The Harvester

Chapter 25: Rolling Around

At the appearance of the unknown woman, everyone stepped out of their daze and quickly carried the injured toward the gym.

At the same time, said woman watched grimly at the hobgoblins approaching. She glanced at the eagles and goblins around her that she was killing with her shadows and clicked her tongue.

‘If I attack them now, I won’t be able to keep these at bay…’ She thought and as she was wondering if she should do it close and personal, she saw four black wolves jump out from the hobgoblins’ shadows. She watched them bite the monsters’ necks with widened eyes. She was surprised but more than anything, she was relieved that the hobgoblins could be slowed down.

That left enough time for the teens behind her to enter the building and, as expected, it took barely a minute for all of them to get inside.

“You’re the last one,” she heard a female voice and looked over her shoulder to see the woman who had been killing the eagles until her arrival. She still looked tired but she seemed to have recovered a bit.

The unknown woman nodded at Flavia and the both of them retreated inside the gym where Allan was already being treated after his little stunt. Overall, he was fine but his arm had taken a huge toll.

“What’s your name?” The woman asked Flavia as they both stood at the broken entrance, watching the goblins trying to get in. Thankfully, the eagles weren’t trying to fly in.

“Flavia. Flavia Jeina.”

“Then, Flavia, you use telekinesis, right?”

“Um, yes?”

The woman mused. “Do you think you can block this hole with whatever furniture there is in this building? Even I can’t indefinitely stop them from coming. My mana is running low and I do believe your group needs a bit of rest before re-engaging.”

Flavia pondered as she opened her status. She blinked in surprise when she saw what was written on it. She had become level 9 in the midst of things, her Fatigue Resistance was now level 9, and her Nirvana Skill had also leveled up.

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– Telekinesis (Lv.2): One of the most common spiritual abilities awakened as a Nirvana Skill. It has the potential to even bend spatial laws.

Lv.2 Perk: The user can now affect multiple targets simultaneously. Note that the strain increases in proportion to the number of targets.

Current Lift: (Intelligence*5) -> (Intelligence*6) kg.

Mana Consumption: None.

This is a spiritual skill fueled by psychic energy thus no mana is involved in the process. Beware, overuse is severely precarious. The range of manipulation is only limited by the Host’s imagination and control.

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She breathed in and answered, “I should be able to. I’m still a bit tired but I should be able to move a few things. Even more, if I allocate a few of my points.”

The woman nodded. “Then please do so. I can only last for so long, after all.”

“All right,” Flavia said and turned around when she remembered something. “Sorry, I forgot to ask your name.”

The red-eyed beauty looked back. “Oh, right… You can call me Nyx.”

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When Rakna came out of the building, he saw that his ‘army’ was still fighting a decent number of enemies but not nearly close to what he wanted. He growled and ran past both the wolves and the monsters while barking one word, “Retreat!”

The gray wolves complied and howled to order their retreat out of the fight. They hadn’t suffered a lot of casualties thanks to their higher levels and their swiftness but they couldn’t do that for an extended period of time.

That’s also why they were forced to use attrition which was the main cause why some of the hobgoblins as well as a large number of goblins had stopped paying attention to them.

Rakna ran to the gym at full speed, hoping that things hadn’t gone too wrong. When he arrived, he saw a literal sea of blood and corpses. He frowned and inspected the area to see if there were any human bodies but fortunately, there were not.

He then looked at the entrance of the gym which was blocked by what seemed to be sports gear and not far from it, he spotted his shadow wolves fighting two hobgoblins, with one dead already.

He huffed and ran toward them. They didn’t seem to expect it since he was easily able to cut the throat of one of them with his claws after jumping on its shoulder. The shadow wolves then quickly took action and simultaneously bit the other who, already injured, succumbed.

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Three Lv.10 Hobgoblins killed.

Level up!

+1 Free Point

Requirement for level up updated.

Current progress: 6/90

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Rakna landed on the ground again and grunted, “So, these wolves’ kills also count as mine. Good to know.”

The shadow wolves surrounded him in excitement and he petted the four of them with one tail each. ‘They’re attached to me like newborns… Well, I guess it’s what they are,’ he said inwardly then focused on the remaining goblins banging on the walls of the gym. A nice thing to know, and which he already had noticed, was that he was way less targeted in his wolf form.

The goblins might get angry at him sometimes, but they tended to not acknowledge his presence unless provoked. As for the eagles, there wasn’t even anything to say about it. They simply didn’t even put him in their eyes.

“Anyway…” He mumbled and looked around. “Follow me,” he said to his shadow wolves and ran off toward the second entrance of the gym. When he arrived a moment later, he saw that the door wasn’t broken like the other one but this one also seemed to be barricaded from the other side considering that there was a hobgoblin who was trying to get inside but couldn’t.

“Tch,” Rakna got pretty irritated. He looked up at the glass panels of the gym’s roof but none of them were open yet. They hadn’t started to retaliate yet. They were probably recuperating.

As he was trying to think of a way to get inside without turning into a human and fight a massive number of foes, he caught a glimpse of his shadow wolves licking their paws. It was then that an idea struck him.

“You four, can you use Shadow Meld on another person?” He asked and they understood him as they tilted their head in thought before nodding. “Then help me get inside this building.”

They promptly nodded and led him to a shade cast by the gym. The ground under them began to turn into something similar to a swamp. They then turned toward Rakna, waiting for him, and he carefully put a leg on the warped shadows before he felt himself fall inside.

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Meanwhile, the members of the Wing Walkers were resting inside the gym. Fortunately for them, there were no monsters inside. It seemed like the hobgoblin from earlier had taken it as its home or something.

Now, everyone was focused on sharing the very few healing potions they had. Most of their Talys had gone into weapons after all; the number of potions they had wasn’t even higher than five.

“Well, this could have been worse honestly,” Allan said whilst leaning against the wall, still holding his broken arm. Flavia who was sitting on a chair at his right nodded wearily with a bottle of water in her hands. She looked at the woman who was standing next to her with her arms crossed and eyes closed.

“Thank you again for your help, Nyx. You are probably the only reason why there was no casualty on our side. If you hadn’t come… we wouldn’t have been able to save the injured.”

Nyx opened one eye and shook her head. “No need to thank me. I’m not the kindest of people but most people would have done the same thing if they had both the ability and opportunity.”

Flavia smiled and nodded without saying anything.

“While we’re on this topic,” Nyx continued. “Wasn’t there another person with you?”

Allan overheard that and glanced at her. “Do you mean Rakna?”

She tilted her head. “Well, is he the one whom the clown from earlier passively called inhuman?”

“I guess, yeah.” Allan shrugged. “Now that you say that, I wonder what that meant. Why did that guy talk to Rakna like that? He said something like ‘those of your kind’, right?”

“That’s correct,” Nyx affirmed. “I believed him to be one of the strongest here. And if I’m not wrong, you two are acquainted with him. What happened to him?”

“We can’t say for sure,” Flavia responded. “He was the one who came up with the idea to occupy the gym and that plan relied on the fact that he would grab the attention of the goblins before killing their leader.”

Nyx scowled. “Alone?”

“Yep, he went solo,” Allan said. “Though he had his contracted pet with him, Pronos.”

“How did he know where the leader was?”

Allan snorted and tapped his nose. “Smell. At least, that’s what he said.”

“Smell? How would-!” She was interrupted by a sudden discomfort. She felt the shadows nearby suffer a change. She turned toward one corner of the gym and both Allan and Flavia imitated her since they were confused about her sudden behavior.

Nyx squinted her eyes and a minute later, four silhouettes jumped out from the shadows. She was back in a fighting stance the second she saw them. Allan also pushed himself away from the wall and Flavia stood up.

Leis’ group also noticed the new presence and put up their guard but when they saw what it was, they were both confused and somewhat relieved. Because, although these four wolves were quite ominous-looking, they had helped them earlier and, on top of that, they only knew of one person who was somewhat connected to wolves.

After a few seconds of cautious observation, a fifth wolf came out from the shadows but this one didn’t jump out like the others. No, instead it did a front flip and rolled on the ground until lying back with its legs facing the sky.

Some tried not to laugh or cry out at the cuteness. However, most of them immediately got curious about one thing; the nine tails sprawled on the ground.

After honestly hesitating for a good half a minute, they were taken out of their stupor when the four red-eyed wolves suddenly disappeared followed by something that startled them even more.

“The five minutes have passed, huh?” It was a deep and unknown voice. But, two people oddly found some familiarity in its tone and they also very slowly made the connection; especially as they finally saw the blue scarf wrapped around the beast’s neck.

Flavia covered her mouth to hide her shock and in contrast, Allan gaped without thinking about how he looked in the slightest.

The nine-tailed wolf grunted and stood back on its feet. It looked around the place and blinked. It sighed and sat down. “Well, I’m happy it worked out. Sorry, I didn’t attract enough attention.”

There were many things going through the heads of everyone. It took them at least a full sixty seconds to properly connect the dots.

Nyx merely put on a thoughtful expression but the rest reacted very… ingeniously.

“”What the fuck?!””