Chapter 214: Wrath

Chapter 214: Wrath

It didn’t take long before we were back on the road. Erani messaged Ainash to go grab Sylvie and bring her back to us so we could get to the outpost without delay. So once we met back up, we got right back onto the worn dirt trail heading in the direction of the mountains.

Our plan now was essentially just an ambush. We knew that Jon and his soldiers would arrive shortly after we got to the outpost, and so instead of entering we’d stick outside and watch, waiting for an opening to strike while they were off-guard. A simple strategy, made more complex by the reversal of roles we’d be forced to take.

Unfortunately, where normally Ainash and I were close-range fighters who would take the front while people like Sylvie and Erani would take the back line—though, by now, Erani had high enough physical Stats for her to hold her own in close-range combat—this time, due to Jon’s bullshit Spell, Sylvie would have to be the sole fighter keeping him away from us.

Erani, Ainash, and I had all contributed to far too many Human deaths for us to be safe while in his range, and so only Sylvie was safe. She’d have to take the front and hopefully use her basic capabilities to hold him at bay while we peppered him with Spells from afar. Though Ainash couldn’t even do that much. She would most likely be on duty fighting the four soldiers Jon had with him, as long as she could keep away from Jon while doing so.This chapter was first shared on the Ñøv€lß1n platform.

“Do you know how long the range is on Day of Judgment, exactly?” I asked Erani as we walked.

“Not exactly. But I know it’s somewhat short—probably less than twenty paces, though it might be something like twenty-five. Definitely not more than that, though; it would get a lot more serious discussion around its viability if it was a sniping Spell.”

“Sure seems plenty viable to me,” I muttered.

“Only because of our particular scenario. Imagine trying to fight monsters with it. You’d have no idea how much damage your own Spell will deal until after you already cast it. It’s basically gambling with your life if you aren’t already informed about your exact opponent. Plus, the path to get to it involves taking very few combat Spells to begin with, so it really just puts you in a bad position.”

I shrugged. “I guess. Still, it would be nice to know the specific range.”

Index would be able to tell us the moment we crossed into it, if we knew, was the unsaid part of that thought. With Sylvie with us, I didn’t want to give away the existence of Index, if I didn’t have to.

Actually, I thought, Index, can you tell us the exact range on the Spell? I know you couldn’t reveal the full effects, but now that we know some, can you tell us the rest?

...

A few seconds passed with no response, which I wasn’t used to.

Index?

Still no response.

I felt my face instantly morph into an expression of fear—something that I probably shouldn’t have let happen when around people who weren’t in the know, but I couldn’t help it. What was wrong with Index? It never disappeared like that. I wracked through my memory, trying to remember anything that might have—

“Hey, Arlan,” Index’s voice came through to me.

Oh, thank the gods.

“Um, yeah, sorry.”

I frowned. Something was strange about the way Index sounded. Like it was... Index, are you okay?

“Don’t worry about me,” it said. It sounded upset, its voice wavering in a way that reminded me of how my voice would sometimes catch in my throat if I’d been crying recently. “Um, yes, I can tell you, sorry. Erani was right, it’s fifteen paces.”

...Alright. Uh, if there’s—

“I’m sorry,” it repeated. “Just...give me thirty seconds.”

...Sure.

We continued walking for half a minute, none of the others aware that Index and I had spoken. I went ahead and sent a message over to Erani through Ainash with the info it’d given to me, but at this point, the range of Jon’s Spell wasn’t the main thing on my mind.

After what I was pretty sure had been exactly thirty seconds, I heard Index’s voice again. “Okay, so, I’ve spent some time, and I think I can fix this.”

You sure that isn’t just what you know will give me the best chances of survival?

“No, I don’t think it is. You’re probably better off killing the four soldiers and then threatening Jon into running away and giving yourself more time to get more powerful before confronting him later. However, he made you upset, and so I would really, really enjoy seeing him tortured to death.”

We’ll see about the torture, I said. That part probably wasn’t going to happen. But I can promise you a death, at the very least.

A few hours later, Erani, Ainash, and I all laid up on a hill looking down at the outpost that housed the trio of border guards, as well as Ripley. None of them knew we were here; we’d gone straight to set up our ambush without showing ourselves to them first. They effectively served as bait, unfortunately, and that meant trying to make sure they acted natural so Jon wouldn’t get suspicious.

Sylvie was stationed up closer to the outpost, hopefully to draw fire and attention from Jon while we attacked him from outside his Spell’s range.

We’d arrived early, having moved much more quickly in this timeline so we could set up before they got here, meaning we were now in a situation to simply wait it out. Jon would enter the outpost with his four guards in about twenty minutes, where they’d speak for some time, and then presumably Jon would throw in that coin to fill the place with water.

We would charge in during that time spent speaking, before he could seal them into the outpost and drown them, and hopefully use the fact that we had the five enemies all stuck in a small enclosed space to make good use of Erani’s Explosive Firebolts and clear them out quickly. There was obviously the problem of Ripley and the three guards also being in that enclosed space, but I did have a lot of movement-based debuffs, meaning I could hopefully manipulate the positioning of the enemies to keep them close together while allowing our allies space to keep away.

That was the ideal scenario, which would hopefully give us a victory without allowing our enemies even a single attack. But we weren’t delusional, so that was why we had Sylvie in place to draw aggression from a hopefully weakened and damaged Jon in the case that he escaped and came at us.

As we waited for the group of five to come, I glanced around ensuring everyone was in place. Erani and Ainash were lying next to me, Erani staring ahead and watching the outpost carefully, and Ainash...

“Is that a beetle?” I asked her.

“Yes,” she responded, looking down at the insect crawling across her hand. She raised it up to her shoulder, and it crawled onto her, wandering along her back and neck as she lay prone on the ground.

“...Why do you have a beetle?”

“Want to get better at training Goblins, but getting practice with them is hard. Whenever make a mistake, have to kill one of them. It is hard to get more Goblins when have already killed a lot of them. So, instead, will just train other animals until I am very good at training.”

“Right,” I said, “I guess that makes sense. Though, I’m not sure a beetle—”

“His name is Kabuto,” Ainash interrupted.

“Sure,” I responded. Honestly, I was mainly just surprised she was able to transfer a name through our mental communication; I always found doing that extremely difficult. Maybe working on verbal communication with the Goblins was helping her even more than I realized. “Anyway, I’m not sure Kabuto is going to be very similar to a Goblin. So it might be hard to—”

“Hey,” Erani whispered, nudging me in the side.

I stopped speaking and looked over. Off in the distance, approaching the outpost from up in the mountains, was a group of five. “Is that...”

“Yeah. Jon and the soldiers. They aren’t supposed to be here yet, right?”

“They shouldn’t be. Supposed to be another, like, fifteen minutes before they arrive.”

“It was actually eighteen minutes in the future when they arrived here in the previous timeline,” Index said.

“So why are they here?”

“No idea.”

Sylvie, hiding behind some foliage, looked back up at us with a questioning expression. I shrugged. Maybe something had caused a knock-on effect that led to them arriving more quickly?

We were all well-hidden, so we simply stayed put and watched as the group of Jon and his soldiers walked up to the door to the outpost. I wondered if Ripley would give them the welcome she gave me—an instant axe to the face—or if she would hide, having seen the larger group. I felt like it would be best if they were all let in first, but if Ripley came out with an instant attack, it would still leave us in a good position to ambush the soldiers partway through the fight, taking them down at the perfect moment.

Jon stepped up to the outpost door, and paused, staring at it. I frowned, wondering what he was waiting for. Then, one of his soldiers—the one with the maul—came up to him and started speaking with him. They had a conversation that lasted for some time, and then Jon turned back around. Only, he didn’t turn to face the door, he turned to face the wilderness. To face us.

Then, completely ignoring the outpost, Jon and the four guards started walking straight in our direction. The guards readied their weapons, and Jon held out his hands, fingers practically crackling with energy.