Elf Empire 4, Chapter 17 (Patreon)

Chapter Seventeen: Moving Day

“By Merdrek’s giant legs, I still can’t believe how often I, a mighty dragon with numerous levels, end up acting as a pack animal,” Hugh said as he picked a leg up out of the swamp water with a squelching sound.

Leo had a brief internal chuckle as a hamster-sized proto-water-skimmer flailed its spindly exoskeletal legs wildly to escape the water rushing back into the hole left by Hugh’s giant foreclaw, failed, and then was launched upward by the resulting spout as the water crashed back.

That would have made a great youtube short.

“It’s just disrespectful, really.” Hugh continued, then shifted the massive collection of stuff on his back—which was tied together, and then around his midriff, by vines they had cut. Even for the giant dragon, it was a lot of stuff—and Hugh didn’t have the best Endurance score.

Leo gave an external chuckle and slapped his friend on his scaled foreleg. “Hard work is good work. And I know you haven’t gotten the athletic tier two perk, so you can benefit from this.”

“Pure bird logic that our mightiest member is weighed down by junk.”

“Maybe you should have studied more?” Ru asked as they continued through the swamp. “I mean, you obviously focused on brawn over brain, so its—"

“Listen here, you little—”

A flash of red in the sky caused Leo to hunch. “Ssh!”

The other two glanced up as well at the urgency in Leo’s voice.

Fortunately, it wasn’t the red-scaled giant dragon Leo had seen before. Unfortunately, it looked like a smaller version of it… and most unfortunately, it was headed right for them.

The dragon resolved into one about twenty-five feet long as it splashed into the swamp in front of them, showering them with a spray of water, vegetation, and large insects.

Twenty-five feet was the rough length of Ann, Hugh’s mom, and she was not quite a match for a level twenty-five elf. If this is a dragon without extra levels, three of us together might stand a chance now that Hugh and I are Level Eighteen. If we have to, and if is has no extra levels.

“Ru… what are you doing here?” the dragon asked, skulking closer.

Ru had backed a bit and was hunched in on himself, very obviously afraid of the larger dragon.

“Hey Kri…” Ru muttered.

“Rude!” Hugh said, in a voice that somehow reminded Leo of Lily.

The other dragon turned its head. “What’s that, munchable?” The word had overtones of ‘small fry’ as translated by the ring.

Leo was tempted to use analyze on the dragon, feeling a fight was imminent. Leo didn’t want to be responsible for being the one to initiate it, however. His eyes flickered over the land around them, noting objects that would be useful in telekinetic attacks, and also stepped from the swamp onto a thick root that was above the water.

Kri ignored him utterly.

Hugh bristled. “I don’t know who you are, but, by Merdrek’s Teeth, you need to back off in you want to keep your own teeth. I’ve been out here, in these blighted lands, for more that a week—without my family or a decent barrel of beer. Plus, you really remind me of all the assholes back on my mountain. Don’t give me an excuse, ya freakin’ cat.”

The dragon had been baring its teeth at Hugh, but at the mention of a cat, confusion briefly overtook aggression on its face. “What?”

“Uh… what did you want, Kri?” Ru asked. “I mean… what’ll it take for you to just go away?”

“What, you’re not happy to see me?” Kri asked.

Ru shrugged and waited.

“You moving homes, Ru? Finally decide to abandon that ridiculous dwelling you have?”

Ru still didn’t answer.

Kri walked over and started to reach for Ru’s neck with one clawed hand, and Leo acted. He leapt with his supernatural Strength and Speed, slashing with Heartseeker. He pulled a branch and leapt again, landing gracefully on a tree branch on the opposite side of the dragon.

That was some Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon shit, he thought, absurdly pleased with himself as the other dragon reared back, staring at the cut across its scaled foreclaw, which dripped blood into the swamp.

Although… that dragon has a ton of armor and health. It wasn’t a critical, but I thought I’d do more than scratch it.

“By Kazrick the Mighty, did… did you just attack me, elf?” the dragon asked, wide-eyed.

I wonder if Merdrek and Kazrick are the same god.

Leo pointed Heartseeker at Kri. “You attacked my new citizen. Back down or die.”

Kri stared at Ru. “You’re going to live with the elves?”

Ru, still hunched and not looking at Kri, shrugged.

Kri let out a booming laugh. “Oh my god you pathetic wyrm. Whatever. All your shit is mine, and no one will say a damn thing about it once I tell them what you were doing.”

Kri reared back, and Leo leapt to the side again, diving from his tree into the water behind a nearby tree. Red light exploded around and above him, and the water went from cool to almost scalding in seconds, but he took no damage. As soon as the light cleared, Leo leapt from the gross water and hit the tree, then dived from it toward Kri.

Hugh had slashed the ropes around his waist, and the burning collection that was Ru’s life savings fell into the swamp, about twenty percent below water and eight percent on fire. Hugh was burned but charging Kri, who was about eight times as large as Leo’s friend.

But levels were funny, and the vast majority of Hugh’s power came from the magic he had wrapped into his soul through experience gain and not his bulk. He slammed into Kri like a wolverine on crack, slashing and biting wildly, crystal claws flashing, doing way more damage than the size would suggest.

Kri bit Leo’s friend across his spine, between the wings, but crystals sprang out across his back as well. Hugh grunted in pain but kept up his assault.

Leo and Hugh had trained and fought together so much that they might as well have been telepathically linked. Leo’s leap took him to Hugh’s back. Hugh had the sense of What Leo was doing to raise his tail and wings—which Leo almost never saw him do—and keep Kri from seeing Leo or pulling his head back for a critical second.

The dragon screamed and reared, blood and viscera falling from his eye-socket, clawing at his face. Leo had hit the larger creature in the weak-spot he had learned to go for early, relying on his impossible speed against the larger opponents he was constantly fighting. Leo dismissed the notification of his critical even as he took a running step forward.

“Launch me!” Leo screamed, and Hugh lifted his head hard as Leo ran, throwing Leo into the air. Leo had already pulled a branch and jumped as he hit apogee, gaining another six or seven feet, above and behind the dragon. He saw the move again, throwing his sword back and down from the dragon’s blind spot just as it turned, guided by his telekinetic powers.

Heartseeker pierced the dragon’s other eye, and it screamed in agony and fear. But this time, the sword was lodged into the socket.

Hugh smashed his claw against it as hard as he could, driving it inward, and Kri collapsed to the ground, dead.

Leo hit the swamp fairly hard, stumbling. 9.9, 9.9, and a 9.7 from the Russian judge, Leo thought to himself. His notification indicated that Kri had been Level Twenty-Five—and that Leo had hit Level Twenty. This world really does have a lot of beings that don’t feel like they earned their levels, or the skills to back them up. I absolutely need to get the rest of my team leveling up out here.

“By Kazrick’s Claws,” Ru said, staring, wide-eyed, at Kri’s corpse as it settled into the swamp water. “How… how strong are you guys?”

“Strong enough,” Leo answered. “Sorry about your stuff.”

“Oh!” Ru cried out, his eyes snapping back to his stuff. He rushed over and tried to pat it out, hissed as he burned himself, the little moss pieces of his foreclaw crisping away. He used his tail to throw water over everything. “No no no!” he cried out.

A bit later, they had extracted all the stuff. Much of it was floating on the water, burned pieces of paper and carved wood both. A bit more had sunk beneath the swamp water. The magic items, which represented over ninety-five percent of the gold value of what they had taken, was unharmed, but the dragon’s research notes and non-magical laboratory stuff was a near complete loss, burned and melted.

Ru was staring at it all for a bit, but eventually turned and looked at Kri’s corpse. Leo had recovered his sword, and bugs were already crawling into the two sockets where the eyes had been.

The dragon exhaled noisily. “You know… I hated Kri. Like really, really hated him. He kept taking my stuff, small amounts at a time, just reveling in bullying me. I traded some of my knowledge for more stuff, but could never really get ahead of the bullying. And now, when I wanted to leave, he just tried to take everything.”

I remember like I was right here, because I was, Leo thought to himself, keeping his face straight.

Ru stared up and Leo and Hugh as he continued. “It’s still weird, seeing him dead. He’s been a constant in my life… and you guys turned him into bug food in seconds. I barely had time to react. But the weirdest thing is, you guys barely even care. You’re not relieved, or super triumphant, or anything. I think, more than anything, that’s the scariest thing I’ve seen. You’ve killed so much it doesn’t even matter.”

“Umm… I’m really excited a made Level Twenty, and damned near Level Twenty-One,” Hugh said. “Does that count?”

Leo felt about the same, and remembered that his first thought had been about how to benefit from all this, and not visceral relief. He could remember the fear and triumph of fighting Kruegar and the Ash Dragon… but he could also remember the fear of fighting Chester.

“I’m sorry if this is mean, but I just don’t think Kri measured up as a threat,” Leo said. “Trust me… I can remember a great deal of satisfaction from certain wins, and overwhelming relief from surviving other situations. But Kri was your nemesis—I didn’t even know his name till he dropped from the sky, minutes before we killed him.”

“I suppose so,” Ru said, musingly, once gain looking at the red dragon.

Then he glanced back to Leo. “So what now?”

“Well… now I level. I also made Twenty. I can’t wait to see what that has done for me.”