Blade Whirlwind
Type: Ranged/Area Attack
Cast Time: Instant Area of Effect: 5-meter radius
Cooldown: 20 seconds
Summons a blade wind that attacks enemies in front of you. Deals damage to all enemies within a 5-meter radius. Damage scales with the character's Agility stat.
*TIP: When used in a narrow space, it is easy to secure the maximum number of hits.
That's the overview of <Blade Whirlwind>.
The biggest thing to watch with this skill, in my view, is that awkward 5-meter radius—it's enough to hit at most three targets when they're lined up overlapping.
Of course, considering how rapidly a battlefield changes, it's easier on the mind to count on hitting around two.
CRRRRRRUNCH!
Blade Whirlwind's power exceeded my expectations.
First, the priest, who'd been innermost, was quite literally shredded head to toe by the blade wind pouring in from behind.
The one standing behind him rolled across the ground with his right arm severed, and only Dorman, furthest back, dodged it perfectly.
'Goddamn.'
Three for one might have been greedy, but I'd thought I could take out two.
So reality and the game really are different?
'Still, dealing with the priest first is a positive.'
Archer, priest, mage.
Targeting the ranged support first is the basics of fighting Delvers.
'The one with the severed arm.'
Finish him off, and the tide of battle turns far more favorable.
Whether it had the same thought as me or not, the weasel lunged at the profusely bleeding man, and Dorman quickly stepped in to block its path.
"Reina!"
Without a reply, the archer vanished from sight in an instant.
In an instant, her presence could no longer be felt.
'Tracking that woman will be difficult.'
I kicked off the ground to finish the one with the severed arm.
"Fuck!"
The bastard, blood pouring out of him, drew his sword with a face on the verge of tears.
With that, the battlefield split three ways.
The weasel takes Dorman; I take the party member with one arm cut off.
Lastly, the archer.
WHIZZ.
The instant I heard something cut the air, a wind whipped up from somewhere.
The trajectory of the arrow, probably aimed at me, wavered, and it grazed the tip of my arm.
Thunk-thunk.
The whizzing continued, but only the dull sounds of arrows lodging in the ground rang out.
Dorman, unable to bear it any longer, lost his temper.
"Reina! What are you doing?"
"Dammit! The wind's throwing me off! And there's this light right before I shoot……!"
You're doing well.
Fortunately, unlike their magical talent or spirit affinity, their basic sense didn't seem bad at all.
'A Sylph and Light combo.'
Even if direct attacks were impossible, they could hide and harass the enemy like this.
The problem was that dragging out this stalemate wouldn't do us any good.
The weasel's side was gradually being pushed back too.
Only natural, considering the level difference with Dorman.
'If the weasel dies, the balance collapses.'
In other words, I have to kill this one-armed bastard as fast as I can and join up with the weasel.
'He's still this strong with an arm cut off?'
A Rank-4 Delver, sure enough?
His level was probably in the mid-to-late 20s, and his combat experience far richer than mine.
At full strength, a bastard like me would have been dead in an instant.
"Kuh……!"
But I wasn't the only one feeling rushed.
I could sense urgency in the movements of my profusely bleeding opponent, too.
Switching from offense to defense at the right moment, I opened my mouth.
"Rough day, isn't it?"
"……What?"
"Ankle cut, hand gone. Looks like your foot got reattached somehow thanks to lucky quick treatment, but what about the arm? The priest's already dead, so you'll have to live the rest of your life one-armed."
"…….."
The Delver…… the bastard whose name was Ail, closed the mouth he'd half opened.
Quick-witted bastard.
Did he notice I was trying to needle him with talk?
But he can't plug his ears mid-fight. I paid it no mind and kept rambling.
"Think you can stay in your current party one-armed? That Dorman fellow looked pretty coldhearted. He didn't so much as blink at the corpse of the companion I killed."
"……"
"Most likely, on the road back to the city, you'll be booted straight out and replaced with a more useful party member."
"Shut your mouth."
Hearing that only gave me strength.
This guy probably knows in his head that he shouldn't react.
It's just that actually doing so is hard.
Either way, jabbering nonstop in the middle of a fierce fight was rough on me too.
Grinning, I delivered the decisive blow.
"……I said I was a Delver earlier, but the truth is, I'm a stoker. After getting beaten down like this by a stove-tender, how are you going to keep playing Delver without dying of shame?"
"……!"
So a Delver bastard's trigger button really is the stoker status?
In an instant, with the sound of teeth grinding, sparks flew in Ail's eyes, and he took one great stride forward.
THUUUD!
An unknowable current seemed to spread out from the opponent.
A stance with the sword raised high overhead…….
One arm or not, it was a familiar motion.
"Die!"
WHOOOSH!
A cross-shaped wave of sword energy came flying.
Gauging the distance, I struck away the first wave of sword energy and ducked under the second.
"What?!"
When I dove into my stunned opponent's guard, the path to his throat was cleanly open.
Open enough for even me, unfamiliar with the scythe, to cut easily.
SPLURCH!
Even as blood sprayed, deep confusion clouded Ail's eyes.
"How…… my attack……?"
He seemed to have realized I'd read his attack.
There was no need to answer, but I opened my mouth anyway.
"<Cross Slash> has a big windup. The power is excellent, but using it as a finisher……"
I stopped speaking. Because the light had already gone out of the eyes of Ail, who'd collapsed in a heap.
The moment I sighed, sharp pain surged.
'Fuck…….'
My wrist hurt as if it had been bent backward.
Because I'd forced myself to strike away the first hit of <Cross Slash>.
It was a technique hard to dodge on both counts, so I'd had no choice, though.
'Should I have used my left arm?'
An arrogant thought.
If I'd failed, my body would have been in two pieces.
Wiping away the pointless thoughts, I looked toward Dorman.
I saw the weasel, covered in blood. If a health bar were visible, it would surely be stained red by now.
I was about to join it at once.
THUNK!
I felt a strange sense of wrongness in my abdomen.
Immediately lowering my head to check—damn. I saw an arrow lodged in my belly.
"I-I'm sorry! My mana's now……!"
The situation I'd feared most had come to pass.
The Sylph's duration, and the mage's mana pool, had both bottomed out.
"Shut up and hide!"
A rain of arrows poured toward the direction the mage's voice had come from.
'<Rapid Fire>?'
An archer-exclusive skill that can fire dozens of arrows at once.
Considering Reina's level, the number of incoming arrows was probably between ten and twenty, but thinking about that now meant little.
I too hurriedly hid behind nearby cover.
'What do I do?'
Hiding isn't the answer.
The moment Dorman kills the weasel, we lose anyway.
That archer bastard knows it too, which is why she's stalling.
'Whew…….'
Do I have to accept the bleeding here?
Forcing myself to ignore the pain in my belly and steadying my breath, I was about to break quickly from cover.
KRAAAAAK……!
A beast's howl rang out from a distance—
['Blade Weasel' has become incapacitated.]
"Fuck."
Properly fucked, now.
***
After the weasel's death cry, the area sank into silence.
Only the occasional sound of wind could be heard, and to me, it was an ominous silence.
The pain in my wrist remained, and the arrow lodged in my abdomen was a nagging problem.
Just as I was wondering whether I could even run in this state.
"You little rat. Where are you hiding?"
Dorman's voice.
Then came footsteps, as if searching the surroundings.
"It's been a while since anyone bothered me this much. You don't seem like an ordinary Delver—what exactly are you?"
A stove-tender, you son of a bitch.
Anyway, that guy. His breathing is fairly ragged.
Meaning he hadn't come away without stamina loss.
'Or is that an act too?'
Until I confirmed it with my own eyes, I couldn't be certain of a single thing.
"Not coming out? Hey…… keep hiding and it's only worse for you. Come out quietly and I'll kill you painlessly. You weren't our target to begin with."
A hollow laugh escaped me.
Why does that bastard keep spouting bullshit that wouldn't fool anyone?
'His voice seems to be getting a little farther away.'
Should I run?
No matter how I thought about it, the odds were far too low.
Dorman's level is over 30. A Delver of barely 20—one with an arm cut off, at that—had me struggling. This wasn't an opponent I could beat.
……In that case, the problem, as expected, is the archer watching the situation from hiding somewhere.
'…….'
No time to hesitate. When I judged Dorman's voice had grown fairly distant, I kicked off the ground at once.
"Eleven o'clock!"
Along with the archer's shout, I heard what sounded like someone immediately closing in from behind.
'Shit.'
This bastard—just how fast is he?
I should have secured at least several dozen meters of distance, but I could feel the gap shrinking at a tremendous pace.
The sound of wind brushing past my ears somehow sounded like Dorman's laughter.
"You run pretty well, don't you? Run hard. The later you're caught, the more painfully you'll die."
Sinister bastard.
Judging by how well he was jabbering, the act of being short of breath had been a fake after all.
Dorman was already treating me like a fish already caught—and that was the truth, too.
"I'll slice you starting from the toes with a knife. I've experimented—most don't die until about the calves. How long will you last, I wonder?"
I didn't have the leisure to reply, so I kept running.
Feeling the distance shrink by the second, I tried to think of a few countermeasures, but none seemed likely to work.
WHIZZ.
Amid that, I heard the sound of an arrow.
Don't tell me it reaches even at this distance?
In the game, an archer's range was several dozen meters at most.
Being a quarter-view game, attacks rarely reached enemies outside the screen.
Snick.
Fuck.
The instant the arrow grazed my earlobe, I remembered once again that this was reality.
With the game turned real, archers had gained the insane shooting ability of hitting targets from several hundred meters or more, at night.
And to think it could hit so precisely while I overlapped with their own ally.
'Goddamned fantasy world.'
Given the physical abilities of the melee fighters, it wasn't strange, but I couldn't help feeling the unfairness of it.
Fortunately, my destination was finally coming into view ahead…….
But Dorman's presence had already surged to within arm's reach.
The moment I heard what sounded like a sword being drawn behind me, I turned at once and swung the scythe.
CLAAANG!
The sound of metal clashing.
Having turned mid-run, I had no choice but to roll straight to the ground.
The moment Dorman closed in after that, I threw the dirt I'd grabbed while rolling at him.
'Damn.'
Dorman dodged it, as if he'd expected it.
Of course.
Tactics like this only work well the first time or two. I'd spammed so many petty tricks that my opponent had adapted.
"Kukuku!"
Dorman swung his sword with a chuckle.
The moment I felt this would be hard to dodge.
THUNG—
Along with a heavy sound different from anything before, something cut the air, and Dorman, just about to attack, doubled over at the waist.
"Fuck……!"
While Dorman spat out a curse, I quickly rose to my feet and ran again.
"Reina, you moron! Who are you shooting at?!"
Reina? No.
The sound just now was clearly different from the sound of a bowstring being drawn.
A blunter, rougher sound.
'A crossbow?'
Is there another helper?
Or…….
It was no stage for confirming this or that, but one thing was clear. The split second someone had bought for me had saved my life.
Tap!
Leaving Dorman behind, I ran again.
My abdomen with the arrow lodged in it hurt almost unbearably now, but I paid it no mind and ran at full speed.
Fortunately, I couldn't sense Dorman following, and I was finally able to reach my destination.
[Entering the <Forest of Eternity>.]
……Done.
Having come this far, I might be able to shake Dorman now.
The forest's terrain, especially the early map, was drawn precisely in my head.
Rustle.
But instead of continuing to run, I hid myself in the nearby undergrowth.
Why?
Because I'd never had any intention of running away to begin with.
[The tutorial has ended.]
<Forest of Shadows>, true to its name, is a game whose main stage is the forest.
A colossal forest occupying more than half of this world.
Fighting the countless enemies that exist there, finding rare treasures, and uncovering the world's secrets is the purpose of <FoS>.
In other words, the entire process before entering the Forest of Eternity is nothing but a tutorial.
Therefore…….
[Conditions have been met.]
[The <Achievement Shop> has been unlocked.]
[Achievement Points can now be used.]
There are functions that only unlock once you enter the forest.
[Achievement Points Held: 12,615,151]
Now, it's time for the counterattack.