As they flew through the air, Ezra’s first thought was that Pete would be paying off this debt for the rest of his life. His second thought was AHHHHHHH!
Somehow, the deer flew through the air and over Ezra before impacting the ground with a thud. It jumped back to its feet a moment later.
Ezra stood up and grabbed his makeshift club.
The deer approached him, its eyes flickering and blinking from side to side like some sort of lizard.
“Who the hell designed this first mob?” Ezra said. “Too OP. Nerf, please.”
Charles laughed like he had a gun to his head.
The deer stepped closer, its hooves crunching against a stick.
Ezra tensed his knees, shoulders, and arms.
The deer leapt forward.
The seconds passed by as hours. Ezra’s heavy stick flew toward the side of the deer and smashed into it with a heavy thud. The deer stumbled back, spit flying out of its mouth. Just off to the side, a floating number appeared for a moment.
90/100
[Skill “Canefighting” Unlocked!]
The number disappeared. It now had a bar underneath the level number. The bar was nine-tenths full.
10 strikes in total. 9 strikes more. But it would only take one good attack for them to be killed. They had to finish this quickly.
“Charles,” Ezra said. “We have to work together.”
“Isn’t that what we’re doing?”
“No, right now we’re just standing on the same side. That’s not enough. We need to work together.”
Charles was quiet for a moment before he nodded.
“If anyone asks, we never cooperated and I killed this creature on my own.”
“Whatever, you jackass,” Ezra said. “Listen up. I’m gonna try to pin the thing down, you get in and stab it till it stops moving. Got it?”
Charles flipped his straight razor shut, then open.
“Understood.”
The deer stared them down and growled. It stepped forward. Then it lunged, its jaw gaping and opening up laterally.
Ezra cringed for a moment before remembering his job. Pin it down.
He pointed his stick in the direction of its gaping maw. The stick entered into its mouth.
Ezra squatted and pushed, stopping the deer’s momentum.
The deer struggled in the air for a moment before falling to the ground, Ezra’s stick still in its jaw.
Ezra pushed and shoved his stick further, sticking the animal in place.
“Charles! Now!”
Charles leaped forward, crashing his straight razor into the monster’s stomach. The animal let out a startled cry and swung its legs around at random.
A hoof clipped Ezra’s shoulder and he winced. He tightened his grip, focusing on keeping the animal trapped.
The health bar of the deer continued to go down. After a half-minute of stabbing, its eyes widened and it stopped struggling.
It shut its mouth, snapping the stick in half.
Ezra stumbled to the ground due to all the pressure he’d been putting on the stick. He turned to the side just in time to see the deer’s mouth going for his body. Adrenaline flooded Ezra’s veins and he threw himself back. His arms folded over his head. There was a white-hot burning sensation on his right side, then numbness.
Ezra didn’t bother to look at the injury, he leaped to his feet.
The deer watched him, red dripping from its mouth. Charles had turned pale and was staring at his injury.
Ezra’s heart rate leveled out to a steady rhythm. He reached down and picked up what was left of his stick off the ground. He made sure to use his left hand, not trusting that his right would work.
The stick had splintered and the tip was jagged.
The deer turned toward him. Ezra’s hands shook.
He clamped down on the sensation.
He bent his knees and slid his left foot back. His right arm was already damaged, probably severely. That meant it was disposable. He could use it as bait, then take out the thing when it got up close.
Charles had his back pressed up against a tree. He was holding out his shaking straight razor toward the enemy.
Weak. Ezra didn’t have time to baby him. He had a monster to slay.
The deer sniffed the air, chewed on the flesh of Ezra’s arm. Its eyes blinked and it approached him.
That was fine. Every second it spent taunting him was a second Ezra got to breathe and regain some strength.
The deer stopped chewing and focused its eyes on Ezra. It stepped forward.
Despite himself, Ezra flinched a little. His mind was clear, but his body remembered the pain. Ezra wasn’t sure how he was so calm. Shouldn’t he be panicking and screaming right now? He was an edgy teenager, sure, but that shouldn’t have given him the kind of emotional control needed to—
Focus. There was time for that later.
The two stared each other down.
It happened in an instant. Ezra took a rapid breath, then swung his hips. The spear flew forward, stabbing at the deer.
There was a blur, and then the deer tripled in speed, shaving the stab as it flew off to the side.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Ezra said. “What the hell was that?”
Charles was still hiding, shivering and pale white.
Ezra ignored him, focusing on the deer.
It rushed forward, its nostrils flaring. There was a flicker of light that came from its skin.
Ezra reared back his weapon. He thrust toward it.
The stab pinged off the animal’s skin. The deer continued charging him.
Ezra held out his other arm and attempted to dodge. Can’t afford to let his good one get damaged.
But the deer swiveled and bashed him in the chest, sending him flying to the ground.
Two blue boxes appeared at his side.
52/90
Warning! You are low on stamina. You’ve gained the status effect [Exhausted.]
If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.
Blackness crawled at the edges of Ezra’s vision and his arms lost all their strength. A sense of tiredness washed over Ezra’s brain. Then the feeling disappeared, washed away by that same, strange calming sensation from earlier.
But he could still feel it at the edge of his consciousness. He was only getting a grace period.
The deer neared him. He tried to force himself up but was unable to, the strength in his arms failing him. He resorted to wiggling backward using his spinal muscles.
His heart rate increased.
Charles watched with wide eyes, but he wasn’t doing anything.
Ezra looked at the deer. His breath increased to the point of hyperventilation. Every pump of his ever-quickening heart hurt. Whatever had been keeping the emotions away was getting overwhelmed.
The deer was a foot away. It looked down at him.
Ezra’s breath caught in his chest.
It opened its mouth.
Ezra swung his head backward to move, but couldn’t.
The deer leaned down and then lunged at him.
Every inch of willpower Ezra had left concentrated at the pit of his stomach. He wouldn’t die here. Not like this. Not today. Not—
[Bind].
The word echoed in his consciousness like a hundred ringing bells.
A single white, glowing thread shot out of the ground, over the deer, then back into the ground. The deer was locked in place.
Ezra’s head shot toward Charles.
“Do it! Do it now, you idiot!”
Charles sucked in a breath, then rushed forward. His stabs were clumsy, but effective, ripping the monster’s flesh to pieces. Flashes of numerals and bright-sounding rings whirled through the forest with each attack.
Then it stopped.
The deer began to turn gray and ash-like, its skin sealing up and the blood turning dry. Bits and pieces of the ash-like remains flaked into the air… before a violent wind came and smashed apart the entire corpse, scattering the ashes everywhere.
----------------------------------------
Ezra coughed.
Multiple blue boxes appeared in front of him, a bright ping echoing from them one after another.
You have leveled up!
You have gained a title!
You have leveled up!
You have leveled up!
Oh. That’s good.
He flopped onto his back and took deep, stuttering breaths.
Off to the side, Ezra spotted Pete, still half-asleep.
Ezra smirked. Pete owed Ezra big time, and Ezra intended to collect, eventually. From the perspective of other people, he probably looked like a hero or something with that little stunt. Thank goodness Charles was the only one here. He could trust Charles not to spread around nonsense like that. If anything, Charles probably thought that Ezra missed and that he was trying to kill Pete first or something.
No, Ezra’s motives were entirely selfish. He needed allies in this world, and Pete would be useful as cannon fodder. He idly thought back to the battle he’d just been in.
“What the hell was that?” he said. “I thought we were supposed to get some OP skill that would let us massacre monsters with ease.”
Charles was heaving on the ground. His face was turning green.
“I think I breathed it in. I think that I breathed a bit of the corpse in.”
Ezra groaned and pushed himself up. His legs felt like noodles. He would need to rest soon. A stinging in his right arm reminded him of the status of that particular injury. Something was dribbling from his arm and onto the ground, staining it dark red. He would probably need to take care of that as well. Perhaps he could cauterize it?
…
Yeah, that was a bad idea.
“System.”
The blue box appeared in front of him, but updated from his recent kill.
Name: Ezra Hawthorne
Age: 16
Race: Human
C̴l̷a̸s̵s̵: S̸t̵u̸d̵e̸n̵t̸
Sub-class: N/A
Bonded Spirit: T̴̪̓̓͂h̵̪̠̲̍é̸͕̃ ̸̟͉̔͘M̷̠̻͉̬͋̿ỏ̴̗̗͒͠ő̸̼͖̅n̸͎̭̄l̸̠̟̚ì̶̢̩̦͚t̶̻̮͓̾̓ ̶̖͗̓Q̴̳̝͈̱̔̋ṷ̷͠ė̵͍̲̐̈̂è̸͈̺̃̀n̸̢̪̟̍͂̒
Health Points: 80/80
Mana Points: 210/210
Level: 4
Strength: 5
Dexterity: 6
Constitution: 3
Intelligence: 6
Wisdom: 3
Personal Skills:
[Bind] - Lv. 1 - Compatible
[Calm] - Lv. 2
[Inspect] - Lv. MAX
Skill points: 6
Stat points: 12
Titles:
[Otherworlder] - Special
[Perfect Resonance]
[Monster Slayer I]
Some things had changed, while other things had stayed exactly the same. He noted that he had access to the titles menu now. Perhaps as a result of leveling up? Interesting. He ignored the glitched-out text. There was one thing in particular he wanted to take a look at, to double-check something.
He pressed on [Calm]. Another blue box appeared.
[Calm] - Lv. 2
Stores emotions for later. After a timer expires, the user receives all the stored emotions, experiencing them all at once and with their intensity amplified. The amplification can be decreased as the skill is leveled up.
Amplification: 9x
Timer: 1m 1s
Mana Consumption: 21 mp/s
Cooldown: 5h
There was always a catch, wasn’t there? He’d almost forgotten about the ability. He wasn’t very excited for when that timer clicked to 0. As soon as that happened, he’d be experiencing all the fear, terror, and pain he should’ve felt earlier. Minutes of absolute horror compressed into a single second.
This was gonna suck.
He glanced over at his intelligence and wisdom. He had 12 stat points. Perhaps he could afford to do some experimentation? There were plus symbols next to each of the stat numbers. He clicked the one next to intelligence, raising it to 7. He sat there for a moment, waiting for something to happen.
Ezra ran through the trig problems from earlier.
…
Nope, he still sucked at trig.
He checked his mana. Thanks to his higher Intelligence, it had increased to 245 from the original value of 210…wait a second, he was low on mana. Down to 40. Ezra slammed his palm against his head. [Bind] and [Calm]. Of course. It must’ve consumed his mana.
He wanted to see what else could be done.
But a low, mournful cry caught his attention.
He stopped fiddling with his box and looked around. Charles perked up, the greenness gone from his face.
“You heard that?” Ezra said.
“Surely that thing didn’t have any friends,” Charles said.
Sweat broke out across Ezra’s skin. He was going to be useless here in a few minutes, once [Calm] wore off. Not a great time for another attack.
“I hope not,” he said. “Maybe it was just the wind?”
A roar echoed across the forest and slammed into Ezra’s chest, causing him to shake.
The trees parted and out stepped a deer. But there were a few things different about this deer. It was bigger. Much, much bigger, three times the height of Ezra. It had huge antlers where white fluid dripped off and hit the ground with a splatter. The eyes had a flicker of intelligence as they looked at Ezra and Charles. It glanced at Charles’s straight razor and stiffened.
Overhead, text appeared.
Ancient “Deer”
Lv. 121
It looked down at him and Ezra was nearly taken off his feet by its stare.
The willpower drained out of Ezra It was as if he was being crushed by the creature’s mere presence. There was no doubt in Ezra’s mind that this was the end. There was nothing that could be done to fight this thing, not as they were now. Really, could anyone fight such creatures in a world like this?
They were doomed from the outset.
Ezra had been a fool.
It stepped closer. Ezra didn’t bother to move. Charles had been brought to his knees and was staring up at the monstrosity, eyes vacant.
Well, Ezra would die standing. Perhaps it was because his legs were frozen from fear, but that was worth something, right?
Darkness appeared at the edge of his vision. The black closed inward, slowly, slowly pushing in on what was left of his sight.
It felt so good to sleep. To fall over and give up.
A figure in the shadows.
The deer stopped.
Everything was still, nothing but the sound of the wind whispering in the trees.
Ezra wanted to shout at the figure. He wasn’t sure what he’d say. Would he beg for help? Warn them? Either way, the pressure of the deer stopped him from saying a word.
A woman stepped into the clearing dressed in plate armor. Attached to her hip was a sheathed broadsword. She was wearing blond hair done up in a bun. Her eyes were an icy blue. She was a slightly older woman, perhaps in her late twenties or early thirties.
She glared at the monster and put her hand on the hilt of her sword.
“Disappear.”
There was a flash of light. The deer cried out in rage and terror. Wind slammed into Ezra, almost knocking him off his feet. Charles flew off and hit the ground.
Ezra shielded his face with his arms, protecting himself from the worst of it.
The wind stopped, and the light died down, replaced with the glow of the moon. Charles’s phone was nowhere to be seen, probably destroyed or lost.
The woman looked at Ezra and approached him.
Synica Ashwood
Lv. ????
Commanding General of Cortia
He fought to stay awake, to say something. Instead, his eyes began to shut of their own accord.
Was she an enemy, an ally? Who was to say?
He fell to the ground.
In the darkness of his mind, right before the unconsciousness hit him, a blue box appeared.
[Calm] will wear off in 10 seconds. Please prepare to receive your stored emotions.
I am sorry. This will hurt.