Skill Hunter -Kill Monsters, Acquire Skills, Ascend to the Highest Rank!

255. A Choice

Rufus slashed out. His blade cut into the old man's neck. The old man startled. His eyes widened as his head flew away.

His body sagged to the ground with a thump. Rufus stood over him, breathing heavily. He stared at the old man.

"You don't control me. No one controls me."

Ike edged past him. "Excuse me, pardon me…" He stole the old man's sword from his hand, then turned the body over to unbuckle the scabbard from his waist.

Panting, Rufus turned his blade toward Ike. "You—"

"Never looted a body before, young master? You should give it a try sometime. Hey! Why not start now?" Ike pulled the belt free and stepped back, gesturing for Rufus to have a go. "I only took the sword. Rest of the loot's yours. Who knows what else that old coot has on him? Money, relics… bet there's all kinds of valuable items on him."

Rufus lifted his lip. "You vicious cur."

"If you're not going to…" Ike moved toward the old man's body again.

Rufus blocked his path. "I'll do it. Don't you touch him."

Ike put his hands up. "Alright, alright. Hey, but be quick about it. We've got a battle to fight, and I need you rested before the next fight." He patted Rufus on the shoulder and walked away. I already took everything I want from this man. No need to piss Rufus off to fully loot him.

Rufus flinched away from Ike's touch. He stared at the dead body before him for a few more moments, as if barely able to believe his own eyes. At last, he bent and picked through the man's robes, looking for what he'd left behind.

Ike looked over his new sword. A blade that eats weapons and empowers itself. He ran a hand over the sword, curious. It was made of a strange material. He wasn't sure if it was metal or biological in nature, but it was covered in a thousand tiny blades, each one so sharp that it was impossible to touch the sword without coming away with a hundred cuts, as he quickly found out. None of them were deep, though, and his hand healed in the blink of an eye. The whole sword twinkled in the light, shining like it was studded with crystal, but it was an opaque, dead gray where it didn't sparkle. The hilt was a simple affair, though he suspected more by necessity than design. Only the toughest material could encase a blade so corrosive, and so, the hilt was a block of heavy, dark wood, wound about with equally thick and resistant leather. It wasn't a pleasure to hold, but neither did it hurt.

Ike spun it a few times, testing its weight. It was heavier than his old sword, even though it had the same reach. He thrust it, slashed it, then shrugged. It was a good weapon. Uniquely poorly suited to River-Splitting Sword, as a thick, strangely textured sword; it caught the air and slowed his strikes, and its relatively broad, blunt edge made it hard to project slices. But then again, the old man had, so it clearly wasn't impossible.

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I'll see it as training, Ike decided, sheathing it for now. Its weight would improve his strength and endurance, while its relatively blunt edge would force him to work harder to project blade energy. If he could swing this sword as easily as a normal sword and project blade energy from it without hesitation, he'd be even better with a blade when he reverted to an ordinary sword, without any of this strange sword's drawbacks.

A few characters carved into the butt of the hilt caught his eye. He leaned in.

Hungry Sword, they read.

"Heh. Hungry? Then I suppose I'll have to feed you," Ike muttered. "I'll warn you now, though, the food's a bit hot."

The sword had nothing to say.

Ike ran toward the enemies, aiming to intercept their line and fight his way back to Wisp. The huge monsters loomed out of the trees. Ike hopped up onto the trees' low branches and hopped from tree to tree, speeding toward the monsters.

One of the monsters turned. Bright red eyes seared toward him, leaving traces in the dark of night. It lunged for Ike, shattering trees as if it were brushing aside long grass. Ike slashed, trying to push aether through the Hungry Sword. Nothing happened, except that the sword grew warm in his grasp.

As expected, it really was harder to exert any sort of sword energy with the Hungry Sword. He hopped over the creature's grab and landed on its arm. When he'd done it on the smaller, weaker version, he'd felt nothing. This monstrosity was so huge, so hot, that its arm instantly began baking his leather soles. Heat beat into his feet. He jerked his feet up as soon as they touched down, high-kneeing it up the monster's arm. The monster shook its arm. He leaped for its throat, swinging his sword with all his might.

The edge of the Hungry Sword made contact with the monster's neck, and the whole sword began to tremble, then vibrate. Each of the thousand tiny blades on the sword's surface shook individually, as if quaking with anticipation. The whole thing was utterly bizarre, strange to the utmost. The blades sawed through the giant monster's neck as they made contact.

Embers flew. Ashes rained down. Despite the relative bluntness of the sword's edge, the sword bit through the monster like a hot knife through butter. Ike felt almost no resistance. The monster's head fell away, its eyes wide in surprise.

Ike looked at his sword. He raised his eyebrows. "Holy shit. I was fighting against that?" His estimation of the old man's strength plummeted. With a sword like that, how could the old man lose? The sword did half the work!

Then again, I'm fighting monsters, not people. Maybe it's different.

Pushing off the monster's body as it slowly toppled to the ground, Ike jumped toward the next monster. It swung an axe at him bigger than his whole body. Ike smashed his sword into the axe. The blades came to life again—if anything, even more greedily than before. They chewed through the axe, grinding along its surface. The blades couldn't simply destroy the solid metal axe the way they destroyed the monster's neck, but they left a deep score on the axe's surface. The sword clung to the axe, sticking to it as long as possible. Ike had to yank it away on the backswing.

The force of the axe and sword meeting threw Ike back. He flew straight through the forest and smacked into the back of the monster in front of him. That monster turned. The monster he'd been fighting stomped after him. It raised its axe high again as the other monster lifted its foot.

Ike stared from one to the other, caught between an axe and a hard place. Uh oh.