Chapter 73

  ABCs: Actions Before Consequences

  My feet slid on the ice. As I held my glowing blade straight in front of me.

  Had the beast been slightly more aware, or slightly less engaged with whatever it was doing to Mr. Karl, it might have heard the dry scratching sound that my shoes were making against the ice. It might have felt the slight vibration of another body charging full speed forward.

  Looking ahead, I had a lot of open and exposed joints and scales to aim for. Given the fact that this beast was coiled up around Mr. Karl, it meant that the side I was now facing was wide open for a strike. Seeing the opportunity, I steadied my glowing Soul Devour infused blade and aimed for a spot that was right between a group of scales that had been stretched tight, and a pair of large protruding rib bones. Rib bones that are only visible now that the creature was in such an exposed state.

  With my direction and target confirmed, I actually relaxed as I could feel the moment coming to me, versus me forcing the moment. Somehow instinctively I knew that I couldn’t be rigid, and instead pulled my arms back to rest against my body. This was good as it gave me the time I needed to readjust to the sudden and violent movement that the beast randomly took.

  “AHH!” From the other side of the beast I could hear Mr. Karl releasing a great war cry though weather it was one of pain or other emotion I could not tell for certain. He seemed to be the type to shrug off injuries and the like in order to continue fighting a monster until the end. I think that was why my protective instincts took over and all but forced me to charge forward and join the fray in this battle.

  As the beast moved and gyrated, my hands moved on their own. Following the flowing movements of the beast’s body. The entire time my eyes were locked onto one exact spot. A spot that held a dark pulsing organ of some kind. An organ that was only visible due to the amount of light that seemed to be shining through this beast. Had this been a real creature, or not part of the spirit realm, I feel that this sight would be nearly impossible from the glowing flames provided by Mr. Karl’s massive glowing battleaxe. Yet, somehow it was possible. That or my eyes had enhanced enough to notice the minute changes within my target and allowed me to focus in on them.

  Badum, badum, badum.

  The organ in question open, expanded, contracted, and started over quickly. This was yet another layer of my strike, for I wanted to now also pierce the organ when it was either fully expanded, or as it was expanding. Suddenly the level of difficulty of my strike rose threefold, as I had to first strike at the open scales, which had moved. Then find a pair of ribs, jabbing my blade between those two sections and try to pierce the expanding organ, a third target.

  There was just one problem, I wasn’t going to make it. Somehow in my mind I could see everything. I could see the slightly shifting posture of the massive beast. I could see the way it skittered and tried to move on the ice, and most importantly I could see how I was slowing down on my approach to the beast.

  That’s when I moved without thinking.

  Realizing that I was even now slowing down due to not doing anything other than sliding along the ice. However, my body was still using Life Reinforced Movements*. I still had ample energy coursing through me. That’s when I used the muscle memory gained from my past life and began picking up speed. Turning my right foot slightly to the right, I kicked out and pushed. All while using my left foot to help aim. Then despite being so close, I did the same with my left foot, pushing it out, increasing my speed right before impact.

  Thump.

  Honestly, I was so focused on gaining speed and bracing for impact that I didn’t even focus on aligning three targets with one strike. Instead, I just did. My mind relaxed as I first hit the open section between the moving scales. Then there was a slight resistance, as I missed my angle slightly, crashing into bone. But fortunately, my momentum and force were enough to allow me to continue going forward, the rib ricocheting my strike back towards the organ that was at its peak, and just about to collapse.

  I saw the sac, and saw that I had just missed it, even with speeding up, I failed to hit the balloon like organ on its upward growth. And I could almost see the way the organ dipped and collapsed away from my blow.

  That was the most I could see as, my next step was what one would expect from sliding on the ice for so long and striking a massive and solid object. I collapsed to the ground.

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  Fortunately, I managed to maintain my grip on the glowing practice sword, which caught me for a second, allowing me the slight hope that I would not fall and bust my ass on the ice. Moving desperately, I slid forward and rested my body on the entirety of the blade and for a second it held, allowing me a chance to try to regain my footing from under me. Of course, my movements were predicated on the creature staying still, which it seemed to have paused at first, as if momentarily stunned by the fact that someone new dared to join the battle. Then it began to move and twist, causing me to fall.

  That said, I was not going to lose my weapon and the only chance I had at doing anything against this monster. Clutching desperately to the blade, I held on for dear life. Even as I felt skin and scales start to rip and tear as my weight and downward momentum caused the beast’s body to be ripped apart. Jagged edges appearing where my blade was. Seeing the wounds appear, I could only wince in sympathy. My blade was dull, well I guess it was sharp for a practice sword, but there was no real blade on it. Meaning that it would tear skin apart before it would slice. Even my entering the beast’s body was more of a puncturing type attack than anything. These would be hell to stitch together. That was my nurses instinct coming back to me as I fell.

  Thud, swoosh.

  Hitting the ground, it felt like the world that had been slowing down moments ago suddenly sped up to real time. I slammed hard to the ground, pain instantly spiking through my back and tailbone. Fortunately, I did manage to keep my head elevated, my only saving grace, as I avoided the concussion. But I was already feeling the pain of the ice. Especially considering I was still wearing just slightly thicker fall clothing, nothing that would prepare me for or help insulate me from the cold or impact with solid ice.

  Simultaneously as I hit the ground, the beast twitched its massive body entirely and switched from being turned away from me, to encircling me and striking at me with its massive tail. Wind rushed past my face, and suddenly I was encased in darkness. Worse, I was in possibly the worst position possible, on the ground, on my back, with a massive creature about to strike.

  I moved my blade up, sitting up, directly into the backwards path of the swinging tail. That’s when I did possibly the stupidest thing I have ever done since being reincarnated into this body.

  Rather than staying down and having to fend off the beast’s massive teeth and jaws, I instead decided to battle the tail on its recoiling backswing as my method of escape. Not even having a second to doubt or hesitate, I shot up as quickly as possible and raised my arms up high. The beast seeing my gesture might have assumed I was aiming to slice at its massive club like tail. But instead, I had a simpler reason for raising my arms. I was going to try to grab onto the beast’s tail and let it flick me off to safety.

  There was just one problem with this whole escape plan.

  “OOF!”

  A massive log sized tail crashed into my ribs, instantly cracking them, as the wind was forcefully expelled from my body. In some form of natural reflex, I managed to keep hold of my blade, but that was little consolation as the tail swung back and flicked me off like I was an annoying fly that had dared to bite it.

  The good news was that my plan had worked, I was flung far enough away that I was well outside the strike radius of the creature. The bad news was that I was still on ice and my body slid and scraped against the hard and unforgiving ice until my momentum stopped.

  Blur.

  For a moment, all I could see was the world spinning around me. Everything hurt, but fortunately I knew a good healer. Or at least I knew a healer. Focusing on my lungs and major organs first, I began casting Streamline Healing*.

  Gasp.

  Almost instantly, I could feel my lungs expanding and recovering as beautiful air was able to get back into my lungs letting me realize that I had been doing the equivalent of holding my breath ever since the massive tail strike. Taking a second to enjoy the sensation of fresh air, I breathed in, the crisp smell of wafting ice coming up and filling my lungs, but that was a welcome sensation at this point.

  I worked my way up to my knees, the battle happening behind me, but I was in too much pain to turn or do anything else other than heal myself. It was at this moment that I realized how stupid I had been, charging in, not even able to do much other than get myself injured. I’m a support class and need to be there to heal Mr. Karl and Mr. Yi in the future. Also pain sucks.

  This was probably stupid of me.

  “YEAH!” Off in the distance I could hear excited cries. Turning back, I turned to see that Mr. Karl and Mr. Yi had both combined to cut the beast’s head and still twitching tail off. Seeing their success, without me, I nodded to myself and realized that I needed to let them follow their plan. I only got in the way and clearly was not needed.

  By this point, I was finally healed enough that even my mind’s phantom pains about the injuries I sustained were gone. Gingerly rising to my feet, I used my practice sword as a makeshift walking stick and used it to stand up full.

  “Over here!” Madame Voyou’s voice called out. Turning I looked back to the shore and saw a now more energetic Madame Voyou smiling and waving at me. Seeing her smile, I could only nod and realized I needed to not take it personally that I was little more than a liability in this whole ordeal.

  Seeing her, I waved and began making my way slowly towards the shore. Opting to go to the nearest edge which was only a few feet away to my right and then walk around to rejoin the rest of the crew.

  The great thing was, once I was off the lake, I instantly felt warm. As the circle that Madame Voyou created seemed to not only siphon cold towards the center but seemed to suck the heat out and create a warm barrier that surrounded the marsh ring. I just stayed in this area for a moment, like finding the exhaust vent of a refrigerator, it felt amazing. Well to my cold and phantom ache filled body, it felt amazing. Then after a second it almost felt too warm, which was when I chose to begin walking and joining the others.

  For a moment I wondered what we would do with the giant alligator corpse, but to my surprise, Mr. Karl just grabbed a back leg with one hand and proceeded to pull the beast like it was nothing. I knew it lost a lot of its overall weight being on the ice, but that seemed like it was slightly ridiculous. Then again, this was the apparent world we lived in.

  A world where monsters were the size of islands and we could break and heal ribs in under a few minutes.

  As I got closer, I could see the entire team standing around and looking at me. It was clear that this was a team that liked to do after action reviews, likely to go over what worked and what didn’t. Mr. Yi had a contemplative look on his face, while Markan just crossed his arms over his chest as he stared at me. Mr. Karl was busy wrestling the beast’s body past the demarcation line, and seemed not to care. Which only left Madame Voyou who seemed to act as the apparent leader for this after-action intervention. Then not wasting any time, she began to ask the hard questions right as I joined the group.

  “So, how do you think that went?”