--- [Vaman’s perspective]
“Alright, it seems both fighters are ready. Let the second match begin!” – Leanne
He’s standing still, he’s clearly ready to attack, but he’s not getting closer.
I guess I’ll have to approach him then.
I slowly make my way towards him while making sure to keep my guard up.
I’m just slightly outside of my attack range, so I quickly step forward and throw a jab to his face.
I had hoped that it would somewhat take him off guard, but he effortlessly dodges it.
His reaction speed is on point.
I throw a couple more punches towards his head, but he avoids all of them.
Eventually I see an opportunity, and I throw a right hook towards his cheeks, and it connects!
Or…
What the-?
It connected, but…
He turned his face to the side, making my fist slip right off without dealing any damage.
That attack put me in an awkward position; he takes advantage of it and drills his fist into my stomach.
“GUEAH!!” – Vaman
I get knocked back a little, but I manage to stay on my feet.
He runs to up to me and goes for a follow-up attack.
I throw my own punch, attempting to make our fists clash.
He seems to be very good at dodging, but I might still be able to overpower him when it comes to a contest of strength.
My fist connects with his, but…
It’s like his arm turned to jelly.
The instant our fists clashed; it went completely limp.
It’s too late to pull back now, so I follow through with the punch, but it’s essentially just like I pushed his arm a little.
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He managed to yet again avoid all damage.
At the same time, he throws another punch with his other arm.
It hits me before I’m able to defend; I get knocked back and I lose my balance.
I stumble over and fall to my knees.
He yet again doesn’t hesitate to follow up.
Before I’m able to get back up, he comes in with a knee to my face, knocking me down.
“AHHH!!!” – Vaman
I think he broke my nose…
I hear someone yelling from the seats.
“What are you doing?!! Were you always this pathetic?!!! Beat him up!!” – Fei
It’s Fei…
I guess she’s mad that I was doing so well against her, but I’m getting beat up by him.
She seemed to hate the idea of being weaker than others, and seeing someone who did so well against her getting beat up is an indirect way of saying he’s stronger than her too…
It’s not like I’m not trying my hardest.
I really am.
This guy…
He’s just…
Something else.
I don’t want to fail again, but this guy is like a mountain.
A mountain I need to climb to rank up.
The problem is that he’s an insanely large mountain with nothing to hold onto…
But it’s still just a mountain.
I can climb it.
I know I can.
As long as I don’t give up, I will eventually win.
And I won’t give up…
Effort and persistence always pays off; it’s time for mine to do just that…
---
All my life, I’ve been a bit of a loser.
I was never particularly good at anything.
Some kids would be good at math, some at history, and others at science.
Extraordinary kids would be good at all of them.
I was good at none…
Some kids would be good at music, some with sports, and others at art.
Only a genius would be good at all of them.
I was good at none…
However, this was never much of a problem to me.
I had a loving family and great friends.
I was happy.
But the final year of school, I had a rude awakening…
I failed my exams, so I couldn’t graduate.
I had to redo the final year.
This set me further back in life than I could have ever imagined…
My parents were disappointed.
School isn’t cheap, and we weren’t the wealthiest family either…
This was the beginning of how my relationship with my parents started to break apart.
My old friends moved on to the next stage of life, and I saw them less and less.
The things that made me happy was suddenly taken from me.
All because I failed one exam…
I didn’t want to be set back even further, so I determined not to fail again.
I studied harder than ever, and I gave up everything else.
In the end, my hard work paid off.
I passed the exams by a hair.
It was time to move on with my life.
Get a job, get a career.
But my complete lack of talent worked against me here too.
I got fired from four jobs, all because of incompetence.
This was the nail in the coffin for my relationship with my parents too.
Although they obviously still loved me, they saw me as nothing more than a failure.
I didn’t know what to do anymore, I was so lost.
If I couldn’t keep a decent job, how would I be able to support myself?
I only had two choices left.
The first, and the easiest one, was to get a job so mind numbingly simple that even I couldn’t fail.
But I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life working a job I would hate every second off.
I could never do that.
So, there was only one real option left.
Find a job that I couldn’t get fired from.
Jobs like that are essentially non-existent, but there is one…
Hunters…
Hunters can’t get fired.
Once you become a hunter, you stay a hunter.
The only ways out are by quitting, or dying…
I didn’t plan on quitting.
I had to become a hunter.