Usually, if you think of a world traveler, you think of someone who enjoys seeing the sights or who likes meeting people from a bunch of different backgrounds.

However, it’s safe to say that I counted as a world traveler, and I had next to no interest in any of that stuff.

That’s not to say that I didn’t have my share of meetings anyway…

---

Despite Jake’s warning, I lived up to my cocky statement and crossed the river with no issue.

I probably would have had problems if I had been trying to fight the current, but I just ignored it and let it push me west as I swam north.

However, there was some merit to what he said. The river took a while to cross, and I did lose a decent amount of stamina. It still wasn’t anywhere close to my full bar, and even if it had been, it wouldn’t have mattered. If I had run out of stamina, I could have just rested in the river.

Either way, I swam into the shallows, stood up, and walked onto the shore. Then, I hit myself with some [Fire Strikes] to dry off.

“Pumil. Home of the dwarves,” I muttered as I looked around. I didn’t exactly see anything that screamed “dwarves,” but then again, it’s not like all of the biomes I had traveled through up to that point screamed “humans” either.

I frowned. I had been toying with a plan ever since I had felt how strong the current was, and the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. With a sigh, I turned to the east and started running alongside the river.

What was my game plan? Use the river that ran to the north to propel me towards the Ice Dungeon. I could just let the current do most of the work.

I was a little bit bummed that I wouldn’t get to see much of Pumil, and there was a chance I wouldn’t even see a dwarf. However, that was probably for the best.

“At least this way, I can’t accidentally spawn a monster wave, right?”

I frowned as I turned that statement over in my head. If I’m just underwater letting the current carry me, there’s no way I can tell if I’m headed into civilized territory until it’s too late. What if they have zones that overlap the river? Do I have to give up on using the river after all?

I eventually came to a conclusion. I can just use the river during the day, hop out at night, and then run until morning.

A workable plan established, I relegated my focus back to making sure I was “resting.” I continued like that through the entire next day. However, I ran into an issue. Or more like… A lack of an issue.

My running was so uneventful that I was starting to get worried.

“Shouldn’t some wolves have attacked by now?” I murmured to myself. Could Pumil have a different set of monsters? Or maybe it’s because I’m in a river biome or something?

I cast a glance back over at the river.

“You aren’t actually spawning a bunch of monsters and then just sending them downstream, right?” I asked. I glared at it as if it would tell me its secrets.

The body of water said nothing, but it did wave.

I giggled a bit to myself as I thought about that pun.

I’ve… Spent way too much time by myself.

Anyway, my paranoia was continually ramping up, but I didn’t have the time to stand around watching a river and trying to prove a negative. I kept running and hoped that I wasn’t accidentally screwing over a bunch of people downstream just by existing.

Eventually, I came into vision range of some of the “great central mountains.” By that, I mean that it went from just being sky over the small hills that I was crossing to huge mountains in the distance.

I had experienced many weird things since coming to Placeholder, but I have to admit that its peculiar handling of render distance was probably the most jarring.

Either way, I soon came to the source of the Pumil-Vir river. The river was just… Gushing out of the side of a mountain.

That was enough to make me pause.

“Okay, I don’t know much about how geography’s supposed to work, but aren’t there supposed to be other rivers that feed into it? Or isn’t it supposed to have a source somewhere up the mountain?”

I could just imagine whoever, or whatever, had stitched this world together. Just stick some water source blocks[1] on the side of a mountain! It’ll be fine!

However, that did mark the end of the road. It was time to go around the mountains and try to find the next river.

“What was the other one called?” I asked as I kept running. “It was the… elf kingdom slash Pumil river. But… What was the name of the elf kingdom again?”

It was some kind of planty-naturey name. It started with a… T? Or was it a D?

I kept running, but that thought bugged me for more reasons than one. I mean, having something on the tip of your tongue but you can’t quite remember it is an annoying feeling. However, my main concern was that it was something that I had forgotten.

Am I forgetting more stuff? I asked myself. I had already forgotten most of my life back on Earth, and I was getting paranoid that it was happening again.

I spent so long worrying, trying to remember what I might have forgotten that I did something that I hadn’t done in ages.

I ran myself completely out of stamina.

It turns out that if you want to cheat the System into thinking you’re resting, you have to actually focus on that.

I stopped, doubled over, and started breathing heavily. Even though I still didn’t need to do that last bit.

Then I heard wolf howls.

I breathed a sigh of relief before catching myself. Things had been going smoothly for long enough that I was getting paranoid, so I was relieved to have a nice simple problem crop up.

As I reflected on my reaction, there was only one thing I could think.

That’s pretty messed up.

However, it was hardly a fight worth noting. I summoned a dave, rolled it in the direction of the wolves, and then tried to catch my breath… Metaphorically that is. Anyway, by the time the dave took down its customary 5 wolves, I had a few SP back and was able to take the others down.

I waited and summoned another one for cleanup duty and then took off at a slightly slower pace.

I waited until my SP was back to full before switching back to my normal speed, and after a few days, I made it to the next river.

I stared at the water dubiously at first. “I still have no idea if there are any river-based monsters.” I shrugged. “Guess I’m going to find out.”

I dove into the river and swam part of the way to the center. After that, I let the current carry me along, and I waited.

I constantly looked around for threats, but after several minutes, I gave up.

I’m just going to go crazy. If something spawns, I’m sure I can take it. I’ll just handle it then.

That decision made, I finally remembered what I had put off for the past several days. Thinking about my memory.

I guess I should just try to remember everything that’s happened since I got here? See if there are any holes?

I slowly went through all of my memories since coming to Placeholder.

There were a lot of them, and several of them were ones I would rather not focus on. However, I managed to piece together pretty much everything from end to end. That made me realize something.

Has it really only been a year since I got sent here? I shook my head and blew some bubbles in exasperation. This has been the longest year of my life by far. I also realized that several small details were missing in my memories, but that just seemed… Normal.

I guess [Memory Protection] doesn’t give me perfect recall… I was slightly bummed about that for a second until I realized exactly what I’d be remembering. Never mind, I guess I’m kind of grateful for that.

After that, I decided it would be more efficient if I didn’t leave everything to the current.

I started swimming with a rest in between strokes. It took a while, but I eventually got that figured out for stamina usage too.

From there, I alternated between swimming and running just like I planned.

Unfortunately, my plan didn’t end up mattering.

I was running up a hill and was on the lookout for civilization when I found it.

System: Zone entered, Riverside Village. Faction - Pumil

System: You have entered an opposing faction’s zone after midnight. Valid allied or unclaimed zone is adjacent. Beginning monster wave

“What!? You’ve gotta be kidding me!” I groaned. I ran into the middle of the village and tried to listen for the wave. Despite what I said when I bluffed about making a monster wave to the party, it was still true that I didn’t know where it would come from.

Surprisingly, I heard an alarm bell ringing.

Okay, looks like it’s not a sleep effect this time, at least. Wonder what it will be?

I finally heard the howls, and I took off running towards them.

As I went, I passed frantic dwarves running out of their houses. I also got a decent look at the village, and it honestly wasn’t that different from the human ones I’d seen. The only difference was the decreased sizes of the houses and the fact that their obelisk was brown instead of blue.

Guess I get to see dwarves, after all. I internally sighed. I otherwise ignored them and sprinted towards the wave at top speed.

When I finally saw it, it didn’t look any different from the wave that had attacked Faroff. I didn’t bother trying to count the normal wolves, but I counted 5 alphas and 3 bears.

I wasn’t worried about the numbers. I was mostly just worried about getting them all to attack me.

I had an idea for that.

“[Form Army]!” I said.

System: Choose army name

I humorlessly noted that I no longer had to choose a faction. I picked the first name that came to my mind for the army name. “Useless.”

System: Useless army has been created for the Demon Lord Faction

“Halt!” I called to my new army.

The monsters stopped in place. I could practically feel the confusion radiating off them.

I slowly walked up to the closest wolf. I made a show of examining it for a second. Then I punted it back into the horde.

My [General] class was practically screaming a warning that my army was close to disbanding or mutiny, so I decided it needed one more push. “Now, come at me.”

The wolves started lunging at me even as I got a message.

System: Useless army has been disbanded

This makes the third time I’ve had my army disband themselves instead of using [Disband Army]. I idly noted as I put down three lunging wolves with quick strikes.

I decided to make use of my aura similar to the way I had back outside of HoldOver. I alternated fear and wrath and steadily worked my way through the wave.

I summoned some daves and punched them at the bears since they were the only real threat. That left me to deal with the alpha wolves by hand, but I found out that it only took me 4 [Fire Strikes] to kill them.

Meanwhile, I vaguely heard a bit of commotion on the fringe of the wave. It was hard to focus on anything when dealing with 2 auras, but I caught snippets.

“…Attacks… weaker…”

“…In the middle… Demon…”

“[Overchannel]… [Air Bolt]!”

That last one was enough to get my attention.

Oh, nice. Some help with the mobs. I wonder which group he’s firing at?

I turned and found out I was wrong on two accounts. First, it was a woman who was channeling the overly large ball of air. Second, and more importantly, it was fired in my direction.

The bolt was already fired and on the way by the time I turned. I wasn’t fast enough to [Disrupt] it, and the [Overchanneled] [Air Bolt] struck true.

I grunted in pain as a gust of wind exploded and took down all the mobs surrounding me.

I’m getting really tired of [Wizards] thinking they can just AOE friendlies. I looked around and realized that despite my misgivings, that had been the last group of monsters left. I guess it works.

“Nice shot,” I called. I started jogging back towards the village, which consequently was in the same direction as the adventuring party that had come to “help.”

I finally got a good look at them. They had a [Knight], a [Warrior], a [Wizard], and a [Ranger]. They all had their weapons out, and the [Ranger’s] arrow was pointed in my direction. I ignored the threat and said, “Loot’s all yours.”

However, their party’s [Knight] stood in my path with his shield at the ready. “Stand down [Demon Lord]. We won’t let you harm this village!”

Guess word has spread. I facepalmed. “Look. Yeah, I accidentally spawned a monster wave, but I took care of it. See?” I gestured at the corpses around me. “I’m just going through the village to get back to the river.”

“He… Must be lying!” the [Ranger] said.

You know what? This isn’t worth it. “Fine,” I said. “You know what? I’ll just go around.”

I turned to my left, which was north, and barely took a step before an arrow lodged into the ground right in front of me.

“We can’t let you do that either!” the [Ranger] called.

I turned and gave him a flat look. “[Identify].” I paused for a second as I read his level. “Look. You guys are level 7. You haven’t even beat a dungeon. Now, [Identify] me.” I continued on as the [Wizard] took my advice and blanched. “This isn’t a fight you can win. However, I don’t even want to fight you. So, just let me go.”

“We… should probably listen to him,” the [Wizard] finally said softly.

“Very well,” the [Knight] replied. “But how will we know that you won’t turn back and cause problems for Riverside village?”

“Because I don’t have time for that, even if I wanted to!” I snapped. I paused for a second as that put the party back on high alert. I took a few deep and unnecessary breaths and came to a solution. It took a few seconds to draft the terms, but I offered the [Knight] a duel.

“Here!” I said.

“A duel in… rock-paper-scissors?” he asked. “And if I win, lose… or even draw, you won’t harm anyone from this village?”

“Congrats. You can read,” I snarked.

“And it really works like that?” the [Wizard] asked. “What’s going to keep you to those terms?”

“For the love of… The System itself enforces the terms! I couldn’t back out of them if I wanted to!”

I thought that would reassure her, but the [Wizard] turned pale. “Any terms?”

I gave her a quizzical look. “Yeah, just about?”

“That’s absolutely terrifying. Couldn’t that basically be used for slavery? And does it also affect mental processes?” She shuddered. “Duels might be even more frightening than the [Demon Lord].”

The rest of the party nodded in agreement. Then they all simultaneously clutched their heads.

“Sure. Patch the duels. Why the frick not?” I muttered to myself. I waited until they were done and then tried to figure out what had changed. “So, where were we at?”

The [Wizard] looked confused. “You were… Attempting to send a duel? But there was a problem. It must have not gone through.”

Let’s try this again.

I tried to set up the same terms, but I got a message.

System: ERROR. Imbalanced duel. Terms heavily favor a single party. Canceling

Great. Fantastic.

I tried to set up my not “harming the village” as only a win reward, but that was also considered imbalanced. That left trying to put something of equal worth on each side. I decided to throw in “the party will leave the [Demon Lord] alone” if I won instead.

When that error was finally overcome, I got a different message.

System: ERROR. Invalid conditions for duel. Valid duels must be combat-oriented

Can’t favor a single party. Have to have combat… How the heck will System reconcile that with my duels with Sam? Or my duel with the [King]?

After that, it was back to trying to make the error message change. I can’t believe I ended up debugging even after being isekaied.

I shook my head and tried to make it a fight to the first hit. That finally did it, but I got yet another message.

System: WARNING. You are not currently in a zone that is tied to a faction with a legal system. Breaking the terms of this duel will be considered a global offense that you can be tried for in any kingdom

Wait. Isn’t breaking the terms of the duel supposed to be impossible? I groaned and canceled it. Guess they patched that out. Unless I’m mistaken, it looks like a duel is just a legal agreement now.

I looked at the failed duel invite, then back to the party. I’m just done. I activated my fear aura on full blast towards them. They cowered a bit, but to their credit, none of them ran away. They even followed me as I walked through the village.

As soon as I made it to the river, I dove in and was off without another word.

----

The [Wizard] breathed a sigh of relief. “I think that went about as well as we could have hoped,” she said.

The [Knight] nodded. “Yeah. If that’s how strong he is in his normal form…” He shook his head. “It’s a good thing the [Message] warned not to engage, but do you think the few minutes we bought are going to help?”

She sighed. “I don’t know. But we did all that we could. We can only hope the [Hero] catches up to him soon.”

They drifted off to silence after that.

The party watched the [Demon Lord] swim into the night and could only hope something more powerful than them could delay him.

----

I continued my travels northward. Very little of note happened for quite some time, except I ran into another monster wave scenario on the other side of the river.

Pretty much the same thing happened as the last time. The village was even named Riverside, which I was sure would become horribly confusing if the elves and dwarves ever established trade.

The only differences that time around were that there were elves instead of dwarves and that I got to see their dark green obelisk. Oh, I suppose I did also get a reminder of their faction name.

Dryadal. I knew it was a planty name of some kind. I nodded to myself as I kicked another wolf from the wave.

Another difference was that I was stopped by not one but two parties after I was done killing the wave. I was sure that I would have to fight my way out of there, but I was surprised when they let me go after only holding me up for a bit.

Other than that, my trip was boring. Swimming and running for days on end while growing more and more worried that I had yet to enter a snowy/icy biome like I was looking for.

Eventually, I hit the end of the line.

I was swimming along, doing my regular resting routine, when I suddenly felt something change. I ignored it at first, but as I kept swimming, it finally bugged me enough to stop.

I resurfaced and took a look around.

The river banks were behind me, and I was now in a lake.

I swam back to the shore even as I pondered that. I wish I had the [Hero’s] map perk. It’d be really helpful right about now. I pulled myself up onto solid ground and took a better look around. I couldn’t see across the entire body of water ahead of me. Dang, this is a really big lake.

As I looked to the east and west, I didn’t see the shore curving around it, though.

I came to a realization and groaned. “This isn’t a lake. Is it?”

I frowned and looked back the way I came.

I didn’t accidentally pass the dungeon, did I? I couldn’t even climb a hill or a mountain to get a better idea of where I was trying to go because of render distance.

I sat down for the first time in weeks and thought.

What do I know? I tried to think about the logic that Placeholder’s world had. I don’t think I passed any colder biomes, and it should have been noticeable if I did… Right? I thought back over the swamp biome and how it had been warm even during the winter. So, either it is farther to the east or west, and I passed it. Or…

I looked across the calm body of water ahead of me.

“Given my luck, I think I know the answer,” I said with a sigh. “You could also be an ocean for all I know, huh?”

For most people in a world with a medieval tech level, crossing a sea or an ocean would require preparations. You needed a boat, a crew, and to make sure you had enough supplies for the entire trip there and back. It’s also a good idea to have a way to navigate, at least a compass, though maps and star charts wouldn’t be remiss either.

My preparations consisted of about 30 seconds of stretching after I got back to my feet. Then I dove into the water and was on my way.

The key word was once again boring.

I encountered no monsters as I swam, and I didn’t even have a chance to get out of the water to break up the monotony.

The only bit of excitement I had was when I encountered a brief storm that threatened to throw me off course. I was pretty sure that I was still pointed in the right direction after it, so I decided to keep going.

I confirmed that with the sun the following day. However, that night, I made sure to look up at the stars and find a cluster that I could use to point north. I didn’t want to get turned around at night and lose time. I was worried that it wouldn’t help because stars move, but I discovered that wasn’t the case in Placeholder anyway.

The only other things of note were that I encountered a few more storms and had my [Athletics] skill hit level 5.

Then, I finally found frosty terra firma… Say that 5 times fast.

As I pulled myself up onto the ice, the first thing I noticed was that it was pretty dang cold. I fixed that by [Fire Striking] myself dry, and then I took a look around.

I didn’t see much. Snow was being blown around by the wind, and I had limited visibility.

“Here we are,” I said. “Now to find a dungeon.”

I tried to take off at a run, but I slipped. I instead crashed through the ice and splashed into the water below it.

“Got it,” I said as I pulled myself out of my newly created hole in the ice. “Slow and steady.” I [Fire Striked] myself dry again and then took off at a very sedate pace.

That paid off, and I only slipped and fell three more times before making it to snow-covered ground that was a lot less slippery.

From there, it was time to run again and look for the ice dungeon.

As I ran, I started wondering. What kind of mobs will this biome have? I idly thought about all of the other biomes. How plains and forests had wolves and bears, the swamp had stranglevines and crocs, and then mountains had trolls and… “gargoyles.” Maybe I’ll be lucky, and it’ll be like the river and the ocean where nothing spawns.

The wolf howls that I heard in the distance immediately let me know that I wouldn’t be that fortunate.

“More freaking wolves?” I asked the air. “I came all the way to the arctic, just to find more wolves?”

I kept running until I saw the first one. When I did, it was enough to make me pause.

The wolf was bigger, and instead of black, its fur was a dark grey.

“[Identify],” I cast.

“Level 5 dark tundra wolf, eh?” I asked the oncoming foe. “So, I guess the cannon-fodder up here are about as strong as an alpha down south.”

Despite that, they went down almost the same as a typical dark wolf. The only difference was that it took two [Fire Strikes] to kill one of them instead of a single punch.

I was starting to wonder what the big deal with these wolves was supposed to be when one of them dropped back. It sucked air in for a few seconds and then blew it out in my direction.

A breath attack? I didn’t dodge in time, but it didn’t matter. I only felt a chill that was a little bit colder than the ambient weather. I checked my status anyway, just to confirm, but I was right that I hadn’t taken any damage.

By the time I was done with that, the tundra wolf had recovered and leaped at me. I punched it to the side with a [Fire Strike] and then kicked it with another one when it landed to finish it off.

“Phew,” I said when it was done. “I need to make sure not to draw too big of a wave with these guys. I mean, I already lost…” I flipped open my status and checked my SP. “47 SP? Wait.”

I closed my status, looked around at the bodies, and started counting.

“There are 11 of them. Times 2 is 22. Times 3 is… 66. What the heck? How did I regain 19 SP?” I opened my status and then flipped to skills on a hunch. “Well, there it is,” I muttered. “Level 4 [Elemental Strike]. I didn’t think I used that enough to level it.”

I thought back to the mountains that I had almost exclusively climbed with [Earth Strikes]. I also realized that I hadn’t actually checked my skill levels since then.

“You know,” I said out loud to the System. “It would be really nice to actually be told when you level things up. Like most video games do. A little pop-up. Maybe even a nice jingle.”

The wind and snow kept blowing, and I figured that was about how much the System cared about my complaints.

I shrugged and tried to figure out which way was north. Then I paused. Wait. I don’t know for sure that I need to keep going north. Those giant ice walls surrounding the dungeon could be anywhere up here.

I looked around, but the blizzard that was gradually amping up wasn’t exactly giving me much to work with.

I can either sit around and wait for this to die down or just pick a direction and go.

I opted for the latter and started walking. I didn’t want to run, both because I had stamina to get back and because I didn’t know what I’d be stumbling into.

I walked for the rest of the day. I got attacked only one more time, and I was grateful that it looked like the spawn rates were at least normal for the wilderness, even if the monsters were stronger than usual.

Then it was nighttime. The blizzard had still not let up. In fact, it was getting worse, and I could barely see three feet in front of me. I was starting to get worried that the land I found was cloaked in a blizzard perpetually.

I encountered more tundra wolves too. I assumed that they would have trouble locating me and attacking because of the howling wind and low visibility. However, if the blizzard impacted them at all, they didn’t show it.

I had to rely purely on my reflexes to see and hit them as they seemed to appear from practically nowhere mid-lunge.

I took damage from that fight, which was the first time wolves had managed to hurt me in quite some time. While I could react quickly enough to lash out with a [Fire Strike] at any wolf that came from my front or side, I still couldn’t see behind me. I managed to mitigate that by blasting fear aura out behind me and then wrath aura toward my front, but it seems like it was less effective since I wasn’t targeting specific enemies. Either that or their extra levels meant that they were resisting it more.

The end result was that I killed all of them and kept moving forward slowly, but with a great deal more concern. I can expect several more attacks like that throughout the night. I’d love to just hole up somewhere and wait all this out. I looked around and snorted. But it would be a miracle if I managed to find anywhere like that, right?

I had a choice between pressing on and staying right where I was at, so I pressed on. I hoped I could at least find some better terrain to wait out the blizzard.

When I finally found myself going uphill, I wasn’t sure if I had found what I wanted.

It should at least make it harder to get to me, right?

I continued walking. However, the blizzard had gotten even worse, and I could barely see my hand when I held it in front of my face. My walking turned into a bit of a stumble as I couldn’t tell where I needed to place my foot to continue my slow ascent.

It turned to disaster when I put my foot forward, and it hung in midair.

I tried to keep my balance, but my footing gave way. I turned and grasped at the top of the hill as I fell, but I didn’t find any purchase.

I fell and slid to a patch of ice at the bottom.

System: Zone entered, Gert Ice Plains. Faction - Neutral

I stared in horror at the notification. No.

I tried to scramble back up the hill I had come from, but it was all ice, and I didn’t find anything to hold onto. “No!”

I didn’t even hear the howls before the first wolf tore into my back.

I hit it with 2 quick [Fire Strike] elbows, and it fell to the ground.

I turned to face my attackers, even though I couldn’t see them, and the fight was on.

At first, it seemed like things were going my way. With the icy hillside to my back, I didn’t have to worry about any attacks coming from behind. That meant I was able to avoid damage for the first several minutes.

Then a larger wolf slammed into me and took me to the ground. I barely managed a cast of [Identify] even as I frantically beat on it to get it off me.

The alphas are level 10!? To make matters worse, it took 15 hits to kill the dang thing. That was 30 SP down the drain.

I can’t keep this up. I need to get out of the zone.

I tried to rest in between attacks, but I couldn’t manage it when the attacks could come at any time. I also had more to worry about than just being bit or clawed because, on occasion, an alpha would blow a breath attack at me that I couldn’t even see coming.

Unlike their smaller counterparts, their attacks did damage. I also got a worrying message.

System: You are chilled, and your movements are slowed

I hit myself with a [Fire Strike].

System: You are no longer chilled

Good, at least that still works. And it did work, at least until the next breath attack, when I had to repeat the same process yet again.

Then I heard a deeper roar, and I knew I’d be forced into wrath form.

A grey bear swatted me to the side, and I went tumbling. I made it back up to my feet, but I no longer had my back to the wall.

I lasted a few scant seconds before I got the notification.

System: Critical HP Detected. Sufficient Level Detected. Demon Lord Form detected. Auto-activating Demon Lord Form.

System: Attempting to activate Wrath Form

I laughed humorlessly. I guess I get to live for another hour or so. Assuming that wrath form even helps in this blizzard.

System: Wrath Form Activated

----

Wrath form turned out to be very helpful in the blizzard. The gouts of flame that licked off my body were hot enough to melt the snow blowing around me, and my visibility increased quite a bit.

However, that didn’t seem to actually matter. Even when I cleared out all the enemies around me, I instinctively knew where the next ones were and ran in their direction. I also didn’t seem to have a problem striking enemies hidden outside the area that my flames reached.

None of the monsters there could really oppose me, though the bears and alphas did actually manage to damage my demon lord form with ice breaths.

However, whether by accident or by plan, they drew me further and further into the zone.

Needless to say, with wrath in charge, I didn’t even notice. I only wanted to kill the enemies in front of me.

That lasted right up until the time limit.

----

System: Time Limit Reached. Wrath Form Deactivated

When I came back to myself, I saw nothing but a flat sheet of ice in all directions. Well, ice and a sparse trail of bodies, but I was more concerned with the less familiar feature.

That meant I had at least one good piece of news. The blizzard had died down.

The bad news was that I was trapped in a high spawn-rate zone that was pumping out level 5s like it was going out of style.

I found myself surrounded pretty quickly. I tried to settle into a rhythm for resting, dodging, and punching. I also had to switch between auras once again to get it to work.

That meant that I wouldn’t be able to hold it forever, as my night outside of HoldOver had taught me.

To make matters worse, I saw an alpha and a bear on the way.

Since my morale couldn’t go any lower, I decided to cast on an [Identify] on the grey monstrosity.

Level 16 Dark Polar Bear. That is the stupidest name I have ever heard, and it’s even worse because it’s probably going to kill me.

Fortunately, I was so slow on killing the tundra wolves that the bear couldn’t reach me. The ring of enemies that had been such a problem for me was now playing a vital role in saving my life.

Even better, it looked like the alpha was facing the same problem, and none of them seemed willing to use their breath attack because of their friendlies that were in the way.

I snorted when I saw that.

These monsters have more compassion for their allies than every [Wizard] I’ve seen.

I dodged and punched another wolf.

Okay, now I just need to slowly whittle these down and…

I paused that thought.

Wait. If I kill the tundra wolves, the alphas will get to me. I looked as more tundra wolves ran over and joined the ring around me.

I dodged and decided not to punch the next wolf.

Also, there should be an enemy cap, right? That means that any wolf I kill could be replaced by an alpha or a bear. I remembered the dave-alanche that had been caused by almost the same scenario.

Maybe it was a genius plan to decrease the number of elite enemies, or maybe it was just stalling the inevitable. Either way, I went with it and stopped attacking the tundra wolves. I dodged, evaded, and occasionally threw them but tried my best not to damage them.

I instead tried to whittle away at the alphas and bears by summoning a dave whenever I had the mana and punching it at them. However, mana regenerated much slower than stamina, and it wasn’t a one-shot, one-kill type scenario like it usually was with daves. These monsters had enough HP, and enough brainpower, that they were able to dislodge or kill the dave before it was able to kill them.

There were two more timers that I was banking on. I had only a few hours until morning where I was hoping the spawn rate would be down low enough to work with, and I had a bit under 24 hours until wrath form was back up. I hoped I could get a better solution before wrath form was back up because I wasn’t sure I could hold out that long.

Either way, I managed to stay focused and juggle everything for the next few hours until morning. By then, I was fairly certain that I had reached the monster cap. Unfortunately, I had only managed to take out 2 alphas with daves during that time, and several more alphas and 2 bears had spawned.

I frowned as I made that brief observation.

I can’t hold this forever. I need to start clearing.

I started attacking the wolves with straight punches. I knew I didn’t have enough SP to [Fire Strike] them all, so I didn’t even bother trying.

I was still managing to avoid damage, but I was also holding back an ever-growing panic that told me that I wasn’t going to make it out of there at that rate.

That changed when I heard a horn echo over the icy plains.

What the frick?

I turned halfway toward it before remembering that combat is not the time to get distracted. I punched the next leaping wolf instead and decided to just keep my ears open.

The next thing I heard was a commanding woman’s voice. “Raiding party… Charge!”

That was followed by yells and screams of dozens of people.

I was too curious at that point. After my next attack, I quickly looked up just in time to see a horde of shirtless, screaming men and women with greataxes charging at the army of monsters surrounding me.

I had only one conclusion to draw. [Berserkers]. I looked at the wolves surrounding me. “Guess I can’t leave all of you to them.” I switched over to [Fire Strikes] and began clearing out some of the wolves around me.

Meanwhile, the [Berserkers] were also doing work, and the number of tundra wolves was dropping precipitously.

However, that gave the alphas and bears more room to maneuver. One of the bears broke off from encircling me to go attack the [Berserkers]. It swatted two of them aside and sent them sprawling and then hit them with an icy breath that left them chilled.

I need to help! However, a mass of tundra wolves stood between that polar bear and me, and I didn’t have the mana to summon a dave.

As it swatted another group of [Berserkers] aside with ease, I made up my mind.

Screw it. Let’s go!

I amped up my fear aura, screamed my own battle cry, and charged through the horde of wolves.

I don’t know if it was because of the fear aura or because the wolves were slightly intelligent, and they couldn’t believe someone would be that stupid, but I made it through while only taking 6 attacks.

Those 6 attacks took 186 HP from me, but that was a minor detail because my idiotic plan had worked!

Which meant it was time to follow it up with another, even more idiotic, one.

I ran at the polar bear that was facing away from me. I jumped with all my might and landed on its back. After that, all I could do was hang on for dear life and pepper it with [Fire Strikes].

Not that the bear was going to just let me do that without a fight.

When it noticed that it wasn’t able to shake me off, it went to the next thing it could think of. It slammed its back into the ground with me still on it.

I didn’t have time to check my status. All I could do was try to race it in damage as it tried to shake me off or knock me off by slamming me into the ground.

Then I got perhaps the most terrifying System message of my life.

System: Critical HP Detected. Sufficient Level Detected. Demon Lord Form detected. Auto-activating Demon Lord Form.

System: Attempting to activate Wrath Form

System: Wrath Form on cooldown. Canceling

I couldn’t outrun the bear if I got off, and I was sure even its ice breath would kill me.

I doubled down on attacking while internally screaming censored expletives.

It reared up to slam me into the ice again, and I landed one last [Fire Strike].

The bear collapsed on top of me… Dead.

I breathed a sigh of relief even as I was being smothered by the giant monster.

You know… I think I’ll just chill here for a bit.

The howls, ice breaths, and other wolf attacks that I could hear just outside of my improvised safe haven proved that I made the right choice.

I quickly checked my status and found out that “critical HP” wasn’t as low as I thought. I was still at 36. That’s not exactly a lot, but it didn’t seem very “critical” either.

Maybe it activates around 10%? I mused.

Eventually, the sounds of battle outside died down.

I heard the same commanding voice come again. “You said that he was over here? Why don’t I see him?” I couldn’t quite hear the response, but I heard her reply. “Don’t backtalk me, whippersnapper! I’ll whip your asp!”

Whippersnapper?

“Hey! Are you alive under there?”

“Uhh, yeah! Can you help me get this off?” I asked.

“Sure thing. On three.” She paused for a second. “One, two, three!”

I shoved with all my might, and we pushed the beast off me. Then, I finally made eye contact with the woman who had been commanding that entire horde.

“Well, I’ll be. It is you,” she said.

Meanwhile, my mouth had gone dry, and I felt like every fear aura I had ever used was concentrated on me all at once.

I managed to squeak out. “Hi… Gertrude.”

[1] Water source block – Minecraft reference. A water source block makes running water blocks that slowly peter out at a max range of 8 blocks. However, if running water goes downhill that number refreshes making it possible for 1 water source block to make theoretically infinite running water blocks.