The thick leathery skin of the boss made it a challenge to get a deep cut in without exposing myself for too long. I had to find a way to create enough time for me to pierce it deep. I was starting to feel my legs getting fatigued, building up lactic acid. I side stepped another of its wild swings and used the butt of my spear to trip it. I hit him in the knee and it buckled. The creature lost its balance and tripped on itself. It tumbled a few meters away from me, but when it hit the floor I was already on top of it.

I tried to hit it in the nape, but it struggled too much trying to regain its footing. I hit it in the shoulder blade and felt the bone. I pulled the embedded spear, making a long gash along its back, towards its spine, but it managed to roll away, batting my spear away. A wild swing of its axe almost caught me in the calves, but I jumped back. Its low reach made it difficult to approach and I had to let it stand up.

My maneuver worked. Blood flowed from its back and soaked the ground behind it. It felt this one, as it seemed less inclined to charge me blindly, some of its intelligence returning to its eyes. I wanted it raging and stupid, not cautious and smart. I tried taunting it, I invited it with open arms. I could see the veins bulging on its forehead, but it didn’t rush me. Crap.

We slowly rotated around each other, measuring how to approach. I was relieved to give my legs some rest, but I couldn’t let it recover too much. Whatever bonus I gained with my vitality paled in comparison. All the cuts I had given it were visibly closing, only the very recent ones still bleed, but just a little. Despite my fatigue, I started to realize that this break favored it more than me.

I approached and it just stood there, ready to welcome my advance. We exchanged a few testing blows, he parried my strikes and tried to push forward, but I maintained the distance. He was growing increasingly more bold, and the intelligence of his eyes slowly faded as we fought. I pressed on, giving him a few more shallow cuts and its feral nature bloomed. Soon the intelligence was gone and it gave in to its previous reckless charge. I had to trip it again and this time, make it count.

I observed patiently as my fatigue slowly built up again. My movements were soon going to become sluggish and dodging would be harder, so I steeled myself to finish it this time. If I let this drag on for too long I would really need help, and as much as I didn’t care about getting help from Sarah, her wound had put her out of commission. Getting help from John and his unit would be humiliating.

The boss had a few choices of attacks that I had figured out. One of them was a wild horizontal swing where he tended to overextend his legs, I had seen it a few times now and knew it was coming when he brought his axe further behind his shoulder. Instead of moving back or sidestepping, I pressed forward. Blind in his rage, he had no reaction when I grabbed him by the shoulder with my free hand and tripped his overextended leg with my right foot. It fell face first against the ground.

The shaft of his axe under the bulk of its body. It was a weird position to be in, and he fumbled for a moment, but the tip of my spear sank deep in his back. I went for his spine. I wasn’t going to make the same mistake and try to go for a small spot on a moving target, I didn’t have the skill to pull that off. I just stabbed downwards with all my strength. It roared and tried to roll, but I was ready for it and held it down with my weight on the spear. It tried to swing the axe at my legs, but the weight of its body plus my downwards thrust held it in place. I twisted the spear and sickening sounds of tearing flesh followed. It wasn’t enough, I wanted the creature’s spine.

Leaning into my weapon with all I had, I dug my spear deeper. I felt as I started grazing bone and the ugly fucker shook harder, trying to make me lose my balance. I realized that its spine was to the left of my spear, and a nefarious idea came to mind. I moved to its left, and placed a foot on its ribs. It probably realized the weight had shifted and I could see as it positioned its body for a roll to the right. Perfect.

I used my foot as leverage and pulled the spear towards me as it rolled to the right. The combined forces of our opposite motions made my spear tear deeply into flesh and exit through its abdomen. It howled. Letting go of the axe, it pressed the wound and barely managed to keep its guts from spilling. A smile formed in my face as I saw it didn’t move its legs. Nothing below its waistline was moving. Crippled.

I walked to it, as intelligence lit up beady eyes once more. There was also fury in there, but muted. Something else was taking its place. I wondered if it was fear. I wished it was fear. I put my feet on its neck and pressed. It let go of its wound, innards spilling on the pavement. It clawed at me, but was already severely weakened. The attack barely penetrated the thick pants I wore. It gasped for breath and I slowly aimed the tip of my spear in the gap between its jaw and my foot. I stabbed and the point easily pierced the soft tissue until it found bone again. It gurgled with blood pooling in its mouth and soaking my foot. I leaned into the spear, using all my weight and I felt the crunch of bone shattering.

As the system’s messages started popping, I raised my head and stared at a stony faced John. I wasn’t done yet.

[You have slain an Orc Warrior Initiate.]

[The third wave has been cleared.]

[Participants will be rewarded according to their contribution.]

[The contribution ranking is:

Leo - 182 Points

Sarah - 91 Points

John - 77 Points

Somchai - 70 Points

Takeshi - 51 Points]

[You have been awarded 182 points.]

[You have been awarded one free stat point for being the highest contributor.]

I dismissed the messages and made my way toward John. My bloodied spear dripped as I approached him. We squared up. John was taller and wider than me, but I felt confident I could take him on, even in my tired state. His machete had a shorter reach than mine and I was confident that I was faster.

I didn't count the time, but we just stood staring at each other for a while. I was furious for what they did to me, but I still couldn’t bring myself to just charge the man and start a brawl. I wanted him to give me a reason, so I silently taunted him. He was the first to break the silence.

“I am not going to apologize for what I did.”

I didn’t answer. He continued.

“You should have retreated when we passed the order. I wasn’t going to risk everyone just because you wanted to play hero. This is not a game!” By the end of it he was almost shouting at me.

“Yeah, it’s not a game. In a game, you only need to worry about the creatures, but that’s not the case here, isn’t it?” His eyes went wide and I could see I had struck a nerve.

“Are you fucking threatening me, KID? Who the fuck do you think you are? You think just because you are placed first in this bullshit rank you are doing fine? What have you done for the group besides whatever the fuck you want? Johann wants to give you space, says you are a valuable member of the group. Fuck him and fuck you!” His finger was dangerously close to my face and I did my best to not stab him then and there. Instead I did something I had trained for years ago.

My spear clattered against the pavement as I jumped on his extended hand and grabbed his wrist with both of mine. His arms rested between my legs as I pushed his free arm away and pressed my heels against his throat. I pulled his arm with all my strength and completed the flying armlock(*).

I couldn’t see his face, but I knew he wasn’t expecting that. He tried to reach me with his free hand, but my leg was much stronger. He tried to shake me off, but I only pulled on his arm harder. He was strong, definitely much stronger than me, but it didn’t matter. There was only one thing he could do, which was pound me against the floor with his arm, but I wouldn’t let him. I hyperextended the arm in his shoulder socket and he was soon on the ground. He pulled against me with all his might, but couldn’t get out of it.

“Leo, are you crazy? Stop this, let John go!” Will came to the rescue and a few others of John’s unit felt emboldened enough to join him.

“If you come close I will break his arm! Back the fuck off!” I could snap his arm anytime I wanted, no matter how strong he was. Or so I thought.

As if he was merely playing with me before, John’s arm became stupidly strong. I was pulling with all my might, but I couldn’t win against his flexing biceps.

‘What is this ridiculous strength?’

I strained to keep him in check, but he was slowly retracting his arm towards himself. His other hand extended and tried to grab onto the arm I held. I knew if both hands joined there would be nothing I could do, so I did the only thing I could. I twisted and pulled. I felt as his joint gave up and he shouted. What I did was nasty. His bone was fine, but I definitely fucked up his elbow joint. His arm went limp and I pushed him away with my legs. I quickly scrambled to my feet and grabbed my spear.

Will and another guy knelt beside John as the big man hollered with pain, holding his twisted elbow. No one came at me, but they were all wary. I glanced at Ani and Sarah. Sarah had a pained expression, she knew exactly what I had done, but Ani was serious, she seemed… almost disappointed. I shouldn’t care, but I felt like a knot had appeared in my stomach.

More people were coming out of the main building, Johann among them. He brought a few of the fighters with him and started asking around what happened. A few of the guys in John’s unit started talking over each other and I could see Johann was doing his best to grasp the situation. I saw Chen, and the kid seemed thoroughly confused, but I saw he carried my old weapon. I would have felt happy about it if not for this whole situation I dug myself in.

“Alright, let’s just all calm down. We don’t have to fight amongst ourselves. Tensions are high, but no one died this time.” Johann did his best to calm down the growing crowd.

“Calm down? You can’t see what he did to John?” Will was the first to rebuke, followed by voices of agreement from the people in John’s squad.

John cradled his injured arm, but he was quiet. The other guy who was trying to help him ran inside, probably to bring Ciara, from what I could glimpse of their conversation.

“We will sort this out, Will. But I don’t think either you or John want to stay here and make this situation worse.” John had been glaring at me ever since he had calmed down from the pain, but the look he gave Johann after the man was done speaking was an order of magnitude worse.

John stood up with the help from Will and the crowd parted. Ciara met them halfway and she glanced at me before focusing on John’s arm. Will tried to disperse the crowd, and I saw Noah and Gabriela among the people. Gabriela had a deep frown but Noah looked amused by the whole thing. Twat.

Sarah and Ani approached me while I concentrated on what was going on with the group as they made their way inside, except for Johann.

“You should join them.” Ani spoke to me in a low, friendly tone.

“Why would I do that? I don’t want to, and I don’t think I can after what I did.”

“Still, you must.”

“Why?” I wasn’t going to do everything she said, just because she said.

“There are people in that group you care about, right?” I wasn’t expecting that, but she was right.

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean I have to stay with them. I can come here and help during the wave.”

“That’s not gonna work. If you want to protect them, you must stay.”

“How can you possibly know that?”

“The same way I knew where you were and that you needed our help.”

I had to take a pause at that. Her timing had been too convenient, if a bit late.

“Are you trying to say you can see the future or something?”

“Not quite. It’s more like an intuition thing. It’s hard to explain, but I am sure it’s easier to believe in it than the things that have been happening to us lately.”

“I have to give you that. It’s easier to accept.” I wanted to rebuke, but she did make a good point. “Let me see if I understand. You are saying that if I leave now the people I care won’t be safe, but if I stay they will be safe?”

“I can’t guarantee they will be safe if you stay, but I can feel that they won’t last long if you don’t stay.”

“That’s… remarkably convenient for the point you are trying to make. Why do you care if I stay or not? You don’t know these people. You don’t know me. Why did you save me?”

“I… I can’t tell you everything right now, but I promise I will if you meet us in three hours. Just follow this road straight until it forks, I will be there waiting for you.” The road she pointed at wasn’t long. I could see the fork from here. Ten minutes of walking, maybe less if I was in a hurry.

I wanted to keep digging but she turned and walked away. Sarah cradled her bandaged arm but smiled at me. It wasn’t a pleasant smile, it felt like she was finding something funny between our conversation. She chuckled as Ani got close and I watched as they walked away. A loud laugh escaping from Sarah as they moved further down the road.

I sighed.

I didn’t want to listen or obey her. I barely knew the girl, but she made sense. If I was here, part of the group, it was the best way for me to protect Mrs Aya and the people I was starting to grow fond of. I steeled myself and walked towards the frowning figure of Johann.