It Shouldn't Have Been Like That (6)
The messenger never once eased his pace as they tore out of the city. People scrambled back in fright, and at the gate the sentries seemed to shout something after them—whether it mattered, he had no idea.
Thud-thud-thud-thud.
In any case they cleared the gate, crossed the bridge, and plunged into the forest. By the hour the sun had long since set; the world around them was deeply, thoroughly dark.
Clack.
He glanced at the messenger’s torch swaying ahead, then called up the world map again.
Judging by the marker, they still had a long way to go. As far again as the distance from the trading house to the city gate—no, more like one and a half times that.
Great. They won’t even tell me how many survivors are left. What if by the time I get there they’re all already dead?
His brow tightened with unease. He wondered whether the horse could go any faster.
Light wasn’t an issue—he had a lantern of his own. As for the horse itself… a stubborn hunch kept telling him it could handle more speed.
After a moment’s deliberation he hunched low over the saddle and gave the signal. The bounce of his seat grew sharper, but not beyond the point where he could keep the rhythm.
“Wha—?!”
His mount overtook the messenger’s and pulled further ahead. The horse would suffer a little, but they wouldn’t need this kind of pace on the return trip—he could only hope it held out.
The messenger tried to catch up, but the animals themselves were unevenly matched; the gap only widened.
Thud-thud-thud.
Just as he began to fear the horse might start frothing at the mouth, the map marker was nearly under them.
Even through the thunder of hooves he could hear the clash of metal and the shrieking of demons.
Torchlight from the fighters came into view—proof that survivors still held on.
“To my blade, grant victory—”
The prayer rose by reflex, then a brief doubt cut across it. Do I rein in and join them on foot? Or can I fight from horseback?
“Glory to the heavens above!”
Ah, to hell with it—mounted charge it is! The horse isn’t going to die anyway!
“Reinforcements!”
“Reinforcements?!”
The merchant company fighters, locked in a desperate struggle, spotted him in the same instant he crashed into their midst.
His blade sheared through three goblins at once; the horse bowled over two more and crushed their skulls under its hooves.
“Die, you vermin!”
And in the same breath, he understood. Mounted combat was, regrettably, not going to work.
“W-what—!”
“Just one man?!”
“You said reinforcements were here!”
“Does that mean we can live?!”
Controlling a horse at full gallop with nothing but his legs was hard enough; swinging a sword from that seat to cleave tiny goblins was harder still.
And this was the dead of night. Fires burned here and there, but visibility was still nothing like daylight.
He’d get the hang of it with practice—but this was not the moment to learn.
“Tsk.”
The instant the decision settled, he hurled his two-hander into a goblin and vaulted off the horse.
Dropping from a mount moving that fast should have been catastrophic—but this was a game.
His body slammed down onto a heap of goblin corpses.
Thud!
He hit with a break-fall and rolled across the ground. A dull ache, a sliver of HP gone—but no status effect. Good enough.
He wrenched the two-hander free of the goblin still wearing it in its skull and swung in the same motion. Two more goblins nearby were bisected on the spot.
A glance told him the horse had simply barreled straight through the battlefield and was already fleeing into the distance.
∎ Reach the battle site ✓
∎ Eliminate the attackers 8 / ???
∎ Bonus: Survivors remaining 30 / 52
Perfect. The numbers only showed up once he arrived.
He swept the battlefield at a glance, mapping the danger zones. Cutting down the goblins that charged him was a given.
Fifteen wagons. People fighting atop the cargo after the roofs had been torn open. Horses barely standing—or already down for good. Goblins pouring in from every side.
And those things gnawing corpses among the goblins—wolves?
A cunning beast that hunts in packs with shrewd coordination. Jackals broken to a demon’s will grow even fiercer and more tenacious.
The tooltip that floated up said jackals, not wolves. Not that it mattered much.
“You’ve made quite a mess of things…”
He played out the hatred while his mind raced.
The wagons and cargo weren’t his to protect—skip those. The clusters where people were already packed tight could wait too; they’d hold each other up well enough without him.
That left one place to hit first.
Slash!
He sprinted for the front of the line and swung the two-hander.
Goblins stabbed with rusted daggers clutched in scrawny limbs; jackals darted in with claws. He didn’t care. Everything here was a one-hit kill anyway.
“W-watch the ground—!”
Thud!
As he scythed along the right side of the wagon train, one wheel jolted and the earth bulged upward.
Without a torch nearby he would have missed it for sure.
“…?!”
Of course it had to be the exact patch of ground he was about to step on. A flicker of surprise—but he was the sort who could hide a startle, and a startle never stopped his brain from working.
Calmly he shifted his foot to solid ground and drove the blade straight into the center of the rising mound.
Crunch!
Something firm yet squelching caught on the edge.
A demon that tunnels beneath the earth in a body like a sheep’s intestine. It hunts by secreting a paralytic venom from its fangs.
A glance confirmed it: his sword was buried in the head of a worm swollen hundreds of times larger than a mealworm.
So that was why everyone had climbed onto the wagons—and why so many had already died. The paralytic venom would explain the body count.
From then on he watched his footing as he continued the slaughter. With everyone up on the wagons, he had free space to swing; it made the work far easier.
Onto the corpses the survivors had already piled, he stacked just as many more of his own.
Squelch. The gut worm ground under his boot was a free bonus.
“W-what is that thing…”
“A monster…”
Screee.
Screeee!
As he tore through them, one goblin of a distinctly different cast caught his eye.
A hobgoblin—like the one from the sewers. Hidden by the wagons and the night, he’d taken it for an ordinary goblin.
Jackpot.
Screee?!
The hobgoblin raised its staff. Black light flowed out into the surrounding goblins.
Judging by the look of it, a buff. Then he couldn’t let it live. Supports and healers were priority one.
“I’ll tear you apart…!”
The moment he spotted it he broke into a dead run.
Goblins tried to bar his path. If he simply refused to engage them, that was that.
Survival Instinct
A seasoned warrior must look after his own hide even in the thick of battle—and so is shown a path to avoid the blows.
Effect: Present 1 evasion route
Cooldown: 60 seconds
He triggered one of the skills he’d taken on leveling up.
A translucent arrow appeared, marking the path that would let him advance with the least damage taken.
Not exactly what the skill was designed for—but a useful little exploit all the same.
At once he kicked off the side of a wagon. The cargo packed inside was so heavy that his weight didn’t even tip it.
Thak-thak-thak!
His boots found the narrow ledge of each wagon’s side rail, crossing two of them in a precarious scramble. Then the hobgoblin at the front was right in front of him.
Screee!!!
Goblins that had latched on during the jump drove their claws into him. The pain and the weight were tolerable.
He put power into the hand on the sword and cut upward. The goblins that had thrown themselves up as living shields were carved away; he reversed his grip and brought the blade down from midair.
Crunch!
Were all hobgoblins destined to die impaled? This time the two-hander’s edge punched through the throat instead of the skull.
Slash!
The angle was awkward, so he finished by wrenching the blade sideways—a free extra.
Grrrk.
The sword, having carved from the hobgoblin’s throat through its arm and out under the armpit to scrape the ground, buried itself in another goblin’s torso.
In the same motion he let go of the hilt and tore free the goblins and gut worms still clinging to him.
His HP had taken a real hit, and a little paralytic venom had stacked on top of it. Still in the safe zone—but three or four more bites and he’d be in trouble.
Thud.
The goblins gripped in both hands went flying; with his left he drew the longsword. His right was still peeling demon spawn off his arm, leg, and back.
Screee!!
And yet the rest of them looked perfectly fine even after their boss was dead.
He narrowed his eyes at the goblins that refused to panic—and found the detail he’d missed.
The right side of the wagon train he’d charged along had held only goblins and gut worms. On the left, one more hobgoblin still stood.
Loot RNG failure.
“Aaaagh!”
Just then an NPC, ankle clamped in a gut worm’s jaws, started to topple off a wagon.
“Tch.”
He twisted his face into an exaggerated scowl and flung the longsword. It wasn’t a throwing weapon, so no accuracy bonus applied—it landed a little wide of where he’d aimed—but that was enough.
The goblin stepping in on the fallen NPC found its path blocked by the sword planted in the earth.
Shhk.
In that interval he snatched up the two-hander and sprinted. He’d thinned the goblin numbers enough that the charge was cleaner than before.
“Die…!”
To maximize the reach he gripped the two-hander at the very end of the hilt and brought it down from high overhead.
Crash!
The two goblins that had dodged the longsword to go for the NPC were split from crown to crotch.
“Eek!”
“Pull him up!”
“Hurry, grab him!”
“Someone take that arm!”
The near-dead NPC flailed in terror as the others on the wagon seized his arms. They hauled him up and he collapsed across the cargo.
Screee, skreek!
That one was sorted. Time to finish the last hobgoblin.
Convenient that the path lined up. He recovered the longsword he’d thrown and swept it sideways. The head of a goblin mid-leap rolled free of its neck.
Tak.
The longsword that had bisected that goblin slid back into place at his hip. Heh. Even I have to admit that looked cool.
Grrrk.
The two-hander, held in one hand, scraped the ground—then both hands took it and it lifted clean. Thak-thak-thak. His boots trampled over goblin corpses as he went.
Screeeee!!!
At the end of his charge, the hobgoblin—sensing death—called goblins into a screen in front of it.
He didn’t slow. The two-hander was leveled straight ahead, parallel to the earth, its blade a full meter of steel.
Crunch!
With two goblins still hanging off his shoulders, he drove through three more and impaled the hobgoblin’s heart.
Skreek!
Screee!!
“I-it’s dead…”
“The demons…”
At once the goblins broke into full panic, scattering in every direction.
Shhhk.
He drew the bloodied longsword, struck off the hobgoblin’s head—just to be sure—and cut down the ones still trying to flee. Goblins that had been clinging to corpses’ clothes or hopping in place bolted in terror for the far side of the forest.
“You think you can run…!”
Is chasing the stragglers down and tearing them apart more in character? Or helping the people get organized?
Ptoo.
He spat out the blood that had gotten into his mouth—fighting had flung goblin flesh between his teeth; the downside of a game this well-realized—and pulled free the two-hander he’d left standing.
A quick check of the survivor count: twenty-seven. It wasn’t moving anymore.
“W-we’re alive…”
“Thank you, O God…”
“Who in the world is that man…?”
Ah—and the mercenaries. Hadn’t the trading house said they were hiring mercenaries separately and sending them out?
If his memory wasn’t lying, they definitely had. He just had no idea when they’d arrive. The messenger seemed to have caught his runaway horse and rejoined without trouble.
“Aaaagh!”
Whatever. Mercenaries or not—chasing them down fits the concept better. The thought had barely formed and he’d taken a single step when a raw scream slammed into his ears.
“Demon energy’s invading!”
“M-medicine—isn’t there any medicine?!”
“We have sedatives, but—!”
Belatedly, a piece of the game’s lore surfaced.
Those wounded by demons have a chance of being invaded by demon energy.
As the invasion value rises, various status ailments are applied; in severe cases, the victim may transform into a demon.
In the original, every hit from a demon had a chance to stack the value. Status effects kicked in at ten-percent increments, if he remembered right.
It hadn’t been that hard to manage. Buy medicine from a temple or receive a purification and you were fine.
And for the Demon Knight class, it hadn’t mattered at all. With a demon already sealed in the arm, the invasion value never accumulated in the first place.
“Take this.”
“Huh?”
Anyway—he had the medicine on him now.
Starter items were the same across every class, apparently. They’d handed the Demon Knight a supply he didn’t need.
A pill that purifies demon energy that has invaded a human body. It stills the madness demons call forth and brings a temporary calm.
He tossed them a bottle. Ten pills to a set—they’d put them to use.
“This is… th-thank you!”
“Medicine?!”
It was a bit pricey, so he felt a twinge of regret—until he saw those painfully realistic NPC faces, and a small pride replaced it.
Well. He didn’t need the stuff, and if it kept a few NPCs breathing, so much the better.
Besides, a man who’d lost his family to demons and suffered invasion himself wasn’t likely to stand by while others were being corrupted. So it didn’t break character either. Perfect.
“Does anyone have bandages?!”
“Damn it, we’re short on sedatives…”
“Is this all the Demon Energy Antidote?!”
“Th-this is everything that man gave us.”
“Of all the…”
And yet it seemed they needed more.
He hesitated with one foot already pointed toward the night forest—then turned back toward the wagons.
Crrk. The sword in his grip scraped against the leather of his glove as it slid home into the scabbard on his back.
Clatter.
“This is—?!”
“Use it.”
Factoring in the remaining headcount, he tossed them another bottle of Demon Energy Antidote, and to the one calling for bandages he handed over the starter bandages as well.
He’d wondered why the game had loaded him up with so much starting gear. Apparently this was what it was for.
“Th-thank you!”
It’s all stuff the game gave me—no need to thank me. More to the point, if I bill the old man for this, will I get reimbursed?
The game was so well-made he genuinely couldn’t tell.
Thud-thud-thud-thud.
“Ah—reinforcements!”
At last, far off, the trading house’s mercenaries came into view—or rather, the torches they carried did.
Quest complete.