'Not that it helps much, these attacks so far must have been less than mosquito bites on an alligator.'
I thought as I continued moving, both to find more vulnerable points and to avoid being hit by more attacks from that two-story monster.
Because I was so focused on Drake, I ended up forgetting a very important detail. He wasn't alone.
"Urgh!!!"
A rock the size of a football hit my shoulder while I was putting up a new arrow. Despite the shock of the attack, my instinct told me to keep walking or find a place to protect myself. Luckily I did, on the next site the place where I was was hit by 2 more rocks and 3 "spears" thrown by the kobolds surrounding us.
'Tsk, they were so quiet I even forgot about them.'
I think the fact that I got close to the sidewalk was also a factor, but not noticing when they attacked remains. As does the pain in my arm.
[HP: 95/110]
'Seriously, a rock hit takes away 5 HP straight away?!'
*Whoosh... Boom*
A few meters, almost centimeters from where I was, a cloud of dust and dirt appeared, and quickly Drake's paw came out of it. Again trusting my instincts, I jumped and grabbed onto the tree branch where I'd sheltered from the kobolds (it was actually more of a sapling, but since almost all the trees in the area were on the ground, I promoted it to a tree), which shattered like a matchstick from Drake's paw.
I jumped again, this time towards the middle of the park and very close to the rubble where the red rock was. Drake didn't seem to like this, raising it to fifty meters, trying to hit me, and slamming it into the ground, causing several stagmites to appear and come towards me.
Another dodge, but this time before he reached me, I sent another arrow towards him, which, by an incredible stroke of luck, ended up hitting his nose.
"Wwwaaarrrrrnggg."
I could swear I saw the sound waves coming out of his mouth as he screamed, but not a scream specifically of pain. It was more like a complaint people make when they're pricked by thorns, and considering his size, I wouldn't be surprised if that's what he felt.
With him moving like that and trying to move, I could see why he had lowered his head after the attack with the "breath"; on his throat was a kind of swollen jowl, and near it I could see... teeth marks? No! They were marks that looked like pincers.
'Like the pincers on an ant's mandibles.'
Ugh, how stupid of Pomo not to have said that there had been a fight here a while ago with two large creatures and their followers.
'That Drake certainly didn't come out of the fight unscathed, that's why he was using the magic stone as bait to get food and the kobolds as fishing line.'
Now things made sense.
…..
...In part, I still think it would have been more logical if he had eaten the magic stone and used its energy to heal himself... Although that might not be how things work, I'm using what I know about magic stones and creatures hitting me in novels, but reality may be different.
It doesn't matter, the point is that now I have a much more concrete target to hit. Or rather, us.
"IMPETO, GET READY TO ATTACK, I'M GOING TO CALL—?!!!!"
Before I finished speaking, Drake's paw simply appeared beside me, much faster than the last few times. Without time to try to dodge or jump, I instinctively raised my left arm, which I used to hold the bow, and felt what must feel like being hit by a small truck, with my entire body.
The force of the impact threw me meters to the right, and I only stopped when I broke the last standing wall of the guard post.
"Urgggghhh Shhhh, ggggaaahhh"
I don't even need to check the status to know that my left arm was broken, my right arm dislocated, some ribs broken and probably all with some cracking, the left stone also broken, and at least a concussion.
[HP: 7/110]
With my vision blurred by the blood in my eyes, my ears ringing, only able to "hear" my own heartbeat, and with every inch of my body agonizing in pain, I still managed to pull one of the rats out of the [item box]. But before I could bite it, my instinct screamed louder than ever, I rolled as best I could to the car exit. Holding the rat as if it were the most important thing in the world, because, at that moment, it was.
I felt the pebbles and dense dust in my eyes before seeing the state the guard post was in. After all, my concentration was now on sucking the rat's stagnant blood, not checking my surroundings.
Squeezing it with all the strength I could muster with my dislocated arm, I finally managed to feel a little vitality returning to me.
[Unique Ability: Resistance.] [Activated]
[Pain resistance 0 acquired]
[Pain resistance 0 -> 1]
[Pain resistance 1 -> 2]
[Experience gained]
[Name: Fernando Martins
Level: 9
Race: Dhampir (half-vampire)
Job: Fighter Lv. 5
SP: 10
AP: 8
HP: 17/110
MP: 78/85
Condition: exhausted, severe hemorrhage (-10 HP every 5 seconds), open fracture]
With a clearer mind thanks to [pain resistance], I grabbed all the rats I still had and managed to stuff them all into my mouth and suck their blood at once.
[Blood-sucking skill lv 2–> 3]
Still lying on the ground with 3 rats the size of pet claws in my mouth, I took some clothes from the item box, tied a shirt around my head, and made a makeshift splint out of a jacket. It was agonizing.
[Skill: Pain Resistance Level 2-3]
[Experience Gained]
[Skill: First Aid Acquired]
I had no patience to see what that would do. I checked my status and thankfully I could relax, even if only a little.
[Condition: exhausted, heavy bleeding (-5 HP every 10 seconds), open fracture]
A little calmer, I assessed the situation around me, and in a word: devastating.
It was already like this before, but now it was worse.
The guard post no longer existed; now it was just a pile of small stones heaped together and mounds of light gray sand. The ground around it was the same; any tree or bush behind and to the left of the post that had survived the previous fight had now also been chopped up and reduced to small, flint-like twigs.
Sucking the last drop of blood the rats had, I stood up slightly and saw that the kobolds guarding that side had also been obliterated.
'If I had any luck stat, I don't know if mine would be in single digits or in three.'
Ultimately, it was incredibly lucky that the breath didn't hit me and that I survived the drake's attack. Having to come all the way here, getting hit by the attack, and almost getting hit by the breath—that was bad luck enough.
From the time the Drake threw me, to the time it took me to administer first aid, 12 to 15 seconds had passed. And in that time, neither he nor the kobolds attacked.
I know the Drake didn't attack because of that moment of weakness, probably because of the ferns in his throat, but I didn't understand why the kobolds didn't attack. As I recovered, the ringing in my ears faded until I could hear the sound of *booms and booms* further ahead, along with vibrations that my body couldn't distinguish before.
The blood haze in my eyes also began, very slowly, to dissipate, and I could see some flashes, some golden yellow, others red and orange.
'Lumi and Impeto. They must have made the Drake miss!'
I thought happily but slightly apathetic because of the tiredness and the pain.
I knelt down—well, one knee, the other is still unusable because of the fractures. By concentrating a little, I managed to see what was happening a few hundred meters away.
Impeto had climbed onto the rubble of the UPA and was "flying" from there to the top of the Drake, throwing fireballs and returning. Lumi was running from one side to the other, shooting glowing balls towards the kobolds, preventing them from advancing. The Drake, in turn, was jumping, trying to grab Impeto as he flew and slammed into the UPA, but even from here I could see that he wasn't doing it with the intention of knocking down what was still standing.
'That must be where they accumulate the magic stones.'
I thought, remembering where the kobolds had taken the first group of goblins we had seen trying to get the large red stone.
'But that doesn't explain why no kobold tried to attack me in this–!!!'
I was speechless as soon as I looked at the area around me. The left side had been almost completely swept away by the Drake's breath, but the right side was full of trees and vines.
No!, they were roots, thick, interconnected roots that sprouted upwards, forming a wall that prevented the kobolds from reaching the park, and I could even see some struggling among the branches and roots.
This wall of roots stretched from the far right end to its "beginning," essentially preventing all the kobolds on the right side from appearing. Considering that all those at the far end on the left were obliterated by the breath, Lumi only needed to defend against kobolds of the type on the left side, right where we came from.
This was definitely magic; how else could roots grow as robust as tree trunks and sprout from the ground?
And out of pure curiosity, I didn't know anyone who had something called [green magic], whose spells were accelerated germination or something like that?
"Thanks, lil sis."