The Lone Wanderer

Unlike the previous times, much less of the black liquid seeped out of the walls. A portion rolled down to the floor, the rest sticking to the cube’s surfaces. Next, the material solidified, coating the room with a thin film of black.

‘That’s a new one…’ Percy frowned. ‘At least, the sack is still there.’

The sludge had merely flowed underneath his supplies, leaving them propped up against the wall. It was quite a relief. Percy would have been forced to rush through the challenges had the cube chosen to rob him of his only source of food.n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

Scanning his surroundings, he searched for his opponent. Soon, his gaze landed on the only other object – a small orb the size of a tangerine, resting motionless in the middle of the room.

‘Is that the golem?’

As if to answer his question, a series of red lines lit up all over the black sphere. Then, an indentation formed on the floor around it, a square tile sinking about an inch into the ground.

‘What the–?’

With a snapping sound, the tile sprung back at an angle, shooting the sphere at him at a dizzying speed.

Percy barely raised his arms in time, shielding his face as the impact sent a jolt of pain through his bones, causing him to stumble backwards.

‘Seriously?! This is the first wave of the Red level?!’

Crouching, he tightened the guard around his face some more, bracing against the follow-up attacks. Sadly for him, the golem didn’t even bother aiming for his head anymore, instead randomly slamming into his body from various angles.

‘It’s ok… It hurts like a bitch… but it’s not that dangerous…’

The realization comforted him a little, though he still winced every time the orb crashed into him. He’d have died already had his host been a smaller beast – or even a Red humanoid for that matter. It was only due to the combination of his bulk, his beast affinity and the second core that he could bear the attacks relatively unfazed. Still, he knew he had to fight back at some point if he wanted to get through the challenge.

Unwilling to lift his eyes from the safety of his guard, Percy scanned the room with his Mana Sense, trying to locate the orb. The darn thing kept bouncing from one surface to another, making crisp sounds with each collision.

It took Percy a couple minutes to adjust to the golem’s speed. In the meantime, he had to endure several more blows, waiting patiently for his chance to catch the sphere. Fast as it was, he knew the flimsy construct wouldn’t survive a second in his grasp.

‘There!’

Once the golem was on-course to collide against him head on, he tried to grab it. Sadly, his host’s poor reflexes let him down, the orb slipping right through his arms. It delivered yet another painful blow on his chest, knocking the breath out of his lungs.

‘Ugh… How annoying!’

Percy stubbornly kept at it for another hour, before accepting that he’d never catch the speedy golem with his bare hands. In fact, he even had the parrot try at some point, hoping the bird would do better than him. That didn’t happen, the beast giving up too after a few failures.

‘What about the earth mana?’

If he hardened the mana into stone, he could soften the blows some more. But he shook his head. Doing that would spare him some pain, but it wouldn’t get him through the wave.

Instead, he tried something different. Pulling a sliver of mana from his abdomen, he formed a cushion of sand on his back, hoping to dampen the golem’s momentum. After all, the cube had gone out of its way to prepare the room so that the orb could bounce around more easily. Clearly, it would have trouble doing so otherwise.

Percy nodded, feeling happy about his plan. He thought it had a decent chance of working too. The execution left much to be desired, however. He messed the timing up, receiving another painful hit. The next few attempts didn’t go much better either.

‘Fuck! This is going to take a while…’

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***

“Congratulations! Wave 1 has been cleared! Calculating rewards…”

“Awarded credits: 30. Current balance: 190.”

Percy breathed heavily, not particularly happy about the outcome. In the end, his idea to stop the golem using sand worked, but not before several hours of poorly timed blocks and nasty blows. He was certain his body was bruised from head to toe, though that was partially hidden beneath whatever remained of his plumage.

Either way, he wasn’t particularly eager to start the next wave. His advantages might have protected him from any serious injuries this time around, but the challenge would only grow more brutal from here on out.

That said, he knew he had to keep going. The sooner he started the next wave, the sooner his suffering would end.

‘Maybe the swarm challenge will be easier?’

***

“Congratulations! Wave 1 has been cleared! Calculating rewards…”

“Awarded credits: 30. Current balance: 220.”

It wasn’t.

The golems in the swarm challenge fought in a similar manner, though each of them was much weaker and smaller. Each was only about as large as a pebble, but there were hundreds of them this time.

Luckily, Percy’s makeshift spell worked even better against the smaller golems. They sank into the cushion, making it easy for him to grab them and crush them between his claws, one at a time.

Unfortunately, the wave refused to end until he destroyed every last one of them – a project that took him several hours and even more refills. Suffice to say, his second core’s downtime wasn’t pleasant for either him or the parrot. Whenever they were out of mana, they had to endure the painful pelting of the remaining orbs.

‘Not looking forward to the next wave…’

***

“Congratulations! Wave 2 has been cleared! Calculating rewards…”

“Awarded credits: 60. Current balance: 280.”

***

“Congratulations! Wave 2 has been cleared! Calculating rewards…”

“Awarded credits: 60. Current balance: 340.”

‘Please, make it stop…’ Percy groaned, the parrot echoing the sentiment.

He was lying face down in the middle of the room, his limbs sprawled out like a starfish. He did his best to not move a muscle, as even the slightest twitch was pure agony.

There hadn’t been any great surprises during the second waves of the combat challenges. The gauntlet had thrown a bigger, heavier golem at him, while the swarm had mostly increased the number of enemies rather than their individual strength.

Still, Percy would have probably died if he hadn’t grown more proficient in shielding himself with the earth mana over the last couple of days.

‘So much for keeping the bodies in a good condition.’ he smiled bitterly. ‘Metatron isn’t going to be happy.’

Not that he could help it. If the titan didn’t like this, he shouldn’t have made the challenges so damn hard. In any case, Percy had done a decent job getting this far, and he’d even collected a hefty number of credits, though one question remained.

‘Do I keep going?’

He did kinda want to get all the challenges to the third wave. It wasn’t just about the rewards either. Clearing the waves was oddly satisfying. Not to mention that he liked round numbers. Something about stopping here felt wrong.

‘Oh well… I can always abort the challenge if it gets too dangerous.’

On another note, Percy had discovered that the translation device was a lot tougher than it looked. Admittedly, he discovered this by accident, after forgetting to take it off. It wasn’t until a few days in he even remembered he was wearing it, after it had presumably eaten hundreds of blows.

Naturally, his heart had skipped a bit upon realizing how close he’d come to ruining the expensive tool. Luckily, there wasn’t a dent on it, prompting him to ask the cube about it. Apparently, it would take a Blue-level attack to actually damage the device.

‘I guess it makes sense. What kind of idiot would make a device costing 5000 credits so fragile?’

In any case, Percy caught himself, realizing he was just procrastinating at this point. With a heavy heart, he started the third wave of the swarm challenge, hoping it would be more forgiving than the gauntlet.

***

“Congratulations! Wave 3 has been cleared! Calculating rewards…”

“Awarded credits: 90. Current balance: 430.”

‘Don’t worry about it…’ Percy tried to console his host.

The two were staring at their broken beak, lying on the ground by their feet.

‘I’m sure Metatron will fix you as soon as I leave.’

What he wasn’t quite as certain about, was whether the titan would be willing to honour their deal the next time he visited. But that was future Percy’s problem.

***

“Congratulations! Wave 3 has been cleared! Calculating rewards…”

“Awarded credits: 90. Current balance: 520.”

‘It’s done. We’ve made it…’

Percy could hardly believe it.

He dragged himself against the metallic floor using his one surviving talon, leaving a bloody trail behind him. His other three limbs weren’t much help, their joints bent in all the wrong directions.

Eventually, he made it to the remains of the coconuts. By now, all that was left of them was a pink pool of pulp. The sack had mostly survived the gauntlet challenge intact, as the larger golem rarely hit his supplies. Unfortunately, the same couldn’t be said about the swarm challenge.

Sighing, Percy picked the largest solid piece he could find, squeezing it between his claws, letting a few lukewarm droplets of juice fall into his broken beak. The liquid rolled down his throat, soon causing him to break into a cough.

‘Crap! I forgot how salty they are...’

Not only was the exotic fruit terrible for quenching one’s thirst, the salt only exacerbated Percy’s injuries further, making him wince in pain.

Denied of even this small relief, Percy turned over, resting with his back on the floor. At this point, he just wanted this trip to end. The past few days had been hellish, though the results spoke for themselves.

There was one last thing he needed to do with all the credits he’d earned, before he could put himself and the parrot out of their shared misery.

“Cube… Give me a list of Crude mana conversion spells.”