Surviving as a Broken Hero

The frozen, snow-covered peaks and drifts were behind us, light gales blowing through the mountains and trailing wisps of snow beneath the setting orange glow of the sun.

I looked out over the steep drop ahead of us, the sun painting the forest greenery and the browns of the flaking trees in oranges and blacks.

The heat gathered below wafted in an updraft next to the drop, warming the stones next to the cliff enough to melt the ice and make them safe to rest on.

Well, as safe as resting next to a steep drop could be.

What we were worried about was what would happen when we began descending.

[Quest Percentage: 49%]

The little blue System window.

The System was supposed to be nothing if not consistent, though that was being challenged by my encounters with the demons and Rhil’s collar.

It was likely that, as soon as we began descending the steep cliff, the quest would tick over to 50% and we would face our next monster wave or event.

The night was cold, though the warm draft from the cliff face was still warmer than what we had been facing until then, so we still needed to burn through warmth stones.

The sun rose over the horizon, shining in our faces over the expanse of the forest far below.

I briefly looked for the hole I had fallen through into Krylla’s cave system, but perhaps she had long since sealed it up already.

With a few final words and checks, we began our descent over the edge.

Though flight wasn’t unheard of, it was extremely rare and usually reserved for either unique items, high-level abilities, or near-unheard-of classes.

Thunk!

Not even needing to use «Strike», I hammered down on one of the many metal pitons we planted over the top of the ledge, cracking the stone and firmly wedging the rod in place.

It would have been easy enough to just lower the Unawakened over the ledge a few at a time, but we hammered the pitons in pairs so that we could lower Awakened and Unawakened pairs down the cliff together.

The going would be slower, but at least we wouldn’t be leaving them defenseless as they were lowered down the cliff.

We still weren’t sure how the attack would come, but we needed to cover the top of the cliff, the Unawakened being lowered, and the bottom of the cliff where they would land all at the same time.

Finally, with the sun rising overhead, we made the decision to move.

There were enough of us to lower ten people at a time, and it took roughly eight minutes to safely lower the pairs and bring the ropes back up, meaning we would be looking at a little over two hours total before everyone was at the bottom.

If we just had to survive a limited monster attack like at the 25% marker, it would be easy enough to just lower one group down and kill the monsters before lowering the rest.

The problem, however, was where and when the monsters would appear.

[Quest Percentage: 50%]

The System ticked over to 50% when we started lowering the first group of people.

I helped to lower one of the Unawakened.

‘He feels surprisingly light.’

I was lowering a man who looked a bit on the pudgy side, but it was no more difficult than, say, carrying a terrier or other smaller dogs back before the Merge.

…No, back before I Awakened.

The pitons served as uncoiling mechanisms and emergency tie-offs for the rope in case of attack, so all we really had to do was hold the rope and let it out in a controlled slide to lower those on the other end.

There was a collective holding of breath until the first group reached the ground safely and we got the next group ready, tying the ropes in makeshift harnesses around their waist and thighs.

Then the second group made it down…

Then the third…

A half-hour passed like that, each group being methodically lowered down while the quest percentage stayed at 51%, and I began to wonder if monsters wouldn’t attack until we all reached the bottom.

‘The System wouldn’t make it this easy right?’

It wasn’t really a matter of whether we would be attacked or not, it was a matter of when, where, and by what.

There was a reason many purposefully either decided to not worry about Awakening or just stayed in or near cities, after all.

Quests were seldom easy.

Then another half-hour passed.

Sure enough, right when around half of the group was at the bottom, half up top, and a few were being lowered…

“Something’s coming!” Koise yelled out and pointed toward the sun over the horizon.

They looked like black dots from the distance we were at, but his PER stat probably allowed him to see them as if he had a telescope.

Flying monsters…

Depending on whether they primarily attacked with diving attacks or shot fire breath or something of the sort, our melee fighters might end up fairly useless, and the close-ranged fighters descending the cliff face would be doubly so without anything to plant themselves on.

“Can you tell what they are?!” I yelled to him while still lowering one of the Unawakened on the rope.

He shielded his eyes from the sun and squinted out for a few moments while the dots steadily got larger.

“I think they’re… wyrms?”

‘Shit…’

A lesser and not as intelligent type of dragon, a wyrm was smaller but still dangerous.

I started letting the rope slide out of my hands faster, still at a controlled pace.

Rope burn might have been an issue before I Awakened, but even without using the earth abilities given to me by the other System, my END was high enough that my skin wouldn’t be torn so easily.

When I estimated that there was only about 30% of the rope left to lower, the wyrms were close enough to make out clearly, and the System popped up with a message when it was sure that we had all seen them clearly.

[Monster Wave!

A wave of monsters has detected your party and is approaching your group from the sky, do your best to defeat them and defend the Unawakened!

Monsters Remaining: 10/10]

There were far fewer of them, of course, because wyrms were far stronger than goblins.

They might have been lesser dragons, but they were still a type of ‘dragon’, after all.

Maybe a seventh of the size of the City of the Edge’s dragon we had killed, each wyrm had little scales running over the length of its body, similar to a snake’s skin.

Thankfully, the scales were just about as tough as well, and though their hides were thick, they didn’t have anything close to the toughness a dragon was granted by its indestructible plate-like scales.

With retractable claws a few meters long at the end of each of their four legs and heat shimmering from their bodies while they flew at us and prepared to breathe fire, my stomach churned and bile rose to my throat when a few of the wyrms dove down while the rest continued their mad flight at us.

‘Should I just leap at them now?’

The archers and mages started letting off their attacks at the wyrms, and I debated on whether jumping at the wyrms would be worth it.

“KRAAAAGH!”

The wyrms roared, and a lucky arrow pierced straight into one’s eye and lodged itself firmly in its skull, sending it tumbling from its flight where it crashed into the side of the cliff and fell far to the ground below.

I slung the rope around the piton in a quick knot and peered over the ledge while fireballs splashed over the wyrms and bolts of lightning thundered through the sky, sending blinding flashes through the air.

Four of the wyrms had diverted themselves from the others.

Two went for the group on the ground while the others, taking advantage of both the groups above and below being distracted by their allies, had free pickings of the Awakened and Unawakened on the cliffside.

They did their best to fire arrows, magic, and whatever else they had at them, but even a ranged Awakener would find it difficult to attack properly while dangling from a rope. It would probably be nearly impossible to properly aim.

“Ah… fuck it,” I mumbled under my breath.

The Awakeners at the top and bottom would just have to be enough to deal with the wyrms. They had Koise, Bernard, and Velle, after all. Not to mention other similarly powerful Awakeners tagging along for the quest rewards.

Rather than worry about them, I needed to protect those on the cliffside.

One of the Awakeners was already dangling at the end of their rope, limp and charred from a wyrm’s breath.

The wyrm circled back around and its gaze locked onto the Unawakened next to the limp Awakener, who shouted and raised his arms as if they would protect her from the miniature dragon.

I riled the energy of the earth up within myself and solidified the gauntlet around my right forearm.

‘This is going to hurt,’ I thought to myself before launching myself over the edge of the cliff and falling toward the wyrm.