Free Web NovelChapter 42: Firal, and a bag of wheat
Fireballs fought against the sun’s rays as they flew towards the sky.
The temperatures they reached were so high, that one would think its tail could set the air itself on fire! They were deadly no doubt.
Eight of them headed towards Jimmy. Four of them pushed forward like an unbreakable wall, and the other half lagged behind by a few feet.
Their speed was astonishing, and simply by looking at them, Jimmy understood how so many crows surrendered their lives to these blazing depictions of hell.
Nevertheless, they could still be avoided if one was fast enough. Jimmy rushed forward, and dived towards the city, which helped him pick up on his speed.
The fireballs were fast, they were big, about two feet each, but they weren’t heat-seaking missiles. He avoided them easily.
The fireballs flew further upwards towards the sky, and eventually dissipated.
"You’re a lucky crow, aren’t you?" Firal ground his teeth, "A lucky crow? That’s ironic. I’ll feed you to the eagles today!"
Two more rounds of fireballs hit the sky. Sixteen in total. One would think Firal was trying to bring the sky down, rather than a mere crow.
Jimmy avoided these ones as well. Mostly.
There was plenty of distance between him and Firal, so he managed to avoid most of the fireballs, but at his disadvantage, the fireballs traveled fast!
One of them was close to brushing across his legs!
"Shield!" Jimmy shouted, "I need the fucking shield!"
In a blink of an eye, before the fireball could have gotten to him, the Elemental Shield skill activated.
A wide, seemingly phantom V-shaped shield popped up, a foot in front of him!
Half of the fireball hit the bottom-part of the shield, and in that instant, he saw the top-half of the fireball dissipating. It did not bounce back, it simply disappeared.
The Elemental Shield faded away along with it. It absorbed 55% of the blow.
Despite the shield’s help, and despite the fact that he avoided most of the fireball thanks to meeting it at an angle, a fraction of the fireball still brushed across his feet.
"Fucking hell!" He exclaimed, "That burns!"
That tiny fraction wasn’t enough to set him on fire, but the burning sensation remained on his legs. It was beyond distracting, and he feared the pain that was to follow once he landed later on would be too much to bear.
Firal wasn’t done shooting. More fireballs followed.
Jimmy avoided the rest of them, as he made sure to fly higher, giving him plenty of time to fly away from the incoming fireballs.
At some point, Firal reduced his attacks.
"Running out of mana, eh?" Jimmy smirked.
Afterwards, he carried out step two of his plan, and dived towards the city. He landed on a rooftop nearby.
"God damn!" He winced as soon as his feet touched the roof.
The pain from the burn was consistent, it would not give him a break. However, it was bearable, he could still walk.
Firal followed him into the alleyway, just as planned. He wasn’t over-confident, he was just angry enough to follow a crow from one end of the city to the other if he had to!
Jimmy poked his head out, and watched Firal’s every step.
"That’s right, get closer," He whispered.
As soon as Firal was in the middle of the alleyway, Jimmy waddled several feet away from his initial hiding spot, and started pushing a bag of flour with his head.
Tipping it on the edge, just enough for half of the bag to hang over the rooftop, he then walked away from the bag as far as he could.
Virena had helped push the bag a moment ago, and now, she pushed it once more, sending it to the point of no return. Just as planned.
The bag fell, and exploded in the alleyway! The bag puffed out a large, white cloud.
Firal turned around in the blink of an eye, and shot a fireball at it. He assumed that he was shooting at the crow that had been terrorizing him this morning. Unsurprisingly, he did nothing more than set the bag on fire.
The sound of the sizzling bag was enough to muffle Jimmy’s movements. As he dropped from the rooftop, it was impossible for one to hear his wings flap.
Jimmy swung his hammer with all his might, and landed a heavy blow on Firal’s head! He did so before his target could’ve had the chance to turn around.
Firal fell. He was knocked out cold, and had an inch-deep dent at the back of his head, where the hammer had struck.
"That’s what you get for burning my feet, mutterficker." Jimmy grinned.
Afterwards, he stood in front of Firal’s head, and swung at him a few times, until he made sure the man was dead. He finished the job.
[+6,300 system points]
[You assassinated a human, and there are no eye witnesses who’d track the assassination back to you. Task nine complete.]
[Reward: 3,100 system points]
[Total points: 9,527]
"Damn, I forgot about that." He shook his head, "Nice."
The gruesome scene didn’t bother him. He didn’t shed a single flake of curiosity over the feared mage either. He simply flew away from the murder scene.
Blood pooled around Firal’s head, dampening the ground below. Healing him was out of the question, but judging from the hole at the back of his head, it may even be hard for necromancers to reanimate him! He was to stay down for good.
A man that the crows had feared for ages, went down on a random, uneventful morning. All it took was a bag of flour to distract him.
Jimmy was proud of himself. He doubted that anyone had even discovered Firal’s body yet. He was proud of his strategy, he was proud of how beautifully he executed it, but that aside, he didn’t share the fear that the other crows had over this man, so he barely felt relieved after he finished the job.
The burning sensation on his legs didn’t let him feel relieved, first of all. He had half a mind to look for his sister, and have her heal him, but he was too proud to ask his family for help.
Instead, once he made enough distance between himself and the corpse, he landed on a rooftop and opened the Evolution Tree.
"I can’t keep depending on others to heal me. I get hurt far too often." He mumbled, "System, can I buy a skill, or an evolution that would let me heal myself? I know I saw it before, but it was very expensive. Points shouldn’t be a problem this time, cause I don’t plan on buying anything else for a while. There’s no point in saving my points, hehe."
