Chapter 4 – The First of Many

‘Maybe we can take the communication device thingy and use it to our advantage?’ Kuno said, walking behind the others.

‘It got destroyed,’ Don said. ‘Although they were waiting for us, I don’t think we have much to worry about from now. We’ve fought these types before many times.’

Kuno glanced over towards Walt, seeing his razor sharp nails. He thought back to the moment they just arrived, when he saw him extend his arm and the device getting hit. ‘He must be able to shoot those as well…’ Kuno thought.

‘Hey, Walter, how long have you been here?’ he asked.

Walt turned to Kuno, looking at him through the corner of his eye for a split second, then turning back again and saying: ‘Focus on the mission…’

‘Edgy jerk…’ Kuno thought before he heard Walt say: ‘Five and a half months…’

His answer surprised Kuno. Five and a half months didn’t sound that much. Walt must’ve been just a regular guy half a year ago, and now he’s here fighting and killing these creatures, albeit for his own survival. People are quick to adapt, Kuno already knew that, but the absurdness of this place must aid them in that regard. ‘Necessity is a powerful engine,’ Kuno thought.

They climbed a gentle hill, after which lay what had to be Vermillion Village. It was barely a village. Twenty-four buildings could be seen from the hill our party stood, most of them small wooden houses, the only stone building being the church in the middle. They could see the people walking around, talking with each other, buying groceries from a small market stall. To all the members, nothing was out of the ordinary, which, in and of itself, was strange.

‘Seems like everything is fine…’ Walt said, looking at Don.

Don didn’t respond and moved forward, the others following close behind. ‘This is odd… We just killed three hogmen. They should definitely be here…’

Arriving at the foot of the village, all four members were on guard. A single man walked up to the party. ‘You must be from the High Order!’

Don offered the man his hand. ‘We are. We’d been told this village had been captured by hogmen from the Soji empire.’

The man froze, looking at Don’s hand whilst smiling with his teeth out. ‘Oh, we don’t give hands to outsider… To avoid diseases.’

Don’s brows rose as he drew his hand back. ‘But yes,’ the man continued, ‘We drove them off, caught them by surprise!’

The party members looked at each other, also being caught by surprise. ‘We just killed three of them back in those woods,’ Walt said, pointing towards the hill.

The man gave an awkward laugh. ‘Shucks, yeah, those must’ve been the ones that escaped. We thought they went back to the empire.’

Don turned to Kuno, then quickly back at the man with a firm gaze. The man kept his eyes on Don. ‘I see… Mind if we look around? There might be more of them hiding.’

The man rubbed his hands. ‘Oh, that’s really not necessary… You know, the… diseases and stuff…’

‘It’ll be quick,’ Don said, leading the party into the village. The man kept on smiling behind them, standing still, but being at the back of the party, Kuno noticed he began walking after them, keeping a safe distance.

‘Seems like a friendly village,’ Kuno said. ‘Good thing the weather’s nice, too. Don’t want to catch a cold.’

Walt stopped, causing Sammy to bump into him. ‘Hey…’ she said. Walt turned to Kuno, then looked around him at the people minding their own business.

‘What’s wrong?’ Sammy asked in a soft tone. She saw Walt clench his jaw, after which he turned around and kept on walking. Sammy’s eyes grew for a second.

She snapped her left fingers, catching Kuno’s attention. He looked down and saw her pointing at his lower half.

‘Oh my God, she wants me!’ Kuno thought. ‘Relationships are dangerous within a party! Good thing I can handle danger. What should we name our children…’ He put his hands on his lips. ‘I got it! Bohan! It’s perfect!’

He walked around with a dumb smile on his face. ‘One day out of my house and I already got a girlfriend… It’s a good thing I stayed in my room for all those years. These looks are a menace to society…’

While Kuno was fantasizing, Don scanned the village, finding nothing alarming. He stopped in front of the church and put his hand on the cobble wall. ‘The village is real…’ he thought. ‘Alright, then.’

‘She smells nice too,’ Kuno thought, looking at the back of Sammy’s head. ‘Ha-ha, this is great! I’m living my youth!’ He spun around out of this happiness his mind had crafted out of nothing. Mid spin, he saw the man they’d talked to look him in the eyes, happily smiling.

At that moment, Kuno had realized. He finished his spin and looked to his left and right. The people were just going about their daily lives, no worry in the world. His eyes teared up… ‘Damn it, Sammy… I thought we had something…’

Walt cracked his neck and knuckles. Don cleared his throat before shouting out. ‘People of Vermillion Village, may I have your attention, please!’ He put his left hand in his pocket and began scratching his thumb with his index-finger.

A couple of people turned to Don, while others ignored him. ‘Please, gather around. This is an order!’

One by one, people began to gather. The party had their backs against the church wall. Walt put his hands behind his back as he looked at the people walking up to them.

‘Is there a problem?’ one of them said. ‘I’m sure we’ll be able to solve it quickly. Don’t have to bother everyone.’

Eleven people had gathered in front of the party. ‘We represent the village. What’s the problem?’ the one closest to Don said.

Don closed the distance between them, casually stopping next to him. ‘You see this church right here, you see how bland it looks?’

‘Y-Yeah?’ the man said, unsure where Don was going with this.

‘Gray doesn’t suit it at all. We need a different color. Wouldn’t you say?’ Don said.

The man looked at the church with a confused look, not saying anything. He turned to his friend in confusion.

‘How about red?’ Don said, not wasting a single extra second as he spoke out:

‘Blood Blade + Crimson Dash!’

He swung his arm to the left, summoning his blade. With his right hand, he raised the back of his blazer, revealing that the back of his shirt was completely cut out. Kuno saw a glimpse of the scars on his back, before a blast of blood ripped the scars apart, shooting out rays that propelled him forward. With one clean strike, he cut three of the villager’s necks, before his momentum halted a couple feet away from the forth.

The villagers were frozen stiff, suddenly seeing the heads of their friends fall to the ground.

The other three of the party didn’t bat an eye, all having seen through the façade of these people.

‘Four human strangers? Whatever,’ Kuno thought. ‘But who wouldn’t stare if there was a butt-naked one among them?’

Walt immediately extended his hand, shouting; ‘Nail gun!’ shooting four nails, each penetrating one eye of two villagers, completely blinding both.

Now that the shock had faded, the hogmen revealed themselves. Their disguise vanished like dust in the wind, together with the empty images of the townsfolk. They quickly drew their weapons and attacked Don and Walt, the most capable ones in the group. Sammy took off running, her nimble movements allowing her to slip through both ally and opponent. Kuno didn’t know what to do yet, but as he met eyes with one hogman, knew he should first get out of this crowded battle to not get in the way of his party members.

He ripped a fart en rose eight feet in the air. Placing his feet on the church wall, he pushed himself forward and let out another fart to propel him. He saw the one hogman track him in the air and turn around to follow him.

Just as he was about to hit the ground, he lifted both legs and farted at an angle to both stop him from falling too hard and tumbling away.

The hogman ran at him with his scimitar raised high. Kuno focused, thinking back about how Don had saved him minutes before. ‘Don’t drag them down,’ he thought. ‘You’re not lesser than them… You’re the hero of your own story…’

With the hogman about twelve feet away, Kuno squatted and leaned forward. ‘It’s not waiting for the urge to poop…’ he thought, thinking back about what Don had told him. ‘It’s creating it out of nothing. Summon the urge… It’s time to take a shit!’ Kuno thought with the utmost determination.

Kuno had never felt a sense of talent for anything, but he believed in hard work. If he’d chosen to put his hours of gaming into anything else, he most likely would’ve seen similar progress. Kuno, although having been dubbed a loser since primary school, never doubted himself. He didn’t care about the opinions of others. Kuno is confident, regardless of whatever the world might think of him.

With the hogman six feet away from him, almost ready to strike, Kuno thought about the words of his favorite anime character.

‘Take the first step like the world owes you the second!’

He breathed in and shouted: ‘DUNG CANNON!’

The hogman saw his opponent’s brown eyes between his legs, gleam in the afternoon sun, but when he looked up at abyss amid his butt, a chill froze him stiff.

A bowling ball sized excrement shot out of Kuno’s bowels, striking the hogman in the stomach, simultaneously launching both away from each other. ‘FUCK YEAH!’ Kuno shouted, tumbling forwards until the friction stopped him.

Although Kuno’s cannon surprised his own party members as well, who turned to him mid fight in amazement, for some reason, the hogman were especially shocked by it, giving Kuno’s allies even more of an edge.

Walt blocked one of the hogman’s scimitar with the nails on one hand as he jumped up and turned his body horizontal, saying: ‘Nail Blade!’ causing the nails on his toes to grow through his boots as he sliced another hogman’s face with it.

Kuno’s happiness quickly faded, seeing the hogman he shot stand up with a torso stained with feces. Although he had hit him at point blank range, both the weight and power of his ability were still lacking, together with the fact the Hogman was wearing a body plate.

‘Enchantment: Fire!’ the hogman shouted, causing his scimitar to light up in flames.

Kuno ran, and the hogman chased him once again. As he ran through the alleys between the houses, he saw a red barn and sprinted towards it.

Arriving seconds before his enemy, he quickly scanned the barn. Hay, windows, spiral stairs, top floor, no back door – he took it all in. It wouldn’t be perfect, but he created a simply, yet dynamic strategy he could adapt at any time. ‘I’ve led hundreds of raids before. This is nothing!’ he thought.

He grabbed bales of hay and began throwing them around, covering the floor in hay. When the hogman entered the barn, Kuno threw one bale of hay towards his face, causing the hogman to slice it with his flaming scimitar out of reflex.

He ran to the wooden spiral stairs, the hogman still chasing, tunnelvisioned on killing Kuno. Arriving at the foot of the stairs, Kuno smiled. ‘This is fun,’ he thought… ‘The excitement… the adrenaline… I have to think fast, and I love it!’

He slapped himself in the face with both hands. ‘Focus!’ he thought, thinking about the warnings his party members had given him, together with the damage he took in the forest. ‘It’s only fun when you win… Now, Kuno, remember that time you got stomach flu, because you ordered a salad from that Italian place to reach the minimum delivery price…?’

He ran up the spiral stairs, but the tall hogman was close enough to slice the front of his ankle through the stair’s gaps. Kuno stumbled, but was able to dodge the second strike as his stomach began to rumble.

When the hogman ran another six steps, he heard the sound of Chinese firework as Kuno’s ass began blasting.

He shouted: ‘Doo-Doo River!’

He had no idea where all these names came from, as if the universe was picking them out for him the moment he tried something new.

A flood of diarrhea splashed on the stairs and kept coming. The flood surprised the hogman mid step, causing him to slip the moment he placed his foot down. He rolled back half the distance he’d ran up the stairs, grabbing onto the side to stop his fall. His blade had touched the poo, causing the hogman to panic, but the diarrhea was too wet to be flammable.

Nevertheless, he felt the heat grow from behind, seeing the slowly growing blaze of the barn door, caused by him slicing the hay bale his opponent threw at him.

Kuno kept on running up, while the hogman had an impasse. ‘Chase him or escape the barn while Bartholomew still can…?’ he thought. ‘Bartholomew will be stuck upstairs… Fire rising… Bartholomew wait outside.’

Having reached the top floor, Kuno saw the shit covered hogman retreat. He looked at the small front-window of the barn, then down at the burning entrance, quickly finishing his plan.

The hogman hopped off the stairs and looked behind him, seeing no back door. There were three windows on each side of the barn, but the hogman was way too large to fit through them. The flames covered the whole entrance, but the fire was a measly foot high. When he arrived at the start of the fire, he knew he had to take at least one step in the flames to make it.

Almost directly above him, he heard a loud fart, startling him, causing him to just cross the fire before it grew even more.

He sprinted towards the flames, landed on his right leg, and just as he felt the fire begin burning the bottom of his foot, jumped again. At that moment, he saw two melons squished against each other just above the gate. His eyes widened when he realized what they were.

Kuno had jumped out of the front window and farted to take a hold of the wooden planks just above the barn gate. A move inspired by Assassin’s Greed. He had only played the third installment of the game, but it was enough for him to know everything about it.

He kicked himself off the moment he heard the hogman’s foot land on the fire beneath him. Holding his legs up in the middle of the air, Kuno aimed his weapon. Just as the hogman crossed the flames, he saw the black hole he had already met widen.

‘DUNG CANNON!’ Kuno shouted.

A ball of shit flew towards the hogman named Bartholomew, hitting him directly in the face. This time, having no armor to block the impact, he felt the crush, like a basketball got launched against his face by a high school bully.

Having shot his cannon, Kuno got blasted towards the allies he had left behind.

Yet for the hogman, the worst was yet to come. He fell backwards, his back hitting the floor, the flaming floor he had just jumped over. The impact caused his hand to drop the scimitar, which flew into the barn. His body began burning, causing him to squeal in pain. When he managed to get out of the flames, his body was still lit. He rolled around in the grass outside of the barn, with Kuno sprinting away as he kept farting to boost himself forward.

‘Get shit on,’ Kuno said, thinking: ‘There we have it, my catchphrase.’