IradeMay 14, 7:25 pm BT – 5:25 pm UT, Somewhere In The Tian Shan Mountain Range, China
"SKREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"
"They"re coming!" Irade yelled.
She dropped into a fighting stance, getting ready. She used the [Monster Map], and saw an entire h.o.a.rd of red coming down from the forest.
BANG!
The boar-monster instantly fell, mid-screech, and Irade turned to find Käwsär"s dad, putting down his hunting rifle.
"Noisy," he muttered, already taking aim again.
Irade looked up.
"Watch sky!" she yelled up at Käwsär.
Käwsär yelled back an affirmation, keeping his eyes on the sky. Irade checked the [Monster Map] one more time. The first monsters would be coming out soon. From what she could see, it looked like there would be three waves, each wave bringing more monsters than the last.
And all they had were three people to stop them from overrunning the house below them.
She could do that. It was just tower defense.
Tower defense where she could absolutely not let her resources die.
Irade looked up at Käwsär, then over to his dad on the ground. Both readying their guns. This was the first time she was ever fighting with other people. Sure, she had technically fought with Black Wind against the bear-man, but that was...different.
Black Wind could handle himself against these monsters.
She took a deep breath, re-focusing herself. Alright. Tower defense on extreme hard mode.
If she thought about it like that, it sounded much more doable.
She lowered herself further, her body coiled like a panther ready to leap at its prey. She kept her breathing slow and deliberate, closing her eyes to activate [Monster Map]. She needed to wait for them to come out of the forest before attacking; if one of the monster slipped past her in there, she wasn"t sure she"d be able to get out in time to save Käwsär or his dad.
Any second now.
She took in a deep breath...
"AWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!"
A wolf-like monster leaped out of the forest, heading straight towards Käwsär"s dad. Before he could even react, however-
...she exhaled.
The monster fell at Käwsär"s dad"s feet, body twitching as it bled from the hole where its head had been. The monster"s head fell behind the older man. By the time he realized that the monster was dead at his feet, Irade had already disappeared, leaving a trail of blood between her and the next monster that had leaped out of the forest.
He watched, amazed as the girl zipped from monster to monster, faster than the eye could see, slaughtering each monster with a single, swift slice of her dagger.
BANG! BANG!
He looked up to find his son reloading after shooting a flying monster out of the sky. The sight of his son calmly reloading the way he was taught snapped him out of his confusion. He shook his head, readying his rifle once more.
"I must be getting old," he muttered, lining up his crosshairs to hit a wolf monster coming out of the forest.
BANG!
Irade heard shot coming from behind her, but trusted the men enough that she didn"t look back. She focused on the monsters at had, coming out of the woods one by one. As soon as a monster leaped out, Irade would be on it, slicing its head off with a quick slash.
Very quickly however, Irade found a flaw in her plan, in the fact that this was not a tower defense game. She was attacking these monsters with her body, using ["Dash"] to reach them, and she didn"t exactly have a bird"s eye view of the map. That meant she was constantly watching, constantly looking, constantly on guard to see where the next monster was coming from, what type it was, how it was moving.
She knew after about a minute or so that this strategy would not hold up for long.
She sliced off the head of another monster, and quickly used ["Dash"] to get back to Käwsär"s dad. She blew a stray strand of hair that had fallen in front of her face, her arms already splattered with drops of blue blood.
BANG!
He took a shot calmly, taking down a monster that had just come out. Above, Irade noted that Käwsär was taking care of the occasional aerial monsters, shooting them out of the sky with apparent ease.
"We have enough ammo for the first and second wave," he grunted between shots. "With you helping, we should be able to shoot for a lot longer too."
Irade only understood about 70% of what he was saying, but it was enough.
"More than before?" she asked.
Käwsär"s dad frowned, before taking another shot.
"That is true," he said slowly. "Their numbers have been increasing each time."
Irade nodded.
"I will hit more," she said.
And once again, she was off.
This time, she let a few come out of the forest before slicing them all up in one, continuous ["Dash"]. This way, she would be able to see where all the monsters were, and plan out an attack all at once. She did have to make some adjustments as the monsters were all moving, but it wasn"t that much more difficult than landing on a branch after kicking off too hard.
The green field soon became bathed with blue. The trio managed to hold off the first wave with relative ease; Irade working out the kinks of her approach. She cut off the head of the last monster, blue blood splattering in front of her as the body fell.
Ding!
[Level Up!]
...
How nostalgic.
It seemed though, that it took a lot more monsters to level up than before.
She slowly walked back to the boys, taking a deep breath. They were already taking the time to reload and make sure their rifles were in order, not wasting a single second of free time. She grinned at Käwsär"s dad when he looked up, and for the first time, he smiled back.
"Who are you?" he asked, once she had joined him.
"I don"t know," Irade answered honestly. "But I want to know."
Käwsär"s dad seemed to look at Irade differently after that answer.
"Are your parents in Kashgar?" he asked casually.
"I don"t know," Irade said again. "But I...was at Kashgar...before. Before Beijing."
"How long?"
Irade looked up at Käwsär"s dad, surprised. He sounded...almost gentle.
"In Beijing...very long," she said. "10 years...maybe? I don"t remember Kashgar good."
"Do you remember your parents?" he asked.
"A little."
Käwsär"s dad was silent for a long time. Irade watched as emotions flitted across his face, before finally settling on something that looked a lot like sadness.
"Käwsär has an older sister," he said. "She was taken from us too."
Irade blinked. Whatever she had expected him to say, this was not it.
"Her name is Intezar," he said, looking up. Irade looked up as well, only to find the sky blanketed with clouds.
"Were you happy?" he asked suddenly. "With your life in Beijing?"
Irade hesitated, just for a moment. She knew what he wanted to hear; that her life was fine. That she had a loving family that took care of her, and that she was offered all the opportunities in the world.
But that wasn"t true.
Thunder growled overhead, and the smell of rain intensified.
"Yes," she said. "I was...happy."
Käwsär"s dad stared at her. Irade felt her face burning with the lie, and she struggled to keep her gaze steady. But she did, burying her shame, repeating to herself that this was what was best.
In the end, he looked away first.
"I was wrong about you," he muttered, readying his rifle once more.
Before Irade could ask what he meant by that, another howl broke the silence. She looked towards the forest to find more monsters coming out.
A lot more than last time. Not enough that they were completely blanketing the green with their bodies, but enough that Irade wasn"t sure she would be able to take them all on before they reached them at the rate they were charging.
"Käwsär!" she yelled, eyeing the flying monsters.
Käwsär yelled something back.
BANG! BANG!
Two monsters fell out of the sky. Irade immediately leaped forward, meeting the monsters halfway across the field.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!"
Irade sliced through the monsters, tearing a clear line of bodied through them. She moved quickly and expertly, using ["Dash"] to move from one monster to the next without stopping.
Letting a monster through could mean letting Käwsär or his dad die. Irade"s plan was to get as many monsters as she could in one continuous of ["Dash"].
The result was a blur speeding across the field, slicing anything it came in contact with. Monster"s heads fell off before they even realized they were dead, leaving their bodies running for a while before falling over, the final signals from their brains dying out. A flower of blood blossomed on that mountainside field, monsters falling left and right.
Irade was able to keep up this continuous ["Dash"] for about a minute before her head started to hurt and she needed to stop for breath. For the first time, she realized that using ["Dash"] made her move too fast for her to breathe, leaving her panting in the middle of the battlefield.
"ROOOOOOAAAAAAR!"
"SKRRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!"
Two monsters leaped at her while she stood there, catching her breath. She immediately lowered her center of gravity, ready to take on the monsters. She didn"t have enough breath yet to-
BANG BANG!
Two holes appeared between the monsters" eyes, and Irade dodged as they fell, lifeless. She glanced back to see Käwsär and his father already aiming at their next targets.
She smiled. It was kind of nice to have someone watching her back when she made mistakes.
She resumed her ma.s.sacre, this time making sure to take a break every ten seconds or so. This wave had a lot more monsters, which made it more difficult for Irade to get them all. Thankfully, she wasn"t working alone, and if she couldn"t reach a monster, one of the men took them out pretty easily.
Käwsär was doing especially well with the flying monsters, taking out almost all of them himself. That said, every now and then, Irade would have to use ["Dash"] to cut off the wings of a particularly mobile monster, which Käwsär would take care of on the way down.
By the time they were done with the second wave, Irade was dripping with sweat and monster blood, to the point where it was getting hard to get a good grip on her knife. That, and her hair was getting in the way.
"Cut," she said to Käwsär"s dad, handing him the dagger.
He took it, hesitating for a moment, and asked if she really wanted it cut. She answered by turning around.
She heard him sigh, then felt him grab her hair.
A few moments later, her head felt a lot lighter as she sported a very short cut that barely reached below her ears. It was quite uneven, and definitely wasn"t pretty, but at least her hair wasn"t in her eyes anymore.
"We"re probably going to run out of ammo soon," said Käwsär"s father, looking down at the cut hair. "Do you think you can keep this up?"
Irade looked back up at the forest. She used the [Monster Map] to see how many monsters were left. She checked her remaining MP and HP.
Then, she closed her eyes and took inventory of her body.
Was she hungry? A little.
Tired? Yes.
She had a little bit of a headache too. Her ten second ["Dash"] combo required her to think about where she needed to go while also adjusting her movements in real time. That took brainpower.
Other than that, she had no pains or anything. The monsters hadn"t even been able to leave a scratch on her yet.
She looked back up at the forest.
This coming wave looked like it would be...intense.
Much more intense than the previous waves combined.
Suddenly, the sky overhead rumbled with thunder. Irade felt a single drop of water fall on her hand. She looked up, to see that the gray clouds above had turned black.
She looked over at Käwsär"s father.
"I"ll be fine," she said. "Will you?"
He simply stared at her shaking his head.
"You"re too kind," he spat, readying his rifle once more. "Too kind for your own good."
Irade wasn"t sure how to respond to that. The...compliment?...knocked her off her guard more thoroughly than any monster she had faced in the past.
Kind?
Her?
What was this old man on? Was he trying to b.u.t.ter her up for something?
As she struggled to figure out something to say, he raised his rifle once more. Irade turned, to find...
...a woman. Standing there in a white dress, hair flowing in the rising wind. She looked like she had been there this entire time, eternal and untouched by time, above this simple, worldly life. Her deep, black eyes threatened to drink in everything that stared into them, including Irade herself. She looked around, as if noticing where she was for the first time.
Ding!
Just as all of Irade"s warning bells went off, she got a message from the HUD.
[WARNING: DANGER!]
[Requirements: Met!]
[Mission Unlocked!]
[Defeat Captain-Cla.s.s Monster and her minions!]
[Rewards: ???]
[Accept: Y/N?]
Irade grit her teeth. Really? Now?
This HUD really had the worst timing.
The woman finally seemed to notice Irade and Käwsär"s father. She tilted her head once she saw them, as if merely curious. The look she gave Irade sent chills up her spine; it felt like she was being absorbed into her eyes.
Slowly, the woman raised a finger, pointing to Irade.
Or so she thought.
She suddenly changed where she was pointing, upwards. For a split second, Irade was confused.
Then she remembered Käwsär.
"That one," said the woman in perfect Chinese, pointing at the boy in the tree. "Kill that one first."
"RRROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRR!!!"
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