And another chapter. Hope you'll enjoy it!!!

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*ding*

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“Aaah, so close.” – he whispered.

It was indeed quite close this time. He even managed to slice one of its heads off. Given a moment or two he could’ve been able to reach its heart and pierce it… or so he thought. Pity it was never meant to happen. Having a shower in its blood generally means a slow and painful death, as it melts everything as well as acid does. At least the wolf–headed serpent spared him many convulsions by tearing him to shreds moments later.

*sigh*

He gazed at the same dull grey sky, greeting him as it always does first at the beginning of each restart. The same old lazy great cloud dragging itself across the vast dullness, just a shade different from the cloud. The spots of orange, covered in uneasy black, coming up from the ashen bark of village houses only to dissipate in the dull grey, trying to turn the day in the night, and night in the twilight. He inhaled the air full with smoke, his nostrils recognising the same smell of burnt flesh and charred wood as they always do. The same ringing in his ears, limpness of his body, slight headache pressing at his temples and vision blurred, similar to that of a camera going out of focus, the confusions of his body that he was or rather had to experience at the start of each restart. Every. Single. Time.

At the start, in 20 or so restarts, as any other healthy human being would, he found these ailments incredibly annoying, like a broken debuff spell, nerfing the hell out of you. Imagine as you start playing a game and it’s one of those rogue-likes where by the end of it your ass is on fire and you scream profanity at everyone and everything. Then, you get a shitty character to start off with all those ‘classic’ nerfes – blindness(well a partial one in this case), ‘slowness’, ‘confusion’ and ‘silenced’ and then thrown to verse not some random mob like goblin or ‘suraimo’ but a freaking deathknight or elite bandit or something of the lot. This kind of game wouldn’t get much sales… Correction, it probably would. There are a lot of people out there that would find this sort of torture(entertainment) pleasurable. Still the game would have their players and as they would die over and over again, they would get accustomed to it. For example bonf… campfire system. Still, just like those people, as the time went by and the more he died the more he got used to it. Eventually he came to the point where he simply gave up, he didn’t care much for this inconvenience and simply accepted it.

‘Alright, no more procrastinating.’ – Kai thought as the recollection of a thick blade sticking through his chest came to his mind.

He stood up, not particularly caring about any splinters in his hands. He could heal a light scrape within a minute. A splinter? It wouldn’t take even ten seconds to heal that.

He swiped his long fringe to the side, clearing his vision. Before he liked to wear his hair down, now he just found it annoying. It blocked his vision in a fight and made it harder to barter for items. Merchants think of you as someone shady, covering half of the face for reasons unapparent to them, which is in most places gets you higher prices to buy for, lower the prices for something you’ll sell, attention of the guards and even kicked out in some places. In other words - a pain. Still he never even thought of cutting his hair, for reasons he himself didn’t really know.

He took another deep breath, enlarging his lungs with oxygen, but mainly carbon, which in its place, as it generally does to humans, sent him on the verge of choking, almost making him to cough his lungs out. After so many restarts, you’d think one would get used to the smell of burning meat and lumber, and truthfully Kai was, it’s just the extensive amount of carbon in the air was the devil no man can get used to. Covering his face with his school blazer he somehow managed to refrain from making any sound whatsoever, which yet again made him feel somehow accomplished. ‘A first stepping stone’, as he would think, ’just another couple of thousand’, he added shedding an invisible tear in his mind. The choking and coughing in a sense was a wakeup call of a sort that he purposefully inflicted to refresh his mind. A waste of time? Maybe! A necessity? Probably! A weird thing? Precisely! It did serve its purpose though. Despite that, or anything, really, his vision was still blurred and his body felt a little limp, but if he’d play his cards correctly he wouldn’t have any trouble.

Kai kneeled and picked a rock the size of a half of his palm. It was lying on the muddy ground with a bunch of other rocks, some similar in shape and size some drastically different. For him most of those rocks did not matter as he had his eye for ‘the one’. It’s beautiful sharp edge, it’s agile and smooth form, it’s colour that of the sky… dull and grey. It was the perfect stone to ram into someone’s spine, especially considering it reliability. he already knew that 5 rocks on the right would shatter4/6 times, whilst all the others would slip 3/7 times, and in most cases that would mean a waste of time, a liability he could not afford.

He looked at the man in front of him, head bald, kneeling near a corpse, checking the corpse’s pockets or something of the lot, he wasn’t quite sure. Every time he would try to sneak up on the man to take the glimpse of what he was doing, he would always get caught, but somehow he knew that baldy was not up to anything good. But what is ‘good’? Is this kind of person, ‘good’? No. But is he bad? What is ‘bad’? In his world looting would be considered something only trash would do to be truly be recognised as a waste of society. Then there’s killing. An act abhorred by his society even more than looting. And Kai was sure that the marauder done plenty of that too, the axe on his hip soaked with blood was indicating that it wasn’t too long from his last kill either. But here it is accepted. Despised but those that are rich whole-heartedly, maybe some peasants too, but majority of those that don’t have any wealth to brag about, given a chance would rip each other’s throats for a sufficient sum. Life in this world, meant even less, than in his previous. Or more or less the same. Then societal constraints? Is this then what good is? Wouldn’t that mean that everyone is trash then?

He smiled, trying his best not to burst laughing. His sudden burst of philosophy, was quickly toned down by a burst of cynicism, not conceding in its suddenness to the other one.

‘Hah, such flawed thinking. I think I’m turning into a hypocrite again, how typical.’ – he thought as he continued staring at the man. His innocent face distorted by a grin into expression that seemed to loath the world and his persona in particular, an acknowledgment of his own hypocrisy. But then as a moment passed and disappeared so did his expression as if it was never there.

‘But either way it doesn’t matter.’

As this last cold thought breezed him clearing his mind of any unnecessary emotion, doubt or fear, Kai rubbed his eyes and started walking towards the man, almost mechanically. Neither slow nor fast, quiet, yet still not soundless, moving his feet between the rubble making almost no sound, he was advancing towards the mage.

Keeping low profile, it didn’t take him even a minute to reach the bandit. Once only a step afar from him, Kai slightly moved to the left and then whistled in a low volume, producing just enough sound so that only a person within the reach of his arm could hear him.

The man flinched and quickly moved his head left, advancing his left arm up in the air, drawing a symbol with his finger. The moment his foe’s body started its motion, Kai twisted his, giving the blow some rotary motion, striking the baldy right in the atlas of his spine, maybe slightly above it. Upon impact Kai grunted a bit, he probably smashed his thumb in the process. The rock sunk in and the body fell, leaving an eerie afterglow of a symbol in the air. Kai was sure the rock did its job well, if not that symbol would’ve been on Kai’s body or at least what would’ve left of his body.

‘Shit, looks bad. Probably two or three minutes or so…’ – he thought as he looked at the blood oozing out of his thumb. The thumb wasn’t smashed, rather the rock sliced the second phalanx almost in half, nail was missing too…

He looked at the two corpses at his feet .One of a beautiful young woman with a diagonal cut, spreading across her neck towards the middle of her chest ,showing her innards and broken bones sticking through the gaping crevice between flesh, the work done by an enchanted axe. At least she died instantly, though by no means in a pretty way. The other corpse was of a bald man in his 40s, with light build and strong defining jaws. He wore strange dark armour with a unique colour pallet to it. The breastplate made out of dark blue leather, incapable of reflecting light, rather it seemed like it was emanating the dark colours outside, with a black eye bleeding three lines of black blood from the top and below imitating the sun inscribed in the center of it. The pauldron seemingly made out of crow feathers moving slightly with the silent blows of the wind, yet them feeling sturdy as iron on the touch. Lastly the chainmail same as the breastplate, reflecting no colour, but coloured in dark crimson red which was on closer inspection producing small ripples of red across the chains, like a silent pond disturbed by a droplet of water. He already knew that this is the work of magic. The ripples were always stronger and more distinct whenever he was injured…and healing. Below, the man was wearing a belt with a war axe and a large knife striped to it. The head of the war axe had an etching of a picture, where a lion-like creature was hunting the tree-like deer, an excerpt from the Tale of Sadamire’s Hunt or so he was or rather would be told. Its handle made out of wood had engravings of the wind spread across it, as if calling the axe to the wind, to the mad swinging of it. At the tip of a handle an iron shaped into claw, a touch of ferocity, adding to the elegance of this weapon, despite it being an axe. The pants that the man had were simple brown pants with patches of black leather sewn in on knees and outer sides of lower legs. The boots were simple black boots of hunter-like type, with sturdy black leather and couple of runes enhancing the force of direct impact, durability and agility of the boots.

All in all, the goods were relatively pricy, other members of this guy’s troupe have good items too, with that damn eye drawn on each one’s armour, but none as great as his, he was a mage after all. A magic archer though, could give some challenge but couldn’t really care about her stuff, it was too small to fit him. In previous restarts whenever Kai neglected ‘stealth killing’ the mage, almost all the times the man would kill him, if not with his superior skills in axe-wielding (slashing like a madman) than with magic, which now encouraged Kai to be really vigilant in approaching him.

Kai quickly crouched and picked up the axe with his left hand. He thought to take the knife too, but looking at his thumb he reconsidered it. He could’ve taken the man’s belt, but it would take him over 7 seconds and he had only 5 left.

With an axe in his hand he stood up and started dashing towards the nearest burning house.

‘4’

The thick smoke covered his location from the archers. He jumped above a corpse with a tiny frame. He didn’t want to look.

‘3’

He grabbed the axe in two hands, wincing at pain.

‘2’

The house is meter away from him.

‘1’

Once he reached the corner, he quickly moved right jumping and twisting his body, using the good old momentum from his sudden turn. He struck the swordsman, or rather woman, straight in the throat, colouring his pale face and her helmet in red. She was not dead instantly, axe chipped at her armour, sending a trembler of regret to Kai. With a gargle, she went down.

Watching people lingering before their end, terrified him. It made him recall his own experiences, the suffering, the pain, the fear… His body started to shake and tears started falling down his face, mixing with the blood on his cheeks. He gazed at her. Through the helmet he could see the expression of horror mixed in with the confusion. He didn’t notice the pain, but his right hand was gripping the axe. Placing his left hand on her, he looked her straight in the eyes. Horrible woman or not, murderer or not, she was a person just like him, suffering now just like he was.

“I-I’m sorry. Soon…*inhale* the pain will go away…” – he said as he raised the axe.

Kai could not distinguish the expression she had as she died.

Wiping his tears he stood up. His red school uniform, now soaked in blood and dirty with ash, seemed crimson, so did the axe in his hand. With his other hand he raised it to fix his hair to the right and then quickly checked his thumb.

He sighed.

‘Doesn’t matter. Next the male archer.’ – he thought as he started running back in the smoke. Once he snapped out of it, he couldn’t care less about the corpse beside him.

The target was on the other side of the village. He could’ve gone for a dude with short-swords, couple of houses north, but because he wasted more than 20 seconds on killing the swordsman, it would be a mistake. If under 20 seconds, he could still stealth kill the rogue, but a battle with him, with Kai’s skill and body would mean death.

It took him 12 seconds of running to see the silhouette of the archer through the smoke. Once he did, Kai moved a bit closer and then skidded bellow him, making a point of kicking the man in the knee. The force should be able to damage the archer’s legs and the knee in particular. With a scream, indicating his broken knee, the man fell on the ground. He wasn’t wearing any helmet, thus became silent in about 2 strikes or so. Dead can’t speak, in this case scream. Besides even if he did, it would be covered by other noises- there was still screaming in the village after all, though Kai tried to ignore it.

‘Now, the rogue. In the smoke. About… 6-10 seconds.’ – he thought as he ran in the smoke and then laid down at the side, waiting for the shadow in the smoke to appear.

He gave a quick gaze to his thumb. It was healing, even the nail started to appear.

Kai heard light footsteps only to shadow pass him moments later. He soundlessly stood up and then walked towards the direction where rogue has disappeared to. He didn’t bother much to keep low profile, the smoke was thick concealing everything and everyone in it.

The first time he entered it he was paranoid as hell. He’s lost his sense of direction and wandered around in the smoke, tripping over corpses and all, until he eventually got himself killed. As time passes people improve, he is no exception.

Gut-shotted, crushed by debris, decapitated, throat slit, skull bashed, chocked to death, beaten to death, arrow in the throat, bled out, stabbed in the gut, head, chest, spine, throat, cut in half, eviscerated, limbs hacked off, crushed rib through the lung, asphyxiation, death, death, death, and adding one more to the list was the last thing he desired.

Looking at the blur of a man in front of him, he did not see a person behind the smoke, but rather a stepping stone that he has to discard in order to move forward. ‘Hack’ replace with ‘discard’.

Standing there, air thick with smoke from burnt flesh and wood, soaked in blood and mud, holding an axe which ripped many lives with it and will rip more, he grabbed it in 2 hands, twisted his body, the same way as he did with the leader, and swung it at the hooded man hoping to strike him in the upper spine and sever his head. As the axe flew through the smoky air, it started singing, a sharp edge resonating to the wind. The moment before impact rogue heard it and moved his body in hopes of dodging it.

The axe met little resistance and with cracking sound, brought new colour to the dirt on the ground. Though new was stretching it a bit, rather it was the same red everywhere after pillaging.

Blood sprayed in Kai’s face. The rogue was dead. Instant kill, though an ugly one. Half-decapitated. The rogue tried to dodge, but only tried. Looking at the gory mess, he bit his lip, then turned around and started dashing towards the last target – magic archer.

‘Now this is going to be a pain.’ – he thought as he recalled that she can’t be sneaked up on. She always knows where and when he will sneak up on her, on the other hand he has already killed her many times before.

Dodging the corpses here and there, jumping above them, he was about 5 meters away from the place where he killed the leader.

‘Now, duck and slide to the house.’ – he thought.

The moment he ducked a golden arrow passed his head. He skidded to the nearest cover, a house near which he killed the swordsman.

Without hesitation, he took off her helmet and grabbed her knife that she kindly strapped just below her chest, placing it at his back between the belt and trousers. The sharp edge felt ominous when pressed against his butt. He recalled falling on his bottom with it strapped and the memory almost brought tears to his eyes.

‘4 seconds… now!’ – he dashed into the smoke, dodging another golden arrow, which pierced his cover and several houses behind it. He knew she can make those golden arrows only once each 4 seconds. He can reach her in 3 seconds, but it doesn’t mean she can’t shoot normal arrows. She can still chant for the golden arrow while shooting other ones. She had a variety of other spells at her disposal too, they would take longer to chant for her and she was aware of it.

He knew her timing well enough, but his body wasn’t that ‘enough’ to dodge the arrows while running. That’s where the helmet came in.

‘Now’ – he thought as the moment later the helmet deflected an arrow. The force behind it was really strong, making the helmet injure Kai’s palm and dropping the helmet. He didn’t care, he was already out of the smoke and the helmet was expendable. He grabbed the axe in two and then threw it in the direction of the lady with ashen hair and the bow.

She dodged it effortlessly, but Kai was already within the reach with the dagger prepared in his hand. She dodged it too. Kai, baffled, threw the dagger at her. She dodged it again, side stepping back. Kai cursed inside, blaming his physique. If only a moment faster, here and there.

‘So it’s going to be one of those, huh.’ – he thought as he saw her materialising the golden arrow. You can dodge arrows like these, but not at the distance of three steps with this body or sanity.

“So young…” – the woman said looking at the beast of a boy. To her he seemed no more than 14 summers of old, not to mention a little chubby.

Kai smiled.

‘She’ll aim for the head.’ – if she didn’t say anything, she’d aim for his body, rather center of it severing all the chances of him dodging it and that would mean death.

‘Look at her eyes.’ – he stared at them black as the night, total opposite to her ashen hair.

A change so indistinct in her eyes, a change of an emotion, a flicker of a light, you call it anything, but he knew that she will shoot a fraction of a moment later. His body started moving to the side, twisting the ankle, straining it in an effort to attempt arrow-dodging.

And it was successful. Semi.

The arrow pierced his ear the juncture of a second after his ankle made strange unnatural sound.

He winced, but started running towards her despite the pain and the unsteady foot.

She cocked another arrow, the moment he moved.

He saw this happening, but continued running.

And then an idea came to his mind. A really dumb one. An idea which generally makes people tell you ‘go jump off the building’ kind of advices. He’ll try to flick her arrow off with his hand. That’s it, a real simple plan. He hasn’t tried anything of the sort before, but once the thought appeared in his mind, it fascinated him like a child, making his entire rationality jump out the window. Other options were a very drawn out and painful fight with a magic archer which wit his broken ankle would mean nothing but death, so being like an action hero for once seemed a better option for him either way. Besides even if he dies he can still redo it. Messing around isn’t bad every now and again, unless you die that is, but he was kind of missing this point by now.

Two steps away from her.

The moment before her hand moved, his started its motion. When the arrow started to move, his was already half-way to flick it off, the rest of his body was in a dramatic pose as if a falcon punch was about to emerge.

*pierce*

He screwed up.

It could be fair to say that the arrow in this instance was the reality. And it hit him pretty goddamn hard. With blood appearing, so did his regret. To him, now flicking arrows with bare hands didn’t seem like a great idea or that appealing at all. He didn’t flick it. It was kind of sticking out of his hand there, bleeding …sort of. Still it was only half a fail, a real one would be stopping the arrow with his throat or his face.

One step away from her.

Her expression changed. Before she seemed impressed rather than anything, which was surprising considering he cut down all of her team. Grief, rage, despair these things would be normally expected, but nope she seemed dazzled by the outcome if not a little impressed. ‘Seemed’, implying past tense, now she was in panic.

He growled at the pain rather than winced or moaned, it made him feel a bit like a hardass but it helped the pain to flow close with rage rather than fear. Adrenaline works both ways it only depends how you look at it. Plus he was raging at the fact that he himself in his bright mind came up with this dumb idea. The more merrier.

He grabbed the fletching of the only weapon that he now had, which gave him a bit more additional ‘anger’ and rushed her, jumping, which his ankle responded to with a loving crackle. He aimed the arrowhead in her throat, giving the blow more force with his jump and the thrust that he gave to the fledging helped it too no less. Droplets of fresh blood mixed with her saliva fell on his face. She is a dead man either way you look at it.

Blinded by rage, taken in by the moment or twisted by regret, something inside Kai exploded, catalysing his emotions, amplifying his hollow wraith, throwing him into havoc, making him go berserk. With roar he pulled out the arrow from her throat and then stabbed it again. And again. And again. And again. Half-process the arrowhead broke off but he didn’t stop.

When he snapped out of it, his hands were submerged into a gory mess of what must’ve been the neck. He cringed looking at the work he’s done. Body and head separated from each other, as if a vandal used chisel to destroy the statue or monument defiling it further with every hit of his unsteady hands. This made him feel a little guilty, he went havoc, was savage and an asshole in general and etc. Still he figured she was pretty dead halfway through it, and it was a case of self-defence too (kind of).

As adrenaline was passing away, the pain was replacing it, washing away the guilt that was about to be discarded regardless. He raised his hands out of the bloody slime to see how reckless of a berserker he is. And he was pretty reckless, he was a berserker after all. His hands sore with splinters and pieces of wood sticking out of his fingers and the back of his hand, some were even in his wrists, were unable to grapple or move fingers at all. He sighed. The colour of them was discouraging no less as the injures on them, deep red, and what was even more discouraging was the fact that some little pieces of her throat were sticking out of the tip of some larger splinters. He sighed. Again. He would’ve even facepalmed this time if not for the fact that his hands were a bloody mess of sharp splinters.

With many sighing and groaning (yes), he removed all of the splinters from his hands, brushed them on the corpse’s leather jerkin, somewhat cleaning it and stood up, attempting to wipe the sweat and blood off his face, but fell plummeting his face down in the dirt.

“Right, the ankle.” – he said depreciatingly.

Once all fixed up and set, with an ‘ouch’ he stood up again, somewhat grinning, and wiped sweat and blood of his face, the way a farmer does after a long day on the rice fields.

“Alas, the long 5… 10 minutes elapsed.” – he looked, smiling at the sky, aware of his overdramatic statement and pose. The hole in his hand from the arrow almost healed, but now replaced by many tiny gaps from the arrow’s children. He grinned again as he walked, limping to the side, recalling the feeling and the anxiety of battling all the shitty bosses that he had to deal with in [insert random hard game] before he was transported here.

Fixing his black hair, a smiling youth with brown eyes, didn’t seem like someone capable to dispatch an entire squad of elite bandits, rather he seemed like a happy boy whom just entered his teens. Well he was still a teenager but about 17 years old or so he thought, the longest he lived was 3 months after all. After 3 months elapsing, he generally would get killed or die from some kind of disease, right now it was his bottleneck of a sort. Right this moment, but he already had a solution to it planned out. He found something akin to a dungeon, a labyrinth with floors going down to the depths of the world.Kai figured it was something game-like, like a 5 floors-boss kind of scenario, he did had to verse the creature after 5 floors of restless killing. So going by that logic, he figured if he completes it he’d be able to get some special item or skill or learn magic or something.

And so he set off onto collecting ‘his’ trusty gear for his future expedition. He had choices not to go in the dungeon, but that would mean him joining in the war, or an insurrection, which he would either survive and then die from some kind of disease, which every soldier on the battlefield would get infected with and die in next 2 weeks from ribs rotting off and falling onto lungs or just die from being impaled with a spear. In reality he had a lot of choices but sadly most of them if not all were of his death.