Hero stops his rampage to address the enemy commander. “Who are you?” Hero shouts up the hill.

For a moment, there is not response as the undead army flees up to their master and creates staggered, dense ranks- more of a meat-shield than a combat formation.

“I am death, but perhaps that is what you are as well,” the armored lich speaks out with a voice like scraping ancient coal against the rocks of a deep cavern. “What are you, human?”

Hero ridges forward. “I’m a hero!” He says bluntly, winning a barking guffaw from the undead army, and a sensible scoff from the lich. Hero feels like he could have handled that a little better.

“How very… noble of you,” the lich says with a tone of veiled insult.

Hero stops slamming points into DEX and next starts sinking points into CHA. Unlike the two previous stats, Hero can feel this one immediately- the confidence, the clarity. He feels himself change as a person, and at first he’s scared, but once he passes the 100 CHA mark and upwards, he realizes that he’s far too certain of reasons to stray from a glorious path like this; it’s only natural for a servant of The Goddess to be this way.

“I suppose this is the part where you fall on your knees and beg for mercy.”

At 134 CHA, Hero takes a breath. “And what benefit would I derive from lowering myself to inferiority?” He didn’t even need to think; it just came out that way.

The lich draws back as its undead minions look its way with expectation. “Well… you know…” the lich starts awkwardly.

“It would really be nice of you to swear your fealty to me. It’s quite clear you’re much stronger than my undead servants, so perhaps instead of killing you, perhaps you would like to become my vassal?”

Now at the brim of 300 CHA, Hero’s gaze is as sharp as a knife. “What knowing man would make himself subservient to that which is his very inequity?” Hero starts with a calm tone.

The Lich starts sweating black, cold blood.

“Truly, in what station of life can mankind find himself in other than that which was provided for him in the means of nature? Man must be, naturally, the very antithesis to the problems of his world, without the reveler’s wasting of time or the fatalist’s tears. Stoically he must march on throu-”

“Okay, I get your point,” the lich says, massaging his forehead stressfully.

“In that, you could not truly understand that I, as a part of the cosmic whole, cannot lower myself to the will of a materially-focused indiv-”

“Kid, please!” the lich says in disgust as his undead army riles in irritation. “We’re all very impressed! You can stop now!”

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Hero has a feeling that there’s a more effective form of charisma he could be using, but he’s still an awkward teen, and has never seen anime, so he’s not quite aware of the “dramatic pre-fight monologue” form yet.

“Fine,” Hero says, “regardless, I’m going to send you and your army away to the mortuary, unless of course you’d want walk there yourselves,” he says with the slightest reckonings of a smile as he holds his combat stance. Hero’s not sure what to spill points into next. He decides on LCK.

The lich growls with a scraping tone. “Not happening, hero. I’m here for bodies to bolster the Scaled God’s army.”

Hero squint an eye. “The Scaled God? Tell me of this deity.”

The lich scoffs amidst a nervous laugh from the undead army. “The Scaled God is Mountainous Exeranoth, the greatest of all dragons of any world, and the one true master of Aydoss. He has waged war on the human kingdoms and will not rest until your kind has been struck from this world.”

Hero shakes his head as his LCK surpasses 240. “Take me to him and I will spare you.”

The lich’s glowing eyes flare up with ambition. “Oh… we’ll be taking you along, all right. Come forward,” it says as it raises its four hands up to charge powerful, occult magic of a darkness that Hero is still not quite privy to. “Step up so I can target you, cowardly boy,” the lich adds.

Hero finally realizes that he’s just a couple steps out of the Lich’s inspect range, because he can’t inspect it either.

Hero’s never been targeted by an offensive spell before, so what he fails to understand is that direct target spells only work if you can target the person you want to harm.

Without pause, Hero steps forward two steps and both parties inspect the other.

Immediately the Lich flinches in horror, and its steed nearly turns from its master’s reaction.

“What… what are you?” The powerful necromancer asks.

Hero inspects his foe’s level: 488, the highest he’s ever seen, before himself, that is.

“I’m the hero, you ignorant pile of bones,” Hero draws back his head with an animate flick like a high school drop out.

“You were saying you were bringing me along?”

Hero spots an annotation over the Lich’s head, [Master Analysis] it reads. Steadily, a grin passes across the Lich’s decrepit guise.

“Well, you are an interesting one, aren’t you? How did you hit that level, young man?” It says as it activates an aura called [Channeler+++]

“I’m not inclined to explain myself to living refuse.”

The Lich cackles as its magical flames blaze high in each of its four hands. “Perhaps I could persuade you with a bit of mind control?”

It throws its high right hand forward, casting [Hail Mind+++] on Hero, who notices the annotation pop over his head as well, but in the red text color of the target rather than the gold color text of the caster.

Hero shrugs with full confidence as the Lich channels its black magic.

“You’re going to have to do more than that to oust me, necromancer,” Hero says, ironically the same moment his gaze travels over to a new message set in his chat box:

Necromancer Agoz casts [Hail Mind+++]

Hero fails to resist! (INT 12 VS INT 653)

Necromancer Agoz has successfully hailed Hero!

Now for some reason, Hero can’t quite move himself. As if his brain’s been suddenly cut from his body.

“Wh-what is this?!” Hero asks, trembling senselessly.

Agoz’s skeletal grin ushers forth a slew of rustled insects to crawl about its face. “Magic, of course, not that you’d know about that sort of thing with only 12 INT. Like really, dude. That’s so pathetic I can’t even imagine, not that it matters anymore.”

Immediately Hero starts piling his points into INT. What a fool he was to expect a limitless body to do everything for him when his mind is even more important.