Chapter 28

Sorry, I Can't Help It

‘We found the cave! Me and Hawkeye will go there.’

‘Alright.’

‘Samara is carrying Agatha to support you.’

‘We’re almost there!’

‘Count on me!’

‘Please be careful.’

‘I will.’

‘Don’t die on us, Siva.’

‘I won’t.’

As the conversation went on in the communication line, Siva’s attention was slightly diverted from his opponent and a black scale the dragon shot out from the sky destroyed the rock he was hiding at.

The blast threw him off balance and his HP on his upper left vision dropped by a staggering 10%. Now, he was only left with a mere 56% of his total HP and with his painful wounds, his movements and reactions were getting slow.

“Shit.”

The dragon landed and started a tackle. Siva stood up and ran forward to meet the dragon. The dragon’s head attack was just like that of a Heron but its size was three times more that it was a foolish act if he had to meet it head on.

And so what he did was jump and he landed on the dragon’s back but as soon as he changed his equipment to the Ender, the scales on the dragon’s back hardened and some fins sharp enough to cut started to shoot out.

Its size was no less than his finger but the force of it was enough to shoot him off the dragon’s back.

His HP dropped by 18% and the needle like fins has made the wounds bleed, making him lose 1% HP every three seconds.

“This is impossible…I can‘t get close.”

Siva gritted his teeth as he pulled the needles from his arms and body one by one. The minimal defenses offered by his long sleeve shirt and pants were rather a disadvantage at this point.

But he couldn’t help it.

If he were to wear an armor, not only it was heavy, it would also hinder his movements, especially since he had a unique fighting style that relied heavily on agility and quick reflexive movements.

The dragon roared once again, and he knew that an attack was coming. His initial thought is to jump back but his instincts told him to jump to the side.

And as soon as he followed his instincts, a shadow fell from over head that smashed right through where he previously stood. It was the dragon’s tail and basing on how deep the dent on the ground was after that, he would have died instantly even if his HP was 100%.

Just how much powerful is this dragon?

As he thought of how regretful it was, he was even more shocked when he saw the tail’s end had some spiked bones in it. The tail moved and he knew what was coming next as he jumped up just in time to dodge a sweeping attack.

He kicked the air tried to stab the tail with his sword but it was moving too quickly and he missed.

As he pulled the sword from the ground, the dragon faced him and it roared angrily seeing that his opponent had survived.

“Heh. Yes I‘m alive you monster!”

And at that moment, two B-ranked monsters arrived in the scene and they glared angrily on the small human facing the dragon.

Those B-ranked monsters all had eyes shaded in grey that indicated that they were under Siva’s spell.

“Blasted ability!”

Just as he exclaimed, his body was engulfed in a bluish white light and his HP regenerated, and his wounds along with its pain disappeared.

He knew then that help had arrived.

Facing the dragon, Siva clenched his fist as he cook a plan to escape.

‘And you still found this situation exciting?!’

He heard Agatha’s voice scolding him from the party chat line over the communicator‘s receiver on his ear piece. Following that is Samara who had shouted, ‘Stop screwing around!’ angrily.

‘Sorry. I can’t help it. I was provoked by the dragon and his disappointed look.’

‘Whatever, just get out of there!’

‘I can’t.’ Siva answered and from a hundred meters away, Agatha’s face frowned.

‘Why?’

‘I still haven’t received Volt’s report.’

At that, Samara flew up and pointed her cannons.

‘I’ll help out. Agatha, you contact them.’

‘Wait! Don’t leave me!’

‘Just scream if ever you’re in trouble.’ And she flew up, denying gravity, and started firing off on the B-rank monsters who resisted her attacks 2 to 1. It took two shots of those larger ones before he took down one.

Siva’s eyes wandered around as six B-rank monsters added some weights on his problem. And just when the nearest two B-ranked monsters started to attack, the dragon reacted and bit their heads to death.

“Well, well, well…what do you know…”

‘So their relationships aren‘t that good?’

‘Seems like it.’

On the other side, Samara was also smiling on the fact that they just discovered something precious.

Siva smiled and thought of a plan and so he used the dragon’s small distraction to dash forward, avoiding three Raptors, the B-ranked monsters with their wings turned to clawed limbs, 15 meters high, can crawl into four limbs, and had a brown body with crocodile scales on their backs to their tails.

The monsters followed him with their fangs, totally ignoring the black skinned dragon who then saw that as a threat to his prey and attacked them instead.

On the southern horizon, just a few tens of meters away from Agatha, came ape-like B-rank monsters with one eye and pink fur. These are Cyclops Monkeys with four arms and short legs. They are literally monkeys only with pinks furs and their four hands each holding an uprooted tree.

GRAAAAAWWWWRRRRR…

There were four of them and the roar frightened the lone Agatha who hid herself in the trees and mentally transformed from a human to a flea.

The four Cyclops Monkeys charged right at Siva’s direction, totally ignoring Agatha, and upon seeing this, the dragon also roared in anger as it met them, seeming to defend Siva.

“So it really is a prideful creature.” Siva murmured and jumped to cling on the dragon’s neck who seemed to have forgotten the fact that he was still there.

Just as before, the dragon’s back had this instinctive reflex to shoot out needles but for some reason, the gap that is his neck had no such feat whatsoever. At this, he thought of how to deal with a dragon and suddenly realized that they aren’t that scary after all.

You just have to discover their weakness and thus, you can gain an advantage against them.

But then again, away from his demented thoughts, this realization only applied on his case. That’s because no normal user in their right minds would attack a dragon head on…

…alone.

Just like rodeo, Siva used the sword and stabbed the dragon’s neck. That gave him two important things in return.

The first was that for the first time, he dealt damage to the dragon. And second, he now had something firm and solid to cling on. Tough luck, just like a rodeo ride, lasting 20 seconds riding a wild beast who wanted you off his back was already a feat. But him, he’s been there for 30 seconds and he still had no plans on letting go.

It’s because if does, the first thing that might happen to him is that he may become B-rank monster food, or, he may become dragon chow.

Either choices weren’t options and so he desperately clung on the sword enduring the fatigued arms and the world switching poles as if his life depended on.

Actually, his life does depend on it.

‘Vooooooooollttttt…!’ He shouted on the chat line.

‘We’re almost there!’

‘Shit! Don’t forget to hang yourself when you reach the top, okay?’

‘Screw you! This is your idea in the first place!’

‘I can’t hold on much longer…!!’

‘Just continue acting cool!’

‘I hope you slip!’

‘Whoaaaaa…shut up!’

‘Move your ass damn it!’

As the two argued in the line, Agatha who was left alone in some random part of the plain could only smile as he enjoyed the funny conversation while muttering a mantra to avert her fright.

“Please don‘t notice me… Please don‘t notice me… Please don‘t notice me… Please don‘t notice me…”

***

Volt clang on to the vine formation that measured only a few meters in circumference and slipped. He yell out angrily to the person he’s talking to in the chat line and while all of this was happening, Hawkeye could hear a prayer in the back ground.

She was looking at his brother from thirty meters away, clinging on the swaying vine formation on her own. There are hundreds of them pulling the island in the sky back to the ground and in between them were a few blocks of rock, Hoverstones, that was the reason the island in the sky was floating.

Hoverstones had the ability to lift anything up to a certain degree basing on the size of the stones. The bigger the chunk are, the heavier the object it can lift and the higher it can go.

And in this case, Hawkeye could clearly see the large chunk of rock that was below the floating island.

Basing on its position as she looked down, she could see the large lake below. And if she would fall from this height, she knew that she would be safe because of the lake below.

At that, she spoke up, “I think that lake is where this floating island was supposed to have been.”

“I thought so too.” Volt’s voice echoed back. “Let‘s hurry. That guy may have sounded joking but fighting a dragon wasn‘t easy.”

“You‘re right.”

Hawkeye and Volt climbed. She jumped from the chunk that was being held by the vines and agilely transferred from one place to another. She was like a cat jumping off from roof to roof, her body was as light as feather that seemed to ignore the strong winds that rejected her body.

She saw Volt trying to do the same but since he was heavier and wasn’t used to dodging monster attacks, he could only jump normally and use the Hoverstone as a landing pad to catch his weight.

There were only a few tens of meters more before they reached the edge of the floating island.

Since the island seemed to have been floating there for a long time, the forest that was untouched by culture began to grow as a rainforest.

Hawkeye reached the edge first and ran towards her brother. She saw him and helped him climbed up and at that, Volt immediately summoned the Nanobots in his inventory and started the scan.

After a while, the Nanobots came back and the 3D image of the floating island appeared in front of them.

“Here!” Volt exclaimed as he pointed out on a part in the map area. The area in the 3D map zoomed in and he manipulated the rendering to display the topography and he saw the temple that should have been where the altar was.

“It’s in the middle of the island.”

Volt stood up and fixed the weapon on his back and the hilt protruded on his right shoulder. “We should be careful. Let‘s go.”

The two ran and proceeded on a straight line. There were no monsters in their vicinity and the place featured a beautiful scenery. The vista of an old temple in the middle of the forest, lighted up by the sun (Sol for the Terrans) from in between the leaves of the tall trees gave off a serene atmosphere that left a soft impression.

The bright light and the contrast of the deep shadow of the untouched forest overlapped with the temple’s image and the created projection could only be called a master piece of nature.

“Beautiful.”

Unable to stop her urge, Hawkeye summoned a tiny device from her inventory and attached it on her left temple and started to record.

Volt took the first step, “Let‘s go.”, and went inside the temple where they immediately saw an empty altar.

“This…”

“Kuya! There‘s nothing here!”

The two searched but there was nothing in the altar.

“We‘ve been tricked!” shouted Volt and it was heard in the party chat line.

‘You’ve got to be mistaken!’ Siva’s voice shouted in the other line. ‘There’s no way an NPC would lie about a mission!’

“But there was nothing here!”

“Kuya’s right. There‘s nothing inside this temple!”

‘Temple?! Who ever said anything about a temple?!’

And as if the two realized something, they conversed with their glances and Volt summoned back the map and began to scan its surroundings. And then it was a few seconds later that Hawkeye pointed a dent on the hill somewhere close by the temple.

“That‘s it!” Volt exclaimed. “Siva, hold on for a few minutes more. We found the cave!”

‘Stop talking! Just go!’

At that, Volt led the running while Hawkeye paused to record a part of the wall where some sort of words were written in an ancient alphabet she can’t read. And then, she ran and followed.

But upon reaching the entrance of the temple, Volt held out an open palm.

“What is it?” She asked and Volt cocked his head to point Hawkeye’s glance towards the front. And it was there that the missing monsters were gathered reaching over fifty.

“Is this part of the mission‘s challenge?”

“Kuya…”

On his sister’s anxious call, Volt pulled his sword and had a beam radiating on his lips that was closely similar to Siva’s berserker mode grin.

“That damn bastard.” He said that sent shivers to his sister. “Is his ability a virus or something?”