Blood Berserker - [ A Litrpg Apocalypse]

Nathan lunged forward, his sword going straight for the tentacles restricting the movements of the rogue. Heck, the tentacles weren't just restricting the Rogue's movements; by the looks of it, they were also draining the teen, if the weak slashes by the rogue were anything to go by.

Hoping that he wasn't too late, Nathan hurriedly sliced through the tentacles, the detached appendage dropping to the deck, flopping a little before going still. But the Berserker was more interested in the rogue who fell face first onto the deck, the boy unable to keep himself standing.

Hell, no.

While Nathan knew that he and the berserker weren't best of friends, he had to admit that the teen had started to turn a new leaf. And more importantly, the teen was in his faction, which meant that the seamern were now nothing more than annoying buzzards at this point, and he'd stop at nothing to kill them—and that was exactly what he did.

With self-righteous anger, Nathan went for the closest seamern. His finesse was nowhere to be found, but the Berserker was hardly bothered about that. He didn't need to have Pirlo's eloquence on the blades; he just needed to be fast and ruthless, and so he was.

His strike tore through the chest of the first seamern, killing it instantly. With an enraged berserker's face, the last thing the unfortunate creature had the misfortune of seeing was blood splattered against the Berserker's frame. But he wasn't worried, and most of all, he wasn't done—one more intruder remained, and then it didn't.

Nathan let his sword clatter to the deck as he rushed the last seamern, his fist punching through the head of the creature like it was pulp. In terms of efficiency, it was a terrible move, but at the moment, with his heart beating that fast and adrenaline being pumped into his veins, he didn't give one damn about efficiency. He simply craved the kill—that was about it for him. He was a barbarian, a berserker to be specific, and those who tried to harm him or anyone with him would witness his savagery.

Beast mode.

He breathed at the sight of the last seamern going limp, throwing the corpse off his arm and watching in disgust as the body hit the floor with a thud. Disgust was quickly replaced by a bloodthirsty grin as he tallied the count and came to the conclusion that he'd killed six of the seven seamern, and Pirlo had only been able to dispatch one before they'd presumably held him down.

"Daniel, Diane, you can come out now. Pirlo needs your help," Nathan yelled.

The rogue looked pale—not the normal lacking complexion pale, but more like a sickly pale, which was something Nathan could understand as he'd been trapped in the blood-sucking tentacles for a brief spell. The rogue, on the other hand, had been trapped for a much longer time, and there was no telling what exactly the seamern had done to him.

"You alright?" Nathan asked, crouching beside the rogue who was sprawled on the deck.

"No... h-elp," the rogue muttered weakly.

Well, shit.

It definitely had to be treated as a serious issue, especially since he'd never known the rogue to be someone to ask for help. The teen always seemed to be the kind of person that'd rather die than ask for anything from anyone. With a grunt, Nathan patted the prone teen as he waited for the priestess to attend to him.

"What happened!!" Diane gasped.

The ranger and priestess had just burst into the scene from below deck, the pair looking at the corpses strewn about the deck in horror. Daniel clutched his bow tightly, even though all the threats had been taken care of. The ranger's death-like grip on the bow amused Nathan a bit.

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"We were attacked by seamern. We killed them, but before then, they managed to suck Pirlo's blood, and now he's down with something. Can you fix him?" Nathan asked the priestess.

"I... Yes, I can," Diane said.

The priestess looked like she wanted to puke, but regardless of the expression on her face, she knelt beside the sickly pale rogue, her hands glowing as she muttered, no doubt casting some sort of healing spell. With that little bit of action ongoing, Nathan decided to let his thoughts turn inwards.

The truth was that no matter how hard he tried, these guys would always be playing catch-up. And to be honest, he wasn't sure how much good he was doing by sticking around. The seamern was just the latest example of how he could singlehandedly carry the squad. The six seamern he'd slayed represented six sources of XP that could've possibly boosted the rest of them a lot more than it had done him, and he'd slayed them all because he hadn't trusted them to be able to handle the seamern by themselves.

So, am I doing more harm than good?

Nathan mulled through the question even as Pirlo let out a gasp of relief. No doubt, whatever the priestess was doing was having a positive effect, as the wiry teen had started to regain some of his color. He let his thoughts return to the present; he couldn't and wouldn't dwell on what-ifs. The only thing he could do at the moment was make sure that every single person who'd followed him on this journey was safe.

"T-hanks," Pirlo croaked.

The priestess nodded at the boy before she gave up on him. That was the last word from the rogue before the boy passed out, his eyelids closing as the teen lost consciousness. Nathan hadn't expected the rogue to pass out, and judging by the way the boy's head hit the deck of the ship with a solid—THUD!—, he assumed that Diane hadn't either.

"Oops," she said sheepishly.

"Is he dead?" Daniel asked.

"No, just unconscious. Help, let's move him to his bunk."

Nathan brushed past the ranger who was still looking at the unconscious rogue skeptically. Without another word, he singlehandedly picked up the wiry teen and deposited him on his own bunk. He only left after he was sure that the unconscious teen wouldn't roll off the bed and injure himself.

With a sigh, Nathan went back to the surface where the two others who were part of their little expedition were waiting for him. The pair seemed to be bickering with each other, and for the love of all things holy, Nathan didn't want to have to deal with that. So he simply picked a free spot and stood there, overlooking the ocean.

Once again, he could feel something beckoning to him as the winds ruffled his hair, the salty mist of the ocean slapping against his face as he leaned against the starboard. The entire place smelled strongly of salt. The ship gently swayed from side to side, battling the elements as it sought to get to its final destination—San Francisco.

He inhaled deeply and grinned as the wind rushed towards him, the air filling up his lungs eagerly. But like a normal human, Nathan had to exhale, and so he did. It might've just been him being mentally tired, but he had a sort of feeling that the wind hated that he'd exhaled. It wasn't as though he could hold his breath infinitely, so Nathan simply discarded the feeling.

Something stirred in his soul at the way he'd casually dismissed his gut feeling, but before he'd had a moment to pick it apart, the priestess stood beside him. The teen was a good head shorter than him, with better, softer facial features that made him feel at home. He couldn't explain it, but the short, fight-adverse girl looked and felt like home to him in every sense of the word, yet Nathan couldn't place it.

Heck, Nathan couldn't really tell what a home felt like. He could tell what a house or an apartment was, but a home was something he'd yet to really experience. Blood Rock had given a glimpse of what a home was, but he was starting to get the feeling that home wasn't a place—it was the people, or in his case, a person.

"You shouldn't stand so close to the edge. There's no telling what is underneath the water," Nathan said gently.

"It doesn't matter," she replied.

"Why?"

"Because you're beside me, nothing's going to go wrong."

Nathan was speechless for a while. He couldn't find the words to respond, and when his mind had come up with a suitable response, the time for such things had elapsed, and Nathan had to let it go. She looked so peaceful staring out into the ocean that Nathan felt there was no need to argue with her over the need to back away from the edge of the ship—probably because she was right; he wouldn't let anything happen to her.

And therein lies the problem.

I'm too present, too available, and way too willing to step forth to fight every battle for them. Nathan shook his head as he was starting to understand why God didn't solve every problem for everyone. Sometimes it was good to go through hard times alone, just for character development.

Cocking his head to face the priestess staring into the ocean, he made one silent wish: no more monsters should attack them on this voyage.