“So, this is the forest you mentioned earlier? This is the opposite direction of where I explored earlier.” I pawed the ground, making a small mound of snow. Even after spending several hours playing the game, I still couldn’t get over the fact that I feel like I own this centaur-like body. If I was out in the real world, I couldn’t even conceptualize how I would control six limbs. “So, Little Pony. Where’s the place you collect dry wood? The trees here don’t look dead to me. And they’re very thick.” I have some experience making fire in places with snow. When I was a teenager, we would go camping in various places all over the country; that was before my father died.

“Let us go inside. Be careful of the beasts that moved here,” Little Pony said.

“Unresponsive as always,” I said. We passed a couple of snow rats, which I promptly killed. I probably should have gone here when I was looking for them.

Rustling leaves followed by snow dropping from the trees above made us stop.

We looked up and saw a hairy animal hanging from a branch, glaring at us with its beady red eyes. It grabbed on a branch with its powerful thick tail.

“Woah, is that a hand at the end of its tail?” I said. A large hand with four fingers ending in wicked claws was attached to its tail. The creature then grabbed the branch with its other hands, freeing its tail. Another one of those freaks arrived holding two stones.

“That’s the Feral Frost Macaque,” Little Pony said.

“Yeah, I can see the name. Because, you know, I have super powers here.” Macaques were monkeys. I don’t know those species, genus shit, but I know that macaque were monkeys because I once saw Japanese macaques when I traveled to Japan with my ex, former, previous, past, girlfriend. They also called the Japanese macaque as snow monkeys…and they did look like monkeys.

The angry monkey faces of these Frost Macaques peeked from a lush growth of white fur. They have way thicker fur than those snow monkeys in Japan. These little guys could be in some shampoo commercial because their fur was so damn beautiful. And they have those hands on their tails.

Another rustling branch behind us told us that another of these little fuckers have arrived. The two in front of me were level seven. The one carrying two stones handed one to his fellow who promptly grabbed it with his tail.

I sighed. “So, it’s going to be like that, huh?” I raised my shield and activated [Urus Stance]. “Little Pony, get behind me. Wait, there’s another one behind us. Just get here over my side and make yourself small.”

Monkey number one grinned, showing its fangs. Then it hung from the branches using its hands, its tail with the stone dangled beneath it. Its tail tensed and one fling, hurled the stone at me.

The stone glanced off my shield. “Heh, take that percentage chance to block projectiles, fucker. Although, you’ll probably get through because it’s percen—” A felt a static shock bit my ass followed by another rock not getting blocked. “Heh, the added armor works great.”

The macaques finished throwing their rocks then they ran down to pick up more. I charged at them but they got out of the way immediately. The other monkeys picked up some more stones while I was occupied chasing one of them. Then all of them went back up and started throwing rocks. Again.

I immediately went back to my Urus Stance. I couldn’t use the Stance when moving, because, duh, it was a stance. “These fuckers are kiting me,” I said in disgust. They’re keeping me at range and distracting me while others were killing me. That’s a strategy of players used against monsters, but these monsters were using it against me. The shame! “Shit, my charge is still too slow.”

Opening my racial tree, I glanced at the next available skills. I didn’t want to invest too much skill points in other parts of the tree that had nothing to do with being a tank because of how the skill system of Mardukryons worked.

Tank builds in almost all games I have played have a problem in dealing damage, unlike a real tank in the real world which would fuck you up big time if you thought that it was lacking in DPS or damage per second. There was no problem in the late game if you had tons of items and have comfortably settled and completed your build. With enough good items and a well thought out build, an end game tank could compete with the glass cannons in terms of damage.

The problem was early game levelling. Usually, you wouldn’t even equip a shield in low levels, and a future tank build would take up a few offensive skills to hasten levelling.

But I couldn’t do that here because skills leveled through usage, some even leveled through killing. If it wasn’t the case, I would be dual wielding right now, waving swords and simply hacking all these mobs. The skill points were also terribly precious, especially since we’re super slow in levelling and I expect that skill points would be better used when I open higher tiers of bonus skills.

All of these thoughts passed in a few seconds because I was actually still chasing the monkeys, and not just standing in the middle of the snow while having expository thoughts. The snow monkeys of Japan were way better than these virtual macaques.

Japanese macaques lounge around in hot springs. And eat bananas maybe? I don’t know if they eat bananas. I eat bananas. I should probably go back to Japan and offer the snow monkeys some bananas; hopefully, I have someone to go with me.

Maybe I should focus on my fight now.

“There’s no way I’ll be able to catch these fuckers. Should I get a ranged skill?” The nearest one, [Spear Throw], required three skill points. “Shit, I don’t want to spend that much just to finish this quest. And I can’t leave these monkey alone or I’ll get drowned by the mobs of monsters. Let’s go with this one.”

Rank 1 Kickstart- The powerful hind legs of the Mardukryons tense up, storing enormous power, that when released, drastically increase their attack.

Effects: The next normal attack, attack skill, or skill linked to a normal attack or attack skill will have its damage effects doubled.

Cost: No cost if chained with a normal attack.

50% of the stamina cost of the linked skill if this skill is chained with another skill.

Cooldown: 5 seconds if chained with a normal attack.

Double the cooldown of the linked skill if this skill is chained with another skill.

It was directly connected to [Charge] and it didn’t need any other nodes activated so I spent only one skill point. And it was an awesome skill for the cost of one skill point of deviation from the tank paths of the racial skill tree. But why does it say "Rank 1" instead of "level 1"?

I activated my new skill from Zaido, [Defense Is The Best Offense]. “You guys want to taste my awesome plus one damage?” Come to think of it, the passive skill I got from Blacksmith Sumuel also gave me added strength, hence damage.

In the corner of my eyes, I saw a couple of them drop down from the trees to get rocks. “Kickstart, charge, you bastards!” The snow exploded beneath my hooves, creating awesome effects which would surely be more awesome in slow motion. With a burst of newfound speed, I quickly closed the gap between us. My spear hit the stupid monkey as it dropped the rocks trying to escape up the tree. I knocked it back to another tree, momentarily stunning it.

Perhaps, its smaller size made it more susceptible to the knockback effects of the charge, stunning it in the process. Or was the [Kickstart] that effective? I gave it no chance to climb up, furiously stabbing it. It managed to claw at me with the hand on its tail before it died.

“Slow effect. So that hand tail thingy has that disabling skill. I should be careful not to get swarmed.”

“Big brother, over here!” Little Pony called out. He was far from me, hiding behind a thick trunk.

“Fortunately you had the presence of artificial mind not to be in the middle of the crossfire,” I said.

“Let’s hurry up Big Brother,” he said.

“Don’t call me that, Little Pony. We’re not related. I don’t want to be related to you.”

“Hurry up. Beltis might be in danger. We still have some ways to go.”

I didn’t hurry up.

Those macaques kept on showing up to pelt me with rocks. I couldn’t pass on this opportunity to level up. The monkeys were fast but squishy. With my new skill, I could catch them. When one was knockbacked, it was as good as dead.

While my [Kickstart] was on cooldown, I would use [Charge] to zip across their range, avoiding their projectiles. [Urus Stance] wasn’t really advisable here. It might prove to be useful later but it was very useless right now.

The Feral Frost Macaques would come in groups of three to five. When I killed most of their group, the others ran away and then come back after reinforcements arrived. They harassed me as we went deeper into the forest. Fortunately, Little Pony kept out of the way.

The abundance of monsters that I could actually kill made me enjoy the quest. I took my sweet time following Little Pony. Hopefully, Beltis wasn’t dead or something. If she was, I’ll have some explaining to do to Zaido.

I would just blame Little Pony.

“There she is!” shouted Little Pony.

Beltis walked on spindly legs, shaking thin trees to check if they were dead wood. She was petite for a Mardukryon. I guess I could use “petite” to describe monsters. She looked as if one good kick would kill her. Little Pony trotted up to her.

“Beltis, I’m glad you’re safe,” Little Pony said.

“Eliseph. You didn’t come by earlier so I thought I should just go. I want to help father.” Beltis to a pile of dry wood she has collected. “I’m sure father will be happy with all the firewood. He’s always away doing odd jobs because he can’t fight with Hunter-Warriors anymore.

“That’s a lot of firewood. We should go now,” Little Pony said.

“I hope you’ll be able to help me carry them. I can’t carry them all. I’ll carry half of them.”

“Don’t worry about that, Beltis. Big Brother here will carry all of them.”

“Don’t go volunteering me, you piece of shit,” I said to Little Pony. “And you,” I said to Beltis. “How the fuck are you alive? You even got here and collected this pile of wood. I killed like twenty monkeys to get here. I even leveled up.”

“You used to live with us. I remember you. I can’t even pronounce your name that time,” Beltis said. “Now, I’m grown up and help my dad. What’s your name again?”

“Heraldic Hard-on, at your service. The one and only,” I said with a bow.

“That’s a wonderful name,” Beltis said. She bowed, “Could you help us carry these.”

“Aw, I also think my name is wonderful. Even if that was probably a preprogrammed response, I think I’ll like you.” I went over to the pile of firewood. I picked it up and said, “I think I could put this in my inventory. Oh, it worked! Haha!” I turned and saw Beltis and Little Pony with fearful expressions on their faces. Following their gaze, I saw Feral Frost Macaques gathering on the trees around us.

“That’s their leader,” Little Pony said.

Another monkey appeared, slightly larger than the others. The difference was that its hair stood on their ends making it looked like an icicle porcupine monkey. And it had a slight violet glow about it.

“Level twenty-two…shit.” Only choice here was to run. “Go!” I shouted at the two kids, pointing towards the way out of the forest. They immediately followed my orders. I used my [Urus Stance] to take on the incoming hail of stones. My [Ancestral Constitution] racked up its stacks under the attacks of the monkeys, piling another ten armor on top of the ten of my stance. My life slowly went down even thought my regeneration tried to fight back; I also ate the herbs I had found while using [Item Detection] around the village. “Woah, I’m being heroic here. I’m the bait, kids. Run away quickly!”

The attacks stopped as the monkeys prepared their next wave. They weren’t even going down to attack me. I glanced back to see if the kids had run some distance already. I abandoned my stance and followed them. Rocks fell around me. I didn’t mind the damage; most of the rocks missed me anyway because I was moving.

A shriek echoed through the forest. I was sure it was the boss monkey telling his mob to follow us. Or maybe he was angry that the food wasn’t ready yet for their party. Maybe they were having a party and we crashed it that was why they were angry?

Nah, they just wanted to kill us.

I quickly caught up with the kids because I kept on using [Charge]. A monkey dropped down in front of the kids. With a kickstarted charge, I passed the kids and threw the monkey to a tree with my spear. I didn’t bother finishing it off. It was a waste of time. I glanced back.

They were catching up. The leader included. Once in a while, they would stop and throw stuff at us.

I stopped. The kids were too slow. I have to delay these monsters, but I should also stay clear of their leader. Their leader pointed at me from the back of the pack and shrieked.

The fuckers started dropping down from the trees. I charged at the nearest one, killing it. Two more were on me. Their claws applied the pesky slow effect. I charged at another monkey far from me to shake off the ones on me.

More and more dropped. I weaved through the trees, always keeping those annoying kids in my sight. Stones kept on hitting me. A couple of monkeys dropped in front of me. I dragged one of them with my charge, banging it up against a tree for added damage. Then I ended its life as three more dropped from the tree in front of me.

“Just zigzag,” I said to myself. I had to make time for the kids to get away. And if stayed in the same spot, I’m dead. The trees effectively broke up the swarm of monkeys. If this was an open field, they would have ran us down. If a group of them blocked me, I picked off one of them with a charge. I wasn’t even using [Kickstart] to chase them because they were the ones coming to me. I used [Kickstart] if a wave of rocks came.

My stamina was running low; the regeneration couldn’t keep up with my constant charging, going this way and that. I should stop playing tag with them. My health wasn't doing well, either. I need some breathing space to regen.

I galloped in a straight line for the exit of the forest, parallel to the kids. The kids didn’t have much of a head start even though I delayed the not-Japanese-macaques as much as I could.

More of them dropped from the trees while others swung across the trees heading to the same direction as us. My four eyes grew wide as I realized what they were doing. The mobs on the ground went for the kids. Interestingly, they didn’t knuckle-walk like the general image of people of monkeys on the ground. They walked with their palms. Random thoughts while doing a quest.

The monsters on the trees headed for the exit. They were trying to encircle us!

I veered to my left so that I would join the kids. I smashed through the mobs that were hot on their heels…I mean hooves. Half a dozen latched on to me. There was a flash of red in my vision as a huge chunk of my life vanished due to the amount of attacks on me.

Flinging them off of me, I used galloped to the children. “We’re nearly there!” My heart was actually thumping hard. I don’t know if it was also thumping in my real body, but I felt excitement like never before. “Run with all your might!” I called to them. “Get off me you little shits,” I said to the monkeys.

And then Beltis tripped.

“What the fuck,” I shouted. “This isn’t some horror movie!” I caught up to the kids. With my back to them, I fought off the monkeys. Face to face, it was impossible to kill one of them if I don’t use my skills because they would retreat if their health became low, and I couldn’t leave the children. Worse, the cold effect of their hand-tails was stacking. I could feel my body tensing up.

“I’m so sorry,” Beltis said, crying. “I’m just too weak.”

“Don’t you dare show weakness in front of me, the paragon of strength,” I said to her.

“I cracked my hoof,” she said.

“Her hooves didn’t get stronger because she rarely walked outside,” Little Pony explained. “You have to carry her.”

"Why don't you sacrifice yourself for us," I said to Little Pony. "Just kidding," I added.

I unequipped my shield and put my arm around her horse body. She was small and light but it was hard to carry her because my other arm was using the spear to poke away the monkeys. I glanced at the edge of the forest. It was still some distance away, but the other monkeys were getting there first. Looking back to the incoming horde, I saw the leader staring down at us from a high branch, continuously shrieking. Most likely, it was buffing the speed of its mobs.

So this is it?

If I died here, I could just come back later when I was a higher level and had better equipment.

Could I really come back? Was this the type of quest that I could continuously do until I succeeded? Or was this a one-time event. If I died here, would this be counted as a failure? “Shit, shit, shit, shit. I couldn’t allow this quest to fail. I have to save the firewood, uh, I mean Beltis.” I was more willing to bet that I couldn't do this quest again if I failed. I couldn't allow myself to die.

Fighting the impending flashing of my life before my eyes, I opened my skill tree and quickly scanned for every skill within the range of four skill points. I was level seven and has already used three of my skill points. Using my remaining skill points to survive this stupid quest was a gamble. I would throw in my lot on building good relations with Zaido. He was an Urus type of Hunter-Warrior and I could probably learn skills from him without actually joining their Lodge.

“I hope I’m right this time. I’m usually right anyway.” I dumped all my skill points in the only skill that could save me.

Lvl. 1 Critical Frenzy- Mardukryons adapt when suffering extreme injuries, tapping into their inner strength, increasing their speed during the times their bodies suffer the most.

Effect: Every 5% of Maximum Health lost will give a stacking effect of 1% increased attack and movement speed.

My life was already dropping because of the constant harassment of the monkeys. I gripped my spear near its blade and slashed across my chest. My health dropped to thirty percent. “Oh, right. My blade also has a small slow effect.” It wasn’t really a problem because the monkeys were already slowing me down. I unequipped my spear. “Follow me,” I said to Little Pony as I ran while carrying Beltis with both my arms. With a kickstarted charge, and the added effect of [Critical Frenzy] I was able to neutralize the effects of the slow.

I ran with all my might towards the group of monkeys blocking our way out of the forest.

“And for the last phase of my plan.” I opened my inventory and ate all of my Moldy Bread and other awful sounding foods I had. My life slowly trickled down as my satiety filled. The ill effects of the ruined food did not proc my [Ancestral Constitution] so my life did not regen back. I gained more and more speed as even the slow effects wore off.

I picked up Little Pony. I carried two Mardukryon kids, each under one arm. It was awkward as hell to run but I kept on speeding up as my life went down due to food poisoning.

I was careful not to let my life fall below about ten percent. Based on my experience dying to Mirdabons, I would start limping somewhere below ten percent life; I wasn’t sure about the exact amount. As my life neared the “limping threshold” I used my [Kickstart] and [Charge], along with the large bonus to movement speed because of my very low life, I was like an arrow shot from a bow. An arrow carrying a couple of baggage.

The monkeys blocking the exit went for us. I ate the last of the herbs in my inventory to push my health up. Shifting Little Pony so that I would carry him slightly to my front and using him as a shield because I hate him, I barreled through the monkeys, pushing them back; some of them even flying off because of the knockback effect and my boosted speed through [Critical Frenzy]. Even though I gained back some of my health, drastically reducing the effects of [Critical Frenzy], I retained its maximum bonuses because of chain casting [Kickstart] and [Charge], effectively maxing out my speed for the duration of the charge.

I had to heal back for my final charge because I would certainly get damaged as I pass through them.

"We're out of the forest!," the children yelled.

"I'm so awesome," I yelled in return.

And I galloped off into the horizon.