I Was a Little Startled
That actually startled me for a second.
The forest I'd walked into was sparser than it had looked from outside, but its size was nothing to scoff at. Put together the three villages I used to live in, and they'd probably still fall short of this place. Yena and I had agreed to search from opposite ends and report the moment either of us spotted an enemy — not that we were short on options, since a 1:1 chat was always there, and the viewers in the chat window were busily relaying information whether I asked for it or not.
Sshk—! I swept my spear through the vines and leaves blocking my path. The forest was as quiet as ever, but my qi-sense was quietly sounding an alarm.
They're close.
I spun the spear I'd been holding loosely, letting it roll in my grip. The green shaft settled perfectly into my hand, and with a single twisting motion it shredded the few trees and foliage ahead of me into splinters in an instant. Amid the debris drifting apart in a fine haze, an arrow came flying in — on a trajectory so obvious it was almost insulting. I corrected my grip to bat it away, only to be forced to whip the spear backward instead.
Craaang!
Because the arrow had come flying from behind me.
The arrow, streaking in at blistering speed, ricocheted off my spearhead. Whatever it was, it was no ordinary arrow — I'd deflected it in such a hurry that my balance wavered for a heartbeat.
“Graaargh!!!”
In that sliver of lost balance, a second enemy came charging at me like some kind of yacha, shield raised, upper body barreling forward alone. A faint yellow glow shimmered around him — a skill, clearly — and then spear-shaft met shield with a thunderous impact.
KWAAAANG!
...?
Before any contest of strength could even begin, my body was launched clean off the ground. Given that I was lifted whether I liked it or not, it had to be some kind of skill — a knock-up that triggers on contact, maybe.
That is not an ordinary weapon.
At minimum it matched the Legendary Tier dagger Yena carried, or surpassed it. Anything less couldn't possibly put out that kind of force and performance. ...But she's around level 10. How is she even allowed to carry it? Yena had told me gear like that all came with level or stat restrictions.
There was no time to keep studying my opponent. Off in the distance, an archer had somehow already found his position and was nocking his next shot.
“We were supposed to fight them out in the open field, but...”
Against a spearman, a forest actually worked in their favor.
Th-thwip-thwip-thwip—! Three arrows came flying at once — one blue, one red, one purple. I was still airborne from the shield's impact, and the three of them were already at my nose. Unless I could fly freely, there was no dodging them. Not a chance.
Flight.
“...!”
My body took to the air. For a brief moment I was freed from the gravity pressing down on me, and I turned a full rotation in midair. The arrows, woven together in a genuinely well-built combo, failed to touch my weightless body and slipped past, missing in the most anticlimactic way possible. They shot off one by one and buried themselves somewhere deep in the forest, each leaving behind ice, flame, and something that felt like a curse.
The shield-bearing man stared up at me, helpless as a dog that had just lost track of the chicken it was chasing.
“What the hell? The crazy girl has one too.”
“I told you to expect at least this much. Let's go to Plan B.”
Thwack! Two more arrows left the archer's bow. I slipped past them with ease and charged straight at the archer, who was already scrambling backward.
“Hey! Hands off the ranged!”
The shield warrior swung around to cut off my pursuit.
But it was useless. Unlike the archer with his guaranteed movement speed, or me — a Heaven-Scented Human — the shield warrior was hopelessly slow, both as a class and as a body. By the time he truly committed to the chase, the archer and I were already far apart.
“Tch. This is why I told you not to play garbage jobs like shield warrior.”
The archer spun mid-retreat to face me. The gap between us wasn't large, and it was closing with every stride.
“Hey! Use that thing!”
“That thing hurts like hell.”
“If I tell you to use it, USE it!”
The shield warrior, sprinting after me, slammed his shield down into the earth. A shield-shaped glow of yellow light rose up over his head. I had no idea what he was playing at — but by then, my spear had already punched through the archer's heart.
A satisfied sound slipped out of the archer's mouth.
“Not that I mind this part.”
“...I'm sorry, what?”
Gurgle.
The sound didn't come from the archer. It came from the shield warrior behind him — the one with no reason to be hurt at all. The flow of mana had begun moving in a strangely twisted pattern.
The shield warrior's body lurched, the archer's wounds vanished, and a blue shockwave burst outward. It was a technique where the tank took the damage meant for an ally, and the ally responded by unleashing a pulse proportional to that damage.
“Shockwave.”
A violent wave of force crashed over me and everything around me.
“It landed.”
The archer — leader of the bandit crew Terror, and the owner of a main account ranked somewhere within the top 300 — felt a grin pulling at his face.
He'd originally intended to greet Lily and Yena on open ground, but with Lily arriving alone, the plan had changed. In a forest thick with cover like this, an assassin was all but invincible, while a spearman who needed open space only stood to lose.
So the idea had been to draw the target's attention, then finish things with a charge attack, the airborne knock-up, and Tricolor Arrow — the built-in skill of his Legendary Tier bow. But the target had possessed Flight.
Flight was treated as the equal of Sure-Hit, Divine Punishment, and Corruption — one of the so-called Four Great Enchants. Forget the rest; Flight alone turned an archer into a tiger with wings, a spell nothing short of a disaster for anyone facing an archer. Of course, an archer possessing Flight was its own separate disaster.
“Hey! Are you seriously dying right now?”
“...Yeah. Feels like it won't be long.”
The meat shield was dying. Even pierced clean through the heart, a warrior-class character should still have held the advantage in health and defense over everyone else.
“Well, he earned his price as the prime target of suspicion.”
The smoke was slowly clearing. The first plan had failed, but he'd sacrificed the meat shield to land the Shockwave — a wave that would strip thirty percent of his own main account's health if it caught him point-blank.
She's as good as dead, then.
He'd meant to play with her a little, but she really did live up to the rumors — playing around would be pushing it. Nothing for it. He'd just have to kill her outright. Then it would come down to a one-on-one with the assassin.
Yena. A ranker-class assassin in the top hundred.
Assassins were a hard counter to mages and archers, but out on open ground there would still have been a chance of—
Thud. Thud...
“Oh. That actually startled me.”
“...You. How are you—”
A silhouette flickered through the drifting smoke — and two blue eyes. Feeling an inexplicable chill crawl up his spine, the archer stepped back three paces. No. Five.
Something was off. Unlike ordinary users, her killing intent came off her in a vicious, hungry haze. Thud. Thud — the footsteps kept coming, and her hand was stained red as though burned, yet her clothes were completely unscathed. Normally, being caught in an explosion of that size would wreck every piece of equipment except the basic outfit.
“Hah... magic. Magic. Magic... I really don't have enough mana...”
Muttering to herself, Lily shuffled over and pulled her spear out of the dirt where it had been planted at a careless angle. Through the shattered trees, sunlight was seeping into places it had never reached before. The light glinted off the spearhead.
In the same instant, countless arrows burst from the archer's fingertips.
Not one of them touched her. The burned hand twisted the spear, threading it between arrow after arrow with movements as if she were running Combat Assist herself and knew every single attack position in advance. But this was a user who never touched Combat Assist — and a genuinely skilled one at that, with a solid reputation in both PvP and PK. He had dueled countless opponents and racked up a record of ending the lives of players armed with every class, every skill, every piece of equipment imaginable.
That was exactly how he'd managed to land unexpected damage on Lily...
Spear Attack.
That was all it had been.
Lily had been fighting countless battles for far longer than that. So much longer that even comparing the two was laughable.
The spearman's skill amplified Lily's attack speed, and the green spearhead pierced through the archer's body one more time.
There wouldn't be a second chance.
Lily let out a small breath.
“Crazy bitch...”
“That was a little close.”
I nearly cast magic without even meaning to.
No — did I already cast it?