Surviving as a Broken Hero

Chapter 22 – Fire and Flames (5)

We rushed out of the relic room’s doors as fast as we were able, the ‘secrecy’ of the relic or whatever traditional security they practiced for it be damned.

A guardsman was waiting for us outside, being supported by the other two who usually stood guard next to the relic room’s doors.

“Huff, huff…”

The guardsman was out of breath, clearly disheveled, panting as if he had run a great distance.

“What happened?!”

The chief spoke, and the guardsman did his best to explain the situation while trying to catch his breath.

“The western walls… Monsters…”

The guard gestured loosely towards the walls to our west and we followed his gesture with our eyes.

It was some distance away, but a rising smoke was visible along with flickers of flame.

Judging from what I had seen of the others, it would take them at least ten minutes to get there by foot. Ten minutes was a long time for those who had never experienced combat before to hold out.

It was unlikely that many would be alive by the time reinforcements arrived from other areas of the village.

Saving the village… It was what I had been called there for, after all.

I took in a deep breath of air, the warm, humid atmosphere permeating my lungs as I prepared to try something new, a variation of the «Strike» steps and the earthen spikes I had used to control my movement before.

Lowering my balance, I set myself into a sprinter-like stance and channeled the distinctly different feels of both the eruption and earth through my veins, cycling them until I felt an uncomfortable warmth build up in my body.

Then…

I released the energy through my legs and feet, channeling it at a sharp angle into the ground behind me.

WHUMP!

***

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A faint, golden light clung to his skin, a shower of dirt exploded from the ground and he went flashing off in a blur of motion.

Puffs of more dirt went flying up into the air at irregular intervals, allowing anyone who was watching to track Aizen’s progress somewhat easily.

The distance that would have taken an ordinary man ten or so minutes to run through took him less than sixty seconds.

He arrived just as a terrible-looking monstrosity that was some demonic mix between a dog and a shark was charging at a woman huddled up against a wooden shack, doing her best to protect her child.

Stomp, stomp, stomp.

The shark-dog monster loped across the ground towards them, saliva dripping and flying from its mouth in anticipation of its meal.

Then, just as it was preparing to make the final lunge, already imagining the tasty meat before it…

TSSHHH

It vanished into a puff of red mist, its body completely gone.

The woman looked at the red mist with a puzzled expression for only a brief moment before thanking the Gold and turning back to make sure her child was ok.

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Let me tell you that monster guts do not taste good.

I had heard adventurers describe them as tasting like chicken before, but that wasn’t a surprise when chicken was the default taste everyone used to describe something that they couldn’t quite place.

Monsters did not, in fact, taste anything like chicken.

I became painfully aware of that fact after tumbling straight through some sort of walking shark-thing, bits of its meat and blood becoming stuck in my mouth and washing over me.

My momentum was completely out of control at that point. Though I was already slowing, all I could do was try to direct my path of destruction with awkward flailing.

It was a miracle that I managed to avoid hurting anyone.

My tumble continued for a few hundred paces more after I was bathed in the debris left behind by the monster who had never seen it coming, finally halting when I crashed through one of the burning huts and came to a rest in a pile of wood debris as the burning structure caved in around me and filled my lungs with smoke.

Cough, cough.

I quickly got to my feet, pushing aside the burning lumber atop me with little effort, using my earth ability to avoid being burned, though I still received a few light singes.

Though the sprint had started with a promising burst of speed and indeed had the intended effect of taking me to the section of the village that was under attack in record time, I had lost control almost immediately, legs unable to keep up with the speed and momentum of my initial burst.

My sprint had become a tumble that took me across the landscape, and it had been more like a rocket launch.

The impact of my crash into the hut had caused a plume of wood and sparks to launch into the air.

Good news: I had the attention of the monsters in the village, who viewed me as a threat to be eliminated.

Bad news: I had the attention of every monster in the village.

I heard their cries as they flocked to the sound and could see villagers running from where they had been cornered as the monsters forgot about them. It was like they could sense the power within me and wanted it for themselves.

Unfortunately, I had not arrived soon enough to save everyone. I had known it was impossible from the start, but I had still held some hope.

My eyes caught the signs of blood and destruction left behind by those who were less fortunate. The monsters had eaten them whole.

The monsters were mostly composed of the weird shark-dog things, like the one I had completely obliterated in my tumble.

They rushed towards me. Some might have called it a pack, but the monsters had no coordination that one would expect of a pack or herd.

Instead, drool spewed from their lopsided, toothy mouths as they rushed at me.

I had already used one «Strike» in my run to the village, which should have left me with seventy-five mana.

I said ‘should’ because no message had appeared with the use of the «Strike» as I was used to. Perhaps it had something to do with the dungeon.

Luckily, the earth was still being channeled through me, almost becoming natural at that point—though, I still had to put a bit of conscious effort into it, as if I were forming my hand into a fist.

Boom!

Each swing of my gauntleted fist blew the monsters away. My STR and AGI were enough to smash through their flesh with every blow.

Crunch!

A skull caved in and lifeblood splattered across my face as I crushed one’s skull with a punch and sent it careening away into the ground, having hit it while it was mid-leap.

The shark-dogs continued to throw themselves at me with reckless abandon, fear never visible for even a moment.

There were probably seven of them in total, all left around me at various distances in a circle of destruction, where my punches had quite literally ripped them apart.

***

The boy peeked out from underneath the loose wooden rubble he had hidden himself beneath in the chaos of the monster attack.

One moment, he had been returning from picking fruits from some of the trees around the village, and the next, the monsters had somehow launched themselves over the top of the wall and overcome the few defenders there before attacking the nearest section of the village.

Hardly older than fourteen, he had been on a simple delivery to distribute fruits around the village. He felt selfish for feeling the way he did, but he was somewhat grateful that he and his family lived in a separate section of the village.

He had hidden himself away beneath the rubble of a shed that had collapsed at the start of the attack, slipping under the wooden beams and peeking out at the carnage that occurred around him.

The boy watched the strange man barrel in out of nowhere in a blur of motion that left one of the buildings collapsed in a pile of burning debris before emerging and obliterating the monsters that had already decimated the surroundings and slaughtered the guards atop the walls.

The man made it look effortless, his hands passing through the monsters as if they were made of paper.

Bathed in a subtle golden glow, the man stood alone amidst the corpses of the monsters he had killed.

To the boy, the man looked much like one of the figures of old that he had grown up hearing tales about–a warrior of gold.

***

It was too easy. I wondered how the villagers could have been so defenseless in the face of those weak monsters. Had I been like that before, not long ago?

In fact, I had been worse.

I realized that all of the preparation and practice I had undergone with my cane way back then had been useless. I had been disillusioning myself into believing that I would have had some chance against an honest threat, imagining myself overcoming it through sheer effort.

It hadn’t been effort that saved me but mere chance, or whatever it was that had caused the Second System to awaken within my body.

Standing there, I realized that the village had no hope. The System was the only balance in place that allowed humanity and the other races to fight monsters. Without the System, we would have perished long ago.

But weren’t most monsters created by that very System? For what purpose?

I shook those questions from my mind. There was something I had to do first in order to save the village. It had been hinted at the other night, but I was sure then.

I was only one man. Though I found the monsters easy to defeat, I couldn’t be sure that there wouldn’t be stronger ones, nor could I protect the entire village at once if they launched a multi-pronged attack.

Indeed, the relic, the very source of the protection of the village and the thing that was failing them, would be my tool against the monsters and aid me in saving the village.