The System Chose the Weakest Man

Chapter 034: The Orchard Warden

"I don't like it," Selka said.

They crouched in the hollow at the edge of the clearing, in the thin green light, with the lake spread out before them like a black plate. The figure on its surface hadn't moved. Ethan had been watching it for a full minute, and he couldn't find a single flaw in its stillness. No breath. No shift of weight. It stood the way a statue stands, which was the most unsettling thing about it.

"Boss rooms don't usually have a lake," Dessa said.

"They don't usually have a mirror either." Selka drew an arrow, tested the string, and set it down. "Doran. Fire opens it up. Bram, you hold the front. Dessa, heal. Eli, stay back with the mule. If it goes badly, you run."

"Understood," Ethan said.

He didn't mean it, but nobody noticed.

They filed out onto the shore. The ground between the last trunk and the water was bare, packed glass dust that crunched like sugar underfoot. The lake didn't ripple. Not at the edge, where their boots touched it, not in the middle. It was so flat that Ethan could see the sky in it, and the leaning trees, and the five of them standing in a row, upside down.

The figure turned.

It did it slowly, without any sound, rotating on the surface like a weathervane. There was nothing on its face. Only a smooth, curved plane of silver, and in it, as it came around, Ethan saw himself.

His own face looked back. Thin. Wary. A broken nose. Then the silver rippled and it was Selka's face, sharp and tired. Then Doran's. Then Bram's, scarred and grim.

[Appraise: failed. Target reflects the observer.]

"Fire," Selka said. Her voice cracked. "Doran, fire."

Doran flung a rolling sheet of flame. It struck the Warden square in the chest and rebounded in a flash, a wall of orange that came straight back across the lake at him. He yelped and dove. The flames tore over his head and exploded against the nearest tree. A dozen glass leaves shattered.

"It reflects," Bram snapped. "Don't throw anything. It reflects it all."

Selka's arrow had already left the string. It struck the figure's shoulder and bounced, spinning, and came whistling back to bury itself in the dirt an inch from her foot.

"Then how do we hit it?"

The Warden raised one arm.

The lake shivered.

Five columns of black water rose from the surface, rolled, and fell away. In each stood a figure. Selka's thin, angular shape. Doran's slim, nervous one. Dessa, with the satchel. Bram, with the shield. And one more.

Ethan stared at his own face.

It wore his clothes. It held a rivet hammer in its right hand. It even had the dust on its boots. And it was looking at him with an expression he had never worn in a mirror, a flat, patient, waiting stare, like a wolf at a fence.

"Oh, no," said Doran. His own double lifted a hand and a flame began to bloom.

It was chaos.

Selka and her double traded arrows at ten paces, each bolt striking the other's, shaft splitting shaft. Doran and his copy flung fire that met in mid-air and fizzled. Dessa's double began healing the other doubles, and Dessa had to dive for the satchel to counter it. Bram met himself shield to shield with a clang that shook the clearing, two grim old men grunting and shoving, perfectly matched.

Ethan's double came at him with a hammer.

He met it. He blocked low. Swung back. The thing countered with a move he knew, one he'd learned only a week ago in a farrier's yard, a sidestep and a flick of the wrist. His own move, thrown back at him. His own footwork, in his own boots. He ducked under the swing and felt the wind of it across his scalp.

It knows everything I know.

It was stronger than he was. Faster, maybe. And it couldn't be hurt the way a person could. When his hammer struck its shoulder it left a long white crack, but the crack sealed over as he watched.

He retreated. The double followed, and as it came, Stalker's Instinct slid across his mind, and he noticed something.

There was no pulse.

He looked at the creature coming at him, and in the gold net of his senses, it wasn't there. Not a breath. Not a heartbeat. A hole in the shape of a man, ringed by living things. Selka's breath. Doran's. Bram's, hard and slow.

And at the center of the lake, dim and cold and slow, one pulse.

He'd heard it once before, without knowing what it was. A faint, patient thrum, far out on the water, like a heartbeat heard through a wall.

The Warden.

He ducked another blow. His mind raced. It reflects the observer. Whoever looks at it, it throws back. Selka had looked, and her arrow had returned. Doran had looked, and his flame had returned. The doubles had risen as each of them stared at the silver face.

Whoever looks.

He rolled away from the hammer and stood.

"Everyone!" he shouted. "Close your eyes!"

"What?" Selka cried.

"Close your eyes! It copies whoever's looking at it! If it can't see you looking, it can't copy you!"

"That's insane!"

"Trust me!"

There was no time to argue. His own double was on him again. Ethan did the stupidest thing he had ever done in his life. He shut his eyes.

The dark rushed in.

For a heartbeat he was terrified. He felt the hammer's wind, felt it whistle past his ear. Then Stalker's Instinct opened, wide and clear, and the whole clearing bloomed in gold. He could feel everything. The shape of each living breath. The empty places where the copies were. And beyond them all, the slow cold thrum of the Warden, out on the black water.

He turned toward it. He ran.

Scurry. The world sped up, and he skimmed across the lake. It was solid under his boots, glassy and smooth as ice. He heard his own double behind him, losing ground. He heard Bram's voice, gruff and astonished. "He's closed his eyes, the little fool, he's doing it."

Twenty paces. Ten. The cold thrum grew louder.

The Warden raised its arm to strike. Ethan felt the air shift and slid beneath it. He didn't look up. He didn't need to. He planted both feet and swung the rivet hammer with everything four skills and nine levels could give him, up and in, straight into the center of its chest.

The silver cracked.

It didn't reflect. There was nothing to reflect. The hammer struck a face that couldn't see him, and the glass split from sternum to throat with a sound like a bell, and the thrum behind it stuttered.

"Doran!" he shouted. "Now!"

Doran, eyes squeezed shut and mouth screwed up tight, flung his flame toward the sound of Ethan's voice. It came roaring across the lake, hot as a smithy. It struck the crack and the whole figure went white. The Warden tried to turn. It couldn't. The silver blistered, bubbled, and burst. Fragments sprayed in all directions, glittering, and fell and rang across the ground like a thousand tiny chimes.

Silence.

Ethan opened his eyes.

The doubles were gone. The lake had gone dark and still. Across the clearing, Selka, Bram, Doran, and Dessa stood staring at him with their mouths open.

[Orchard Warden defeated. Level 10 reached.]

[Absorb Orchard Warden? Understanding: 22%. Insufficient.]

He swallowed.

"Well," Doran said, very faintly. "That was... a plan."

Bram lowered his shield. His eyes were on Ethan, steady and unreadable, and when he spoke, his voice carried only to him.

"That wasn't luck, boy," he said.