I was just about to begrudgingly make my way over to the water elemental to deal with the undoubtedly annoying fight when some divine intervention saved me from the hassle. I had been distracted by the massive elemental before, but now that I wasn’t paying complete attention to it, I spotted the wolf and his pack running at the elemental at full tilt. Oddly enough, they were coming from the grasslands. A quick check revealed that there were still four participants and, considering the tornado still raging through the forest, I suspected the kobold was still alive. So why was the wolf in the grasslands? It did seem to have an odd obsession with me… Did that mean it left the kobold behind to rush at me?
What a creepy fella.
While I did want to rack up some more personal kills, I was more than happy to let the wolf handle the annoying elemental. If I then killed both the kobold and the wolf, I would have killed half of the participants, which surely would be enough to get a little something extra from the system. Maybe. Not wanting to take any chances with that, I started gliding in the direction of the forest to get a head start on the kobold while keeping an eye on the fight taking place by the lake.
The water elemental noticed the approach of a new challenger decently early and started absolutely unloading on the wolf and his pack. Hundreds of projectiles shot out of the massive body, yet barely any of them hit. The wolves bobbed and weaved around the attacks as if they were barely worth paying attention to. The smaller, colorful wolves occasionally took a glancing hit, but the big, black one was on another level. Even with its increased size, it dodged everything expertly, almost resembling a cat in speed and grace. That might be a problem when I fight it later, since I adopted a similar style to the elemental. At least my projectiles exploded after hitting the ground, which would inflict indirect damage.
As I got closer to the tornado, the increasingly violent winds proved to be a problem. I’d gotten pretty good at gliding around, but it was ultimately just gliding. Not wanting to embarrass myself by either getting sucked into the tornado or crashing hard, I decided to land and continue on foot. This made it almost impossible to observe the fight between the wolf and the elemental, but I expected it to be rather lengthy and boring anyway. Finding the core within that mass of water and then accurately hitting it would be annoying to say the least.
Better the wolf get saddled with that shit than me.
I used my tentacles to swing and bounce around the trees, keeping a respectable speed going while keeping my eyes and feelers out for any signs of the kobold. I still roughly remembered the location where the tornado had appeared, so I made my way over there first. Maybe I’d be able to find some tracks, or even the kobold still controlling the storm. I caught the occasional glimpse of the water elemental through the canopy, still busy unloading on the wolf. Please, creepy wolf monster, take care of that thing for me.
When I was close to the origin point of the tornado, I finally got a ping on my void feelers, confirming that the kobold was still lingering. But just before I was about to engage, I noticed the giant form of the water elemental collapse in on itself, and I stopped dead in my tracks. A quick portal sent me into the sky, wings snapping open to arrest my fall, eyes trained on the lake area. There, I could see the wolf pack regrouping as the water of the lake rushed back to fill its bed. A quick check of the quest window revealed that the elemental had been defeated in record time.
God damn, either that wolf was crazy powerful, or had some form of direct counter to the elementals' hiding tactic. Whatever the case, my evaluation of the wolf shot up by a few levels. I had originally assumed that this entire fight was a gimme, but the wolf might become a problem after all. With how creepily focused on me it was, I couldn’t help but get worried. Just why was it so obsessed with me, and should I be concerned about being dismantled like the water elemental?
No, definitely not. I’d managed to defeat a tier twelve monster, so no tier eight monster should provide any kind of challenge. Still, there was no doubt that a sufficiently strong monster that had some direct counters to me could end up killing me. So, at least when fighting the wolf, I should go all out, no faffing about. And the first obstacle to this… was the kobold and its dumb tornado.
My eyes zeroed in on the spot I had sensed it earlier. There was no more time to hesitate. The kobold needed to be removed from the equation, and then I’d be able to focus on the wolf.
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I once again found myself in the forest area, and just as I’d predicted, Gary had gone for the Kobold. Even with the tornado still raging somewhere nearby, it was practically impossible to miss the massive, repeating explosions coming from further ahead. As my excitement rose with every second, I couldn’t help but notice the participants' counter tick down once again. Only two participants are left. Me and Gary.
I took a deep breath, the succulent odor of kobold blood entering my nostrils, sending an ecstatic shiver down my spine. All of the distractions had been taken care of. There was nothing left to do except face my final test. Every fiber of my being wanted to rush ahead, crash through the underbrush, and violently attack Gary, kicking off our epic duel. Our fight was going to be legendary; there was no doubt about that, but as I got closer to where I knew the kobold had just died, I found myself slowing down.
Gary was a kindred spirit, that much was sure. I’d slaughtered hundreds, thousands, all in the name of Trahnesh, to excise the weakness from the expanse. But the monster I was about to engage was no mere prey. He was a hunter, an apostle of slaughter, my equal. As much as I wanted to savagely destroy him, unlike my usual targets, he deserved my respect. Having made my decision, I ordered the pack to fan out and surround the unnatural clearing ahead, no doubt made when the tornado came into existence.
And then I finally reached the clearing. My eyes settled on the unsettling, alien form of Gary, watching the kobold he’d just killed. Looking at him was fascinating. Merely looking at his body made me feel uncomfortable, like the world was tilting. An incomprehensible whisper blended in with the background, trying to drive me mad, and I could feel my breathing speed up. Two tiny eyes resting on top of flexible stalks were looking around, and I couldn’t help but notice that he was tracking my pack, even as they stayed perfectly hidden. Then, both eyes focused on me.
There was no point in hiding anymore, so I stepped out into the light.
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Taking care of the kobold had been ridiculously easy. How that thing made it this far is honestly beyond me. It used some esoteric ritual instead of system-guided magic to summon that tornado… and was blown away by it. Literally. When I found it, it was resting against a tree with a broken back, unable to properly move. My poison was eating away at it, making it even weaker. But, to its credit, it had been incredibly tough. Either due to a ridiculous amount of constitution or a combination of protective skills, it was able to take a ton of punishment before dying. Well, since it was categorized as a Kobold Spiritualist, my bet was on protective skills.
Not like it mattered, in the end. It had been a sitting duck, unable to do anything but put up a token resistance while taking on my spells.
I was standing close to the now-defeated kobold when the wolf entered the range of my void feelers. Ideally, I wanted to hide before it found me, but I guess it was too late now. I could sense the pack spreading out evenly around me, boxing me into the clearing I was in, while the alpha was slowly approaching me. Considering that I could teleport, I wasn’t too worried. What interested me more was the odd behavior of the wolf, my eyes glued to it as it stepped out of the shadow of a tree and into the light.
Part of me wanted to blast the damn thing and get it over with, but its odd behavior made me pause. It took a few steps toward me and sat down, staring as always.
“I… I greet the fellow apostle…” A deep voice, mixed in with an animalistic growl, escaped the snout of the wolf, speaking the asphon language to my shock. “My name is Caedus.”
My brain was on the verge of shutting down and performing an emergency reboot. It was my turn to stare at the wolf, who could apparently talk. Unfortunately, while I did learn the asphon language, I was far from mastering it, and while I could understand the introduction easily enough, the wolf used a word I wasn’t familiar with. A fellow what? My brain raced as I considered what this meant. The wolf was intelligent enough to talk in a civilized manner. This wasn’t a normal monster. But what was it? Was it just trying to throw me off balance to attack in a moment where I wasn’t paying attention? No. The pack hadn’t made any moves yet. So what?
“I’ve been hearing a lot about you, and wanted to meet you so dearly,” the wolf… Caedus continued. “As we a both travelers, it has been nothing less but destiny that we should meet here. I arrived in the seventh first, so I waited for you to catch up, so that we may tackle the eighth together.”
And there it was. Again, a few words went over my head, but I clearly heard him say the word “traveler”! The wolf was another traveler, just like me! I got excited for a moment, having found somebody who went through something similar to what I did, but the excitement died down almost immediately as I remembered where we were and what we were supposed to do.
“I am sorry,” I couldn’t help but say, responding in asphon as well. “It is regrettable that one of us has to die for the other to advance. Maybe we could team up to find a way to circumvent this condition?”
“Circumvent?” Caedus adopted a shocked look. “I wouldn’t dream of it. Yes, allowing a companion to step onto the bigger stage would be permissible, but it goes against our very nature. Against the decree of our god.”
Again, the wolf used some words I hadn’t learned yet, but I got the gist of it. He wanted to fight. For some reason. Maybe he came from some sort of warrior planet where a duel to the death was the greatest honor or something? Still, it felt wrong to kill another traveler. Sure, I murdered monsters by the boatload, but actually intelligent beings still felt wrong. I’d more or less made my peace with the fact that it would be occasionally necessary, but even when I fought in the tournament, I did my best to ensure my opponents survived.
“I do not want to kill you, if it is at all avoidable,” I said with finality. “It would be wrong.”
“WEAK!” The wolf shouted, suddenly angry for some reason. Did I accidentally offend his entire culture or something? “Slaughter is the holy mission, do not shy away from the most sacred of decrees! The weak need to die, and whoever lives here will reap the reward of being able to slaughter hundreds of thousands in the future! Aren’t you excited!”
Spittle was flying everywhere as Caedus went into a mad rage. From what I understood, this guy was a fucking lunatic. I had a feeling that when he was talking about slaughtering hundreds of thousands, he didn’t mean monsters. At least not exclusively. That guy had gone over the deep end, and seemingly just wanted to kill… and then kill more. I watched him in shock, as I felt like I was looking at an alternate version of myself. A version of me that hadn’t gotten the support he needed, and gave himself over to the addiction wholesale. The mere thought of potentially having ended up like that made me shiver.
“You… want to kill the weak? The innocent?” I couldn’t help but ask for confirmation.
“YES! There is nothing more glorious than carrying out the Lord's will! I know you want it too, you don’t need to hide your nature from me!”
I continued staring as the wolf got more and more worked up. There was no doubt about it, the guy was a basket case, and all of a sudden, I didn’t feel so bad at having to kill him. Wouldn’t I save a ton of innocent people just by offing him? I may feel uncomfortable at having to kill an intelligent being, but this guy was more monster than person.
“I see…” I said with a sigh. “Forget what I said, looks like I’ll have to put you down after all.”
“Yes… Yes! Do not hide! Do not deceive!” The wolf got up from his seating position with a massive grin, sharp teeth on display. “I pray that our battle will be bloody! I pray that the stronger will prevail! May the blood we spill be offered to the lord!”
“Sure, buddy, whatever you say,” I couldn’t help but feel bad for Caedus, since he’d obviously gone insane. Feeling like I needed some more time to come to terms with this new situation, I teleported back to the mountain. The last thing I saw before leaving was a rabid dog, no sign of the intelligence it had just displayed.