Broken Tower Saga: The First Swordsman

Wrik's eyes followed the slender figure leaving before he shook his head. He would never have advantages in conversation with her.

He approached the boulder beside the waterfall and stripped off his clothing. He was wearing the new light armour set apart from the helmet. It took him over five minutes to strip down all. Leaving the clothing and weapons on the boulder, he jumped into the water. The water here was quite clean and fresh. He had washed here more than once before, so there's not much speculation in that.

After swimming down, he found a familiar stone underwater—could be seen through the layer of clear water. Without much to do, Wrik laid his bare body on the rock in relaxation, closing his eyes as water flowed all over his body.

He laid there for an unknown amount of time before sitting up. He finally cleaned up his body, humming a familiar tune he heard before.

These few days had been too easy… he had done nothing but training and lying around. The growth stimulating serum was doing its job well, as he already finished three vials of it. Apparently, you could only drink one on each alternative day after most of its effects washed over.

As far as he was concerned, when all the vials would finish up, his strength and agility might reach 20. While he couldn't say much about perception, Maha Mana or intelligence in that regard. Actually, most of his mental stats are already quite high. And he still couldn't bring out most of it, so there's nothing to complain about.

'Well, there's still time,' he muttered inwardly. But suddenly his thought process was broken as a blue screen appeared in front of him.

[An Emergency Quest was triggered.]

[ EMERGENCY QUEST: RESCUE YOUR COMPANION.

One of your companions, An Byul from the same Inviter, had found herself in great peril in the Infector Nest. She needed your help in this regard, as her survival might depend on it.

Location: map of her current location.]

Wrik stood up immediately. An Byul—he almost forgot about that name. Lucas had mentioned it in the letters as one of the recruits.

Wrik clicked on the tab of the map as a window appeared beside it. It was a map of a subterranean region, though it was not that detailed map. In the middle of it was a red dot. It should be her current location.

"Infector Nest." He muttered out.

He moved straight to the boulder and dressed up. It looked like his lax days were over. Barely, putting up his clothing and armour, Wrik jumped off the boulder and ran towards their shelter. After covering some distance, he could see a figure similarly running in his direction. It was Anton.

"You got the Emergency quest as well?" He asked out loud.

"Yeah," Anton nodded. "And it's not me only. Davin and Tanya got it as well. It seems their colleague is in danger as well."

Wrik's thoughts raced as they moved towards the shelter. "Is it the same location? Infector Nest?"

"Yeah."

When they reached the shelter, Wrik noticed Tanya, and the others were already prepared. Davin was in his usual armour, he didn't get the time to freshen up after the training and Evan was the same. They were waiting for him.

Wrik gave a nod to Tanya as she opened her mouth. "We have to hurry. It would take at least six hours to reach the nearest entrance of the subterranean region."

She tapped her finger in the air as a message appeared in front of Wrik.

[Tanya Syfinn wants to share a file with you.

[Accept | Decline.]

Wrik tapped in the accept tab to find out that she shared a map with him. The map—she had bought from the Salesman. She marked the fastest way to the Infector Nest on the map.

Wrik knew about Infectors, though he hadn't had the opportunity to meet one so far. But he heard about their dreadful names on many occasions. And it looked like he will have his first tussle with it soon.

• • •

In a dark underground region, within strangling darkness, two figures were moving desperately as if their lives depended on it. One of the figures was a tall, broad-shouldered man and the other one was a female with a thin figure. Both of them were struggling in their dash. The broad-shouldered man had a heavy wound in his right arm and underbelly, as blood was still dripping from it.

The other figures' was in the head. Her short black hair was seething with frozen blood. But she didn't rest.

Byul gulped down the blood in her mouth as she ran beside Kevin. It's been over a quarter of an hour since she woke up after she fell into the crater. The first thing she found after waking was: she was on the shoulder of Kevin, who was not really in any shape to carry anyone.

Kevin had carried her limp body through the infectors that chased after them. Though those Infectors were in a similar condition like them—falling into the crater, it didn't lay down. The heavy wound on Kevin's body was proof of that. Byul didn't know how the big man fought those while taking care of her. She didn't know if she could do the same or even attempt the same if she was in his position, so she was immensely grateful to him for that.

They had diverged from Michelle and Jacob after their peril with the herds of Infectors. She could only hope they were in better conditions than her and Kevin.

Her body felt heavy, not to mention the horrible pain in her head. She ran her fingers over her hair and scalp to notice that the bleeding had stopped. Now she can only hope for the pain to go away. The medication didn't seem to help either.

Then she noticed Kevin covered some distance from her when she was checking her head. She rushed as quickly as she could to cut that distance. But abruptly tripped over something and fell over her face. She made the same mistake again.

"Ah!" The pain in her head rose by another margin, as her eye leaf felt heavy. She couldn't even smite the strength to pick herself up. And her consciousness weakened again.

Kevin finally stopped, noting there's no one following behind him. He looked around to finally notice the lying body a few distances away.

He approached the unconscious body of Byul at a struggling moderate pace.

"Hey. .. hey?" He called her, placing his palm on her cheek.

There's no reply.

Kevin didn't try to wake her anymore. He picked her limp body upon his left shoulder, which was not wounded.

Even though Byul was quite small, it felt like a mountain on his shoulder. He almost tripped over the first step but balanced himself as he moved.

__________________

END OF CHAPTER FIFTEEN: INFECTOR NEST

NEXT CHAPTER: ENTERING THE DUNGEON.