BOOOM
Dozens of snakes touched by Lili’s magic burned on the spot. The ones farther back stopped and scattered, afraid of being hit while they were vulnerable.
Did it work?
While the corruption burned, the first souls began to rise out of the smoke.
[EXP +0.5 x156]
[Nightmare Mode x2]
[EXP +156]
“Damn. I missed leveling up by a hair.”
Seven? No, eight. The chance of a snake becoming a soul was visibly lower, but there were so many that almost a dozen had appeared. Afraid the rest would come back, I ran to absorb them all.
*
[Level 1 Soul collected] x8
[No attribute gained] x8
*
Eight souls and nothing. Not a single point. I stared at the screen. Eight presents, eight rocks. Corrupted souls come empty. The blight eats whatever was inside. Noted, angrily.
“Kai, look out!” Sun shouted.
I jumped back, and a huge mass of fur passed where I’d been.
“Go!” I shouted. “The forest should be safer now. Find them while I hold this one off!”
Sun and Rafael hesitated for a second and then disappeared into the woods to do their part of the plan. Lili was drained from using her skills so much. The plan had turned into a duel against the Guardian.
“Now it’s just you and me.” I pointed the spear at the beast. “Let’s see what you can do.”
The boar snorted. It might have been a low-level guardian, but its instincts told it clearly that an inferior creature was challenging it.
Risking my life on the very first floor. If my self from the other world saw this, he’d be disappointed. Or he’d find it funny. Judging by the look of the index, disappointed.
“COME ON!”
The Guardian dragged its hoof across the ground, ready to charge. I set my stance, pointed the Hsu Quandao backward, rested the shaft against my back and opened my guard on purpose, to provoke it even more.
With the blood rushing to its head, the boar shot toward me. Just before it reached me, I drove the shaft into the ground and used the momentum to throw myself upward. It had seen that move before. It dug in its front hooves with all its strength, stopped its charge dead and threw its head up, trying to catch me on its tusks in midair.
I felt my face smile.
It wasn’t me who smiled. I was terrified, hanging in the air in front of two tusks the size of my arm. But something beneath the fear knew that moment and liked it. Black Radiance had never been an affectionate nickname.
“SHADOW EMERGENCE!”
I vanished into the void and reappeared in front of the boar, whose neck was now stretched all the way up. An easy target.
I spun the blade and hit its neck with everything I had.
Hard!
Even with it exposed, all my strength only opened a shallow cut in the hide. Thrown off balance by my own blow, I took the counterattack from the tusks and flew into the trees around the clearing.
“Damn beast,” I mumbled, spitting out the blood that had come up my throat.
The status screen of the summoned has no health bar. It didn’t need one. I was in a sorry state.
One more of those and I’m out.
The Guardian didn’t hurry. It just stamped its hoof on the ground, as if mocking my arrogance of a minute before.
“You’re a first-floor guardian. Who do you think you are?” I coughed. “Fine. Buy time. The way I am, I’m not going to hurt you anyway.”
Whoever falls here doesn’t get up, Kai. Remember that.
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Tired of waiting, the boar charged again.
“You won’t even let me breathe, huh?”
A golden glow surrounded my body, and the pain eased. I looked at Lili and saw her vomit an absurd amount of blood.
Lili.
“Hey! Stop! You’re already past your limit!” I shouted.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t the only one who noticed the healing. The Guardian snorted, furious that the duel had been dishonored, and turned its charge toward the priestess, a dozen meters to my right.
“Not a chance!”
I got up and ran to intercept it. The spear’s blade struck its tusk and stopped it, but only made it angrier. It lost control and hit back at the tip of the Hsu Quandao harder than before, and the weapon flew out of my hands.
Even with me unarmed, it didn’t change targets. There was no point in hurting me if the girl kept healing me. With no weapon, I grabbed its tusk with both hands.
“I told… you… to stop!”
[Side Quest “Lost Children” complete]
[EXP +50]
[Necklace of Whispers received]
[Congratulations, you have reached Level 2]
A few minutes earlier.
“You think Kai’s right?” asked Sun.
“Who knows. I hope so.”
The two of them were walking through the forest, following the lead Kai had given them.
“‘Go after the whispers’ sounds like suicide to me,” the boy remarked.
“But it makes sense. Every time those things got close, we heard the noise first. If we hadn’t heard it, we’d have been attacked a bunch of times. But that doesn’t mean they were the ones making the noise.”
“Wait. Meaning what?”
“If his theory’s right, there’s something else in the forest warning us when an attack is coming.”
WHOOSH
“Ow!” Sun crossed his arms over his chest.
“What is it? You hurt?”
“No. Didn’t you feel that?”
“Feel what?”
“That chill.”
“No.”
WHOOSH
A shape passed between the nearby trees again. Rafael turned at once and put his arm in front of Sun, as if the arm would solve anything. In the direction of the shape, he saw a small figure peeking out from behind a trunk.
A child?
It really did look like a little girl. When she realized she’d been seen, she hid behind the tree.
“What was that? A ghost?” Sun asked.
“No. It’s just a child.”
“A child?” Sun craned his neck. “Hey, you behind the tree, come out!”
“That’s not going to work.”
Rafael put his shield on the ground and sat cross-legged on the twig-covered earth.
“What are you doing?”
“Sit.”
“Huh. You sure? What if those things come back?”
“They won’t. And if they do, she’ll warn us.”
Sun thought for a second, concluded it was better to obey the big guy and sat down next to him.
“But why are we sitting?” he whispered.
“Trust. If you were a kid, in a dark place like this, what would you think of someone my size?”
“I’d be scared,” Sun answered, sincerely.
“That’s why I sat down. To show I’m not a threat.”
“Hm. You’re good with kids? You don’t look it. I mean, no offense.”
“None taken.” Rafael didn’t take his eyes off the tree. “I wasn’t. Until I had mine.”
Sun opened his mouth and closed it. He had learned early that some sentences aren’t meant to be answered, and that one had the color of one of them: a heavy gray, with no shine at all.
The child peeked out again. After a whole minute staring at the two seated men, she came closer, one step at a time. She was a little girl with luminous, slightly transparent skin, holding a teddy bear.
“Pla… y?” Her voice was a thread.
A blue screen appeared in front of Rafael and Sun.
[Side Quest unlocked: Lost Children]
[The Forest of Whispers did not always bear this name. Long ago, the village children played here without fear of anything. On one tragic day, the Guardian and the forest were corrupted for an unknown reason, and the children who were playing hide-and-seek were never found. Ever since, whenever an adventurer tries to cross these trees, they whisper]
[Find the lost children]
[Reward: 50 EXP + item]
[Children found: 0]
Rafael read the whole quest and answered without hesitating.
“Yes. Let’s play.”
The child let out a little squeal of joy and vanished, leaving the teddy bear behind. When Rafael picked up the toy, the quest updated.
[Children found: 1]
All around them, giggles spread through the air.
“We have to find objects in the whole forest? That’ll take forever!” Sun exclaimed.
“No. Kids have no sense of distance. What’s close for you is the other side of the world for them,” Rafael explained. “The objects can’t be far from each other.”
“Got it.”
“Let’s go. We need to get back to Kai soon.”
The two of them stood up, split up and began looking for things that didn’t belong in an ordinary forest. A few minutes later, Rafael’s screen updated.
[Children found: 2]
“I found a toy car!” Sun shouted.
Looking down, Rafael saw a little figurine: a big man in armor, holding a shield. When he pulled it, he felt something still holding one of its legs. A small hand, with no skin or muscle, only old bones, still clinging to the warrior.
He put both his hands over the little hand and carefully freed it from the toy. He didn’t let go. He prayed in silence for the child’s soul to be released from that place. It was a short prayer. He had known it by heart for years and was no longer sure he believed in it.
“You found me,” a child’s voice said right in his ear. “I knew the squire would protect me.”
Rafael bit his lip hard.
“Of course. I’d never let anything bad happen to you.”
The soul faded, little by little, until his hand held only the toy.
[Children found: 3]
Rafael kept looking at the figurine. The little shield fit entirely on the tip of his thumb.
“Sun,” he called. “Let’s go. Kai’s alone with that thing.”