Chapter One Hundred and Sixty - Late Night Melee Weapon Shopping

  It was surprisingly hard to shop for melee weapons late at night. Sure, I might have been able to pick up something like a combat knife, or some bottles of pepper spray, but like, a proper sledgehammer?

  Most hardware stores closed in the evening at a nice and reasonable time.

  It took some doing to find one that wasn't, but when I did, I didn't regret it at all. It was a few miles off-route, but the place was rather large. It was open 24/7, which was a little strange but whatever.

  I found a rack near the rear that sold industrial-grade itinerant protection devices for job-sites. Basically, pepper spray launchers that could be used remotely or linked to motion detectors, and extra-large cans to hand out to construction workers to spray the homeless away.

  It was perfect.

  More perfect was the small selection of regulation safety equipment at the back. There I found a shelf with fire axes that made me want to giggle with glee. Sure, I loved me sword, but as I picked up and weighted an axe with an all-grey fibreglass handle, I couldn't help but feel a certain sort of glee. This thing was seven pounds of sharpened fuck-you with a rubberized grip and a pulaski head.

  Plus it was only eighty bucks, which felt like a good deal to me.

  I bought three axes and a heap of pepper-spraying devices, along with some full-faced masks and gloves. I was probably in the top ten most suspect purchasers of the week, I bet, but the store also looked like it had do-it-yourself meth lab kits in all but name, so I figured I was fine. I was mostly buying in 'bulk' to test the waters. This was what I'd need to bring on the final run.

  God, that couldn't come soon enough. I was starting to feel a pinch exhausted. Not just physically from the post-OP bullshit, but mentally as well. I hadn't been keeping track at all. How many times had I lived through this same night already?

  Well, whatever. I could do it, because I had... actually, I had plenty of choices. I could call it off at any moment, just take the night off to rest and relax. That'd be the sensible thing to do, but opportunities like this weren't at all common.

  I rode out across the city and made it to the industrial zone without any issues. The weight of the axes was throwing off the weight of my bike a little, but it wasn't anything I couldn't compensate for.

  This time, I walked into the back courtyard feeling a little more confident even as I pumped myself up with a Soothe Minor Pain and a quick See Darkness.

  I found my busy, Many-Legs-Mc-Iceface patrolling the same old beat. I tucked myself in behind a container, then waited for him... it? Yeah, that thing was definitely an it. Anyway, I waited for it to be passing by, then I launched a quick and weak Shadow Bolt at it. It thumped into the monster's side, and it paused before turning my way.

  "Come here buddy, come, I've got something for you," I sing-songed.

  The ice elemental toddled my way, and then shot a blast of icy air in my general direction, but by then I was behind cover already.

  When it came around the container I was hiding behind, it was to meet the business end of my axe, already mid-swing. I didn't know of any 'axe forms' for fighting, so I just treated it like a baseball bat with some extra oompf to it.

  The axe head thumped into the monster's barrel, sending a deep reverberation through the axe shaft that had me tightening my grip to hold on. The impact on the ice elemental, however, was fantastic. The axe had buried itself to the middle, a solid three inches of penetration. Better yet, it had formed a long, horizontal stress crack that was about a foot wide branching out of the point of impact.

  I ripped the axe out, then swung again, this time more of an overhead.

  And I missed as the ice elemental leaned way back.

  I felt myself panic for a moment as I tried to hold the axe back mid-swing. Nothing awful happened, except that I damn near chopped my own leg off.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  "Okay, more care when swinging this thing around," I muttered before resetting for another swing. The ice elemental still hadn't recovered when I came in and smashed the axe down near the top of its form. I didn't have my entire weight in the blow this time, but it didn't matter. There was a loud crack, then a chunk of rock and ice crashed down next to me, sheered off the monster's front.

  The ice elemental glowed, and I easily stepped aside, dodging its retaliatory ice blast. Then I got back to chopping. It was almost unfair how easily I dismantled it. Five more swings and there was a good third of the monster's mass just... scattered across the pavement and dirt.

  The ice elemental slowed down, then gently crashed onto the ground, dead.

  I huffed, then swung my arm around. This was going to be one hell of an arm workout. The impacts sucked, and I was sure that if I kept this loop, my arms would be sore in the morning.

  The axe had worked beautifully. Far better than my sword. Then again, it weighed three times as much, and most of that mass was in a fat metal head that was sharpened for penetration. It wasn't too surprising that a tool made for a specific task was good at that task.

  After giving myself a minute to breathe, I wandered over to the next ice elemental. There were three of them grouped up near the portal, wandering around it, and not doing much except occasionally spilling out waves of cold air or blasting their icy wind at like, plastic bags caught in the wind.

  I moved around so that I was coming in from what I figured was the 'back' of one of the elementals, then I jogged in and brought the axe down. This time, I tried the other end of it. What I'd bought was a pulaski axe, which meant that the 'rear' of the axe had a sort of long, flat pick on it, for digging furrows or something.

  That longer, narrower shape crashed into the ice elemental like an ice pick through a man's skull, digging a solid six inches into the ice.

  When the elemental tried to spin around, I kept hold of the axe and fought against the motion, which only ripped a larger chunk out of the elemental, a good third of its top half sheering off. The next blow, delivered after spinning the axe around, chopped into the guts of the elemental and pretty much killed it dead.

  The other two were alerted by then, but once I knew to look for a slight glow from their middle, it was easy to tell when they were about to use their signature move, and that made it very easy to dodge back and out of the way.

  Using one ice elemental to body block the other, I ran in and started chopping. Call me Butcher Pete the way I hacked that thing down. Oh! Or what was the name of that one American folklore lumberjack? Paul Bunyan?

  Hehe, Paula Bunyan, maybe?

  I was giggling to myself when the ice elementals revealed that they didn't understand the concept of 'friendly fire.' The one at the rear blasted both his buddy and me with an icy wind attack, and I hissed as I backpeddled away. Rime was already forming on my arms and gloves and the shaft of my axe, but I'd avoided most of it.

  The elemental that had been blasted didn't even seem to notice. In hindsight, that was obvious, wasn't it? Ice wouldn't harm an ice elemental. If anything the icy blast was probably like a refreshingly cool breeze.

  I was underestimating them, and that was just plain stupid.

  So, focusing a little, I ran back in and cut down the first, then ran over to the second, ignoring the burn in my arms as I wailed into the elemental and smashed it apart.

  "Whooff," I exhaled as all three were nothing but chunks of melting ice and frozen mud spread out on the ground around me.

  I planted the axe in the ground, then just let my arms drop by my sides. I was a little worried about the stitches in my left arm. I was pretty sure that this kind of movement was pretty much explicitly what the doctor had ordered me not to do.

  A small break, then the portal. It was just sitting there, all pretty and blue, and if I wasn't just imagining it, a little cold as well.

  Maybe I should have bought some winter gear while I was out as well?

  ***

  Almost done with this volume. I might take 1-2 weeks off before starting Vol 3? Also, new cover in the works! It's very cool!