🏆 THE AMBY AWARDS 2023 TOP PICK - DIVERSE LIT 🏆
It's Rin and Hye-jin against the world. Or so it should have been.
Nagara Rin and Joon Hye-jin, college sweethearts and passionate gamers, have lived a fairytale marriage. Not even a decade after did...
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My cheek hit the ground, the blades of grass tickling my nose. Something heavy pressed my shoulders against the forest floor, staying firm even through my squirming.
"Oh, an adventurer?" The hooded guy's boots edged in my periphery, giving me a good look of the leather stained with dark splotches that couldn't have been mud alone. "What brings you here, sir?"
I was busy eating grass to answer. No thanks to whatever's sitting on my back. The hooded guy tapped his chin, the shadows shielding his face making it impossible to see who he was even during the day. Concealment spell? Maybe. "Rather, I should be asking how much you heard and how much you are going to be snitching to your superiors," he crouched, resting his elbows against his thighs. "You're not a guildmaster's pet, are you?"
"Fuck off," I gritted my teeth, raising my head against the force keeping it pinned on the forest floor. "Why would you help the Monarch rise again?"
And...wasn't she dead? Or did Hye-jin and I drop on a timeline where the Monarch was still rampaging around Solarlume? But the hooded guy did say "again". Meaning she had fallen from grace once before. And they're bringing her back.
The hooded guy snorted. "What makes you think I owe you an explanation?" he said. "You won't live long enough to hear its end anyway."
He snapped his fingers again and the townsfolk snapped to attention. Soles shifted and crunched against the grass. Shadows fell over me, blocking whatever light streaming past the canopies. The weight on my back still hasn't eased.
"Make sure to leave no traces," the hooded guy said, more like a command than a friendly suggestion. They wouldn't follow that, would they?
They did.
Hands rushed forward, followed by the incomprehensible shriek behind me. Wait. That was—
Every hair at the back stood up when I felt a whoosh of wind behind me. I summoned my sword into my hands, swinging it behind my back as hard as I could. The weight loosened a bit. That's all I needed. With what's left of my agility, I rolled away just as a stinger slammed into the spot where my head had just been. I slashed my sword blindly, the sharp edge of the blade catching a limb. Or two.
Purple blood sprayed in the air, followed by a scream of pain. Got it good—
A strong grip enclosed my arm and yanked me backwards. A closed fist hurtled towards my face from the front. I ducked, the punch sailing past my head and slamming into the person trying to keep me still. I summoned the dagger from inventory, unsheathed it between my teeth, and took careful aim at the people's ankles as I went down. This time, the blood painting the grass was red.
The townsfolk gave one last cry of pain before stumbling forward, toppling over each other. That's two. But how many more?
The forest burst with purple light. A series of shrill yowls filled the space after the light died. In its place was the same netherbeast that attacked our camp once before. The one Cavya killed by giving us a demonstration of what he could do with his rapier. Without him or Mirani here, how in the world would I defeat it?
