Storm Strider

Three days passed by in the blink of an eye, but Marisol was no closer to being able to hack down a tree with a triple-spin kick than she was three days ago.

While Kuku had spent the past three days running around the island, harvesting fruits and catching crabs for their daily meals, she’d picked a particularly thin tree at the edge of the clearing and made it her target dummy—the aim had been to practise speed on the first day, the spin on the second day, and immediately master the kick on top of the first two elements on the third day. It was how she’d always practised her dance techniques; by breaking down and practising a difficult technique’s constituent parts individually, she’d taught herself most of her mama’s techniques by simple observation and mastered all of them within a week at most.

But something was different about the War Jump.

It was midday. The azure sky was clear, sunlight burning across the verdant grass of the clearing. Standing thirty metres away from her target tree, she dragged a leg back, leaned her upper body forward in a Sand-Dancer’s starting posture, and exhaled coolly. Expelling all of the air in her lungs made her muscles tighter, and was essential at the beginning of every routine. It was common sense; the tighter her body was, the faster she could skate, and the faster she could skate, the faster she could spin.

Attempt number five hundred and ninety-nine.

You got this, Marisol.

She let her head dip for a moment, as though she were about to nod off standing, and then took off skating. Her glaives carved through the hard soil as her forward-leaning torso gave her momentum, her swinging arms giving her balance, control—gritting her teeth, sucking in a sharp breath, she launched into the air ten metres before the tree, clenching her thighs and folding her arms across her torso as she kicked her right glaive out.

But she wasn’t controlling anything.

She couldn’t see anything mid-spin.

The world was a hazy, spinning blur as she twirled through the air, and she knew, before she even reached the tree, that her glaive wasn’t going to go through.

Bracing herself for the painful impact, she winced as the sharp edge of her glaive slammed into the bark, and the impact reverberated through her entire body as she landed. Thank the Great Makers she knew how to break a fall, because she landed hard on her back with her forearms hitting the ground first, all of the air knocked right out of her lungs; if she hadn’t stopped herself from going a hundred percent on the power, not only would she have failed to cut through the tree, she would also have broken her glaives for sure.

Birds chirped around the clearing. The wind blew gently across the clearing, ruffling the grass beneath her. She stayed on the ground, staring up at the sky, her kicking leg pulled in and her hands wrapped around her throbbing glaive.

She couldn’t stand right now even if she tried.

… I don’t get it.

Are my glaives just not sharp enough or what?

In response, the Archive appeared clinging onto the tree, tapping the bark with its little water strider legs.

[Your glaives are more than sharp enough,] it answered. [If you were to simply stand here and saw your glaives back and forth, you would eventually be able to cut down this tree. The problem, then, has nothing to do with its sharpness.]

…

Thankfully, the Archive didn’t finish the thought. She would’ve just felt even worse about herself, because the truth was, she did know what the problem was.

She was afraid.

That speed at the moment of launch, that spin in the air, and that sensation of the world melting around her—turning into blinding flashes and sparkles of light—it was all too much for her. She was sure the speed wasn’t easier to control and endure with her attribute levels enhancing her body to inhuman degrees, but, more importantly… she really was just afraid of going so fast.

She couldn’t help but think of what’d happen if she failed—if she let go and went too fast and shattered her glaive against the tree. Would she have to sit here for an entire month waiting for it to heal? Would it take longer because it wasn’t a normal human leg? Would she become like her mama, never to take a step without limping ever again?

How’d you do it, mama?

I’ve slain a leviathan, I’ve skated through a storm, I’ve outrun crab bandits on giant roots, and a simple Sand-Dancer’s double spin is what I’m really afraid of?

...

But she was afraid of turning out like her bed-bound mama, and there was no arguing about that.

This was the jump that'd put her mama out of commission, but she had to master this jump by the end of the day. There was no telling at which hour the Blackclaw Marauders would decide to set sail for the open seas, and she’d been scouting their harbour outpost the past few days, checking on their ship’s repair progress. Last she saw them this morning, their full sails were already unfurled and their mooring ropes prepared to be hacked off. If they left before evening, she only had around five, maybe six more hours before she had to kick them all down or die trying.

So when Kuku burst through the clearing with a dozen crab legs held over his head, she immediately sat up and sent him a cheery smile.

Lunch first.

Then, I guess I’ll… get back to falling on my ass over and over again.

While Kuku got to work washing the bloody crab legs off in a nearby river stream—his hut was pretty close to the waterfall at the top of the cliff—she skipped over to the outdoor bonfire and got to work starting a flame. By now she’d gotten used to clicking her glaives together to start a fire, so Kuku returned to see her already kicked back on the grass, holding one of her glaives over the fire.

He wasted no time slapping the crab legs onto her glaive and then plopping down next to her, waiting patiently for the food to cook.

Admittedly, she’d grown a little tired of eating nothing but crab the past three days, but when the legs were cooked and the two of them picked out the largest ones to slurp out first, she immediately thought they were a hundred times better than those white lumps of flesh the Archive still couldn’t identify. It helped that crabs were technically ‘bugs of the sea’, too, so they gave her a fair amount of points to work with.

Not that Kuku could see her status screen that she’d always be staring at during meals.

[// STATUS]

[Name: Marisol Vellamira]

[Class: Water Strider]

[BloodVolume: 5.0/5.1 (98%), Strain: 153/550 (28%)]

[Unallocated Points: 32]

[Strength: 4, Speed: 6, Dexterity: 3, Toughness: 6, Perceptivity: 2, Strain Limit: 550]

[// MUTATION TREE]

[T1 | Striding Glaives]

{T1 Branch Mutations | ???}

[T2 | Ripple Sensors | Hydrofuge Spines]

{T2 Branch Mutations | ??? | ???}

[T3 Core Mutation | Preapical Claws | Gliding Wings | Segmented Setae] 150P

{T3 Branch Mutations | ??? | ??? | ???}

[// UNIQUE SWARMSTEEL LIST ]

… She felt she could’ve gotten more points if she just ate more, but unfortunately there was a soft limit to how much crab she could eat per meal—that limit being her stomach size, of course. As a Sand-Dancer, and a poor one on top of that, she’d never gotten into the habit of indulging in more food than absolutely necessary for her day-to-day jobs. If she were a sweller lady with a thicker belly, maybe she’d be able to double her point gain, but as things stood, she really couldn’t stuff more than a dozen crab legs down her throat before she’d start feeling sick.

She was sure she was a bit allergic to crabs, too. The first time she’d shared them with Kuku, she woke up in the middle of the night to vomit in the shrubs. The morning after she’d felt sick to the bone, so even now, she was hesitant to eat more than six or seven legs per meal. She’d fill the rest of her stomach with the fruits Kuku picked as side dishes.

[Your attribute levels are already plenty high enough for the enemies you are facing,] the Archive muttered as she kept staring at the numbers, her eyes blank and far away. [There is such a thing as bloating and getting food poisoning on bug flesh—because they are so dense in protein and folic acid, a typical human should not be able to wolf down as much as you have the past three days. I am hereby forbidding you from eating crabs until at least the next month. You have been gaining an average of ninety points per day the past three days, which is eighteen times the recommended daily limit for an average human, and more than double the recommended daily limit of an average Hasharana in training. Keep this up for a day or two longer, and you will either mutate unwanted crab traits or die an agonising death by point poisoning within the month.]

I’d like to stop eating too, but–

[It is not about points and attribute levels, nor about any of the tier three core mutations you can choose to unlock. I can tell you now that there is no core mutation for the water strider class that will allow you to overcome this obstacle,] the Archive said plainly. [It is fear. If you cannot conquer fear with your own heart, it does not matter how many points you put into strength and speed and toughness. Your mind will unconsciously limit your power output and make it so it is as though you did not increase your attribute levels at all.]

… But what other choice do I have?

She cracked down on another crab leg, forcing herself to chew on the juicy flesh as she glared at the tree that glared back at her—taunting her to try putting a dent in it again.

If I can’t even chop that tree down, she thought, lips twisting, I won’t be able to get home to mama in time.

[...]

Quite suddenly, Kuku tapped her on the shoulder with his pincer and made her look his way.

His crab helmet was still as expressionless as ever—if his jiggly protruding eye stalks counted as ‘emotion’, then maybe that wasn’t true—but as he skipped over to the tree and started climbing it, she thought he seemed a little excited. A little giddy.

What’s he trying to do now?

She watched, brows furrowed, as he climbed to the very top of the gargantuan tree, nearly twenty metres overhead. Now, she wasn’t worried about him falling—they’d both climbed higher before without any harnesses—but she couldn’t help being a tad bit worried seeing him wave down at her all cheerily.

She waved back, if not only because it was the only reasonable response, but if she knew he was going to jump off, she would’ve absolutely shaken her head ‘no’.

What?

Waitwaitwaitwaitwait–

She shot up to her glaives and tried skating over to catch him, and she made it just in time—Kuku jumped right off and did a frontflip on the way down, landing in her arms and making her knees buckle.

Then, he laughed and flung his arms around her neck, nuzzling the top of his crab helmet against her cheek.

…

She let him off. She waited until he stabilised himself. Then she grabbed his shoulders and shook him hard, gritting her teeth and twitching an eye in irritation.

“Why’d you do that?” she snapped. “What if I didn’t make it over in time? What if I was bloated from all the crabs you’ve been feeding me? What if I decided to blink and missed you jumping off? You ain’t an insect-human like the Marauders, aren’t you? What would you have done if I didn’t catch you?”

In response, Kuku thumped his heart with his pincer, puffing his chest out as though to say ‘I knew you would catch me’.

[… Some groups of people have higher tolerance level when it comes to resisting the mutations brought about by eating insect flesh,] the Archive said idly. [A lot of factors go into determining tolerant levels—genetics, upbringing, strength of will, et cetera—but if the boy has been consistent eating small bites of crabs since he was a young child, it would explain how he possesses inhuman strength and toughness while maintaining most of his human form on the surface. His tolerance level is naturally higher than most other people.]

[Even if you had not caught him, I believe he would have been fine.]

...

Letting out a shaky, shuddering breath, she let go of him and turned around, putting her face in her hands.

She didn’t understand.

Was that what it meant to be ‘fearless’?

Putting her own life in someone else’s hands, even though Kuku had only met her three days ago and had no idea how strong she actually was?

Wasn’t that just ‘recklessness’ more than anything else?

[... Perhaps it is not about the amount of time he has spent with you,] the Archive said. [To him, the only remaining tribesman on this island, you are the only one he can trust, and trust may not always have anything to do with how much time one physically spends with another.]

She rubbed her brows, trying to rub all the tension out of her face. If it ain’t about time, then what is ‘trust’ built on? We’ve only met a few days ago as well—do you trust me with everything you have?

[Yes.]

And the Archive responded so quickly and so confidently that, for a second, she blinked and stared blankly through the forest.

… Why?

The little water strider shrugged on her shoulder. [Because I am integrated with your cervical spine, and I ‘feel’ as though I have been with you in spirit for aeons. I trust you very much so, and thus, I can claim I will follow you without any fear.]

[Even if you have only known the exact technique of the War Jump for three days, has it really only been three days, Marisol?]

…

She was about to croak out a response when she heard the familiar, heavy footsteps through the forest again, and she whirled to see silhouettes hacking through the clearing on the other side.

They found us?

How?

While Kuku jumped and skittered behind her, she backed away from the hut and eyed the bonfire she’d left unattended; the winds were blowing faster, fanning more air into the flames and making the kindlings burn harder. As a result, the smoke that she’d usually be paying attention to was allowed to waft far, far overhead—the Marauders must’ve been patrolling nearby to begin with, but the moment they saw the smoke…

Marisol didn’t even want to see them cutting through the clearing.

Pointing up at the trees to tell Kuku to start climbing, she whirled and started skating the other way, purposefully carving through the grass as loud as she could to divert attention away from the little boy.

Half a moment later, the Blackclaw Marauders burst into the clearing with a chorus of bloody shouts.

[... Into the forest, Marisol,] the Archive said. [You must defeat them there, or die trying.]

[Objective #7: Defeat the Blackclaw Marauders]

[Time Limit: 6 hours]

[Reward: Departure from this landmass]

[Failure: Indefinite residence on this landmass]