Chapter 91: Number One and Two, The Memory Seekers

Black blood, brain matter and gore splashed over the earth. Faust spun through the air, falling fifteen feet before he hit the ground rolling. The blood got on his clothes and hair. A sneer formed on his mouth, but he ignored his disgust.

BANG!

He turned to see Jason wrench the troll’s club from its hand and beat it to death with its own weapon.

The wooden club slammed into the giant monster’s knee and the bone snapped under the stress.

The troll fell to its knee and Jason sent the club high in the sky. His face scrunched up in focus and stress. Then he swung his hand down and the club crashed into the back of the troll’s skull.

That was a good hit, though maybe not intentional.

The troll instantly fainted and Jason brought the club down on its skull three more times. Blood splattered into the air. All over Jason and the ground. Kobolds rushed him, slamming their spears and axes over his armor.

He has new armor too. Haahhhh. Where are my sponsors?!

The monsters dogpiled him till he wasn’t visible. Jason ignored them till he was done crushing the troll’s skull. True to his Schema. Then he roared.

Golden energy surged from his body, blasting all the monsters back.

"New skills too," Faust grumbled.

He opened the stream and it was focused on Jason—the watchers were calling him the troll slayer. Faust rewinded the stream to see himself destroying the troll.

People were interested in him and checked his name.

"Wait, this is the number one rank? Calling yourself a god is crazy."

"Number one and two working together. Two is a lot more known tho."

"Where was he during the gate invasion arc?"

"You’re calling the life and death of our people ’arcs’. Get help."

"He’s been active if you’re watching all hours. He was in the Kobold world and came back late for the first wave. He’s been hunting the Puppet Knights recently."

"Yeah, I’ve been asking the system to ping me when he appears. He’s one of the few doing the hidden quest."

"Can you recommend others?"

The Puppet Knights were coming, but Faust fast forwarded till the person called out three names. Faust swore angrily.

Golden Dream.

Dumber.

Timeless Trophy.

Of course it’s three players I don’t even know.

He put those names in the back of his mind as the first six knights came. Faust glanced left and saw Jason watching him.

They both attacked at the same time.

The knights moved to encircle them, thinking both of them were a team, but they were very wrong.

Jason roared and swung his arm, using his schema to drag the massive club through the air. The air whistled and fluttered Faust’s cloak. He laughed as the club’s shadow enveloped him.

The bastard was planning to crush the knights and Faust at once.

Shadow Step.

Faust appeared behind the knights, who dashed back out of the club’s range. Right into him.

His first axe swing bisected two knights at once. The other knights reacted quickly. Their hips spun three hundred and sixty degrees, striking quickly.

Faust deflected strikes and spun, slashing and barehand striking the joints of the puppets. He glanced right as Gamebreaker joined them.

Jason didn’t have the level advantage here so he couldn’t rely on his Schema. He moved in slower and was surrounded by his best fighters.

Who weren’t as good as they thought.

The weapon clashes were short as Jason’s players found themselves too unskilled to match the knights’ weaponcraft and teamwork.

What they had as their advantage was their skills and Schema.

Abilities went off randomly, displacing, stunning or just straight up blasting knights away. Jason planted his Schema sigil on one of the knights and used that to disrupt the enemy’s coordination.

Meanwhile, Faust relied mainly on his skill as a fighter and his unpredictable abilities to batter the knights alone.

But he did get some help soon after.

A massive water dragon crashed into one of the knights flanking knight, crushing it and the ground under weight and speed of the attack.

Faust destroyed it with a crushing blow from his axe and quietly thanked Zen for not finishing it.

Spider was the fastest and so she was there first, swooping down with massive vulture-like wings and clawed hands to pick up knights. She carried her prey into the air, where Zen pinned them with arrows as she slashed them apart.

Then she dropped them for Faust to finish off.

[You have killed three "Puppet Knight" and gained 3 memory fragments.]

"Thank you," he said and moved to hunt more.

Nirvana appeared beside him in a burst of dark mist and tried to support him with her sword. But she quickly caught the butt of a spear to her chest and was knocked down. Faust grimaced and touched the ground.

Serpent’s Call.

The earth shifted under them, unbalancing the knights and protecting Nirvana.

"Don’t just swing your sword like that!" Faust scolded. "Hold it with two hands, keep it close to your chest. Watch how your ghosts fight."

"Sorry," Nirvana squeaked.

He sighed. "Don’t feel bad. They didn’t have swordfighting 101 in school."

Nirvana’s ghosts and skeletons only lasted for thirty minutes so she had to go kill more monsters for new ghosts.

Silver shapes surrounded them, groaning in their full armor, floating just a bit above the ground and wielding a variety of greatswords and halberds.

In a way they kind of reminded Faust of the Puppet Knights.

So will the knights also have a master?

He focused on the fight which was much easier with Nirvana. He made quick call outs to Nirvana to change how the ghosts fought as the knights adapted.

"It’s a mini chess match. You’re my queen," Faust told Nirvana as he parried a halberd, "the skeletons are disposable pawns, the ghosts are like bishops and knights."

Nirvana smiled brightly. "Oh... nice."

"Well I’m actually the queen because of my mobility and you’re king because you control the troops."

"Can you just let us have this moment?" Nirvana asked with an exasperated glare.

He tried to instruct her on the basics of swordsmanship, but his experience with HEMA was all he had to go off of. He was never a sword guy. He preferred spears, going as far to participate in lesser known southeast asian martial arts.

But Nirvana was attentive and, thanks to the attribute increase, had a strong body she knew how to use.