Turning around towards the voice, Sam saw what looked like a man who had just woken up, there were some boats along the shore so he might be from there?
Not thinking about that too much he brought down all his weapons from above, the man, not wearing any armour nor being one of the higher power individuals in the camp, had no chance to even shout out. He was cut down where he stood with deep gashes from above, his shoulders, some across his chest and the Moonblade cutting into his skull, it was instant as his blood and brain juice spread across the dirt.
[ Experience gained: +2 000. ]
Using a solid few seconds to listen around for anyone reacting, he was very happy to not notice anything. Even the boss remained sleeping. Mentally letting out a sigh of relief he continued with his plan. Placing all his weapons nearby so they were ready to go, holding the Moonblade in his hands for an even faster reaction if it was needed, considering that the boss might run through the door for aid, he needed to do something about that. Another problem was the teleporting shoes, they could be activated by a thought.
Though as they were loafers, they might be relatively easy to pull off slowly and calmly, he might not wake up. Reaching out with several Psyhands, Sam grabbed the shoes by their heels and started to slowly, very, very slowly and calmly take them off his feet. Luckily the Psyhands were much calmer than his normal hands, with no normal shake as most hands have. Though he had that bonus it was close to agony watching the bandit’s face as he did this staring for any movement or reaction. But, luckily it seemed to work fine!
Having taken it that slow, even though the man moved a little, his legs remained calm letting Sam use several minutes to slowly pull the shoes off his heel and lift them off the toes. Hovering them over to himself he used precious seconds to put them on himself, the main issue was getting the other shoes off, but it was worth it. Just the safety net of having the Flash Step available was amazing. Almost falling off his wooden crate he still felt it worth it as he saw the man still sleeping.
This might actually work.
Preparing for his next step, he again considered how to stop him from running out of the building once he woke up. Blocking the door was not enough, this place was rickety and he could just jump through the window. The only way was to tie him down or at least trip him.
That was a good idea, tie something around his legs, letting him struggle to get that loose as he choked. Finding rope was not an issue as the boats nearby were tied to poles, the rope could easily be cut and he had some hemp-like rope in minutes. Tying it somewhere safely was worse, though he had a better idea. He could just hold the end of it so he could yank and fuck with it when needed. It was better than trying to tie it to something in there, also allowing him to use more strength than his Psyhands. However, he still needed to get at least one of his legs tied to the other end.
Luckily the man was sleeping with pants!
Sam took care, using a lot of time this time as well. Due to it still being night and people were sleeping, some were patrolling but it didn’t seem like anyone where around here. Reaching in with a Psyhand and the rope made it seem like the rope was animated, kind of interesting had the scenario not been so terrifying. He made sure to move the rope around his leg calmly and slowly, tying a simple slipknot at the end so he could tighten it when the time came instead of doing that now. It was working scarily well, almost like he was using up some divine aid.
Once he felt confident about the rope, he readied himself. Holding onto the rope with both hands he picked up a bunch of dirt with his Psyhands, not being sure how much he needed he chose to err on the side of caution. Floating it into the building was not an issue and he was ready.
He waited several seconds, getting the rhythm of his breathing, he wanted to wait for the exhale. One Psyhand was free and ready to open his mouth when the time came. He breathed calmly in. Out. In. Out. The timing was simple, and as the man breathed out Sam used his free Psyhand to open his mouth before shoving several handfuls of sand into his mouth, nose and face. The man woke up with a massive jolt and tried to cough but couldn’t. Sam pushed all he could muster against his face, feeling his hands grab onto the Psyhands. Once they were interacting with something they became corporeal. Though this was only a few hands at the same time at most, letting him just move them back once they were let go of. But this meant that his pressure weakened considerably, you didn’t need much to overpower the coughing reflex or the power of the tongue. The man struggled, looking around in panic as he tried to dig dirt out of his mouth and nose. Sam pushed onwards and used his Psyhand ‘fingers’ to push it further into his throat. This seemed to work very well as his coughing and panic increased dramatically. Looking around himself again with bloodshot eyes he saw Sam looking through the window, scampering away he made for the door covering the entrance, doing his best to scream through the clogging. But there was barely a sound as dirt and sand clogged his throat.
Stumbling out of bed was the queue Sam needed, pulling strongly on the rope the slipknot tightened, and putting his entire weight on the rope had the man slide into the bed which in turn was against the wall. His panic grew as he now struggled with breathing but also being pulled away from getting aid. He resorted to throwing random objects at Sam, all of them missed. Most hit the walls or just flew out the window to land in the dirt outside.
This lasted a short while, it felt like hours but was more like half a minute or so before he passed out. Sam could see his erratic pulse around his throat still, he knew that choking usually knocks you out first before you die. Not wanting to wait for that to happen he let go of the rope and climbed in, doing his best to fumble the armour off the unconscious man. He placed the Moonblade, on the window frame as he let go of it, getting the armoured shirt off relatively easily. Now being unarmored it was only the matter of handling the man.
[ Silent Killer activated. ]
[ Critical hit, double damage. ]
[ Critical hit, double damage. ]
[ Critical hit, double damage. ]
[ Critical hit, double damage. ]
Pulling the weapons against his throat again and again, he could hear the metal grind against the sand and dirt clogging up his throat, a surprisingly satisfying sound. Having to cut several times it wasn’t until the fourth critical hit against the unconscious man’s neck that the XP window popped up.
[ Experience gained: +10 000. ]
[ XP to lv.14: 20825 / 40960 █████░░░░░ ]
It was insane how high XP values there were in PvP, he had considered this many times before but he was slowly becoming interested in continuing PvP. At least against those who deserve it, to use that term.
“You OK in there, Boss?” A voice asked from outside the door.
Sam froze, he held the armour in his hand, and there was blood everywhere, pooling up, flowing through the floor, and splattered across walls and over all of Sam. There was zero chance he could avoid this if seen. He had three choices, leave and ignore his rings, letting them go into alert. Attack the man, possibly having others see it, having them go into alert. Or... pretend to be the boss...
He wasn’t good at voice, and he barely remembered what the voice of the man was when he talked to him the other day in the cage.
“Sn-” he coughed once, his voice was too high but the cough allowed him to fake that. “Snake, I got it. Fuck off.” Reaching out of the window to Psyhand-grab his other weapons he could taste his heartbeat, he was ready for this to go to shit, he would just have to cut the fingers off the boss to get his rings, and put on the vest later.
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“Oh... ok... fine.” The man outside commented, sounding somewhat dejected. Almost like he was hoping to be of use or to be helpful.
This had Sam let out a massive, silent sigh. His bullshit worked!
Using a few seconds to get the rings off the man’s fingers, slipping them on his own, he put the armour on hastily before leaving the place as fast as he could.
Picking up his weapons on the way he left in the same way he entered, sneaking but in a non-obvious way. However, once he walked past a tent he almost bumped into someone.
“Oh, sorry.” The other man said. “It’s dark so... wait... hold on... Why do you have the boss’ armour?”
The man shouted ALARM as loudly as he could before Sam managed to bring down the blades on him, though the man died the alarm shout was mimicked across the camp and people were scampering out of their tents.
[ Experience gained: +2 000. ]
Fuck.
Sam bolted, running all he could for the tree line, he felt very safe with his armour back on, but he didn’t want to risk anything. However before he could reach the safety of the jungle, several bandits cut him off, standing between him and the jungle, weapons and tools in hand.
The solution to this was simple. Running towards them he activated the Flash Step ability as he got in range to end up between them. He felt a pulse of energy and in the moment he blinked, he found himself on the other side continuing mid-step. He hadn’t tried this ability before but this was amazingly practical!
Not waiting for any reaction he hightailed in between the trees and kept running. Hoping the others would at least pause a bit he made sure to not just go the straight path back, like last time he took a long detour, making sure to find the stream coming from his waterfall, walking downstream a long distance before moving on. It was simple, but hopefully effective enough. He felt great, exhausted from the running, the long day and the adrenaline slowly leaving his system, but he got all of this important gear back! He also got to test the Flash Step shoes, and it was incredibly powerful. If there is a way to upgrade the uses per day or learn how to do that ability directly, it could be an incredibly useful skill to have.
The night was fading to the morning light by the time he got back to his cave, picking up a fish on the way past the pool he prepared it like he had done the others, though this time he opted to not clean it with the knife he used to kill people. At least not until it was thoroughly cleaned. He didn’t have any soap or anything to properly clean them with, so he found himself a sharp-ish rock to use as a knife. It was... not a pretty cut, but he didn’t care, he just needed it good enough to eat. As he was doing that he focused some other hands on getting a fire going. Being ambidextrous must be great, and being... 20-dextrous was kind of insane. The fire was soon enough hot and burning, the fish was ready and skewered on some sticks. He could barely keep awake, scarfing down his food as soon as it was done before collapsing in his bed with the hint of a satisfied smile on his lips.
Waking up he didn’t feel entirely good. Health-wise he was fine, it was just the sweaty feel of sleeping with leather clothing on, being drenched in blood which had now stopped being liquid or even gooey. He decided that the rest of the day was going to be a maintenance day. He had his rings, he had his armour, his weapons and finally, his shoes. The latter needed to recharge as his use was apparently ‘today’.
He took his time waking up, drinking some fresh water, and eating some more fish he didn’t get to before sleeping. Making a mental list of what he needed to do before turning in for the night... Or rather, he did his best work during the night, so perhaps he’d just continue like that. He pondered this as he started with wrestling his clothes off himself before washing them a little downstream. It felt weird being naked again. It wasn’t that he felt like he had much to hide, it was just uncomfortable as he wasn’t used to it. Taking his time to scrape the blood off with rocks and some of the smaller knives, rubbing the rest off in the water with some moss as a sponge, he used considerable time to get it proper. The same with the pants, he washed them thoroughly inside and out, since he was going commando in them he wanted them as clean as possible for just that reason. The shoes were easier, good thing that the boss had decent foot hygiene, but he still used some time to get them as clean as possible. His armour was surprisingly easy to clean, even though it was drenched with all the boss’s blood. In the end, he felt satisfied with his clean gear, at least as far as he could get without soap. Taking some time to get some more coconuts, he decided to make some more bowls, that could let him make soups or stews, having something to boil things in, at least he saw something like that on the internet once and... it wasn’t like he didn’t have the time.
Musing about what happened with Elara and Janik, who were the only two ‘people’ he cared for at the moment, thinking about the things he missed he found himself saddened. He was fine.... all things considered, but it was easier to be properly fine when you had modern comforts and didn’t live in a cave with the threat of being murdered at almost any time. Or the thought that he was going to kill more people before the day was over. One of the most interesting things was that he still didn’t feel as much as he thought he would having killed as many as he had. It wasn’t an amazing number but he had forgotten the exact numbers. There were the first two when he got the Ascendant Quest, the three on the beach, three or so more escaping the camp and three last night. Unless he missed some he felt that he had killed 11 people, and he didn’t care. It felt the same as any monster, Kobold or Goblin.
It might be because they deserved it in his mind, having killed or planning to kill people without good reasons was enough to put them on that list. Reliving these moments had him suddenly realize that he was done with a few things he had planned for the day. He had gotten into some more coconuts and lost some of the milk inside but the flesh made a nice snack. Trying to boil some water proved that this worked fine, it seemed that the water kept the wood-like bowl from burning, at least if he was a bit careful with it. His Psyhands were still fire-immune making all of this very easy to handle. As the day went he had a small stock of food, dried and cooked fish as well as some boiled water cooling down, he used the other half of the ‘bowl’ as a lid, trying to keep insects out of them.
All in all, this was a productive day, he didn’t have the skill to make rope or anything practical, but he could cut down wood and leave it somewhat close to the fire so it passively dried out, he had to replace some moss in his bed after laying down in it caked in blood and gore, but by the time night settled in, he had a small stock of cooked food that would last at least a few days as well as some safe water and food. He considered making some cutlery, but since his Psyhands were as clean as the air could be, there was no need.
Had this been a camping trip without the whole murder thing, it would have been surprisingly nice.
Considering sleeping during the night this time, he could go to one of the ruins tomorrow, they looked interesting from the mountaintop, though it wasn’t like he could see any details up there, but he wanted to take it relatively calm for at least one day as he figured out what to do here on the island. There had to be more to it than murdering everything and surviving, if that was the deal the System would give him a quest... right?
He still liked the system for giving him Player powers, but he hated it for all the shit it had done to him both before and after becoming a Player. He needed to find out what the Ascendance system was if he ever got back to Earth, being given bonuses like that didn’t feel like it would be ‘free’ without a reason.
The reward for this shit better be worth it. Another plan he made was that tomorrow, he was going to capture someone and ask for information. He had a good chance to do that last night with the first two people he met but... He couldn’t gamble on them getting an attack in. Tomorrow, with his full gear and with his shoes recharged, would be very different.
Choosing to go out of the cave, fully dressed and geared now that everything had tried, he sat outside with his waterfall, looking at the stars for a while before turning in. He was going to head towards the ruins and stop someone for some questions on the way.