“[Switch: Warrior].”
The Warrior class had three skills: [Strike], [Pierce] and [Slash]. They were straightforward: use the skill to amplify your next attack, it just had to correspond to the type of attack.
A monster was in front of him, and its mana core was well exposed. Due to the emergency, they didn’t care about extracting the mana core carefully anymore. So all Astor had to do was smash it into pieces.
“[Strike].” He kicked the core. It broke instantly, leaving the once-monster into a catatonic state. This was something he wasn’t able to do before as his [Mage]’s skills would hurt the animal too.
Now came the main problem with the class: you had to be fit to use it correctly and Astor was anything but fit. As he used more skills, the fatigue strained his body. He felt sick. Heavy breathing; heart racing; diverse pain, to name a few symptoms.
His teammates were faring far better. Bel crushed cores and stunned animals with nothing but fists and kicks. Cayn took a more demure tactic: using his speciality, chain-shaped barriers, he restrained animals and ease their panic with [Heal] and [Cure].
Astor would have loved to copy them but he was unfit and couldn’t make chains with [Protection]. He was falling behind. Will his teammates notice it? And if they do, will they toss him out of the party for being lesser than them? Because unlike them, he didn’t spend a portion of his childhood training skills. He wasn’t even aware he could get a System Access. If he was in a parallel world, where he wasn’t abandoned by his parents, would it be different?
Another earthquake. There was one every so in a while and they were heavier each time. Astor guessed that it was the new type of monster walking, and its sheer size would tremble everything around. The earthquakes were becoming more and more spaced out.
He overheard some adventurers as he continued to cull the stampede.
“They call that thing a World Boss.”
“So an [Appraiser] took a look at it? If so, why haven’t they beat it yet? There’s only one right?”
He was right. Something felt off. Astor took a little break and distanced himself from the ramparts. A head. A tortoise’s head was peaking from afar, well above the ramparts. Unbelievable. The World Boss grew in size. No wonder the earthquakes were less frequent, it wasn’t because people managed to slow it down or anything; the tortoise kept growing in size and so were its march. Astor just managed to get used to the regular earthquakes, if it went on any longer the damages to the First Land could be irreversible.
The trio took a break in a building nearby. Many others were present. Some were here for the same reason as them, while others couldn’t do much about the chaos out there and missed their timing to run away.
“Can we escort them?” Cayn asked Bel.
“Escort them out of the city?” she said. “I don’t think we can do that, we can barely help out.”
She was right. There wasn’t much they could do either. Not only that, but it would be safer to stay here, in this bunker made quickly by a [Druid], than run away. Unless the World Boss was coming toward them of course. On that note, where was the World Boss heading to with all those steps? Astor retraced his memories: the tortoise’s head was tilted slightly to the right, so it would be headed near the city’s door. If it kept growing at this rate, wouldn’t it destroy the old man’s house too?
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Astor stood up and prompted his teammates. “The old man.” Both got shook up by his sudden vigor, but they didn’t doubt him and headed back there together.
***
The panic was palpable as people scrambled around for their survival. They moved in groups, fending off monsters and animals alike. On the way, Astor saw many corpses and there were not only animals’.
“Are you sure it's around here?” Bel asked Astor while dodging monsters’ attacks.
Referencing the main road, the distance and the trees uniqueness, it should be somewhere there. “I’m sure.”
Devastated rainforests. Looming shadow of the World Boss. Utter chaos perdured as the sun started to set down. To find the house, it’d be faster to have an aerial view of the area. Astor could fly up but that would be a waste of mana, so he delegated, “Bel, could you jump up the tallest tree?”
She took the hint and in no time came back. “Follow me.”
Astor’s heart raced while they hurried to the house. Rubbles everywhere. The abode that once welcomed him was nothing but ruins. Old man. Where was he?
“Over here!” Cayn yelled.
A cat was protecting the unconscious old man with barriers. Many monsters surrounded them and the old man’s wolves were on the offensive.
“Astor, show us the friendlies,” Bel said.
He pointed at them. Bel rushed and kicked away every monster on her way to the old man’s. Cayn followed up by spawning a long chain, immobilizing the knocked down monsters. A golden path opened for Astor. He rejoined Bel.
The old man was injured, a deep cut to the abdomen. Bel spoke to the cat, “We are here to help.” It hissed back.
Wasn’t it the cat on his home’s roof the other day? Astor often put a hood on to hide his face, maybe it was time for a face reveal. The cat hissed again and the barrier dropped.
“[Switch: Priest],” both said in unison.
With no further ado, they used [Heal] on him. The cut slowly resorbed, not as fast as Astor would want it to. If Cayn was at task, he’d heal it instantly, but he was busy dealing with monsters.
Bel spoke, “Once he’s patched up, I’m carrying him out of here.”
The old man’s wolves ran round, destroying mana cores with their maw. In no time, the area became safer. They could get on the move again. The plan, now, was to run away to the Mainland, where things should be calmer than here.
They formed a little pack of three wolves, a cat, the still unconscious old man and the party. Joining the main road, Astor could finally shake off that feeling of uneasiness he had; turns out, he was just worried for the old man. They soon reached a camp, probably set up to deal with the surge of refugees.
Some persons took care of the old man, carrying him into a tent. One recognized him. “Is that Ovid?” That person then looked at Astor, or more precisely his cloak. “What happened?”
Bel told them everything. The diagnosis came after, with a very attentive Astor.
“He has brain damage,” a [Priest] said.
There were only a few things the System couldn’t heal. And it was one of those. The only thing they could do was wait.
***
A starless sky greeted Astor when he came out of the tent. Cayn took over him to look after Ovid. He wandered around, among the screams of pain coming from the other tents. He saw the World Boss in the distance; it doubled in size since he last saw it, incredible. Maybe he should go do something about it, anything. But he couldn’t leave the old man. He didn’t really know why. Was it because the old man showed kindness to him? But everyone was kind under the System’s judgement… Everyone?