30

One Stone

After Corvis led him back to the nullshard fragment, Rian went searching for more of the higher-level fellings to practice his parrying. He was confident in his armor stat now to face the quadriform, but the best case would be taking no damage from it at all. They were supposedly the hardest mob on the first layer of the Overworld, and he wanted to be prepared. It was definitely a gatekeeper, a mini-boss that would test his abilities for the Overworld’s second layer—at level 20 and up.

That, and the way it had taunted him earlier meant it was about to get what was coming.

With over twenty points in Strength and DEX, Rian felt much lighter on his feet, and he was fighting for entire minutes instead of mere seconds before getting winded. The buff from Corvis’s meal was even giving him a little boost to his stamina and EXP gain.

Against the fellings, he focused on refining his form to maximize the damage of his punches. Kicking a bird probably wasn’t going to work out too well. Punches would have to do.

With the shattered remains of five more fellings in his wake, Rian looked out over the forest as the wind-chimes played almost hauntingly, their rising tones carrying along the wind between the trees.

LEVEL UP! (Lv. 17→18)

You have gained 10 Max HP! (567→577)

You have gained 10 Max MP! (355→365)

Available attribute points +2

He was worried about Kat showing up tomorrow and seeing how many levels he’d gained out of nowhere, but he figured so long as he stayed below level 20, it’d be fine. He could simply pass it off as him being really into the game, having gotten into the level-grind shortly after she’d logged out.

After looting the dead stumps of their materials, he brought up his stat page, then hesitated. Was INT or DEX going to help him more here? His instincts told him DEX, but he had an idea. Something he wanted to test.

Without allocating the points, he kept his stat page open and approached another felling. Timing it, he deflected an attack from the felling’s tendrils. Time slowed for an instant.

He glanced at his INT stat.

It had skyrocketed into the 50s. As the slow-down ended, his INT returned to its original value: a measly seven.

He dashed away, found a tree to hide behind to lose aggro and think things over. It was as he’d suspected: his in-game perception went absolutely bonkers after landing a parry, and that was what caused the slow-down effect. It was temporary, but the boost was massive.

He wondered if the experience of playing a magical class was always like that, walking around with time passing so slowly. It didn’t sound plausible that people would be able to play the game that way, with time passing differently between all of them. Maybe the time-dilation effect was on-demand in certain situations or temporary like it was for him during parries. It wouldn’t surprise him if high-INT mages were secretly gods at parrying, but their lack of armor and health meant they could barely withstand doing so. They probably didn’t get a damage bonus from it like him, at least. It was a peculiar thought.

Placing the two points into INT, the perception bonus worked: he could see slightly better in the dark, though the moonlight was helping somewhat. It was hard to judge the difference beyond placebo at first, but when he jumped back into combat, it felt easier to predict the fellings’ movements and land cleaner parries against their lashing tendrils. It wasn’t just because he’d gotten used to fighting them all night, either—they rarely attacked the same way twice, so the stat boost really was making it easier.

Feeling confident, he returned to the nullshard fragment, then set off toward the spot where he’d found the quadriform. When he glanced over his shoulder, Corvis was following him.

When Rian arrived at the same spot as before, the enormous owl creature was still sitting, perched on a tree branch.

“I’m back, asshole,” Rian said.

Again the quadriform opened its eyes and screeched, then spread its wings and approached. It lunged for Rian, its hypnotic golden eyes rotating.

He tried to watch for the talons, but it was hard to see beneath the light of those illusory coins, an image projecting from its face. He swept his hand aside, hoping he’d timed it to land the parry.

Claws raked his arm.

You have taken 129 damage! (HP: 448/577)

He recoiled, stumbling as the quadriform soared past. It darted behind the trees. The sun was starting to rise, but the sky was still dark enough for Rian to lose sight of the creature. There weren’t any fellings nearby, so even the forest itself was silent.

Corvis was sitting with his back against a tree and looking rather amused at Rian’s struggle.

Focus, Rian thought. He could worry about how incompetent he looked later.

He cast Heal while he still could, channeling the skill while standing in place, and listened as his HP began to tick back up. With the faintest sound of rushing wind, the quadriform approached from beyond the trees.

Man, if I had a projectile, this would be so much easier than—

He glanced down, and there was a stone resting by his feet. One of the mini-game stones that Kat had been throwing around.

He picked it up, tested its weight in his hand, then wound up as the quadriform came hurtling toward him. Lining it up the best he could, he threw.

The stone struck it dead in the face. The owl creature wailed and closed some of its eyes as it descended toward Rian, but its talons still reached for him.

Seeing more clearly with half the glowing eyes out of the way, Rian positioned his hand beyond the claw and nudged its leg aside, triggering Parry.

With slow-motion precision, he punched its chest and sent it hurtling toward a tree.

You have dealt 156 damage! (Quadriform’s HP: 244/400)

Flailing its wings, it caught itself upon the tree trunk and dug its talons into the bark, shook its head, then reopened its eyes and glared at him. The eerie, golden lights played on the air.

Taking off, it swooped toward him at head-level, then spread its wings just before it came near. Rian attempted to parry, only to swipe at nothing.

He’d gone for it too early—the creature had redirected itself mid-flight. A feint.

A claw tore against his chest.

You have taken 98 damage! (HP: 452/577)

Your “Trainee’s Karate Uniform +4” is 33% destroyed!

He shuddered at the feeling of talons digging into and across his skin, though it wasn’t painful. His HP was fine thanks to casting Heal earlier, but that second notification was exactly what he’d been afraid of.

He attempted to swat at the owl to prevent it from doing any more damage, but it retreated, again soaring into the forest. Rian could even feel the wind on his chest, where his uniform had been torn open.

When the creature came back around to dive-bomb him, Rian pitched another stone at it, only to watch as the owl barrel rolled out of the way. With a few rapid wing-strokes, it slowed its approach and swiped its talons at his face even as Rian attempted to dodge.

You have taken 152 damage! (HP: 300/577)

You have been blinded! (Time remaining: 4 seconds)

Shit, not good. Really not good. He hadn’t even thought it could inflict status effects on him, though now it was obvious by the way it was going for his face. He’d been about to run for the nullshard fragment to get out of the fight and recuperate, but now he couldn’t see which way to go.

He could hear the owl flying right in front of him, screeching, the whistling of its claws still searching for him. He swiped at the creature, hoping more so to hit it away than to parry anything while he couldn’t see.

Out of sheer luck, the parry went off.

The momentary surge of INT was like a light had turned on, revealing a sense of the quadriform’s shape in front of him like an image flashing in his mind’s eye. In that fraction of a second, he could even see the trees beyond it.

He lined up a jab, knocking the owl back and taking off a sliver of its health. Watching it tumble away mid-air, Rian listened to his instincts and dashed forward.

Status reverted: Blind (Time remaining: 0 seconds)

It all flowed together into a combo attack: with the dark forest returning to vision, he came out of the dash and swung just as the owl struggled to regain flight. His fist connected, the creature’s wings folding from the sudden acceleration, and slammed it into a tree trunk.

Leaping forward and off the ground, Rian kicked it hard enough into the tree that he almost expected to feel its bones crushing. For an instant, he thought it happened: something gave way beneath him. But as he landed and watched the creature in front of him fall to the ground, lifeless, he saw that the bark of the tree itself had cracked. He’d hit it hard enough to nearly split the tree itself.

He was stronger than he thought, even with his Strength stat hardly over 20.

You have gained experience! (+99)

The body of the quadriform became hollow as mists spread from it. The haze coalesced into four gold coins which split into sixteen, then thirty-two, arranged in a perfect circle. They levitated off the ground and entered Rian’s inventory.

The stamina drain from the whole fight had only started to show itself. The green bar on Rian’s HUD slowly crept up as he stood in place, looking over the remains of the creature.

That’s right, Rian thought, nearly out of breath. I can—

A second quadiformes came hurtling toward him from out of the dark, screaming.

Another one?!

“Ah, yes,” Corvis said. “I forgot to mention—”

Of course you forgot to—

Rian cast Earthen Harmonics with only an instant to spare. He stepped out of the way of more talons in search of his face.

Wind rushed past as the creature flew by. Ascending, it looped upwards, traveling in a circle before righting itself in front of the moon, eyes shimmering.

How smart are these things? he thought. Was this what was spying on me, earlier? Did it know I was going to fight one of them and came for backup?

A moment later, the second quadriform sped toward him, tucking its wings in at first, then extending them vertically. It was diving claws-first. Like Rian was a fish in a stream.

He almost couldn’t believe it. This son of a bitch was dive-kicking him.

He dashed backward out of the way—or at least tried to, as the owl caught his chest with its claws and nearly tore his uniform apart.

You have taken 127 damage! (HP: 173/577)

Your “Trainee’s Karate Uniform +4” is 66% destroyed!

It swung a wing at him, and Rian threw out his arm to parry it.

His mind raced as everything else slowed down. With the moment given to him, Rian began to sprint at the tree that was right behind him. He almost didn’t need to do anything—it felt entirely natural, like he’d done this before.

With the second owl still struggling to maintain flight in slow-motion, Rian ran up the tree as time resumed its normal pace. He kicked off and spun sideways. Extending his leg, he lined up his foot with the back of the owl’s neck and let gravity and the centrifugal force of his spin do the rest.

A red damage number exploded onto the air.

Critical hit! You have dealt 299 damage! (Quadriform’s HP: 101/400)

The owl crashed into the ground, stunned. As it attempted to right itself, Rian landed, came running up, and brought his foot all the way back.

He punted the owl into the forest.

You have dealt 111 damage! (Quadriform’s HP: 0/400)

You have gained experience! (+99)

Watching the dead owl’s body flail into the dark, Rian rested his hands on his knees. That’s right! Out of breath, he tasted the air in gulps as it filled his lungs. I…can do this!

His stamina bar was sitting at 5%. He wanted to shout into the forest—to taunt anything else that wanted to come get a piece of him, but the rational part of his mind told him to stay silent, heal up, and listen for yet a third creature coming to ambush him.

Nothing happened, thankfully. After he’d regained his HP with Heal, he spent a minute or two walking around to gather a handful of leather scraps from the corpses. The second quadriform hadn’t gone very far, despite his football-style punt.

He hesitated when he found it. Like the one before it, the body was hollowed out, but the feathers remained. The patterns on its coat matched—exactly—the one from before.

It shouldn’t have bugged him, but he knew from Jensen’s farm and all the fellings he’d killed that each creature was always slightly different. And yet for some reason these two quadriforms were the same.

***

As Rian returned to the nullshard, light emerged over the horizon. A foreign sun, filling the sky with color. The forest was alive again with a morning glow, all the grass and trees shining with dew.

He stopped to watch, sighing with pride. He’d survived his first day. Mostly. It had been close, and he’d struggled quite a bit, but he’d still done it.

It was as his mom had told him. In the end, it didn’t matter how close you were to defeat; a win was still a win.

He looked over his inventory to see all that he’d collected overnight: an entire 24 leather scraps, but not enough gold to form another tesseract.

“You might want to repair your equipment,” Corvis said, stretching, “before the majority of the off-worlders wake up.”

When Rian looked, the Mark on his arm was half-exposed with the damage the two fights had done. The tears on the front of his jacket went across his chest to his left shoulder. He attempted to hold up some of the frayed pieces and stick them back to his shoulder, but it wasn’t working. He swore silently to himself, as he had enough materials but not enough tesseracts to convert them and perform the actual repairing process, which worked the same way as upgrading.

If he had to go back into town to find an NPC or someone to repair his equipment for him, he was screwed. It’d be too dangerous to walk around with nothing but his hand covering the Mark.

That was, unless…

An idea blossomed. He opened his equipment page and took off the Trainee’s Karate Uniform.

As he’d thought, he reverted to the default clothes rather than becoming shirtless. In place of his torso item was a plain, gray t-shirt. He’d been wearing that during the tutorial, he remembered, before he’d even gotten any equipment at all.

The sleeves barely reached far enough to cover his shoulder, but it worked.

He found a nice place to sit in half-sync and watch the sunrise, waiting for the members of Moonlight to begin logging on.