The Queen moved first, barreling through my feeble attack, tanking the detonation.

  {Aviator Queen}

  [Lead]

  [(-4340) 95660 Hp]

  She completely ignored the fire creeping up her shoulder, choosing instead to ram me against a wall, cracking her talons against my forehead before I’d even hit the ground.

  I flung across the floor, bashing and tumbling into a heap.

  The Queen swooped over and caught me, before repeatedly driving my head into the stone

  “For crying out loud!” I shouted, wrenching myself out from her grip—shredding my t-shirt in the process.

  She struck out, connecting with my shovel.

  Normally, that would’ve deflected her attack, or have mitigated some of the damage, but she put so much force into each of her movements that I was tossed like a sack of potatoes, shovel cracking against my own ribs as my arms just gave up.

  {Grind}

  [(-10,000) 100 Hp]

  I hit the floor.

  One of my shoulders was broken, along with several ribs. Honestly speaking, I’d suffered much worse, but the speed with which she landed those blows were starting to take its toll on me.

  While the Queen was only as strong as a Brass—basically as the bench Wrath—she dealt far more damage. Even now, those attacks had been half hearted. First only a couple hundred damage, then a few thousand. If I had to guess, a real attack from her would break this entire nest, perhaps even hurting herself in the process, depending on whether or not she had some kind of damage multiplier.

  It was only a matter of time before she went for the kil..

  And when that happened, I was going to die.

  The boy on the floor turned around in his sleep. He grunted, reaching up and rubbing his nose with his ratty sleeve.

  “Soise?” I asked, grabbing my earpiece. “Soise, there’s a five year old boy in here with me.”

  Silence.

  Then the radio begun crackling—

  “What!?” Soise screamed.

  I cringed, slamming hands on my ears—not that it helped one bit.

  “What’s he doing in here?” I asked. “The queen doesn’t seem like she wants to eat him.”

  I heard her frantically moving pieces on her chess board. “He’s probably bait! Get him out of there!”

  I poked my broken shoulder. “Uh…”

  A projectile of green mana floated through our tunnel in the ceiling, knitting my body back together.

  [You have been affected by {Soise’s} RangeType [Grace II]]

  “Thanks!” I called, sprinting headfirst toward the Queen, who, in her surprise, allowed me to dive with Crapshoveler in hand, catching a wedge in the stone and whipping around, snagging the boy in a single fluid movement that must’ve looked really, really cool.

  He jolted awake, grabbing my bare shoulder.

  “Don’t worry, you’re safe now!” I smiled.

  The boy tilted his head. “Where’s mommy?”

  “Mom?”

  The bird lunged toward us, letting out a feral screech.

  The boy clapped his hands in delight. “Mommy!”

  “Hey Soise! We’ve got a problem!” I shouted, jumping on the Queen and rolling down her side, narrowly avoiding sharpened wings that exploded out from her back. “The boy and the bird seem to be family.”

  “Grind, that’s completely impossible. Unless…is he a monster? Maybe shapeshifting?”

  I looked him in the eye.

  [*Schrreeeeeeeeecccchhh*]

  [Dirt]

  [10 Hp 2 Str]

  “I…don’t think so,” I grunted. “Hey kid, blink twice if you’re an Npc.”

  The boy stared.

  “Soise, the Queen adopted a five year old player!”

  “That’s impossible,” Soise shouted. “Are you sure he’s not a monster?”

  “One hundred percent,” I snapped back. “Monsters have red names. And he’s not an Npc because those must follow an order from a player!”

  The Queen squawked, rearing up on her hind legs, wingings beginning to extend.

  And they didn’t stop.

  From each wing, new wings grew, expanding outward in a curtain. Other curtains of feathers extended from her back, covering themselves in talon barbs. Their size pushed out against the neck, cracking the stone, not solely by touch, but by the trembling magnitude of her power.

  {Aviator Queen}

  [Lead]

  [200000 Str]

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  I started running, alternating uses of Reach in my hands and feet, clambering back through my tunnel. Man, that ability was underrated.

  Toya brushed past me. “Grind? What’s going on?” He glanced at the boy in my hands. “...What?”

  “No time to explain!” I shouted, flinging myself off the island, moments before the whole thing exploded, showing stone and glistering crystal.

  The crystal, however, fell up, into the sky.

  Evidently, the queen created enchanted floating crystals, using her own mana network to fix rock to them. So when she started fighting for real, the mana she would’ve used to hold the nest was no longer stable, and thus—

  The boy screamed, flailing around in my arms as we tumbled through the sky.

  “We’ll be fine,” I whispered, positioning Crapshoveler beneath me, like a witch on a broom. This didn’t look nearly as cool as surfing with the shovel, but I was substantially less likely to drop a small child into the middle of a desert from a mile up.

  The shovel teetered to one side, then the other.

  I took a deep breath.

  “Where’s mommy!” The boy cried, covered in snotty tears, wiping his face on my pants.

  “Mommy’s busy.” I clenched my shovel. “Hopefully.”

  A monstrous creature floated in the falling rubble, pushing through the shattered cloud of crystal. She had a hundred massive strings of wings, each beating slightly out of pace with one another, creating a stable hovering effect.

  The Queen swiveled toward us.

  The boy smiled brightly.

  “Soise? We’ll have to abort the mission!” I hissed. “We can’t kill this kid’s mother. Not before we understand what’s going on!”

  “Just keep him out of harm’s way,” Soise said. “Master Jujud says the bird is a monster, not a summon, or familiar, so there shouldn’t be any connection between the two. It’s a miracle that boy’s still alive, especially if he’s a player.”

  “Soise—”

  The queen screeched, rushing toward us.

  I gritted my teeth, squeezing the boy to my chest with one hand while the other shifted your balance, allowing some semblance of steering. “Hey, Screech, would you like to go for a ride?”

  “Fly?” The boy whispered with eyes wider than the moon. “We’re gonna fly?”

  “Yes. Mommy's going to keep behind us, so we don’t get hurt.”

  A beaming smile lit his face. “YES! YES! Please!”

  I stopped summoning Crapshoveler toward me, and we plummeted, diving away. The Queen flared up with mana, shattering the sound barrier as she tore past us, immediately smashing into the ground with a plume of dust.

  If that dealt her any damage, she didn’t show it.

  I spun Crapshoveler around, driving him in a wide arc through the field of falling rubble.

  She picked herself off the ground and blasted upward, obliterating everything in her path, missing us by a fraction.

  We needed more speed.

  Thankfully, Crapshoveler was starting to accelerate.

  We were zooming forward, shooting around and around in massive loops, circling the queen and piles of falling wreckage.

  A little ways away, the rest of my team had gathered on a new platform, this time made from whatever crystals Toya had managed to collect.

  “Drive her toward us!” Soise commanded.

  I grabbed my earpiece. “Hey! Why would she take care of a boy?”

  “I told you! Bait!”

  Was that it?

  She just didn’t seem smart enough for a strategy like that.

  I circled around our base, confirming a suspicion.

  The queen completely ignored the rest of my party. She was solely focused to chase after and kill me.

  “Does that look like what this is?” I asked.

  “Trust your team, Grind,” Soise hissed. “We’ll handle it.”

  I bit my lip.

  Who’s life was more important here?

  The player.

  We had to keep this boy safe.

  “Fine.”

  “What’s that?” Schreech asked, poking my earpiece. “Can I have it?”

  “It’s a magical thing,” I started. “And no.”

  “Why?”

  “Because only I can use it.”

  “Why?”

  “Magic.”

  “Oh,” the boy said. “Okay.”

  I smiled. “Maybe I’ll make you one, sometime soon.”

  He beamed. “Please!”

  “Now…hang on tight.”

  I grabbed Crapshoveler and twisted, whipping us around in a one hundred eighty degree turn, nearly blacking out as the Queen passed beneath us. She was steadily lowering her speed, making each turn a little tighter than the one before.

  At most, we had only a few minutes before she caught up.

  “STRETCHY!” The boy laughed, grabbing his face. “Again! Again!”

  I smirked, snapping around in a loop.

  The Queen flung herself at us, nicking the base of my shovel. We spun out into the distance, leaning dangerously to one side. The air burned my skin as I struggled to regain control, spiralling toward the ground. Crapshoveler's force of rotation just wasn’t enough to absorb our ridiculous momentum.

  I shot an orb beneath us, detonating it, and we launched upward, bashing against the Queen.

  Rather than flinch, she took the blow head on, smoothing us in a tight sphere of wings, sprouted out from her sides.

  Soise began shouting, before the Queen's mana cut off the sound of her voice.

  It was just me and Screech.

  A sickening mana sank into my body.

  [You have been inflicted with [Lethal Haze]]

  Screech was still smiling wide, poking and jabbing the shovel. Eventually, he stopped. “Mister? How do you make it fly?”

  He looked at me. “Mister?”

  I forced my eyes open, holding onto Screech a little tighter.

  My thoughts were muddy. Churning.

  I saw spots.

  But I wasn’t going to give him up.

  Maybe the Queen loved him. Maybe he was bait.

  I couldn’t take any chances. He would be safe with me. As long as I got him out of here.

  And I could get him out of here.

  The boy frowned. “Hey! Talk!”

  My eyes flickered. My breathing was shallow. “You’re not affected?”

  “Huh?”

  His eyes were as wide and bright as they were before, even in the darkness.

  So the Queen was keeping him alive. Considering that, would she use him as bait?

  I released him from my grip with a smile. “It’s fine now. Go be with your mom. See if you can make her leave the sky. She…she eats people sometimes, so ask her not to.”

  “Nuh uh!” The boy shook his head. “She’s a nice momma. She eats yaks.”

  I thought…

  Oh well. It didn’t matter much. I’d have to ask about it in the next life.

  The Queen’s hold went limp.

  {Aviator Queen}

  [(-2.8m) -2704340 Hp]

  ~

  [You have been affected with [Full Restore : Silver]]

  My body was suddenly, completely healed.

  A sound like clapping thunder blew the clouds apart, vaporizing most of the body around us, leaving only charred bone.

  And we were falling.

  Suddenly, the boy and I hit a woven floor.

  Toya sighed. Soise and Sip shrugged.

  Master Jujud wiped smoking mana off her hands, smiling from ear to ear. “You all failed. Congratulations.”

  Thanks for your continued support, dear readers! I've noticed a genuinely insane reader retention rate ever sense the start of Grind's academy arc, so I take it you like this bit! (Pst. Let me know what parts you like best so I can add more in the future. This story is spontaneous, so pretty much anything goes.)

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