Chapter 19: Stupid Cheating Skills

Chapter 19: Stupid Cheating Skills

Today was the day.

Edwin had a hard time falling asleep, even when activating his skill, but he managed it eventually, and he woke up well-rested. He didnt have much of an appetite, but made sure to eat as much breakfast as possible to keep his energy up anyway. Hed taken a bath, shaved, and changed into clean clothes the night before, so he would start this trek into the wilderness off fresh. His boots, as comfortable as ever, were laced up tightly. His backpack was filled to the brim with food, knives, various heating plates, a pebble of Blackstone, a chisel, his notebook, and more. His gloves were concealing a miniature blowtorch hot enough to melt iron. His twin bags filled ammo and backpack were hidden behind piles of rock.

There was nothing else he could do to get ready, and Edwins heart was racing. He was not ready, but he had to appear calm and like nothing was unusual. He hefted his sledgehammer and brought it down on a chunk of limestone. This is going to fail, Im going to die, what am I thinking, Im going to die, Im going to die, Im going to- he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He could do this. If he didnt do it, he was dead anyway, so there was nothing to lose. He would survive. He had Science! to do. He was a proper alchemist, too! It even said so in his Status. He took another calming breath, and had to set down his hammer due to how much his hands were shaking. Another breath. In, and out. In. Hold. Out. Hold. In. Hold. Out.

Level Up!

Breathing Level 1516



Oh, right. He should turn off his notifications now. Edwin didnt want them distracting him during his escape run. Breathe in, breath out. Focus. Stay calm. Grab onto the edge of the counter, that should help keep his shaking hands steady. Breathe deeply. He closed his eyes and counted to one hundred. Another deep breath. He mentally multiplied three 3x3 matrices together. Another deep breath. Recite the alphabet. Now do it backwards. Another deep breath.

Edwin opened his eyes, hands barely trembling and breathing mostly under control. He picked up his hammer, and continued to crush limestone, careful to not put too much effort into the activity.

Some sixth sense alerted Edwin before he heard them enter, and he positioned himself near where his packs were located. The door swung open, and Edwin saw Rashin enter in his peripheral vision, followed closely by the two guards.

Guess its time, then? Edwin asked, of nobody in particular, trying to sound resigned. He sighed, heart racing, and before any of his foes could react, he threw his sledgehammer as hard as possible at Rashins head.

The heavy iron head connected with the scholars skull with a clang that sounded more like the hammer had struck a helmet rather than bare hair, and the dwarf collapsed. The two guards were stunned, too shocked to properly react at first, and by the time they were in motion, Edwin already had two grenades in hand and a third at the ready.

The first was M-N-M mortar, the super-adhesive, and it struck the base of the door, breaking open and sticking it in place. Edwin wasnt about to let them just close the door on him, after all.

Two and a half down, five and a half to go.

The other dwarves were more wary now, having seen the sort of firepower he had at his disposal, though one hefted a bench as a shield -the thing had to be twice as long as he was tall- and continued his advance. Edwin backed up until his leg bumped against another bench, and the others seem to take that as encouragement and continued to approach slowly.

On the bright side, he now had a clear shot at the shield dwarfs legs, as he had moved into the center aisle ahead of Edwin. Withdrawing two more slipstone grenades and an instant-cure bomb, he threw them all at Shield dwarfs feet, then mentally changed targets.

To Edwins shock, despite both the slipstone spreading properly and the cure going off as it should, Shield just grunted and planted his feet solidly on the utterly frictionless surface, as though it were just another patch of Blackstone. Edwin grimaced and prepared to throw a different kind of bomb

Stupid cheating skills.

Edwins realization there were other skills in play was driven home when a dwarf seemed to materialize from thin air as he grabbed Edwins arm. Sneaky (or teleporting?) dwarf probably regretted his decision instantly, though, as he drew breath to speak just as Edwin jerked his grenade-holding arm in surprise, which broke the plaster directly on Sneakys forehead. Edwin looked in horror as the lime powder burst into the dwarfs face, getting all over his skin, into his beard, in his eyes

The screaming started a moment later, and made Edwin exceedingly glad he didnt have any exposed skin and that his eyes were covered by his goggles, as Sneaky fell to the ground clutching his eyes even as the lime probably boiled them whole. That certainly got his assailants to pause for a moment, especially when Edwin withdrew a matching grenade from his bag, and he spoke up in dwarven for the first time, Stay back, I pass. I dont want to hurt. Okay, so he didnt really know the grammar yet, but he at least probably got the words right.

All but one of the remaining dwarves backed off at that, and when a solidly thrown grenade just bounced off the dwarfs head before rolling onto the ground (it was supposed to be a super-adhesive, but apparently more than just slipstone had gotten cured), this dwarf only got more bold. Another steam grenade followed, but it was batted from the air by the dwarfs axe, cut in half and un-exploded. Clearly more skill nonsense, and the stone crashed against the ground.

A quick barrage of different bombs- Edwin was frantically backpedalling, throwing whatever he could pull from his bag, his opponent blocking each throw with an impenetrable defense, falling more and more into a rhythm and blocking the attacks with more and more ease. Each clang of metal on stone rang out across the hall, but the dwarven cries for backup and help were barely overpowered, the elongated syllables of their tongue rarely drowned out by the sudden impact of steel on mortar.

Edwin was running out of bombs in his first bag, now, and while his second bag was almost full, it didnt have many of his adhesive and slick bombs, focusing more on his steam grenades, and the axe dwarf was too close at this point to risk one. Then the dwarf blurred and appeared right next to Edwin with his axe mid-swing.

Edwin barely managed to duck out of the way to keep the strike from hitting his head, but it still cut a painful line across his shoulder and down his chest, leaving him bleeding from what was a thankfully superficial cut.

Edwin almost breathed a sigh of relief until he realized the strap on his mostly-full bag had been severed by the attack. He could only watch in horror as his bag stuffed to the brim with powerful explosives fell, seemingly in slow motion, dropping and cracking hard against the stone floor.