The Apocalypse is a Side Quest: Book Three, page 36
If only he could use his fishing pole, he might be able to sling himself over the top of the barrier. Unfortunately, that was out of the question.
Anand’s footsteps came rushing up. The guardsmen stepped forward, forcing Nathan back.
Nathan reared back his fist and tried to punch through the green barrier again. As before, it simply sank like a sponge, the force dissipating.
Nathan ground his teeth together. What the hell was happening?
“Anand, I don’t suppose you have anything that can help us?” Nathan asked.
Anand grunted. “Don’t look at me. Aren’t you supposed to be Mr. Number One?”
Nathan licked his lips nervously and searched through his list of abilities. The problem was that all of them were too specifically tied to him. Lightning? His wooden arm? Anything he tried would be a dead giveaway.
If he pulled out any of his weapons, that would be a giveaway as well. It seemed that no matter what he chose, he was screwed. He needed something that wasn’t linked to him—
Nathan paused. “Anand, a weapon.”
Anand reached into his inventory and pulled out a dagger—one of the Harrowed Hand’s, with wicked curves in a spiral shape. Nathan took it from his hand and slashed into the barrier. Unlike a fist, the sharp attack sliced through the spongelike barrier with a visible flash of light. One of the guardsmen turned back instinctively. Nathan looked toward a corner where there were no guardsmen. He ran there and quickly sliced open a hole in the barrier.
The guardsmen were already moving, but it was too late. Nathan and Anand ran through the barrier and out the other side, past the guardsmen, toward the gate.
Their footsteps beat against the ground as the gate started to close. Nathan gritted his teeth as hard as he could and got ready for the most painful concussion of his life. He shielded his head with his elbows.
Nathan broke into a dead sprint.
He smashed directly through the gate, a bright flash of green light indicating that there had been some kind of magical defense on it. It didn’t matter. His strength had been enough to blow directly through it, no problem. Pieces of metal shrapnel flew off in random directions. Suddenly, the portal of the exit flickered.
They were shutting it.
“Faster, Anand, we’re gonna get trapped!” Nathan shouted.
Anand suddenly sped up, the armor he’d been wearing slipping off and falling to the ground. Nathan did the same, trying to extract every last bit of speed he could. The portal continued to flicker. It started to shut—
They threw themselves through. Behind him, Nathan heard air whooshing as the portal shut. They were unceremoniously thrown to the other side, a group of guardsmen looking up at them in shock.
Nathan did a leg sweep, and they all fell to the ground in a heap. He and Anand ran off in the direction where they’d left the bird. Nothing. Nathan paused—only for Anand to run directly, cast a spell, then jump off the island.
Nathan looked behind him; the guards were about to follow—
He gritted his teeth and jumped.
The night air scratched at his skin like dozens of tiny needles. Above him, the stars seemed to stretch out across his entire line of view.
“Anand!” Nathan shouted. “Anand, where are you?”
Nathan was really hoping that Anand had some sort of plan or that he’d spotted the bird flying below. Because otherwise, this was about to become a very painful, very difficult situation.
The wind roared in Nathan’s ears. No response.
Well, shit—
The sound of a bird flapping. Nathan’s momentum came to a slow stop as something gripped him from underneath and pulled him upward. His flight leveled out, and he turned his head to see talons wrapped around his body. Anand poked his head over the side and gave him a wave.
He let out a sigh of relief.
“A little too close for comfort, yeah?” Nathan said.
“A little.” Anand reached out a hand and pulled Nathan onto the top of the skeletal bird. Nathan settled in and breathed out.
After all the madness of last night, Nathan had slept in. There were still a few hours left before the boss fight, and he had received no major notifications. It seemed he didn’t have much left to do.
He thought back to the side quest he’d obtained from the blacksmith about upgrading his fishing pole. Nathan still needed to collect those materials.
With nothing better to do, Nathan grabbed a rowboat, went outside, and started rowing in a random direction. He hoped to find a lake to fish in, preferably not the one his sister was at—not yet, anyway. It just wasn’t the right time.
Luckily, after about thirty minutes of searching, he found one. It was a fairly large lake, about the size of five or six city blocks. If anything had the materials he was looking for, this would be it.
Nathan pulled out his fishing pole and cast his first shot. After a few minutes, he scratched his cheek. No response. Normally, the fish would be all over him. What was going on?
He reeled in his fishing pole and tried again. Like before, he waited several minutes and received no response.
There were definitely fish. He could tell because of his Hunter’s Instinct. Yet, despite that, the issue was that they were all at the surface. It seemed his hook wasn’t reaching within their range. He double-checked the list of fish he needed to catch.
12 Metalfins
5 Kraken Scales
Twelve fish. Nathan needed a way to get the fish to actually pay attention to his fishing rod.
Nathan scratched his head, unsure how to proceed. He watched the water and noticed a dragonfly flying overhead. It rested on top of the water, somehow standing without sinking into it. Nathan vaguely recalled how some insects were capable of doing that.
Faster than he could follow, a fish darted up and snatched the dragonfly, swallowing it whole.
That was why they were at the surface. Their natural prey was these insects.
Nathan briefly considered diving in and trying to grab them out of the water. The concern was that they might get injured by Nathan’s prodigious strength.
If he wanted maximum-quality materials, he would have to get them to the blacksmith unharmed—or at least as unharmed as possible.
Nathan smirked and reached out with his water cultivation to grab a fish out of the water. Right as he was about to close his grip, it seemingly anticipated his movements and dove below the surface.
Nathan frowned intently. He spotted another one and waited until the timing was just right, then—again, it swiftly evaded him.
Nathan shifted his jaw. They were fast. Of course they were. He supposed the System didn’t want any cheaters.
He wondered if the System had screwed him over and made fishing more difficult sometime in the last cycle. He didn’t recall it being this tough last time.
Nathan watched as another insect fell onto the water and started struggling. Unlike the dragonfly resting atop it, this one seemed to be flailing, drowning. Once again, with a quick snap of its jaws, a Metalfin grabbed it out of the water.
Nathan pulled his own hook out of the water and stared. The hook was heavy—extremely so—which made sense, given that it was apparently designed to also be used as a weapon. Also, the fish it usually caught were gigantic, like the behemoths Nathan had pulled out of the water in the last circle. Absolute monsters, unlike these.
Nathan reached into his inventory and pulled out his very first fishing hook. It was extremely light, more a thin sheet of metal than a hook. Nathan unwrapped the hook of his current fishing pole and used the old hook from his first fishing pole. Thinking quickly, he pulled some fur from his inventory. It was from some monster that he’d defeated, though he could scarcely remember the name.
Using a combination of feathers, thread, and various other extremely light materials, he created something that he thought would roughly mimic the way a fly or an insect would move around in the water. With that done, he tied it around the hook and threw his fishing pole back for a cast. Immediately, he could tell the difference. His line was heavier than his hook, something he was completely unused to. He frowned and cast forward. He had to awkwardly wave the fishing pole around in order to direct the flight of it and make sure that it would touch down gently. Using every ounce of the skill he’d obtained so far from his more combative uses of his fishing pole, he managed to land the bait right onto the water exactly how he’d imagined an insect would land. For a second, it remained still; then he realized that insects struggle from side to side. He attempted to mimic the movements of a dragonfly as it moved across the water. The motions were jerky, awkward, but he was beginning to get the hang of it, when suddenly—almost faster than he could blink—one of the Metalfin jumped up and toward his hook. Instinctively, he jerked back, and the hook slid into the thing’s mouth. The Metalfin scrambled backward, pulling the hook with it. Nathan held tight to his fishing pole and began to reel it in slowly. Inch by inch, it got closer to him until suddenly—Nathan jerked it back hard, and the fish flew out of the water into the air. Nathan reached out, snatched it, and held it in front of him.
Use Basic Inspect.
[Metalfin] - Rank: C
An extremely rare fish found among the sky islands of the Fifth Circle. Its tungsten scales shine with a luminescent cerulean glow. Imbued with the rushing energy of the river, catching even a single Metalfin is a rare achievement.
Nathan was going to try to aim for six. Nathan double-checked his timer. He still had a few hours.
For the next two to three hours, Nathan systematically extracted Metalfin from the river. At first, it was almost simple. But then they started getting smarter. Nathan had to adapt, changing up his lure to make them bite. He had to change his location, hide his own shadow. Ultimately, he caught six out of the twelve Metalfin he’d aimed for that day.
There was still one more nearby in the river. It almost seemed to be playing with him. For the last hour, he tried every trick that he’d figured out, but it still managed to evade his grasp.
Eventually, Nathan came up with a plan.
Sure, he couldn’t exactly use his water powers directly. But maybe he could use them more subtly.
What he noticed was that the fish seemed to get curious, then, at the last second, turn around. So what Nathan needed to do was find a way to continue to disguise the movement of the insect. Nathan cast out his line and, instead of manually moving the lure around, used his water abilities to ever so subtly shift it from side to side.
The fish was hesitant. It kept moving forward in jerky, awkward maneuvers. But it kept on getting closer. Nathan continued to mimic the movements of the dragonflies.
The fish appeared underneath, its lips outstretched to wrap around the lure.
Nathan jerked up and hooked the fish.
It struggled immediately and pulled back hard. The fishing rod was almost yanked out of Nathan’s hands. He managed to grab on and pulled back against it.
It darted from left to right, attempting to jerk the fishing pole backward. Nathan kept having to adjust his grip on the fishing pole in order to keep it on. He reeled it in, stopped, pulled back, reeled it in.
Inch by inch, it got closer and closer.
He gave one final tug and then—the line snapped!
The fish was already midair. Nathan jumped forward and reached out a hand. His wooden one. Vines exploded forth and wrapped around the fish before it could fall back down into the water. He tossed it into his inventory and then landed with a splash into the river.
Nathan breathed hard.
“Seven out of twelve Metalfin. Nice.”
Suffice it to say, Nathan was feeling like a rather happy camper.
He stood up and rubbed his forehead. The cool water felt like heaven to his sore and abused body.
He still had about an hour until the next boss fight.
What if I keep going…?
Nathan moved further up the river.
By the time he’d finished, he was in possession of all twelve Metalfins.
Nathan was about to sit down and enjoy the rest of his afternoon when he received a message on Dither.
He paused at the name of the sender.
Anand? What did he want?
Nathan opened the message. His jaw dropped.
Chapter Fifty-One
The message—they were photos. Dozens of elves being led away in handcuffs, with Emi in the background, her hands crossed and her expression seemingly stern. Fliel was to her right, neutral but with clenched fists. Emi had a small smile on her face.
Nathan read through the attached explanation. Apparently, their little scheme had worked well beyond their wildest beliefs. Emi had taken advantage of the infighting to launch an investigation. It had been discovered that dozens of high-ranking bureaucrats were all involved in a massive embezzlement scheme.
Who would have thought?
Of course, everyone apparently knew that, but the key was that there had not been the political will on Emi’s side to push for an arrest. The forces arrayed against her were too strong. But with the latest scandal, her enemies were completely divided. It was child’s play for her to simply swoop in and arrange for all of them to be arrested.
The way that Anand had gone about doing things was incredibly clever as well. Anand had sent the photos to an intermediary, then to another intermediary, who then sent them to various officials in the elven government. Even if the elves found out who was responsible and Fliel tried to track down the perpetrator, they would come up against a dead end, as the person’s name on Dither was completely disconnected from their name in real life. He had been the perfect person to distribute the message. There was no way that Fliel would be able to find out who was responsible. The perfect plan.
At the rate they were going, it would not be long before Fliel’s power base was completely destroyed and Emi was on top.
Nathan still felt a little uncomfortable about the fact that he had not really talked to her before deciding to do this plan. It would be a very awkward conversation once she found out the full extent of what he had been doing. Still, he was reasonably sure she would not be too mad.
Probably.
It was as Nathan was thinking about the greater political implications of this that he noticed the timer ticking down even further. Fliel and Emi would still be working together. They would have to in order to survive the boss conflict.
Was Emi cold enough to let Fliel die? No, surely not.
Nathan did not like Fliel, but he did not want Fliel dead. In comparison to Gabriel, the man was a saint. At the very least, he was not going around brainwashing his followers.
Still, though, Nathan and Anand would continue to chip away at Fliel’s power base. Emi would receive all the support she needed, and then, maybe, just maybe, an alliance between elves and men would be possible.
The timer continued to tick down—thirty seconds left.
Nathan put away his materials and got ready for the transportation to the boss arena. He rolled his shoulders around and gave a quick little stretch. Five seconds. He shut his eyes.
The world floated away into nothingness.
Nathan touched down on the arena floor. To his right, Grigor landed with a loud thud against the surface. Nathan looked at him and gave him a quick wave. Grigor nodded back.
Nathan looked around in a circle to see who else had arrived. It seemed that everybody was there. Emi and Fliel had been summoned in about the same area but were rapidly taking steps away from each other. It seemed that the tension from earlier was still extremely fresh in their minds.
Where was the boss?
Nathan watched for it carefully and then spotted it out of the corner of his eye: a large, cylindrical dome. It separated into long, thin sheets of metal, each with a razor-sharp edge. They were all in the shape of a disk. Each of the individual sheets seemed to float in midair.
Nathan took a step backward. An instant later, one of the sheets went flying forward at him. He ducked down, and the disk shaved off the top of his hair. Another one went flying toward Grigor, who raised his shield to block. The disk ground against the steel loudly, a screech that seemed to rip at Nathan’s eardrums. Sparks of metal, red and flaming hot, flew off from the edges as the two surfaces ground against each other.
A large clod of earth smashed against it, Bree’s face flashing in the distance—it failed to do anything.
Nathan grabbed Grigor’s leg and made him fall to the ground. The shield was still caught on the disk until the disk sliced directly through the top half of it.
The disk slowed and pivoted backward before a flash of steel batted it aside. Chad took a guard position in front of the two and nodded at them.
Grigor stared in shock.
“How on earth did that cut through…?”
“It’s your counter. Some kind of high-offense, super-sharp material designed specifically to get through your defenses.”
Grigor seemed to flash through a variety of emotions before settling back into his normal stoicism.
“That’s fine. I have my ways around this sort of thing.”
Nathan raised an eyebrow. “Do you?”
“Part of being good at wielding a shield is not taking the blow directly. I can get away with that because of my extremely high Constitution. But a large part of using a shield correctly is being able to deflect off to the side. I’m using the wrong type of shield for this.”
Grigor unstrapped his shield and stuffed it away into his inventory. He pulled out a new one, made of some kind of gleaming red metal.
“The other one allows people to get a bite into it so that I can pull around their weapon. This one should hold up a little bit better.”
Before they could continue the conversation, another bunch of disks came rushing at them. They seemed to slice through the air, making a light whistling noise. Nathan dodged the one coming for his toes. Grigor raised his shield and deflected one off to the side. As Grigor had said, the attack ended up deflecting off to the side toward Levithan.
