“Here goes nothing…” Hiro wrapped the duct tape he received from the Gigachad around his wrist. It hardened, yet remained flexible enough for him to move his hand freely. He picked up his Buster Kunai, which was now in its knife form.
Let’s see about this. He dragged the blade across the duct tape. The armor held strong. He put more pressure into it this time, and then he tapped the blade against it, noticing a slight metallic sound.
And then how do I get it off? He found his tape line and got his fingernail beneath it. “Whoa,” Hiro whispered as he was able to pull some of it back. “So it’s like real tape in that regard. But it’s also armor. In that case…”
It took him a few minutes, but Hiro eventually wrapped both his arms in the duct tape, leaving him about one and a quarter rolls to use later. He gathered his things, considered drinking one of his energy drinks, and decided against it as he checked basic stats.
Name: Hiro Johnson
Level Six
Current Title: Wolf Ronin of Wall Street
Followers: 1,256
Interim Performance Grade: B-
City Survivors: 632, 198
World Survivors: 357, 441, 279
Beast Death Count: 388/791
Hunter Death Count: 55/89
“I need more followers so I can upgrade my vape pen,” Hiro said, only realizing after uttering these words how strange they sounded. He almost laughed, but decided to keep quiet instead.
He had seen things from the window of the highrise building in Billionaire’s Row. It had looked like a great battle at the time, but he was too far away to truly make it out.
His sword sheathed at his side, mask on his face, vape pen in one pocket, Buster Kunai in the other and his arms wrapped in armored duct tape, Hiro moved on.
To better protect himself, he took a path through Central Park that was dense with large stones and trees on either side, which would make it harder for an enemy to ambush him.
Or so he hoped.
He knew there would be time for reflection later, perhaps one day, or maybe when he rested before the gates opened. But now wasn’t that time. Now, he needed more followers; he needed to get stronger; he needed to…
“Survive.” Hiro came to something he hadn’t been expecting. Although, if he admitted it to himself, he wouldn’t have expected anything. “What the actual hell?” he asked as his eyes traced over the end of a skeletal tail, each vertebrae the size of a minivan.
He looked ahead to see that the tail extended into the woods, parts of it buried in the ground.
He approached with heightened caution.
The tail wasn’t moving, and the way it was embedded in the ground made it appear as if it had been there for quite some time. Years, even.
To follow it or to continue on the trail?
Hiro decided to stick to the bone tail.
His hand now on the hilt of his katana, Hiro crept along the side of the vertebrae, noticing that the larger the bones grew, the more sunken they were. The end of the vertebrae had been large, but these ones were massive.
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I don’t think I’m going to have to fight it. The bone tail seemed too dormant, ancient, even, like it had been there since the dawn of time. If it was something he would need to fight, how would he do it, and why hadn’t he received a description yet?
He pushed onward, stepping over some of the trees the tail had crushed.
Ask the right questions, Hiro thought, his dad’s favorite quote.
But how did one ask the right questions in a world like this, one turned completely upside down and populated with terrifying monsters spawned by an entity that no one understood?
Hiro pushed past the existential dread and came to an obvious question: If the thing is dead, what killed this thing? Then a stranger one:
“Does this place have necromancers?” he whispered, only realizing that this place was the city he had called home for the last several years. In that case—Are there necromancers in New York City?
A smirk took shape under his mask, one that quickly faded as Hiro reached the massive creature’s actual body. It soon resembled an archeological dig site, much of the winged monster’s giant form buried in Central Park. It was reptilian in nature, and it seemed to have twisted at the last moment, which led several of its ribs to jut out of the ground.
“Wild. Some kind of dragon,” Hiro said as he noticed movement at the top of the monster’s spine, near the place where it met the back of its neck.
Are those… legs?
A pair of white marble legs ran in his direction, jumping from vertebrae to vertebrae. The legs, which stopped just past the knees, moved as if they were operated by a single invisible person.
A red health bar appeared once the legs hopped to the ground, now just twenty feet away from him. Hiro drew his katana, no question in his mind that he would have to fight the legs.
He tried for {Kiss or Slap}, which failed. He then triggered {Blade Whirlwind} which staggered the pair of stone legs through its slicing wind.
His attempt took enough of their health bar that he thought he would be able to cheese it by using the power again and again, yet upon his fourth attempt, the legs jumped over him, landed directly behind Hiro, and delivered a crushing heel kick to his back which sent him flying forward.
He slammed into one of the vertebrae, which felt like hitting a brick wall. Hiro pivoted out of the way, and spun just in time to swat at the legs, which had jumped toward him to deliver a finishing blow.
That kick would have taken my head off!
Hiro jumped back and used {Blade Whirlwind} again, which gave him enough momentum to push him away from the white marble legs hellbent on kicking the living shit out of him.
{Refund} allowed Hiro to absorb their next attack, which he redistributed back toward the legs, finally able to separate them.
Shock came across his masked face as the legs hopped back up on their own, now with two health bars the same size as the shared one they had just moments ago.
Hiro called his phantom demon cats to distract the legs while he focused on killing one. After the sound played out, seemingly piped from speakers in the air that didn’t and shouldn’t have existed, the cats charged the legs, which independently kicked at them.
Figuring he’d focus on the leg on the right, the one closest to him, Hiro rushed in with both hands on the grip of his katana. It was strange changing his strike trajectory to a downward motion, so he slid.
Like he was sliding into home plate, Hiro dropped to his knees and swung right into the leg, which took a good quarter of its health. The leg managed a side kick that Hiro blocked with his arm, his duct tape armor protecting him.
Hiro cut into it again, the leg falling and twitching as its health bar depleted.
“Shit!” Hiro shouted as he next leg, even though it was covered in phantom demon cats, managed to land a pointed kick on his shoulder in a place that he hadn’t wrapped with duct tape.
He fell to the side, the pain blooming within him, Hiro feeling as if he’d been struck by the broad side of a hockey stick.
The leg jumped and attempted to stomp on his face. Hiro rolled at the last moment and threw his arm out, his katana slicing against the leg and knocking it to the side. Nursing his arm, trying his best to ignore the pain, Hiro got to his feet, winced, and hit the leg again as it staggered backward.
He brought both hands onto the grip of his katana and drove it down onto the knee.
“Fuck you,” he whispered as the leg fell, its health bar depleted.
Applause erupted in his head.
You have new followers!
Soul Essence poured into him and his phantom cats faded.
Ka-Boom!
Hiro pivoted toward the explosive sound, his sword arm instinctively coming up across his chest as he was tossed backward by a spray of metal pellets.