As One Became A Vigilante
"S-sure." As far as affirmations went, that was about all I could manage when it came to giving Althea a "go ahead."
Anything more than that would honestly taste like salt to me. The words had barely left my mouth before she was a blur of gold and grey, launching herself back into the fray like a missile.
Impressive. I thought to myself.
Lu, having finally wrenched his halberd free from the dissolving carcass of the second beast, let out a booming grunt of approval. He didn't ask who she was or why a middle schooler's "cousin" was suddenly wielding a glowing broadsword. In the Vanguard of monster hunting, I guessed the only resume you needed was the ability to hit things really, really hard.
What followed was less of a fight and more of a perfectly choreographed boss-fight cutscene. It was a terrifyingly beautiful display of improvised teamwork.
Lu acted as the ultimate heavy tank, stepping into the center of the street and drawing the aggro. He swung his massive polearm in wide, devastating arcs, his purple aura creating shockwaves that kept the remaining Shuck off balance. Whenever the beast tried to use its superior speed to flank the giant, Althea was already there, darting through Lu's blind spots like a lethal golden shadow.
When the beast lunged for Lu's exposed side, Althea drove her broadsword into its hind leg, severing its momentum. When it snapped its terrifying jaws at her in retaliation, Lu brought the butt of his halberd crashing down on its skull, pinning it to the crushed asphalt.
They didn't exchange a single word. They didn't need to. It was a symphony of violence—a brutal, synchronized rhythm of heavy steel, golden light, and purple kinetic force.
With one final, desperate howl, the Shuck tried to thrash its way free. Lu simply planted his massive boot on its neck to hold it steady, and Althea stepped forward, driving her sword straight down through the center of its chest. A violent burst of gold and purple mana erupted through the street, and the beast dissolved into a harmless cloud of black ash that scattered in the afternoon wind.
Silence descended on Sector 4 once again, broken only by the wail of distant sirens and the heavy, ragged breathing of the intern still clinging to Lu's back.
"Holy… holy budget reports," the intern gasped, sliding off the giant's back and collapsing onto the pavement. He fumbled blindly for his cracked, circular glasses, shoving them onto his face. "We survived. Lu, we actually survived."
Althea cleanly flicked her sword to the side, the blade vanishing into a shimmer of golden light as she returned to her neutral, statuesque posture. She looked completely unharmed, not a single blonde hair out of place.
I slowly stood up from behind the rusted sedan, my legs feeling like they were made of overcooked jelly. The injured woman was still conscious, gripping her leg, but the immediate threat of being eaten by a shadow-hound had passed.
"Okay. Good job, team. Fantastic DPS. We're just gonna… head home now," I stammered, awkwardly dusting off my jeans. I needed to grab Althea and sprint before the intern started asking questions about registration numbers and DHA clearance.
But nobody was moving.
I looked up. The intern was still panting on the ground, but Lu hadn't relaxed his stance. The giant slowly turned his massive, armored frame. He wasn't looking at the dissolving ash. He wasn't looking at Althea.
He was looking directly at me.
Or rather, he was looking at my hand.
The faint, glowing crest of the Reach—the mark that had essentially painted a giant target on my back—was pulsing faintly against my skin, completely exposed.
Lu took a step toward me. The heavy thud of his armored boot hitting the asphalt sounded like a judge's gavel.
I froze. Every single survival instinct that had kept me alive for the past ten minutes screamed at me to run, but my feet were glued to the floor. Lu took another step. He was so impossibly huge that he eclipsed the sun, casting a long, terrifying shadow over me.
He stopped less than two feet away. Up close, the giant was even more terrifying. His golden eyes were piercing, unblinking, and entirely devoid of human warmth. He slowly leaned down, the heavy plates of his armor grinding together. His massive face hovered mere inches from mine.
He didn't draw a weapon. He didn't yell. He just stared at the glowing mark on my hand, and then shifted his gaze up to lock eyes with me. The sheer, suffocating pressure radiating off of him was entirely different from the Black Shucks. This wasn't the ravenous hunger of a rabid beast. This was the crushing, absolute authority of a god looking at an insect.
My breath hitched in my throat. My heart hammered against my ribs so violently I thought it was going to crack my sternum. The air grew impossibly thin. I tried to swallow, but my mouth was completely dry.
If this guy decided I was a threat, I wouldn't even have time to blink before he turned me into a red smear on the pavement. A sudden, terrifying warmth pooled in my lower stomach, and I realized with absolute, horrifying clarity that if this towering giant stared at me for even five seconds longer, I was going to literally piss my pants in the middle of the street.
"I'm not exactly Gigachad material," I laughed nervously, the sound coming out as a pathetic, high-pitched wheeze. "But I don't think I've done anything to deserve death by glare. Really. I'm just a guy with a weird tattoo and a very aggressive roommate."
The giant's eyes narrowed, the golden hue turning into a molten, predatory amber.
"The Mark of the Reach," Lu's voice rumbled, vibrating through my very marrow. It wasn't a question. It was a condemnation. "Only the Obsidian Hands dare to manifest such a profane tether in the waking world. You have brought the Void's attention to this sector, boy. You are a catalyst of rot."
"Obsidian what?!" I shrieked. I'd never heard of the Obsidian Hands. It sounded like a bad heavy metal band or a group of edgy teenagers who spent too much time on the dark web. "I'm a student! I have a math test on Tuesday! I don't even know what color obsidian is—wait, it's black, but that's not the point!"
Lu didn't care about my academic schedule. He shifted his grip on the halberd, the air around the blade beginning to crackle with that terrifying purple electricity again.
"To sever the connection, the source must be extinguished," he stated flatly.
He swung.
It wasn't a measured strike; it was an execution. The massive blade whistled through the air toward my neck. My life flashed before my eyes—mostly just a montage of me eating ramen and playing gacha games—and then my body moved on its own.
I ducked, the wind from the blade's passage nearly scalping me. The halberd slammed into a concrete pillar behind me, shattering it into pebbles.
"Adjutant, stand back!" Althea commanded, her golden sword reappearing in a flash of light. She stepped between us, her blade meeting Lu's massive weapon as he pulled it from the wreckage. "He is under my protection! You will not harm the Reach!"
"Protecting a parasite only ensures the host's death!" Lu roared, slamming his shoulder into Althea.
She was strong, but Lu was a literal mountain. She skidded back, her boots carving trenches in the street. She was already winding up for a counter-attack, her eyes glowing with a desperate, level-one ferocity.
"Althea, NO!" I yelled. If she fought him, we were dead. He was a professional; we were a glitch in the system.
I didn't think. I just acted. I lunged forward, scooping the injured woman back up into my arms. Then, I reached out and grabbed Althea by a handful of her hair and the back of her hoodie.
"We are leaving! Right now!"
I pivoted and ignited whatever mana-fueled nitrous was in my legs. I bolted in the opposite direction, dragging a struggling, sword-wielding Aeon behind me while carrying a screaming civilian princess-style.
"Let me go, Adjutant! I can defeat him!" Althea protested, her head being yanked back by my iron grip on her hair.
"No, you can't! You're level one and he's like level ninety-nine!" I screamed, my feet hitting the pavement with the force of small explosions. I was moving so fast the wind was literally peeling my eyelids back.
Behind us, I heard the thunderous boom of Lu's halberd hitting the ground again.
"GET BACK HERE, AGENT OF OBSIDIAN!" the giant's voice echoed through the empty streets.
"I'VE GOT NO IDEA WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT, YOU DERANGED MANIAC!" I sobbed into the wind, dodging around a corner at sixty miles per hour. "I JUST WANT TO GO HOME AND PLAY DUEL LINKS! LEAVE ME ALONE!"