NOVEL NEXT Chapter 19
"Have you seen a chicken around here?"
The Adventurers' brow furrowed for a moment. "I think I saw one by the front gate, but I'm busy right now. Sorry, you'll have to get it yourself."
"Thanks," Logan said, not bothering to explain it wasn't a quest he was giving.
This adventurer proved equally unhelpful as the others he had asked. Most didn't give him a lead, and those that did only pointed him to birds he had already collected. He even double-checked those spaces, just to be sure.
He visited the market square, checking under each cart and behind each crate. The merchants hounded him to buy their wares, but when he finally showed his empty pockets in a hope they would leave him alone, their badgering turned to curses as they shooed him to make way for paying customers.
His search took him down every road, behind every house, and now to the defensive palisade's perimeter. One resident had a garden that, on a normal day, Logan would consider quaint. But right now it was an obstacle, with each flowery bush a potential hiding spot for a feathered stowaway.
It was warm work, and he was sweating through his ripped shirt as he paraded down the lined shrubbery, bent at the waist. At least his shoulder felt fine after Senna's handiwork. The cloudless sky meant the sun beat on his nape and back, since the palisade wall didn't offer shade at the moment.
So when he entered a shadow, and the air went cool, he lifted his eyes from their downward focus. The dark blot eclipsing the sun wasn't the palisade; it was a distant castle's grim silhouette, clinging to the mountain.
Logan had only noticed it this morning when leaving the inn. Last evening, its silhouette hadn't stuck out against the night sky. But now its jagged spires pierced the blue sky, their black stone seeming to drink in the daylight rather than reflect it, casting the slope below into a deeper gloom.
Between the town and the castle, the slope stretched, broken by occasional bluffs as if somebody had erected retaining walls. Two predatory hawks spiraled above, occasionally darting down to a rock cluster to torment some unseen prey.
The vista couldn't be more ominous if it tried.
"The great hawks," he said in his best David Attenborough accent, "descend upon their prey. In this land, you eat or you are eaten. What fate awaits the field mouse they seek to devour?"
A fleck of white broke through the rocks' shadows as the predators' victim poked its head out. But that was no field mouse.
It was a chicken.
Logan closed his eyes and filled his chest with a deep breath. His lips tucked into a tight frown as he thought of his father.
"I am finishing this quest."
He jogged to the palisade exit.
Running is level… 16!
Running uphill in the warm temperature ramped his skill level, but burned through his stamina and forced him to decelerate into a power walk until it regenerated. He didn't know how long the chicken had held its own against its hunters, but the quicker he reached it, the better his chance of completing the quest.
As he caught his breath, he checked for faster options, but he could only see two: continue running up the broad incline, or scale the series of retainer-like ledges, and then run along a flat area. Climbing would still use his stamina too, so that didn't sound like much of a time-saver.
Unless he scaled the ledges using mana instead of stamina…
Could he use Null Pulse without anyone below noticing? He had passed several black-clad guild officers, and any of them could be watching from the town walls.
The sloped incline would expose him, but the ledges popped up at irregular angles, some of which would hide him from sight. Plus, the space was wide and clear around the ledges.
It was basically the perfect setting to practice his new skill.
His next sprint took him that direction. At the base of the first ledge, he cleared his mind and focused on the energy buzzing inside him. To start, he pushed a small amount down to his feet. After a fraction of a second, he released his grip, not wanting to overdo it like yesterday.
He launched halfway up to the nearest ledge, but not high enough to grasp the ledge's rim. Even with his mana as his best pool, it dipped by 15%. The mana requirement should decrease as he leveled the skill.
"Well, if I went halfway up..." He focused twice as long on the energy, and this time, when he released, his hands caught the lip and he hurled himself over.
"Parkour," he shouted triumphantly, and proceeded to the next few ledges, repeating his success.
Null Pulse is level 2!
…
At the final one, the energy pooling at his feet was thinner as his mana bar started bottoming out. and even when he tried to press against it, it seemed that he had hit a wall in his reserves.
Rather than rely soley on the mana, when he released his grip on the pooled energy he simultaneously crouched and jumped. It was just enough to scramble onto the last flat tier.
On flat ground, running consumed less Stamina and the gains in his Skill level let him maintain a solid, sustainable pace.
Now that he was nearer, the hawks were larger than he expected. He lifted his fingers to his lips and blew a shrill whistle as one bird plummeted toward the chicken's shelter.
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"Over here, big bird!"
The hawk responded midswoop, altering its path toward Logan. Sunlight hit its brown feathers at just the right angle to reveal a tint of green. It cawed, talons outstretched, and Logan clenched his fists in response.
Logan's jaw dropped. That was no normal hawk. That was the same type of bird that had almost killed him on Day One.
Logan ducked into a sideward roll over uneven ground, the peashooter at his waist digging into his hip. The hawk's talons slashed the air where his head had been. The talons had seemed to somehow… extend an extra two inches before they clamped shut.
Name: Warpincer Raptor
Type: Bird
Level: 13
Health: 86/86
Mana: 25/30
Lore: Its name comes from its powerful clutch and its ability to concentrate force and war mana into temporary extensions of its razor-sharp talons.
Strength: Extended piercing range
Weakness: Decreased Agility
As it beat its wings to pump its brakes with Logan not being there to stop its impact, Logan took advantage of its disorientation to lash with his claws. He, too, was disoriented though by the added mana and health details from his analysis. This was the first time Logan had Analyzed a creature intently since the skill hit level 10. He failed to deal any damage, but his swipe grazed the wing and scattered two feathers.
The hawk's pupil narrowed at him as it climbed skyward.
Logan scrambled to his feet, eyes darting between the two circling predators as he reached for the pea shooter and pulled out a loose thorn from his prowler-skin ammunition pouch. "It has decreased agility." That was probably why the chicken had managed to stay safe in the rocky alcove. Logan wouldn't fit in there, though. He would just have to outmaneuver the raptors.
The second hawk shrieked and dove in tandem with the first. Logan didn't think, just reacted. He pivoted toward the pile of rocks. He might not fit under it, but he could use it as a shield. The two hawks got tangled in each other's wings as they veered into each other, their talons scraping the rock's surface.
Logan couldn't reach them from over the stone, but he seized the moment to launch a burst from his pea shooter.
The first hawk screeched as a thorn bit into its wing, and it faltered midair before flapping out of reach. By the way it carried itself, the barb was impinging its range of motion.
The second hawk didn't take back to the sky. Instead, it rounded Logan in a wide arc to stab Logan from behind. He rotated enough to keep it in his peripheral, and when it zoomed in, he swung his gauntlet upward, but his claws sliced through empty air.
Too late, he realized he had exposed himself to the first hawk, which had recovered from its stun. Logan dove forward, narrowly avoiding their coordinated strike. They darted back and forth, forcing him away from the rock coverage.
"They're smarter than they look," he muttered, panting.
Logan backed toward the closest ridge, keeping the hawks in his line of sight. The first hawk feinted a dive, drawing his attention, while the second came at him from the side. He threw his left shoulder back and the incoming raptor passed over his belly, its claws extending and slicing into his shirt and flesh, but he followed through with his right fist and struck the bird in the back before he himself fell to the ground.
Blood spatter misted the air, and the hawk crashed with a loud smack and landed on its back. It flapped its wings as it tried to take to the air again, but its wings weren't working. Logan, having landed on his side but out of melee range, grabbed his pea shooter and another thorn. He hit it square in the leg. The bird finally stood, but collapsed, without either wing able to achieve liftoff, and only one leg to balance itself on.
Logan pushed himself up and pounced, slapping a clawed gauntlet into its frame.
The wing twitched once and his notifications blinked, but he righted himself and scanned for the other bird. It circled high above him, higher than it had yet gone.
Was it fleeing? He didn't think so.
It suddenly careened toward him in a spiral.
Logan's pulse race as he tried to map the bird's downward trajectory. So focused, he instinctively activated Meditate. At first he almost scolded himself since he couldn't use it in battle, but then he realized the sheer genius of his action. He wasn't in battle yet, and it allowed his mind to clear as he traced the rest of the descent. Energy buzzed inside him once more and his mana bar was refilling faster than his natural rate. It wasn't much yet, but it should be just enough for what he planned.
Logan didn't wait for the warpincer to reach him. He timed it so just as he exited meditation, he propelled himself upward with a Null Pulse, meeting the bird 10 feet off the ground. It cawed and tried to veer away, but it had built too much momentum. It impaled itself into Logan's gauntlet, and the force of impact jolted into Logan, sending them both to the ground.
Finishing it off was quick work.
Analyze is level 15!
Running is level 17!
Pain Resistance is 15!
Null Pulse is level 6!
Null Pulse is level 7!
Gauntlet Mastery is level 6!
…
Gauntlet Mastery is level 9!
Congratulations! You have learned a new skill!
Aerial Combat (Rare), level 1
+4 AGI, +4 DEX
Conquer the skies and recruit gravity as your sidekick! Just remember, the ground is still undefeated.
You have killed a level 13 warpincer raptor!
You have killed a level 15 warpincer raptor!
Experience gained!
You are now level 6!
+1 END, +2 DEX, +3 INT, +4 PER, +2 WIL
You have 8 free stat points.
Energy filled his chest and his ragged breaths fled as his lungs filled to full. In the midst of the influx of energy, a faint trace of copper vapor rose from the fallen raptor's wounds. Below half health, Logan meditated until he reached full, pleased to see that skill rose two levels as well to 17.
The avian corpse was like any other dead beast's Logan had seen and it didn't dissipate like the Ripper's had. But notably, there was a new label hovering over the body.
Lootable Warpincer Raptor. Level 15.
After a moment finagling with the interface, Logan almost jumped when several clumps of quills appeared on the ground outside of the bird. He crammed them into his pockets and repeated the process with the other bird, this time gaining just one feather, but also a single talon and a beak. That was a lot easier and less gruesome than when he had declawed a prowler corpse for his gauntlet
His flannel pants almost fell with the motion as he shoved his trophies into them, and he managed a smile as he tightened the drawstrings once more. All this running around was doing his waistline good, apparently.
The satisfaction of his level gain and the reminder he still hadn't distributed his last level-up's free points almost distracted him from his purpose. He would decide on his spread later. Still abuzz, Logan turned his attention to the haphazard pile of rocks serving as the chicken's shelter. It poked its head out and cocked an eye skyward before stepping out and pecking at the dirt, unbothered.
Logan shook his head, and his former annoyance over the pea-brained bird's stupidity turned into amusement. "Let's get you to safety."
As he walked over to it, a glint caught his attention deeper in the rocks. He ducked down for a closer inspection. There was an amulet under the stones.
He remembered the woman outside the inn last night asking for help to find an important amulet, and he eyed the chicken. "Did you steal that poor woman's family heirloom or something?"
He moved the smallest rock on the pile so he could widen the gap enough to reach in there and grab it. As he did, sunlight penetrated the shadowy former sanctuary.
Logan blinked at the next oddity. The stone pile wasn't just resting on grass and dirt. It capped a 10-foot deep pit filled with even more stones, at the bottom of which sat an iron grate, with inky blackness beyond that. The mere sight of it made his skin crawl, and he could practically smell the dampness emanating from it. It didn't take him much to imagine where that led.
He shivered as his eyes drifted upward to the dark castle.
"That's a no."
He jabbed his hand into the revealed crevice just far enough to grab the amulet, and then he yoinked the bird into his arms before walking down the hill to claim his reward.