Dungeon Sniper

For the entire afternoon, we talked plans. What got me worried was the part where Elysia would be the decoy that would distract the Drakan soldiers away from both Rafaqa and me.

"It's too dangerous," I shook my head firmly.

"I can do it. Don't make me stand doing nothing like the last time you had all the fun killing the Kraken," said Elysia defiantly.

"Fun? People died, Elysia. Lots of them."

"That sounds like fun," interjected Rafaqa.

"It's not me hitting them. It's about them not hitting me. I got this, Beta," sighed Elysia.

I felt that I would be distracted by Elysia's whereabouts during the battle more than the Drakans would be, but Elysia was adamant to the end.

"The Drakans are fairly dumb. The Elfling should be fine."

Rafaqa said reassuringly, only to pause with a serious look.

"The Dragon Tree, the worm, on the other hand, is not. It knows that it can never land a death blow on me, nor I it, so it will target you instead, Human child. Beware of concentrated attacks."

"Yeah? You said the thing is a tree. What's it going to do, throw branches at me? Rustle its leaves?"

I smiled jokingly, and alone.

"It will try to make you fall through a fissure, land a dry lightning on your head, shoot out a stream of fire through one of its hollows, sweep you off your feet with a gust—"

"So you're basically sending me to die out there."

"The worm regenerates almost as fast as I can chop it down. But with the two of you distracting and dividing its attention from me, I may be able to outspeed it, albeit barely."

As I frowned incredulously at the old Orc, Elysia, always poignant, asked the important question.

"How long do you need? To chop down the Dragon Tree to the ground?"

"Ten minutes, if all things go well," answered Rafaqa curtly.

"Ten minutes? Even for you?"

Just a reminder, I saw this guy obliterate a hundred Drakan soldiers in the air, at least fifty feet away from us, with a single swing of his monstrous greatsword.

"Even for me," nodded Rafaqa calmly.

"Just how thick is this Dragon Tree?" I asked in exasperation.

Rafaqa stared at Elysia and me, blinking uncomprehendingly.

"Of course, you have not seen the worm yet. We shall go on a reconnaissance once the sun sets. The worm is less active at night, being a giant freakish plant, after all."

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I now knew why Rafaqa kept referring to the Dragon Tree as 'worm.'

The moonless night was calm and still. And pitch dark, but my two companions could see in the dark well due to their racial advantages and I had the Night Eye Skill with me. Besides, the night was slightly less oblique as the cloudless sky revealed dozens of sparse stars twinkling weakly, insignificantly.

Elysia, who had been made an expert on stars in the prior Level, stared at the sky and muttered dubiously.

"The stars, are they—"

"Dying? Yes. There used to be more, giving off enough light at night. The dozen flickering ones you see now are all that is left. You may guess what is causing their demises."

I had an idea. Everything around here seemed to revolve around it anyway.

"The Dragon? But the stars, they're so far away."

"The stars are just rocks floating in the sky. The worm owns the entire land here at Level Four. The rocks gravitate to their new master and in the process get crushed by the atmospheric pressure."

"You sound pretty knowledgeable for someone who comes from a Level with no astrological background whatsoever."

"... You may also guess who told me things like this would happen. I will give you a hint. The first letter of his name is 'a,' as in 'asshole,'" growled Rafaqa.

There was no need to answer this pointless quiz, so Elysia and I kept quiet, hoping Rafaqa to control himself before erupting yet again.

"There."

Rafaqa pointed to the far end of the flat horizon.

The silhouette of a giant tree, looking normal enough from the distance, stood in the middle of nowhere, of a still, windless, unmoving limbo.

"Better not to speak from here on. We will stop once we reach the closest safe distance," Rafaqa lowered his voice to a barely audible grumble.

"A mile off from it, right?"

Rafaqa did not answer me but put his thick finger on his lips for me to be silent as he walked on gingerly.

It took us another twenty minutes or so to reach the mile-mark away from the giant tree.

No, not a giant. If a giant had a grandfather, he would fit the nonexistent adjective that I searched for to describe the size of the Dragon Tree as I stood before it, a mile off but still felt suffocating looking up at black, hunky figure that blocked the entire view of the sky on the other side.

Next to the unworldly tree, the Bald Kraken would look like a misshaped duck toy in a bathtub, while the tree would be the entire mansion with twenty bathrooms.

In other words, the Dragon Tree did not look like a tree. It had leaves, and it had branches. The similarity ended there, however.

I felt as if I were staring at a giant wall, a palace of the lifeless.

And the sheer size of it made me shudder inadvertently. Not to mention the immense power stored and hoarded inside.

The unnatural greed to live on, to control, and to rule exuded off its immobile presence.

"The worm," gasped Elysia, and I saw it, them, too.

The roots that protruded from the dry, cracked land did look like worms crawling, overpopulating, and dominating all of the nearby surfaces.

Rafaqa tapped on my stiff shoulder and suggested that we headed back.

On our way back to the hideout cave, the image of the thousands of worm-like roots kept flashing in the corner of my eyes, following us, slithering toward us, and wrapping me around their grasps, sanity, fear, and all.

The likeness in shape, however, was not the reason Rafaqa kept referring to it as the 'worm.' He had to belittle it in order to stay courageous against it, against giving up everything and collapse hopelessly. I knew this because I felt the same way.

Rafaqa had said that he would need ten minutes to chop down the Dragon Tree. I thought he was being humble, as in he would need a minute to finish the job and the nine after to hone the dulled blade or something.

After seeing the 'worm' in person, I could only think one thing.

How could anyone chop down a mountain?

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After a long and restless night, I came out of the cave to practice with the Omega rifle. The frightening image and impression of last night still lingered well into the late morning until another problem caused my attention to finally lift off from the Dragon Tree.

"The seeds, they won't come out anymore."

I looked at Rafaqa and Elysia for help. They, too, had come out of the cave and kept to themselves in silence ever since. No one felt like talking this morning, and I was the first one to speak up.

"What do you mean the seeds will not come out?" asked Rafaqa gruffly.

"I don't know. It just stopped shooting... like it ran out of ammo or something."

"What is MO?"

"Ammunition. Bullets."

"Bull-Rats. I swear I have heard that before."

As Rafaqa blinked in reverie, Elysia turned to me and took Omega from my hands to shake, tap, and put her pointy ear on its surface.

A few seconds later, Elysia lifted her ear from the wooden rifle and handed it back to me.

"It's thirsty. It needs water," said Elysia casually.

"... You never told me you could talk to plants."

"It's not exactly a 'talk,' more like listening to their needs. It's a faint call, and not every plant knows how to communicate. Only the old enough ones to have some sort of sentience can."

"Just an Elf thing, nothing new, again?"

Elysia returned my playful smile and nodded lightly.

It was then that I caught Rafaqa staring thoughtfully at Elysia.

"You must have heard the worm then, last night," said Rafaqa warily.

Elysia blinked and closed her mouth tight.

"What did it say?"

I knew Rafaqa did not mean to pressure on Elysia. All he wanted was to get more intel on his enemy, the ticket to his beloved home.

Elysia was a sharp Elfina, and she would have disclosed everything that would help the team. Even so, she seemed visibly distressed just to recall last night's recon.

"It... longed for life. More life. All life... It was greedy. That was all I could sense from it."

It was not a message. It was, just not directed to anyone or anything in particular.

The Dragon Tree kept talking to itself, as if chanting a morbid mantra, a hysteric hymn.

More life... More life...

The worm had captivated its terrorizing presence on us, extending its call and inviting us to join it, be a part of it—

A sound of a loud clap awoke both Elysia and me from a fearful trance. We started and turned to Rafaqa, who had his huge hands pressed together in an oriental prayer-like manner.

"We were running out of drinking water at the cave anyway. Walk about two miles from here to the west, and you will find a stream, drying but still plentiful. Fetch some water, soak the freaky wood, and refresh yourselves down there. Do it while the sun is still up. I do not want you to catch cold before the big battle."

I knew there was no threat in this Level this far away from the Dragon Tree. The Drakan soldiers would arrive at tomorrow noon, so there was no real reason to feel unsafe leaving Rafaqa's side.

As I lingered hesitantly, it was Elysia who moved about busily. She went inside the cave and came back with bloody, dirty bow and sword that she must have retrieved from the Drakan carcasses.

"You're not going?" asked Elysia as she threw me a passing glance.

"You're not going?" I turned to Rafaqa and reflected off the question.

"There is no need for all three of us to go to fetch some drinking water," said Rafaqa.

Elysia went on ahead, knowing too well there was no real threat down by the stream, always so logical perspicacious, unlike me.

"You could always use some clean water to clean yourself, right? Wash off the dirt, swim a little, take a freshwater bath."

"Orcs do not take a bath. It washes off our natural scent and essence."

... And to think that the smell inside the cave was entirely from the roasted, rotting Drakan meat.

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"What are you thinking, Beta?" asked Elysia, n.a.k.e.d and wet, nonchalantly seductive.

To be honest, I was thinking nothing at the moment. Elysia first washed the grime off her newly acquired gear and let the dirty water flow away from the vicinity. Then she got undressed and cleaned herself thoroughly with the cold, clean water of the stream.

Meanwhile, I stood and watched the beautiful, heavenly Elfina move her slender, porcelain-white body above the sparkling surface of the water.

It was truly magical.

Elysia stared at me curiously, only to realize that I had been staring at her with an undeniable l.u.s.t and fascination. She thought about covering her round, firm b.r.e.a.s.ts, but decided to play casual despite the slight blush on her face.

"It's not like you saw me n.a.k.e.d for the first time," Elysia smiled playfully, bashfully.

There was that one time, down at Benedikt's bunker, after the war, just the two of us, tired and sad, took a long, steamy shower together.

And that was it. We were too fatigued to do anything afterward. We simply held each other in our sleep, sad that we lost a friend, but glad that we still had each other.

Today was different, however. We were not feeling sad about the death of a friend. Yes, we still missed the old Dwarf, but we had moved on. Unlike the last time when we lay on the bed without a threat in the world, there was a threat in this Level, perhaps the biggest one we had faced yet, just five miles east of here, but the fear itself was feeding something else in me.

The longing for life. To live and to pass down living. To exist and to prove my existence.

The fear of an impossible enemy, of death, was fueling me to leave my mark on this world.

"... I was thinking about Alpha. And Velonis."

Elysia blinked at the belated response from me. I was not lying either. I had been thinking about them for a while now. Their relationship. The culmination of that relationship. And also the tragic end.

I approached Elysia and placed my hands gently on her b.a.r.e shoulders. Elysia flinched a little but did not push my hands away.

"And naturally, the thought got us thinking about you and me."

And then, unable to stop myself, I kissed Elysia. Hard. Passionately. With all my heart.

Through closed eyes, I could feel Elysia's hands wrap around my neck. My hands ran over her smooth back and grabbed the tight, perfect a.s.s. Elysia let out a surprised gasp, but not unpleasantly.

We let go of each other briefly, and I took off my clothes hastily and laid on the ground by the stream. I then led Elysia and laid her gently on my clothes. Elysia giggled a little as she rolled away from the particularly bumpy pebbles and settled down with quick, excited breaths.

I kissed her nose, briefly touched on the lips as I went lower and teethed lightly on the perky t.i.t.s. Elysia grunted softly, which turned into an exclamation as my fingers tapped around her crotch, and then a soft m.o.a.ning as I delicately rubbed her pearl.

"Wait," said Elysia heatedly, placing her hand on mine to stop the movement.

"What is it?" I asked eagerly, panting like an animal at this point.

"... You know you're not my first, right?"

"... Elysia, you're one-hundred-and-twenty. It'd be weird if I was your first," I laughed, not at all discouraged.

"... You also know that you're not my first 'Human' lover."

Okay, that almost killed the mood.

"Do we have to talk about him right now?"

Apparently, we did.

"We were together for only two years," sighed Elysia, her hand on her forehead.

"Only two years?"

"Cross-racial offspring was unheard of then. Probably still deemed impossible at Level One... So we never used protection. Because there was no risk. You know what I mean?"

All too clearly, unfortunately.

"Great. The next time you want to kill my boner, go ahead and talk about your s.e.x.u.a.l life with your ex-boyfriend."

A traitorous, backstabbing ex, in case she forgot.

I was about to lift my body up and away from Elysia when she clung to me and did not let go.

"That's not what I'm trying to say... or do."

With one hand pulling me down by the neck, Elysia slid the other hand and stroked my nearly-limp manhood.

In a matter of seconds, I was back into action.

"I never conceived with him. With Ramsis—"

"All right, say 'Ramsis' one more time—"

Elysia placed her finger over my lips, shushing me.

"... I had never wanted a baby before."

Elysia inhaled sharply, her face pink and the downward gaze, the long, fluttering eyelashes and all, evasive and seductive, irresistibly so.

"But now I do. I think I can, this time, with you," said Elysia softly, warmly, as she looked up and straight into my eyes.

"I love you, Elysia."

"... Hold me," whispered Elysia sweetly.

I obliged, tasting the fruity lips of the beautiful Elfina in my arms as I adjusted my lower body position.

Elysia embraced me with open arms and legs.

Both Elysia and I had been wanting the same thing. Not only that, but we were also already thinking like one.

And now we became one, on the land of no life, to create life.