The Wheel Of Fortune

“Hey, hey, you are an Extander, right? Do something. What are you standing there for?”

I snap out of my daze at the statement and look at my date. I don’t know when he has stood up and now, he glancing between the door and me back and forth. His statement manages to draw the attention of people around our table. Their sudden hopeful expressions are not easy to ignore. While the rest still work on blocking the door, I throw my date a hateful glance before moving to push past the crowd.

It is my fault to agree to the date. I was trying to keep up with him at first but why the hell is he so arrogant? Since I am almost regular in this café, I have familiarized myself with the layout. I exit from the back door almost crashing into the woman running away from the alley. I look around at the people running to avoid slowly pouring out of the alley on the right of the café.

Some chose to leave their car in the middle of the road to save their lives, some entered the building nearest them while the rest keep running away. Three tuhus in the middle of the road run wild as they try to capture humans. A deep powerful growl from my right forces me to step back and summon my weapon. I want to call Ryouhei for help but the tuhu headed towards me makes me do otherwise.

This might be one of the worst days of this year. This couldn’t have gotten worse.

My boots dig into the snow as I widen the distance between my feet and raise my bow and arrow. As soon as a pink magic circle appears right in front of my arrow, I let the arrow. With a swish, the arrow digs into the neck of the incoming tuhu. A second later, another pink magic circle appears right under his feet before his body explodes.

Black blood from his body lands on the pavement and the nearest cars. Unfortunately, the attacks draw the attention of the other two tuhus.

“Fuck.” What the hell did I do?

I never meant to use that much power in a single strike. Because of the hurry, I lost control of how much power I pumped into the attack. If I went like this, I might exhaust my strength in an hour. Therefore, while targeting the other two tuhus, all my attention lies on my power to make sure the arrow only has enough power to kill.

Once the arrows penetrate the hardened skins, I lower my bow and glance at the crowd gathered near the window of the café, watching the scene from the inside. Turning my eyes away, I walk into the alley the tuhus came out from.

As soon as I make a turn, my eyes widen and I make a run to the steel staircase near me. How did so many tuhus get here all of a sudden? And right in the middle of the city? There are almost hundreds of them. After ducking and some jumping around to avoid the claws of the tuhu, I manage to climb the stairways.

I stop on the second floor and stand on my tip-toe while leaning against the railing. The tuhus keep pouring out while I crane my neck to get a better view of where they are coming from. Strange, there is nothing on the street. Where are they coming from? Fortunately, the number has stopped increasing but this is still a lot to deal with.

The EXH must have been notified by now and they would send help for sure. I need to hold on till then. If they manage to get out of the city then the situation will hundred times worse. I take out my phone to call Ryouhei but a creak from the staircase makes me put down my phone.

“Damn it. They have started climbing up.” I click my tongue and summon another four arrows. They must have heard the creaking of the metal while I was climbing up. After setting up the arrow, the cold sweat on my back makes me hesitate for a second.

As soon as I kill one, it is guaranteed that the rest will become alert and come after me. Can I take them all at once? I gulp. What if they come near before I can shoot them? But if I don’t do anything then it is only a matter of time before they find me.

I take in a deep breath and release the arrow. The arrow struck the highest tuhu. The falling body of the tuhu takes one more tuhu with their weight. Without wasting a second, I load and kill the last one on the stairs. The commotion does not escape the rest of the tuhus and they start flocking towards the staircase.

Within 15 minutes, I kill 35 but I can feel my power draining at a very fast speed. Due to the amount of power I have to put in each arrow to dig into their hardened skin, it is taking a while to kill them.

I jump a little as soon as a roar comes from my left. I step back and create a barrier between us. The barrier sends him back, stopping him from coming any near. How the hell did I not notice him climbing up? It was a close call. If he wouldn’t have roared, I wouldn’t have found his position and it would have been a game over for me.

I kill him off before turning back to the bundle on the ground.

Out of nowhere, five yellow magic circles appear under the legs of five tuhus in the middle of the crowd. The brightly shining magic circle flashes before a zap of electric shock surround the five tuhus. The tuhus faint. I squint my eyes to see if I am seeing right. Their skin is not shining, did they run over the time limit for the hardened skin? For the finishing move, I send five normal arrows to them.

As soon as their bodies fall to the ground, I know I am right at guessing.

I survey the area to spot the person who helped me when I hear a voice, “Hey, hey, I am here. On the floor above yours.” I turn around and crane my neck with my back to the guardrail. The boy is not much older than me, his yellow shirt and jeans make him particularly catchy and easy to spot.

“Hey.” I wave at him while noticing the extra growl and roars from below. “How the heck did you get up there?”

He motions me to wait and comes down to my floor ascending the stairs. After stopping in front of me, he dusts his pants and looks up. “I was on the building behind this one, the terrace was at the same level so it was easy to cross. What about you? Oh, by the way, I am from Sequence 28. You can call me Duy.”

We do a quick handshake, “I am Valencia. Sequence 13. I was in the café nearby before coming to check the situation.”

“Looks like the backup will take some time, do you want to work together?” A deafening creek of the metal makes me flinch. They must have climbed up the stairs again.

“Not like I have any choice. I have already drained one-third of my energy. You can weaken them to stop the hardening and I will kill them. What do you think? What weapon do you use?”

“Knife. Since I can’t use it in long-distance fights, I will help you to weaken them.” With the agreement, we begin attacking just like agreed. He weakens them with an electric attack before I kill them. After killing twelve more tuhus, I realize I only have twenty arrows left at home. I can’t summons anymore once the stock finishes.

While I am loading another arrow, Duy calls me out, “You don’t have many arrows left, right. I have an idea. Can you reach there?” I follow his finger to find myself looking at the pipe sticking out from the building on our left, from between the steel rods. “If we get them wet somehow, I can electrize all of them at the same time. I will half of my power in this attack, this way it will weaken them for some time.”

Yeah, their regeneration skill and repairing of the wounds will only kick in after 5 minutes. Given the intensity of the attack, it will hold them back for another 10-15 minutes. “Let’s run away and call for help after I use all the arrows,” I say after contemplating the idea. “The team from EXH would be here any minute now, with less than fifty tuhus around, we can leave for the time being.”

He gazes around the street before giving me a nod. “I will go.”

“No, let me go. I am good at climbing...I used to climb trees when was I 10. I have been doing it for a long time.” I hang the bow on my shoulder and remove my boots. The dust and white power from the wall stain my hands as soon as I step on the thin pipeline and stick myself to the wall. I move forwards without lifting my feet.

It has been years since I climb anything. All the climbing I have done during my Extander training is the only recent event I remember. My breath quickens as I feel my feet slipping. In an instant, I make a snatch towards the vertical pipe in front of me. Only after feeling the firmness of the pipe did, I release a sigh of relief.

After a few more steps, I grab the steel rod and climb over it before darting to pick over the hose pipe. I turn on the tap, raise the pipe above the handrail and spray the water on all the tuhus. Once all the tuhus near me are covered in water, I put my finger over the opening of the pipe and spray over the faraway ones with help of force.

I drop the pipe and shout, “Done.”

Within a second, each and every tuhu has a yellow magic circle under his feet. I take a few steps back for precautions, at the same time, yellow sparks crackle around the tuhus. The sparks start as small before it grows large and large, reaching the full height of tuhus’ body. Wires on the poles on the side get on fire and soon I have to use a barrier to protect myself from burning like those wires.

The whole process lasts for a minute. I peek down to check on the situation. Almost all the tuhus have fainted or have been injured with exception of powerful ones who have started healing right away.

This is our chance let’s get away from here.

With swift movements, I return to the building the same way I chose to come here.

“Duy, let’s get-”

The rest of my words never get to leave my mouth as soon as I notice a body lying in a pool of blood on the floor. My mind goes blank. My lips tremble and I jump down from the handrail before running toward him. “Duy, Duy, Duy listen to me.”

I fall to my knees and cup his face with my trembling hands. “Duy, Oh my god, Duy. What happened to you?” I blink to stop the blurring of my eyes. Why is lying on the floor? Who did this? I cradle his shoulder, lift his body and slowly put my hand on his wrist. “Duy...”

There is no pulse.

He is dead.

His limp hand slips from hand. I close my mouth to stop the whimper before looking at the bite mark on his shoulder. How the hell? He was fine a minute ago. How did a tuhu get to him in such a short amount of time? As soon as my thoughts come to conclusion, I feel the floor under me vibrating. Gently, I put down Duy and look over my shoulder.

An intruder tuhu makes a run towards me. This tuhu must be the one who killed him, he must have escaped from the crowd while I was climbing. I scramble to my feet and run to the staircase. The tuhu changes his direction to the staircase. Seeing his movement, I grasp the banister of the upper level of the stairs and pull myself up, right as when the tuhu tries to bite my leg.

I crawl and pull the last of my body up. Below, the tuhu tries to jump but after several attempts, he gives up and turns towards the stairs. I summon my dragger and jump on his back before he could come up. He roars and tries to shake me off his back. At the same time, I raise my hand and strike at his nape.

Clank

“Shit,” His skin has already hardened. I grit my teeth and pour my power into the dragger. As his attempts to shake me off continue, I keep holding him tightly and strike once again.

Clank

One more.

Clank

After a few more attempts, I, at last, hear a crack. My loosening grip tightens once again. The sound reignites my hope and my attempts to break the skin double. Come on, just a few more strikes.

“OUCH.”

I look down at another tuhu which has appeared behind me suddenly. Since I am on the bigger tuhu’s shoulder, he can’t reach me. But he continuously tries to pull me down with help of his claws. A wave of pain racks my mind as I feel him digging his claws in my already bleeding leg. I tighten my jaw and kick him aside.

Without wasting a second, I begin attacking the skin once again. In ten more strikes, I hear another crack before it starts breaking. I dig my dagger into his skin, as he shrieks. His blood splashes on my clothes and on my face, I purse my lips to keep it from entering my mouth. His body falls down and becomes limp.

I turn around to deal with the next tuhu.

The next moment, a purple tuhu in front of me falls down. I blink and crawl forward and find a gunshot wound on the side of his neck, the blood expands on the floor second by second. I calculate the angle of the shooter by the gunshot wound before looking at the opposite building’s third floor.

After looking at the person, all tension leaves my body and I lean back on my hands. I close my eyes and take deep breaths.

“Valencia, are you alright?” Gloria shouts after another gunshot sound rings in my ear. “Sorry, I am late.”

“...Thanks for coming.”