‘There goes my dream ride,’ he commented inside his head.

If nothing else, he would want to keep it.

“Artus, are you okay?” Elaine asked.

He knew that she was saying something, but she sounded so far away while she was right there, kneeling in front of him after puking onto him. He felt like slapping the girl silly but didn’t find the action worth the effort.

Things were going as he had feared.

Bad things always happen when he has had too much fun.

She slapped something on his chest before warmth spread from her palm returned to his body. Far off screams and yells returned with it. The sudden feeling of fullness made him grasp her hand, and he saw tiny crystals flaking off the palm of her hand.

'Aether Crystals?' he wondered.

“Are you hurt anywhere?” they asked each other almost at the same time.

Elaine turned all red from the exchange and he guessed that she was fine and dandy. She should be better than him as she hadn’t puked out blood. Well, at least she didn’t go into mental breakdown after what had happened.

Or torn to body parts like the poor maid-guards. It would be a huge waste.

All of this was a huge waste, and for all the troubles she had caused him, at least he would want to taste her once. The night sky surely looked beautiful though. Huge trees with their high foliage surround him in the bright darkness. The huge planet above reflected a lot more light compared to a moon. Most nights were bright like this one.

Elaine pushed her soft breast onto his face without any reserve. She felt really warm against the chilling surroundings. He would have pushed her down and gotten on with it if he had felt anything. The thick iron smell might have been the reason he couldn’t get hard at all.

The lady pushed him back and looked at him.

“Artus, the shell, we’ll need it,” she smacked his chest with an upturned fist.

“Shut it, woman,” he scolded her.

It was annoying but what she did have woken him up from his weird wandering thoughts. What was he even thinking about? Did he hit his head or something?

Artus shook his head and reactivated the shell before he realized something else more important. All of them had been thrown away further and much faster than he thought possible. The torn body parts were the glaring evidence of the hyperspeed collision with the trees or whatever.

And why was he way too calm facing all of this? As if he wasn’t even right in the middle of it and watching everything from above. It’s surreal.

“Thalia and Julee,” he muttered as he remembered them.

“Can you stand?” he asked the girl and she nodded.

A groan escaped him as he pushed himself up. His body felt like it had been stepped on all over. Elaine did have fared better than him as she had helped him up onto his wobbly feet. She hugged his arm tight as soon as he was up.

He wondered how they could be so soft yet so firm at the same time. Magic perhaps? She let out a soft moan as he deformed the huge breast with his other hand.

A clink at his shell stole his attention away. More metallic clunks echoed around him as crude arrows and javelins rained on them. The barbaric screams and yells came after that.

‘Here come the idiots who caused this shit,’ he cursed as he let her go.

He switched to the latest form of the shell just in time when the red-scaled creatures showed up running with their mouth gurgling with saliva. The fat diamond-shaped top with its ultra-sharp tetrahedron blades spun on the ground.

Coming with the formula to form such an intricate mix of pointy triangles to form a shape was mind-numbing, but it was well worth it. The result was as he had expected.

The screaming red-scaled dog-headed creature was in the air before turning into bloody pastes in a blink of an eye. Four of them had charged on their scaly feet in various ways to their death and the shell didn’t even rattle.

More creatures rushed towards them while showing off their sharp canine, but all ended in the same manner. Grind to bloody tiny pieces of meat and bones. Elaine's arms clenched around him as her body shook in terror.

“Close your eyes,” he said to her and Elaine buried her face into his chest.

The lady is really a handful. She was completely useless right now, a burden. He wondered if it would be worth keeping her. Probably not, but a promise is a promise.

The diamond top leaned forward before it slid forward on its round bottom. Random mobs charged at him only to be turned into Essence. Their bodies meat paste. Not a whole lot of action was going on.

These idiots will never learn.

The announcement screen hadn’t come up and blocked his view, but at the back of his head, he knew it. It was like a vague whisper inside his head telling him about the [Core] destruction and Essence absorption. The spinning top of death's journey continued until the sounds of men fighting echoed from everywhere as they got closer to the wreckage.

A woman’s scream tilted the thorny spinning top towards it.

A few more bodies turned into sliced meat before they saw each other.

Thalia was riding behind someone. Like Elaine, she didn’t leave any gap between her and the merc rider. She spared him but a glance as they rode away in the night.

Thalia had made her choice.

“My god, Julee!” Elaine’s scream pulled his eyes away from Thalia's back.

He followed her line of sight only to find the bloodied Julee. Her clothes were torn apart with deep claws marks all over her. Artus rushed towards her on instinct. The girl gave a sad smile as she saw him before her eyes went cold and lifeless.

Sharp painful needles poked his heart. He could have kept her safe if he stayed with her.

But he knew the opposite was also true. She would have been alive and well in his loving arms if she chose to leave the room after him. Julee also had made her choice.

A huge club suddenly appeared from nowhere and it sent him flying in the air. Half of his mana was taken away in that hit but the tree trunk sized club had it worse. They landed on the ground before the spin righted itself.

The gigantic dog-lizard let out a confused pathetic yelp when its weapon was turned into tiny wooden chips. It threw the wooden stump and roared in anger.

Artus screamed like a drunken buffoon and sped his way towards the monster that had ruined his day. He would grind the huge monster to meat paste.

The top tilted dangerously as it sped up. The ground was shaved away as it made its way to the target. A few smaller ones tried to stand in his way, but both their spears and their bodies were sliced to small pieces and thrown everywhere.

The huge monster yelped again lept further away when it saw that. It looked confused for a moment before roared again, challenging him but there was no way he would let down his shell.

“Come and get me, fucker!” he yelled back. "I'm right fucking here!"

It roared back at him as if calling him a cheater.

A huge blade cut the monster into two from the back. The body fell to its sides as blood gushed out. The sword wielder lept towards them and Artus reeled back in response.

“Thank god you are alright!” he yelled. He landed on the ground with a loud thump.

Jake was injured with nothing but scratches.

“Shut the fuck up, bastard!” Artus screamed at the man. His top spun much faster and threatened to turn the man into meat paste.

“Hey, what happened, man?” The man backed away in confusion.

“Artus,” Elaine called but he barely heard her.

“Julee is dead, Jake. Is she nothing but a whore to you!? A hole to put your dick in!?”

“Artus!” Elaine yelled at him.

“You want to leave with your father, My lady?” he said between his clenched teeth. ”Because he is right there, and you are free to go.”

“Artus, please,” Elaine hugged him tighter. “Please, don’t be like this, please,” she begged. “I need you, and I love Julee too,” she bawled.

She cried her heart out while hanging on to him with her dear life while her body shook uncontrollably.

Women’s tears are atrocious.

One moment he was mourning the loss of a great cook and very lovable lady, and the next he was worried about another. A few seconds later, his loins warmed up when he thought of the ways to calm her down and make her forget everything.

Elaine felt him and she looked up with teary eyes. More puzzled than angry but he didn’t really care what though of him anymore. He had to admit though the flow of emotion was really weird.

The stories of men having boners during a bloody fight might be true after all. Elaine hid her red face as he looked away.

“It’s the Essence rush, Artus, it is messing with your mind,” Jake explained to him. "Just breathe."

Adrenaline, a more scientific word entered his mind. Maybe the mix of both. His thoughts cleared and he realized there was nothing he could do anymore.

Julee is dead.

No one knew how to revive her in that state and CPR wouldn’t be nearly enough. They would have tried something if they could. These people weren’t monsters.

It was too late to save her.

After that, he realized he should secure his safety before anything else. Safety comes first. Another of those huge monsters and they might be in trouble. He didn’t have unlimited mana and his head felt like it wanted to explode after the second burst of mana from Eliane.

“Where’s the next safe zone?” he asked the man.

“What zone? Never mind, the next town, Solis, is a two days ride that way, can you make it?”

“Try to keep up, old man,” he scoffed.

His shell warped into its speed mode and he made another simple shell for Jake. He needed the man alive to talk to the two sides. He couldn’t see himself explaining anything to anyone, it would be troublesome.

The man thanked him in return and Artus gave him the middle finger.

The shell spun on the spot for a few seconds before he dashed off like a bullet. Jake fought off a few monsters before he lept through the air in huge leaps to catch up. Later, the merc leader used the tree branches as slingshots to keep up.

There were things trying to stop him but he rammed right into them. Fallen trees broke apart, throwing anyone or anything close enough flying above and around. Riders on huge monsters with horns, thick muscles and sharp claws tried to flank him, but they just couldn’t keep up with his speed.

Trees zipped past him as they flew along the road. No monsters had given pursuit as they probably had given up. He was just too fast.

He was sad at the fact that Thalia had chosen another man. She had helped him learn a lot during their time together and she could be a very valuable partner.

They had talked about a lot of things. Magic spells and the builds that popular adventurers had chosen was among them. Dual classes or whatnot.

Of course, it was mostly speculation as people could only tell what they could see. Revealing your build would only reveal your weaknesses and no one was stupid enough to do that.

He had gone along with her stories but it made him realize the lack of defensive spells in the magic society. There wasn’t much difference in choices that people make in the fake world like games or stories after all.

All were too focused on attacks rather than defense.

The saying ‘best defense is an offense’ is overrated.

He recalled how frustrated he was while he was in the other world. Every game he played had failed to provide equally impressive means to protect oneself. Every single one of the fantasies made real had only stacked on more HP or thicker armor.

Now stuck in a similar world himself, he finds it hard not to rant.

‘Where are all the defensive magic spells I can learn from goddammit!’

He could just hope that he would find something useful in the academy. His last schooling experience hadn’t been filled with excitement and it wouldn't be that different here.

The solar-light began filling the sky after speeding on the road quite some time. A soft exclamation from her had returned him to his current situation.

There was a cute luscious girl strapped to him from the very beginning of the attack. Jake, her birth father, was keeping up with his huge leaps but he was getting slower. Slowly he began to realize what had happened.

The attack was deliberate, it was somehow staged.

Elaine’s exact words before this began to make more sense.

He wanted to be angry at first but somehow he didn’t have such emotion. Artus tried to figure out why before he was reminded of what he did on the first day he found himself trapped in the creepy basement.

He killed a man in cold blood for his own freedom. Artus slowed down.

“How did you do it?” he asked the lady.

“Did what?” She asked with a smile that didn’t reach her eyes.

“Julee died, Eliane,” her body shook and tried to getaway. His arms kept her glued to his body while her hands flailed helplessly trying to push him away.

“You’ve told me to make a choice,” she blamed him and rightly so. “I’ve made a very hard one.”

“Is that why Jake spent a long time with you?”

“Nothing happened, we had only talked and argued!” Eliane challenged him with her eyes but he didn’t look away. She looked away after she saw something in his eyes.

“Jake is a coward,” she added and the shifting of her body told him what she meant by that.

“You seduced him?”

Eliane tried to escape him again while trying to hide her face but to no avail.

“I don’t blame you,” Artus chuckled darkly. A lewdly gorgeous daughter seducing her father. “I can’t because I might have done the same thing,” and let her free from his arms.

The girl stared at his face for some time, probably trying to read him and he didn’t have any attention to hide anything. He could see himself doing something like this. Stage a huge monster attack so he could slip away from a golden cage during the chaos.

‘Yeah, I will do that if push comes to shove,’ he mused.

“I only want to know two things, sweet girl,” he said. “How have you done it, and how are you planning to use me?”

“Artus, I don’t-”

“Please answer them,” he said coldly.

If a girl like Thalia found him not worth it, how come such a beauty like her could have fallen for him. It’s ridiculous. The fact is, if she chose to stay with him, it would only be temporary. A stepping stone.

“Jake gave me intact Cores which I keep in my room, and enough of them will attract all kinds of monsters.”

“Good, that would be useful someday, and the second question?”

“I… I don’t know,” she said, looked away, and stared at the distance. She spent the time in silence thinking about something and he let her made her mind.

Eliane turned and dove into him. The shell stopped around them and the momentum pushed it to a few spins before it stopped.

“Most men would never let me go, you know,” she cajoled. “They’ll use me to satisfy their lust before they trade me for something of value.”

“I’m not like most other men.”

She chuckled, “that’s why I can never let you go.”

“Well, until you find someone better,” he scoffed.

“I was courted by a prince, Artus,” Eliane sighed. “There is no one better.”

Well, no one couldn’t argue with that, but still, something felt missing.

“I couldn’t feel it from you,” he stated. “If you know what I mean.”

Eliane was surprised for a short moment before she chuckled. She turned around to look far away. She was silent for a while before she turned towards him.

“It’s because I’m not able to love, not anymore,” she replied with a sad smile. “It had been taken away from me, piece by piece, by my own family. It is to prepare me to be the perfect concubine until all I can feel is lust.”

Artus was taken aback. “Don’t tell me they use magic on you?”

“Among many other things,” she added.

“I’m sorry,” he returned the hug and Eliane cooed comfortably in his arms as if she was home. “But I don’t know if I could trust you, Eliane.”

The girl chuckled, “I could tell,” she said. “If this plan goes well, I’m sure you will.”

He didn’t think so but he would let it slide for now as her grind was too good to not enjoy. It took him a while before Jake caught up. The other man might need to clean himself before anything else.