Promise (9)
“…It's trying to grab the people down below.”
At the same moment, the Luna Moon ring on his finger began to burn hot against his skin, as if it were urging him to stop wasting time and save the commander already.
Wait.
He had no intention of leaving the commander to die. He just needed a moment to think.
As he quietly soothed the ring, Lucas cried out in shock.
“Don't tell me His Excellency is down there?!”
Fortunately, the Eye Giant's arms weren't quite long enough. The moment Haydam confirmed that the massive hand groping along the base of the cliff had come up empty, he turned to the other two.
“Get off.”
“Sir?”
“I said get off.”
The newly commissioned officers dismounted from the bikes in a hurry, just as their training demanded — but their faces were still full of questions.
“What are you planning to do?”
“I'm going to lure that thing away. Once it's gone, use this to pull the people below up.”
He held out a coil of rope. Bones and Lucas stared at him as if they couldn't believe their own eyes.
“Where the hell do you keep pulling this stuff from?”
Haydam ignored Bones's question and kicked the bike to life. Lucas pressed him urgently.
“Wait — lure it? What exactly are you trying to do? Don't tell me—”
“I'm going.”
Before they could stop him, he gunned the engine and shot forward.
He headed for a crevasse a short distance from the Eye Giant, which was still thrashing desperately to haul up the commander's party. Far enough from the cliff where the commander clung that he wouldn't be crushed in the fallout — close enough to stay in the giant's line of sight. Once he'd put the right distance between them, he leapt from the bike again.
The bike, still carrying its speed, rolled on and vanished over the edge of the cliff.
That'll be me in a minute.
He kicked up from the snow and looked toward the Eye Giant. From the side, he could see the commander and Platon pressed flat against the rock face, keeping low so the giant's hand wouldn't find them. The Team Two leader lay bound and face-down on the ice.
The commander looks like hell.
With the commander's physical ability, he should have been able to clear the edge just fine before the fall. He'd shoved Haydam to safety at the last second and failed to pull himself free. He'd known he was going over the cliff — and he'd saved him anyway, because he believed Haydam was Luna Moon's child.
“Haa…”
This was completely insane.
But leaving the commander to die was never an option. Just as the man had tried to save him in that desperate instant, Haydam — as long as he was playing the role of his “son” — had to risk his life to save him in return. That was the promise he'd made with Luna Moon. That was the price of living here as Heydam Goodman.
As if on cue, the wind shifted to blow the way he needed it — from where he stood toward the Eye Giant.
“Nice weather for a fall.”
He drew the dagger from his belt, raised his left arm, and dragged the blade straight down from top to bottom. Flesh split open and blood welled out. Far off, the Eye Giant went still.
It didn't take long for the giant to start sniffing the air and turn its head his way.
On one side, Lucas and Bones came running across the snow, bellowing something at the top of their lungs. But there was only so far a human could run through deep snow. The Eye Giant abandoned the humans who had been baiting it and charged toward Haydam instead. It was going to reach him well before the junior officers did.
Good.
Instead of running, he planted himself on the precarious edge of the crevasse, pulled out a handful of Star Candy, and dumped it into his mouth. The moment it touched his lips it dissolved into blue particles that sank into his body; the long cut began to close at once.
Once he was sure the wound was sealing, he cracked a smoke grenade at his feet, then fired white phosphorus and signal flares straight into the giant's face as fast as he could load them. Not for damage — pure aggro. The Eye Giant, thoroughly enraged, put on speed and closed the distance. When the last of his special rounds was spent, he started shooting at the ice under the giant's feet.
The gap between them shrank by the second.
Not enough.
The rounds had been made for monsters, not glaciers. They weren't doing much to the ice the giant stood on, and the ground refused to give way. Collapsing a glacier under its feet alone would have been something close to a miracle anyway.
His real plan started now.
“No choice, then.”
He flung the empty gun at the Eye Giant. The creature swatted it aside with one hand as if it were an insult. The moment the giant, almost on top of him, reached out to snatch him up, Haydam clenched his knife and vaulted up over the cloud of smoke.
The Eye Giant pivoted to follow —
“WAAAH—!”
—and its foot punched straight through the smoke into empty air. He'd blanketed the edge with the smoke grenade on purpose. The giant hadn't realized the place he'd leapt from was open void, and it had stepped right into nothing.
Of course, Haydam himself had jumped off the cliff to sell the ruse. He dove into the smoke and drove the knife into the face of the glacier.
Skreeee—!
The blade didn't bite deep enough on the first try. He skidded down the sheer ice wall in a long, uncontrolled slide. The Eye Giant flailed for a handhold of its own, but its thick, furred paws couldn't generate the friction his knife could. It plummeted helplessly into the dark.
Even a fall like that probably won't kill it.
Watching the giant drop, he pulled a second knife and jammed it into a crack in the ice.
Crack!
This time it caught properly. Instead of sliding, he jerked to a stop and hung dangling in midair. It had felt like a long fall, but when he looked up, the drop hadn't been that deep after all.
“Haydam, sir!”
“What the hell—!”
Lucas and Bones arrived late at the rim, spotted him below, and started shouting over each other. With both of them yelling at once, he couldn't make out a word.
“Whew…”
All he had to do now was hang on until they hauled him up.
He looked skyward — and the clouds were wrong. Above the still-howling blizzard, a thunderhead was gathering fast.
“Don't tell me…”
A bad feeling tightened his brow. As he'd said before, the Eye Giant commanded the weather. The blizzard that had been hammering them was something the giant itself had thrown out to hide its bulk.
Which means that thunderhead is something it called up too…
A heavy rumble rolled through the sky. Golden light flashed between the clouds — and a single bolt of lightning lanced straight down onto the knife in his hand.
“Damn it—!”
Rather than take the strike and get blown off the wall, he let go of the knife an instant before the lightning hit.
KRA-KOOM!
The impact point flared white and burst apart like a kernel of popcorn. The shattered ice receded as he fell. Dodging the bolt was good; what came next was free fall without wings. He racked his brain for anything in his inventory that might help. He had nothing prepared for a fall.
Either a miracle happened, or this body had to be tough enough that he could still get Star Candy into his mouth after hitting the bottom. That was all he had left to hope for.
What stopped his fall a moment later was neither miracle nor luck. It was the Eye Giant.
“What—!”
A great furred hand shot in from the side and snatched him out of the air. The grip was hard enough to pulverize every bone in his body; he bit back the scream that tried to tear free and looked sideways. The giant had found a cave mouth opening off the crevasse wall, clung there, and plucked him out of freefall.
Without hesitation it brought the prize in its fist up toward its mouth. As the distance closed, the golden jewel embedded in its forehead filled Haydam's vision.
Better to land one hit than get eaten clean.
He wrenched one arm free of the crushing fingers, pulled a grenade from his inventory, yanked the pin with his teeth, and tossed it into the gaping maw aimed at him. He couldn't reach the forehead. The grenade slid smoothly down the giant's throat and detonated. The Eye Giant howled in agony and flung him into the cave.
“Ghk—!”
The impact of bouncing across the cave floor finally dragged a sound out of him. He only stopped when he slammed into the far wall. Fumbling at his belt, he got Star Candy into his mouth. As the wounds sealed, the sensation of every bone in his body shattered began to ease. He gasped for the air he'd been holding and pressed his forehead to the cave floor.
“Hah… hah…”
Being thrown into the cave instead of back down the crevasse was the only reason he was still alive. The situation was still bad. Star Candy could heal wounds, but the worse the injuries, the longer recovery took. The silver lining was that his body was durable enough to take the hit without blacking out — but he couldn't just lie there and wait to finish healing.
The thing that had thrown him into the cave was already roaring with rage and charging after him.
You've got to be kidding me.
What were the odds he could get swallowed, fire a gun from inside its mouth, and punch a hole through the jewel in its forehead? He entertained the hopeless thought and fled deeper into the cave anyway.
Thick ice stalactites and stalagmites choked the passage. The Eye Giant, never fast to begin with, fell behind almost at once among the obstacles. The same sharp growths were a hazard for Haydam too. Something warm ran down his cheek as he ran; he wiped it and found blood. An icicle from the ceiling had sliced him without his noticing.
And then an idea flashed through his head.
Wait. What if…
He ran like a madman with his eyes on the ceiling. The farther in he went, the higher the roof rose, and the bigger the hanging icicles grew.
All or nothing. If the firepower he was carrying couldn't kill the thing anyway…
“Hey! You stupid giant bastard!”
He skidded to a halt in a good spot, pulled a gun from his inventory, and emptied it into the ceiling in a wild spray, calling the giant in. The creature, which had lost him for a moment and been blundering around, locked onto the gunfire and came crashing after him. The whole cave shook with the thunder of its steps.
That was fine by him. The harder it thrashed, the more cracks would open in the ice overhead.
He held his breath and waited. To drop an icicle on it at the right moment, he couldn't put much more distance between them. Too early and the spike fell for nothing; too late and the giant was already past.
“KRAAAAH!”
The second he saw the giant smash through the stalactites and barge into the chamber, he opened fire on a massive, razor-pointed column of ice hanging from the roof. The giant closed the gap, and still he didn't lower the muzzle. The moment the creature bellowed and raised its arm high —
Crk-crack.
Something gave way with a splitting sound that filled the cave, and the enormous icicle that had clung to the ceiling for ages tore free and plunged straight onto the Eye Giant's head.
He watched the sharp tip drive into the giant's skull — and in the same instant a hand like a whip cracked across him and sent him flying.
“Ghk…!”
The blow flung him into the cave wall. The sound of his body hitting thick ice was swallowed by a louder one.
Thud…
As he slammed into the wall, the icicle that had punched through the giant's head drove itself into the cave floor.
“Hah… hah…”
The Eye Giant had stopped moving. So had he. He couldn't move a finger.
I think that last hit against the wall wrecked my spine…
No matter what he tried, nothing answered. Agony wrapped his whole body. Even so, he had to lift his head and check the giant's condition. Monsters didn't die just because an icicle had run them through.
Please…
He hoped the spike had shattered the jewel in its forehead. When he finally forced his head around and looked, the golden stone still sat in place, glowing with undimmed brilliance. The icicle skewering the Eye Giant like a spit had missed by a hair.
He let out a short, hollow laugh.
Ha. Shit… I'm screwed.
It couldn't recover and attack him immediately — but neither could he. All he needed was to get the combat ration in his pocket to his mouth, and right now he couldn't so much as twitch a finger. If that last attack had finished the thing, he might have managed somehow…
Even if the Zone sends a rescue team, that thing will recover before they get here.
He sighed and closed his eyes. He had recognized death when he felt it.
What the hell am I doing, risking my life for an NPC…
But a veteran had his pride. He couldn't take an NPC's help and then wipe his mouth and walk away. And strangely, dying didn't feel as frightening or unfair as he'd expected. It wasn't only the thought that death here might just mean logging out of this game-possession world. He had always imagined death as cold and terrifying — but what he felt now was warm, almost peaceful. Less like cold and more like holding a warm stone in his hand…
…Hm?
A jolt of wrongness snapped his eyes open. He looked down at his hand.
Luna Moon's ring was pouring out a soft, radiant light, wrapping his body in gentle heat.
“What… the hell?”
Don't tell me…
Only one possibility came to mind. The unknown ego dwelling inside Luna Moon's ring. He'd realized long ago that something else lived in the stone. It just hadn't shown any interest in helping him, even when the Eye Giant had him on the brink of death, so he'd given up on it. Now that he was truly about to die, it seemed the thing had finally decided to step in.
About time you showed up.
Let's see, then.
Who the hell is living in this ring.
No sooner had the thought formed than the light streaming from the band was sucked back into the moonstone set in its face — and something pure white popped out with a soft pop.