He turned into a dead sprint through a path that led away. His feet crunched on dead twigs, slipped on moist earth, and his lungs burned.

  “Shit!” Reina tripped on a root and took several stumbling steps before pitching into a tree.

  “Got you!” Rook picked her up, and they continued down the path.

  The crab’s claws clicked and snapped behind them. The loud tearing echoed through the forest in his ears. The pang Rook felt was replaced by a serene, calming presence of his passive skill, allowing him to easily dodge the roots and rocks beneath. He risked a look over his shoulder and panicked slightly at the sight. The minivan-sized crab was chasing them through the forest. Its pinching claws were to his horror snapping trees and stalks of mushrooms in half as easily as twigs. The two forearm-sized eyes were fully extended in their sockets, dark orbs amongst the even darker armored shell.

  “I have to stop soon,” Rook said, in between heaving breaths.

  “Okay.” Reina wiped her forehead, but looked as if she hadn’t even broken a sweat.

  What the hell. “So crab cakes here is King of the Jungle?” Rook asked, sucking in air through burning lungs. His legs began to ache as his stamina bar began to flash red. “Fuck, I’m sorry I have to walk.” His legs trembled worse than when His unit did sled drag PT.

  “I’m not leaving you to die after saving me!” Reina turned towards him and pressed her palms to his chest.

  Rook’s head was thumping with adrenaline, and he tingled from the base of his spine to the roots of his hair. With command presence, he seemed to think rapidly and critically. The thoughts of all the survival books ran through his mind. Never in those books had those assholes faced a giant crab fresh from a fisherman’s nightmares. Risking a peek, his heart jumped into his throat. Command presence or not, his instincts screamed for him to fly away. This is arguably much worse than the goblins, Tyco, and everything else. What’s the point? I can’t talk my way out of this. This thing doesn’t care if my name is Ben Dover. It wants to kill me for killing it’s babies.

  With lungs on fire from exertion, he turned towards Reina. She placed a hand on him and concentrated. Soothing warmth like muscle cream washed over him, and in an instant, the green bar rose to full, his breathing steadied, and he was no longer hindered by exhaustion. Rook looked at her quizzically. What did you do

  Rook ran through the leaves, through the thick grass, and over the spongy ground, trying to run from crabcakes. With a quick map check, he held a hand up to stop.

  “We’re about to go off a cliff.” He looked around and saw a slope to his right.

  “How can you tell?” She asked, between breaths.

  “Never mind. Up there,” he said, pointing to the ravine.

  According to the map, this ravine would take them towards the wagon, but it went through a patch of thick trees. It has to work. He grabbed Reina’s sleeve and they sprinted, scrambling up the steep incline.

  Rook opened up his map once again he was close. They were about ten meters away, but crab cakes was fast, too fast. One of the animal’s legs stabbed into a tree’s above-ground root system. It desperately thrashed about trying to get free.

  “Quick hit it while it’s stuck!” Reina said, pointing to a fist-sized rock.

  “Are you crazy? Throwing a rock isn’t going to penetrate that shell.” Rook took a heaving breath as Command Presence fought to keep his facilities intact. “I guess we can always run after.”

  Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

  Rook nodded and flared his Attramancy. Alright, crabcakes prepare to die, or feast. No lines were dark bronze except the rock she pointed to. Here goes nothing. They waited for the thing to breach a thicket for a nice, clean shot.

  Rook pointed his finger gun at the line stretching to the rock, then aimed at Crabby and released. The rock shot free, the jagged gray stone tumbled end over end until it pelted the crab in one of its forearm-sized eyes. There was a squelching sound as the rock ripped through the membrane and ricocheted into a tree behind. The beast roared, and Rook knew that he had made a big mistake. If there was a quest to piss off a giant crab, I’d be getting XP now. He chased after Reina up the hill when he heard a sound as loud as a ship’s mast breaking in two. The crab had ripped its leg off at the joint and piled into a tree beside. One-eyed, missing a leg, taking stumbling steps like a pirate crab.

  “It ripped its own leg off. What the hell is it going to do to mine?” He asked as they got over the crest.

  Rook looked back, and the creature hit an impasse in a few roots. Lucky break. Just ahead over the crest, the beautiful sight of the wagon, Roran, and another, unfamiliar person came into view. This one, an official-looking knight type. Both men eyed Rook and Reina with surprise, oblivious to the crab about to burst through the trees at any moment.

  “Roran, quick run!” Rook bellowed as he got closer. As he jogged past, he expected to see Roran follow behind him, but like a lot of his life, he’d been wrong before.

  “Reina!” Roran exclaimed.

  Rook halted in place. “Shit. So not the time, Roran!” Rook exclaimed, taking a cautionary glance towards the trees before walking up to the mushroom farmer.

  The man’s head was no longer wrapped, and the cut was healed. “Reina, I’m so glad you’re okay,” he said, pulling her into an embrace.

  She tried to break free of her sobbing father. “We’re going to die if we stay here, Father. We’ll talk after I promise,” Reina said, nearly shoving off her father.

  He sniffed, but there was trust in his eyes. “Okay.”

  Rook looked at the other man beside Roran. He seemed to be some iron-clad warrior with serious blue eyes and scarred armor. Reminding him of a high-level city guard straight out of a video game. If this were a video game, I’d probably look pretty crazy right now with all of these tattoos and nothing but a T-shirt, shorts, and a pair of shoes. If Rook were on shift, without a doubt, he would ask the suspicious tattooed man in the forest why he was there at the scene of the crime.

  His running thoughts were interrupted by crab cakes as it burst from the tree line, claws open and arms extended above its head. It looked like it was here to commit a war crime and pinch boars in half, and it was all outta boars. The crab took in the surroundings for a moment, then rushed to meet them. Its legs were digging into the dirt as it forcefully pulled forward. Foam bubbled out of its mouth, and one eye extended, the black pupil staring intently at Rook.

  Rook’s heart skipped in his chest, and he took several stumbling steps back. “Is this it? Really, death by crab?”

  The world went silent, except for his own breathing. There are worse deaths, I’m sure. Rook level two died from pinching and not in a good way. He heard the gentle grinding of metal on metal. Beside him, a blur of movement surged to meet the crab. So fast. The iron-clad man held his hand towards the beast and his sword low, and began to chant. Rook felt a pang of fear as the air around him began to radiate heat. The hot air burned the hair in his nostrils and felt painful on his face and skin. The warrior bellowed with a voice like rolling thunder. Rook instinctively pressed his hands into his ears, but too late. The gunpowder explosion had nothing on this.

  “What’s happening!?”

  In front of him, a searing, bright ball of flames, big as Rook’s head, burst forth from the man’s hand straight into the crab. It let out a raspy cry, then fell smoking and skidding to the earth.

  You have slain Sunset Crab Burrow Queen +50 experience assist

  You are now level up to 3. 5 of 100 experience until level 4

  “I didn’t kill it though,” said Rook, confused, as he stared at the delicious-smelling crab.

  The air was filled with the sweet and salty smell of the sunset crab. He walked around the carcass and kicked a leg. It twitched, causing him to stumble back on his ass.

  Laughing, Reina walked over to him and helped him to his feet.

  “Reina, can we eat that thing?”

  She gave him a look of amused bewilderment. “Of course, it’s a sunset crab and a delicacy within Centrulia.” These burrow queens normally have eggs that are especially rare, considering the fight it put up, I am not surprised.

  Her father pulled her into another embrace and smiled at Rook. “I’m so happy you’re safe.” He broke free and stared at her, assessing the dirt and cuts on her. “How..How’d you guys get away?”

  “Rook-”

  “She did all the work, or most of it. Without her, I wouldn’t have had the bravery to face the Goblins or even find the wagon parts for that matter.”

  The military instilled into him the value of the team effort over the individual. Rook hated taking credit, and giving it away made him feel better. Roran looked at his daughter with adoring eyes.

  He cleared his throat. “Maybe sending you to the historical society wasn’t too terrible an idea.” Roran sniffed. “Since losing your mother, I thought enhancing would bring you to danger. I see how wrong I was. Let’s get you home to the estate and clean up. Tomorrow we can come back out here with a few guards, right Phane?” He asked, looking over at the iron warrior.

  “Of course.”

  “Father…I don’t want to do mushroom farming. I hate it.”

  Her father stiffened, shock coming over his face. She shrank down slightly, her eyes dropping. Then a look of resolve took over. “I hate the careful digging, searching the woods and caves from sunup until sundown, until we have to use mana crystals to see after sundown. I don’t like being chased by boars or having a plethora of knowledge on the flora within this forest.”

  “Why? Why didn’t you ever say anything? You kept asking me to come on expeditions, on missions to find the Bellouise Caps.” He stroked her hair. “I thought you loved this,” he said, his voice trailing.

  “No. I loved spending time with you,” she responded. “Without mom, I didn’t want you to go out and never come back again.”

  Roran wiped his eyes with his dirty sleeve. “I’m not a fool,” he said, surprising her. “Just blind it seems in my growing age. If you hate something and I force you to do it anyway, I’d be no father at all. Bringing you out here every week, traveling to find rare mushrooms is a passion of mine, not yours.”

  Rook knew the sentiment, being brought out to do something you hate. However, he was unfamiliar with the sentiment of an accepting father.

  Reina hugged her father once again and mouthed the words thank you to Rook. He returned the nod. See, grandpa, even a thankless bastard like me can do something nice every once in a while.

  You are hungry.

  Yes, I am. Rook eyed the armored man, now with a healthy sense of fear. As he walked into his field of vision.

  “You’re truly a Godsend.” Roran held out his hand. “Thank you-”

  “That’s not all, my personal space ignoring friend,” Rook said, looking inside his inventory of astral space where he kept his stuff and pulled out the box of screws and the crossbar. “Now we can fix that Wagon of yours.”