READ NOVEL ONLINE Chapter 1.3
Once we had to hide from a group of four bugbears, giant bears capable of walking on two legs and far too agile for their large bodies but the party had some herbs to mask our scent and our scout saw them from far enough away we had time to hide, we still stayed in place for almost ten minutes after they passed us just to make sure before Mord patted me on the shoulder “Lucky you, we’d probably get away but no way could you outrun those things if we got into a fight”
Then we finally made our way outside the forest and I saw a large stretch of land with wooden corridors running all over the place forming cliffs covered in glowing blue moss and a large carpet of hip high grass, without the trees to block vision we were immediately noticed by a group of seven lizardman wielding metallic flowers, four of them had long spears made from rose stalks, their blades a sharp red rose bud while another two had large wooden clubs and the last one had a blooming flower as a shield and a large sword.
After a second of hesitation the lizardman with a shield released a loud roar and they all charged us in a mad rush, Scott threw a few daggers at him but the lizard blocked them all with ease so he changed targets and managed to hit the eye of a spear wielder causing it to stumble and slow the others down giving our tank time to get ready, when they were very close Guile hid his head behind his shield and released a counter charge, exploding into movement so fast even my eyes couldn’t keep up he smashed straight into one of them like a bowling ball while sending two others sprawling the blow so hard he broke the one he had aimed for leaving it twitching into the ground.
Mord dashed ahead of the group and engaged the shield wielder in single combat while Scott finished off one of the fallen lizards before they could recover and engaged another dancing around its stabs he used the dagger to parry the spear letting it pass his side before grabbing the shaft and getting in close with the beast, the Lizard dropped the spear and attempted to bite him but it was too late his dagger piercing right through the beast’s neck.
Guile started trading blows with a club wielding lizard when the last one managed to flank him, remembering everything I had seen from both blade wielders I pulled my sword out of my back and corrected my grip then used Scott’s footword to dash across the field and release a devastating downward slash on the Lizard’s lifted arm, the blow was perfect cutting deep into the lizard’s biceps to the point I felt it’s bones breaking but not cutting all the way through, the beast reacted faster than I thought possible twisting around to claw at me and yanking my sword out of my hands, with a sore wrist I avoided a new scar by millimeters as I kicked away from the lizard and found two of Scott’s throwing daggers on my belt.
My sharingan had watched the man throw the things more than a hundred times by now so I let instinct take over not thinking about my actions, swinging both arms the daggers flew towards the irate lizard one of them hitting it in the snout and bouncing away as I didn’t have enough strength to pierce its hide but the other pierced its eye causing it to thrash and scream in pain then start running away.
“hey!” I screamed seeing my sword still stuck on its arm, thankfully Guile had managed to finish his opponent, dropping his shield the nearly nacked man dashed after the beast and pounced, using both hands he swung his mace and pulverized the lizard’s knee actually sending its leg flying then caving it’s head in when it fell down.
Grabbing the dead Lizard by its remaining leg Guile happily waved at me and dragged the corpse through the grass leaving a large train of blood behind him, then he grabbed the sword and pulled it loose before throwing it to me “Thanks for the save newbie, careful with your weapon, its from average materials but well made”
“Thanks” putting the sword away I picked my knife and started digging for the magic stone, cutting at an humanoid’s chest left me with a queasy feeling in my stomach, they were a little too close to humans for my liking but I ignored it and by the third one it barely affected me, turning to the resting Guile by my side I asked “why’re we after Battle boars anyway, if we want money wouldn’t any monster do?”
"Usually yeah” the barbarian said and spilled some cold water over his head to refresh himself “but with the Goliath holding up the way for the last two days Rivira is bound to run out of food soon and Battle Boars are one of the few beasts to drop meat”
“Hey Newbie, less talking, more harvesting!” Screamed Mord from the shade of a tree while Scott kept an eye out for new threats “Come on I could do a better job!”
“Asshole” I cursed again but I was already starting to get the impression the bastard just liked messing with people.
“Don’t mind the boss he’s a softy inside” Guile confessed while I gathered a few Lizardman’s nails that had dropped and kept them in the bag, “Come on our goal is just ahead”
Another two lizardman parties latter and we reached our target, a large wooden clif wall with a dozen ropes hanging from it, before reaching the top there were two small huts hanging halfway off the cliff like bird’s nests with large spikes in a circular position protecting the base, the spikes were made from tree trunks and positioned with just enough space between them for a human to pass comfortably, some of the spikes were rotted and one had fallen down and started to be decomposed by the blue moss while vines were trying to claim the suspended houses with the wall itself seeming to eat at the structures.
“Yeah it seems we’re gonna have to tell Bors to put some new spikes in, come on newbie get cutting” Mord shouted and all four of us started to clear the place of vines and check that everything was alright “Damn dungeon keeps trying to fix the terrain so Bors has to fix things every week of two but monster farms like this are how the city is still standing”
I could see it, despite the decrepit look the location had been giving me. I could see how three to five people could hold this location against a lot of monsters if there were not too many flying ones “Aren’t the fire birds a problem?”
“All wood on the 19 floor is fire resistance and we treat the covers making them almost impossible to burn so, as long as we kill the birds fast they aren’t a threat” Scott answered while Guile and Mord picked the spears from my pack laying one of the ground at their backs and hold one each, then Scott shouted from one of the houses “Come on kid climb in”
Pulling myself up with one of the ropes I used my dagger to clear the vines from the second house and saw the wall was really eating the little building, slowly dragging the structure inside itself. It'd probably take another month but the house would eventually be consumed by the wooden clif.
Inside the house was a small bag with two small potions and a large crossbow with a lot of bolts spread on the floor, some of them were even engulfed by the wall already, gathering the mess of ammunition I pilled them all against the window and turned towards my companion watching him load the crossbow just by pulling it’s string, shaking my head I lowered the crossbow and used my entire body to arm it not wanting to tire myself out trying to imitate the level 2.
“Everything ready boss?”
“Ready!” Mord shouted back while stretching his arm and I watched as he pulled one of his pouches off his belt and threw it behind the two warriors, it immediately started smoking and, soon after I started hearing roars “Aha here they come!”
Turning my head towards the horizon my increased vision soon caught sight of the monsters, they were spread out and in small groups but there were a lot of them running our way, at least 40 lizardman were leading the charge but they soon got outpaced by a group of large Bugbears and at least 20 Battle Boars, the swines were almost two meters tall with tusks the size of swords and must have weighed almost a ton, then came the centipedes and other insects.
The dragonfly’s made it to our spot first, large and with long bodies only a little smaller than a man there were 10 of them and they started pelting our position making Guile raise his shield for protection, Scott immediately started sniping them down taking out two of the things before they even noticed but I didn’t feel comfortable wasting ammunition on the things since they were too thing and agile, then the first bolt of fire hit his position making him duck down as three Firebirds took turns bombarding his position.
Lifting my own crossbow I aimed at one of the birds flying lazily in the air and shoot hitting it squarely in the chest, my sharingan making the feat easy, the other two birds scattered and, while I took my time reloading, Scott took out a second and another two dragonflies.
I missed the second shoot since every enemy had started flying as fast as it could but at least they had started focusing on us allowing the two on the ground to focus on receiving the first charge, Battle Boars and Bugbears reached first, their large and fast bodies punishing the ground when a battle boar got one of its legs stuck in a hole and flipped, I could hear the sound of it’s leg breaking even a kilometer away and then a bugbear hit his fallen body sending them both sprawling.
Another five of the large monsters fell in the small holes while two bugbears actually got impaled in large spike traps on the ground, the wooden spikes weren’t enough to immediately kill the muscled beasts but they were quickly stomped to death by those behind them.
The first Bugbear to reach the circle triet to jump over the spikes but choose one of the better ones and it didn’t snap under the beast’s weight, the monster was stuck there trying to climb up long enough that I just took my time and used my third shoot to pierce one of it’s large eyes, the crossbow having enough strength to drive the bolt right into its brain.
The spike circle funneled the beasts right to the only opening being guarded by the two warriors and they braced themselves receiving the first two battle boars right on their spears and killing the monsters instantly, kicking their bodies away they had time to receive a second charge killing another bugbear and wounding a battle boar before one of their spears snapped and they had to retreat a little, Mord picked up the second spear and the fight truly started as the warriors fought to keep too many monsters from entering the protected circle.
Scott finally took out the last firebird and I actually managed to clip a dragonfly’s wing causing it to fall down on top of some monster, the first centipedes started arriving and climbing over the larger beasts to get to the humans inside forcing Guile to exchange his own spear for the mace and keep the bugs away while his party leader killed the larger monsters.
With the monsters bashing themselves against the spikes and starting to climb over themselves to reach our spots our two tanks started working overtime to keep them from overwhelming our position but it was clearly a losing battle.
How the hell were they going to deal with this?
