novelraw Chapter 121: Winter is Here
Chapter 121: Winter is Here
Loid month as elves called the winter as that word, had finally arrived and brought the freezing cold with it. The first snowflakes fell over the Elven Village.
They melted against the wooden roofs before they could even stick.
Eren crouched near the edge of his garden. His freezing fingers fumbled over a mess of copper wires. He had two solar panels propped up against a large rock, a small electric motor and a stack of spare lithium batteries he had brought from his two-story house in Istanbul.
He twisted two wires together and wrapped them tightly in black electrical tape.
If I can actually get this working I’ll be the Elon Musk of Evon.
He wiped a snowflake off his nose with the back of his hand.
Except I hang out with sexy elves instead of posting weird stuff on the internet.
It was a funny thought but it hit him surprisingly hard. A few months ago on Earth he couldn’t go ten minutes without checking his phone. He was practically addicted to that glowing rectangle.
Now he couldn’t even remember the last time he cared about what strangers were doing online. Surviving monster attacks and building a real life in Evon was apparently the ultimate cure for phone addiction.
His ultimate goal was to build a permanent solar-powered grid around the village borders. Winter here lasted for months and the dark pinewood barricades were barely enough to keep the cold out. If he could solve their heating and lighting problems life would be a lot easier.
For now he just wanted enough juice to charge his phone and fly the drone Rosa bought for him.
The forest around the village looked completely dead under the falling snow. It was almost quiet enough to be peaceful but Eren knew the rules of the Evon woods by now. Once the clock hit ten at night every monster and wild beast would retreat into their dens or underground tunnels. The forest would turn completely silent and perfectly safe.
The real problem was the small window between sunset and that complete silence.
The sun dipped below the tree line. Long shadows stretched across the dirt paths to serve as the ultimate signal.
The starving and freezing monsters that were desperate for a final meal before the night lockdown started pouring out of the deep woods. They didn’t care about the dark stakes or the warning signs. The sudden drop in temperature just made them vicious.
Eren dropped the copper wires and stood up. He cracked his knuckles loudly. He was Level 46 now with all his base stats pushing toward fifty. He hadn’t really let loose since he slaughtered that massive orc camp.
Eren didn’t draw a weapon. He didn’t even call for his wolves. He simply launched himself forward.
The frozen ground cracked beneath his boots. He crossed the fifty meters between his garden and the treeline in less than three seconds. He moved like a blurred projectile. He met the charging Rotwood Troll in mid-air and drove his bare fist straight into the center of its bark-covered torso.
The impact sounded like a cannon firing. His fist punched completely through the thick fibrous skin and shattered the core knot inside. The troll collapsed backward into the snow. It was dead before its primitive brain even registered the hit.
Eren didn’t stop to admire his work. He pivoted on his heel and grabbed a leaping winter beast by its thick throat. He squeezed once to crush its windpipe. Then he swung its heavy body like a baseball bat into three other incoming monsters.
His movements were perfectly controlled but terrifyingly fast. Every flex of his muscles expanded his chest and broad shoulders to their absolute limits. The cheap elven shirt he was wearing couldn’t handle the sudden muscle expansion. The fabric ripped violently across his back. A second later the sleeves shredded completely.
Even his shorts tore down the sides as his thighs flexed for another massive jump.
He landed right in the middle of the remaining pack. He was practically naked and covered in green sap and dark red blood. He was grinning widely. He wasn’t losing his mind to bloodlust like he used to. He was completely conscious and fully aware of every heartbeat.
Back on Earth I used to watch those stupid superhero movies and laugh at how fake the CGI looked when a guy punched a monster through a wall.
He dodged a set of jaws and drove his knee into a wolf’s chest.
Ten minutes later the twilight rush was entirely over.
Eren stood barefoot in the bloody snow while his chest rose and fell slowly. He wiped a smear of green sap from his cheek.
He turned around to head back to his house. His eyes caught the Totem of the Village. The small tree stood in the center square with its yellowing leaves shivering in the cold wind.
He stopped walking. With all his base stats sitting comfortably around fifty his senses were sharp enough to pick up things he usually ignored. He noticed the dark monster blood soaking into the snow.
It wasn’t just freezing. The blood was slowly, almost invisibly, seeping through the dirt toward the thick roots of the Totem.
Eren stared at it and frowned. He opened his stat panel and looked at his rarest skills.
Door Master. Clone. Magician of Love.
Why the hell don’t I have a single offensive skill in my main progression?Why did I get a skill that opens doors to other planets right when this village was on the edge of extinction?
He always assumed the system was just a random game mechanic. But watching the monster blood disappear into the roots of the innocent-looking tree sent a strange chill up his spine. It had nothing to do with the snow.
He didn’t hear the usual robotic system lady answer his internal questions. Instead an ancient, groaning whisper echoed in the very back of his mind.
More...
The system interface violently glitched. A red notification box shattered the air in front of his eyes.
[WARNING: Unidentified Mental Intrusion Detected]
[Bloodline Sync suppresses the anomaly]
Eren froze completely. The whisper vanished as quickly as it came. It left behind a heavy, unnatural silence in the square.
What the fuck was that?
He stared at the Totem. It was supposedly just a piece of wood without eyes or a mouth for the elves to pray to. But the red warning panel hovering in his vision was very real. Something had just tried to touch his mind and his Half-Elf bloodline had slammed the door shut.
He rubbed his freezing bare arms and aggressively shook his head to forget.
I am standing naked in the snow and my brain is probably just freezing from the cold and imagining things.
He turned his back on the tiny harmless tree in the middle of the village and walked quickly toward his warm house to find clothes and take a bath with two sexy elven beauties.
But as he stepped onto his porch he couldn’t shake the feeling that something behind him was watching him leave.
A dark seed of doubt about everything had definitely been planted inside him.