Endurance in the Bone Tide
I shoved the skeleton standing directly ahead after whipping around the corner. The creature had no weapon, only ragged clothes hanging off its frame, and it slammed weakly into the wall. Its movements were sluggish, as if it couldn’t process the situation, so I seized the opening and grabbed its neck. The sight of those bare bones flailing wildly was disgusting, but I endured it and pressed the dagger against its throat.
“Stay still!”
Side to side, I sliced clean through, severing the neck. With the sickening snap of tendons or spinal cord giving way, the head tumbled from the torso. Yet the thing kept thrashing, its struggles only growing more violent.
I recalled the skeleton countermeasures I’d seen in the game and unleashed a powerful kick. The blow landed squarely on its fleshless ribs, sending it flying backward. Its body hit the floor and scattered in every direction like a broken toy. All that remained were the powerless scraps of a departed soul.
Normally, cutting the neck like that should have been impossible. The only reason I could put up this much resistance was because these skeletons were pathetically low-ranked. Bottom-of-the-barrel F-rank monsters with weak or nonexistent barriers, charging in with nothing but numbers, the kind that even regular guns could take down easily. Honestly, an ordinary person probably could have managed this much.
I picked up the blue, fingernail-sized stone from the floor. The kind of thing hunters would grow sick of seeing, an object you had to scavenge just to survive. A tiny little magic stone.
“It’s useless right now…”
Still, better to take it. Just in case.
I was scanning the ground for anything else useful when a string of clattering sounds echoed from behind. I turned my head. At the far end of the corridor, several skeletons were slowly shuffling forward.
“They never closed the Dungeon Gate, did they?”
If that was the case, a huge number of monsters must have crawled out while I was trapped down here. I needed to conserve stamina, but there was no other route. This had to be the only path.
I gripped the dagger tighter.
I let the skeletons keep coming. I waited for the mindless things to get close enough that I could see the cartilage on their bony toes.
“Hoo… please.”
I reached for that familiar sensation. Tension flooded my body as I poured strength into every muscle, just like when I fought Lim Hana’s academy friends not long ago. Like the times I clashed with Cheon Mari back in elementary school. Like the old days when I resisted those delinquents through sheer fear.
My heartbeat slowed. The skeletons approached as if in slow motion. But I could move differently. As if I existed on another timeline entirely.
A sensation that was almost certainly the Time Esper Ability.
I exhaled and stepped forward. The sound of my footstep warped, like the air itself had contracted.
“──!!!”
The skeleton seemed to scream. Of course, they had no vocal cords, so it only looked that way.
I charged the nearest one. The unarmed creature turned its gaze toward me, but that was all it managed. It was nothing more than an old corpse given unnatural life. As I slipped past it with blinding speed, the skeleton couldn’t track my movement. I swung the dagger into that opening, and the ancient ruin’s creation finally lost its head.
I kicked its back, knocking it down. Bones exploded across the floor.
The moment I tried to turn, a wooden bat whistled toward my face. Its arc was so clear it almost felt slow. I twisted my neck and dodged.
Clatter! I immediately smashed the neck of the skeleton whose body had twisted from the swing’s recoil. Another head flew off. One punch and more bones scattered.
That was the second. Ten more skeletons remained.
Clatter. Clack.
“Fuck.”
Clatter.
Now there were thirteen. The gate was definitely below us, so how the hell had these things gotten up here? Was there some detour I didn’t know about?
I thought about falling back, but when I glanced behind me, the same bone-rattling sounds were closing in from that direction too. Worse, the floor rumbled again with a deep boom.
Retreating or hiding wasn’t an option. I had to break through head-on. Otherwise I’d be crushed by sheer numbers or buried when the ruins collapsed.
I threw myself at the skeletons, praying I wouldn’t take a fatal hit. Praying I’d live long enough to question Lim Hana again.
I seized eye sockets. I severed necks. I kicked legs out from under them. I smashed fists into skulls. I blocked kicks, grabbed legs and slammed bodies down, stabbed through neck bones, shattered ribs with punches. I dodged fists, then countered with my own. The pain of striking bare bone was sharp, but I endured. Then I followed up with the dagger.
A sharp stake whistled in from behind. I knocked the arm aside, dropping the weapon, then flipped the creature over and stomped its neck until the bones crunched. I snatched the fallen club and swung it, flattening several skeletons at once. While dealing with the rest, I casually separated heads from torsos. I kicked them apart one by one.
Then one sank its teeth between my shoulder and neck. Another latched onto my left arm and bit down hard.
“You fucking—!”
I snapped my head back, smashing the first one away with the back of my skull, then kicked it flying. Reversing my grip on the dagger, I drove it down mercilessly into the one chewing my arm. Its shattered skull fell away as I sliced through its neck.
The restraint finally loosened. But that was an attack I should never have allowed.
Vitality: 3/5
Shield: 0/5
The Hunter Watch displayed my reduced vitality. That had clearly been a fatal wound. Looking at the bite, the flesh was already gone. Blood poured from my neck.
The pain hit like a freight train. My strength became horribly unbalanced. This agony was on a completely different level from anything Cheon Mari or Lim Hana had ever done to me. It hurt so much I felt like I might collapse while drooling, but I couldn’t stop.
Even as stamina and willpower drained away, I couldn’t stop.
I clenched my teeth. The road ahead was still long and brutal.
I swung the dagger wildly, killing anything it happened to catch.
“Haa… haa…”
The exhaustion was creeping in. My already lacking brain felt like it was running on empty. I have to hold on. I can’t fall here. I need to take down a few more. Just a few more.
I have to survive and see my aunt. I have to see my cousin who works in law. I’m going to climb out of here and demand answers from Lim Hana. I’m going to ask her why the hell she did this to me.
I kept climbing. I kept smashing through the skeletons. They were only F-rank monsters. I couldn’t die to the likes of them.
Staggering, I ascended the stairs. The next floor held even more skeletons.
Rumble—! The heavy sound of collapsing stone. The crash of something like a pillar falling heightened the sense of crisis.
“We’re so fucked…”
I want to go home. I want to live comfortably.
I kept moving forward. The skeletons ahead slowly advanced as well. I breathed hard, scanning them carefully. One at a time, starting with the closest. I moved with that somewhat slowed perception, just like on the floor below. I had to minimize any chance of taking a fatal blow.
I slashed with the dagger. I struck with my fist. I kicked. I grabbed bodies. I endured pain and blocked attacks. I countered and killed.
Magic stones slightly larger than fingernails rolled across the floor. Enough value to buy a few bowls of soup. But I had no time to pick them up while dodging the skeletons’ relentless punches, kicks, and club swings.
No matter what kind of esper-like power I had, I was still a middle-schooler. My average abilities were pathetic and my limits were clear.
And in the middle of all that dodging, I failed to evade.
I twisted my body, but it was already too late. The club smashed into my left hand. My index, middle, and ring fingers bent backward at the joints. It was pathetic.
“Gaaah!!”
It was horrible. The pain felt like someone hammering my joints into paste. I wanted to collapse. I wanted to give up. But I couldn’t.
In this situation, only one person would laugh if I did. My next-door friend. Lim Hana, Lim Hana, Lim Hana.
Why did you put me through this? What did you gain by trying to kill me? Pleasure? Refreshment? Some twisted sense of immorality? Or was it just friendship with those trashy academy delinquents?
Even if you were on drugs, you shouldn’t have completely lost your mind. So was there real intent mixed in? Maybe we were never really close friends, just ‘friends.’ Or maybe that’s exactly it.
At some point, whenever I fought Cheon Mari and ended up in the hospital, Lim Hana never even visited. The only ones who came to see me were the crazy Cheon Mari and her grandfather.
Come to think of it, Cheon Mari. She secretly logged into my account and tanked my rank down to Iron tier. Did she do that because I accidentally got ten team kills in a row? When I get back I need to tell her to push it back up to Silver at least. You idiot, if I die here I won’t be able to tell you…
“Haa, haa, haaaagh…!”
Even while my mind flooded with random thoughts to forget the pain and fear, I kept fighting.