“Ha!”
Frank swings his sword at me. I sidestep and parry it away. I swing my sword diagonally upwards toward his neck.
Frank steps back and forcefully takes back his sword. He holds it up in front of him to block my sword. As our swords meet each other, Frank loses his balance and staggers back.
I quickly follow up with a downward slash. Frank hastily jumps back to avoid it. He regains his balance while breathing heavily.
“Your sword is so heavy.”
“All thanks to this suit of mine. Wait a minute. Let me take it off.”
I take off my top and throw it a bit away. I pick up my sword once again. Swinging it a few times, I can finally feel its weight.
“Come.”
We stand facing each other in middle stance. I initiate the attack with a thrust. With a sidestep Frank dodge it. He step forward diagonally while thrusting his sword at my waist.
I swing my sword at his sword while stepping backward, redirecting it sideways. Rotating my body to face him once again, I ready my stance.
This time Frank initiate the attack. He forcefully pushes the ground and accelerates towards my left side. I turn my body slightly to face him again. He gradually closes in while going around me and I keep turning towards him.
At one point he suddenly stomps the ground and flings his body towards me. With a horizontal strike, he hit my sword with brute force. A loud clang rings out. The combination of velocity and body weight pushes me back a few steps back.
Frank quickly tries to follow up with a series of thrust but his balance is broken from the collision. This results in the lack of strength in the thrusts. I dodge the slow thrusts.
When I regain my balance, I step closer to him with my sword close to my chest. I hold the flat part of the sword with a palm and bash his chest with it.
Frank staggers backward awkwardly. A thrust to his throat soon follows. I stop when my thrust passed through the side of his neck.
“Hehehe. One win for me again.”
“Damn it. Again.”
I step back and we assume the original position at the start. I grin at Frank who is staring at me and step forward. Frank quickly rushes forward as if provoked. Then he suddenly jumps up.
He raises his sword high, preparing to swing it downward. I prepare to swing upward to blow it away. I watch as he quickly gets closer.
“Hey! Breakfast’s ready!”
“Wh!”
“Hey!”
Mary’s call startles both of us. A loud crash sounds out. Frank falls onto me and we get tangled up on the ground. Our swords fall and bounce to the side.
“Aw…”
“W-what happened?”
Mary peeks out of the kitchen window when she heard the loud crash. Yuni beside her also peeks out while carrying some empty bowls. Alishia opens the backyard’s door and peeks outside.
“Erm… What are you two doing?” Yuni suspiciously asks.
“It hurts…”
I push off Frank from the top of my body. Rubbing the sore spots on the shoulders, I complain.
“Mary…. Please don’t suddenly call us.”
“I didn’t call you though. I called Yuni to prepare the bowls.” Mary answers while tilting her head.
I glance at Frank and we both sigh.
*****************************
“I wonder when the people sent by Yamato will arrive.”
I stretch my arms wide in the square in front of the officer lodging we are staying in. While waiting, we decided to clean up the square rather than do nothing. I have been picking up the weapon and armor’s fragments scattered around the place and gathered them into a small mound.
Then Frank gathered the leaves, dust, and other small objects together with Yuni. They swept starting from in front of the lodging. In just a few moments the immediate surrounding of the lodging is cleaned up.
“It’s not going to be today or tomorrow right? It’s still a long way to a nearby city.”
Frank lays down on the ground beside me and says so. The broom he used just now is thrown near a pile of trashes.
“Well, who knows? They have lost contact with the garrison for a while now. It’s not strange that some messengers or scouts are already on the way.”
I sit down beside Frank. Opening up the storage system, I confirm my inventory. There isn’t much of the MG bullets anymore so it put the weapon and bullets in a separate category. I notice there are a whole lot of cold weapons and armors now.
These weapons and armors are the remaining undamaged ones found in the weapon storage nearby. I thought it will be more useful to keep it close so I put them in the storage. I never imagine that it will be this large of a number.
“Erwin, go to the square before the gate.”
Mary calls through the comm when I am organizing the storage. A marker appears on my map to the gate facing Zero Kingdom. I look over there but can’t seem to find anything unusual.
“What happened?”
“There is some mana fluctuation. I don’t know why but it feels familiar.”
“Got it. We will be there in a minute.”
I quickly close my storage and get up.
“Frank, let’s go. Mary called.”
“Okay.”
We run along the road to the gate.
***************************************
“There is some mana fluctuation. I don’t know why but it feels familiar.”
Mary, Yuni and Alishia stands on the huge square behind the gate. They look up to the sky. There seems to be nothing in the sky but if you look closely, there are some hazy parts which is barely noticeable.
“What should we do now?”
“Whatever that is, I will make a barrier to hold it in. I have called Erwin over.”
Mary takes out her staff and holds it high. Blue lights gathers around her before shooting out around the hazy parts of the sky. Multiple blue hexagonal prisms form a big barrier on all side of it[1].
“It’s getting stronger.”
Probably knowing that it is being restrained, whatever is causing the mana fluctuation fights back. It forcefully takes in more mana from the surrounding, including from the barrier. The barrier visibly getting weaker and melting back into water due to the lack of mana to hold its form.
Mary once again raises her staff high. She stomps it to the ground soon after. A bright light emits from the crystal at the tip of the staff. A golden rune-like carving emerges from the depth of it.
“Restrain!”
Mary closes her eyes and raises her left palm to the crystal. The golden carving shots out lights to the barrier. The deterioration of the barrier slows down considerably. With a wave of her hand the barrier is reinforced once more.
That part of the sky is now distorted. Even normal people will be able to see something is wrong. As less mana is being absorbed, a hazy middle-age gate-like structure can be observed slowly forming.
“Is it a gate?”
Yuni asks. She looks incredibly at the hazy gate. Sometimes the center of the gate will crack and show strange vision. Mary, Yuni and Alishia can see strange monsters on the other side of the gate.
“I know what it is.”
Mary suddenly said. She shivers and quickly calls Erwin.
“Erwin! We have an emergency!”
*****************************
I quickly turn on the comm when I hear Mary’s panic voice. I signal for Frank to speed up some more.
“Almost there. What is it?”
“It’s a world gate!”
“What!? You mean that gate that send us here!?”
“Yes! Hurry! I am slowing down the gate formation right now. Help me contact HQ and ask if they are opening a gate at this place. Although I doubt it’s them.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s familiar but it’s different. It looks like an advanced version of ours. In addition, the other side of the gate is full of ugly creatures.”
“Can you reverse it?”
“I can but I need time. If the other side resists, it will take even longer. It might even failed.”
I deactivate the power saving module and rush to the square in high speed. Materializing rifle magazines from storage, I secure them on my vest. I reload the rifle I took from my back.
In the distance I can see barrier the size of a one-story house suspended in the mid air. It is expanding along with the growing gate-like object inside it. Sometimes it will shrink in but it will soon expand again.
I check the comm channel with HQ but it is not connected. Even when I tried to send some blank text messages, it failed to be sent out. I call Mary once again.
“Reverse it. I got your back.”
“Roger.”
I run into the square, arms ready. Yuni has evacuated with Alishia a distance away. Frank is far behind me but he will soon arrive. I look up at the barrier which is getting brighter and shrinking.
Mary deploys another barrier around her for safety. It is a solid stone bunker with a window for her to look out from. I jump on top of it.
I materialize a bow and a quiver of arrows from the storage and throw them to Yuni.
“Yuni, go up to the roof of the building over there and wait for my command. Bring Alishia and Frank with you.”
“Got it.”
I see off Yuni and Alishia while preparing my rifle. I attach an ACOG sight on it and aim at the gate.
“What is the situation?”
“The caster on the side isn’t weak but he isn’t strong either. I can reverse it in 5 minutes.”
I watch as the gate is progressively getting smaller. Through the sight I can see the other side even if it is hazy. There are countless ugly creatures around the gate on that side.
The strange thing is that they didn’t look like they are paying any attention to the gate. A straight path divided the creatures in two in the middle. They are watching whatever is on that path.
“Mary, can you send me up?”
“Wait a minute. Hold on to something.”
I grab a pile driver and stab the stone beneath me. The stone floor raises up, bringing me along with it. The reversing is slowed down in the process but I am more intrigued on why they aren’t paying attention to the gate.
Soon, I reach the height similar to the gate. I look through the sight once again and stunned.
I see a group of people frantically running towards the gate while being slaughtered left and right. The warriors are protecting the civilians in the middle but when they are near the gate, all warriors but one have been slaughtered.
The civilians are more miserable. They can’t fight back one bit. Some of them throw themselves at the monsters to slow them down. However the group keep on being killed. At this rate they can’t reach the gate.
“Erwin, what happened? The resistance are getting weaker.”
“Slow down the reverse! I will tell you when to close it.”
“Eh? Eh? They are reversing themselves.”
“Stop the reverse!”
I can see the gate’s closure being accelerated. The size of the gate has been reduced to the size of a big door.
The people on the other side are desperately trying to reach the gate. The leading armored warrior is frantically killing monsters to open the path.
It looks like Mary is working on stopping the reverse now. The closure slows down.
“How long can you stop the reverse?”
“Half a minute at best. It is getting stronger.”
“Hold it.”
I aim my rifle at the monsters and fire. A burst of bullets hit them from behind and startles them. The monsters around the gate scatter and open up a gap.
The warrior sees the gap and charges towards it. I carefully aim at monster who will close the gap. The group only has a small amount of people left but they charge forward nonetheless.
“Come on. Come on.”
I reload my empty rifle and start firing again.
“Erwin… I can’t hold it.”
“Just a few more seconds.”
My bullets are going astray now that the gate isn’t stable. Some of them hit those further away.
Suddenly a big creature sweeps down from above and landed in the middle of the group. A gust of wind pushes them around it. In the following attack it sweeps its tail around.
The warrior turns around but he is soon hit by something flying at him. The collision sends him towards the gate and through it.
“Ugh… Sorry.. I can’t hold it.”
The gate suddenly closed down after they are through. They then collide with the weakened barrier and break through it. I jump off the platform to catch them while pulling a rope from the pile driver.
Attaching the rope to my waist, I reach out to the warrior. The warrior seems to have lost consciousness as they aren’t moving. The thing in his bosom seems like a child.
“Damn it.”
I planned to catch with one hand just now but if it is two unconscious people, I couldn’t do it. I quickly attach my rifle to my back. Then I catch the warrior by the shoulders and knees, indirectly holding the child in their bosom together.
I pull them tighter to my bosom before the rope reaches its limit. Soon I feel the rope tightened up and I got suspended up and down.
“It is not good for my waist… Oops.”
I grumble in the mid air. The warrior nearly slips off since my balance is messed up by the suspending rope. I quickly pull them even tighter.
“Mary… Are you there?”
There is no answer.
“Mary?”
“Um…”
A very soft moan… What is happening down there? Fainted from exhaustion? Hmm…
I better take care of myself first… How do I get down from here?
[1] something like this pic