WilburWoods
patreon
Chapter 14 - Quicker Execution
🕑 Added 2023-11-12 15:28:39 +0000 UTCI have to move fast.
“Remember to ululate constantly, Logan.”
He starts doing it immediately. I don’t need the input immediately, but it helps Logan. I take over the Armor. Normally I let Logan guide it and I only shift it accordingly. Now I stiffen it and run a current of Numa through it, taking control.
I duck and start picking up the cuffs and the collar-stick. Logan’s muscles and joints can’t keep up. I have to slow down. If I could sigh I would. What fragile things, these human bodies. This is why I need a body of my own. Preferably made of this metal. The first vowels of his ululations are coming out. By the third ‘U’, Logan gasps from pain from the strain I have put on his body with my speed. But it is necessary.
As all of my simulations predicted with a 97.85% accuracy, the blue brute takes a swing at Logan with its right hand. This is why I ducked. My predictive models tell me I have to kick at the Dorf named Sulfir next to me. It will generate strain on Logan’s hamstring and hip flexors, but it is necessary. This one also has to be fast, or there is a high probability the other two Dorves will be able to act.
1.22 seconds has passed.
Using the motion of my kick, I spin and slam the collar-stick in the direction where Balmir should be. He is. Luck is on our side. He manages to slide away and avoid critical damage, but the strike is true and he shouts in pain and anger. I duck again, as my predictions have shown, the creature is still on me.
I grab Kat and generate the portal for the temporal space. I shove Kat and the darksteel materials in there.
I create on my right hand to absorb a strike from the brute. I do not have accurate predictions as to what sorts of attack patterns it will use, so I just generate a big tower shield, covering the body. It tries to ram through. I instantly morph part of the Armor into springy, elastic material. It absorbs the kinetic energy, and pushes the beast back.
[Sub-class Level Up!]
[Manipulation level 38]
[Attribute Level Up!]
[Speed: 41]
3.42 seconds has passed.
The third Dorf strikes me with a mace, but the Armor hardens when I notice the impact. Since I only have a tactile reaction at my disposal. it will create a nasty bruise.
I feel another impact on my side. This is softer.
[Here.]
That’s Felix Balmer’s voice. He has a quick mind. I toss him into the temporal space and close it. Now that it is closed, we are on a limited timer. We have tested the capabilities of the storage dimension. One can put live material such as plants, animals, and humans in there. But there is no oxygen. There was no warning, especially for Kat. I estimate I have 128 seconds before it is critical to take Logan’s companions out of the storage.
[Attribute Level Up!]
[Control: 47]
7.12 seconds has passed.
I have secured all the important material. I roll to dodge any possible attack immediately as I have deposited Balmer. The edge of a sword nicks the heel of the Armor. No damage to it or Logan. I turn to my attacker, which is likely Balmir. I extend my arm and shoot out a volley of the kinetic bullets out. Only eight, a quick burst. Two of the Dorves and the brute are struck. I can feel it through the bullets.
[Sub-class Level Up!]
[Adaptive Fusion level 31]
8.20 seconds have passed.
I sprint forward full speed, feeling the stone under the Armor’s heel give. It cracks loudly as I push forward. The brute tries to come at me, but I have too much momentum, and I push it down. There is a 63.22% probability that either the Dorves will attack it, or the brute will switch targets and attack the Dorves.
I can feel the bullets rejoin the Armor as I speed through the corridor. It puts more strain on Logan’s tendons and muscles, but it is the only way to proceed. He groans and flinches within the Armor, but does not tell me to slow down.
He keeps ululating, that is good. Combined with the input of the sound waves and my memory of Logan having traversed this part of the ruins earlier, I have an easy time navigating. Once his vision unblurs enough, I tell him to stop. He is grateful for it. His thoughts are somewhere along the lines of him being happy about his friends being in the pocket dimension so they couldn’t hear him. It’s more nuanced and elaborate as his thoughts and emotions often are, but I have no interest in prying this time.
I try to give him his privacy these days, unless the thoughts are strategically significant. Or about me. I am curious after all. Oh, what fun being a person is.
There is light at the end of the tunnel. This is not a metaphor. With the speed required to escape and the route being clear, it did not take more than 68.52 seconds for us to get out. Logan’s body is bruised with some bone fractures and tears in tendons and skeletal musculature. The village’s healer will be able to fix all but the bone damage. He is still too low level for that.
I make Logan and the Armor sprint further towards the village. I have no data to make estimations on how far behind us the Dorves are. I make the decision to make most of the time. The soft grassy ground gives under every leap that smashes into it. I increase Numa expenditure by 8.25%.
[Attribute Level Up!]
[Capacity: 39]
83.19 seconds have passed. I open the spatial storage and pull Kat and Balmer out. They gasp for breath on their hands and knees in the grass. I relinquish my control back to Logan. He winces through the pain and thanks me. I hope I will get to do that again. Having a body, even temporarily, is great fun.
Comments
Oh yeah, Tumor is bored a lot! But he does math for fun and thinks about what it means to like pie ;P
Scott Frederiksen
So while he levels super quick relative to our (other)mc and everyone else he's probably feeling like it's glacial.
Never wrote a chapter that only lasted 83 seconds in "story time". I like to imagine time moves really, really slow, when you've got massive computing power!
