The exit to the dungeon was pretty close to the crab caves, at least I was pretty sure it was. There were a ton of different portals in a small area between these two towns, and I really couldn’t tell the difference between them. Fortunately, the tree line was still to the south, so it was pretty easy to figure out where east was and head that way.

Belatedly, I realized that I’d just been pushing my way through conversation without really thinking about what I was saying. It was entirely possible and downright likely that what I said and other people heard were totally different. After all, what were the odds that they used words like south and east? They probably have something equivalent, but it was nice to know my dungeon blessing could translate any of this in the first place. So long as I wasn’t accidentally saying super cringe shit or something, but it should be fine.

With my bundle of goodies under my shoulder, I stumbled off towards the next city, hoping that the people there would be more friendly. Wait, no, that would be dumb. I needed to drop this giant crystal somewhere before somebody shanked me for it. There was just no way that these things weren’t crazy valuable considering the way the alliance guarded theirs. Well, not that they really did all that much for it, but the point stood.

With that figured out, I turned south, making my way to the trees. Maybe I could even afford to go to my old gym, but there wasn’t any need to. I spent days just to get a few points in strength and agility, and I could tell instinctively that the next increase would take even longer. If I got desperate then we could revisit it, but for now I just wanted to get some better armor and go dungeon diving. More than that, I really wanted to uppercut something. Speaking of, I went ahead and set my shortcut while I headed south.

My hip and leg stopped bothering me too much by the time I’d gotten past the portal area, despite the fact that I was still missing a decent amount of health. It seemed like my improving resilience had the added effect of making me better at dealing with injuries. That was neat. Finally, I could go back to running.

My foot left the ground with excitement in my step as yet another arrow caught me in the back, punching into an organ probably. People were stuffed full of those so it seemed likely. Maybe it would have been smarter to stay in the dungeon for a little longer, just in case. Sadly, my pursuers chased me outside and these large fields weren’t exactly great for hiding. Especially considering that no one else was carrying around a dozen foot long carapace, so I really did stand out.

I turned around, ignoring the slight pain as I did. That felt like a kidney shot, which was annoying. Arrows began flying at me as four people faced me down, but now I was ready. My jabs were easily able to knock the projectiles out of the air when I could see them coming, obviously annoying the people that were trying to murder me.

“You didn’t expect me to just lay down and die, did you?”

I shouted at them, dropping my bundle of goods and refusing to back down. Judging by the attire of my attackers, I was looking at three melee fighters with one dude with a bow. Clearly, the failure of the ranged attackers last time made Mr. Spearman reconsider his party composition. I could work with that.

The other two were swordsmen of some kind, wearing fancy looking carapace armor that were in pretty good shape. Clearly they didn’t get chewed up by my buddy Maine. Fortunately, the spearman’s shield was once again out of commission, and he didn’t look so hot either. Whatever they’d had to do to take out the crab so fast, it obviously took its toll on the big man. Each of them were also wearing nice furs, making it clear that it really was getting chilly out. You know, I think I’d look pretty good in one of those outfits.

The only response I got to my shout was more shooting, but that didn’t do anything but waste the ranger’s arrows. The swordsmen approached after talking briefly with the spearman, clearly unhappy about the arrangement. The sniper kept me pinned while the two got close, drawing their blades while spreading out around me. Joke’s on them, I was regenerating health the whole time. But then again, the big guy probably was too.

I punched another arrow out of the air and the swordsman to my right held his sword up, causing it to burst into flames. Well then, I think I figured out how they cooked the lobster so fast, and the other swordsman wasted no time either, charging in while his buddy charged up. This was bad. Really bad.

Except, they were so slow. I had no clue what level these people were, but none of them were my match when it came to speed. Considering the amount of health I had left, despite the arrow sticking out of my kidney, I was willing to bet the same was true for resilience. And they had no idea.

The regular swordsman targeted me with a thrust, activating some skill under his breath. It was such a good idea that I copied it. With all the speed I had, I threw a straight directly into the blade, shattering it before coming in close. An arrow hit my shoulder but I ignored it, determined to handle these issues one at a time.

“Uppercut.”

My left fist was exactly where it needed to be to catch my surprised opponent off guard, allowing me to hit him directly in his midsection. I felt resistance as a sickening crack filled the air before he slumped to the ground. Dead or not, that man was out of this fight.

I jabbed the next arrow, noticing that despite the shots I’d taken that I was still doing just fine. Honestly, I could take a dozen more of those before going down.

The guy swung his flaming sword, launching a wave of fire at me. It was fast, sure, but I was faster. I ran around it, using it as cover from the sniper in order to get in close to the magical swordsman. He turned out to be charging right behind the wave, sword still aflame and unsurprised by my maneuver. He swung his weapon down at me, so I met it with my own.

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“Uppercut.”

My right arm wasn’t as mobile as I’d like, what with an arrow sticking out of my shoulder, but the speed wasn’t the issue here. I'd been wondering for a while which stat dictated how much magical damage I took, and clearly it was one of my zeroes. My opponent’s attack failed, his weapon broke, and I still lost a thousand health from the exchange, turning my right hand into a burnt husk. I delivered a follow up jab to his face before following with a cross, denting his helmet with the first before cracking his skull with the second.

I barely ducked an arrow in time, turning to watch my remaining assailants more closely. They clearly didn’t like the situation too much but were willing to tough it out. Unsurprisingly, murder bandits didn’t care all that much when you killed their buddies. Honestly, they seemed more excited than anything, if a little concerned. I guess it would be one way to get a bigger share, but that was only if they killed me. My fist was a blur, faster than my pitiful awareness could follow as I punched arrows out of the sky. Honestly, I was mostly working on instinct here. My eyes were good enough to see where he was aiming since he wasn’t all that far away, and my body just took care of the rest. Maybe this was part of my unarmed fighting skill then.

Seeing that I wouldn’t keel over dead anytime soon, the spearman finally decided to move. As cocky as I was, I still didn’t love my odds here. In fact, I didn’t like this one bit. I was down to just the one arm and my health was totally shot. If the archer got a couple good hits on me, I’d be down for the count. Sadly, the dimension tearing took too long for me to rely on it mid fight, so I’d just have to deal with it. But then, that didn’t mean I was without options.

I punched another arrow out of the air and took off, running in a circle perpendicular to the archer and away from the spearman. He didn’t let me escape so easily, chasing as fast as he could. It wouldn’t matter, there was no comparing our speed. Once I’d gained a good amount of distance from my spear wielding opponent, I charged the archer, punching arrows out of the sky as I went.

To his credit, he remained composed, dropping the bow to pull out two shortswords while moving towards his buddy. He couldn’t turn and run though since I would be upon him soon, and he knew it. The outcome was obvious, a sword came at me and was punched to pieces. Another followed up, but I still had more weapons than he did. A sweep kick knocked him over, preventing him from connecting with his next attack. A swift kick to the head then removed him from the fight for good just as the spearman thrusted at my back.

Fortunately, the big, armored man was easy to hear coming even with the adrenaline pumping. With one foot in the air, I decided to try a cool move I saw on TV. I dropped onto my back to dodge the attack, rolling onto my shoulders to deliver a powerful kick directly into the man’s head. If he were a soccer ball, I’d surely have scored a goal. As it stood, all I got was a loud noise and the man staggering backwards.

This guy really was tough. A full strength attack without an active skill powering it just wasn’t enough to take him down. Whatever the other guys’ levels were, his was definitely higher.

“So why are you so fixated on me anyway?” I tried the political route while getting to my feet, watching him carefully. “Did I kick your dog or something?”

The man clearly hadn’t shaved recently and looked totally out of it. If a guy like this showed up at a job interview, you’d just send him home immediately. Whatever was bothering him was also clearly keeping him up at night, and maybe putting a bottle in his mouth too. I couldn’t be sure about that one. Bad breath and alcoholism were sometimes hard to differentiate in a field of death and sweat.

Sadly, my assailant wasn’t some Saturday morning cartoon villain of the week, so I didn’t get to learn his tragic backstory or motivations. Instead, I got a spear thrust at me with the speed of my jab. I ducked back, unwilling to try my luck in the direct confrontation. Neither of us were fighting at a hundred percent, but the blood on him was a lot less damning than my burnt arm. Maine really needed to put up a better fight for me, cuz this wasn’t looking so hot.

Fortunately, that gave me an idea. Like with my first crab, I took to circle strafing the fucker. They weren’t fighting fair, and I knew pretty well that I didn’t get tired like these people did. No, my stamina refilled in seconds or minutes. My health recovered in days, not weeks. If this turned into a battle of attrition, then I would win by default.

We were a good distance from the portals by now, likely by design. It wouldn’t be proper to do your murdering in full view of pleasant company, so they’d waited until I was closer to the trees and out of the way. Sadly for the spearman, that meant he had no choice here. After all, I was faster.

I danced around him as his face became twisted with frustration. He couldn’t believe it, I could tell. How could a man take so much abuse and then still have energy to spare? Fuck you, that’s how.

Every once in a while I would get a little bit closer, just to bait an attack out of him before moving away. The minutes ticked by as I slowly led the man closer to the tree line. It was a delicate balance since he clearly wasn’t sure about his odds anymore. Maybe I was bluffing or maybe I wasn’t. He couldn’t know, but he did know I was fast and willing to kill. If I ran, he couldn’t do a thing but gather the loot left behind. Honestly, that was probably what he was hoping for.

The alternative was for him to run, but we both knew how that ended. He could tell just by looking at me. I wouldn’t let him escape again.

And so we continued our dance, me moving around his attacks while he continued to sweat and bleed. The arrows were still in me, doing a great job of stopping the blood from leaking out. My health was going up, slow but steady.

Eventually, he stopped taking the bait. I let him, encouraged him even. Then I got close enough for him to strike me but he didn’t budge, determined not to waste the energy. I pushed off my back foot, dashing into his range before he could respond.

I knew this man was stronger than me, and he was probably tougher too. But then again, so were the crabs. A sweep kick knocked him over as he braced for a punch.

“Mount.”

I was on him like white on rice, hammering him with my patented combo before he had time to do anything. A spear just wouldn’t cut it at this close range, and his punches and kicks did little to stop me. So I kept going until his head was caved in and splattered on the grass.

Annoyed, I then walked over to the other three people slumped on the ground, stomping their heads in one after another just to be sure. The last time someone got away from me caused this scene, and honestly I’d nearly died. If the archer had gone for a leg shot like before, I wouldn’t have had the mobility to win this fight. Fortunately, he’d gone for damage, assuming I was still hampered from his earlier shots.

The ranger was still alive, crawling away on the ground. Apparently my sweep kick had been more damaging than I thought, but this was the one person I was the least forgiving of. No matter how much he shouted about his family or tried to bribe me, I didn’t let it dissuade me. I kicked his head in just like the rest.

With my assailants dead, I took a moment to enjoy the cool autumn breeze.