Chapter 5: Chapter 5: Attempted Heroism

We darted out into the afternoon air, rushing out the swinging doors of the inn with supreme urgency. The girl was fast, but now that I was actually dashing I realized I was much faster. Compared to my memory of my fitness level back home, in Lusteria I suddenly seemed way more physically capable in every way—so capable that I quickly realized that following behind the girl was a waste of time and energy. I could easily outpace her... but then again, hell, surely there was a quicker way than going there on foot?

“Hey,” I shouted, “What’s your name?”

“Heather,” she called back to me without even turning her head. We sprinted down a winding path along a hillside that led into an open field of grass and golden daffodils. The field below was so close, but the steep cliffy hill made getting to it troublesome and slow.

“Heather,” I said, “Don’t freak out.” In retrospect, those were probably not the best words to shout at a girl as you’re chasing behind her. I lifted my fingers to my mouth and blew as I continued to run, a shrill whistle piercing the air.

The ear-splitting screech of my dragon-steed dominated our awareness only a few seconds later as he descended from the skies, landing just in front of us. The poor girl, though, already traumatized, thought my Blue was just another monster coming after her, and she turned tail and ran back in my direction, a look of sheer horror on her face as her scream pierced the air.

I stopped her as she made an attempt to run by me, easily picking the tiny young woman up in my arms and leaping into the air. I landed directly on Blue’s saddled back, and we took off, me holding the petite monster girl in my arms like a knight carrying a princess.

“It’s alright,” I chuckled. “He’s our ride.”

The girl shook violently in my arms with fear and surprise, screeching for a moment in shock at the rapidly changing circumstances that had caught her entirely off-guard. First she was leading me to her friend—or something—who was in danger, then she was running from a monster, then she was being carried on the back of said monster as we peeled off into the sky—I could understand the reaction. I gave her a minute to flail a bit and calm down, holding her steady and shushing her until she finally stopped screaming.

“Care to fucking explain?!” she said, her face bug-eyed with alarm and worry.

“Long story short, this is my dragon-steed, and I need you to tell him where to go.”

I chuckled at the journey her facial expressions suddenly took me on as I watched her react to what I’d said. First there was a look of ‘what the fuck is going on?’, a sort of dumb horror. After that, her jaw went slack and she stared me dead in the face, putting together just what I likely was. Finally, it ended with a little mischievous smile, which I admittedly did not expect.

“Oh, you’re a fucking Apex Hero, aren’t you?” she cooed excitedly, no longer squirming in my clutches. She licked her lips in a most distracting way. “Mmmmm…”

“Focus,” I said. “Your friend. Your sheep. Where are we going?”

She shook her head, like she was shaking off a drunken haze. “Right. That way,” she said, pointing down at the base of the hill. I squinted to see, and sure enough, I could make out hundreds of poofy white figures scattering in the tall grass below. Sheep, scared and fleeing. “Moon, my sister, is down there… and so are the Great Wolves.”

We plummeting, descending rapidly as cool air cut our cheeks. In the descent, our speed increased as we leveraged both gravity and the wind to our advantage. Those shapes were growing larger in my sight, now, and with them I began to see big black and gray silhouettes. Those lupine figures were chasing and harassing the mewling balls of meat and wool as the sheep tried, and often failed, to avoid being torn to pieces by their attackers.

I couldn’t fight with a monster girl in my arms, though, so Blue swooped down, just above the ground, where he unleashed an icy beam of frost breath on one of the wolves. As he was doing this, I stood up, balanced behind the saddle, and placed Heather onto it. Then I backflipped off, landing seated on the neck of the wolf Blue had just blasted. I thrust downward with my axe in a display of both power and precision, splitting the top of the beast's skull wide open as a spray of crimson blood and goop painted my face and managerial uniform.

Why the fuck was this so easy?

The beast slumped to the ground, dead as my mother’s dreams for me to go to law school, and I rolled off its neck, nailing a three point landing.

Looking around, I could see four more wolves encircling me, one of them twice as large as the others, who were, themselves, each at least the size of a minivan.

Two of the smaller ones lurched at me in unison.

Cleave 2 activated.

I swung my axe in a wild arc as they approached me from my 3 o’clock and my 9 o’clock positions, and it was like my axe was three times as long as it had started. A red aura extended outward from my swipe, and the hit collided with both of the wolves’ massive bodies with a satisfying sound—the sound a cleaver makes when it hacks into a haunch of bony meat.

The wolves both bayed and howled in pain, snarling at me. One leaped backward to appraise the severity of its wound, but the other recklessly pushed on with its assault, attempting a massive chomp, which I only narrowly side-stepped.

The Alpha, so far only watching, gurgled in rage. “This hero is strong,” it observed in a deep and dreadful voice. "Let us play with him, my pups. Leave the sheep!" Out of the corner of my vision, I could see its glowing orange eyes studying me predatorily. I had to keep those eyes in my view at all times, I instantly realized.

The third wolf joined the assault while the Alpha watched from the sidelines, still assessing me. The new combatant coordinated a strike with the other two wolves. I charged up a Smite 1 and waited. I was going to have to take a hit, but at least maybe I could—

My train of thought was suddenly interrupted by their lightning-quick assault. Three sets of man-sized jaws sought me, but my axe was glowing golden, and just in time an idea occurred to me—could I stack skill effects?

In addition to Smite 1, Cleave 2’s red radiance empowered my bold axe-swing, and two of the three wolves’ chests were caved in as more blood spackled both the green grass and my sensible slacks.

But I missed the third wolf, as it was coming from behind me, and my arc wasn’t wide enough to catch it. Powerful jaws clamped down on my body, picking me up off of my feet as I found the majority of my torso, from my shoulder diagonally across my chest, in the jaws of the Great Wolf, fangs sinking in deep.

Indescribable pain. Immeasurable rage. I dropped my axe and powered up both of my fists with Smite 1, punching down on the wolf’s jaws and face as it held me in its biting grasp.

“How can this one use a skill in each hand?” the Alpha’s voice growled in a tone like disgust as it stepped closer, cautiously. I collapsed the snout and cranium of its final ally, freeing myself from its jaws and set my sights on my final foe.

But I was far worse off than I’d been a moment ago. I landed on my feet, but quickly crumbled to one knee, failing even to catch my breath, blood caking my torn uniform. A lot of the blood soaking my clothes was now my own.

I’d never felt a pain like this. I’d scraped my knees falling off the monkey bars. I’d gotten kicked in the crotch when I asked a girl out in third grade. I’d broken my leg playing football. Those hurt, but this was something else. This was like… dying.

I looked down at my chest. Fuck. There was so much red that hadn’t been there before, and it only continued to pool in growing splotches until my uniform was basically entirely crimson. Blood dripped down my arms from beneath the short sleeves of my shirt.

“Who are you?” the Alpha said, making no move—to my surprise. “To whom do I speak?”

“Fuck you,” I said defiantly, spitting out a bit of blood.

The Alpha’s lips drew back into a snarl that might have been a smile—I wasn’t great at reading monster facial expressions just yet. “Bold even in the face of death,” it said, a grin in its voice. “I admire that.”

I stood back up—with some noticeable effort. I barely hid a smirk as I noticed a blue shape overhead, coming from behind the Alpha wolf.

“You are an Apex Hero, aren’t you?” the wolf guessed, eyeing me with something not entirely unlike respect. Its stature was strong, but not dismissive as it regarded me, meeting me at eye level. “So we are in the Final Age after all.”

“No comment,” I grinned through bloody teeth as Blue descended from behind the Alpha, breathing a blue jet of icy breath on the wicked, catching it by surprise. The Alpha roared in anguish as the attack planted a flurry of icicles in its flesh.

“Graaahhh!” the beast shouted, its movements suddenly jerky and slowed. Blue swooped in and picked me up—Heather no longer sat atop his back. She was somewhere else. Safe, I hoped.

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I pulled myself feebly onto the back of my azure dragon-steed and took off into the sky, but we weren’t done yet. We still had one wolf to go.

We dive-bombed in a swift descent, like a falcon after a fish, but the wolf had one more trick up its sleeve, reverting to a different form—a beautiful naked woman with an impressive, muscular physique and long, wild, black hair with the same glowing orange eyes that she studied me with before. Also worth noting were her bushy wolf ears and tail, black as well, and wolflike fur, paws, and claws beneath her forearms and thighs.

A much smaller target now, all the sudden, we missed our first pass.

“You’re not tricking me with some sexy illusion,” I shouted as we steered back in the air to make another assault.

“Illusion?” the Alpha laughed in a husky feminine voice. “This is my true form. And one of speed rather than strength.”

True form or not, I ignored her, making another diving strike, empowering my axe with Cleave 2—or I tried.

Insufficient energy. You cannot use that skill now.

Dammit. It figured there was a limit to it, but it sure chose a bad time to present itself to me. I missed another strike as the naked woman darted into the tall grass. We gave chase, trying to follow, but she was too quick and hard to detect, probably using some stealth skill. To make things worse, I was fresh out of tricks and not familiar enough with Blue’s own abilities to make good on my pursuit.

Cursing myself, we turned back. There was something more important than killing the Alpha, after all. I had to find the girl who was watching the sheep when they—

My heart rose up to my throat, and I swallowed it hard until it sank into the searing pit of my stomach. Another satyr girl, almost definitely Heather’s sister by the look of her, lay mangled on the ground, her cold face gazing up into the sky with the eyes of death.

***

Some hero I turned out to be. I let the bad guy get away, and I let an innocent girl die. To add to my self-loathing, I allowed someone else to tell Heather what had become of her sister, unable to face the girl myself. Instead, I hid in our room in the inn and stared blankly at the wall as my three companions fretted over me.

Both Daisy and May Belle watched me with concern, sitting only a breath away, but it was surprisingly Autumn who spoke up first to comfort me.

“It’s not your fault,” she started. “She was almost certainly dead before you even got there.”

It could be true. It didn’t make me feel any better. “I should have leveled up more skills on the way there. I should have moved faster. I let the Alpha get away.”

She sighed, nodding at that. “We do need to make sure you level up your skills regularly, but from your description, that’s General Darkmaw, and you took out four of her Great Wolves. She won’t be back soon, most likely. It's rare that she makes a move against the villages. Almost unheard of, and after being punished like that, I doubt she'll return. Bucky, you did well. Not only was that beyond what anyone could have expected of you, but—”

“—It wasn’t enough to save Heather’s sister,” I said. I lay down on the bed, counting the cracks and creases in the wooden ceiling. May Belle cozied up in the crook of my neck, lying next to me on the straw mattress. Soon, Daisy followed, and she didn’t even bother to make an excuse for it this time.

But when Autumn sat at the base of the bed and put a single hand on my leg in her own effort to comfort me, I lost it. I wept. I cried in front of them, and felt more than a bit ashamed of it, but if they judged me for my show of weakness, they didn't show it. Within moments of my first sob, all three of them had wrapped their bodies tightly around me.

I would never cheapen the death of the poor satyr girl, and I still felt responsible on some level—whether or not I was—but it’s truly amazing what a four-way hug from three of the most beautiful women you’d ever seen can do for your mood.

Twenty minutes later, I’d calmed down, manned up, and took a moment to renew my sense of purpose.

“Autumn?” I started.

“Yeah?” she said. May Belle was snuggling against my left arm, Daisy against my right, and Autumn was lying flat, her head rising and falling with each of my breaths as she rested atop my chest.

“I am going to be a hero,” I said.

She perked up, lifting her head to look into my eyes with a soft and lovey-dovey expression that seemed almost comically out of character for her.

“But the plan is the same. I’m going to start a farm… No. A sanctuary, like you said earlier. But I will help these people, at least. I will take responsibility for Tater Town’s safety. That much I will promise.” I almost broke into an inappropriate smirk, saying the name Tater Town out loud. God, that name was so ridiculous.

She grinned. “Oh, I know,” she said. “The second I saw you run out that door, I knew you were the real thing. Any grain of doubt I had in you was gone when your face lit up at the chance to save that girl.” She frowned. “Just remember that,” she said. “You tried. And you meant it. That’s what makes you a hero.”

I nodded, my forehead bumping hers lightly, making her giggle in a saccharine tone.

“I think I’d like to get up now,” I said.

Autumn shook her head and looked at Daisy and May Belle to back her up in whatever she was about to say. “No. Your wounds are healing. You’re lucky you’re an Apex Hero, with all the regeneration powers that entails, or you’d be dead. I must insist that you rest here all night.”

“You’re not going anywhere, Bucky-Baby,” May Belle cooed as she pecked soft kisses onto my neck. “Just relax for us. Please?”

“Yeah, just… don’t move for a while, okay?” Daisy added nervously. “Seeing you in pain, I—” she blushed, cutting herself off as she choked back tears.

“I can’t sleep,” I said after a pause. “What’s the point in lying here?”

“I’ll tell you the point,” Autumn purred mischievously. “Grinding XP.”

I blinked, feeling a gentle twitch under my slacks as I immediately understood their intentions. “I’m in no shape to plow you girls,” I said cautiously, though my eyebrows did a little happy dance at the prospect. “Emotionally or physically. Not that I don’t love the idea.”

“As I recall Hierophant saying, much to his own mortification, you gain XP from vaginal, anal, or oral sex,” she said, her little hand tracing down my chest and settling on my bulge. I was already in my boxers because my clothes were all ruined with bite marks and blood. “I don’t think it’ll be too stressful for you to blast a few hot loads in our throats, will it, hero?” She purred right in my face, staring at me with her big cerulean feline eyes.

I swallowed hard. This was happening, and I had neither the will nor the want to stop it.

“I think I can manage that,” I said bravely. “For Lusteria.”

“For Lusteria,” the catgirl echoed as her hand slipped inside my boxers. "And we're not stopping until you level up."

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