With the smaller goblins out of the way, I soon got the perfect opening to run, which I almost immediately took if not for the huge Ogre that diverged from the front line to come after me. To my dismay, despite being so huge, the damn thing runs fast, and for a while, I can barely even outrun him for the entire length of the village.
All the goblin's poor houses were demolished by the huge Ogre chasing me, which didn't stop coming after me even after I finally left his village, which was bad news because I was starting to slow down since I was quickly running out of breath thanks to all the acrobatics and running I've been doing.
"GROOOOOWL!" The Ogre's scream only fueled my fear, pushing my body to its absolute limits. At the same time, my heart pumped blood faster than it had ever done before yet it still wasn't enough as the Ogre kept closing in on me quite rapidly with there being about a football field of distance between us with a difference of about 5 miles an hour he would catch up in seconds!
I had around half a minute to come up with something before the beast caught up to me to shred me to pieces, so I quickly began scanning everything around me since I doubted my stolen arrows would cut the job. I mean, the damn thing was around 20 feet tall. There was no way a small one-foot arrow would even hurt him.
The Ogre was so tall and strong that he bulldozed trees down. They were so scary even the soldiers had to stop to try and kill the two remaining in the village, which was good enough for me, but how would I stop the one behind me from eating me like a snack!?
He was big and strong enough to destroy houses and trees from the ground up like it was nothing how would I get rid of him!? Twenty-five seconds. Wait a second, I began to think right after seeing how the river was still kind of close to us, around Twenty seconds away, as I began to turn toward it.
If I could find a piece of wood to float with, I could use the strong river currents to help me outrun the Ogre! He might be able to walk in the river bed, but that will only make bigger waves for me to ride on. It was a risky idea, but based on all the ones I've been taking, was it too crazy to stop now!?
Fifteen seconds. The forest floor was full of gross and dangerous stuff, so even though I was running at my top speed, it ultimately came with its downsides, one of them being that I was slowly but surely starting to get my feet badly injured and covered in deep cuts and bruises quickly taking miles off my top speed since it began to hurt a lot just to keep running.
The shoes I'd stolen were too big, and even with a tight seal, they weren't enough to keep on my feet, so I lost them right after leaving the village. Hence, it was about the worst time it could happen as to how I would reach the river. I was just hoping and praying as I looked behind me with the monster now within arms reach of me, all while the sandy parts of the river began to show themselves.
"GROWL!" The Ogre screamed as it tried to stump on me right after I dove into the river, creating a massive wave in the water that soon pushed me further away from him but not without downsides, of course, since the initial wave also sent me crashing against some floor rocks that cut into my left hip, but I survived.
The Ogre seems to lose sight of me for the entire time I stay underwater until my body naturally floats upward, angering the beast as the river starts to quickly pick up speed with me in it, which was a problem in itself since I was just floating and struggling for air the whole time not knowing where I was heading.
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.
The river also looked a lot deeper now that I was right in the middle of it, so I began to feel powerful river currents tugging on my poor banged-up body with so much force it hurt. At this point, even if I tried to swim across the current, it wouldn't do any good, so I just focused on evading rocks and random debris on the river stream.
Luckily for me, the river was deep enough to slow down the Ogre but not deep enough to let him swim, so he was just stuck trying to walk toward me while angrily watching me get away since he couldn't keep up with me. "GROOWWWWWL!"
I had once again beaten my odds and gotten rid of my trouble, even if I was now more tired than I had ever been and had a new problem in hand. How the hell would I leave the stream!? Mainly because it looked like another river would soon merge with the one I was currently drifting on, and this one was already too strong for me to barely breathe once in a while.
"OHHH SHIT!" Without many good options, the best one was just to keep trying to float and breathe as the currents tugged on me so hard that my wounds deepened even more. Although a bit weaker, the stupid current coming from the left is still strong enough to disrupt my movement even more by sending me into a death spiral that I barely slow down with a lot of effort.
After barely recovering from that, I don't remember what happened next. I finally ran out of luck after hitting my head against one of those random tree stumps in the middle of the flow. The hit was an instant light out. I couldn't even process what happened, just that it did, and I lost all consciousness until I woke up who knows how long afterward.
{Fire noises}
I couldn't see anything as I woke up, trying to open my eyes. I just noticed something covering them while someone else talked to me out of the blue. "Hey, there, you finally woke up." A male voice says. While I feel the warmth of the fire nearby, which feels so good, I instantly feel more at ease.
The man, who I didn't even know, sounded exhausted as well; a small part of me, wanting to believe it was Buster, began to feel way too much nostalgia for my own good until I heard his voice again, which didn't sound anything like Buster so that part just hurts once I can hear their voice.
"Getting you out of that river was a bitch and a half; I just hope your technology pays well to compensate me for the trouble." My technology!? What the fuck was he talking about? All I'd ever got close to figuring out was pulleys, and even those looked rough, given my lousy carving skills.
"What technology?" I asked the man, who suddenly began removing the bandages over my eyes as I finally saw the outside world. We were still next to the river, just a couple hundred feet away. The man's armor and equipment, however, soon scared the crap out of me, only helped by the realization that my hands were tied behind me.
"Don't act dumb, the anti-magic tech you have! It's of special interest to my master." The man nonchalantly says while I try to struggle against the robes, holding my hands in place with them, only getting tighter the more I struggle. "What the hell is wrong with you people!? UGH!"
"I wouldn't try to remove those if I were you; the more you struggle, the tighter they get until they cut your hands off. Your anti-magic shield is too strong for my slave crest, so this is the best I can do to control you for now. I hope you don't mind the leash either."
Once the guy mentions the leash, I can't help but see it around my neck as if I were some sort of beast or animal like Thomas' Dragonaki or something. "Why haven't you killed me? Isn't the Empire just demanding my head?" I say to him, still thinking the Empire had captured me.
"Uh? No, I need you alive. My master says it could be possible that your life status might be necessary for performing experiments on you." The guy mentions this while I make my plans to escape already, fuck being someone's toy! I am not going to let that happen! As soon as he turns his back on me, I'm going to force the ropes to cut my hands off and then bite him on the neck to heal myself.
At least, that's what I thought until I heard his last phrase. "By the way, just as a safety to me, I've linked the leash to my life status, so if I die, you die with me, so think twice before trying anything funny. That collar you have on will slice your neck faster than you can even blink." GODDAMIT!
