I updated the descriptions of the mobs in the last chapter, so be sure to check them out!

Aisha willed for the notification of the end of the first wave to disappear and calmly read the backlog of system messages that had been automatically hidden while she fought. She leveled up once, but what mattered most was that she had finally acquired the Bow Mastery skill. As she felt there were enough archers, and considering her poor results, Aisha decided that the next wave of battle she’d be fighting in the frontlines.

While helping the innkeeper cooking, Aisha discovered of a neat place to visit if they went to the mountain pass north-west of Jeilou. It seemed to be a temple, it wasn’t frequently visited, but it wasn’t even a secret location. According to the beastwoman it was a temple dedicated to the five representative deities of the continent.

The three days were used to assess the damages, that is, how many people had died. Even if players were among them, they wouldn’t be able to log back in for a week (IGT) so it was no use differentiating between NPCs and players. As last time it worked, Reginald decided to use the same formation from last time.

This meant that apart from Aisha, the other four were still with the same companions in the same group. There were less people in the airborne troop, so some attack mages had the role to support them alongside the archers, which had to switch between attacking enemies on the air and on the land.

When Aisha saw the firsts Kamaitachi running toward the village, she sprinted toward them, signaling the start of the fight. She had another objective. She wanted to recreate the same situation from that time in the cave, she wanted to try experiencing excitement again. That is why, she ran headlong toward the enemies, uncaring of every danger that may lie ahead.

> let her reach the Kamaitachi faster than anyone else, it also made it possible for her to position herself right in the center of a particularly large group of them. Aisha was surrounded, just like she wanted. Thanks to Predator Instincts and Death’s Eyes, she knew where each and every creature was in a 50 meter radius. Then, she took out two katanas, the weapons with the longest reach that she currently possessed, and started slashing at the little monsters scurrying on the ground.

Aisha didn’t use Primordial Fear only because she wanted to last longer in this fight. The use of that skill would deplete her mana at a really high rate, so she decided to use it later on in the battle. Most of her slashes were in a downward motion, but some of the more aggressive Kamaitachi would jump at her, forcing Aisha to make upward slashes and sometimes thrusts with her blades.

She felt nothing.

As she progressed, new enemies began appearing, the shadow-like humans, the Yobukos. Against them, Aisha judged that fighting with two katanas was counter-productive, and switched to dual-wielding daggers, acquiring higher dexterity and mobility. She found out that, even if they copied the appearance of someone, they didn’t copy their strength, their speed, their skills and everything else.

If they did, Aisha would’ve had a hard time killing them off. Some of the times, she would plunge her dagger in the Yobukos’ eyes, not bothering to take it out. This was actually a great waste of resources, but it meant nothing to Aisha. Not many daggers were left in her inventory when the Wairas arrived. At this moment, Aisha was near the forest’s entrance, while the rest of the vanguards were more than 200 meters behind, closely followed by Gaea’s group.

No excitement.

There were two reasons for this. First, Aisha was rushing ahead while not caring about the consequences; a normal player wouldn’t do this. Secondly, the same player from three days ago, the one which made the others blindly charge at the Ōmukade, was leading five other players while they attacked their former allies. They were betrayers, and Gaea and Atlas were occupied repelling them. Even if they were only six, their good teamwork and high levels caused the others to have a hard time.

Against the Waira, Aisha used a single katana. Their bodies were unexpectedly tough, so she had to concentrate her power in a single sword to make her attack connect. Certainly, she used her skill > too, but she made use of it rarely since, as said before, she wanted to preserve as much mana as possible. Primarily, she used > when she was surrounded by Wairas or when she was in a pinch.

She just mechanically killed her enemies.

The fight against them ended around the time her health-bar was half full and she was fifty meters or so inside the forest. Here, she encountered a new type of monster which wasn’t present the last wave. Kodama. They were just green balls of light that moved from one tree to another. While Aisha fought some Wairas, in-between a moment of rest and whatnot, she tried attacking this new creatures, to no vail though.

If she attacked them when they were moving to another tree, her weapons would just pass through them, even if she used Clean Cut and Primordial Fear. Instead, if she attacked the Kodama when they were inside a tree, her attack would be reflected to herself, even if she used her skills, like before. Aisha could do these creatures nothing.

‘At least they are passive when it comes to attacking.’

After that, Aisha ignored the little floating green balls and concentrated on fact that only a few meters ahead of her there were Abura-sumashis. The pesky creatures used their water magic to make the earth wet and slippery and to shield themselves from the few daggers Aisha threw to them. Seeing as this wasn’t going anywhere, she used Sprint to close in on them and then immobilized the Abura-sumashis by activating Primordial fear.

Decapitating one, cutting one more in half, dismembering another.

Their red blood tainted her clothes further. Aisha could feel it seeping inside more and more as she brought down her defenseless opponents. Unconsciously, she had activated Bloodthirsty and it was beginning to affect her mind. It twisted her psyche and made her long for blood and battles.

Still, Aisha felt nothing.

New monsters entered her sight. They resembled the dwarves, only, the didn’t have a beard but pointy ears, like the elves’. They all had red hairs and above their heads where the azure words “Kijimuna.” They were definitely shocked by Aisha’s presence but didn’t waste time. She ran toward them, the five creatures began to collectively chant. As the chant progressed the earth began to shake, making Aisha temporarily lose her footing.

It was thanks to a nearby tree that she didn’t fall to the ground, the scale of the movements of the earth were big, like a earthquake of magnitude 6.1~6.9 in the Richter scale. In the village, some parts of the wooden walls fell but strangely enough the village itself wasn’t harmed. No one, NPC or player, seemed to notice this detail though.

What the Kijimuna did, was summoning a Namazu. A Namazu is a giant catfish, four meters wide, about 15 meters long and three meters tall. The colour of his body was gray-blue tone everywhere but on his ventral side, which was a pinkish white. The little creatures were obviously not affected by the earthquakes and readily mounted on the Namazu.

Once she recovered, Aisha used Sprint one again. She was sure her stamina was about to hit rock-bottom, but she was also sure she was about to feel that emotion again. Activating Primordial Fear, the Namazu and the Kijimuna were stunned for “only” 4 minutes as they were 15 levels stronger than Aisha. The first thing she did at that point was cutting off the Namazu’s barbels using Clean Cut.

Then, Aisha ran to its sides and used Clean Cut one last time to sever one of the Namazu’s fins. She continued to run until she reached its back and mounted on its body. It seemed to Aisha like every time she encountered a big opponents she had to climb its body. Aisha shook her head to make that silly thought go away and at the same time she approached the sweating Kijinumas. They knew they were now going to die, and it was indeed so. Aisha impaled every single one of them, probably leveling up some.

But, as she killed the last one, the Namazu broke free from the fear hex Aisha had inflicted him. It let out a deafening roar, shook his body and flew upwards a bit. Its movements made Aisha fall on the ground and when the Namazu turned around to see her defenselessly lying on the ground, it didn’t hesitate in attacking.

Aisha’s blood boiled as she saw the monster approaching her at full speed, and even though she saw it coming, she still wasn’t able to evade it.

You have died.