Fate Weaver’s Legacy

#093 – I knew this skill would be useful one day

Into my backpack the huge sack of tomatoes went.

Just like the pots from the giant merchant’s – ogre’s? – floor, there was no reason for me to ignore all of this juicy stuff. More food variety could only be a good thing.

Once I pillaged as much as I could without risking passing the one hour time limit, I steeled myself, walked to the door, and opened it.

It led outside. A large empty area with dirt ground surrounded by walls on all sides. There were also several racks of weapons scattered along the walls and what seemed to be target dummies stood in a row at the far wall.

I eyed the area curiously without entering just yet.

“A training ground, I guess?” I mused. “Am I gonna fight a combat instructor now…?”

That thought honestly made me a bit wary about going into this fight. If a maid was that strong, how strong would be someone actually specializing in combat?

…But then again, the maid came after a guy with a sword, who literally looked like someone used to combat. And other than that one glaive hit – which had barely scratched me – I’d beaten the maid without any issues.

GeorgeDoshington: fuck the police
GeorgeDoshington: intstruct the instructor
GeorgeDoshington: ur better then him

I snorted.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, George.”

KaiEbikoOfficial: nana you should really go back now
KaiEbikoOfficial: i have a bad feeling about this
GeorgeDoshington: and i have good feeling about it

I pursed my lips.

Should I turn back, after all? It would be safer… but if I kept turning back, I would never beat this dungeon like I wanted to.

“Last floor,” I finally said. “No matter what happens, I’ll end for today after I’m done with this floor.”

KaiEbikoOfficial: I hope you know what youre doing…

I walked through the door.

Even as I made it further into the open field, I kept my head on a swivel, trying to figure out where my opponent would come from.

There really weren’t many spots one could hide behind. The dummies were too thin, the weapon racks were right up against the walls, and there weren’t any other doors besides the one I’d used to enter here.

Oh, that was it, wasn’t it? My opponent would come through there, just to screw with me.

With that in mind, I turned around to keep the door in sight and slowly backed away from it.

As expected, a few more steps later, the door slammed shut on its own and I tensed up, expecting it to open again.

It didn’t.

Instead, I felt a sharp pain in my shoulder as something hit me.

I gasped in pain and whirled around to face the threat.

Only to see empty space.

What the–

Another stab of pain, this time in my back.

I cried out again and turned around.

There was nothing.

repeaeaeat:

I turned on Heat Vision.

It took me a brief moment to adjust to seeing on an entirely different spectrum, but as soon as I did, I spotted the humanoid outline – with a tail – circling around to lunge at me again.

This time, I summoned my key sword and quickly swung it in my opponent’s direction.

Despite my haphazard attempt, it seemed to surprise them enough that they canceled their attempt to stab me and backed off.

I didn’t hesitate, pulled out my gun self, and fired a huge wave of fire at them.

I immediately realized just how dumb of a decision that had been as I was briefly flashbanged by all the heat in my vision.

I yelped and stumbled back, unsuccessfully trying to blink it away.

I turned off Heat Vision, hoping it would help.

Fortunately, it did. I was no longer blinded.

Unfortunately, it also meant that I was back to not seeing my invisible enemy.

Another stab, this time in my left calf. I gasped in pain and went down on my knee, but quickly turned Heat Vision on again and tried looking around for my opponent.

Before I could find them, I felt another stab in my left wrist, causing me to drop my gun self before I could put it back into my Soul Pocket.

I grit my teeth and stifled a scream of pain as I finally found the blob of heat… perched up on a wall.

What the fuck?

I didn’t let my surprise distract me from my next move.

I fired off Rend at my opponent to stun them.

But they fucking dodged it. Somehow.

At least it bought me enough time to regrab my dropped gun self, aim it at the blob of heat now on the ground, and shoot a bullet of water at it.

I was so damn lucky that the stab wounds hadn’t done any permanent damage and I could still use my gun self.

My opponent dodged my shot again, but I had them in my sights now and kept shooting one water bullet after another.

They kept dodging though.

This was like the freaking archer on steroids. And invisible.

With that errant thought, I decided to change gears and fired off a barrage of crystals instead.

As expected, the wider area of attack caused the blob to stop jumping around and I saw it instead shift around in place, causing the crystals to be deflected.

As I was about to fire off another shot, I saw an abrupt movement in the blob, and before I could decipher what that was about, I was suddenly hit in the stomach with something sharp.

“Gah?!”

My eyes automatically flicked down to see an odd dagger failing to penetrate my clothes self and falling to the ground.

Fucker had thrown it at me, huh? I guess standing still wasn’t the smartest of ideas against someone like this.

With that in mind, I locked onto my invisible enemy again and dashed to the side, trying to throw off their aim while shooting another barrage of crystals.

Despite my best efforts though, I felt another dagger hit me. This time though, it hit me in… my gun self.

It cracked.

I felt a very strange jolt of pain in… somewhere I couldn’t describe and dropped my gun self with a gasp.

Naturally, my opponent used this chance to circle around me and stab me in the kidney, while I tried to mentally recover from that weird and unpleasant experience.

I growled in pain and frustration, and swung my key sword at the offender while covering it with black fire.

He jumped out of the way and my swing went wide.

I fired off another Rend just before he could get completely away.

This time, it hit and he stumbled.

It gave me just enough time to let go off my sword and tackle the fucker before activating Essence Sap at max power.

He struggled and almost immediately threw me off – even if I was stronger, I still had the body of a child, after all – but I leapt after him again and wrapped myself around what I assumed his midsection to continue sapping him.

He kicked me but I held on.

He stabbed me in the head.

It fucking hurt, but I somehow managed to hold on.

I fired off Rend again, making him slip and fall on his face. I used that opportunity to Quick Fetch my key sword again, charge it up with Ether, and then bring it down on him, causing an explosion of crystal.

For a brief moment, I thought I’d won.

Then, out of nowhere, there was pain.

I screamed and recoiled away from my enemy as several cuts just appeared on my body, even under my clothes.

Unfortunately, I had no time to regret not wondering what his other skills were, as the heat blob once leapt away from my lifestealing touch.

I glared at the person-shaped blob of heat as I barely stood on my two legs.

My gun self was still broken and there was no way he would get close enough again for me to slash him or use essence sap again.

What the hell was I supposed to do?

They suddenly did another abrupt movement and I instinctually threw myself to the side to avoid the dagger they had thrown.

But it still fucking hit me somehow. This time in my waist.

Did he have some kind of aimbot skill? What the hell?!

The pounding in my head had gotten to the point where I couldn’t even hear my own strained breaths. It didn’t matter though because I was entirely focused on tracking my opponent through Heat Vision as they circled me again.

Several chatters then suggested I bring out a shield.

I shakily reached into my backpack and pulled out the Sapphire Buckler just in time to block another dagger flying at me.

Luckily, this guy didn’t have an armor-piercing skill, so the dagger simply clanked off of it.

I managed to somewhat stand again with my shield in front of me, constantly shifting to always face my opponent and block more of his throws.

Three more daggers clanked off of my shield, but one still hit me in the leg where the shield didn’t reach while my mind raced to find a way out of this situation.

Luckily, the solution presented itself as my opponent seemed to abandon the sniping tactic and rushed at me once again.

He almost managed to hit me, but I smacked him with Rend just before he would have likely slit my throat and caused him to stumble.

I roared, threw myself at him, activated Essence Sap for one last time on him, and then released the skill from the ring.

All I felt at that was a new open space I could fill again.

Still in contact with my foe, I activated Skill Snatch.

I almost lost myself in the overwhelming haze that I felt right afterwards, but I soldiered through it and took a look at the three choices I was offered.

One of them bent space, the second one changed gravity, the third one obscured vibrations and electromagnetic waves.

I snatched the third one on impulse and then immediately activated the new mental switch.

Then, several things happened all at once.

The figure in front of me finally entered the visible spectrum, revealing a man with dark green leathery skin, horns, and a reptilian tail. Moment later, I stopped using Heat Vision, since I was already so low on Intra. And immediately after that, I got kicked in the face, and in my already exhausted state, I didn’t manage to hold onto him and got flung across the field.

Everything hurt as I lay there. Including my head. Especially my head.

But somehow, even as I lay there for a good few moments, I hadn’t gotten attacked.

When, with great effort, I finally tilted my head up to see what was going on, I saw the lizard demon guy… looking all over the place, stabbing and slashing at empty space seemingly at random.

…Oh, Right.@@novelbin@@

I was currently using his invisibility that I’d snatched.

He had no idea where I was… even though it should be obvious by the way he had kicked me.

Well, that worked in my favor. I could take my time to get close and then stealth strike him.

But not too much. I couldn’t feel my Ether or Intra draining, so I had to assume the invisibility skill used Tempor, and I couldn’t tell how much I had left. Not to mention, he might eventually hit me with one of his random stabs.

So despite my battered body protesting and feeling like my head was about to split in two, I got up, and shakily began walking in his direction.

Right now, he was standing still in a battle-ready pose, scanning his surroundings.

I approached slowly and carefully, trying not to make any sounds, even though the invisibility skill covered sounds as well.

I got within an arm’s reach, Quick Fetched my key sword, pulled my hand back, poured Ether into it, and then sliced in front of me as quickly as I could.

My opponent noticed me too late to do anything about it.

I split him in half with a clean cut at his torso thanks to the black flames apparently enhancing the cutting power of my swing, and his top half flew back and then landed with a nasty squelch.

A moment later, both halves of his body disappeared into orange smoke, leaving a big chest behind. Unlike the other chests in this dungeon, this one had a skull on it. Like a boss skull.

I stared at it for a moment, before remembering that I was still using up Tempor and promptly turning off the invisibility.

Then, with the tension finally bleeding out of me, I collapsed on the spot with a pained groan.

“...Are… Are we done? Was this the final boss…?” I whined.

I didn’t feel like a final boss, but it sure as hell was fucking difficult like one.

KaiEbikoOfficial: nana you need to treat your wounds!
KaiEbikoOfficial: i told you shouldnt have gone one more
repeaeaeat: did you steal his invisibility?
GeorgeDoshington: well fuck
GeorgeDoshington:

“...Yeah. I’m stupid. Sorry. Shouldn’t have… gone here…”

I turned my head and let my eyes dart around until they found… my gun self, laying broken on the ground. The lizard guy had jammed a dagger straight into the nozzle, splitting it in two and causing cracks along its entire structure.

…Fuck.

Once again, I was reminded of the fact that this wasn’t just a video game.

My enemies could and would aim to destroy my weapons if they couldn’t easily kill me instead.

This hurt especially bad since I’d invested so much into that gun. Not to mention, that gun was… well, me.

Oh, but wouldn’t it repair itself like my dress…? It could, right…?

I really really hoped it could.

I flopped over, pushed myself to my knees and then to my feet, and proceeded to stumble my way over to my gun self. I dropped down, gathered up the pieces in my arms, gently pushed some Ether into it, and then watched it intently.

It was absorbing the Ether… but that was because it had already been charged with Ether because of Ultimate Fusion.

I didn’t think it was repairing itself at all, however.

“Chat… my gun…” I whined pathetically.

GeorgeDoshington: rip gun o7
GeorgeDoshington: you will be missed
repeaeaeat: that really sucks
RetconRanger: Maybe you can get a new one?

“New one? Like… going back to the water park…?”

Technically, I would also need to go back to the crater dungeon to get the flamethrower if I wanted to recreate the whole thing.

Although…

“I don’t even know if I’ll get the same drops again…”

KaiEbikoOfficial: youre bleeding nana

I glanced over at my legs that were covered in stab and slash wounds.

Somehow, they hurt less than looking at my destroyed gun self though.

“It’s fine… It’s gonna magically heal on its own…” I murmured.

KaiEbikoOfficial: nana

“Not like I have any bandages or anything.” I sighed.

Honestly, if I was still a normal human – which I was pretty sure I wasn’t at this point – this would have been a very concerning state to be in, but as things were…

Well, as much as this wasn’t a video game, getting injured and healing from those injuries was very video gamey.

Physically hurt? Just drink Ether.

Mentally exhausted? Just recover Intra.

…I still had no idea what running out of Tempor did. Now that I thought about it, it felt kind of concerning though. What could running out of space-time juice possibly do? Erase me from spacetime?

Jeofffff: fuuuuuck i missed the fun

I snorted as the comment knocked me out of existential thoughts again.

“Don’t worry, Jeoff. You didn’t miss the most important part,” I announced with a growing grin as I slowly panned my head over to the boss chest still sitting on the ground where I’d defeated the ninja lizard demon guy.

Jeofffff: oh for fucks sake