Chapter 10: Day 15 – Death Match 2

Chapter 10: Day 15 – Death Match 2

“You follow him?” I asked, gesturing to the corpse. I steadied out my breathing to recover as quickly as possible.

“He was tricky, but useful for sniffing out things. But now, you are the interesting fellow. Got some muscles under that layer of fat I see.”

“Trained?” I asked. Hoping for any kind of information.

“Was on the fencing team in college. Team captain.”

“I thought you were going to say Olympic Champion.” Still top tier, but I had the information I needed now.

“Ha, now that would be a nice brag. I did try out but didn’t make the cut. Still these clubs are quite brutish.” He gave his club a practice swing in my direction.

“You wouldn’t be willing to call off the fight? Even you win, I will injure you. Recovery for you will be impossible,” I asked.

“True, very true. But there is the restoration option from the store. Also, I think I can torture how to earn points out of you. I have a pretty good guess, but I would like confirmation.” Not good. This was definitely going to happen now.

“That your final offer?” I asked.

“If you tell me everything you know. I will let you go.” Double dammit, that was the kind of nonsense deal I would offer. I didn’t trust it for one second.L1tLagoon witnessed the first publication of this chapter on Ñøv€l--B1n.

“For some reason I don’t believe you.”

“Well, you had enough time to rest. My name is Lucas.” He inclined his head slightly and brought up his club. Might as well play along with this nonsense and it confirmed in my heart what I needed to do. No hesitation, just act.

“Michael.” I inclined my head as well and brought up my club also. All my senses were heightened at the impending death match and focused on my opponent. He stepped forward and slowly advanced. He held the club in one hand and turned his body to the side. A fencer’s pose.

I had taken a class at summer camp as a kid and watched a few matches on YouTube later on as an adult. Enough to tell that Lucas knew what he was doing, since he was comfortable with his footwork and positioning. If he was acting, he was doing a good enough job I had no chance of telling the difference.

I took my standard two handed grip and faced him head on. While he would have a longer reach, I would have the greater strength.

He lunged and thrust his club at my head. I batted it to the side, and he had already recovered to step back and avoid my counter swing.

Lucas darted in again, aiming for my legs this time. Act!

I stepped forward as he pulled back. It had been a feint, all the better for me. I had been ready to take the blow head on as long as it wasn’t aimed for my head or chest. I thrust out the club and hit him in the chest. He staggered back, but I kept rushing forward, grabbing onto his chest in tackle, my club falling to the ground.

He slammed onto the hard stone with his back and my body on top of his. I grabbed his head with both of my hands and slammed it on the ground. I felt him hit me in the side multiple times and struggle to throw me off, but I didn’t stop.

He tried to twist me off and pull his head free, but I wouldn’t let him go. I slammed his head down onto the grey stone of the building floor over and over.

The upgrades were probably doing something, but I had no idea what that was. I didn’t notice anything different, and I had been paying attention. I would keep sending one upgrade each their way for every ten upgrades purchased, instead of committing everything to Body. My recent victory had given me more confidence.

It felt like the right balance for now. I just needed a lot more points. I shook my head, which was a pointless thing to think about.

No, what I needed to start thinking about was when I would begin checking other areas. I had already decided I would not be upgrading the store. I would leave that to other people. Also, I was done chasing people off.

Beating Lucas was the confidence I needed for the next steps I was thinking about taking. I had a huge lead at the moment in regard to upgrades. I had no doubt that if there was a group, the store upgrade would be a priority. I was honestly surprised I had managed to hold off my old team from upgrading the store for as long as I had.

This meant that the third group to arrive on day 20, would probably be the ones to do it, if I didn’t kill them off to hide the slime forest. Hmm, now I was getting ideas. I could wait at one of the other gates and follow a group out to see what happens.

That idea had merit, but I kept thinking about when I would risk another area. I would need to see the store upgrades first. Not counting today, since I needed to hunt slimes and trek back for a restoration, I had four days.

If I really pushed, I could get 800 crystals hopefully. That would allow for another set of ten upgrades and then I would save the rest. I definitely needed to keep a larger buffer for a restoration or two, I had been foolish.

Then I would keep hunting slimes until the next store upgrade was unlocked and then upgrade my gear. My sweater and the shirt under it were already pretty far gone and quite ripe.

I looked at the building calluses on my hand. Thank the almighty store for restoration. Otherwise, I would be bleeding a lot more, and the pain would be aggravating if not crippling.

I reached the gate and headed into the forest. Stupid ribs, I would kill Lucas again if I had the chance. Everything was sore, but no sharp pains. If there was a more serious injury, there was nothing I could do at the moment. I needed to get crystals, to get points, to get a restoration. I began to kill my way through the slimes to the higher density areas.

I reached the border of the forest to the dead area. My eyes quickly snapped to the dead area. I was sure that I saw movement. No slimes near me, so I spent a couple minutes staring at the dead trees. There! A shimmer of light of some kind that was drifting about.

Nope, backing away. Anything that didn’t have a body or invisibility of some kind was clearly out of my weight class. If I had to guess, it was either a ghost, elemental, or a clear slime of some kind. I hadn’t been able to make out its shape.

Well at least Perception was working, maybe, but it was still concerning. While the slimes were clearly special, in that they didn’t have organs, they were solid. Well liquid for the most part, regardless they could be physically hit. Whatever was out there couldn’t be hit if it was ethereal.

Also, the slimes were slow and didn’t really chase. The real concern was how far the aggro range of the clear wisp monster was. Aggro, meaning the aggravation a monster felt when its space was invaded or attacked. A monster with a large aggro range might chase me all the way back to the city and into it.

It might also bring friends. The slimes were easy to deal with since they had no concept of packs or groups. Only in very large numbers would these basic slimes be a threat to a prepared individual. But if there was a wolf monster, then it might summon other monsters to quickly overwhelm me.

That was the big risk of being out here alone. I was one person, and if attacked by a group I would be at a huge disadvantage. I didn’t lie to myself; I had gotten incredibly lucky twice so far. The first time, finding the slime forest, the second in the fight against Lucas. I kept thinking about that, it left a thread of fear and excitement running through me at the same time.

I rubbed my gut and looked down at my belt. I was losing weight at a rapid pace. At least the last belt notch had gone from tight to just right. In a day or two it would probably need another belt.

Now wasn’t the time to lose focus. I had more slimes to kill, and my ribs were still killing me. Where was a nice convenient HP bar that would refill itself over time? This was a freaking budget system, skimping on all those nice extras. I demand an Inventory!

Focus, I told myself and looked around carefully. No sign of that monster that had been in the dead tree biome. Focus on the present. I took out another slime and grabbed the dropped crystal. I let out a hiss of pain when I bent over. I really needed to fix my ribs quickly.

I didn’t dare go to sleep either with my ribs busted like this. If there was internal bleeding I could easily die. The real question is how many points did I need to heal myself? I couldn’t risk not getting the restoration tonight, so I would go as long as possible and then return to the plaza. I could only hope I would have enough points.