We Hunt Monsters, page 30
Cayla looked between Keith’s outstretched arm and the pool of bubbling, smoking death before them and took the rope. She was clearly nervous as she tied it around her waist. All the while, her eyes didn’t stop darting between the pool, the rope, and the wyrm making its way down.
“Go on,” Keith said, making a shooing motion. “We don’t have all night.”
Down here, they were more sheltered from the storm than they had been at the top of the mountain. However, wind still whipped their clothes about them, snow and ice stinging their faces as lightning flickered across the sky.
Keith checked the timer on the quest, seeing that they had miraculously stayed alive for over fifteen minutes. Another fifteen, and the two biggest debuffs would be gone – not that gaining back his armor rating of thirty would make all that much difference against the monster. Still, being free of debuffs also meant that his attacks would do more damage.
Cayla stepped out onto the first piece of stone to have survived the attack, making a small island in the center of a bubbling death trap.
“I don’t like this,” she groaned before crouching and leaping to the next.
“I’d be worried if you did,” Keith replied. “Keep going.”
“Any reason you’re making her go first?” Bob asked in an undertone.
“Yes,” Keith replied. “If one of those pieces of stone is too weak to hold her, I’ll know not to step on them.”
“That’s a little cold, don’t you think?” Bob asked.
“She punched me in the face after I bought us time,” Keith replied. “I’ll consider this repayment for my pain and suffering.”
“If she falls in, she will die,” Bob said. “Why give her the rope?”
“So that she’ll think I can save her if she does,” Keith replied. “Ninety percent of any survival scenario is mental. Get too much in your own head, and your failure is guaranteed.”
Though Cayla wobbled a few times – especially near the center, where she’d been forced to make the largest jump – she made it safely to the other side without incident.
“Great,” Keith called across. “Now just hold on tight while I-”
A loud roar cut him off, and Keith looked up to see Sola just twenty feet above. The monster’s mouths cracked open, and he took off like a rocket, leaping onto the first stone and springing to the second without any hesitation. The pool of bubbling acid and molten stone was only a hundred feet across. He could probably make it before Sola could get off any really big attacks.
A wave of crackling blue fire seared and froze the air before him, forcing him to stop short, nearly tipping forward into the bubbling pool. When the beam cut off, a wall of ice stood before him, blocking his path.
“Cayla,” Keith called. “Pull the rope now!”
He backed up half a step, then dashed forward and leaped. He was trusting the woman to do her part but honestly had no idea if she would comply. Thankfully, he felt the rope go taut as he hit the face of the ice wall, then felt himself being hauled quickly to the top.
Sola roared again, and a blast of purple fire melted the wall of ice a moment after Keith leaped off, landing shakily on a stone platform a few feet away.
He continued his momentum as the wyrm turned its head, red and blue fire flickering in their respective heads. Both mouths cracked open at the same time, and Keith picked up speed, turning his jumping leaps into a full-blown sprint.
Instead of beams of fire blasting from the wyrm’s mouth as one might have expected, hundreds of red and blue sparks floated out, flashing down toward the bubbling pool at incredible speeds.
Keith knew what this skill had to be, and at Bob’s frantic urging, he dove forward to avoid it. He slammed onto solid ground as Sola’s Firefly activated. The first of the small lights slammed into the ground, exploding and leaving either porcupine-shaped patches of ice, which jutted about a foot into the air or star-shaped holes in the ground, bubbling with molten stone.
“Run!” Keith yelled, grabbing Cayla’s hand and making a dash for the tunnel entrance as the other half of the small lights swerved midair to chase them.
“Are they following us?” Cayla asked.
“Kind of,” answered Keith, leaning forward and running faster as explosions sounded behind them.
“They have a limited time of survival,” Bob explained. “Once they leave Sola’s mouth, they explode within a few seconds. But the monster can control their direction before they do.”
The tunnel shook several more times, and Keith could see flashes of red and blue as the small balls of death exploded. Thankfully, Sola was too far away for them to be hit, especially once they dashed from the tunnel’s exit and turned in the direction of the frozen lake.
“Are you sure this will work?” Cayla asked as they continued running.
“No,” Keith admitted. “But it’s the only thing I can think of.”
“Doesn’t Sola have an ice-type head?”
“I don’t think the lake will kill it,” Keith said. “I’m just hoping it can hold it long enough for our backup to arrive.”
Cayla didn’t say anything after that, concentrating instead on being able to keep up with him as he wound his way down the mountain pass at more than four times the speed of when they were coming up.
Without the need to sneak and gravity aiding their dash for safety, they reached the bottom of the slope in just ten minutes, exiting the pass and running out onto the frozen lake.
Out there, the storm raged far more violently. Snow and ice buffeted them on all sides, and the wind threatened to toss them off their feet. However, even through all of that, they could clearly see the flash of light that illuminated the night sky, followed by the roar of the monster.
“Grab your weapon and start hacking at the ice,” Keith ordered, pulling his hammer from his back. “Make a line across the lake.”
“Why?” Cayla asked. “One line won’t be enough.”
“For a monster as heavy as Sola, it will be,” said Keith, swinging his hammer down with a grunt. “Once its front legs go in, its weight will turn against it and the rest of the body will follow. Now, if you want to live, I suggest you stop talking and start working because I’m estimating we have about ten minutes before that monster arrives to kill us.”
That was more than enough to get Cayla to start doing her part, the woman’s scythe swinging down in glittering arcs and tearing chunks from the ice. Keith’s first job was to see how thick it was so he could gauge how deep the line needed to be.
He didn’t need to expose the water completely, only weaken the ice enough for the monster’s weight to be able to break it. After several more hard swings, Keith finally hit the water.
“Only six inches this time,” he said. “That’s good. It’ll mean less work.”
“Whatever you say,” Bob said, still hiding beneath his cloak.
“Why are you still here?” Keith asked, swinging the hammer once more.
“Because there’s nowhere to hide with a monster like that around,” Bob replied, reiterating his earlier statement. “I’m much safer with you.”
“Then how about you make yourself useful and give me some info on wyrms? Like why this one has a name and three heads and what weaknesses we might be able to exploit.”
“Wyrms are typically element-based monsters, such as fire, wind, water, and so on. There are also less common wyrms, like steel, lightning, and eruption, and obviously, those are far more dangerous.
“Every once in a while, though, monsters – like Sola – will mutate into something more. Those monsters become unique, and the longer they go without being stopped, the more they grow in power. A normal wyrm has the power of a field boss, meaning that they should theoretically be able to be taken down by a single fighter of a comparable level.
“If they are left for long enough or kill enough people, they will grow to a full-blown boss, and if certain requirements are met, they’ll turn into what’s chasing us now – a unique monster with overwhelming power and dangerous enough to wipe out entire guilds.”
“Any weaknesses?” Keith asked, still digging.
“As I’ve already said, wyrms don’t like heights,” Bob replied. “They’re also extremely temperamental, and because of that, they can easily be led astray. Honestly, everything you’ve done so far has been an almost textbook way of handling it. However…”
“This is a unique monster, meaning that it can act differently,” finished Keith.
Bob nodded in agreement. Sola had several passive skills that would help it survive. Armored Hide, Tri-Heart, and Massive Resilience all raised its survivability, while Magic Collider and Massive Power raised its attack power, both physically and magically. And that wasn’t to mention its other passive skills, all of which made it even more monstrous.
“What’s our most-likely scenario?” Keith asked, still smashing the ice.
“Even if Sola falls in, we run short on time, and it breaks free of the ice before backup arrives,” Bob said. “We’re all killed, and after that, it won’t really matter what happens. We’ll be dead.”
Keith grunted in agreement, then swung down hard. There was a low thunk as the hammer struck the ice, but when Keith pulled it back, he was surprised to see a bit of gore clinging to it. His brows furrowed for a moment, and he was very confused – until he looked down.
“No way,” he muttered, seeing the body of one of the men that had been killed in his earlier trap.
“This is not a coincidence,” Bob said. “I know we’re short on time, but you’re going to have to dig him up.”
Keith didn’t argue. His hammer split into two, and with quick, precise strikes, he soon had access to the man’s body. He rifled around in his clothes for a few moments before emerging with a small pouch containing several vials.
They were around half the length of a normal vial, and something gold and gelatinous moved around within.
Name: Gold Glue Potion
Quality: Uncommon
Effects: -30% movement speed for 120 seconds (stackable)
Value: 1 small gold & 17 silver
“This seems too good to be true,” Keith said, staring at the half-dozen vials he’d pulled out.
“It is,” Bob replied. “But remember, you’re on a quest, and it has to be possible for you to survive. The system never provides an impossible mission unless explicitly stating that it is so like it did earlier while the enemy guild members were trying to summon the monster.
“In short, this is a way for the system to help without having to be overtly obvious about it, like leaving a glowing chest in the middle of the lake with these items neatly wrapped inside.”
“I understand,” Keith said, his mind beginning to churn out ideas. “What exactly does stackable mean?”
“It means that the more potions you use, the more the effects are stacked,” Bob replied. “So if it was trapped in two of them, for example…”
“Then its movement speed would be reduced by sixty percent,” Keith finished again, feeling a grin spreading across his face. “This will definitely help if the monster manages to break free of the ice.”
“Let’s hope it doesn’t,” Bob said. “Because we still have a lot of time left until our backup gets here.”
If Keith’s math was right, they would have around twenty-eight minutes left once the monster reached the lake. In battle, the difference between life and death came down to split-second decisions, so for all intents and purposes, their remaining time would feel like an eternity.
50
“Here it comes!” Keith warned as the ice beneath their feet trembled and the looming shadow of the monster appeared on the wall of the mountain pass.
Cayla dashed over to him at the sound of the warning, her face pale as a sheet and sweat beading her brow. The two of them had managed to dig out a sizable trench, but neither were sure if it was wide enough. It was too late to do anything now, as the monster’s three heads appeared and six gleaming eyes fixed upon them.
Sola’s roar sounded as the monster dashed forward. Its body was covered in frozen blood from Keith’s earlier activation of the Silver Storm scroll, but its overall health had barely budged despite the amount of damage it had inflicted.
After all, causing around 23,000 points of damage when the monster had a total pool of 680,000 was like Keith getting a paper cut. In short, it might sting and annoy him, but overall would hardly be fatal.
“Look at that,” Keith muttered as Sola ran onto the ice.
Small cracks formed beneath its feet as it ran, webbing outward and spreading with each bounding stride. The ground beneath them shook as the multi-ton monster barreled toward them.
“Um, Keith,” Cayla said.
“Yes?” he asked, still keeping his gaze fixed on the monster.
“Maybe we shouldn’t be standing so close to the trap? You know, just in case it doesn’t work.”
“Standing close to the trap is the only thing that will keep the monster from noticing it,” Keith said. “It’s focused on us for now, not the ground. If it works, great. If it doesn’t, we always have plan b.”
“For the record,” Bob’s voice, muffled by the cloak he was hiding under. “I do not like this!”
“That’s because you’re a coward, Bob,” Keith said. “Of course you don’t like this.”
Sola opened its mouths, fire flickering around its open jaws as it neared. However, just as Keith had predicted, it didn’t immediately blast them. Had it been smart, it would have remained on shore and blasted the lake.
There was no way the two of them could have escaped in time had the ice suddenly collapsed, and they would have died from exposure shortly after coming into contact with the freezing water. Either that or they’d have drowned due to their heavy clothes dragging them under.
Sola’s muscles coiled inward as it drew near, and Keith waited for the exact moment when its body left the ground before yelling.
“Back! Back!”
He and Cayla managed to move just a couple of feet before Sola came crashing back down, landing headfirst into the trench the two of them had dug.
A series of horrific squealing roars echoed as the ice shattered beneath the heavy monster’s feet as it plunged into the icy water. Keith and Cayla got drenched as a wave of freezing water washed over them.
The ice they were standing on buckled as Sola thrashed, and for several panicked moments, it looked as though Keith’s plan had backfired. However, he had had a backup, and even as the two of them slipped back, a slab of ice rising to knock them back, Keith acted.
A golden hammer with a rope tied to its handle streaked toward him. It slapped into his palm, going taut almost instantly as the other end – wound around the handle of the other hammer – dug deep into the ice.
Keith knew he had only seconds to pull himself up, as he could already feel the second hammer slipping, but the time he had was more than enough.
“Take my hand!” Keith yelled, extending it to Cayla.
She didn’t ask questions this time, diving forward and seizing the hand as Keith dragged them up and over the top of the turning ice block. They both paused for a moment at the top, seeing the dark water below and salvation just a few feet past it.
Cayla’s hand squeezed his just a bit harder, then they jumped. For a single, breathless moment, they hung in the air, then crashed onto the edge of the ice, rolling quickly as it cracked and buckled beneath their weight.
Keith ignored the throbbing pain in his legs, as well as the damage notifications flashing before his eyes, continuing to roll until the ice felt stable.
“Did we all make it?” he groaned, pushing himself up on his arms and looking around.
Cayla lay just a couple of feet away, her cheeks all scraped up and looking a bit woozy. Bob still clutched his shoulder, though he’d become exposed to the cold as the cloak had bunched up.
“We’re all alive,” Cayla grumbled.
A roar distracted them both, the two of them quickly swiveling their heads to see Sola’s three heads break the surface of the water. Water streamed from their jaws, their eyes wide as ice formed over the scales. Still, Keith could see that the monster’s health wasn’t actually dropping. Just as he’d seen with its status, the monster’s ice-type head gave it immunity to the cold.
Its claws scrabbled on the ice, trying to pull itself back out, but the ice crumbled beneath them and the monster splashed back into the water.
“We need to head back to the pass,” Keith said. “We need to put as much distance as we can between us and this thing.”
“More running?” Cayla whined as Keith removed his sodden cloak, then pulled his backup from his inventory and slung it around his shoulders.
It wouldn’t keep him as warm, but it would still ward off any cold-related debuffs, which was the main point.
“Only if you want to live,” Keith replied, giving her a pointed look.
“Fine,” she groaned, removing her own cloak and pulling a spare as well. “Let’s go.”
The two of them took a wide berth around the thrashing monster, not wanting to end up in the water. The monster, it seemed, was too distracted with trying to escape to attack them, so they made it back to the pass without so much as a single blast of fire sent their way.
Keith paused at the entrance to the pass and removed two of the gold glue potions.
“What are you doing?” Cayla asked.
“Slowing it down,” Keith replied, pouring the viscous liquid out into two separate pools.
“How do you know it’ll even work?” she asked.
“The pass is too narrow for it not to,” Keith replied, then turned and began running again, silently counting in his head.
Once he reached a hundred and twenty, he paused, spread two more potions on the ground, and continued running, repeating the action once more after the count had expired.
“There,” Keith said. “That should buy us a bit more time. It’ll definitely be close, but if we’re lucky, we might survive this without having to deal with the monster again!”
