LIGHTNOVELONLINE Chapter 26: The Foreman
"Hey big guy, the Rock just called. He wants to know your workout routine to get that swole," Drake said with a nervous chuckle.
The Foreman huffed as it took several hulking steps forward.
Drake only momentarily looked on in awe of how massive the Gnoll was, before quickly looking at his status. Taking out two more flasks of Fire Oil, stuffing them inside his Garbs, and an unlit torch he slipped through his obi.
He looked at his status still slowly ticking upwards. It had reached 80% for his health and a little above 50% for his Mana and Stamina. It was going to be a hard fight even if the big lug was a push over, Drake thought.
Standing his ground as the Foreman continued to casually walk forward, its enormous pickaxe resting on its shoulder. The ground quaking under its weight with every step, bodies and dirt visibly shaking.
Drake wanted to wait until he absolutely had to engage the Foreman so that his status had time to recover as much as possible.
After a few seconds the Foreman had made its way over to Drake, lurching over him with a grin. The monster cackled like a hyena as it threw its head back and pointed down with one furred hand, its belly undulated as it did.
Drake raised a brow as he could feel his face flush slightly with indignance. "Oh? You think you're tough for an oversized Prairie Dog Plushie? I have news for you, Toucan Sam says don’t bother showing up to work on monday. Said he needed someone more mean and scary," Drake sneered as he looked up, holding up a hand with a particular finger showing.
The Foreman quickly stopped laughing and looked down over his slightly protruding belly with a screwface as if he had understood the insult. The next moment the beast raised its pickaxe in a motion to swing down as if it wanted to break first ground of a dig site. The wind kicking up when it pulled the massive pickaxe back.
"Shit, guy can’t take a joke," Drake said sardonically.
Drake took it as his cue and exploded forward toward the beasts legs. Quickly beating the large figure out in speed.
This must be what it felt like for that chick who was under that elephant in that one fight while carrying the halfling. He mused as he closed in next to the right leg of the monster.
Drake wound up his right arm with his skill ready to put all his force into the blow.
"Power through force! Heavy Blow!" he roared, putting extra mana into the tattoos for extra damage.
The blow landed and reverberated through Drake's body but had minimal damage to the Foreman, it looked like only a light bruise did appeared on its less hairy hind quarters.
"Damn that’s hard! It looks like I just gave the dude a hickey on the leg more than damaging it," Drake grunted, with a wave of his right hand.
The Foreman barked with a reverberating howl, kicking its leg forward to get Drake out from under it.
Thankfully Drake was leagues faster than the monster and was able to move out of the way of the direct blow, but was pushed back by the gusts of air pressure that followed the huge monster’s leg.
Drake fought the force of the blast of wind, feeling much like a palm tree in a hurricane, but managed to not be flung off his feet.
"Ok plan B. Kill it with fire," he scoffed, pulling out one of the Fire Oil flasks.
The Foreman had turned to Drake by this point, anger in its eyes. Swinging its pickaxe again, this time in a side sweep much faster than the downward swing it had before.
Drake ran for the swing instead of the feet of the monster this time, aiming for the right timing to jump and grab the shaft of the pickaxe.
When the swing was just a few feet from colliding with him he leapt into the air, planting his free hand into the side of the pickaxe’s wooden shaft as he was carried to the apex of the swing.
Drake stopped with a jerk as the pickaxe halted right above the Foreman’s left shoulder. He took a moment to stabilize himself on the pickaxe after the ride to the top, but made a mad dash for the monster’s head, jumping off the shaft and onto its shoulder.
He took a few seconds to reach the monster’s pivoting head. As he dashed he used the time to chant two Mana Bolts. As the monster looked left to right in what Drake assumed was searching for him.
One of the two Mana Bolts hit the side of the monster’s face producing a small crater in its cheek. The other landed right inside its left ear, a fountain of blood erupting from it.
I really used the force to thread the needle right there. Drake thought inwardly as he smiled.
But Drake wasn’t finished and the Foreman certainly wasn’t either. The Foreman’s left hand rose to swat Drake from its shoulder. But Drake was already close enough to its face that he jumped from its shoulder, a Tyrant’s Fire Oil flask in hand.
He threw the flask with all his might into the side of the Foreman’s massive head, splashing its left eye and face with the flask as it continued to wail in pain from its ruptured ear.
Drake dropped down off the shoulder from his leap, the Gnoll’s hand passing over him. But the wind from the passing hand pulled him up and propelled him into a chaotic spinning freefall.
He pulled out the second Tyrant’s Fire Oil from under his Garb and spread his arms and legs out in an attempt to stabilize himself mid air. He managed to get his bearings well enough that his vision cleared from the blur of shapes it was before, giving him enough time to uncork the flask and begin throwing trails of oil all over the monster on his way down.
A breath later Drake hit the ground with a crash. A small indent underneath him.
He looked up at the still flailing Gnoll as it gripped its head with both hands, shrieking and howling almost like it had turned into a banshee. The sheer volume of the sound pounding inside Drake's head as it continued to rise in pitch.
Drake had to cover his ears himself as he sprinted away from the beast in search of any remaining flames left from his fight beforehand.
He quickly came up to a corpse that was still burning a little distance away and pulled the torch from his obi, lighting it and turning back to the flailing beast. Drake was only able to run so fast with the flickering torch towards the massive Foreman, afraid it would snuff itself out in the wind if he went full speed.
The Foreman recovered when Drake was halfway to it, unbridled fury in its eyes now as it looked down at the small human that was giving it such a hard time.
It reared back its enormous right leg ready to punt Drake like a ball for a field goal kick. But he didn’t have the luxury of dodging, as it may extinguish the torch he was holding.
So he continued to run forward, chanting Mana Bolts at the monster's head. Aiming for its exposed right eye.
The Foreman’s leg began to gain momentum as it swung forward but Drake was unrelenting with his spells as they crashed into the Foreman’s face like a torrential downpour from the front, bombarding it to no end.
Right as the Foreman’s leg passed its other foot, one of Drake’s Mana Bolts struck gold. The monster shuddered backward in pain, falling ass backward. Its kick now missing by a large margin.
Drake fist pumped inwardly as he continued toward the now reeling giant, kicking dust up as it rolled back and forth, its hands covering its right eye.
Drake maneuvered himself onto the Gnoll’s chest. He grinned as mischievously as the boy from Home Alone as he lightly tossed the torch in the air.
He hurriedly jumped off the beast as it ignited in a blaze of golden-orange flames. Another scream being added to the cacophony of wails coming from the beast.
Drake looked on, satisfied with his inevitable victory.
Then suddenly the fire began to recede and form a vortex centered into the Foreman’s lantern, situated on the side of its belt. The Foreman began to rise to its feet, as it grabbed the lantern with its left hand.
Drake gawked at the seemingly fine control the beast had over the fire. Pulling every lick of the flames into the lantern. The monster eventually got to its feet alive, but not without damage.
The Gnoll’s fur was singed in various places all over its body, the left side of its face was a hideous charred mess from the whole flask that had been poured there. Its left eye was beet red and its lid was charred off. Its right eye shut closed as blood dripped from it.
The Foreman looked down with a blazing red eye at Drake, inflamed with rage.
"Damn, so it has a second stage huh.." Drake mumbled hesitantly.
The Gnoll raised the lantern in front of itself and pointed it in Drake’s direction. A low rumble escaping its maw, the fire within the lantern flared to life. The licks and whips of fire surged out as if turned to tentacles looking for prey to seize.
Drake burst into action as well, sprinting to dodge the lashes of the fire as they came down on him in an ardent barrage of red and orange. But soon that wasn’t the only thing Drake had to worry about. He saw past the flames, as the Foreman lifted its pickaxe with its other arm ready to attack Drake with another horizontal swing.
He began running desperately backward towards the mouth of the dirt road, firing Mana Bolts behind him in an attempt to strike the monster in the head again. But his accuracy was nothing if not a travesty. The Mana Bolts just weakly peppering the Foreman.
Drake glanced over his shoulder to see the swing coming from his side, he wouldn’t be able to dodge this one completely. He decided to make a last-ditch effort and stopped, fully turned, and fired two Mana Bolts for the monster's eye. The Bolts fired consecutively after each respective chant, just as the pickaxe was about to collide with Drake.
He pushed backward with all his strength, to dodge a direct blow, putting the remainder of his Mana into the tattoos to hopefully stave off the damage.
The pickaxe was just close enough to clip the edge of his arms as he held them in front of himself. The pickaxe and mana-infused tattoos screeched as they ground across one another, a cascade of blue mana sparking from the onslaught.
After a few grueling moments Drake heard something akin to the shattering of glass as his tattoos winked out of existence. His Mana had emptied out. The pickaxe passed him just as his Mana hit rock bottom, and he was flung backward into a pile of Gnolls corpses with an ear-splitting crash.
But not before he saw the result of his last two Mana Bolts crashing into the Foreman’s raised lantern in defense of its face, shattering it.
Drake grunted in pain and struggled to get up, a small cloud of dust around him. He looked around at the pile of Gnolls that he had auspiciously landed in. But Drake didn’t have any more options left. His Mana had bottomed out and his only weapon was now out of commission without it.
He scrambled to look for any leftover weapons near the bodies of Gnolls. Finding only cracked and battered swords, shields, and crossbows. Then, he spotted a pristine gleam of steel through the dust.
He bolted to the object seeing what it was, looking up through the dissipating cloud of dust once he had it in his hands.
The Foreman was there looking at his now broken lantern with renewed anger in its bloodshot eye. Noticing Drake and turned raising its arms to bring down its pickaxe on him once more.
Drake furiously searched his pockets for the earrings and rings he had looted earlier. Placing his Martial Artist’s Tattoo Rings and his Peridot Jewelry into his inventory, switching them out for their Ruby counterparts. Spiking his Strength past 300.
Drake gripped the weapon in his hands. The halberd the Spearman Gnoll had used.
The Foreman’s swing now in motion, coming down on Drake like a world-ending meteor from the heavens.
But he only surged forward at his highest possible speed, getting a running start as he heaved back the halberd, ready to throw it like a javelin.
"Resign yourself, and receive my blow!!! Power through force! Heavy Blow!!" he roared as he threw the halberd with all his might, it glowing to life in a hue of red as it screamed across the field. Passing right next to the oncoming pickaxe and past it right into the Foreman’s widening eye and out the other end of its skull.
But the motion of the swing from the Foreman was already past the summit and bore down on Drake. Slamming into the ground behind him with an earth-shattering roar as the air pressure from the aftermath ripped him completely from the ground and into the air.
Drake was chaotically hurled through the air and into the forest, crashing through branches and trees. Finally landing in the treetop of one that had been sturdy enough not to break.
Somehow Drake had survived, a bleeding grin painted across his face as he looked at the notification that he had just opened up.
[You have subjugated ‘The Foreman’ Gnoll [F-Rank] Level 21] [Experience Earned,10,000 TP has been awarded]
[Urgent Quest Complete! You have defeated the ‘Foreman’]
[Accept Rewards?]
[Yes] [No]
[You have been awarded Experience, 25,000 TP]
[You now have access to the Gnoll Mines]
[Congratulations! You have increased Mage x Warrior to Level 10] [28 Free Points have been awarded]
"Fuck yeah!! Take that you stupid little prick!" Drake coughed, spitting up blood while smiling. Soon turning into a light chuckle that devolved into hysterical laughter as he lay limply in an entanglement of branches and leaves.