Rock Thirty-Seven, but my friends call me Thirty-Seven." Her voice was like silk, the kind of voice that would stir desire in weaker men. I definitely hadn't felt lust for a mass of rock based on its voice; that would have been weird.
Unbound Deathlord_Obliteration Page 21
