Chapter Text
Time passed strangely after the explosion. Hraefn felt slightly off from his body, as though he was lagging behind it. While his brain rushed with possibilities, he heard his voice dodging questions and specifics while trying to communicate the danger of the situation in a way that made sense. He didn't know if he'd managed to convince them before he was interrupted by someone guiding him to a place he could lay down.
Eighth tier magic... Hadn't they said it was impossible? Or was it only impossible for humans? The phantom of a racing heart beat wildly in his chest, and Hraefn's mind slid into panic. He'd gotten too relaxed, let others soothe him into their delusions of security. He wasn't prepared for a battle with any well-prepared player with any amount of skill. No matter his experience, in his current armor set, he'd fall before any player in Divine-class gear, even if they only had half his experience. Should he switch armor sets? Did the situation call for it? He didn't have enough information.
He hadn't-
A cold breath crawled up his spine, slithered around his neck, curled over his shoulders, lazy and languid as death. Then it struck down, sinking its fangs into his heart, freezing him solid. The ice crawled out from his chest, a frigid, biting cold that choked his voice and held his flesh captive. Instead of the thrum of his missing heart, Hraefn began to hear the thuds of heavy footfalls. The coppery smell of pennies smothered the earthy fragrance that once filled the tent. Building up before him like ice cracking in reverse, images flashed across his vision. Clawed, scaly paws tearing up the ground. Unmoving yellow eyes staring blankly ahead. A toothy maw opening. A battered bag tied with string, flapping in the wind.
Then, all at once, the vision shattered, and a bizarre warmth rushed in to take its place. Dumped back to the moment, Hraefn felt an instinctive need to gasp for breath in a way his body wasn't meant to handle, a way it didn't require.
Though he struggled still to regain his clarity, Hraefn knew he had to move. He had to go. Go... where? There was danger, he knew there was danger. His thoughts were still jumbled.
Something was coming. It was a threat. It wasn't a threat to him, but to the humans. Why did he need to worry then? They should be able to deal with their own problem, shouldn't they? But, weren't they allies now? Were they? They were. He would protect his own this time.
While his thoughts clicked themselves back into order, Hraefn stumbled to his feet.
Gazef.
He needed to tell Gazef.
With a clear goal at last, Hraefn could finally focus. His nose twitched slightly as he scented copper. They were coming. Two score beasts, as many riders. They were dangerous despite being outnumbered. The Warrior Troop needed to defend as one in order to stand a chance, and Hraefn needed to warn them.
With a clear mind, Hraefn pulled open the flap to Gazef's tent.
He noticed several things all at around the same time. First was that Gazef was standing and facing away from him, and had removed his armor. Next was that the angle of his elbows indicated that his hands were approximately at his belt buckle. Third, with the material of his pants being tugged forwards like they were, the shapeliness of Gazef’s rear was on full display. Fourth and least important, Gazef hadn’t noticed Hraefn yet.
Hraefn took a step inside, and said the man’s name.
Gazef jumped and spun around, and Hraefn noticed an odd click and slither as he did.
Hraefn’s eyes darted down to Gazef’s feet, where his unbelted pants had taken the opportunity to pool during the spin.
“Mikyuki-sa-ACK!” Gazef yelped as his inertia kept him spinning.
Hraefn watched the glorious disaster as Gazef toppled. The rebellious material of his pants had latched around his boot tops, so he couldn’t shift his feet to regain his balance. Nice legs. So many bodybuilders chiseled their physiques into nothing but hard planes, but Gazef’s muscles were those of a working man. There was just enough body fat to cushion everything, but the muscles could still jump into sharp relief when they were straining, say against ankle pants. And then Gazef was falling face-first to the ground, and it looked like his arms had missed their placement. He landed with an “oof” of emptied lungs.
All of that left his chest flat on the ground and his rump presented in the air, a pose right out of an adult video. The material of his underwear looked like it should have been looser than the pants, but his current position drew them tight against his skin, and… It really was quite a nice ass.
Gazef hastily pushed himself into a sitting pose, and looked up at Hraefn with a face gone blank in shock. “M-Miyuki.” His normally tanned face was flushed a vibrant red. It was insidiously cute.
“Uh…” Hraefn’s eyes flicked down again to the widely-spread knees, and the effectively tied ankles… and back up to the underwear. The ecru cotton was indeed loose, almost baggy, but was beginning to change shape even as he watched. He licked his lips.
“M… Miyuki…” Gazef’s reverent whisper fell like a pebble into a still pond.
Hraefn met Gazef’s eyes. The expression there was complicated, wondering and almost scared and hopeful and several other things.
“That’s...” Hraefn breathed. It really was definitely worth forgetting the errand that brought him here. Wait. Dammit, he was here for a reason! He shook his head almost violently. “Ah, no, Stronoff-sama, there are monsters approaching. The camp will be under attack soon.” Hraefn snuck another glance at Gazef, and his gut did a little jump at seeing the awkward way he had one hand over his crotch and the other trying to unbind his pants from his ankles.
Hraefn felt a tingling in his cheeks as he turned half away, giving Gazef a bit of privacy -oh how he didn’t want to- while he explained. “Due to…” How was he supposed to explain this? “The… nature of my magic, I have a chance of sensing danger before it reaches me. About forty beast riders are rapidly approaching from the west.” Hearing the small clinks of a fastening belt buckle, Hraefn returned his direct attention to Gazef. “The power I felt from them is enough to cause alarm, though I am afraid I have little information beyond that.”
Gazef’s training kicked in immediately, a familiar sight. He immediately went for his armor, donning it with practiced hands and no wasted movements. “Miyuki-dono, please inform Vice-Captain Adolan of the situation, tell him to rally the troops.”
Nodding his head once, Hraefn backed out of the tent. He could clearly scent the beastmen. He’d kept track of the scent the entire time, but now he could hear the distant pattering of paws against leaf litter. He couldn’t guess how close they were, though; he’d yet to experiment with the finer points of his senses. So, he stayed on task, hurrying over toward the sound of Adolan’s voice.
As Hraefn dodged around tents to avoid encounters with anyone hoping to introduce themselves to him, he decided that it was dumb and stupid that Adolan would hang out so far from Gazef. Didn’t he need to be the first to know what was going on or something? The mild annoyance drove Hraefn to simply warp the last stretch of distance.
Adolan, Liusaidh, and Ken sat by a small fire, chatting about home life as they cooked their food. It seemed they were close if this was how they spent their down time, and Hraefn almost felt bad for interrupting them, but he had a job to do.
“Vice-Captain Adolan,” Hraefn interrupted, his curt tone of voice grabbing the trio’s attention. In truth, he knew nothing of how their military worked so he simply parroted what Gazef had told him. “A hostile group is approaching the camp from the west. The Warrior-Captain says to rally the troops.”
Adolan leapt to his feet, movement far more fluid than Gazef’s had been. “A hostile group?”
“Beast riders.” Perhaps Hraefn should have explained that to begin with. “About forty, and each quite powerful. I would say even the weakest of them is as strong as Harlia-san. My magic picked up on them, though if you wish further details on that, I would ask that it wait.”
There was no hesitation. Adolan began throwing out orders, “Liusaidh, form up the shield wall squads and break out the spears. Ken, ready the archer groups. Both of you, light as many torches and lanterns as possible. We need all the light we can get. Please stand by, Takahashi-dono.”
Hraefn nodded, stepping out of the way for the three of them to get by. He wondered if such a situation was still scary for them, if it would be if they knew what was coming. Maybe it would. Despite there being no danger to him, Hraefn couldn’t shake the weight in his chest or swallow the sour taste in his mouth.
Ah, it would be fine.
As requested by Adolan, Hraefn stayed out of the way as the camp prepared for the fight. He distractedly listened to Gazef and Adolan bark out orders while he kept an ear out for the beast riders. There wasn’t much else to do as the soldiers donned their equipment and found their places.
Thanks to their training, they managed to finish moments before the beast riders became more than mere sounds and dust clouds. Snakemen riding Copper Wyrmlings, it would seem. Cold damage would be most effective, but Hraefn didn’t want to steal all the credit from the Warrior Troop. He had also told Gazef that he was more practiced with fire, so perhaps he would avoid [Iceball] for now.
“Archers, ready!” Gazef stared down the approaching riders, face stern and unreadable. His shoulders tensed further with each footfall as he waited for the instant they’d come into range. He quickly glanced at Hraefn, “Miyuki-dono?”
“After the archers.” He didn’t want to risk hitting any of the arrows, and firing from the current distance would look suspicious. It would hide some of his damage output, though. Fuck, he needed to disable his boosting skills.
As his enemies closed in and his allies waited with bated breath, Hraefn disabled a good chunk of his job skills in a near-panicked rush. Just as he disabled what he believed to be the last one, he almost flinched as Gazef’s shout tore through the air.
“Fire!”
A volley of arrows arced through the air, raining down upon the riders. Despite the sheer number of arrows, only a few embedded themselves into those wearing leather armor. The rest of them had slid and skittered off the creatures’ scales.
“Twin Maximise Magic…” A feral delight rose in Hraefn’s chest as he called up his magic. He’d love to see them brush this one off; he’d show them exactly what a maxed out magical attack could do. Electricity crackled around his fingertips as he slowly lifted a hand. “[Thunderlance]!”
He drove his hand forward, his palm facing his targets, a pair that sang of greater danger than the rest. A magic circle formed before his fingertips and barely a second passed before the air around it snapped. Two bolts of lightning arced out, shrieking through the air. They swept past the front line, dutifully finding their prey, and with short, piercing shrieks, the two targets were reduced to clusters of flaky ash.
Before their destruction could properly register among the Warrior Troop, several of the snakemen fired back with [Magic Arrow]. Streaks of light flitted through the air, three clusters aimed at Hraefn. They shattered against his passive defenses before they could come close to hitting him. At the same moment, he heard a deep grunt while Liusaidh landed beside him, one of the arrows flying past the spot she once stood.
He glanced past her. A few of the men had been hit, including Ken, but it seemed that they weren’t much harmed beyond a momentary loss of breath. Hraefn wouldn’t waste mana healing them then. Instead, he returned his attention to the snakemen and readied himself to cast again as they crossed into the spells’ range.
“Maximise Magic [Electrosphere]!”
A ball of lightning, incomparable to the spell’s usual output, appeared in Hraefn’s open palm, and in one fluid motion, he shot it forth.
And it struck.
The electrosphere, greatly enhanced by Hraefn’s sheer magical ability, rapidly expanded, swallowing a good portion of the snakeman casters. It could only be compared to a sun, lighting the area up as though it were day.
And as it came, it went, taking only four riders with it. Hraefn could have sworn that he’d had two more in range, but he couldn’t focus on that now. He already knew it was a gamble to use area of effect magic on enemies so spread out, but casters were annoying.
Fuck, how many more spells could he cast before he’d be considered suspiscious? He had already cast twelve earlier, and now he’d cast two more, both using metamagic. Did he need to keep to his sword from now on?
It didn’t matter, the riders were almost in melee and - when did they get arrows stuck in them? Second time’s the charm, he supposed.
He stopped supposing as an iron pellet came flying at him.
Of course, dodging it was no problem for him. It wasn’t like he spent his more than eighty-thousand hours in YGGDRASIL watering flowers or something. Maybe he should have slept more.
There was no time to think. It was time to see if that snakeskin would make good boots.
Hraefn drew his sword, and the front lines met.
For the most part, it was two against one, but even then it did not seem that the Warrior Troop would be victorious. The snakemen were stronger, and those mounts of theirs fought beside them.
Factoring that in, the Warrior Troop was doomed. Hraefn had miscalculated.
As he ran through his options, his body moved on autopilot to defend itself.
What could he do at this point? [Sleep]?
Red sprayed across the ground, both mount and rider torn in one swing.
He couldn’t risk it. His last attacks were already pushing it, there was no way they’d believe he had enough mana to end the battle just like that, and if he pulled that out now then his intentions would be questioned.
Another swing. Crimson painted the sky once more, one snake, two wyrmlings.
Hraefn couldn’t be too obvious.
Danger. Familiar eyes widened at an incoming blow. Danger .
Could he just debuff them? If he silent cast, then perhaps that could be played off as the snakemen exhausting themselves to swiftly end the battle.
Grab the snake. Crush the throat. Throw.
What else could he-
His body screamed for his attention.
Hraefn focused, barely in time to see a snake aiming to backstab Gazef.
Too much in the way. Can’t use spells. What could he-
Perhaps if he’d ignored his gut, things would have taken a different path.
From the corner of his eye, Hraefn saw one of the snakeman casters point its hand at him. It was holding a short wooden stick, and used its thumb to snap the tiny thing in his direction.
He heard the sound of the snapping wood, and then heard no more.
Fuck.
Oh fuck.
That wasn’t supposed to happen. That wasn’t supposed to be possible. Hraefn was immune to status effects.
He couldn’t have been hit with what he thought that was.
Right now, Hraefn was stuck in some dingy cell right out of a tv show. Water dripped down from the ceiling and into a puddle on the moldy floor, but the cell window peeked out into sunlight so he had no idea where that water was coming from. All it was was a waste. Not to mention, the stone brick walls were worn and crumbling. He could bring them down with a slight push. And with how rusted the bars were, it shocked him that they even got the door open in the first place.
Props for the adamantite restraints, though. Not only were they clearly enchanted, but they were full on blocks. Escape would have been borderline impossible.
Hraefn had accidentally shattered them by waking up.
Well, to be fair, he did have to pull one piece apart to get it off of his left wrist.
That wasn’t his problem right now. He didn’t give a shit about the cell or the restraints or wherever the hell he’d been taken.
All he wanted to know was just how the hell those damned snakes got their slimy claws on a [Sleep Already]? That was an admin-restricted item and he didn’t see any other admins listed as online.
And now he was who-knows-where and all of his stuff was gone. He should have just stuck to his damn rules.
…
Yeah, he wasn’t going to do that. He wouldn’t even try to kid himself.
Hraefn pushed himself off of the floor, almost hissing as he stood up too fast. He had no idea why. He didn’t have actual blood circulation, only a substance to mimic bleeding, which he’d apparently set to black.
Dammit, why was everything so annoying? His head screamed in pain, he felt nauseated, and rogue energy filled his limbs and demanded he do something, anything.
And then there was that damn hunger.
But he didn’t have time for that. He needed to get his items back. He needed to find the others-
The others.
Fuck, they were all dead, weren’t they?
No, Hraefn was still alive - granted they physically couldn’t kill him - and taken. If he was taken, what was to say the others weren’t? They’d make good hostages, at the very least.
He pointedly ignored the image of sharp metal connecting with tanned skin.
There wasn’t time to think about it. Whether they were killed or taken alive, each second would tick toward their deaths. And more importantly, his equipment had been taken. Again. He couldn’t let it be taken further.
[Sleep Already] would keep the target unresponsive for 2 hours after activation, more than enough time for the admins to deal with the problem players that they were meant to be used on. So barring him actually sleeping, they couldn’t have taken his items too far. He could still track the items, and the culprits, down.
And this time, he wouldn't hold back.