The day following the rescue of the hobgoblin horde had been somewhat pleasant, well as pleasant as hurting people can be. Although, the pain of injuring someone else was becoming less and less abrasive to Mike as the System and Earth’s inhabitants continued to prove to him that they were willing to go through the pain of dying and respawning if it meant reaping the bounty on his head.

He had spent the day slowly circling the town and ambushing any adventurers he found. The experience taught him a lot about this new world. For example, he had ambushed a group from behind that were all wearing hooded cloaks. Killing the two figures at the rear with a thrown ax and then storming the other group of three, he had been surprised when one figure turned around, revealing a beautiful woman in her early twenties. She had immediately fallen down to the ground in fear and based on years of culture, Mike had passed by her and attacked the two other men in the party, leaving her to return to town. Only she hadn’t done that. It was only the premonition of a rebounding ax in his back that had allowed him to turn in time to dodge the knife held by the woman, her once fearful face having turned into a sadistic and gleeful sneer. The dagger was 8 inches long and definitely would have pierced his lung cavity if the sneak attack had been successful. From there on out, Mike had shown no mercy. Everyone was out to get him, and he needed all of them to learn that that was a mistake.

Since he had yet to leave any survivors, the groups of adventurers had continued to walk out of the Noobtown with nary a care in the world, and he had continued to slaughter them. He hit level 8 somewhere in the afternoon, and steadily climbed towards level 9 the next day. Since the incident in the gorge, he had managed to take out 107 adventurers, bringing his total kills towards level 9 up to 66/128.

That wasn’t the only progress he had made though, he had managed to bring his progress towards Dodge Level 3 up to 700/1000. Most of those dodges had been accrued in a single fight, when three very driven men had spent the better part of two hours swinging clubs at him. With his Hardened Skin ability, they wouldn’t have been able to even hurt him, so he had used the opportunity to work on dodging. He had expected them to tire out after 50 misses or so, but they just kept swinging and he kept training until they eventually collapsed in sweaty piles and he had nimbly flicked axes at them.

In contrast to his Dodge skill, Hardened Skin hadn’t really leveled at all, for the same reason that he had been unable to quickly level the skill thus far: the requirements for counting a hit towards the next level excluded hits he took willingly. And since Fen was the only person who he was unable to dodge one on one, he couldn’t really work on this skill while fighting others. Although he hoped to find her soon. He had 9 points awaiting assignment and he figured after he took some hits from her to grind easy levels, he could dump them all into Dexterity and finish her off.

As the second day finished, he found himself slowly circling the perimeter of the town. He wanted to get a rough count of just how many people there were. He got distracted as he came to Bart’s shop though, internally debating the risk of doing a quick smash and grab for some new seasonings. So far he had little trouble dealing with small groups of adventurers, but he knew that if he went into the town, the alarm would sound and he may be swarmed by more than he could handle. Especially since he was unsure if Bart’s team was the best the town had to offer or not.

As he sat there pondering on the usefulness of garlic and chives, deciding whether they were worth more than his own life if he could pass their legacy down to the hobgoblins, some figures turned the corner headed towards the shop’s back door.

Speak of the devil and she shall appear, he smiled to himself as he made out Fen’s approaching form in the midst of her party.

…………………………………………………………………………………………

The agonizing 48 hours of uninterrupted thinking ended, and Bart once again respawned, nodding to Igor and Fen who had already respawned and were standing next to him. Taking inventory, he was fuming to find that all his weapons had been filched, again. As a store owner, he could buy things at a discount, but just blatantly taking things from his store would result in him being labeled as a thief and a bounty would be put on his head. Reputation was key in the Age of the System, as many were calling this post apocalyptic world.

Their party had originally relied on shared greed to keep Mike’s location a secret. A party could only have 5 members, which he had originally thought would be enough to handle Mike. The bonus that went to all party members was enough to ensure that his original group would keep the location of the valley to themselves… As long as they kept Peter away from his drink.

When five people hadn’t been enough, he had reluctantly joined hands with another party. The other party had been the 5 strongest combat individuals that they could find, and twice the fire power was sure to have been sufficient. Bart wasn’t stupid enough to let the other party get the rewards from killing Mike though. The plan all along had been to have Fen and Igor maim the other party once Mike was close to death so that their party could strike the killing blow and claim the loot. That plan went out the window when Mike had decimated all 10 of them… he had been checking his Quest Log periodically throughout the last 48 hours of boredom, and sure enough, killing Mike was still at the top of the list.

Bart now faced 2 major problems: Firstly, the word would soon spread about where Mike was hiding out now that it wasn’t just within his party. Secondly, their party was broke, and it would be some time before they could hunt enough low level monsters to fund another attempt. Having previously anticipated these issues, the team had sunk all of their resources into the last expedition, in hopes of avoiding these two problems entirely.

As Peter and Jake spawned, Bart couldn’t help but notice that the giant was missing his very costly plate mail, which had been the most expensive item Bart had ever purchased, other than his own spatial storage bag.

He began walking towards the store as his party followed behind him. They would need to find someplace private to discuss their plans going forward. As they approached the back entrance to his shop, he was caught up in thinking about the fastest way to decimate a few hundred hobgoblins for some easy money when a blinding pain interrupted his thoughts. The pain subsided almost instantly and he was shocked to find that he was once again staring at the respawn timer.

…………………………………………………………………………………………

Four quick throws and four more kills towards his next Ax Throwing level, Mike thought, as he dodged the returning missiles. He was getting better at judging how a thrown ax would rebound, and most of the time he could make it stick in a tree behind him without too much extra thought on his part. This saved him from the task he hated most in this world: finding a missile when it missed its target. It had been bad as a boy at scout camp, it had been bad as a SEAL in Vietnam, but it was at its worst when the missile landed somewhere behind you at a distance that was increasing as quickly as his Strength attribute. The dense junipers didn’t make this chore any easier. He had actually lost an ax earlier that morning, giving up on the item after looking for it for a full 30 minutes. Now he was down to just 6 iron axes and his two steel axes that he favored for close range.

A blur streaked towards his location and he pushed his reverie aside. Fen was here, and prepared as he was for this fight, she was upon him before he was completely ready for her. Her nunchucks blurred in her hand as repeatedly struck him, causing his body to be a mess of sensory overload, phantom pain indicating where he would be hit next and actual pain when the nunchucks connected and left a welt on his body. The two extra points in Toughness since they had last fought made a surprising difference though, and he was able to endure more than he had the last time they fought. Unable to retaliate much, he resorted to covering his head and other sensitive areas as best he could while distracting himself from the pain by watching the skill requirement tick up.

2500/10000…

2600/10000…

2700/10000

The knowledge that he was leveling this skill faster than he ever could with his rebounded axes made the pain almost negligible for the first few minutes. But as 200 hits grew to 300 and then to 500, it became clear that while the punishment from each nunchuck was less than a single rebound, the reduced times between each hit was taking its toll. His elation at such fortuitous circumstances turned to acceptance, and then eventually tolerance, and finally endurance. By the time the nunchucks had hit him 1000 times, he knew he was at his breaking point and immediately put all 9 stat points into Dexterity, bringing it up to 38. Staving off the pain, he read the notification that popped up even as he took more hits.

[Calculating prerequisites: Damage Taken requirement met.

Dexterity requirement met.

Damage Mental Acuity proven.]

[Congratulations, prerequisites reached! Damage Premonition skill learned!

+2 Dexterity

You will now be given sufficient notice to dodge impending attacks.]

He had no idea what Damage Mental Acuity meant, but rage slowly built within him. Swindled! The System had robbed him again. How was this any different from the warnings he had been receiving about rebounding axes and sneak attacks for the last week?

His anger caused him to lash out at Fen, his first attack since his beating had comenced over 3 minutes earlier. Fen skipped backwards, avoiding his attack with ease and eying him with a predatory smile. She closed the gap again, but Mike couldn’t help but notice that he could actually track her movements this time. With his increased Dexterity, she was less than double his speed as far as he could tell.

Before she was even to him, he started to feel exact locations where he would be hit next. The premonitions no longer covered large areas, rather, they were precise points that he would estimate to be the exact same size as the point of contact between his body and the nunchuck. He felt one on his right forearm, followed immediately by one on his left ear. He instinctively jerked his head back, and couldn’t hold back a scream as a crushing blow hit the bone of his forearm… followed by his back, hand and chin, his loss of concentration not affording him any time to dodge, despite the notice given by Damage Premonition.

Activating Unflinching Meteor, he used his 12 seconds to find his center and come up with a game plan. After 4 or 5 seconds, Fen sensed that her attacks were no longer doing anything and stepped back, watching him from two feet away.

As the 12 seconds expired, Mike held his position, hoping to extend the respite just a hair longer. At 25 seconds, his arm wobbled and Fen exploded forward. He just managed to react in time, moving his foot out of the way.

Though not always able to adjust to the mental promptings quickly enough, from there on out, Mike was able to dodge many of her attacks. His body was on fire everywhere, but he doggedly held on, knowing that his only hope was in wearing her out.

As her stamina slowly decreased, he was able to add in small jabs of his own, forcing her to dodge in the face of his much more powerful blows.

At the 7 minute mark, her speed reached a parity with his own and he seized the initiative, grabbing her arm and flipping her onto the ground. Slamming his knee down as hard as he could, he ended the fight and sent her to respawn.

Gasping for breath, he fell to his hands and knees. It was impossible to say where he hurt most, his whole body was a litany of bruises, some that he felt in his bones. He was positive his left forearm was fractured. Crawling away from her body, he found himself in the exact same bush where he had removed the dagger from his stomach. This location had hidden him well enough once to survive once, it would have to be enough again.

His last thoughts before he used Hands of Healing were that he only needed to be hit 6300 more times to gain the next level of Hardened Skin and was only 50 points away from the next level in Dodge.

“That might have been worth it.” Mike’s disembodied voice lisped from the bush as he passed out in a flash of light.