Might as Well

It may have been the hubris talking, but Sam felt pretty good about his chances.

Granted, his Mana Shield was down to the last layer and he was pretty much running on fumes. As well as expecting his enemy to still have a few arrows in their quivers.

But the allure of the battle and tempting call of gratuitous action was just too big to ignore.

This was a moment that showed why so many people fell in love with the game, why so many people all over the world spent so many hours playing it, and why it was slowly but surely taking over the gaming entertainment industry.

Sam grinned and looked at the wary people staring at him, taking stock of them.

The rogue was still prowling around waiting for who knows what, while the four people that used their artifacts to chain him down were sweating bullets trying to hold the spell in place.

“Getting tired, boys?” he threw out a jeer, but he only received glares as an answer.

The six people against him grouped up and the other two people also stepped closer to the two people holding the gloves, placed their hands on their shoulders, and visibly began channeling mana into them.

Well, visible to him thanks to his Mana Sense and connected skills.

The chains in response, from a bunch of static chains, weighing his feet down, turned animated, and began to crawl up on his legs, no doubt attempting to bind his body fully.

One more minute before the mob and the big group of cultists that have been hunting him would arrive.

He ignored the chains for now, as fighting against the binding spell would cost more mana than killing the people using the artifacts. Instead, he raised his trusty sword, Moonlight, and channeled his wind mana into it, and let loose a simple blade of wind, wide enough to scythe through the entire group attempting to hold him in place.

Based on the memories he inherited, they were rather amateurish in their actions trying to lock him down. Players in the future would use giant rituals to lock down entire areas or use expertly crafted artifacts to create kill zones wherever they wanted. The other Sam didn’t witness it, but there were even rumors about one of the ‘evil’ guilds using mountains of human sacrifices to lock down one of the smaller nations. But as there was not much news about it, the other Sam always suspected that was just the guild talking themselves up.

And those were just the things that could be crafted. The spells that players would create were downright devilish. Infinite mirror mazes, nightmare-inducing foggy swamps, eternal darkness consuming everything. All of that was summoned by talented mages all over the world of Magic Unbound.

So, while with his strength he would have to fight hard to escape, the attempt still looked rather laughable to Sam.

The spell released from his sword flew true and crossed the distance between him and the group in a rather short time.

However, between two blinks, the rogue jumped between the spell and the group and intercepted the spell with his dagger.

To Sam’s surprise, the dagger shone with white light and simply sucked the spell in.

‘Oh, one of those mana siphon weapons… smart, but annoying,’ he thought while the second spell left his sword.

Which was absorbed by the dagger.

So were all the following ones. Granted, Sam was using Wind Blades, but it was still annoying.

The dagger, however, was starting to shine with a rather ominous light.

Sam’s grin widened.

‘So, that was his plan. Get it fat with my magic then turn it around on me…’ he mused while continuing to send blade of wind after blade of wind at the rogue who kept jumping around with an impressive set of acrobatics to catch each and every one.

Half a minute…

Watching the guy jump around was funny as hell, but he was running out of time.

“Lucky!” he cried out while increasing the pressure on the rogue whose face he couldn’t see but his Mana Sense told him was also using a massive amount of mana to keep up with him.

As a result of his call, Lucky instantly surfaced under the people keeping him locked down, swiping with his claws around, not doing much damage thanks to their armor and buffs, but sending them flying.

The crafty wolf used the moment all the attention was on him and his dance partner to retreat to the shadows and now he was back, teeth bared and with a growl so deep that Sam could feel the vibration in his bones.

Players went flying, and the chains shattered on him.

He reached out with his mana, saturating the area with his own mana, and turned it into wind mana in short order.

“Well, gentlemen and ladies, this was great fun, but I’ve other things to do. So, we must say goodbye to each other!”

Finally, the rogue seemingly had enough and answered him.

“You’re not going anywhere!” he spat, his voice low and a little hoarse.

Using the wind mana, he began carving runes into the ground around the group.

“Why not? It’s not like you can keep me here…” he continued talking, while he carved the simplistic runic circle into the part soggy and part charred ground.

The man let out a low chuckle as his compatriots started getting back up behind him. “Let me show you the power of–“

“LIGHT BALL!” Sam roared, pumping mana into the spell, effectively creating a massive flashbang.

“Argh!”

“My eyes! My eyes!”

He launched himself away from the rogue, using the speed gained from Shadow Grace and Shadow Burst.

His timing was rather exact as the groups of people that were barreling toward their destination just arrived.

Some of the archers and mages were already in the process of flinging projectiles in his direction, but as he was almost next to his enemies, they were seemingly hesitant.

Then, as his feet touched the ground, it landed on one of the runes he carved with the wind mana. It was a crude and simplistic circle, as he didn’t have time for anything more complicated, but it was enough for his purpose.

A brief burst of mana through his feet, which activated the circle, and he was off while the runic circle began to shine.

Inwardly, he began to count down while running as fast as possible. Lucky was running parallel to him, tongue out and visibly enjoying himself.

One…

Two…

Three…

BAAAAAAAAMMMM

The ground shook, and the cries of the wounded filled the air behind him.

Sam just grinned and continued running.

Half an hour later Sam was lying in a small clearing with Lucky standing guard, exhausted both physically, and mentally and his mana reserves were dry as the desert.

His hands and feet flopped uselessly on the ground, shaking from the loss of adrenalin and exhaustion, while his face was filled with a giant smile.

Sam couldn’t help but laugh out joyously.

He didn’t even care who he defeated. But the battle…

“Holy shit, that was amazing…” he spoke out loud. “This game fucking rocks!”

Laughing to himself, he hauled himself up into a sitting position. His knees were drawn up to his chest and his hands resting on them.

He quickly took the time to send a few messages to Lucy about the ambush, then checked the status of his quest.

Which, to his surprise, was still incomplete.

“Right, I probably have to reach the capital…” he murmured while making sure he didn’t miss anything.

Then he took a quick breath, grabbed the slowly regenerating mana and suffused the air around himself then began drawing the mana ever so closer to himself until it was touching him and his equipment.

Using this mana, he began going over every square inch of his body, making sure that those idiots didn’t leave any kind of marker on him. Thankfully, he didn’t find anything, which resulted in him releasing a relieved breath and dispersing the mana.

“Alright, Sam. You’ve escaped, the goal is near, now you just have to move…” he told himself, trying to be encouraging as his exhaustion was trying to convince himself that a nap would be just excellent right about now. “You can sleep at the Magic Tower…”

Slowly, fighting the exhaustion suffusing his body, he clambered to his feet and, with Lucky running around him, began walking in the direction of the capital.

His plan was to walk a little, recover, and then continue running.

He didn’t want to ride Lucky because at the moment he didn’t trust himself with a toothpick not to mention Moonlight, so his loyal companion was playing the role of a bodyguard.

Not really measuring the time, he kept going forward, keeping an eye on the surroundings and occasionally giving Lucky a command. The wolf was pretty good about dealing with the random monsters that decided to make Sam their next snack, but even so, some encouragement was never amiss.

He was resting a little in another clearing, mostly trying to work through the headache he was left with when the air above him was literally rent asunder.

[Perception Filter is now Level 5!]

[Curse of Madness resisted!]

Sam read the notification as they popped up immediately when he looked at the darkness behind the wound on the world and the darkness looked back.

‘What the hell is that?’

He was truly panicking. Not even the other Sam ever saw anything like that or even heard about it. Not to mention the notification…

However, for some reason, he couldn’t tear his eyes off the phenomenon. It was as if a two-dimensional crack was painted on the air. No matter where he stepped, it looked flat, yet he could see that it had a depth.

Peering deeper with his own eyes (he didn’t even dare to use his Mana Sense on it) he could see vague shapes moving around while several eyes looked back at him. With every blink, eyes vanished and reappeared. Each eye was different, with different pupils and sclera. Sizes also varied. Giant eyes that seemed as big as worlds to eyes that would probably fit on a fly.

Sam was at a loss for what to do, as several notifications rang out.

[You gazed into the darkness. The darkness looked back at you and deemed you rather cute.]

[The Perception Filter subskill was upgraded into a full skill!]

[Perception Filter: Level 5/25 (0%) (Passive) You are able to filter out that which should not be seen.]

Then there was a brief scream, and he saw a figure falling out of the crack, which as soon as the body crossed the threshold vanished as if the sanctity of the world’s structure wasn’t just violated by something that really shouldn’t exist.

The body landed on the ground with a thud and a quiet cry of pain.

Then the scar reappeared, a little smaller, and another figure, this time fully black, was practically spat out and the scar on reality vanished once again.

Sam looked down at the figure, wearing fully black armor as they lay on the ground, groaning and mumbling. However, what gathered his interest was the rather familiar cat landing on the armored figure gracefully, stretching a little, then hopping off them and sauntering away just to jump onto Lucky’s back and settle down into a little ball to sleep.

“Katie?” he called out hesitantly.

“Arglmbrasdas…” came the incomprehensible answer.

“What?”

He watched as she slowly pushed herself away from the ground and sat up. She reached over with her armored hand and pulled her helmet off.

Sam was greeted by Katie’s grinning visage, her eyes dancing with laughter and a rather large amount of madness.

He couldn’t help himself as he offered his hand to the girl. “What the fuck, Katie?”

She grabbed his hand, and he had to use some Body Enhancement to help the young woman into a standing position.

“Oh, don’t worry, boss! Just a small quest…”

“Katie… did you violate the natural order?”

She at least looked a little abashed. “Maybe a little…” she answered, refusing to look into his eyes.

Sam just let out a sigh and motioned forward. “Come on. You can tell me what horrible thing you did to the universe and I’ll tell you what your dad did…”

Katie was instantly walking next to him as Lucky followed along, Puffball comfortably riding on his back, still apparently asleep.

“What did that asshole do this time?”

“Well, it starts with demon cultists…”