ERode

Children of the Otherworld - An Isekai Story

So anyways, I figured I may as well just go kill nearly all of them.

Children of the Otherworld - An Isekai Story

Character

Skills

• Master of Seas ★★★★★★
• Element Resistance ★★★
• Combat Sense ★
• Iron Skin ★

Inventory

• Nicked One-Handed Sword
• Rope

How much of it was luck? How much of it was instinct? How much of it was guidance?

Ever since he had broken out and escaped from the beach, Belo had felt a strange buzzing in his mind, a sharp prickling upon his skin. As if the gazes of those long-limbed killers contained knives, their intents crystallizing upon his flesh before their arrows could. And, by following that sensation alone, he had hurled his knife into the brush and slew someone without even seeing them.

Even in his prime, even when he was amped up on amphetamines and boarding a ship thrice the size of his village, he had not felt this dialed in, this focused.

But there was no time to linger, and the barks of the ones in front pulled him away from his desire to loot the dead. No boot knife now, just a sword that one of the others had tossed at him, and that child still, weighing upon his form. Of the band he was cleaving through the forest in, there were few that shared the same complexions as the others. It was motley collection of muscled creatures, ones that had the same long ears as his own, the same stubby nose. Some were blue, others were red, still more were green and a few were brown. All of them bore skin that peeled though, skin that curled from sunburns and saltwear, roughened up by the ocean. A familiar look, one that was separate from his own memories only by the inclusion of steel weapons and spears, of a war-like temperament with the wounds to match. Chopping through the verdant abyss was a band that totalled perhaps 25, but only 8 of them looked more fit than Belo himself. The rest? Children, denoted by their relatively scrawnier size, the baby fat that clung to their stomach and their cheeks. Women, denoted by their wide hips and braided hair, the swaddle of blankets that they wrapped babes in.

And of the men, the warriors that had managed to wrest a few beating hearts out from the slaughter that they had fled? The largest of them remained the rear-guard, arrows sticking out from his shoulders and back, a wooden doorframe held by its handle as a makeshift shield. The others formed a perimeter around more valuable lives, helping them as they stumbled over roots and pushed through brush, their brows furrowed with a desperate focus. He could understand it too, the cold calculation that any small village would form.

Women birthed children. Children became adults. So long as those elements survived, the village could too. So it was the task of the old and the strong to lay down their own lives. Humans chose civilization. But if they couldn’t be treated as humans, then they had to chose survival.

A pinprick, hot against Belo’s shoulder. He twisted out of the way, a bolt flying past and burying into the back of a female. Three heartbeats later and he was running past her, too encumbered by the child on his shoulder to offer her a helping hand. More arrows flitted through the shadows cast by the leaves, a whistling song in a foreign tongue causing them to twist and turn. The rearguard collapsed, a bulb-tipped arrow sinking into his makeshift shield before bursting into a tangle of thorned vines. He let out a gurgled roar, struggling against his bindings, before three more arrows opened up three more holes in his face.

Meanwhile, trees creaked and groaned in the front, bending down with all the force of falling timber, yet not snapping at the trunk. Their pliability, another impossibility brought by the sorcery of the lithe hunters, cleft the animal trail in half and smashed three others underneath. Their spines and ribs popped like corn, lungs crushed so thoroughly that they couldn’t even rasp out their last breath. And the ones that tried to clamber over the bent-over trees met similarly cruel ends as the branches twisted into spears and skewered them like kebabs. It hadn’t even been a half hour since he had thrown his knife, had gotten a lucky hit that scored a second kill. And now, like that, ten had died. Died without Belo even seeing who killed them.

Pinpricks of malice, a sense of intensifying danger. Echoing through the wilderness were the melodies of horns and flutes, a braying, haunting tune to accompany the warband that had descended upon the forest.

Others tried to organize within the chaos, but the first to break were the warriors themselves, turning heel and rushing with swords and sticks towards their unseen foe. Belo couldn’t spare them a glance either, knew that while there was a place for courage, they were doomed from the get-go. He could manage firearms within tight corridors and the maze of shipping containers, but out here? Where nature itself was weaponized and where arrows could twist at the whims of archers?

That fucking piece of shit spirit!

Fury battered down the fear, as more lives fell to the machinations of the warband. He made his choice again and again. It would be easier, wouldn’t it, if he had just dropped the child? Lighten his load, pick up his pace? He hardly knew any of them, felt nothing more than a strange sense of injustice at seeing what was happening to them. And oh how quickly the optimism in their faces changed, how quickly they turned from living, breathing creatures into corpses that fed the forest. He had no attachment to them. But he knew where he stood still.

Belo had chosen to involve himself with the life of one child. If nothing else, he had to see that through.

And so, when the ground opened up, exposing a natural cave within which only moss and stone grew, he didn’t hesitate either to jump in, dropping into the gloom.

He was the only one who did.

…

Callused feet padded through tunnels illuminated only by bioluminescent fungi.

There were no sounds of pursuit anymore. Perhaps the warband knew that their sorceries were ill-suited for the deep earth, that their arrows were less valuable in close-quarters. Perhaps they grew bored and left. Perhaps they drew blades and approached with stealth.

No matter.

Belo collapsed behind a cropping of stone, letting the child he carried slump off his shoulder. He hadn’t run so pointlessly for years, his body sticky with sweat. The taste of iron still hovered in the air and he pressed his fingers against his forehead, rubbing at the dried flakes that had clung to his skin stubbornly. Something sticky rubbed against his shoulder, the fabrics of his shirt bunching up in a strange way. Had he gotten injured somehow? With his other hand, he poked and prodded his flesh, trying to feel for a pain that…wasn’t there.

That made sense. The shoulder that had been sticky with blood was the shoulder that he had hefted the child upon. Only now, in the quiet, could he take a breath and take a look.

A bud-tipped arrow stuck out of the child’s back, the wound oozing a black blood.

It hadn’t been by some miracle that he had made it out unscathed. It wasn’t simply on the merit of his new instincts, in his strength and his experience.

Belo stared at it, his mind scrambling for solutions even as his thoughts crystallized into a singular condemnation.

He had survived their hunt because he had a shield.

Iris Ascendis

Heh.

Children of the Otherworld - An Isekai Story

Isn’t that in the hider right there? Labelled Inara?

Why Were We Reincarnated as Orcs?!

Strange noises and insectoid skitterings.

Low-light conditions and unfavorable terrain.

A threat unseen, but a threat that wasn’t explosively aggressive.

Time to leave then.

Esfir recalled the words of that adult orc, the words that Lazash had shared with them. There was something about the caves that presented a threat. Something about the inhabitants of that cave that was worth investigating, but at a latter time. As far as the illumination provided at the mouth of the cave offered, however, there was no way to delve deeper, no way to catch a glimpse of the creature that seemed to stalk her in the gloom. If that was the case, and if it would not pounce her immediately?

Then she would back off, one step at a time, her eyes still searching in the darkness for a sign of danger even as her feet brought her closer to the yellowed hues of sunshine. It ultimately wasn’t a productive venture, but that was fine. There was still time.

Though perhaps she was a bit bruised, of both body and ego. So much for that line.
@Zeroth

Blades of Iron Roses: An Anime-Inspired Knight RP

_{@Psyker Landshark}

"Good habit to observe, Sir Renar," Serenity responded with a shallow nod. There was something pleasant about observing the tangible growth of others. "Allow me to accompany the two of you then. An outsider's gaze may reveal a fair bit more than an insider's."

...

It would be gratuitous to call Elias skilled. His was the level in which an encounter with the Golden Boars or the Bandit King's men would have spelled a brutal end. A stiffness of the limbs, an inflexibility of thought. The beloved younger brother must have experienced Renar's unorthodox style before, but at certain points, his hesitation still overwhelmed him, a confusion flickering in the movement of his training sword. A year or two off still, before his knighthood could be earned on merit. Or perhaps just a few meaningful encounters would be what Elias needed to make a breakthrough. Experience, it was a wonderful boon indeed.

Serenity tapped a finger against her side, feeling for the ghost of an old wound. Nothing like pain to motivate.

"A fair effort, Elias," she spoke, approaching the two as the youth struck the dirt one last time. "It's hard to say whether or not the Ferotorrum School is as good a fit for you as it is for Sir Galmeth, but your repetitions shine through. Your back leg has a habit of straightening out too often, and you telegraph your thrusts with the seizing up of your shoulder. Flexibility overall's lacking, which is a problem for anyone who's putting on muscle without stretching regularly."

Serenity pulled a wooden sword from the racks nearby, swaying it between pinched fingers.

"Do you cross-train?"

Wicked Wings: An Interest Check

Will eyeball this for now. My only other Mecha RP is molasses, alas.

Iris Ascendis

Feels bad when you get the title drop location...but the Raja situation is more immediate and interesting.

Iris Ascendis

_@Nanaya

That was the thing, wasn’t it?

In the pursuit of knowledge, there were always those sorts of divergences. What classes did you choose to attend? What did you do with your limited resources? How much time do you spend on what different tasks? Where were you, physically?

And this too, was a breakpoint. This too, was something that Otis had to decide upon.

Thankfully, it was pretty easy to decide here. Between the relative permanence of a tower that was newly-built, a tower that he would likely encounter simply by merit of following the carriages that would bring everyone to their dorms, and this encounter with the principal, who carried Gulliver’s twin with all the care of a sack of potatoes, there was no way he wouldn’t pursue the latter. His situation was unique, his Ethos was unknown, his situation with his doppelganger was unexplained, and the spinning of the Foreteller’s clock never bore fruit. He clearly wasn’t as powerful as Valen Leuvalt, and yet received preferential treatment compared to that aristocrat. Tomorrow this time? There was no guarantee that the flame-haired principal would be performing this same action, doing this same thing.

So what was there to do, really?

The Strigidae turned on his heel, checked that his revolver was loaded, considered his escape routes, and followed after her, his steps the measured cadence of someone who knew exactly where he was going. He couldn’t dodge gazes from ten different directions, but so long as his movements were natural and in control, he could convince at least nine of those gazes not to pay him any mind.

Iris Ascendis

>uses magic to heal herself
>continues to suffer rebound

A true endless loop.