Chương 3: Chapter 2

The hounds were circling around him, all waiting for the other to attack first. Bran glanced back at Corin, and sighed.

"Of all people," Bran said, almost to himself. Corin gulped. He just wanted to gather enough rat tails to feed himself for the day. He wasn't planning on risking his life to be a hero. He wasn't strong enough for that; he was just a useless, cowardly, F-rank adventurer with an inert Innate. He didn't want to be here... but there was only one way out. Placing the woman and her crying child down as gently as he could between him and Bran, Corin took out his trusty copper hammer from his belt.

It was perfectly appropriate for killing rats, but it was more suitable as a chew toy for the hounds. He flipped it in his hands, sharp-side first.

"If you find an opening, you take them and run, ok?" Bran said, and Corin nodded. He felt lightheaded, like all of this was just some forlorn nightmare, like if he just pinched himself hard enough he could wake up- A hound leaped and latched onto his arm, teeth sinking deep enough to answer the question for him. He screamed as it snarled and flung its head downwards, throwing Corin forward and making him lose his balance, his clumsy strike at the hound almost impaling his forearm instead.

Another hound came at him and Corin swiped his hammer at it, causing it to jump backwards as the other hound brought its teeth down further into Corin's arm. Somewhere at the edge of his vision his HP rapidly ticked down, but he had no time nor presence of mind to look at the actual number. He heard Bran grunting as he fought at the hounds behind him, and he hoped that he was doing better than himself.

The hound flung its head again, apparently trying to rip Corin's arm off and not doing a particularly bad job of it, his shoulder immediately dislocating from the force. The rush of pain helped force clarity, and he slammed the sharp end of his hammer directly against the hound's skull, chipping both bone and weapon, and subsequently deepening its teeth in his flesh.

Another wild strike glanced off its head as it bit down harder, before a third drove straight through its eye and into the brain, spraying blood as he heard a sickly pop. [Gutter Hound (Lv. 9) slain!] A movement to his right. A hound flew overhead, almost as if it was in slow-motion, the spray of eye-blood glinting in the light all the while. Corin stared at it for half a moment, the surreality of the situation hitting him just as the third hound clamped its jaw on his leg.

He leaned forward to strike it as the other hound suddenly bit his hammer-holding arm, the two of them pulling him violently in opposite directions, jaws twisting and pulling backwards like he was being drawn and quartered for some no-doubt-deserved punishment. He tried not to scream, and failed miserably.

Bran appeared behind the hound at Corin's leg, both hands slamming down onto its spine hard enough to cave its entire torso inward - then, without pause, he drove both fists straight through the wreckage of its ribs, gripping its shattered spine from the inside. He wrenched the corpse up and around in one brutal motion, then hurled it bodily at another hound leaping straight for him, the two colliding mid-air with enough force to snap the second one's neck outright.

Corin's attention was quite literally ripped back to the hound attached to his arm, his flesh tearing from the force of its efforts. He threw the hammer to his free hand, arm not particularly capable of exertion but certainly given sufficient motivation to try. He began half-striking, half-flailing at the hound, stabbing and hacking at it again and again, clipping his own shoulder half the time in the process, until finally the hammer lodged itself into the hound's now-exposed brain.

A final wheeze of garbled effort seeped from it, its jaw locked against Corin's arm. [Gutter Hound (Lv. 10) sl- Corin forced his focus away from the notification before it could finish, willing himself upright despite the bleeding, the hound still hanging off his arm. He turned to face Bran. He was covered in deep gashes and gouges, bathed in blood that was hardly his own, facing the final three hounds with his arms raised and poised for combat. His armor, built to flex and expand with him, strained taut against his swollen muscles, expanding and contracting with every heaving breath, intricate veins criss-crossing beneath it. Corin noted that he looked like a true warrior, and felt immediate shame at his own failings - but he at least knew he was safe. Bran took a single step forward, then suddenly stopped. He fell to one knee, and his broad shoulders began to recede, muscle collapsing back to that of a near-ordinary man. < Strongarm - Depleted > His arms fell to his side, and the hounds edged forward. Corin gripped his hammer - then realized he wasn't gripping anything at all. It had already clattered to the ground, and he couldn't even close his hand into a fist. The child's cries rang in his mind. He wouldn't be able to lift her, even if he tried. The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon." I'm sorry, Bran," Corin whispered, as he took an unsteady step towards the hounds." I just wasn't strong enough."" Me too," Bran said in resignation, breathing heavily." Me too." One hound paced ahead towards Corin, who half-lifted his only working arm, curling his hand into a half-fist. He glanced back at the woman and her child, then thought of his own family. He wondered if they'd be proud. It's a good way to die, at least. A fitting end for an Epic loser. A pack call suddenly rose far in the distance. The hounds' heads snapped up, ears twitching, some pulling backward as if fighting the urge. Then, as one, they turned and sprinted toward the noise, abandoning Corin and Bran entirely. Corin glanced back at Bran, who tried to stand and failed." The pack call," Corin said, almost to himself. He blinked, swaying but not quite falling. He turned to Bran, glancing at the child crying over her unconscious mother, and held out his hand to Bran to help him up. Then, the ground became a lot closer than he remembered, as his entire body fell towards it. Corin woke up with a start, coughing out some kind of brackish ooze out of his throat and mouth. A cleric above him pushed him down again, clutching his jaw and forcing it open as he poured the rest of the contents into his gullet. Corin felt a wave of vigor and relief wash over him, then the immediate feeling of his skin crawling as his wounds began to stitch themselves over." Where am I?" Corin managed to splutter out, and the cleric gestured at the chaos around him." Infirmary," she said, pointing at someone standing at the foot of the bed." He brought you in." Bran stared at him, as clerics moved briskly behind him, the place a flurry of activity." We're swamped with victims of the hound attack," the cleric said." Since you're not missing any limbs, we'll need you to vacate the bed. Payment has already been covered." Corin glanced at Bran, who nodded. Then, he stood up slowly from the bed, noting that his limbs had regained their normal mobility. Actual healing potions cost a lot of coin - he wished he could afford near-instantaneous healing like this instead of the makeshift salves he was forced to procure or make himself instead." Did they-" Corin started, before Bran nodded." Yea. They're alright," Bran replied." Mother was in a bad way, but they'll both be ok."" And the healing?" Corin asked." I covered yours. I'll take it out of your reward," he quickly added." You killed two of them, so that's ten silver total." Ten silver. One thousand copper coins. Corin hadn't earned half that much in a month, let alone a day - not in well over a year. That was a lot of mudgrog." Come," Bran said, more command than suggestion, leading them out of the infirmary and towards the main Guild hall. He looked back at Corin." What did you say about the pack call, back there?" he asked." We only survived because the pack call took the last hounds away," Corin said, reliving the moment in his mind." But that call was so far away, it shouldn't have reached them. Almost like the range had... changed somehow." He frowned. He didn't know why he'd said it that way. It just felt true. Bran stared at Corin intently, his gaze piercing, then pushed the Guild hall door open." Apparently the hounds gradually all converged on each other, a pack of 50 or more charging through the outskirts of the city. Each call brought more and more hounds together. We've never seen anything like it. seven people dead, twice that missing," Bran said, then thought for a moment." Would've been at least two more, if you and I weren't there."" Would have been at least three more, if you weren't there." Bran tilted his head somewhat, as if he wanted to disagree and subsequently realized the futility of it, then instead took them to the bounty counter." He killed two of them," Corin heard Bran tell Fenn, who did a very poor job of hiding his surprise. Corin struggled to focus on the exchange entirely, as some forlorn memory kept on flashing through his mind: [Gut▒Ho~ pack call rad▒] What exactly did I see? Ten silver coins appearing on the table helped snap Corin back to reality, Bran reaching over and taking two of them." One silver fifty for the healing potion at the infirmary, and fifty copper extra for carrying you there," Bran said, sliding the remaining eight coins to him." Congrats on the reward - and thanks for the help, I guess." [8 silver acquired!] Corin stared at the money, biting back the urge to cry. Bran's words felt strangely comforting, backed by his outstretched hand. They shook, Bran's grip like iron." Pack call radius, eh?" Bran continued, meeting Corin's gaze." Strange how you seemed to know something about it." The grip on his hand tightened, Corin quickly becoming worried that he'd need to fork out for another healing potion." Call it a hunch," Corin replied, and Bran stared at him for a moment later, then released his grip. Blood rushed back into his hand, though it was now perhaps permanently a little smaller." Good hunch," Bran said, with a tone bordering on ominous." Keep safe." Corin nodded, thanking both him and Fenn before heading out. He didn't know exactly what he'd spend his money on - and in truth, he didn't actually care. The text was still flashing through his mind: [Gut▒Ho~ pack call rad▒] Gutter Hound - pack call radius increased He'd seen it. He'd seen a change of the Turn - maybe before it had even been made. That was why there'd been so many of them that day, all of them answering calls that should never have reached them, creating some kind of deadly chain reaction. He'd seen something no one else had... as well as its immediate consequences. Had he been able to warn everyone, many more people would be alive right now. And I'd be a lot less rich.