Markets and Multiverses

I looked in the direction of the village, feeling horror as I realized what the last-ditch plan of the outsiders looked like. I hadn’t thought about it before, since nobody in the village had a rune that enhanced sound. After all, nobody here would willingly form such an ability - amplifying sound was completely worthless when it drew land beasts towards the user. The only sound enhancing runes on the island were wind runes, and they weren’t used to carry sound elsewhere very often.

My heart sank, before I gritted my teeth and turned back towards the outsider soldiers who were fleeing towards us. I desperately wanted to help the village, but we had our own problems right now.

I released my arrow, aiming directly towards the man’s unprotected face. At the same time, Felix, his mother, and Sallia released their arrows. The arrow shot by Felix’s mother suddenly divided in three midair, two of them hitting men near their knees and dropping them to the ground while one missed completely. Sallia and Felix’s arrows hit armor, accomplishing nothing. And my arrow struck a man’s throat.

He dropped, blood pouring from his throat as he stared at me, uncomprehending. The arrow in his throat wriggled, as he tried to use his rune abilities to move the arrow out of him. Then, he stopped moving.

Slaughter: Kill a human with 4-6 Runes for the first time

Influence: Contributed to the defense of the Village by a [Negligible] amount.

Achievement +75, Achievement +??? (Achievement will not be awarded until current events are completed.)

I blinked away the System notifications and took aim again, completely uninterested in the Achievement flooding into my soul. What mattered was stopping these people from reaching my friends.

Die. 

Another arrow flicked away from my bow, like sparks from a flame. It sailed past the head of the outsider I was aiming at, completely missing.

Sallia, Felix, and Vanessa also poured arrows into the outsiders, dropping two more as I fluidly reached for another arrow and shot. Another miss. As I reached for a fourth arrow, my body suddenly felt much weaker and heavier. I realized that I had subconsciously burned mana to increase my speed, and now I had burned through the mana reserves stored in my two runes.

I cursed under my breath, but managed to snap off one final shot. It bounced off of some armor, accomplishing little. I tossed my bow to the side and pulled out my sword, and saw Felix and Sallia do the same. Vanessa pulled out her spear, and in the distance I saw the two wounded outsiders get crushed by the spider landbeast before it sprinted past us and jumped into the ocean.

The eyes of one of the outsiders, upon seeing me, lit up, like he had finally found a way out of this mess. He sprinted towards me. I swapped to a thrusting stance, but my limbs felt slow and clumsy now that I was out of mana. His speed suddenly increased, as he burned his mana reserves, and then one of his arms elongated towards me like a rubber band.

“Let us go, or I’ll kill her!” He screeched, trying to grab at my neck. I was caught off guard by his limb changing shape, but I still immediately swapped to a low guard and prepared to hack at his arm…

But before it was necessary, Sallia nearly vanished from my sight, and hacked off the man’s arm.

“Get the fuck away from my friend,” said Sallia, burning through her mana in a fraction of a second as she madly dashed towards the would-be hostage taker. The man screamed, blood spewing from his severed arm as he stumbled backwards. Then, his eyes widening as he looked at Sallia running towards him, he reached towards his sword with his left hand. His grip was clumsy, but he managed to unsheath it and swing it at Sallia, aiming to decapitate her.

Sallia’s sword spun through the air as she knocked the man’s blade away. Before he had time to recover, she stabbed one of his legs through a hole in his armor.

The man’s eyes widened even further, as his posture collapsed. As he stumbled, Sallia took a final step forward, and then stabbed him in the eye. He stopped moving.

The other outsiders, seeing Sallia butcher a man with two more runes than her, veered away from our group. They no longer looked like they wanted to fight us at all - they were just desperately fleeing towards the ocean.

However, as they tried to change directions, one of the two mist wolves suddenly grew a tentacle out of its face. I stumbled backwards, horrified, as the wolf’s entire head suddenly writhed and squirmed, before disintegrating into a set of grotesque, misty tentacles. Then, several of the tentacles reached out towards the outsiders, managing to latch on to the four closest outsiders.

The men opened their mouths to scream. Before they could make a sound, the misty tentacles glowed with light. There was a snapping sound, and then parts of the man’s bodies just disappeared into thin air. What remained collapsed into a pile of blood and organs.

The remaining five outsiders successfully dodged us and the wolves, running past our group before jumping into the ocean. Their metal armor weighed down on them, making it harder for them to swim, but their rune-enhanced physiques kept them afloat as they desperately swam for their lives.

The mist-wolves turned towards us, now that the outsiders were in the ocean. They hadn’t succumbed to the Call of the Ocean yet, and before their minds collapsed they were extremely interested in hunting us. The wolf with a head of writhing tentacles looked towards us, then pounced at Sallia and I. The instincts I had honed with Sallia and Felix kicked in, and I awkwardly rolled away from the wolf. The other wolf quickly attacked the other members of our group, distracting them. I didn’t have mana to enhance my movements anymore, but the creature was far enough away that I could still dodge. Sallia also dodged in the other direction, before baring her teeth at the wolf and readying her sword. She looked more than ready to fight the landbeast to the death, despite the massive strength difference.

The creature’s face of tentacles squiremed, before several tendrils shot towards Sallia. I gritted my teeth, and did my best to slash away the creature’s tentacles and keep Sallia out of danger.

When my sword made contact with the creature’s tentacles, it felt like I had stabbed a pile of wet cement. I didn’t inflict any visible damage at all, and my sword felt like it was stuck. I panicked, giving my sword another tug, before I felt the prickling sense of danger from behind me.

I whirled around, and saw a misty tentacle glowing as it made its way towards my face. Then, Sallia’s sword cleaved its way through the misty tentacle, and the creature shrieked in pain. My sword suddenly didn’t feel like it was stuck in the creature’s tentacle, and I hurriedly retreated.

“It’s only vulnerable when it’s about to attack!” Yelled Sallia.

I heard a shriek in the distance, and spared a moment to look towards the group of adults. Two of the villagers had died, but most of the creature’s face had been cut off by Felix’s mother. 

I glanced back towards the mist wolf, which was now glaring at Sallia with its writhing, twisting face. Its body wriggled, and I tightened my grip on my sword.

Then, like a pile of maggots squirming, its body bulged and shifted unnaturally, before dozens of tentacles erupted from its torso and legs. Several of its tentacles glowed, and I realized we might be about to die.

However, the other village chief finally caught up to us. She slammed into the mist wolf, eleven runes aglow, and the wolf was knocked off its feet and flew towards the ocean. Its body quivered, as it seemed to finally realized the danger it was in. It began desperately trying to swim back towards land, but after a few moments, its body started to fight with itself. More and more of the tentacles in its body started trying to swim deeper into the ocean, instead of swim back to the island, and within a few moments it started to head beneath the waves.

Slaughter: Assist the Locals in killing a Wolf of Writhing Mist (Land Beast) for the first time

Achievement + 100

I glanced back at the other mist wolf, to see the village chief’s honor guard surrounding it. The other villagers had retreated from the fight now, and the mist wolf was slowly being herded towards the ocean. Anytime it tried to attack a hunter, one of its tentacles would get cut off. When its tentacles didn’t glow, the hunters simply maneuvered around it, keeping its attention and waiting for a chance to counterattack. The village chief beside us rushed to join the battle, and began quickly cutting into the creature. Whatever her rune was, it seemed to ignore the incredible defense of the creature, so she simply butchered it while her guards sliced away any tentacles preparing to attack her. Within a minute, it was dead.

The other villagers, who were standing around me, sighed with relief. The situation here, at least, seemed to be under control now. We didn’t have time to mourn the loss of the two dead villagers. Even though our group was relatively unscathed, that was unlikely to be true for the village, after the outsiders had intentionally drawn land beasts towards the village.

The other village chief, having finished off her own wolf, quickly reunited with her honor guard. “Any injuries?”

“No serious ones, chief Nora,” said one of the hunters in her honor guard. “Some of us are running low on mana, and the chase through the forest exhausted much of our physical stamina, but we can still fight for a while longer.”

Nora gave her honor guard a curt nod, before turning back towards the village. “These people should be safe enough for now.” She turned towards Felix’s mother. “Retired hunter?”

“Yes,” said Vanessa.

“Your village needs all the help it can get right now. Can you still fight?”

“Yes,” said Vanessa, tightening her grip on her spear. Then, she turned to my mother. “If anything happens to me, can you take care of Felix?” My mother gave Vanessa a grim look, before she nodded. 

“You have my word.”

“Thanks.”

Then, chief Nora turned to the villager with six Runes in the group. “You lead the group for now. Stay here. It should be safer in this area. We’ll send any survivors we find towards this area. Anyone with a useful rune ability, heal them up if you can.” Vanessa tossed a few fish cores towards Felix. “Give those to any healers if they start running out of mana. If I don’t come back, they’re my final gift to you.” Then, she paused for a moment, before awkwardly patting Felix on the head. “And always remember that I love you and I’m proud of you. I’m not good with words, but I want you to remember that. Just in case.”

After that, the group of hunters and the female village chief began jogging towards the village.

I wanted to help, but there was nothing I could do right now. I found myself wishing, now more than ever, that I had my fourth rune built. That would at least give me a rune ability that might be useful. Right now I just felt like dead weight. My second rune had finally stabilized yesterday, so I could start making my third rune at any time. However, due to the pressing matter of the outsiders, I hadn’t started building my rune yet. However, even my third rune wouldn’t change how helpless I felt in this situation. The village was under attack, and I was just too young to help out.

Bitterly, I wondered if this was the drawback of being a transmigrator. I was mature enough to understand exactly how bad things were, but every time I lived in a new world, I would be weak and vulnerable until I got old enough. Some Abilities might change that, and I desperately hoped they would, but for now, I was at the mercy of my young age and low rune count.

As I watched the village, feeling helpless, I saw something else in the distance.

Two outsider ships, limping their way out of the island. Although they were seriously battered, and had barely been repaired from when they first crawled onto our shores, they were making a break for it. Behind it, a swarm of twelve or thirteen flying boats continuously launched rune-abilities from the skies, trying to destroy the ships and kill their sailors. Now that the outsiders had initiated hostilities against us, we needed to make sure that they didn’t spread word of our existence.

However, the number of flying boats was much smaller than I would have expected. I frowned, as I realized that many of the other village chiefs, along with the warriors of our village, wouldn’t sit by and let landbeasts tear apart our village and slaughter the people of the island. Many of our hunters were busy dealing with the land beasts pouring towards our village, which meant they weren’t attacking the outsiders. The outsiders hadn’t even attacked the village as a method of retaliating against us - they were using the children and civilians of our island as distractions. I felt a sense of hatred and disgust well up in my heart. 

Then, a massive tentacle tore itself out of the water. It was a pillar of water and squirming black skin, rising towards the heavens as my eyes tried to translate the squirming something I was seeing into a comprehensible shape. Seven more tentacles erupted from right underneath the island moments later. I recognized this thing - it was the creature who had herded these outsiders onto our islands in the first place.

The sea creature let out of a massive shriek, and I felt madness settle over my thoughts. My vision and thoughts were suddenly consumed by twisting geometries and shapes I couldn’t understand, before I clawed my way out of the creature’s mental attack.

I regained my senses just in time to watch the front half of one of the two fleeing sheeps turn into pulp as a massive tentacle rent it apart.

The remaining ship sped up, some sort of ability pushing their boat along as other abilities controlled the winds around the boat and sped it along. However, the flying boats of our islands kept pestering the ship, killing a few sailors and interrupting their attempts to flee. 

The sailors of the ruined ship, realizing they were about to die, seemed determined to provide a chance for the other boat to flee. They fired their Astrellium weapon one last time, turning four flying boats into splinters and gore. I hoped the creature would destroy the final escaping ship, ending this nightmare once and for all. However, the creature was disinterested in the final escaping ship, concentrating wholly on the ship it had destroyed.

The creature bellowed again. Geometry and sanity melted away. 

When I regained my sanity, the second ship was now in the distance, still fleeing for its life as our remaining boats chased it.

And in the wreckage of the ruined ship, I caught a glimpse of a large hunk of gray metal. The massive tentacle curled around it, and then dragged it into the depths of the ocean. 

The creature likes Astrellium? I felt my hopes ignite. If the creature destroyed the other ship, none of the Outsiders would escape. However, the other ship seemed to have realized this problem as well. They fired one more Astrellium beam towards our flying boats, hitting two more, and then tossed their Astrellium weapon into the ocean. Our flying boats continued firing abilities at the ship, and the fleeing ship began throwing magic projectiles back at our boats. However, the fight seemed locked in a stalemate, before the boats got too far away and I stopped being able to see what was happening.

I hoped the village chiefs would successfully kill the outsiders. And I also hoped that the damage to the village wasn’t too bad. Many of our hunters and some of the foreign village chiefs had clearly stayed behind to clean up the mess in our village. I hoped that would be enough. The number of boats chasing after the outsider’s ship numbered around five or six, and I had no idea if the village chiefs had the firepower to bring down the final group of outsiders. However, I had no way to interfere with that battle. Once again, my rune count was just too low to do anything. I sighed, before I turned to the surviving villagers in our group of people. A few still had dazed expressions, as they tried to process everything that had happened today.

Then, in the distance, I saw a few other villagers running towards us, and breathed a sigh of relief. Regardless of how the battle between the chiefs and the outsiders was faring, survivors from the village were starting to trickle in. I could only see four or five clearly right now, but in the distance I could see a larger group of villagers also heading towards us. 

At the very least, we weren’t the only survivors of this catastrophe.

 

acaswell

 

To clarify, I’ll be TRYING to write 5 chapters a week from this point on. I’m also going to reserve the right to drop that number if I think it’s too much. I should be able to do 3 pretty effectively with no worries, I think. My current thought is that I’ll aim for five, and if I think a chapter needs more editing or needs another day or whatever, I’ll sit on it and have one chapter less than five chapters for the week. Maybe having a bit of flexibility to deal with chapters that are weaker and need more work is a good thing, honestly. I think that’s a reasonable schedule for now. I’ll see how things feel in another few weeks of MaM. To be fair, I’m also SUPER busy with something else that will take until about early or mid February to finish, which is kind of causing my schedule to become a little hectic already. We’ll see if that changes things.

I’ll take a week or two to look over any comments, thoughts, etc. from the previous chapter and think about if I want to change the opening blurb, and if so, how. Thank you to those who offered some input. I appreciate it.

Shameless plug - On Patreon you can read 5 chapters ahead for $3! Or 10 chapters ahead for $5! Or 20 chapters ahead for $10.