[Attention all climbers]
[Sudden Event initiating]
[Fog has appeared. Any climber who remains alone will die]
[Seek shelter, find your friends, and keep climbing]
[Visibility reduced]
[New hostile creatures will appear]
[If there are fewer than three climbers, high-level hostile creatures will appear]
[If a climber remains alone, they will die]
Uriel was running as he watched the message appear. What kind of unfair event was this? If he hadn't met these guys, he would undoubtedly have died, and his story would have ended as quickly as it began. What was Soliel thinking by not telling him something like this was about to happen?
The group inevitably slowed the pace at which they were running to stay together. After all, the system hadn't specified what distance was considered being alone.
Visibility had dropped to just a few dozen meters.
"What about Vykir?"
I asked, worried. The poor guy was running across the rooftops, guiding us so we wouldn't run into the corpses.
"Don't worry about me…"
A shadow suddenly appeared behind me, his eyes shining.
"It seems that supposed death isn't immediate."
My soul almost jumped out of my chest. This guy just appeared out of nowhere. What would happen if I had my mace and accidentally hit him? Although, to be honest, I think he could dodge it easily.
Vykir began looking everywhere. His eyes moved with incredible concentration, as if he were fighting invisible enemies. Suddenly the whole group stopped—and of course I did too.
"Uriel, can you put me down? We'll need to fight to overcome what's coming."
Ininise's gaze was serious. That wasn't good news.
Ralzire approached me without me noticing, and suddenly our formation turned into a circle around Ininise, the least durable member of the group.
"Uriel, you can't see it because we're not in the same party, but Vykir just mapped the enemies in the area and dozens are approaching us."
Ralzire offered me an explanation so I could understand the situation. Honestly, it seemed that having a party had some solid advantages beyond the obvious ones.
"Bad luck…"
Vykir said those words solemnly.
He couldn't have been more right. This was completely bad luck. Who would have imagined that reaching halfway out of these districts would trigger an event like this?
The sound of wet footsteps began to echo. They sounded like tiny steps, but there were dozens of them, accompanied by shrill screeches.
"HYRRRIIIEEEK!"
The first one appeared, leaping toward Malach, who split it in two with a single slash.
"This is bad… the creatures' screeches are attracting the corpses we tried to avoid. Many are waking up from the houses around us."
Vykir reported as quickly as he could while his eyes kept analyzing the area. However, I didn't have time to worry about the houses.
I pulled out my mace and shield to face these little pink goblins with mouths instead of faces.
Surprisingly, Ralzire was doing well in this fight. The creatures jumped at her one after another, only to be cleanly cut down by her daggers. She moved gracefully, slitting throats one after another.
I, however, wasn't so lucky. The little bastards were agile enough to dodge me. I found myself striking the air several times—it was honestly irritating.
I quickly changed my strategy. If I couldn't hit them with the mace, then I'd use the shield.
One of the pink devils leaped at me, but this time what it met was a shield bash.
I felt its large teeth crunch and break when I struck it with force. However, I didn't stop there. When it fell, I crushed it under my foot.
"Crack."
It was a disgusting, sticky sensation, but it worked. So I started kicking the little monsters and crushing them.
I was about to hit another one with the shield, but it managed to grab on as it launched itself at my face.
I activated my skill, Resilient Skin.
Its teeth dug in, but that was all. Blood began to flow slowly.
I grabbed it with my free hand and crushed it until I heard the crack that indicated its small body had collapsed.
Suddenly, flames began spreading around me through the nearby buildings. The houses ignited one after another. When I looked for the source of the fire, I saw Kaelira exhaling flames again and again after Ininise had sprayed the houses with that same black liquid from before.
Down the path, a much larger horde than the one that had chased Ralzire and me earlier came running, drawn by the sound of the battle.
I was a bit tired, so I took a breath.
My heart began to race as adrenaline was pumped into every part of my body. This was going to be a tough fight.
Suddenly a hand touched my shoulder. It was Vykir.
"Calm down. Everything is under control…"
Kaelira and Malach were defending the path behind me.
So here we were: Ralzire, Vykir, Ininise, and me.
Ralzire moved to my side.
"Ininise is preparing a spell. We need to give her as much time as possible."
She had more spells? Honestly, I thought that black oil she threw was her ability, although it seemed too weak and dependent to be one.
"Alright then, I'll give her all the time she needs."
Ralzire hit my back several times.
"Good, good—that's the spirit. Let's earn our bread."
I threw myself forward, crashing into the first line of corpses and making many of them collapse. Those who tried to grab or bite me were cut down by Ralzire, who never left my back.
Whenever one of the corpses ignored us, a precise arrow greeted it between the eyes.
Vykir fired his bow incredibly fast. The speed with which he drew arrows from the quiver and shot them with deadly accuracy was impressive.
One of the corpses bit the hand holding my mace, breaking part of my armor.
"Shit."
I pulled my hand away and struck it, making its jaw dislocate. But that didn't kill it—it kept trying to claw at me. After another hit that crushed its skull inward, it finally stopped moving, but the rest of the corpses didn't give me any rest.
Even though we were like a meat grinder, if this kept up my leather armor would end up looking like Swiss cheese. One corpse that slipped past Ralzire's speed tried to bite my neck.
But at that moment I activated my skill, which made it impossible for it to bite me.
Even though the skill didn't seem to require anything—or at least it didn't say so in its description—I could feel that every time I used it, I became more and more exhausted.
But then—
"Magic Missile."
Ininise spoke.
Magic Missile?