Surviving as a Broken Hero

The archer had already loosed another arrow at him. Even though the archer could fire arrows with much more velocity than he could without his bow, it didn’t matter if he already knew where the arrow was going to be.

Koise threw his own arrows with a twisting motion, sending out two at once even as he dropped into a slide across the ground on his knees, the wet slush of the floor soaking his legs.

«Momentum Halt»

The arrow he had sent out with a twisting motion stopped in the air.

The archer, seeing Koise send an arrow toward the wall and towards her, moved to dodge the arrow that would have pierced her chest…

«Momentum Release»

…Just to dodge straight into the trajectory of another arrow, which curved through the hallway and pierced straight through her temple as she repositioned herself after her twirling dodge. The archer’s body dropped, dead before she could even realize what was happening.

Finally, the knight, after having finished his missed charge, whipped himself around towards Koise, who leaped into the air as the knight once again gave chase…

«Shift»

Just as he charged again and swung his sword at Koise with all of his might, satisfaction filled him—certain that the man who had killed his party members was about to taste his cold steel…

Koise swapped places mid-air with the arrow he had previously used «Momentum Halt» on.

«Momentum Release»

The arrow continued through the final small gap between itself and the unprotected head of the knight, dropping him to the ground with the clattering of armor.

Koise landed in a crouch and reached up, catching the arrow in its flight path after it had pierced through the knight’s head.

Koise took a few moments after that to recover his arrows and ensure each of his attackers was truly dead—though the holes through their heads should have been evidence enough, it never hurt to be absolutely certain.

Koise gave the knight’s body one last look before he picked up the archer’s bow on his way into the dungeon. It was a shoddy piece of equipment by his standards, and it was uncared for, but it would be better than continuing to throw arrows with his hands.

‘Idiot…’

Even as the leader, he had been the stupidest one of the lot.

Why call yourself a knight and wear such heavy armor just to start fights without a helmet on?

***

[[Defeat the Ice King!]]

With those words, the system message vanished as quickly as it had appeared, leaving me and Lein wondering how we were supposed to fight 2v1 against a monster that was probably meant for an entire party to fight.

I didn’t have to wonder long, as the Ice King stood up and initiated the battle by flinging its spear at us.

The icy spear flew along the length of the boss room towards us.

‘It’s just ice. I should be able to block it, right?’

With that thought in mind, I stepped forward and summoned my earth gauntlet around my right arm, focusing on making it as hard as stone as I deemed that it wasn’t the time to care about hiding my abilities from Lein—assuming I didn’t want this to end with us both dead.

Concentrating on the trajectory of the spear as it took around a second to cross the room, I lifted my arms, crossed together in an X shape, to block it head-on.

Crack!

The spear slammed into my gauntlet with a force that defied its speed and size, shattering the stone of the gauntlet and knocking me down onto my butt.

I wouldn’t be trying to block the spear head-on again.

The Ice King reached up its hand and gripped the air as particles of cold swirled and formed into another spear in its hand.

“Get closer!”

I started a sprint across the room and resummoned the gauntlet around my hand again, not yet feeling any drain on my stamina.

If we stayed where we were, not only would I be useless in a ranged fight, but the Ice King would just be able to launch powerful spears at us that would be even harder to dodge than if we were closer.

Taking the hint, Lein ran just behind me.

The Ice King’s arm pitched forward, in the process of throwing another spear…

Boom!

Lein threw a hand forward while he ran and an explosion went off next to the Ice King’s elbow, throwing its aim off just enough to cause the ice spear to go wide.

I winced inwardly after the spear collided with one of the crystallized people, shattering the crystal and the person within.

‘Sorry…’

The Ice King focused its gaze on Lein as he realized which of us he needed to worry about at range, solidifying another spear in its hands.

We had only reached around the halfway point.

What we could have—or maybe even should have—done was use the crystallized people as cover to avoid the Ice King’s spears.

It would have been easier than running at him head-on, anyway.

The Ice King took a lower stance, heavy crystals of ice forming around his body as he seemed to nearly double in size from the thick carapace of ice.

Lein tried the same trick again when the Ice King launched his next spear.

Boom!

The explosion went off, but the Ice King’s balance wasn’t thrown off in the slightest, he probably weighed more than triple of what he had weighed before, the extra weight allowing him to shrug off the shockwaves from the blast.

It was up to me to stop or redirect the spear somehow.

Along with the Ice King’s extra weight came the ability to put more force behind his throws. The spear came at us even faster than before.

If I attempted to block it unassisted again, It would probably just pass straight through my gauntlet and arm.

«Strike»

[[Mana: 75/100]]

I used the System skill on my swing and threw my entire body at the spear, moving my gauntlet to intercept it at an angle to try to knock it off course rather than block it directly.

It was a risky move, but my arm made contact near the head of the spear. It felt like hitting a solid wall, the recoil from the strike knocking me back again.

The spear, successfully redirected by my attempt, skidded past us and continued all the way across the room, impacting the far wall and shaking the room with a crashing sound.

A quarter of the way across the room and the Ice King gave up on his ranged attack, taking the time to summon one last spear and jump from the raised platform his throne was on, landing in front of us. The ice carapace around him cracked, reforming with the impact of his landing as a glittering cloud of ice shards showered from him.

Having only three skill uses left, I first attacked with my wrist blade, launching my left hand forward in a southpaw stance as I put my entire weight behind it and let the blade loose.

Thunk!

The blade launched itself into its fully extended position at the same moment my arm fully extended, the full force of the blow, my body weight, and the powered extension of the enchanted blade coming to bear squarely on the Ice King’s ice-covered abdomen.

The blade sank into the ice around him and stopped as it pierced very slightly into the monster’s skin.

I was dragged back with the Ice King, desperately trying to pull my blade—which was stuck within its ice carapace—loose at the same time that it was trying to create distance between us.

My blade came loose with a cracking sound, bringing a chunk of ice with it.

Before the Ice King could reform the carapace around the small gap around its abdomen…

BOOOOM!

A fiery explosion that seemed to suck the air inward launched the Ice King back into the stairs, compressing into space just in front of the gap before letting all of the compressed energy loose in a tight cone—straight into the Ice King’s injured abdomen.

Puff!

A cloud of icy fog obscured him. There was no way it could be that easy, so we both remained on our guard, waiting for the cloud to subside so we could see what had happened to the Ice King.

* * *

Reaper Scans

[Author – Farlight]

[Proofreader – Harley]

Join our discord for updates on releases! https://dsc.gg/reapercomics

* * *

Koise knew his prey was within the dungeon. Others, like the lambs from before, would usually wait outside the dungeon for their prey to exit. It was common knowledge that it was impossible to enter the same version of an instance dungeon with someone unless you were in their party, after all.

However, Koise had surpassed such common knowledge.

During his class ascension, he had unlocked a powerful ability that many others might have overlooked in favor of something flashy or more direct in application.

[[Hunt

With something from the target in hand, declare a target for the Hunt. The target will be unable to escape from your chase, even through safe and instanced areas.

Cooldown: Target of Hunt dies.]]

It made it so that he could go anywhere his hunt target went.

Koise reached into his bag and pulled out a vial of water with diluted blood inside, blood he had scooped from the snow after his first encounter with the man he hunted so diligently.

«Hunt»

He focused on the vial and it vanished.

[[Hunt Target Acquired!]]

Koise walked into the dungeon in pursuit, easily following the scent trail that his target had left behind.

***

Thanks to echo sight, I could clearly feel the Ice King getting up through the fog, his armor gone.

“Be ready…”

Before the fog could fully clear, the Ice King charged back out at us.

Neither of us would have been caught by surprise, even without my echo sight.

It was expected, really. Who would have believed that the boss of such a major dungeon could be defeated so easily?

He moved even faster than before, almost a blur, his unarmored form emerging from the fog and thrusting a spear of ice straight at me.

I had had my eyes shut, reading his movements through echo sight—it was better than regular sight at such close range, allowing me to read everything around me and every movement the Ice King made.

For a moment, it was almost like I could even read his movements before he made them.

I sidestepped the thrust and the Ice King spun around to sweep his spear at my legs, which I leaped over as I felt Lein reach forward to set off another explosion.

Reading the trajectory of his hand, which was pointed towards the Ice King’s face, I set myself up to strike the moment his snap finished and the explosion went off.

Before I could make my move, I felt something moving towards me at such a speed that I only had time to disperse the earth around my hand into armor over my neck the moment before an arrow hit me with such force that I was knocked to the side.