When my eyes adjusted, Seoul was gone. A dense, dark forest surrounded us.
“What is this place?” asked Rafael.
“Inside the tower. Or something like that.”
Sun went over to a plant and pulled off a leaf.
“Amazing. I’ve never seen this color. It’s a grayish black, but leaning green along the vein, like wet soot. What plant is this?”
“I wouldn’t get close,” I warned. “Everything here is dangerous. Even the plants.”
“Oh. S-sorry.” He came back over to us, still eyeing the leaf, wanting to keep it.
The color of the plants made everything darker. Off the trail that cut through the forest, you couldn’t see your own hand.
“So, what’s the plan?” asked Rafael.
“There’s no plan.”
Sun shrank. Lili didn’t react.
“What do you mean, there’s no plan?” Rafael pressed. “You’re the one who brought us here!”
“Did you think it would be easy? The tower shapes itself so it can’t be read right away. That doesn’t mean it has no pattern. We just need to find it.”
New terrain. Nobody has a guide. Great, neither do I.
To be fair, I loved this. Unknown terrain was the only time the veteran and the newcomer started even, and I almost always won anyway.
“So…”
“Shhh. Quiet.”
“What?”
“Listen.”
With Rafael silent, the forest went mute again. Almost. Whispers came from every direction, too faint to become words.
“They know we’re here. Let’s keep moving. You two, materialize your weapons.”
Lili held a staff in her small hands. Sun held a brush and a palette. The boy’s “weapons” didn’t surprise me. Erebus has every kind of class, and as long as the skill is real, the look doesn’t matter. I’ve seen a bard bring down a castle with a flute.
“We’ll follow the trail. Standing still on a Nightmare floor is never a good idea. Rafael, you go in front. I’ll go in back, so nobody catches us from behind.”
The big man nodded, and we started walking. As we moved forward, the whispers faded, until the forest was silent again.
“D-did it stop?” asked Sun.
“Some floors punish anyone who stays still too long, especially on Nightmare. It’s to make life harder for anyone thinking about hiding and waiting.”
After a few minutes, I started to find the lack of monsters strange. At least one should have shown up by now.
A forest with no animals at all? Either they’re late, or they’re all together somewhere.
AWOOOOOOOOOO
A howl cut through the night.
All together, then.
“That explains it.”
“Hm?”
“It’s a pack. That’s why there aren’t any monsters loose on the trail. Wolves almost never leave the pack.”
“W-wolves?” asked Sun. “Like, wolf wolves?”
“Forget the wolves from documentaries. These are much worse. I hope you told the truth about your skill, because we’re going to need it.”
“I-I’ll be ready when it’s time!”
Ahead of Sun, Lili was starting to run out of breath. Summoned or not, her body was still that of an underfed child.
“Sun, can you carry her?”
“I-I think so. But then I can’t fight at the same time.”
“For now you don’t need to fight. Let’s pick up the pace. Rafael!”
“Yeah.”
“Speed up and don’t stop until I tell you!”
“You found a pattern?”
“I think so. Trust me.”
Rafael raised the shield in front of him and sped up, with us right behind. Seconds later, the first monster leaped out of the brush onto the trail. A wolf a meter and a half long, black fur, yellow eyes and a mouth that trembled and drooled.
[Scout Servant of the Guardian of the Black Forest]
[Health: 120/120]
[Grade: Elite]
[Status: Corrupted - Intelligence reduced, Strength increased]
“Don’t stop!”
“Right!” Rafael hit the animal head-on, without slowing down, and threw it aside.
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“I’ll take care of anything that comes from behind or the sides! Just keep going!”
“You don’t need to say it twice!”
I put the route together in my head while I ran, the way I used to in my other life. One: the shield opens the way and doesn’t kill anyone, it just pushes. Two: the ones it pushes come back and bunch up behind us. Three: when the pile is big enough, one bomb. Four: don’t die in the process. The fourth was always the hardest.
“Sun, listen carefully.”
“I-I’m listening.”
“The wolves Rafael pushes aren’t dying. Got it?”
“Oh… yes?”
“That means at some point they’re going to pile up. You know what that means?”
“Th-that I’ll have to use my skill?”
“Bull’s-eye. When I say so, put Lili down and throw the skill at the biggest group you can. Throw it without worrying about hitting me, because that won’t happen.”
“Y-you’re sure? And if it does?” he asked, panting.
“Trust me.”
Sun saw my face and straightened his.
“Yes, Sehun.”
While we ran, several wolves leaped at the two in the middle, the most fragile ones. I knocked them aside one after another with the Hsu Quandao.
Ten. Eleven. That’s enough.
“Rafael, when I say so, stop and just protect the girl!”
“Yes, Kai!”
“Sun, ready?”
“Ready!”
I planted my feet in the dirt.
“Now!”
Everyone stopped. I spun, knocked aside a wolf a hand’s width from my face and hurled it into the ones coming behind. Sun put Lili down, and Rafael planted himself in front of the two of them. The boy pulled out the palette and dragged the brush across the wood.
“G-give me five seconds!”
“Right!” I charged into the middle of the animals to keep them away from the group.
The passive for speed with polearms made the difference: by millimeters, I kept the jaws away from my neck, throwing the animals into one another and using the blind spots I created myself to break up the encirclement. It was in that dark chaos that Shadow Walk worked miracles. I turned to smoke between one wolf and the next.
Five seconds is a long time when there are twelve mouths looking at you.
“Sehun!”
“Throw the skill and trust me!”
Sun obeyed without hesitating. He swirled the brush on the palette, and the bristles turned red and began to drip a phosphorescent paint. He raised the handle, and a drop rose into the sky and swelled all at once.
Beautiful. Twenty years of Erebus, and a well-made skill still impressed me.
Realizing I was only buying time, the dozen wolves surrounded me and leaped at the same time. Before the flaming drop or the teeth could reach me, I jumped back.
“Shadow Emergence!”
The movement skill doesn’t distinguish enemy from ally. I sank into the shadow.
“Sehun!” Sun shouted, watching the flame fall on the pack.
“Why are you shouting?” asked Rafael.
“I-I must’ve hit…” Sun turned to the big man, and I came out of a throat of shadow right next to them.
“You hit the wolves,” I said. “Most of them. Nice work.”
Sun jumped back so hard he nearly fell over.
“Sehun?!”
“Hm? I said you could trust me. But don’t relax, it’s not over.”
From the middle of the flames, a few wolves came limping out, burned, their fur on fire. They looked even more frightening, but wounded, they were easy prey. Rafael and I finished them off quickly.
[EXP +5 x11]
[Nightmare Mode x2]
[EXP +110]
Double EXP. Nightmare pays well. Too bad it only pays in numbers.
“Sehun, what’s this EXP?” Sun asked. “We get stronger just with that?”
“Yeah. You must’ve seen free points on your status screen. They’re at zero now, but when you level up you get three to put into whatever attribute you want.”
“So I get ripped just by putting points in strength?”
“Not exactly. You get stronger, but muscle takes training. And remember this: EXP isn’t the only way to gain attributes. Focus your points on your class. You don’t strike me as someone who needs physical strength.”
“Was that a compliment or an insult?”
“It was an analysis.”
When the fire died down, I went to search the bodies for souls.
*
Sun couldn’t stop staring.
The fire from his skill had left a stain on the ground that anyone would have called black. Sun saw an almost purple brown at the edges, an orange that still pulsed in the center and, between the two, a band of gray that smelled of burned fur. He counted five shades without meaning to. He always counted. It was what he did when he was afraid, and he was very afraid.
The long-haired boy walked among the dead wolves and, above some of them, closed his hand in the air around something no one else could see. Sometimes he stopped. Sometimes he frowned. He didn’t look afraid. He looked like he was having fun, and Sun didn’t know whether that calmed him or scared him more.
“H-hey. Your name’s Rafael, right?” Sun asked.
“Yeah.”
“What’s he doing?”
“Who knows.” Rafael was watching too. “I don’t really know him.”
“Really? I thought you two were friends.”
“No. Nothing like that.”
But the big man kept looking at Kai the same way Sun looked at the fire: trying to count how many shades were there.
*
Not all the wolves had left a soul. Out of the dozen, only four.
[Level 1 Soul collected]
[Random physical attribute increased: Strength +1]
[Level 1 Soul collected]
[Random physical attribute increased: Vitality +1]
[Level 1 Soul collected]
[No attribute gained]
[Level 1 Soul collected]
[Random physical attribute increased: Dexterity +1]
There isn’t always a bonus. Luck, then. What’s the pattern? I filed the question in my head, along with all the others. The list was growing faster than my level.
When the fire went out for good, the forest grew dark, and the whispers came back little by little.
“Sehun, let’s go!” said Rafael.
“Right, right.”
We moved on. The forest and the wolves went quiet together.
“Why isn’t anything else showing up?” asked Sun, with Lili on his back again.
“I don’t know either. It’s too easy.”
GRRAAGH
As if karma had heard, an enormous animal appeared in front of Rafael, and this time he wasn’t the one doing the pushing.
BOOM
The man who stood nearly two meters tall stopped where the beast was. Strength against strength.
No. Rafael’s losing.
With one swipe of its paw, the beast pushed him a few steps back.
“Wh-what is that? Is it that Guardian?” asked Sun.
“No. Unfortunately, no.”
[Guard of the Guardian of the Black Forest]
[Health: 400/500]
[Grade: Elite+]
[Status: Corrupted - Intelligence reduced, Strength increased]
GRRAAAGH
Behind us, another guard appeared.
A pincer. At least somebody here did their homework.
[Name: Kai Sehun]
[Level: 1]
[Class: ???]
[Tier 1: Umbra Initiate]
[Available attribute points: 0]
[Strength: 11 (+2) > 12 (+2)]
[Dexterity: 10 (+1) > 11 (+1)]
[Intelligence: 15]
[Vitality: 8 > 9]
[Tenacity: 6]
[Luck: 8]
[Umbra: 1]
Level 1 against two beasts with five hundred health, and the group’s only bomb wouldn’t be back for an hour. However many times I redid the math, it didn’t add up.