In search of a place to rest, Faust found a huge fallen tree with a cracked opening. Huge might have been understating the tree.
It was enormous. Stretching more than a hundred metres and thicker than a house or two. He crawled into one of its hidden cracks barely. It was a tight fit, but his new home was wider inside, allowing him to lay comfortably and still be hidden.
"Home sweet home," Faust murmured, chuckling. His body felt cold and weak, like he was a feather on a chilly night. So he wrapped his travelling cloak tighter and the wind grew strangely warmer.
Faust smiled. The Journey's Wind enchantment on the cloak was deeper than he thought. He exhaled a relieved breath and opened his status briefly.
[Name: Faust Havlicek]
[Level: 4 (400/500)]
[Constitution: 150 (+20)]
[Strength: 100 (+95)]
[Agility: 170 (+50)]
[Spirit: 72]
[Schema: The Perfect Match]
[Schema Abilities: Schema Replication, Instance Replication]
[Skills: Stealth Lv2, Appraise Lv2, Acid Shot Lv2, Severe Hit Lv1, Dark Maw Lv2, Observe Lv2, Fireball Lv1, Rage Strike Lv1]
[Equipment: Slime Tether +3, Jackal Dagger +3, White Travelling Cloak +2, Midnight Fur Hat +2, Iron Cutlass +2]
[Combat Power: 492 (+155)]
[Origin Coins: 2269]
[System: 100% Drop Rate]
Over 500 combat power? Only a hundred points from level 5? Multiple skills at level 2? Faust had to say that was good for him. And after how many hours of work?
Faust asked the system for the Beast Tide Timer again.
[Time Remaining: 6:03:27]
Oh. That wasn't bad. He could sleep for a couple hours and still wake up maybe three hours before the Beast Tide started. He would get back and familiarize himself with what the others had planned. And tell them if they're ideas were flawed.
He liked the idea of rolling in just before the battle, wearing his dirty, battle-worn clothes, looking around and saying.
"Yeah, that won't work."
Faust chuckled by himself, slowly drifting into sleep. He vaguely reminded himself to find someone with a Strong Schema to copy when Nirvana's expired.
But his mind also strangely brushed against other things that weren't important to his now or future.
He wondered if his father had been brought into the Origin Trials, or his step-mom. His siblings were only… five? Six years old? He wasn't really sure. Silently he hoped the system would understand that a child wasn't ready for this type of danger.
And it would drive his dad crazy. As much as he disliked his father sometimes, Faust didn't want to see him suffer.
Finally he pushed his mind away from all that. What was important now was getting some sleep.
◇◇◇
BOOM!
Faust woke up with a start when the world started trembling with explosions. He snapped up glancing around in great confusion.
"Where am I? What the hell was that?"
The fog of his mind quickly receded and he remembered coming to rest inside the trunk of the giant, fallen tree.
Coughing, he cleaned his eyes and took out a bottle of water from his Spatial bag. It was a part of the Basic Rations the system had given to him, along with some bread, butter and a slab of ham that he had already mostly eaten.
After gulping down a few mouthfuls of water, Faust exhaled. "Ahh, that's refreshing. Terrible freaking bed but still top five naps i've ever had"
He stretched slowly in his tight space, then froze when something exploded in the distance again.
That's something is really big or really strong. Should I check it out? How long do I have before the Beast Tide starts.
The system chimed and displayed the time. He expected four hours, but froze when he saw the panel.
[Time Remaining: 1:20:49]
Faust started laughing first. It was actually funny to him. His mind hadn't been in a good place before he slept. Otherwise he would've realised that with how tired he was there was no way he would wake up on time.
He cleaned a tear from his eye as the laugh ended
Then he exploded into a blur of movement.
Smashing through the crack in the tree's trunk, he escaped his home quickly, instead of slowly squeezing out.
He turned about frantically, landing with a spray of wood chips and dust. Which way was the damn Novice Village?!
"Appraise!"
A minimap instantly appeared in the corner of his vision. He expanded it, then turned left, and took off in a burst. He was so deep in the forest that Hunter's Dream was on the edges of his map.
But at his top speed it shouldn't take too long to get to the Novice Village. An hour? Maybe an hour and thirty minutes.
So he would get there just as the battle started.
Extending his Slime Tether he started throwing himself through the forest, swinging from tree to tree.
It was night as usual in the ever dark Mind's forest, but something was wrong.
Another explosion rocked the world, and this time it was just ahead of him. Faust cursed, but kept moving. He had to outrun whatever was happening there and keep moving.
Dust billowed through the air in the area. Trees were cracked, some had even fallen over. Deep craters were carved into the earth by an explosion that didn't seem to leave any fire behind.
Who's the monster dealing this much damage?
He had seen most of the monsters in the forest fight. None of them was even remotely this powerful. Or at least they couldn't deal damage to an area like this.
The Midnight Lynx was strong, but it was more used to secrecy and ambushes. The Kobold Shamans had great firepower, but the attacks would leave burns at least.
Whatever did this is a cannon.
Observe!
He checked the area, tracking the damage to the forest ahead. But the ground was covered in small holes the size of a needle too.
He focused on them and Observe highlighted them as coming from a swarm of creatures running over the ground.
These tracks…. The Rock spiders? Why were they here?
But the answer was obvious. He exterminated the entire tribe of Kobolds just hours ago.
So they moved in? And what were they battling if the Kobolds were dead?
He swung onto a tree and finally found what had decimated the forest in a clearing.
A sea of black stone spiders scuttled over the ground. The irritating sounds pouring from them filled his skull, thrumming in his ears. Their red glowing eyes swam hypnotically over the black like the moon's light on the ocean.
And their opponent was… a beetle?
It was built like one. Jumping from tree to tree with six powerful legs and four wings in explosive bursts of movement. Its head was like a Rhinoceros Beetle; deep black like its body with some yellow blotches.
The swarm of spiders surrounded the beetle, but it rose into the air with a flutter of its wings and pointed its horned head down.
BOOM!
A beam of concussive blue force erupted from between its horns. The ground caved in, a bubble of force and wind expanded outward, almost throwing Faust off his branch.
While his ears rang, Faust squinted through the dust at the flying beetle. That was the cannon.
[Mage Hunter]
[Level 7]
[Combat Power: 961]
[Details: A weapon bred to hunt mages. It can shrug off both magical and, to an extent, physical attacks well, and its Repulsion Cannon can shatter poorly casted shield spells.]
That's a big boy.
***
A/N: Don't forget to support the story with powerstones ヽ(°□° )ノ