Might as Well - Chapter 402 (Patreon)

The two of them flew through the trees, rocks, and everything else that went by too fast for Sam to recognize. He set the direction, but they were going so fast that he could barely see anything but colorful smears around him. He was trusting Lucky’s senses to make sure they wouldn’t stray from the path.

The only sense he could use in this situation was his Mana Sense, letting it unfurl around them, waiting and watching for anything out of the ordinary to show up.

He had slipped through the net, but he didn’t expect it would be so easy to fully escape them.

And it wasn’t.

Behind him, he could feel the flickers of mana, tainted by the blood magic, following his trail. At this speed, it was almost impossible to move through the environment without leaving some clues of his passing.

Nonetheless, he didn’t slow down.

According to the maps, he was only a few minutes away, at full speed, from a small cave system that would allow him to lose his pursuers. It was discovered by Tim and his people and marked as a burnable asset. It wasn’t the most hidden cave system (nor was it big enough for anything), so it was only a matter of time before anyone else discovered it.

Hell, Tim was pretty sure someone already had discovered it but simply didn’t mention it. Some of the monster and animal tracks looked suspiciously manufactured, according to his spymaster.

Nevertheless, that’s where Sam was headed.

Glancing back, he could see black streaks on the horizon, both on the ground and in the air, following his trail.

Carefully moving, he reached into his inventory, making sure to make minimal movements. Then, using his mana to shield his hand, he took out a handful of small spherical objects. Without waiting, he flung them far and wide, Lucky not even slowing down.

The small spheres, supported by his magic, flew through the air until they had reached a sufficient distance from him and his trusty steed. His magic quickly surged over them, forming shadows that, within a blink of an eye, solidified into clones of Sam and Lucky. These clones landed on the ground and began running in different directions from each other.

Before he could lose them because of the speed he was traveling, Sam took a large chunk of mana and simply pushed it through the collection of clones, making sure they would last for a while.

It didn’t even take five seconds before the first explosion swept over the sparse trees and bushes in this arid environment.

Chuckling to himself, Sam leaned closer to Lucky and began whispering directions into the wolf’s ears.

Time for some hide-and-seek.

With explosions going off behind him, Sam and Lucky rushed toward the rapidly approaching mountainside. The mountain itself wasn’t as big as its neighbors, but it was much more… cragly.

Lucky slowed down and began zig-zagging upwards while Sam kept an eye out for the approaching enemy.

Barely a few seconds later, he spotted it.

A small hole among several giant boulders, covered in sparse greenery. Lucky didn’t even need any prodding; the loyal wolf instantly aimed at the hole. They practically flew in, with Sam jumping off the shadowy wolf. Lucky panted and, without stopping, slammed into the wall, where a patch of shadow swallowed its exhausted form.

Sam spent exactly one half of a blink getting oriented before letting his mana flood the chamber. Clones began to appear, heavy with the mana they contained. Now that he wasn’t constrained by the great speed he was traveling at and the distance that created, he could go full ham. Every clone was given enough mana to last at least five minutes without disturbances. They then instantly took off, leaving behind footprints and other clues of their passing.

Sam stood there waiting and giving the clones a bit of a head start before carefully beginning to move forward, making sure to step into the tracks left behind by his clones. Behind him, he could already hear a whole army charging up the mountainside.

With his mana flooding the entire cave system, he didn’t even need to refer to the map that Tim had given him. He just followed his senses.

After a minute, he heard the first voice.

“Guys! Here I found an entrance!”

‘Damn… that was fast…’ he thought. ‘They’re usually not this fast…’

Instantly, the quiet of the caves was shattered as the Blood Army players flooded into the cave. Thankfully, it wasn’t a big one, so they were constrained in how many of them could enter at once. He used his Mana Sense to gauge their strength, but surprisingly, he didn’t find anyone with strength he would have to worry about.

‘Either they’re good at hiding… or they went somewhere else…’ he mused.

“I found tracks!”

“Me too!”

“Hey! There’re tracks here too!”

“Damn. He is annoying…”

“What did you expect from someone who calls himself…what was it?”

“Maximilian Lupin the Seventh…”

“What a stupid name…”

Smiling to himself, Sam never stopped moving, getting deeper and deeper into the cave system, letting his senses guide his steps and letting his clones walk all over the place, leaving his tracks everywhere.

Behind him, like a horde, the enemy players were rampaging through the caves, allowing Sam to hear practically everything.

Then, as he took his next step, he couldn’t help but freeze for a moment. Then, with a smile, he raised his hand and struck the wall next to him.

CLANG

The sound echoed all around him, with the herd of players instantly falling silent before a cacophony of sounds replaced the indistinct roar of the crowd.

“I heard that!”

“Follow the sound!”

Making sure he was making enough noise to keep them on his heels, Sam turned toward what he sensed deep underground and began running.

It was surprising that Tim’s scout hadn’t found it. Probing a bit deeper, he let out a noise of realization. “Ah…”

There was a small wall separating two parts of the cave system. Unless you had extremely strong Mana Sense, like Sam, or were specialized in earth magic or maybe spelunking, then it was extremely easy to miss it.

Still… it was an opportunity.

Rushing through the corridors carved into the stone by time and nature, Sam made sure to make some noise every few seconds, just so his pursuers would know where he was. Behind him, he could hear the excited chatter.

“Come on! I can’t sense him, but I can hear him!”

“I can’t wait to capture him!” one of them lamented. “The boss was pretty angry we let that one go…”

“Do you think he might have escaped? There were a looot of tracks…”

“Don’t be stupid. The boss is waiting for him on the other side!” another replied with derision. “We made sure nobody knew this was here…”

Sam nodded in understanding. ‘So that was the plan…’

Still, the new information, while useful, wasn’t exactly useful in this situation. He just refocused on reaching his target.

After maybe another minute of trawling through the dark corridors of the cave system, he finally arrived. Instead of stopping, he just threw his hand out and let loose what earth magic he knew. He wasn’t the best at that, but he had a lot of magic.

The stone wall, completely indistinguishable from all the walls around it and everywhere else in the cave system, disintegrated without making a noise, his wind magic sweeping away the dust and depositing it onto the ground.

He stepped inside, then instantly to the side.

Touching the wall there, he quickly carved a little hole up high, and climbed up there, crouching while grinning ear to ear.

In the middle of the cavern, surrounded by mushrooms made out of stone, was a swirling fracture portal, radiating merry energy. Knowing what he knew about the fey, Sam had no intention of entering that death trap.

No thank you.

Within seconds, the horde of players arrived.

“What’s that light?” one of them asked.

Sam's grin stayed in place as he calmly drew several runes in the air, their illusory form hovering there for a short moment before they transformed, recreating the look of the wall, making it look like there was no hole.

With the last moment before the enemy entered, he flung several small illusory runes toward the stone mushrooms.

For a moment, he felt resistance, but then it vanished, and the mushrooms shimmered out of existence before he could even finish the spell.

Sam pretended not to hear the ethereal laughter in the air.

‘Not my monkey. Not my monkeys. Not my monkeys….’ he repeated in his mind as he slowly unsheathed his sword, getting ready for the fight. The flimsy illusory hidey-hole would work in the first minute, but the moment they started searching intentionally, he would be found.

It was better to strike first.

He watched as the players entered, staring at the swirling portal.

“Damn! What luck!” one of the guys exclaimed. “We found a new fracture! The boss is going to be haaaapy!”

“What if he went in there?” one of them asked.

Another shrugged. “He must come out eventually…”

“Should we go after him?”

They stared at each other as more and more people started entering the room. They spread out and began looking around. But as they were looking at roughly body height, none of them found Sam yet. Plus, most of their attention was on each other and the fracture.

It was an undiscovered fracture. That meant there was a chance for great rewards if they were the first to find anything hidden, or a good drop… Which meant that every one of them was thinking about going in there before the others.

Sam watched them amusedly as they pretended they weren’t drifting closer and closer to the portal.

Finally, one of them had enough. He threw his arm up and let out a curse. “I don’t even care anymore.” He stepped close and touched the merrily swirling portal.

“What does it say?” someone asked. With the amount of people crowded into the room, it was hard to spot who spoke up. Sam watched them, slowly counting using his Mana Sense instead of his eyes.

‘Twenty-two…’ Probably twice as much left outside. ‘And more than likely they sent in the stupid ones…’

“It’s called Stoney Mushroom Ringaround…” the one who touched the fracture portal started reading out loud. “Apparently, there was a small troll community here, and they are having problems with mushrooms.”

“Sounds pretty basic,” a third person called out. “If he is really good, then it won’t take him long to finish it.”

The first person nodded. “Alright. Let me call it in…”

They all stood there and watched as the first person quietly conversed with someone, occasionally nodding or shaking his head. Finally, after half a minute, he looked up. “We got the go-ahead.”

Instantly, people began celebrating.

“Hell yeah!”

“Let’s go!”

“Do you think the mushrooms are cute?”

The first person waited for a second. “Shut up!” he yelled, quieting the cavern. “Two teams go in and scout; the rest of you stand guard.”

Sam watched, tense, as they organized two five-man teams and vanished into the portal. The rest of the dozen people simply spread out and began slowly going over the room, either looking for more hidden secrets or suddenly remembering why they had come here…

It didn’t really matter to Sam.

He watched and planned.

One hand went deep into the inventory and returned with several special explosives. Carefully enveloping them with his magic, using his runes, he wove a bit of magic around them, making them look like the stone mushrooms around the fracture portal, and then slowly levitated them out of his hiding place before guiding them into the blind spots of the people.

Then he waited…

Barely a second later, there was a call. “Hey, guys! Look at his mushroom!”

“Where?”

“Oh, it’s pretty cute…”

They all looked its way, but as Sam watched them, he noticed one of the only players in the room who didn’t move. Instead, his face was ashen.

“Guys! No, don’t tou–”

But it was too late.

Sam’s magic sparked, and the cavern was flooded with light and the screams of the blinded players, while he was flying through the air, his sword going through the lone smart guy’s face.

Using the player’s rapidly disappearing body, he launched himself toward the next target.

As he flew through the air, he watched through his Mana Sense as the players stumbled around.

“Aaargh!”

“My eyes!”

“Fucking hell!”

“Where is he?”