Forest of Desire (The Alchemist Book #2): LitRPG Series Read online

  “There’s no way up!” Having set Valanil down, the lix scanned the cliff face above him. It was sheer rock, so sheer that it looked like it had been cut with a knife. No holes or anything else they could have used as footholds were anywhere to be seen.

  “We can’t just stand here. Let’s go! Head for the forest,” Tailyn barked, still giving orders even though it looked like the herbalist was back to her normal self. The fire burned itself out — an entire minute had gone by since the start of the battle.

  “Valia, now!” he yelled, and Tartila Mine was filled with the wild yelping of summoned creatures. Fifteen of the monsters appeared, all at level fifteen — Valia turned out to be maxed out. With a long howl, they headed toward the worm, though it was more a slog than a dash. They were up to their bellies in goo, and they had to fight for every step, but they did their job by attracting attention. The worm’s next round of spittle was aimed at them rather than at the humans or the lix.

  “Keep going — don’t stop!” Tailyn called. Right then, Griala’s sprouts decided to chime in, excited about an unexpected breakfast. They popped so quickly out of the water that Valia’s animals were swallowed whole in a matter of moments. After putting up a bit of a fight, they found themselves pinned by a jungle of plants. The girl frowned. The frames for her summoned creatures showed how fast their shields dropped, and there wasn’t anything she could do about it.

  But the worm could.

  A veritable salvo of acidic spittle sent clouds of steam billowing into the air. The area around the animals ended up black and scorched, Valia’s animals practically glued in place right in the middle. They couldn’t move — the sticky acid both dissolved them and held them together, rendering them entirely motionless. White tentacles shot up to grab their prey, but the green carpet had a response ready. The goo behind the worm exploded as another party entered the fray.

  Experiment 26 “Griala” (monster). No class. No age. No level.

  The hair on the back of Tailyn’s neck stood up when he saw the monster. Looking like nothing else he’d seen before, the only thing the boy could compare it to was a haystack. It was an enormous chunk of thick interwoven stalks reminiscent of a bundle of snakes ducking in, out, and around each other in a mesmerizing dance. Griala didn’t have one particular shape. Instead, it stood tall like a tower only to quickly drop into a ball, and then a pancake. Hefty braids reached out toward the worm. Finally noticing what was going on, the latter whirled around, sending a series of acidic spittle smacking harmlessly into Griala’s body. It was not to be stopped. In fact, the plant regenerated faster than the acid could eat away at it.

  The braids reached the worm, and that was when it unleashed its second weapon. Or really, judging by the way it looked, its first. The giant body began weaving lithely from side to side, the mouth dipping down to bite chunks off the creeping plant.

  “Don’t stop!” Regardless of the horrifying spectacle, Tailyn wasn’t about to forget his own wellbeing. Whoever won the duel was presumably going to be looking for a human snack immediately afterward, so the group needed to get away.

  But they didn’t get far. A few meters into the goo, sprouts popped up to start jabbing at their shields. Griala was clearly capable of dividing its focus, and it wasn’t going to let its prey escape.

  Ka-Li.

  The waves of fire rolled out in every direction to force back the plants. But they weren’t able to make any progress — Tailyn’s flames would have killed anyone who tried to make their way through it. Unless…

  “Valanil, how many salamander potions do you have?”

  “One bottle.” The herbalist shook herself finally and pulled out a flask filled with an orange liquid. After staring at it for a few seconds, she continued. “But I’m not giving it up. It’s mine!”

  “Nobody’s trying to take it from you. If I’m not back in a minute, summon your bukamonster — let them eat it. Okay, I’ll be right back!”

  But Tailyn didn’t hear if anyone answered — he was already in his workshop. As might have been expected, the store didn’t work during combat. He couldn’t get new cards, either. But alchemists definitely had an advantage over other people in that they could make potions even in the middle of a pitched battle.

  That did take some investment, however. Not all the ingredients were in Tailyn’s bag, so he had to watch his coins slip away like water into sand. But he didn’t have a choice. The group needed help.

  You created Salamander Potion (20).

  2522 coins remaining in your account.

  Each potion was enough to ignore fire for twenty-seven seconds, the maximum Tailyn’s parameters allowed for. But even that seemed incredible to the boy — for the first half a minute, the sprouts would burn away, and then they could run the hundred meters. And they could do that five times. Tailyn hoped that would get them far enough away from the two infuriated monsters.

  As he returned to the real world, he found himself staring at a battle in full swing. The worm and Griala were hammering each other so hard that chunks were flying everywhere. After tearing off enormous slabs of green flesh, the worm wasn’t even bothering to swallow, just spitting them out and going back for more. But Griala wasn’t backing down. Its braids pierced right through its opponent, though they immediately turned to ash, burned away by the acid. The worm had incredible regeneration. With the holes closing up even before the plant monster could make more, it was terrifying just to think where the creature was finding the strength. The mine was apparently completely under its sway.

  Tailyn handed out the flasks and repeated his waves of fire, freeing the surrounding area of sprouts. Thirty seconds ticked interminably by. Not only that, but Griala seemed to be getting used to the temperature, with sprouts beginning to push right into the first. And while they burned away quickly at the beginning, with each passing second the green carpet grew just a tad faster than it was taken out. The plant beast was going to be able to withstand the waves of fire soon enough.

  “Send out two waves in every direction next time,” Valanil said as she noticed the same thing the boy was looking at. She was back if trying not to look in the direction of the worm. And as soon as it was time, she yelled to the group.

  “Drink up! Let’s go!”

  After emptying his flask with a single gulp, Tailyn turned his hermetic seal back on. One significant disadvantage alchemists had in comparison with mages was that they had to actually drink their potions. And that meant opening his face guard, letting in the poisonous fumes and the smell of burning plants. The only saving grace was that as soon as he turned his hermetical seal back on immediately afterwards, his suit got rid of the poison and unpleasant odors. It would have been rough otherwise. Taking a deep breath, the boy jumped into the fire. The last time he’d spent a couple seconds in his own flames, the result had been unpleasant, as he’d been baked alive, and his regeneration had been put through its paces. But everything that time was simple. The fire licked harmlessly at his external shield, not so much as heating up the air inside his outfit. He didn’t even have to turn on his cooling system, in fact. And after running a hundred meters to the edge of the first wave, Tailyn sent out another round. It took eight charges, or two waves per vector, since he had to cut down the plants popping up directly behind them, too. Downing one of his magic enhancement flasks added just a bit more damage to Griala.

  That helped. Over the next thirty seconds, the plants couldn’t do anything about the fire regardless of how desperately the monster wanted to get at the fugitives. The battle it was fighting with the worm had turned into a contest to see which would get tired of the whole thing first. Neither were capable of destroying the other, which meant one of them would eventually realize they were much better off chasing down the scrumptious humans rather than continuing to flail away at their current opponent.

  “We’re running as far as we can this time,” Valanil said. “As soon as your shield drops below half, yell as loud as you can, and Tailyn will resto
re it. The only way we’re stopping is if we get slowed down. Keep those flasks at the ready!”

  Once again, the long thirty seconds began, but Valanil suddenly broke it with a yell.

  “Valia, what did I just say?! Your shield is below thirty percent, and you haven’t said anything. Tailyn can’t see the values! Are you trying to die?”

  Ka-Li.

  Tailyn reacted faster than the stunned girl, dumping three shield restorations into her.

  “I… Well, I…” Valia couldn’t figure out an excuse or a way to turn the tables on the woman.

  “Think faster, little duchess! This isn’t the palace, and we aren’t your nannies out to kiss your ass. Around here, they’ll eat you without a second thought. Ka-Do-Gir, what would you say our prospects look like?”

  “It’s two kilometers to the forest. Those two are busy with each other, so we can get away. But we have to distract them.”

  “I’ll handle that. Valia, what’s the recharge time for your summoning card?”

  “Twenty-four hours.”

  “No good… Okay, we’ll see what my bukamonster can do. Get ready! Like I said, we’re not stopping this time. Go!”

  The quartet took off like a team of trotters. At least, four of them did, with Valia squealing as the lix pulled her off her feet.

  “It’s faster this way. You’re too slow!”

  It was true. The girl hadn’t put anything into strength or agility, which meant she could only make it a hundred meters in the twenty seconds they had, getting her just to the end of the wave of fire. But with the lix carrying her, they covered the distance twice as fast.

  “He’s off!” Valanil yelled as another participant joined the fight. It was a terrifying, disfigured monster at level twenty-four. Having cleared level twenty herself, Valanil was able to summon creatures much stronger than she was. And her bukamonster squelched through the goo into the mines, attracting the plant’s attention as it went.

  The local fauna also liked what they saw.

  As it turned out, the worm wasn’t the only creature looking for warm meat, and as usual it was Ka-Do-Gir who first saw the threat.

  “Lervans!”

  An avalanche of leaping cockroaches appeared out of the depths of the swamp. They were surrounding a powerful, rhino-like animal, and as lightning flashed periodically next to it, the lervans switched out to let hungrier friends in for a snack.

  Experiment 118 (monster). No class. No age. No level.

  The creature just had a number, with no name to speak of. And as soon as it noticed the bukamonster, it rumbled off briskly in the latter’s direction. Griala’s sprouts disappeared as the monster approached, the electricity apparently doing more damage than the worm’s brute force. Valanil sent her creature away from the group. But that didn’t help much, as the bukamonster soon found itself impaled on a horn and turned into black dust. The monster roared angrily — presumably, it had been looking forward to chowing down on its prey. Turning its tiny eyes on the group sprinting away from it, the rhino charged with the speed of a runaway horse. The lervans, in turn, yelped piteously as they failed to keep up. Their food was getting away.

  “You all run — I’ll hold it back!” Tailyn yelled, turning to face their new assailant. Five waves of fire leaped off in its direction, but the rhino didn’t even try to stop. It just sent its impressive hulk hurtling straight through. As electricity crackled along its sides to form some kind of protective sphere, the fire turned out to be entirely harmless. Hatred glared in its eyes. Though Tailyn met its stare and took off running in the opposite direction from the forest, determined to make sure the group survived. No, to make sure Valia survived.

  “Tailyn, no!” The girl only noticed what was going on when the two were already a good distance away from each other. Tailyn had stopped and was preparing to meet the rhino, the latter just accelerating when it saw its victim standing there motionless. Lowering its head, it plowed forward in a blind attempt to drain Tailyn’s strength with its horn. And that saved the boy. However powerful the beast was, the boy was still able to leap out of the way at the last second, though the creature’s electric flashes nearly halved Tailyn’s shield as it hurtled by.

  But Tailyn didn’t hear the crash that happened a moment later. He’d dipped head-first into the goo, his body shaking with convulsions from an electric strike the likes of which he’d never felt before. His world turned upside down, and he even lost consciousness, but that was when the lix appeared next to him to pull him back out into the air.

  “They’ll be fine without me,” Ka-Do-Gir said, pointing back at Valia and Valanil. Only the latter was running, as the herbalist was carrying the girl. “118 won’t be in time to stop them. But it’s about to wake up.”

  Tailyn glanced over groggily at the rhino’s body. The hulk was lying against the cliff a few dozen meters away, the water around it bubbling and hissing. Barely holding on to his senses, the boy was still able to materialize three flasks full of acid.

  “Throw these at it. I can’t get them that far.”

  Fire did nothing to the monster. Electricity, presumably, didn’t do anything, either. The only thing that had hurt it so far was smashing into the cliff, the latter even crumpling under the impact. It was the only blemish to be seen.

  The flasks shattered in midair before ever reaching the monster, its electric shield doing the trick. But that wasn’t enough to stop their contents. As the green liquid splashed across the smooth skin, steam billowed up, and ugly sores broke out all over the rhinoceros. And while they covered back up fairly quickly, it was clear which weapon worked against the monster. Some kind of acid spray. Or an acid bath.

  “Lervans!” Ka-Do-Gir whirled around and knocked several of the cockroaches back with one lithe motion. All the way down at level three, they weren’t able to put up much of a fight individually, though there were so many of them that the cumulative weight was overwhelming.

  Ka-Li.

  Tailyn cut loose another few waves to hold the creatures back. Having made her peace with the fact that she needed to run, Valia wasn’t even looking back, and while there weren’t really any sprouts where she was, she still wasn’t going that quickly. If the rhino decided to head after them, it was going to catch them before they could make it to the forest.

  “Run! We have to pull it away!” Tailyn yelled, glancing over at the two giants battling it out. Both the worm and Griala were looking worn out. Neither of them was moving as quickly, neither showing the same cut or jab they had at the beginning. Soon, it was going to occur to them that continuing the duel was pointless.

  And that meant they needed someone new to fight.

  The dragon slipped off Tailyn’s wrist and wagged its tail in greeting. The boy pointed at the rhino’s face and gave the fateful command.

  Attack!

  His companion was much faster than he was. And if he could get the rhinoceros paying attention to Li-Ho-Dun, he and the lix would be able to catch up to the others. Sure, Tailyn knew his legendary card was going to lose a charge, but he didn’t see any other move he could make.

  There was no need to repeat the command. The dragon soared off toward its opponent, though it behaved surprisingly intelligently. Instead of just flying straight into the creature’s electricity, the dragon circled around and froze right in front of the horn as the rhino just began to regain consciousness. The monster growled, twitched, tried to open its beady eyes — Tailyn saw all that on his separate screen. And that meant the protection wasn’t that advanced, after all. Or the frontal blow had taken it out. Whatever the case, there wasn’t any lightning flashing, and the dragon chose that moment to attack.

  Just as the rhino pulled its eyes open, a stream of the dragon’s primordial flame hit one of them. Tailyn hadn’t realized how powerful his companion was, and his jaw fell in shock — half the monster’s face was scorched, its eye burst, and the skin melted away to reveal steel bones and some kind of wires. The rhino wasn’t a living being. It was
some kind of ancient mechanism.

  And that was when the monster showed off how loud it could roar. It felt like the mountains themselves were shaken to their foundation. Both Ka-Do-Gir and the boy were hit with dazed debuffs, holding them in place for an entire minute, though they weren’t knocked unconscious. And that was huge. Tailyn still hadn’t learned completely how to control his companion, so he continued issuing mental orders in the hopes that the dragon would understand them.