๐๐ถ๐บ๐๐ฟ๐ฎ ๐ฆ๐ฎ๐ล
"Yawwwwwn." I stretch my arms while my eyes are closed as if I have forgotten everything that happened yesterday.
When my eyes opened, the first thing I saw was the three women looking at me weirdly.
"Jeez, you really are not scared are you?"
Astoria said, Alice and Freya, nodded weakly to her statement. It seems the pep talk from Freya last night, seems to have not affected that much.
'Oh trust me, I don't want to be here in the first place.' I didn't voice my thoughts and instead asked them a question. "What's the situation?"
"Bad, 546 adventurers, 673 artificials, and 1056 soldiers are dead, Since there were more soldiers than adventurers in Kliyer, they had to send out soldiers on the frontline to compensate for the low amount of artificials and adventurers," Astoria said gravely.
The other two add no more details about it, I didn't really care for the amount of death so it didn't really affect me, after all, I died once and even now I still try to do it but like always, I fail to do so.
I don't really get why I can't do it, being alive became a chore when I started attending high school in my late semester.
Every time someone asks me what I truly want I always have one answer:
To sleep in a comfortable bed deep in a serene forest away from the world and where no one knows me.
'I know damn well that dream will never happen back home...but maybe in this worl--'
"Himura, let's go." Astoria cuts off my thoughts, she looks at me as if waiting so I put such feelings at the back of my mind and grabbed my blade and made my way for another round of battle.
Thanks to my natural poker face, my party members didn't notice my useless thoughts, not that they would care since they have better things to put their attention to.
As I pass the temporary camp, I can hear groans from the closed tents and saw a dim light leaving the tent.
The gold-ranked adventurer was injured so he was spending most of his time resting. As if their pain was transferred to everyone, with each groan I can see someone becoming demoralized.
A truly dire situation. Now that I think about it, I've become even tamer when it comes to the subject of death ever since getting killed.
So naturally, I stopped caring about these people and focused on my party instead.
We took our positions shortly after arriving and the battle shortly started after that, Hinu shouts Likru's name, and the abyss charges at us. Nothing really changed in our group except for the number of soldiers next to us.
If forced to crunch them into numbers there should be 50% being made up by adventurers and artificials and another 50% for the soldiers alone.
I shake my head trying to let out all of my useless thoughts and readied myself for the dashing pertmuls.
Our numbers were getting lower at a fast rate even though we weren't dealing with the abyss yet. Thanks to my agility, I can dodge most attacks even if it's from the abyss.
Whenever they get into my clothes, I quickly scrape them with my katana and they only managed to eat a small area of my clothes.
Another pertmul dash to me and I let it attack me once before counterattacking. I see a pertmul dashing at Alice so I immediately dash to meet the pertmul.
"!" Alice notices too late as the distance between the pertmul and her was only a few feet.
I grabbed her lab coat pulling her away as I try to stab the pertmul. It seems it did not expect me so I easily stab its chest, killing it.
"Thanks."
"Hmm," I responded to her thanks by just nodding as I look around our area. It seems we are too far from the group so I call out to Astoria.
"We've overextended, we should retreat to join the main group!"
She notices our position and simply nods so we retreat but the pertmul surrounded us forcing us to fight.
With Alice in the center, we surrounded her covering her and each other's back. Freya puts a hand on Alice filling her up with mana as Alice summons ten steel toe eagles and ten black hounds.
Her summons takes the frontline and not even a moment, we start to fight them. As always I let them attack me once to see what they can do before counter-attacking, sometimes taking the initiative and attack them first when I am sure that Alice's summons will distract them from me.
One of the pertmul seems to have been able to wield some sort of long stick which was covered by the abyss. It attacks me by hitting me with a long stick to my face but I blocked it with my blade while also ducking in fear that the abyss might splash into my face. Since I met the stick with my blade, the abyss starts to disintegrate taking out 90% of the abyss in the stick before it split itself.
Realizing that its long stick which was actually just a branch was now practically useless, it threw it away and charged at me with its sharp nails. With a two-hit combo, I dash back from it as I slash it at an upward diagonal angle.
The pertmul was knocked back but it was dead as it tried to slash me with its raised left hand so I quickly dash back then I grip my katana with two hands ready for a vertical slash. I take a step then slash the fast approaching pertmul, killing it.
"We're getting more and more surrounded, we need to fight our way out and join the group!" I said to my group. We slash, stab and fire at the approaching pertmuls and we slowly approach the group who was being overwhelmed as well.
After killing one of them in front, I slash at the one that was flanking Freya, Astoria then covers my exposed back and Alice supports us all. After a few minutes, we soon reached the group and immediately the same commander speaks loudly.
"They broke position, seize it!!"
As he said that, the army advanced fighting with all they got, it seems that we managed to kill enough pertmuls that they managed to overwhelm them instead.
My party didn't do anything but catch our breath as the group kills the rest. Unfortunately, we only had about four minutes or so to rest before the commander speaks once again.
"Get in position, the abyss itself is approaching!"
The group immediately retreated and they looked at it with uncertainty and fear including my party. I instead observe the abyss instead of monologuing nonsense to myself.
The abyss was definitely smaller when it retreated but right now it was bigger. It seems it manages to absorb more of the land.
When I look at my party they nod to each other before we took our position.
As the sea of abyss approached, everyone screamed their battle cry before we charged at them.
I stay silent trying to test the limits of my death sensitivity, but like always it was the same as always, it was telling me that the abyss will kill me and nothing else.
Since the abyss was a giant blob, I can't sense death unless it was really close to me.
I shake my head and instead unsheathe my katana before I also join them as well.
It was a long battle spanning over 30 minutes with both of our sides heavily damaged. Half of the group was dead and the abyss was getting smaller and smaller.
Since there were not a lot of us left, I decided to cover for my party's rear since we took the lead in killing them.
The abyss manifests birds of many sizes which attacked us which Alice and Astoria killed while I and Freya dealt with the ones that manifest to animals like boars and wolves.
It seems the abyss was not so flexible when it cannot make creatures that they consumed.
I also learned a lot more about my team's fighting style. Astoria is an archer who fights at close range and can also fire multiple arrows at the same time, Freya is adept with the steel staff with a blue gem at the tip and a pointed bottom which she can stab or hit someone with it and can also spin it around to parry attacks or change grips for a fast and versatile attack. She also serves as a battery for Alice who summons creatures. She's great at controlling her summons as if it's her body and also quick on her feet even with her body.
I don't know if I can say the same for them, but I can definitely see that our unusual and weird synergy improving. The abyss was forced to retreat once again and what left us sighed in relief as we look at the dead around us.
The commander was speaking loudly to himself about the abyss being less versatile than expected while my party looked at the bodies of soldiers, adventurers, and artificials. Their body smelled horrendous and they look like their body was melted, some of them getting deformed.
The ones that were still alive either stayed silent, vomited, or maybe even cried for their companions. My party's faces became the same after the end of day one's battle.
Freya comforted them though her face was also sad. My heart aches once again.
My party members are sad and yet I am standing here just watching them. So I decided to walk ahead of them before speaking.
"I'll cover you guy's back tomorrow." As I said it, I felt myself cringe internally after saying such a cliche line but I didn't show it.
The three women look at me with surprise before Alice speaks. "Promise?"
"Yeah, I'll protect you all, we're a team after all." I cringe internally again but I still didn't show it.
For some reason, something in my heart keeps telling me their importance, I can't tell whether it's because I was leeching of them or actually caring for them but still I strengthen my resolve.
'I can't lose them, I'll be happy to be killed to at least help one of them besides the silver lining is that somebody or something will help me end my life that I can't end myself.' As I thought to myself, the three women pat my back.
"Then we'll leave it to you," Astoria said and in response, I nod, they then went ahead of me as we head back to Kliyer to distract ourselves.