Kutlanka Raid (2)
That was definitely a scream of pain.
I allowed myself a small smile at Kutlanka's roar. There was something deeply satisfying about watching an enemy howl in agony. I... might have more of a sadistic streak than I'd like to admit.
"Thanks. You saved my life. Your name was... Entris, right?"
"Hehe. That's right, Master Han."
I offered my thanks to Entris, Chae Gillard's fairy. Without her, I would have been swallowed by the flames. The miniature sun Chae Gillard had unleashed far exceeded anything I'd expected.
Chae Gillard's skill levels weren't in the same league as Plasma's. What he had instead was a system of his own making — a way of stacking every advantage he possessed until the result punched far above his rank.
A Fire attribute. The Flame Mage class and the Bonfire trait, both of which amplified every flame-type skill he used. On top of that, a combination technique built around a skill called Spell Recitation.
He had an ultimate called Great Explosion, sure. But he had taken every ability available to him and forged something that outstripped even that. Chae Gillard was the real deal.
"So, what do you plan to do now?"
"Hm? About what?"
"About Kutlanka."
Entris pointed at the raid boss, still roaring in pain. What did she think I was going to do?
"We kill it, obviously."
"Hmm... do you really think that's possible?"
"If your master can throw two or three more attacks like that last one, we can take it down no problem."
Right now, Chae Gillard was the strongest weapon our party had. It stung my pride a little, but facts were facts.
If he could just fire off that miniature sun two or three more times, we could bring down a level-100 raid boss. That technique packed a punch no 4-star mage had any business throwing.
"Ah... I'm sorry, Master Han?"
Entris's expression suddenly soured. What now?
"What is it?"
"Then I'm afraid we may need to retreat."
"What? What are you talking about?"
She jerked a thumb in her master's direction.
"My master can't use that technique again."
"...Is that so? Tch. That's a shame."
I clicked my tongue. Then again, if you could spam a technique that transcended your rank like that, it'd be downright broken.
"Aren't you going to fall back?"
"I already told you. If we can kill it, we kill it. If we can't, we stall. We just need to buy time until Plasma gets here. He'll handle the rest."
A level-100 Kutlanka was a serious problem for small fry like us. But for a 7-star like Plasma, it wasn't anything to lose sleep over.
Assuming he was still in one piece, of course.
Plasma was currently locked in combat with the Snake Bandits' leadership. The enemy had known he was coming and prepared accordingly. Even for Plasma, it wouldn't be an easy fight.
A fresh Plasma could take Kutlanka down on his own. It would take time, but he had the power. If he showed up exhausted, wounded, and running on fumes, though, his odds would plummet. That was just the nature of a raid boss.
"Master, are you all right?"
Aquaril, who I'd stationed in the rear, came running toward me. She'd left her position, but it didn't matter — all she needed to do was launch sword aura from a distance anyway.
"Yeah, I'm fine. She saved me."
"...Thank you, Entris."
"Hehe. Don't mention it."
Huh?
She'd said thank you, but the look she gave Entris was laced with suspicion. Temporary or not, Entris was a party member. And she was treating her like a threat.
Aww. That's my girl.
Anyone outside the fence — even a familiar face — had to be watched and doubted without end. Especially when you were as weak as we were.
Still, I'd need to have a word with her about it.
Being wary of others was good. Being obvious about it was not. Wear your suspicion on your sleeve, and the people outside the fence would only bury their true intentions that much deeper. Honey on the tongue, a dagger in the gut. There was a reason the old saying existed.
Chae Gillard's miniature sun had finally torn one of Kutlanka's legs clean off, and the enraged raid boss threw back its skull and roared. It had been screaming so often that I was starting to get used to the sound.
Kutlanka staggered, unable to plant its feet. A creature that had walked on four legs its entire life was down to three. Finding its center of gravity was not going to be easy.
But a monster was still a monster. It locked itself steady in no time at all.
Damn it! This is one thing you don't need to copy from the game!
While I was seething over that, Kutlanka's assault began. Three tail bones came screaming toward us.
"Everyone, focus on dodging!"
At my shout, the party members who had been bunched together scattered. The last thing we needed was to get pulped as a group by a single tail bone.
A bone came shrieking down out of the sky and slammed into the earth. I waited until it was close enough to read the trajectory, then moved with Aquaril and Entris and slipped out from under it.
My agility sat at forty-eight points — forty base, plus eight. Lower than Aquaril's or Entris's, but nowhere near too slow to dodge Kutlanka's tail bones.
"Hup!"
"Keep your master from getting hurt!"
"Don't worry about me!"
Chae Gillard's and Pazniri's fairies, each carrying their own master on their backs, had agility stats plenty high enough to slip the tail bones without trouble. Kanisia was the same.
The problem was Abraham.
"Kh—!"
Abraham's agility was a paltry eighteen points — not even twenty. He could outrun an ordinary person, but among superhumans he might as well have been a slug. He ran with everything he had and still hadn't cleared the tail bone's range.
"Abraham!"
The instant Kanisia evaded Kutlanka's attack, she spun and sprinted toward her fairy.
Spears of mana bloomed into existence behind her back and shot toward Abraham.
One of them drove into the ground at a slant. Abraham stepped onto it.
Another spear chained off the tip of the first, then another, then another — a bridge no thicker than a rope, stitched together from javelins of raw mana. Running along that sliver of footing should have been nearly impossible, but Abraham was a fairy. Even with an agility stat that low, his physical instincts were something else.
"Jump!"
"Hyaaah!"
Abraham tore along the angled bridge of mana spears and, on Kanisia's signal, hurled himself forward.
The enormous tail bone crashed down onto the path he had just left. He cleared the kill zone by a hair.
Kutlanka roared again, apparently furious that it hadn't killed a single one of us. Whether the thing was pissed off or not didn't matter. Its attack had failed. Now it was time to make it pay.
"Attack!"
"Yes, Master!"
"Hup!"
At my command, Aquaril and Entris — the two closest to me — launched their assault. Both of them fought primarily with the sword, and they poured out sword aura like they were competing to see who could throw more of it.
Wind Arrow
I added my own Wind Arrows to the barrage, chipping in whatever damage I could.
But seriously, where the hell is Plasma?
Between climbing down the cliff and waiting for Kutlanka to finish resurrecting, a fair amount of time had already passed. Plasma was still nowhere to be seen.
We were throwing skills as hard as we could, but the damage we were actually landing on Kutlanka was pathetic. Chae Gillard still hadn't recovered from firing the miniature sun, which meant he couldn't join the attack. All we could do was hope Plasma wrapped things up above and got down here soon.
I want to get stronger. Fast.
If I were far more powerful than I was now, I wouldn't have to lean on anyone else like this. The hunger for strength burned hotter than it ever had before.
"Hina."
"What is it, Piku?"
Meanwhile, Piku — still carrying her master, who had yet to come to his senses — called out to Hina. She kept her voice low, glancing toward Chae Gillard and his fairies not far away.
"You've still got the backpack, right?"
"The backpack? Yeah."
Before they had come down the cliff, Piku had quietly told her companion to pack a bag. The one on Hina's shoulders held water and food.
"...Let's run. Right now."
"What? Did you just say run?"
"I did."
Hina's eyes went round.
"Keeping this fight going is suicide. And even if Plasma does come down, he won't be able to kill that thing. Kutlanka is the kind of monster the Witch Queen herself barely managed to put down. You really think Plasma can finish it?"
"W-well, that's true..."
Hina nodded, conceding the point.
"Besides, he still hasn't made it down here. For all we know, he's already dead."
"D-dead?"
"If Plasma is dead and the bandits start coming down, we'll be boxed in from both sides. Nowhere to run. Are you okay with Master dying?"
"I-I don't want that!"
Hina shook her head hard. Master, dead? Even imagining it was so horrible her eyes stung.
"If we want to keep him alive, we have to get out of here."
"R-right. Let's do it, Piku!"
The same Hina who had hesitated the first time Piku suggested running now nodded with fierce conviction. Nothing persuaded a fairy quite like invoking her master.
Having chosen to flee for their master's sake, the two fairies checked the rest of the party. Almost as if someone had laid the board out for them — not a single person was paying them any attention.
Piku and Hina eased backward, step by careful step, then turned and ran.
"Hah... hah..."
"Haah... haah..."
They ran until their lungs burned, and when they finally judged they had put enough distance behind them, they looked back. They had gone so far that the only thing still visible was Kutlanka's enormous frame.
"W-we made it... But Piku. Do you know the way back to Baidu?"
"We're not going back to Baidu."
"What?"
Piku shook her head.
They had fled to save their master, but going back to Baidu after this was impossible. The city's ruler was the Witch Queen, and Piku was certain that Plasma — the Witch Queen's own fairy — was already dead, or soon would be.
They would be walking back alive while her fairy was not. Did Piku really think the Witch Queen would let that stand? A furious Witch Queen would come for their heads. They had abandoned people still fighting Kutlanka with everything they had, all to keep their master breathing. They had no intention of going home just to die by the Witch Queen's hand.
The foundation they had built in Baidu would be a shame to lose. But if it meant saving their master, they could throw all of it away.
"We hit the nearest village first, regroup, then head for another city."
"....."
"Hina? Are you listening?"
"....."
"Hina? Why are you... Hina? Snap out of it!"
"....."
The Hina who had been talking to her a moment ago was suddenly staring into empty air. Piku grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her, but Hina didn't come back. Her pupils had gone slack, her lips slightly parted, a thin thread of drool slipping from the corner of her mouth. She looked like someone whose soul had been scooped out.
"Oh my~ Everyone else is fighting for their lives, and here you are running away. What a naughty child."
The languid, honeyed voice came from behind her. Piku's blood ran cold. She spun, already moving to strike the stranger down.
"And violent, too. Such a naughty child."
A light tap.
"Ah..."
Piku's sword never made it out. Something touched her forehead a beat faster and fell away — a staff, carved from wood.
The moment it left her skin, Piku slid into the same vacant state as Hina. The last thing she saw before her mind went dark was hair the color of deep navy, shot through with a violet sheen.
"Hmm... whatever shall I do with these naughty children?"
Having subdued the two fairies as if it were nothing, the woman tapped a slender finger against her lips and considered.
"Haa... what are you even doing here?"
The man draped over a fairy's back let out a sigh as he addressed the woman still lost in thought.