“Huff… Huff…” the sound of breathing echoed in the room. It was dark, and even outside, the moon was hanging in the sky. Luckily, Jason could see in the dark.

“This sucks,” he said.

The distraction was indeed a success. The orc horde slightly changed their path deviating from the original. Under the darkness of the night, they scoured through the city, searching for a person. A person that wreaked havoc among their ranks.

He was leaning on a wall while still trying to catch his breath. He just escaped from being attack on all sides.

An escape that was quite thrilling, since he did smiled while parrying with his two swords. A skill he had long forgotten, a skill he received during his early days fraught with danger. A time when his energy guard was constantly being broken, along with his body being bled. The past norm birthed parry in his grace, acting as a light at the end of the tunnel.

Now, he felt the same feeling all over again. A continuous repetition of the same move over and over again, honing it to new heights. A few mistakes here and there, but his energy guard protected him well. It drove his concentration to the maximum, pushing it to the extreme. To be fair, he didn’t have a choice, going up against more than a hundred orcs was suicidal enough. In the end, he still survived and not without a hefty reward.

Parry went up to level five, a quick jump from level one. Indeed, hardship bred reward. His clothes were torn up, even his crude leather armor was far from its original appearance. At this rate, he might come back the same way like his previous mission, barely wearing any clothes, and that was something he definitely disliked.

“Note to self, I should pack extra clothes for the next mission,” said Jason.

Despite feeling let down about his clothes, he did felt amazed by the durability of this arm brace of his. An arm brace he earned back when defeating a big old scary looking tree. Needless to say, a quality item was the best. That alone burned his motivation to further his skill in his production skills. Yet he had an obstacle in place, a lack of raw material.

In a game, killing monsters could easily gain him a plethora of loots which some of them were suitable for item creation. But in this real-world event, loot didn’t come easily, and even if there was some, item material was not among them. So since it wasn’t possible, he thought of another way. Manually harvesting the materials from these creatures.

Like from wolf fur to buffalo skin. The concept wasn’t that different if he just exchanged the normal animals to the creatures from the portal. But right now, that plan seemed to be put on hold.

Shit, I ain’t going to make armor from an orc’s skin. The smell is going to be terrible.

He ran out of luck. The orcs were definitely strong creatures with thick skin and thick fat. But everything had a catch. The nasty odor was one of them, and even now, that odor still lingered around Jason’s nose.

Man, it still stinks. I can’t do this anymore.

His prolonged close combat with the orcs made the smell caught on him. It was inevitable. Shaking his head, Jason decided. He left the office he was in and found the toilet.

A splashed of cold water on his face as he rubbed it hard with a decent amount of shower gel. Jason didn’t play around when he meant by cleaning himself up. Armors off, he went scrubbing like mad in the midst of a battlefield.

But then he heard noises. He stopped moving while paying attention to whatever sound he just heard. He turned the tap off, and the moment he did, the voices he heard were gone.

A sword emerged in his hand as he gripped it tight by the hilt. He inched closer to the door, and as he did, the door was slowly pried open. A flash of light entered the dark toilet, illuminated by a single flashlight in the hand of a human.

“Nuniq, do you see anyone?” a voice of a girl echoed in the toilet.

“Shush, the sound of water had gone,” said Nuniq, the boy, who carried a flashlight.

“Are you sure you heard it?” the girl didn’t believe Nuniq since she knew no one in their right mind would be here.

“I know what I heard,” Nuniq retorted, clapping back at the girl behind him.

Both entered the men's washroom, with Nuniq taking the lead. The girl behind him was pinching her nose as she wasn’t accustomed to the smell of the men's washroom.

“Ew, do you men always smell like this?” said the girl.

“Shut it Tapeesa,” said Nuniq as he was wary about the situation. He flashed the light on the floor and saw the puddle of water. The boy narrowed his eyes as his instinct was warning him of something.

“Didn’t I tell you not to call me that, it’s Essa. It’s more modern like,” said the girl called Tapeesa. “And shouldn’t we go back by now? Grandpa is going to get piss if we stay here any longer. He said those pig-nose fat men aren’t something we should confront with.”

“For the last time, Tapeesa shut yer trap. We’re on hostile territory and we…” Nunig cut his words short as his instinct flared up.

“Tapeesa! Barrier!” Nuniq shouted, urging the girl behind her.

But before any of these two could take action, a stranger's voice rumbled their eardrums.

“Woah, there,” said Jason as he held his two swords at the neck of these two strangers. Then Jason noticed something.

“If you treasure your life, stop whatever you are doing.”