The others had stared at him in shock when he first stabbed himself but now shrieked in concern when he raised his hand to do so again. He didn’t respond and stabbed himself again, watching the HP plunge once more. He groaned and pulled the dagger out again. He’d planned to twist the knife or even possibly drag it across his belly but the pain was quite literally unbearable and he ripped it out to allow his HP to heal him.
His HP dropped again, but this time by a quarter, and Joe raised an eyebrow at that, considering. The surprise was enough to give him pause and he stopped to consider, running the numbers before stabbing himself once again in the same spot. The pain was even greater, and Joe groaned as he pulled the dagger from his belly as he saw his HP drop by half, leaving him with a sliver of health; only an eighth left. Somehow, seeing his health so low left him inexplicably nervous especially considering that HP appeared to simply work as a buffer between his actual ‘real’ health and true harm. He’d never had HP on Earth and now he was simply an eighth of the way away from what he had been back on Earth, but now having another barrier between him and death besides just skin made him that much more nervous to see it gone.
It was also interesting to note the compounding damage trigger from striking the same location. Or… is it too many strikes in a row? Hm… That idea gave Joe pause, and his dagger, which he’d already set up to plunge into his thigh stopped as he realized that he would be in a real bad place if the next strike was doubled again if it was more about the number of strikes in quick succession than the location of strikes. It can’t be that… a mere scratch would kill me now, wouldn’t it?
Joe hesitated some more then shook of his hesitation when he realized that if it was the latter, double damage due to too many strikes in a short time, Joe could just scratch his hand and find his HP zeroed out and he would have a scratch that didn’t heal. That would be quite simple to deal with, and so Joe did exactly that, slicing the knife across the inside of his left forearm off to the side of where the shield band normally rested so that it wouldn’t be irritated further. He watched this HP this time, more avidly interested and only offered a slight hiss of irritation from the trivial pain.
His HP, this time, barely moved, having already recovered by the time his knife finally slid across his skin and left. Well… not about quick time… or maybe it’s only vital or deadly strikes? Joe took the moment again, then stabbed himself in the forearm this time and found his HP only dropped by about three or four percent. Don’t really want to try hitting my gut again or doing a deadly strike if its… ooh!
With an easy plan in mind, Joe stabbed himself in the same spot on his arm again and watched his HP carefully and found the damage once again doubled, jumping to just shy of ten percent and dropping his HP almost to nothing. Nice… ok… at least it is the same spot that doubles damage. And it’s probably not the time… at least for now, otherwise the damage would have been more than double, right? Joe’s conclusions and thoughts almost drew him away from why he’d done this in the first place and he quickly table his thoughts as he put work into emptying his HP pool. Man… I hope there is another… easier way to do this… need something for stamina and MP as well… is there a class that does it? I wonder … is … hmm… a personal training class or is it a trainer class? That would be interesting… and training for other abilities, skills, and stats as well? I wonder how that would work… would be… very interesting. Maybe two jobs? Huh… cool…
In any case, Joe tabled the idea and quickly returned to what he was trying to do in the first place. He took a look at his HP and found that he only had three health left, which then immediately ticked up again to four health. Joe smiled at that, laughing. That was… real close… must have only had one or two health left! Joe was grateful for the fortuitous encounter and continued. Poking and scratching himself until he bottomed out and the HP stat flickered to zero and began flashing a very distracting but brilliantly red warning. This time, he slid the knife across his skin and saw the blood well up, but not heal. He watched it carefully, making sure the wound did not close and then nodded. When this happened, he heard several gasps of shock coming from the other four and he looked up to find Kilniara, Garnedell, and Gwenvair looking at him with incredibly pale faces, obvious fear and worry painted across them. Zilnek seemed shocked but otherwise just stared at him.
Joe laughed and smiled when he looked up at them, realizing that they were likely surprised to see a wound that didn’t disappear.
“Don’t worry! I’m fine. I’ll heal quickly and we can get on with this. It’s no big deal. Just give me a second.”
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
Joe pulled out a water bottle and ran it along his skin, grumbling that he hadn’t brought anything to kill some germs then worried about magical or mana enhanced germs. He shivered in worry at the idea then shrugged his shoulders as there was nothing he could do about that, although it was a good thing to ask about later, maybe to Kukurnal, although he was fairly certain no one here had any form of germ theory, especially considering how easy healing was. Hmm… maybe a good idea to get healing, too. Gotta stop by the temples to get my job changed anyway, so… Oh… never mind… tomorrow morning…heh… my own personal healer! Joe let the water slide off his arm onto his hands as he realized he needed to wash his hands first. He washed them as thoroughly as possible then cleaned off his arm, wasting all the water in one of their flasks cleaning. He then held it closed for a bit of time to help it clot and turned to speak while he held it until the blood stopped flowing.
“So, I’ve emptied my HP now and you will see that even the stick is pretty much harmless. Garnedell, grab the stick.”
Garnedell stared at Joe a bit, eyes wide in fear and worry, even as Gwenvair lifted a hand to stifle a gasp. Ha! Even that movement is graceful… kind of… weird. The moment seemed … stranger than usual, and Joe wasn’t sure what he was feeling to notice such a thing, but hyper awareness seemed to have flooded into his system and he was… seeing… somehow more aware and conscious of everything around him.
Garnedell took a bit to respond to Joe before picking up the stick and walking forward.
“Right. Smack me on the leg as hard as you can. If you could… please hit me on the trousers, and not the skin!”
Garnedell fidgeted a bit, very reluctant to do so, and Joe sighed. He dropped his hand from the wound and held it out to Garnedell, “Give it to me.”
Garnedell gave the stick to Joe then stood resolutely, steel resolve blanking his face as he prepared himself. Joe took a bit to try to understand why Garnedell appeared to be resolving himself before he realized that Garnedell assumed he was going to be hit.
“Garnedell. Relax! Let me just show you guys.”
Joe raised the stick, wanting to hit himself quickly so he could put his hand back on the oozing wound. The stick came down hard and fast and the group gasped again, but Joe thought nothing of it, letting the stick smack down on his thigh. The hit hardly stung, the stick way too light and useless as a weapon and the trousers thick enough to keep the sting away. He looked up at the other three with a bored smile on his face. He raised the stick again and began striking himself on the thigh several times while staring at them and smiling a bit. As their faces paled and shock only grew, Joe’s own smile increased until he was laughing, almost giggling as he watched them.
Finally, Joe stopped, his laughter too much for him to continue and he dropped the stick before returning his hand to press against the wound.
“You guys should see your faces! Why are you so surprised!? This is nothing. It really can’t hurt you. Why do you think I use the stick… told you to use the stick when pulling the goblins here? It’s… a useless weapon… even if you didn’t have clothes on… although… it would really hurt without clothes!”
The four continued to stare at him, eyes wide even as Joe giggled and their shock slowly faded from fear to awe. Joe quickly shook his head and worked to remove that awe.
“Alright! Enough of that! I’m not amazing… you all could take this strike and not be harmed… especially Zilnek, Kilniara… and probably Gwenvair if you were in your original forms. Zilnek. Kilniara. Your scales would make you pretty much immune to this stick.
“Gwenvair, I assume your original form has fur or hair covering your body?”
Gwenvair quickly nodded, her awe retreating slightly to consideration, “Yes. Much of our body is covered by hair.”
Joe nodded and continued, “Then a strike against you would likely feel like nothing more than a light punch or a soft strike as your fur would mitigate much of the strike. This stick is… a very weak and useless weapon… it makes you even more useless, to be honest, but it does give range and cause pain, which would be the main point of a weapon like this; to cause pain so debilitating that it makes you unable to fight, but other than pain, it does little harm to you… at least harm that is permanent. You would be able to recover easily even without healing.”
Joe looked back and forth between all three before nodding and continuing, “You don’t have to if you don’t wish, but one of the best ways to lose fear of pain is to experience it. The fear of pain, the anticipation of pain, is often more debilitating than the actual pain itself.
“Garnedell. When I hit you, did it hurt?”
Garnedell quickly nodded, “Yes. It was very painful.”
“And does it hurt now… oh, never mind, your HP would remove the pain. Umm…”
Joe’s thoughts whirled as he tried to figure out what to do and resorted to the second best thing he could think of.
“That wasn’t useful… but um… oh! Can you lift my pant trouser leg to show my thigh? I don’t want to take my hand off my wound again. I need to keep pressure on it.”
Garnedell came forward and rolled up the pants leg until most of his thigh was showing and Joe pointed at it, “See? My thigh is fine… and that is with zero HP. My thigh is hardly hurt, barely even red.”
Zilnek and Kilniara looked at each other, Gwenvair also glancing at Kilniara before Kilniara stepped forward and offered her leg. Joe looked up at her.
“You sure?”
She nodded quickly, although appeared quite nervous, her face a bit pale. Joe nodded but then considered and looked up at her, “Go ahead and shift your leg so that it has your Acokzau scales.”