Might as Well

Sam watched as the monstrous snake emerged from the disgusting pustule that appeared on the wall of nothingness.

The snake was suspended in the air as the rest of it entered the space, showcasing its over a hundred feet in length as it coiled around itself, its eyes never leaving Sam, Fitzgerald, and the crystal. Then, like a spring, the gigantic snake launched itself in their direction.

Its mouth opened and a torrent of the familiar black liquid spewed forth as the enormous snake flew toward them. However, instead of behaving like a liquid, the torrent separated into thin lines that solidified into spears.

Sam jumped back, and instead of casting the same globe of storm that he used to protect himself and the other man, he created a much smaller, yet denser shield, not just from the wind but also enhancing it with shadow mana.

He watched, his hands tightening around the grip of his sword, as the spears of solidified gunk slammed into the platform, pulverizing most of the giant rocks that hadn’t been destroyed by his own skill with a few striking his shield.

He had to reinforce it a few times, but thankfully it held out under the barrage.

Summoning a small gust of wind, he cleared out the kicked-up dust and debris only to come face to face with the snake hovering on their level, their mouth wide open and no doubt ready to spew forth another barrage of spears.

Sam stepped forward and stomped with his right foot, channeling his mana through the ground right where the snake’s head was hovering over the ground, using some extra mana to speed up the process.

As the black material began to gather in the snake’s open mouth, a giant wall made of earth shot up, slamming the bottom jaw of the snake into the upper one.

He had to bite back a chuckle as he saw some of the black liquid come out on the side of the mouth of the snake.

The monster did not like that.

At all.

The snake’s tail lashed out, crushing the wall, but by then Sam was in motion. He ran forward, preparing a spell in his hand and raising his sword to strike at the monster.

“Lucky! Get the tail!” he yelled out and hoped the loyal wolf would know what to do.

‘Sometimes I really hate that the game keeps throwing group fights at me when I’m alone…’ he grumbled while practically flying toward the monster.

The snake saw this and instead of releasing a torrent of black liquid, it opened its mouth, showcasing rows and rows of shark-like teeth and two massive fangs coming from the upper jaw, dripping with some white liquid. It roared, surprisingly silently, and launched itself forward, no doubt intent on swallowing Sam in one bite.

Raising one hand, he let loose a cascade of wind spears of his own, but they simply splashed against the scales of the monster, barely doing any damage.

As they neared each other, he could see the cruel delight in those white eyes as the monster was getting ready to chomp down on him.

Fortunately for Sam and unfortunately for the snake, Lucky chose this exact moment to jump out of the snake’s own shadow and grab the tail with his own strong jaw, then fall on the ground and dig into it, causing the monster to jerk for a moment as its momentum was interrupted.

And while Lucky wasn’t heavy enough to really stop the gigantic monster, his strength was enough to distract it for a second.

Plus, watching its eye bulge out in surprise was going into Sam’s funny moments folder…

Sam continued his own movement and used the slight distraction to enter the monster’s personal space and slash his sword at the neck of the snake, enhanced with as much cutting wind magic as possible.

To his relief, the magic was enough to create a rather sizeable wound on the monster that instantly began to gush the same black liquid he had become rather familiar with during his journey through this forsaken dimension.

Then a lot of things happened in short order.

The monster let out a real roar, though Sam couldn’t say if it was from pain or humiliation, then simply began thrashing. Sam saw Lucky being sent flying by the tail for a second before the body of the enormous snake monster crashed into him and also sent him flying.

Not wanting to experience what would happen if he fell off the edge of the platform, he flipped around in the air – aided by his own wind magic – and slammed his sword into the ground breaking his flight. He landed in a rather undignified heap, but at least he wasn’t heading toward the abyss anymore.

Picking himself up, he had enough time to orient himself before the monster was on him again. Apparently, it had totally forgotten the existence of Fitzgerald and the crystal.

Its eyes told Sam that the monster wouldn’t rest until he was dead…

‘Well… Taunt successful, I suppose?’ he mused as he jumped high in the air and created a dozen clones, ready to distract the monster, each filled with enough wind mana to erase a shoddily built shed.

With speed belying its size, the monster’s draconian head snapped toward the nearest clone and swallowed it in short order. Smirking, Sam instantly detonated it, causing the monster’s cheeks to bulge out slightly.

Sadly, the only result of it was that the monster became even more enraged.

Reaching the apex of his jump, looking down on the monster as it disregarded all the clones while flying upwards and jaws open, Sam only smiled.

“How about this one?” he asked out loud as he readied the next spell.

THUD

The snake fell to the ground, throwing up a rather sizeable cloud of dust and debris as Sam watched as life – or whatever else kept the thing alive – leaked from its eyes, the shine vanishing, leaving behind dull gray orbs still focused on where Sam stood.

The monster’s body was littered with innumerable gashes and cuts while one of his boots was missing as he had mistakenly stepped into a pool of liquid that turned out to be rather acidic, his trousers and shirt were torn to shreds while he was also bleeding from several wounds all over his body.

His Mana Shield was almost gone, and Sam was pretty sure that he only survived thanks to his prodigious mana regeneration and control skills.

Lucky was limping behind him, his glorious fur matted, covered in dust, and worst of all, missing in several places. The loyal wolf was breathing laboriously as Sam had relied heavily on him for distractions and ambushes during the battle.

Despite the clearly dead monster, Sam didn’t relax.

He stood ready – with his sword raised – waiting for anything to happen.

However, the expected multiplication didn’t come. The monstrous snake started to release black smoke and liquified before his eyes, leaving behind a few giant scales and ground soaked with disgusting black liquid.

Surprised, Sam absently walked toward the items and picked them up. It turned out that two of the scales were bracers while the rest were actual scales from the snake’s body. Pocketing them he turned back to Lucky.

“Oh, you poor wolf…” he cried out softly, as he got down on his knees and began to run his hand through the ravaged fur and hit Lucky with Clean spells while his loyal companion just whined.

“Let’s hope Ironwood has a wolf grooming shop…” he mumbled as he examined the spots where the fur was missing. Sam gave a few more pats and hugs to the wolf, then he spoke up. “Go, rest in my shadow!”

Lucky stepped forward, licked his face, leaving behind saliva, and then simply fell forward directly in his shadow. A few seconds later, Sam could hear snoring from a distance.

Snorting, he stood up from where he was kneeling and turned toward the main attraction in this empty dimension. He would have plenty of time to study his fight thanks to the recordings he made.

Plus, because it was a new type of monster, he wanted to put together some kind of informational pamphlet he could distribute to his friends and the guild.

He limped over to Fitzgerald, who gave him a silent nod but kept his focus on the crystal as the pulses came fast enough that Sam was afraid it would cause some kind of epileptic attack even though he wasn’t suffering from epilepsy.

“How much more, sir?”

“Not long…” the other man grunted. “Monsters?”

“Dead.”

“Good.”

Suspecting he wouldn’t get more out of the runemaster, he turned around and began to focus on his own mana, trying to regenerate it as fast as possible in case something else showed up.

For a few minutes, he listened as the other man moved around behind him, doing some mysterious things to the crystal while he surveyed the devastated platform.

Then there was a cry of celebration behind him, however, before he could turn around it was followed by an explosion of blue light washing over the entire dimension.

He watched – while blinking out the spots from his eyes – as the blue light collided with the boundaries of the dimension and began to spread over it like some kind of net.

Absently, he noticed as Fitzgerald stepped next to him, but he couldn’t take his eyes off the net of blue light as it began to cover the entire ‘sky’. Its purpose was made clear within seconds as Sam saw the boundary of the dimension bulge, not unlike when the monstrous snake emerged, but this time, the bulge was caught by the net, preventing whatever was on the other side from entering.

“It seems I still got it!” Fitzgerald stated cheerfully, as they surveyed his apparent creations.

“This isn’t the crystal?” Sam asked.

Laurent shook his head. “No, my young friend. While it stabilized the dimension, I had to channel those magics to achieve this result.”

“Any way I could learn it?” he asked hopefully. He could see so many potential uses for this.

Fitzgerald sent him a knowing look. “Want to prevent your enemies from teleporting away, huh?”

Sam just nodded with a small smile.

Fitzgerald chuckled. “I’m sure we can figure something out… after we leave this dreadful place…”

Before Sam could ask how, the man turned back to the crystal, placed a hand on it, and channeled a rather sizeable amount of mana according to Sam’s senses.

Instantly, a portal appeared in front of them. It looked much more stable than the shoddily made one in Fitzgerald’s workshop.

“Come, we have a lot to do!” the man declared over his shoulder as he stepped confidently toward the clear blue portal.

Sam shrugged and followed the man through it.

One slight disorientation later, they were standing back in the workshop, exactly where they entered the original portal. Sadly, the contraption that created said portal was currently on the floor melted into a pile of slag.

Which, unsurprisingly, didn’t cause much distress for the eccentric man.

“Ahh, I see my safety modifications worked as intended!” he cheered as he bent down to examine the still-steaming slag.

Meanwhile, Sam was just reading a short notification that popped up.

[You completed the quest: Ride forward to be not killed in nasty ways!]

[You survived. Yay.]

[Reward: Survival and recognition of a Runemaster]

Sam had to bite back a snort as he read the notification. Apparently, the game was extra sassy today. Closing the screen, he was about to ask for a few lessons from the man when he heard a rather insistent knock.

Fitzgerald absently waved his hand, indicating that Sam should answer the door while still pocking the melted contraption.

Sam walked up to the door and opened it.

On the other side stood two men, stone-faced, wearing black garments that were half robes and half suits. Sam suspected if they existed, they would have been wearing sunglasses too.

“Can I help you, gentlemen?” he asked, making sure he was ready to act if they turned out to be enemies.

“Yes,” came the clipped response from the one on the left.

The right said nothing just simply flashed a very familiar badge.

Sam took a second to verify it, then smiled thinly and waved the two medieval spooks into the house.

After all, there was nowhere he could run from them…