Isr Kale's Journal (The Alchemist Book #4): LitRPG Series

by Vasily Mahanenko

You need to fight off 2 waves of opponents.

  Wave 1: 55 Rargan wolves (monsters), level 10.

  The steppe suddenly came to life. A few hundred meters away from Tailyn, the air began to shimmer, gray animals the size of large horses suddenly popping out of nowhere. The boy realized he could have walked between their legs without even bending over. Still, the monsters were in no hurry to attack, apparently waiting for the rest of the army to materialize. Out in front, there was a powerful leader several heads taller than the rest. Tailyn felt the animal’s gaze on him and twitched—it was like the creature was peering directly into his soul.

  “What are you waiting for? Go!” Valia yelled, jarring her betrothed into action. That was enough, as a card popped up in front of him that was capable of winning the battle on its own.

  Boo.

  The leader let out a piercing howl, and the crowd of monsters rushed forward to wipe the puny defenders of the hated city off the face of the planet. Just as had been expected, the guards ran off into the city to get away from the battle. Everything happened so quickly, in fact, that Tailyn paused for a second in confusion. Just a little longer, and the monsters would have escaped the impact zone, though that was not to be. The five seconds it took the card to activate ticked by, and the skies darkened.

  Icy rain began to fall.

  The only problem was that it accomplished exactly nothing—the wolves kept right on sprinting toward the trio. All it did was slow them down slightly.

  “They’re immune to ice!” Valia yelled. That more distracted Tailyn than helped him, as he could see for himself that the icicles were disintegrating as soon as they touched the monsters’ hide. Cards rotated by, and an old favorite popped up: wave of fire. And while the enemy was still more than a hundred meters away from the city defenders, Tailyn wasn’t about to wait. The cleared earth was turned into a sea of raging flames. Everything the numericals had managed to plant was charred in an instant, the idea of turning the space between the wall and the embankment turning out to be a poor one.

  But the wolves against just kept on running. The fire did just as much as the ice had done. Finally, Tailyn found out why they were so recklessly courageous: the System had made them that way.

  Wave 1 checks the Safe Zone’s physical defenses.

  Rargan wolves have been endowed with immunity to magic.

  Somewhere behind him, Mu-Ro-Din yelled something, Valia tried to get his attention, and both Forian and Valanil started shouting from the incomplete wall, but Tailyn was having none of it. The boy’s entire focus was on the leader out in front of his pack. With his usual calm having come over him, the world around him was slowing down. His consciousness began to take in and process information several times faster than usual, turning the lightning-fast monsters into ambling snails. Of course, the same was true for Tailyn as he was able to rethink his plan twice by the time the arm equipped with Valkyrie was finally in position.

  Two bolts of lightning streaked off in the direction of the beasts the System had summoned. One was silver; the other was gold. Missing from thirty meters wasn’t really possible—Tailyn’s shooting and enhancement took care of that. And the leader didn’t have a shot at surviving the level ten weapon that pierced armor and bone alike. Without so much as a squeak, the wolf disappeared, the god sweeping the body right off the field of battle. Bereft of their leader, the wolves paused. That bought enough time for the second bolt of lightning—the gold one—to slam home. Li-Ho-Dun, the level six dragon, soared a few meters off the ground and let out a menacing roar. And left with no other choice by its taunt ability, the monsters dropped everything else to take off after the new target.

  At that level, the time between shots for Valkyrie was six seconds, so Tailyn sent his dragon around in a circle that stretched from the earthen embankment to the future city wall. The Rargan wolves followed right along behind the flying target like mindless sheep. In fact, it was only after emptying a Valkyrie drum and leaving just five of the creatures alive that the sound of the surrounding world rushed back in for the boy.

  “Tailyn, leave some for us!” Motar yelled, waving the enormous crossbow he was holding. The boy had to doubt the level three weapon could beat through the defenses of a level ten monster, but he went ahead and dropped his arm. Correcting the dragon’s course, he led the wolves right over to the city defenders, the latter opening fire immediately. Motar’s plan was a good one. Understanding the adversary’s strength all too well, he had his troops concentrate their fire on just one monster. None of their bolts pierced the level ten creatures, though the distance and the sheer stopping power turned their insides to mush. The monsters died instantly despite having received no external wounds.

  “Reload!” came the command, and Tailyn cursed himself for spending such a valuable resource so thoughtlessly. Valkyrie drums cost four thousand coins, dwarfing the price for the bolts simple crossbows took. Pulling one of his spare drums out of his inventory and swearing to himself never to use Valkyrie so pointlessly again, Tailyn sent his dragon around on another circle. Nobody had any desire to get into a close fight with the wolves.

  Wave 1 defeated.

  Wave 2: 55 Zandalarian chimeras (monsters), level 10.

  The air once again began shimmering as the monstrous creatures appeared, their very existence raising questions. Each had three heads, something like the Nemean lion, only they also had wings and dual tails tipped with snake heads. Just one glimpse of them was enough to horrify both the children and the far more experienced Mu-Ro-Din. Gasping, the red lix took a few steps backwards, though the system that time jumped right in with an explanation:

  Wave 2 checks the Safe Zone’s magic defenses.

  Zandalarian chimeras have been endowed with immunity to physical attack.

  Tailyn just grunted and deactivated Valkyrie, turning it into a thick bracelet—the crossbow was going to be useless. Instead, his icy rain card popped back up. Just as the three-headed beasts appeared and jumped into formation, the five-second activation period expired, and the sky darkened for the second time in the previous few hours.

  The chimeras didn’t stand a chance. The level ten monsters had impressive defenses, though they were helpless puppies against a powerful mage, the icicles tearing through their bodies and ripping them to pieces. And while their leader lasted the longest, even making it out of the icy trap, there was an ambush already set for him. Tailyn let his dragon get the kill. Li-Ho-Dun cut loose a stream of fire, sending the chimera right back into the System that had spawned it.

  Wave 2 defeated.

  No defenders took damage during the local mission, so a bonus wave was unlocked for the city. Would you like to activate it or complete the local mission?

  Tailyn hadn’t been expecting that. Turning around in confusion and making eye contact with Valia, he was met with an identical expression. Mu-Ro-Din, however, showed no sign of unease, and neither did Forian or Valanil a bit further off. As they weren’t city heads, they hadn’t received the message.

  Risk it? Tailyn asked mentally, not looking to agitate everyone around him more than he had to. The timer was ticking—sixty seconds later, the local mission was going to finish unless Tailyn hit the button to accept the bonus wave.

  I don’t know, the girl replied. The first wave had immunity to magic; the second had immunity to physical attack. What if the bonus wave has immunity to both?

  Oh, come on, that’s impossible, Tailyn said. He’d made his decision the moment he asked the question. Yes, he wanted to risk it. The fact that it was a bonus wave meant there was an additional reward, and the boy wanted to get his hands on it.

  All right, we’ll risk it. Valia could only sigh. The girl had run out of rational arguments, and “something tells me it’s a bad idea” just sounded silly.

  Bonus wave: 1 Black Slime, non-level creature.

  Bonus wave objective: survive for 60 minutes. You cannot leave the city.

  From her spot not far away from the children, Valanil f
elt her insides go cold—she knew exactly what kind of beast had just shown up for a visit. She’d known about it ever since she was a student at Crobar, where her teacher had told the students about it as part of a lesson on the planet’s most dangerous creatures. And it was at the top of the list. It was the kind of monster that could demolish entire empires on its own, invincible, uncontrollable, lightning-fast, and immune to both magic and physical attack. A long time before, humans had settled the planet’s two enormous continents, only three Black Slimes had also settled on the second. It had been uninhabitable ever since. And while the Crobar hierarchs had tried over and over again to tame them, they’d only ever suffered defeat and the loss of the squads assigned the job.

  “Everyone back!” Valanil yelled, quickly describing the creature in the time it took for it to materialize. From the outside, it looked like sticky, a two-meter mountain of dark gelatin. The only difference was that it moved, and it moved quickly and with purpose.

  Attention! You became target number one for the Black Slime.

  Run or die!

  Just one hour? Tailyn laughed as he sorted through his cards, putting the real sticky at the ready. It was time to see what the creature was going to do about something like that.

  Boo.

  The Black Slime headed quickly toward Tailyn. As soon as it closed to less than a hundred meters, the magic flew forward, only not the kind that acted directly on the target. Sticky rendered its victims helpless.

  The green gel enveloped the black material, covering it in a thick, impenetrable coating. The Black Slime stopped, unable to carry the weight forward, and for a whole second Tailyn watched the creature with glee as he reveled in the power of his cards. But the laughter caught in his throat. Suddenly, the gel began to shake, pieces flying off in every direction, though the worst part was that the darkness was turning a semi-transparent green. The Black Slime had swallowed the sticky to become still more powerful. Apparently, the card’s inventor hadn’t anticipated their creation being used on something invincible.

  “Don’t use magic!” Valanil yelled, though Tailyn had figured that out on his own. And he had a contingency plan at the ready.

  “Valia, catch!” Tailyn called over as he tied one end of the rope around his waist. The slime was focused exclusively on him, something that was presumably going to save the lives of everyone else, though Tailyn needed time to come up with something better. A while before, Forian had told him what “kiting” was. He’d used the dragon that time, though it was his turn to be the bait in that moment.

  He didn’t need to explain himself. No sooner had the Black Slime pulled itself out of sticky, than Tailyn was hovering ten meters above the ground. Valia turned her lizard away from everyone else, made sure that didn’t force their opponent to switch to another target, and headed off into the mountains. The Black Slime took off after them without paying the slightest attention to the army of humans and lixes.

  The lizard got to the mountains much faster than the slime, only its progress was slowed there—moving up cliffs was far harder. The Black Slime, however, had no such problem, pausing just a moment after crashing into the rocks before beginning to climb just as easily as it had pursued the chase over even ground.

  “To the side! Back down!” Tailyn screamed when he saw the appendages reaching toward him. The monster was surprisingly intelligent, maintaining its speed and finding the shortest route to its target—it even corrected for how the wind was blowing Tailyn to the side. Valia wheeled her lizard around and spent some time running horizontally to the ground, which turned out to be faster. Still, the Black Slime closed to within ten meters. It was getting critical.

  “Head into the city! Take a long circle!” Tailyn yelled as he did his best to fight back the overwhelming fear. Just three minutes had gone by since the beginning of the battle, and the enemy had already shown what it was capable of. Just in case, the boy went through all the cards he had at his disposal, but they did nothing. The monster gobbled down an electric strike, a fireball, and a dark strike. Even an absorber flask disappeared into its body without doing the least bit of damage. All of it served only to grow the creature.

  The lizard had just about made it to the newly cleared pavement of Mean Truk when the Black Slime took its first shot. Out of reach of its target, it spat part of itself onto the rope, disintegrating it and separating Tailyn from Valia. The lizard lurched forward, lost its balance, tumbled across the paving stones, and smashed its mistress under it. For his part, Tailyn kept right on flying, the wind driving him straight toward the clustered numericals. The monster was right behind him. A slender growth extended forward and began expanding, just moments away from reaching its target. But before that happened, it was going to slam into the group of people—Tailyn couldn’t control his flight path.

  Looking around in a panic, the boy noticed a small hole in the stones, and the world slowed down. A peace settled over him with the realization that he’d found a way to save his people. After flying forward for another few meters, Tailyn ducked downward, somehow managing to make it into the hole on his first try just moments before the Black Slime was going to grab hold of him. The boy found himself a few meters down on the wide platform next to the city’s ancient control box. Time was almost up. Summoning his dragon, he blinked as the golden light flooded the area, though the hole was almost immediately plugged up—the slime was squeezing through. Just as the boy got to the cube, his opponent finally made it through the hole to continue its chase. They were just three meters away from each other when the dragon made its presence felt. While its fire couldn’t do anything to the impervious enemy, that wasn’t the plan. Li-Ho-Dun had been summoned to grab the creature’s attention for six seconds with its taunt. And that was going to be more than enough time to get the Black Slime to the other end of the space.

  Valia, I’m hiding in the cube, Tailyn said just in case. We may not be able to talk, so just get me out an hour from now.

  The slab covering the passageway slid back unwillingly. It took such an effort, in fact, that Tailyn was seeing stars by the time it gave in. Invaluable seconds ticked by. In that time, Tailyn also had to clear his mind of his companion, as a message popped up a moment before the slab snapped back into place.

  Your companion was destroyed. Dragon card charges remaining: 3.

  The Black Slime had polished off one target and was moving on to the next, only it stopped before it could crush the hated human. Its target’s geotag put it right there in that space. But none of its scanners could see it. The logical progressions began breaking down—it was impossible to hide from the Black Slime, as it was hooked directly into the System’s resources and could process practically any amount of data. Tailyn hadn’t left the room. He was right there. But he wasn’t showing up on any of the slime’s scanners.

  There was a reason the Black Slime was the perfect killer—the processor that handled its actions came to the conclusion that the human had found a way to turn himself invisible. That understanding in place, the creature began expanding to fill the entire space, only that strategy didn’t pay off, either. After overwhelming everything, including part of the hole it had come in through, the creature was forced to go back to the drawing board. It was surrounded by nothing but stone. Expanding its scanning radius, it was able to see the secondary targets clustered together at ground level. Part of its consciousness decided to take them out only to be immediately vetoed. Tailyn Vlashich, the city head who had decided to take on the bonus wave, was its primary target.

  Only he wasn’t there. Except, he most certainly was. But he wasn’t. But he was... He wasn’t...

  The perfect killing machine Villian Po, head of the Tsarter mercenary group, had created had stalemated itself. By the time the hour the bonus wave was supposed to last was up, it had gone into such a deep recursion that it wasn’t able to react to higher-level signals, and that left the System with no other option but to turn off that particular functionality. The ongoing recur
sion threatened to occupy its entire memory bank. But the System was still bound by its own rules, leaving it with what were ultimately limited options.

  A correction query was sent to the creator, who immediately responded with an elegant solution that fixed the problem. The Black Slime disappeared. In its place, a message popped up for everyone in Mean Truk:

  Bonus wave defeated.

  Free Tailyn Vlashich to receive the reward.

  * * *

  Somewhere at the other end of the universe, an immortal creature known to everyone by the name of Villian Po opened his eyes. The creator of the game Villian had been able to get away from three thousand years before had let him know that an error had been discovered in his previous flawless Black Slime—someone had been able to destroy it. Pulling out his communicator, Villian thought for a long time before dialing the number. He knew what the other side would want. But was he willing to pay the price? Still, it was better than finding himself sucked into the game yet again, which would have been the cost of his mistake.

  “Mark, it’s Villian. Someone was able to destroy a Black Slime on planet Earth II. Yes, the one where they used the magic functionality for the first time. I need your help.”