by Iliev, Neven
As she did so, Fizzy began to somewhat understand why Boxxy liked killing humans so much. There was just something… special about it. Maybe it was that subtly unique way their skulls caved in, or maybe that they were responsible for turning her former life into a nightmare. Perhaps it was the fact that there were just so many of them to barrel through. Whatever the case, there was no denying that personally taking part in this battle filled her with a thrill that fighting prisoners and monsters in the arena couldn’t compete with.
Still, the radiant construct was careful to not let herself get carried away. Sure, she had her fun, but made sure not to go as deep into enemy lines as Hilda was. Her shiny frame would make her too much of a target. For the first time in weeks the Paladin resisted the urge to show off and blended in with the rank and file as much as she could. Fizzy might’ve made a name for herself in the arena circuit, but out here she was just another of the thousands of Republic troops doing their part to defend their homeland.
She was aided in this endeavor by the way the situation rapidly deteriorated into an all-out brawl. Combatants fell on both sides as Spells and arrows flew over and between them. The counterattack the Republic launched would only last as long as Hilda’s Ultimate Skill persisted. Ultimately it was nothing more than a smoke screen that allowed the defenders to inflict the most damage while suffering the least casualties before pulling back.
The question was, whether or not that dwarf actually planned to pull back. The way she pushed forward made one think she had no intention doing so. She kept cleaving her way deeper into the Empire’s ranks as if she planned on single-handedly slaughtering every single one of them. Looking at the trail of carnage she left in her wake made it seem like she was entirely capable of doing just that. Unless, of course, someone of comparable strength stood in her way.
*CLANGGG*
A clear, gong-like sound rang out, and the dwarf was blown several meters backwards. She landed on her feet and skidded across the blood-soaked ground as she came to a stop several steps from her previous position. Her dented helmet landed somewhere behind her with a dull sound as she shook her now-exposed head to recover from the unexpected blow.
“Gah! Got blood-drunk again, didn’t I?” she grumbled as she took in her surroundings.
Going ‘full Berserker’ turned one into a force to be reckoned with, but it also made them lose sight of their surroundings. This was how Hilda found herself neck-deep in Imperial territory, far away from the walls of Fort Yimin and with enemy soldiers surrounding her. None of them seemed keen to approach her, despite having their weapons drawn and trained on her, forming a circle a few dozen meters wide. The reason they had suddenly stopped dead was to avoid getting in the way of a certain someone that actually had a chance at stopping the dwarf’s rampage for good.
A certain someone that Hilda was surprised, delighted, and enraged to see.
The one who had just knocked her helmet off was the mysterious, lightly-armored VIP Faehorn spotted earlier. Her ashen leather armor was covered by a bright blue tabard with a golden handprint on her left shoulder. In her hands was a black plain-looking metal staff with gilded decorations on either end. Attached to her back were a pair of ethereal angelic wings, similar yet subtly different from Lichter’s, which beat slowly as she hovered slightly above the ground. The hood that obscured her features before was lowered to reveal a beautiful yet cold expression befitting of an ice queen, framed by shoulder-length, raven-black hair that fluttered slightly in the breeze kicked up by her wings.
It was a look the dwarf was intimately familiar with.
“Well, butter my butt and call me a biscuit!” she smiled fiercely in her fighting stance. “How ye been, Jen?”
The woman planted her feet on the ground as her glowing wings disappeared.
“Hilda,” she said flatly.
“Fancy seein’ ye here. Had a feelin’ ye didn’t bite the big one like I heard, but didn’t think ye’d turn military!”
The angelic woman didn’t reply, but merely assumed her own stance. She stood on one leg, her other raised and bent at the knee. She gripped her staff with her left hand and held it behind her back while extending her right palm forward and upward, as if asking for a cup of sugar.
“Cold as usual, aye?” the dwarf continued. “Still, cannae wait to see Shoestrap’s face when he finds out ye’re still kickin’!”
In the next instant, Jen shifted a few centimeters to her left, and a phantasmal arrow pierced through the space her forehead occupied mere moments prior.
“Ah… Too late for that, eh?”
Several more arrows flew at her, but she idly plucked them out of the air, catching the projectiles between their fingers. Monk were infamous for their ability to handle projectile attacks with ease, and this one was so advanced that Faehorn’s bow seemed useless against her. Still, the elf Ranger wouldn’t be himself if he didn’t test his old comrade.
Both Faehorn and Hilda instantly recognized this woman as Jennifer Jackson, who used to be a member of their adventuring team along with Lichter the Paladin. She had left them after a particularly bad falling out decades ago, yet looked exactly the same. This was due to her Timeless Body, a high-Level Monk Skill that, among other things, allowed her to retain her youthful vigor and appearance despite her advanced age.
“What’s with the fancy mark on yer shoulder? Ye a big shot or somethin’ over there? Knew ye had it in ye, ye fucken’ psycho!”
The woman blushed slightly in response despite her unflinching expression, showing she was still both immune to sarcasm and weak to compliments.
“C’mon, Jen! Ye must be at least a lil’ happy to see me, right?”
“Jennifer is dead,” spoke the woman in a deadpan voice. “I am Zone of the Gilded Hand. Nothing more. Nothing less.”
“Ah, they even gave ye a fancy codename, eh? Well, then ‘Zone,’ let’s see if ye can still swing that stick around as well as ye used to!”
Hilda leapt forward, swinging her unreasonably sized axe in a wide diagonal arc. Her opponent didn’t even flinch as she struck it with her staff, knocking the heavy lump of metal off-course and causing it to dig into the ground. She swung her fist around, aiming at Hilda’s head. The dwarf raised her shoulder, deflecting the blow with her armor while she pulled back her weapon. She swung it once more, but the Monk leapt over and brought her staff down on her head, which was barely deflected by the haft of Hilda’s axe. The dwarf pushed against that staff with all her might, intending to drive her axe’s blade into Zone’s neck at near-point-blank range. Her target unfurled her wings and retreated into the sky before that happened. She flapped her feathers a few times to gain some altitude before swooping in with a sweep of her staff. It was the same attack that had taken Hilda’s helmet off, except the now-in-control Berserker sidestepped it with minimal movements. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Zone deflect another barrage from Faehorn with little difficulty.
“Damn,” cursed the Ranger under his breath. “It really is her, isn’t it?”
Back on his perch, the high elf did his best to cover Hilda’s reckless advance by picking off the enemy magic users targeting her. And then that problem child showed up. The woman he knew as Jennifer had grown immensely in the years since they had last seen her, but that troublesome personality of hers seemed to still be intact. The fact she managed to Rank Up in that time frame was nothing short of impressive, which made a part of him happy for his old ally.
No, former ally. Whatever their relationship might have been before, she was now an enemy. Come to think of it, she was most likely the one who had saved those griffins from his arrows following the hillside ambush about a week ago. Only a Monk could be that adept at nullifying a Ranger’s attacks, and Jennifer was clearly among the best of them. Still, that didn’t mean she had the luxury to deflect his arrows and go toe-to-toe with Hilda at the same time. She wouldn’t stand a chance so long as he provided covering fire while his partner on the ground did her thing.<
br />
Unfortunately, there was a lot more going on than three veteran adventurers beating the crap out of each other. Faehorn saw the Comm-crystal at his feet light up, indicating that Silus was trying to get in touch with him. The Ranger hesitated for a moment, but he still answered it with one hand while keeping a trained eye on Hilda and Jennifer’s duel.
“What is it, Silus?”
“We have trouble,” the officer stated urgently. “Air units coming in from the south. We need you to handle it.”
It wasn’t a direction the Ranger had a line of sight on. The enemy was assaulting the fort from the west and he was currently on a north-facing branch. As such, there was a colossal tree trunk between himself and those new targets. He would have to relocate, and that would take time that Hilda might not have.
“Can it wait?” the Ranger asked hopefully.
“No, it really can’t.”
Of course, it couldn’t. The fact that Underwood was contacting him meant it must have been a threat that nobody else could handle. Faehorn sighed and decided to trust that wrecking ball of a dwarf to handle things on her own. At least until he was done dealing with this new situation.
“Alright, I’m on it.”
The Ranger put the blue cube away in his pocket and ran along the sheer side of the hylt tree. He kicked off its surface and grabbed onto a vine dangling from above. He used his momentum to swing over to the next vine, and then the next as he made his way around the side of the massive trunk. He relocated to another branch, this one a bit lower in altitude, which gave him a good view of both the battle and the approaching threat.
“You gotta be shitting me,” he mumbled under his breath.
‘Aerial units’ was Silus putting it lightly. The six griffins he saw were one thing, but their lead flier was a different story entirely. It was a gigantic creature that was several sizes bigger than the others. It had a long neck and tail, a massive torso with four legs ending in claws, and a pair of ridiculously large, leathery wings. Its entire body was covered in shining green scales and it had thick black spikes running down the length of its spine.
“What’s a freaking dragon doing here?!’” he screamed at nobody in particular.
His eyes gave him the answer to that frustrating question. There was someone riding atop the mighty beast. A stocky figure wrapped in brown furs and a pair of goggles to shield him from the wind. The massive black beard that flowing from his chin fluttered around either side of his neck, making it quite obvious as to who he was. Well, it was the thing that he was riding that really gave it away, but that was beside the point.
“Uh, Silus,” he reported into the Comm-crystal. “That’s Thorgren the ‘Dragon Tamer,’ isn’t it?”
One of the few Monster Tamers to reach Level 100, and the only person in recent history who was able to fully control the prideful creatures that stood at the pinnacle of the monster world. Having to face a dragon was bad enough, but a creature under a Monster Tamer’s control was always stronger than a wild one. The added direction and cunning of an experienced adventurer made them tricky to bring down. The only consolation was the tiny size of the dragon’s horns showed it was still juvenile.
“Can you take him?” Underwood asked curtly.
“What, by myself? Where’s Imiryl?”
“She’s engaging the Black Tower on the field. She’s trying to keep him from activating his Ultimate Skill.”
Faehorn scanned the ground and immediately located the site of their battle. They were just under the walls, immediately south of where the sandy hole was. The two of them exchanged lightning Spells with great intensity, and were evenly matched. The Black Tower appeared to be quite adept at magic, despite his intimidating frame and bulging muscles.
“So, can you do it or not?” Silus insisted.
“Not a chance. I don’t have nearly enough MP to kill a dragon, let alone one controlled by a Monster Tamer.”
“So, if you had the MP, you could do it?”
“Maybe, but I’ll get potion sickness before that happens.”
The Ranger never could handle alchemical supplements. He could only drink three or four potions a day before the debilitating condition settled in, and he had already used two of them.
“Good enough. Standby.”
Underwood’s image disappeared, even though the Comm-crystal was still active.
“What do you mean ‘good enough?’ Silus?!” Faehorn shouted.
“Hey, mister.”
“Ack!”
A green girl’s head with hair-like grass poked out of the branch he stood on, almost literally between his legs. It caused him to let out an uncharacteristic scream of surprise as he instinctively leapt back a few steps.
“Ah, uhm… C-Castelia, right?”
“Yep! Mummy says you need some food, so here you go!”
A number of leafy blue vines sprouted from around the elf and grew straight upwards, then wrapped themselves around his waist. The Ranger had no idea what was going on, but this was clearly part of Underwood’s plan so he let the little plant lady do what she willed. He then felt something flowing into him. Looking at his Status, he saw his nearly-depleted MP recovering at a mind-boggling rate.
“Oh, I see,” his face lit up. “Clever, very clever.”
If dryads could suck the mana out of living things, then it was only natural they could return it as well. However, the influx of energy didn’t stop when it hit maximum, and his current MP went over his capacity. The over-abundance of magical energy in his body caused his joints to tense up, his temple to throb, and his chest to burn painfully. The magical energy would likely kill him if this carried on. The difference between medicine and poison was in the dosage, after all.
“Uh, could you tone it down a bi... Wait, where’d she go?!”
The dryad, it would seem, had already departed. Like it or not, Faehorn had the MP he wanted. Now, he just had to make sure he spent it all before it made his heart explode. Worst case scenario, he’d just cut off the vines with the dagger on his belt. Doing so would probably piss the dryad off a little, but he had a feeling she wouldn’t exactly stop ‘feeding’ him on her own. Based on what he’d heard, restraint wasn’t a virtue that dryads possessed.
Without waiting for his symptoms to get any worse, the high elf went down on one knee and leveled his bow against the targets in the distance.
“Hunter’s Mark. Strafe. Wind-imbued Arrows. Deadshot. Adrenaline Rush.”
He activated numerous Skills in rapid succession from both his Ranger and Rogue Jobs, and then took a deep breath.
“Turret Stance: Snipe!”
The pain in his limbs and head gradually went away as he started spending his overabundant MP. His hands moved at a speed that would be difficult for anyone to follow, turning into blurs as they repeatedly pulled back and released the bowstring. The weapon, his body, and even the branch under his feet shook violently from the excessively-rapid fire clocking at about two hundred shots per minute.
He first targeted the dragon, hitting it in the snout with a dozen arrows before it could react by weaving and dodging. Once the enemy knew they were under fire, he changed targets to the six griffins. Those were shot down in as little as twenty seconds and fell to the ground resembling gigantic pincushions. He turned his aim back to the approaching dragon and kept the constant stream of blue lights trained on it.
As expected, however, he wasn’t doing much. The dragon bobbed and weaved at a speed that belied its large body, making it excessively difficult to land clean hits on it. At least half the shots missed completely, while those that hit mostly bounced harmlessly off its tough scales. Trying to target the dwarf strapped to his back proved to be a futile effort, as the spikes along the beast’s spine served to give him a surprisingly good amount of cover. The dragon’s movements were also highly chaotic, making it impossible to nail the relatively tiny owner at this distance. Besides, the dwarf had probably linked his vitality with the monster under his command, meaning
either both died, or neither did.
Still, damage steadily accumulated on the great beast as its scales chipped away and its wings filled with tiny holes. The wounds stitched themselves shut with worrying speed, but the beast’s regenerative abilities couldn’t keep up. If things kept going like this, Faehorn might have actually stood a chance. Unfortunately, the temporary effects of his various Skills started wearing off, and both his rate of fire and accuracy suffered. The burden he put on his body wasn’t helping things either. His bones creaked, his hands bled and his muscles screamed. But he didn’t stop. He couldn’t stop.
By this time, a full minute of his barrage had passed, and the dragon was within three hundred meters of his position. Smoke rose from its nostrils as it let out a gigantic ball of green flames aimed directly at the Ranger. He didn’t panic, and just kept shooting dead center at the incoming projectile. The spectral arrows from his bow ploughed through the flames, dispersing the fireball into a far-less dangerous shower of sparks and smoke in a matter of seconds.
Those were precious seconds the Ranger didn’t have to spare. He had to bring the beast down before it got close enough to incinerate the fort’s defenders, but shortening the distance also allowed Faehorn to change tactics. He ceased the movement of his hands and let out a few ragged breaths. After that much-too-short breather, he adjusted his stance and waited for the dragon’s nostrils to flare up again before activating his Ultimate Skill, albeit in a slightly different fashion.
“Turret Stance: Burst Shot!”
Burst Shot was a bow-based Martial Art with relatively low range, high MP consumption, and minimal armor penetration. However, it was the most destructive of the techniques granted by a Ranger’s Marksman Skill. As for why Faehorn had chosen this particular Martial Art—it was to exploit one of the dragons’ two known weaknesses.
The first was that their muscles were actually disproportionately weak in relation to their bulk. A dragon’s physical might was formidable from a person’s perspective, but only because of the sheer size and mass difference. If a dragon and a human were in the same weight category, then the latter would be able to overpower it in a contest of raw strength. Of course, even if a human that massive actually existed, the dragon would just back off and burn them to a crisp using their deadliest weapon—their breath attacks.
