The Sixth School Ch. 054

Author's note.

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All Characters in the story are 18 years of age and above...

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Chapter Fifty Four: Run...

Take a rhino, give it the size of an elephant, and cover it with a layer of damn near unbreakable obsidian armor that juts out randomly into ridges strong and sharp enough to cut through the bark of a tree. This was the closest approximation of what Greg found himself looking at as he stood frozen like a statue in the middle of the forest. The heart of the mountain. The words fleeted through Greg's mind as they bubbled up from Roka's memories. Everyone in town had been warned of this creature, which was why even Niya had immediately recognized it and, like Greg, also stood frozen in abject terror. Only three of its abilities were known and that was enough for this earth-element beast to become one of the top menaces of the mountain.

The first and most unexpected ability of such a massive beast was its ability to move completely quietly. Whenever this beast either walks or runs, its feet don't fall to the ground like most other beasts. Instead, the ground will rise to meet its feet before leveling out once more, completely canceling out any noise that its footfalls might have otherwise made. Like a ghost, the beast's passage wouldn't even leave behind footprints, instead, the ground would go back to how it was before the beast passed through. Regardless of whether the ground under it was rock or soil, so long as it was earth, then you would never hear this beast moving. This means that if a hunter wasn't paying attention, this beast could easily walk up close till it was right behind them without the hunter ever knowing. The most insidious aspect of this ability was that, once the beast began chasing you, unless you kept looking back at the beast, then you'd have no way of telling where it was based on its footfalls.

The second ability that made this creature such a formidable foe, was its terrifying ability to track. So long as your foot touched the ground anywhere within a certain distance around it, a kilometer in Greg's estimation if his memory could be trusted, then this beast would know exactly where you are with pinpoint accuracy. It can even differentiate between the steps of different members of the same species. This means that if the beast was after you in particular, then even if you ran in a crowd, you would still be singled out. The only known way that a few both lucky and agile individuals managed to use to escape this beast, was to climb a tree and then jump from one to the other until you were far enough away from the beast that coming back down wouldn't immediately give you away. Climbing a single tree and then hoping that you would lose it that way wouldn't work as the beast would attack all the trees in the vicinity of where it last felt your feet come in contact with the ground. If you didn't manage to get far enough away by the time it reached the first tree you climbed, then chances are you'd end up trampled under its feet.

The final ability and the main reason this beast was such a terror was that soft movement wasn't the only thing that it could do. Using the ground like some sort of springboard under its feet, the beast very quickly picks up speed once it begins moving. It is said that if you are close enough to one to see it, then you only have ten breaths of time to get away from it. Past that, it will be moving so fast that no mundane human could hope to match it let alone surpass it, no matter how athletic they were. Even if one was generous and took one breath of time to be five or six seconds, then ten breaths would be around a minute. While it may seem like a decent window of time to make your escape, you have to keep in mind that this beast can sense your footsteps from close to a kilometer away. For you to cover that kind of distance in less than a minute, you'd have to be moving at about sixty kilometers per hour. Worse yet, it's not like the beast would be standing still for that one minute. In short, that one minute was best used to break the line of sight with the creature before quickly scampering up the closest tree that one could find.

Once it's been on the move for more than twenty breaths of time, then it becomes an unstoppable juggernaut of death. Weighing between five to seven tons and moving at anywhere from seventy to a hundred kilometers per hour, the beast obliterates anything in its path, be it man, beast, tree, or boulder. Only extremely large boulders, or the kinds of trees that would require ten men holding hands to encircle, had any hope of stopping this monster's charge. In fact, the aftermath of these charges has been known to create new paths through previously untraversable terrain. It's also how people figured out just how sharp the ridges on its obsidian armor were. The trees that it brushes against during its charge are usually left with deep grooves cutting into the bark, that is if it's not completely stripped off.

The one that they had come across had probably been resting in the shade before they came along. Greg could easily deduce this since it was still on its belly, its massive head turned towards them, its beady eyes fixed on them... no, not on them, but on him! Greg didn't know why, but the beast was looking directly at him with an inordinate amount of intensity. The beast was known for both being easily irritable and highly territorial. The focus with which it was regarding him, however, left Greg with the inexplicable feeling that there was more to this beast's interest in him than simple annoyance at someone intruding on its territory. Given the migration, one might be tempted to argue that this wasn't the beast's territory. Unfortunately for them, the beast isn't that amenable to logic.

"We'll run in different directions," Greg spoke up only loud enough to be heard by Niya. Like any normal person, Greg had been terrified when he stumbled upon the behemoth. Months of dungeon delving and repeatedly putting himself in deadly situations, however, had taught him how to take hold of his fear and push past it when the situation called for it. He was already crouched down and taking off his mundane shoes. "There is only one of it. It can't pursue us both at the same time," Greg quickly whispered the logic behind his recommendation even as he pulled on the shoes of haste from his storage ring and pulled them on. Given the way its eyes hadn't shifted from him since he caught sight of it, Greg got the feeling he would be the one needing the extra speed more than Niya. "Whoever it chases, will have to do their best to guide it as far away from town as possible. Meanwhile, the other one will run as fast as they can towards town," he laid out.

One might be tempted to think that Greg was trying to be a hero by saying this, knowing he was most likely the one who'd be chased. This, however, was the understanding among all hunters in town. If you caught the attention of a beast that you can't kill by yourself but other hunters can help in killing without great loss of life, then you were allowed to run back to town. If, on the other hand, you drew the attention of a beast that would require the loss of too many lives to either kill or drive away, then you were expected to do everything in your power to lead it away from town. Cruel as it may sound, it was believed that, better the one die than many do so. If one ignored this rule and still led the dangerous beast towards town and people died because of it, then even if he somehow survived the encounter, he would be killed by the other hunters because of it. This was done so that no hunter harbored any hope of survival by thinking they could run towards town to get others to help them. To add to the resolve was the knowledge that if any other hunters lost their family members because of his actions then those hunters could demand the lives of his family members. In this town, there was no such thing as the sins of the father not being visited upon the son. You don't get to kill other people's families and somehow expect yours to live. That was the principle they lived by in this town.

This was the reason why there wasn't any objection from Niya when he suggested this. At least with Greg's plan, one of them would be saved. If they both ran in the same direction, then they'd both be expected to run as far away from town as they possibly could. Greg knew that even as he nodded, Niya was hoping that he'd be the one that the beast would spare which meant that Greg would be the one it chased. He, however, didn't hold it against the Valla scion. Who in this situation wouldn't be hoping to be the lucky one? The instinct to survive is one of the most primal drives that any living being has. He wasn't expecting Niya to turn into a self-sacrificial saint at this moment. If anything, though he wasn't obvious about it, he had one eye on the Valla scion, on guard for any treachery. It wasn't too far out of the realm of possibility that someone might be tempted to hamper the escape of the person next to them so that they could get away. If Niya tried any such thing, he would be dead before he even understood what had happened. Greg could forgive the boy hoping that he lived, any attempts to tip the scales, however, would be immediately terminated with extreme prejudice.

Of course, Greg could remember the tokens that the healer had given him to protect himself. And while he was planning to use three of them if he needed to, it hadn't even crossed his mind to use the token that would summon the healer into this situation. Against others in the town, the healer was no different from a deity that could snuff out their lives with the wave of a hand. Given this, it would be all too easy to forget just how damaged her mana core and pathways were. If she overexerted herself and pushed her core just a bit too far, there was a very real chance that even her life could be forfeited as a result. Greg wasn't willing to risk it.

Besides, Greg himself was a walking armory. His plan didn't end with running away. While in this town the beast was known as the heart of the mountain, Olivia had immediately identified it by the name it was known by out in the wider world, Obsidian earthmover. The thing was usually a tier-two beast that could in rare circumstances reach tier-three in power if it managed to develop something called a beast core. Taking no chances, Greg had asked his familiar to find him the tools he'd need to defeat a tier three version of the beast. He'd much rather use something and find it to be overkill rather than be optimistic and find that he'd underestimated the creature. This wasn't the dungeon, there was no coming back from stupid mistakes. He still had the last tier-three contained-alchemical-bomb that the clone he'd sent back to town had failed to use. Still, he wouldn't mind having other backups if the single bomb didn't do the job.

"Now!" Greg's voice went from barely above a whisper to a normal speaking volume as he called out the one word. It, however, was like a gunshot in their ears. Turning their backs to one another the two of them shot off in opposite directions. Greg had delayed turning by a second, just to see if Niya would try anything. The Valla scion, however, forgot Greg's very existence the moment the signal was given. Greg got to see him launch into what was probably the fastest sprint of his life. Following his lead, Greg turned around and began running too. Greg had spent so much time sitting inside the sigil in his teacher's cave exposed to mana that he had grown sensitive to its fluctuations. That's the only reason he was able to swerve in time and avoid the earthen spike that suddenly shot from the earth aiming right at his midsection.

'Shit, it's third-tier!' Olivia's voice resounded in his mind even as Greg pressed his hand to his side to staunch the bleeding.

On the one hand, the shoes of haste were the only reason Greg had any confidence in outrunning, or at the very least, staying ahead of the beast. The speed they granted him, however, rendered it damn near impossible to turn on a dime. While he had done his best to jump to the side when he sensed the attack, he hadn't managed to fully get out of the way, and so the spike had left a nasty wound on his side. Still, he had managed to keep himself from being skewered like a shish kebab, so despite the pain, Greg counted it as a win. From the wail of pain that Greg heard behind him, it didn't sound like Niya had been as lucky. Greg didn't turn back to find out what was his fate.

If he'd had the time to put on the subtlety pants, then navigating the forest at the speeds that he was moving at would have been far easier. Unfortunately for Greg, he hadn't put those pants on in close to four months now. Greg had to employ what little he could remember of what the pants had taught him even as the trees turned into a blur all around him. Twigs, branches, vines, thick roots, and even other creatures. Greg had to dedicate a hundred and ten percent of his mind to ensuring that he didn't run into any of these things. The simple act of tripping, right at this moment could prove deadly. Pushed to the extreme, the shoes of haste could have him running at quadruple his usual speed. And given that Roka had been a young and fit hunter, this was no small increment. Greg, however, kept his pace at triple his usual running speed. That last increment was used as his method of evasion. Having been almost skewered once, Greg wasn't looking for a repeat performance. Anytime he sensed an attack from the beast, he'd use that last burst of speed to allow him to jump far enough out of the way before resuming his run at triple his usual speed.

Usually, this beast knew not to run into everything in its path, that way not only would it not slow down, but it would also capitalize on its silent pursuit ability. Whether it had attacked humans before or not, Greg didn't know. He, however, got the feeling that the beast hadn't expected its quarry to be as fast as Greg was. Given enough time to accelerate, the beast could probably match his top speed with ease. Unfortunately for the beast and fortunately for Greg, however, the chase had only started like five seconds ago. It still hadn't had the chance to gather any momentum and pick up the requisite speed it would require to keep up with him. The gap between them was growing far too wide, far too quickly, and whatever it was that had gotten the beast so fixated on him, it seemed that it wasn't willing to let it go so easily. As such it didn't bother trying to go around anything or to minimize the noise of its pursuit. It simply ran through and obliterated anything in its path.

This worked out in Greg's favor as it spared him the necessity of having to look back at the beast to know where it was relative to him. This allowed Greg to keep his cool and not be paranoid that the beast was right behind him. It also allowed him to more easily guide the beast away from town and towards a more favorable battleground. While Greg was moving incredibly fast, he also knew that it wasn't sustainable. Sure, running at three or four times one's usual speed sounded exciting until one actually paused and thought about what that kind of strain would do to one's body. Through a mix of adrenaline and magic, he was overtaxing his body. And in a little over a minute, perhaps even two if he really pushed it, his body would have accrued too much damage to keep on going as he currently was. Torn muscles and ligaments, perhaps even fractured bones were certain to be the end result of this sprint.

What was even worse was that Greg knew that he wouldn't be able to get away in the one to two minutes of sprint time that he had. The gap might be growing right now, but the beast wasn't a feared foe for nothing. By the time the first minute was ending, it'd probably have started closing the gap between them. As such, Greg was only running for one reason and one reason only. To create as much distance between himself and the town as possible. This wasn't born out of any heroic or self-sacrificial impulses on Greg's part. Greg's thinking was far more practical than that. The simple reality was that Greg wanted to protect his secrets.

Firstly, just killing this beast all by his lonesome was enough of a feat that every hunter in town would want to know how he did it. And while he may be able to weave a lie, if they had access to the body, any lies he told would quickly fall apart. Secondly, Greg suspected that the only reason the three families plus the Town-head hadn't been as aggressive in trying to win him over to their side was because it was the healer they were interested in, they only thought of him as the cherry on top of the cake that was the healer. If he took an obsidian earthmover on his own, a feat that even the Town-head couldn't replicate, their perception of him would change, and the competition to win him over would begin in earnest. Given that two of the three families were almost certain to turn into his enemies if he was won over by one of the houses, he wasn't exactly dying to show them his true capabilities. An enemy that underestimates you is nothing short of a blessing as far as Greg is concerned.

The final reason that Greg was doing his best to get far away from town, was the healer. Even if he somehow managed to pull the wool over all the townspeople's eyes, there was no way he would be able to get away with any lies, especially about magic, when the healer was involved. As things were, Greg fully trusted the healer. So far, she had done right by him at every turn. But just because things were one way in the present, didn't mean they couldn't change. It would be extremely foolish of him to think that people couldn't be tempted to do things that they otherwise wouldn't have done. He, of all people, knew this. A cynical part of him couldn't help but wonder if the healer seemed trustworthy only because she hadn't been presented with the right temptation. An almost infinite source of magical resources and materials was one such temptation and Greg wasn't about to tempt her with it. It didn't feel good to impugn the honor of his teacher. Wisdom, however, required that he remain open to all possibilities. If he closed his eyes to certain possible outcomes simply because he didn't like them, then if a knife struck from the dark, he wouldn't know where to even begin in seeking out the traitor. And that, only if he survived the traitor's first move.

DO YOU WISH TO BUY A LOW-GRADE TIER-THREE WEEPING FLOWER TINCTURE FOR 147,000 MAGIC POINTS?

YES/NO

DO YOU WISH TO BUY THE HIGH-GRADE TIER-TWO HIVE MAGIC SCROLL FOR 140,000 MAGIC POINTS?

YES/NO

DO YOU WISH TO BUY A HIGH-GRADE TIER-THREE OBFUSCATION AMULET FOR 210,000 MAGIC POINTS?

YES/NO

DO YOU WISH TO BUY A HIGH-GRADE TIER-THREE EARTH-LOCK FORMATION FOR 340,000 MAGIC POINTS?

YES/NO

DO YOU WISH TO BUY A HIGH-GRADE TIER-THREE IMMOBILIZATION FORMATION FOR 280,000 MAGIC POINTS?

YES/NO

DO YOU WISH TO BUY A MID-GRADE TIER-THREE EARTH'S BANE PHIAL FOR 170,000 MAGIC POINTS?

YES/NO

DO YOU WISH TO BUY A HIGH-GRADE TIER-THREE IMMOVABLE RAMPART FOR 295,000 MAGIC POINTS?

YES/NO

Greg kept running for about one and a half minutes before he caught sight of a clearing that would be perfect for his counterattack. From the faint sound of destruction that was following him in the distance, Greg estimated that he had bought himself anywhere between thirty and forty seconds before the beast caught up to him. The clearing was god-sent as his body had already started flagging from the strain. Another ten or so seconds more of running was all that he would have managed before it completely gave out. Despite this, Greg had to start trying to stop from more than ten meters out as a result of his speed. By the time he came to a complete stop, he was already in the middle of the clearing.