When you stop fighting you die.

Climber Academy motto

I looked at the three orcs that were noisily moving through the trees ahead of me. While not as intelligent as me, they were smart enough to move in a group formation that made it impossible to pick them off one at a time without alerting the other two.

I had spent the last two days since killing the first orc scouting the forest with the hope of finding another single orc to attack. After putting on the orc’s shirt like an oversized robe and cutting its pants into rough shoes the cold did not bother me as much. Without a doubt the increased endurance stat was also at play.

The orc had turned out to be carrying a small sack that contained some truly awful jerky and a small coin purse. Surprising me once more I found the orc was carrying five silver. While not a large sum of money it was more than most people made in a week out of the Tower. Better yet, the coin purse appeared to be the standard magical type that everyone obtained in the Tower and would be able to hold any amount of coins. Unfortunately that is where my luck ended.

Orcs were easy to find. They were loud and I could often smell them if one had been through the area in the past 10 minutes. In fact, now I couldn’t travel for more than half an hour before running into a group.

And that was the problem. All of the orcs moved in groups. Most were in groups of six or seven but twice I had come across groups of more than 20. This group of three orcs was the smallest I had found in the past two days.

Despite now being almost twice as strong as a standard human I knew the orcs were still stronger and faster than me. If it was just one, I was confident that I could kill it by leveraging my sword skills. Two of them would be difficult but possible if I managed to separate them a bit. But there were no pairs and there was a bigger problem.

I was out of food.

The crappy jerky was disgusting but it was still food, and I had consumed the last bit half a day ago. From my training, I knew I could push through from another day before the lack of food would decrease my ability to fight. I was on a timer and running out of options. I could ignore this trio and search for a better target, but I ran the very real risk of not finding a smaller group.

When I stop fighting I die.

Yep, I was fucked.

I tried to move around the group to better position myself. When one of the orcs moved further away from the other two, I took my chance.

I quickly labeled the orcs 1,2, and 3 based off which was closest to me

Ignoring the Orc #3 that had moved a little ways away from the other two, I threw my dagger at Orc #2. Unlike when the same dagger was thrown at me, it hit its mark and sunk down into the Orc #2’s right thigh. It screamed out in pain and grabbed its leg in pain. I had no time to waste. I held the sword-ax in front of me as Orc #1 rushed toward me.

I parried the initial attack, while moving out of the way to let Orc #1 pass by me. With a twist of my wrist the sword-ax cut into the arm and chest as it moved by me. It was a shallow cut but would still limit the range of motion of the orc.

Not giving it a chance to recover I lashed out at its legs hoping to slow it down and equalize our speed. Both attacks landed and in a rage Orc #1 lifted its weapon above its head for a powerful strike. My initial strike paid off as the weapon twisted awkwardly when the orc was not able to lift its arms normally. Capitalizing on the moment, I struck out at the throat of the orc and felt the blade land a solid hit.

There was no time to celebrate as Orc #3 charged in and forced me to move back while attempting to block its attack. Weapon met weapon and my inferior strength and size resulted in me being shoved back several feet. Orc #3 rushed toward me, attacking again and again. While it had no technique, the speed and strength of each attack left me backpedaling. After a few seconds of panicked blocking I was able to strike at its wrist when it overextended for an attack. The position and striking angle of my attack combined with the orc trying to bring its arm back results in the hand being removed from its wrist.

I once more rushed forward and was able to land a blow to the orc’s gut before it punched me, knocking me to the ground and throwing my weapon away. I rolled away from the orc as quickly as I could and came up with its weapon in my hand. I knew the wound was a death sentence unless it could stop the bleeding.

I rushed back toward Orc #2. It appeared Orc #2 had managed to remove my knife and tie a leather strap over his injured leg. Standing while favoring its good leg, I knew it wasn’t out of the fight yet. I whipped the blade forward in a feint towards its chest and at the last moment changed the direction of the swing downward and let go of the sword-ax. It landed on Orc #3’s left ankle, taking out the orc’s good leg and it fell to the ground.

Letting Orc #2 fall to the ground, I made the short way back to my original weapon laying by Orc #3. Orc #3 stared up at me as I lifted the weapon preparing to kill it. To my surprise the orc closed its eyes and made some odd grunting noises. Not wasting the opportunity, I landed a powerful swing on its neck and killed it.

Orc #3 dead, I walked back to Orc #1. My attack on the throat must have hit something important as its empty eyes were open and not focused on anything. Finally having a moment I quickly searched Orcs #1 and #3 while keeping an eye on Orc #2.

To its credit as a warrior, Orc #2 never gave up and continued to try to push itself up despite the fact that its ankle was clearly shattered. I am not certain if the sword-ax cut through the ankle or if it was just the blunt force of the weapon that did the damage, but the end result was the same. Orc #2 used its weapon as a crutch and tried to stand once more. It didn’t even see as I took aim with one of my new daggers and threw it towards its chest. It might have been my training with throwing knives or my luck at play as the dagger flew into the chest of the orc where I expected its heart to be. After looking down in disbelief the orc fell to the ground dead.

Enemies defeated. 30 exp awarded.

Level up! You are Level 3, +1 to all stats

Level up! You are Level 4, +1 to all stats

If not for my training and skill in fighting I would clearly be dead. I couldn’t help but crack a smile knowing I had just increased all my stats by 2 points. Those points would make fighting the larger groups at least possible. Despite my reservations, fighting the three orcs had been easy. At no point did I feel like the fight was out of control or that I was in any real danger.

Taking a couple of deep breaths. I couldn't help but laugh and curse the Tower.

“Is that really the best you have, you piece of shit tower?” I asked, looking up at the sky.

A few seconds later a challenging war cry crossed the field. Looking over, I saw a group of 10 orcs crest a hill and start running toward me.

I guess I deserved that. Getting to my feet I prepared to fight.

Parry. Dodge. Slash. Move. Feint. Slash. Dodge.

Repeat again and again.

15 minutes later I lay on the ground with a dozen shallow cuts, numerous bruises and a few new notifications:

Enemies defeated. 100 exp awarded.

Level up! You are Level 5, +1 to all stats

Level up! You are Level 6, +1 to all stats

Now that was a good fight. I was more exhausted than I could ever remember but I couldn’t help but check my status. Level 7 was the highest anyone from the Easy Difficulty ever achieved.

Name: Miki Meadows

Age: 29

Race: Human - Earth

Level: 6

Exp: 15/250 to next level

HP: 81/150 HP Regen 1.25/min

Stamina: 6/168 Stamina Regen 1.40/min

MP: 110/110 MP Regen 0.92/min

Strength: 16 -> 20

Agility: 19 -> 23

Endurance: 20 -> 24

Intelligence: 20 -> 24

Wisdom: 10 -> 14

Luck: 32 -> 36

1st Floor

Goal: Defeat all remaining enemies

14/1,000 Normal Enemies - Orcs

0/100 Sub-Boss Enemies

0/1 Boss Enemy

Time limit: None