028 Plight Of The Slow

Death's Favor casually slipped itself into my left hand.

Tightening my grip against the familiar hilt, I raised my weapon straight ahead in preparation for a high speed thrust attack.

I lunged my left leg ahead of my right one. Taking a deep squat position I began to build power in my legs.

This was going to end in one blow.

As I raised my sword in the air, Death's Favor mercilessly leaked its aura, attempting to put the pack of wolves in a state of frozen fear to bind them in place.

Brizza and it's pack were holding their form. Baring their fangs as they grunted their beastly howls. They gave off an appearance of resisting the effects of my weapons aura.

I frowned. If the aura couldn't instill fear in monsters slightly stronger than Afos, then that meant that It needed to consume a lot more souls in order to strengthen its innate ability.

The wolves began Inching their way forward at a snail like pace. Their paws were being dug deep into the ground with every step they took. Clearly they too were also preparing for a battle of speed with an obvious lunge attack.

The tension between us began to escalate as we had unconsciously entered an unregulated staring contest.

I refused to back down to them. They were far far beneath me and soon I would make them understand that.

This was going to be an absolutely one sided match. Nothing would be left of the enemies before me.

Even while I Possessed this knowledge, it made no difference to me whatsoever. I still had decided to take this fight quite seriously.

One could never know the surprises the enemy had.

It had been many years after all since I originally hunted them down. Maybe the old dog learned a trick or two during that time.

Ever so slowly I moved my right heel forward, moments away from launching myself into the fray.

I took in and held a final breath in preparation for the coming attack I would launch.

Suddenly out of no where a streaking flash of intertwining blue and red was launched forward and violently pounded away at all the wolves in sight.

AAAWWWOOOOOOO

AAWWOO

AAAAWWWOOOOO

A morbid chorus of pained noise filled my ear drums while I stood there perplexed. Staring at the squirming formless creatures being lit ablaze.

Confused at the sight before me, I got up from my stance and looked all around in hopes of finding an answer.

To my surprise the answer was a lot more obvious than I expected once I turned around. Standing tall in the middle of my vision was Ventus with her right arm stretched out in front of her.

She had two rings on the fingers of her right hand glowing from the recent use. A small orb of flame and another of ice gently floated above her hand momentarily before she willed them away.

As I looked back at the blazing carcasses of the once kinda maybe semi ferocious but not really all that scary or even slightly powerful then wolves now clumps of turd looking ash, I connected the dots and immediately understood what had happened.

Why!!! I was...I was in the middle of—I was gonna fight them....she stepped in before I did anything.

I turned to Ven with incredulous shock and disdain as I raised both my arms up to the night sky in a "Really you just did that" type of stance.

She shrugged her shoulders as she flashed me a grinning smile and responded.

"You were taking forever Em. I was getting bored of watching you stare at puppies all night long."

I was hurt at her intervention.

"So in order to find reprieve from this so called boredom you decided to kill them before I had the chance to?"

"Yeah...I mean it's pretty obvious right? Why waste time, let's hurry and go."

"Oh Ven..."

I needed to get even for the totally unfair move she just pulled. After giving it a quick thought I decided to use the situation to my advantage.

Malicious laughter echoed in my within my consciousness.

I let out a deep breath and pinched the bridge of my nose as I pretended to be falling into frustration.

She fell for it.

"Are you going to tell me you wanted to kill them? You were literally just staring at them!"

"I was preparing to fight them."

"They are literally just dogs on an unholy amount of protein. What is there to prepare for?"

She was getting annoyed with me. This was excellent, she had now activated my trap. Now it was my turn to flip the tables on her and guilt her for beating the boss instead of me.

"You do realize I can't progress past the first floor unless I kill them myself right? That's how I gain entry to the teleportation portal."

She stood silent for a moment taking in my words.

I smiled. My plan had worked. She is now falling into a sensation of guilt. Good I thought to myself.

Was it petty? Absolutely. Did I care? No. No I did not.

I crossed my arms in a smug look of victory.

Ventus who had been staring into the ground deep in thought finally raised her head at me and spoke.

"Em, Otto was right. You're an idiot."

My jaw dropped. This was not the answer I expected to hear.

"Wh-why would you say that?!"

"Because if you remember correctly, a while ago we made a pact to form a party with me. This means we share everything from experience to victory."

Oh no. She knows!

"Soooo, because of this....You can advance forward you jerk!"

As if to confirm her repellent truth, the system gave out a notice.

PIINNG

[The Party Of Em And Ventus Has Cleared Floor One]

[You May Proceed]

"Whaaaaaaatttt, I had no idea. This is news to me."

Hahahaha

I coughed out a fake laugh hoping to defuse the situation.

Ventus just rolled her eyes.

Suddenly as if to further screw me over, a nearby tree toppled over to reveal a teleportation portal.

Ven evolved her eye rolling into a smug look.

I could only stand there looking embarrassed because of my failure.

Ven just laughed at my indignation and let the situation go.

"Clearly time travel has made you soft Em. Soft and slow. So slow in fact that you couldn't move past mere puppies."

Once again my jaw dropped at her snide comment.

She simply continued to laugh as she walked herself over to the portal.

I haven't slowed down...have I ? Is me being too cautious a bad thing? Can time travel even affect you like that?

My mind quickly spiraled into self doubt until Ven's soft tones broke me away from the cruel thoughts.

"You coming?"

"Yeah..."

I followed immediately behind.

Once the both of us were standing inside the elaborate magical circle it began to glow and illuminate our surroundings.

The familiar feeling of weightlessness began to envelop us.

Moments before we were whisked away I turned to Ven and gave my response.

"The next floor boss we come across, I get to take it down!"

She just smiled and laughed.

"Sure Em you can do it."

"Thank you."

"If you are fast enough."

"What!!"

My final words echoed throughout the forest as we were completely enveloped by the light and taken away to the next floor.

The flooding of light came in and blinded our eyes. We had became accustomed to the night we were just in so the transition was brutal.

Stepping away from the teleportation circle both Ventus and I began our struggled in the fight to obtain vision.

We rubbed our eyes continuously, slowly letting fragments of shining rays enter our perception bit by bit.

Finally with enough work done we could eventually see again. With a proper look around I took in the scenery of the second floor.

Mountains. Tall, jagged, and unclimbable surrounded us from every direction. Above us the fluffy sponges of white boasted a freedom we were deprived of.

Down below where we were, Ventus and I found ourselves on the rocky shores of this crater filled lake.

A deep resplendent sapphire blue stared back at us. The gentle waves of its surface began soothing our souls. The scenery was inviting and inspiring. Narrowing my eyes enough I could even make out small masses of land scattered about throughout this massive body of water.

The Lake Of Silence.

Ventus had spoken up breaking me away from my sight seeing and began teasing me.

"So we made it to the second floor. Do you remember how to get to the floor boss here or will I have to remind you?"

I rolled my eyes.

"You know I was the first one to clear this floor years ago."

She gave me a brilliant smile. It touched me and I couldn't help but reciprocate her beaming joy. After all It was causing my heart to flutter some.

I haven't felt that in forever.....was I allowed to feel this again? Can I even...after what happened...

I put these thoughts away as Ventus kept going.

"Like you said Em, it's been years. Do you remember?"

Refusing to miss a beat I decided to play along.

"Bottom of the lake, dead center after the weird leg looking rock there is a temple complex. Bait out the floor boss and fight it under water."

"Ohhh so our slow poke remembers."

She laughed. I just gave a grumpy face in response.

"Of course I do, besides you will be relying on my memory once we pass the 30th floor. You know not of what is above that."

I teased her back.

"Or maybe I'll just refuse to accept your knowledge. Instead I'll figure it out myself."

She scoffed with lighthearted spirit.

I could pick up several different notes from her tone. It was teasing, evoking, and maybe even a little sensuous....no not the last one. It couldn't be. She was probably just mocking me.

I quite enjoyed her presence. It was a refreshing back and forth that I never possessed before.

Looking at her I hadn't realized how close she had gotten to me. Ven was within reaching distance.

As she wobbled on both her feet I decided to do the only natural and proper thing in this situation.

Reaching out with my hand, I pinched her nose.

She squirmed immediately.

"Em! What was that for?"

"I don't know, maybe because you're the one wasting time now? Asking me if I remember stuff. We have a floor boss to kill slow poke."

I smiled as I threw her words right back at her.

She rose up to the challenge responding with a grin.

"Oh really, well in that case why don't we make things interesting?"

"What do you mean?"

"Let's make a bet to see who can kill the floor boss first."

She wagged her finger in my face to make her point.

"What does the winner get Ven?"

She thought long and hard about her response.

"Winner gets to make the other person do whatever they want but only once."

Several mischievous images flashed through my head. I could feel my cheeks warming as I began to blush. Ven had started giggling. Clearly she had succeeded in her mission.

"Are you sure you want that?"

"Of course Em, besides there is no way I'd lose."

With a competitive spirit flowing through me I responded.

"You're on Ven!"