Why So Cowardly

"Krotra!"

Strike Captain Grash's fury set the greenskins of the strike force trembling, their eyes raking every direction at once.

"Kraktoa!"

Fail to catch the enemy, and a few of them would vanish as Grash's supper. That was the threat in it. Nor was it anger alone. The foe was few, but they wielded spirits—the power of the ruler of Valgar Fortress, the war's first objective. So they had to be taken alive. Find them. Seize them.

Hardly any of the lesser warriors shared the greenskin host's grand design. What that army did possess was a talent for obedience, the kind bought with a commander's authority and with fear. Orc riders and goblin riders settled into a loose interval and began to comb the ground around them.

"Chwar."

"Kerek."

Close. Right around here. Born hunters, they knew it without being told. A human would have studied the traces left behind, reasoned from them, and only then given chase. Most greenskins read those traces in the realm of instinct and passed judgment by raw feel. Ask them why, and they could not have answered. They simply knew.

And so, at a moment when their watch had been drawn as tight as it would go, a drum of feet broke from a thicket ahead. Humans burst out of the brush and bolted deeper into the trees.

"Kraktu!!"

Grash's roar had barely split the air before the strike force surged after them as one. Only a little later did they grasp that something was wrong with the humans they were running down.

Got them. I had been honestly stunned, watching Vartus braid the four elemental spirits into a passable human phantom.

"You just have to use the light spirit and the water spirit right."

He said it so blandly that the ease of it was the shocking part. Give the shapes texture with an earth spirit, keep them moving fast, and no one would tell the difference unless they got up close. That was Vartus's idea. All I added was a wind spirit, to hang our scent over the illusions. Thankfully, the effect was flawless.

"I can't hold it long. Hurry!"

"Right."

My eyes went to the rear of the pack. While the green monsters thundered off together, Grash lingered at the very back, unhurried, scanning the woods as he came. The wolf beneath him was enormous even among giant wolves, and the orc on its back looked twice the bulk of an ordinary warrior. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠The great axe he carried shed a steady thread of blue light just hanging at his side. A high-grade artifact, even to a careless glance.

Vicious.

And I was the one who had to bring him down.

I swallowed the last of a half-bottle of mana-condensed Dew, Rare grade, drew the stealth cloak over myself, and started in. Careful. And careful again. Even with the wind spirit killing my presence and my sound as far as it could, a tremor kept running under my skin. There was no room to hesitate. I set the spirit moving and gathered every paralysis needle I had left into a single bundle.

It has to land in one go. No exceptions.

Before he could feel that anything was wrong, I poured the whole bundle at him from behind.

Now!

Dozens of needles swept in at his back.

"Krok!"

Grash turned like the wind, and the great axe came around. One stroke, and every needle on the air scattered. I drove in at his back anyway, presence crushed as low as I could force it, speed pushed as high as it would go.

"Khut."

A snort of breath, and he was turning again, wind-quick. Wolf and rider suddenly filled the space before my eyes, as if the distance itself had been compressed, and the charge I was still on had already carried me inside the arc of that axe. The blade flashed. No—before it flashed, I was already on the backstep.

Hup. I had known it would go this way.

It didn't save me. I was clear of the edge itself, and still the armor left on me split straight down the seam.

It never even touched me!

Jerik had shown me the thing once. A manifested sword-aura—put another way, a blade pressed together out of mana. Usually the mark of a second-tier class, he had said, or of a skill of the highest grade. The small mercy was that, by the feel of it, I didn't think I'd actually been cut. And the bastard's rage had locked onto me. He no longer seemed to be watching his back.

"Kroa!!"

The axe came around again and sheared a thick tree behind me from crown to root. Out of that cover, the single Rare paralysis needle I had held in reserve sank into his hide.

Yes!

My eyes lit, and I charged again, meaning to run the spear straight through him. Something black rushed up instead, and the world went spinning.

Urk—!?

A beat too late, through the spirit's senses, I understood that the black shape was the flat of the axe, and that I was the one being flung, turning over and over. I hit, tumbled, and forced myself up through the dizzy pain.

"Keuk."

Strangely, no follow-up came. Then, abruptly, the creature spoke a human tongue.

"Human. A descendant of Valgar?"

"Val... gar?"

"Spirits. Valgar's power. But. Black hair. No."

He leveled the tip of the axe at me, and I couldn't parse the words on the spot. For a second I wondered if the System's translation had simply broken. It didn't matter. What mattered was the arrogant face looking down at me, and the carelessness sitting in it—and the fact that the arm holding that axe on me had begun, ever so slightly, to tremble. The moment I saw it, I chose motion over an answer.

Let's see you die.

Slower than him, and I was dead. I ran on that thought alone. Volante Footwork and the wind spirit together, every scrap of mana I had, thrown in for one purpose: to be faster than him. I bent my whole focus to spending that mana as efficiently as I knew how. The speed that came of it startled even me. I knifed into the blind spot low on his right, beneath the arm that held the axe.

Shut up!

The System's voice, chasing after me, was nothing but a hindrance. Grash's axe did twitch—I saw it—but it moved with an endless slowness. Proof that the fine tremor from a moment ago had not been my imagination.

Now!

I drove the spear into the flank laid wide open. Not a sword-aura. Blazing mana, packed to the brim inside a vibrating spear. I had forgotten one thing. The Rare needle had struck Grash, not the wolf he was riding.

The wolf spun like the wind, and a forepaw slapped my committed blow aside. My body skidded back, absurd as that was, and despair rose whether I wanted it or not.

"K-kroak!"

Above me, the snarl on Grash's face collapsed into a rictus. His whole body was shaking.

It took. It really took.

That sight put courage back into me. A fire spirit burst across the wolf's muzzle. A water spirit sheeted over its eyes. A wind spirit stoppered its nostrils, and an earth spirit clamped its forelegs. I dumped every drop of the mana still flooding through me, forcing spirits of the lowest grade to exert, for a single instant, a power beyond themselves. Then I gathered what strength remained and leapt at Grash.

No way back!

The greatest speed I could wring out of myself, and the finest blow I could land.

I stake my life on it.

Perhaps it was that resolve. Volante Footwork and the strike of the Resonance Spear linked so cleanly that I became a single streak of wind.

My mana drew in to the spear's tip, gathered into a single blue point, and burned brilliant.

There was no time to think about what it meant. The spear crunched through Grash's armor and buried itself in his heart. We rose together. And together we fell—still sprinting when I ran him through, the two of us climbing another three or four meters before we dropped back to the earth. I watched it through a spirit's sight, and even I could not understand it. How was Grash, on the receiving end, supposed to?

He coughed blood.

Because if I don't, I die!

The rage pooled in those fading eyes was plain enough. I didn't have the mind left to give him a proper answer.

My body... there's no strength in it.

I couldn't even tell how I had poured the mana out. I couldn't twitch a finger.

"...Valgar's... descendant. Cowardly. How... bitter."

The huge hand that had been groping for my collar, or my head, trembled and trembled, then simply fell away. The crisis was not over. The giant wolf tore free of my spirits' hold, opened its jaws at me, and I still could not move.

Fuck!

That thrust hadn't taken mana alone. It felt as if my stamina had been scraped out with it, and every spirit had been yanked back into recall. There was nothing left I could do. Then the wolf's eyes blew wide and shivered in its skull, and the beast toppled sideways.

"Char!"

"Mister!"

Vartus and his brothers came running.

"Paralysis needles. The best!"

Of all of them, Vartus shouting was a sight I was especially glad of. He drove a knife into the fallen wolf's throat. Turn it over as I might, that nerve did not belong to a child.

The sprout of a hero, is it.

I let out a hollow little laugh to myself.

"Char, wake up! Wake up and take the mana!"

Faint mana seeped into me, drizzle on a field gone to drought, and with it came the System's voice.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

How many levels was this already, and we were only on the fifth floor? Pride and relief came together, and a little strength began to creep back into my limbs.

"Char, you with us!?"

"Yes... but."

"It worked, didn't it?"

"Behind us... ugh."

At those weakly offered words, Vartus looked back.

"Krachwi!"

The greenskin strike force was pounding toward us again, and his face snapped tight.

"G-go! Let's go!"

Vartus and his brothers hauled me upright on spirit-power.

"Ugh. Wait."

Even in the middle of that, I reached for Grash. For his axe, more precisely.

Can I take it with me?

Nothing but a hope, in case. I couldn't lift the thing, so I set the haft against the spatial pouch at my waist—and the axe scraped softly inward and was stored.

"Char!? What are you doing right now—!?"

"Go! Now!"

We ran, with no better plan than to get clear of the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠strike force bearing down on us. The one mercy was that they did not follow. The sight of Grash's corpse seemed to drop them straight into panic.

"Grash!!"

"Perek!?"

"Kratz!?"

Thank god. I was sure we had cleared the worst of it. It was not over.

"While they're in a mess, we take them one at a time."

"In this situation!?"

"For Valgar."

For the quest.

At that, the light in Vartus's eyes changed all at once.

"All right. I'll help as ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠much as I can."

"Me too!"

"Me too. Me too!"

And so I—so we—kept our distance and banked what stamina we could. Before long we caught the strike force from behind, just as it tried to get off the mountain, and the ambush began. That short clash with Grash had grown me in ways I could already feel. The force was a broken rabble by then, and clearing its squads one after another was not particularly hard.

Half a day later, around the time the sun went down, I completed the objective.

A great portal hummed into being before my eyes.

"Krok!"

"Kukara!"

What little remained of the strike force broke apart in the dark, mad with fear, and I finally let a breath go.

"Haa..."

I turned, and found him calling to me.

"Char! You're incredible. Really!"

White light seemed to settle into the blue of Vartus's eyes. Then it flashed. Light poured from those eyes and dyed the world, and the System spoke.

Huh?

In that space washed white, an old warrior came toward me. He looked strong. The face was one I felt I had seen somewhere, and there was a faint smile on it.