Logan stared at his filthy bat and stood there. Just stood there. He’d gone into this with good intentions; to stop killers from hurting others, from killing Jack and the group. Those noble intentions were out the window. The Cursed Length of Rope had earned its name. It was cursed. Cursed to seek carnage, seek suffering, and blood. It was clear that it was a dangerous weapon that wouldn’t obey commands. It had a mind of its own.
How could he use it in battle against another person if this was the result? It was too gruesome, too cruel. If he could take away everything about it except for its ability to eat bullets, it’d be a game changer. Logan had been hesitant to challenge the men in the first place due to their weapons. But even if he could use the rope as a bullet shield, could he trust it to behave?
Perhaps the solution was to use it against monsters. After all, he’d used the baseball bat against the squirrel, but only because it was the closest weapon at hand. He would have had no problem having the rope brutalize those buggers. Logan could have a moral debate on the use of a weapon like that against a feeling, sentient creature, but there was a stark difference between a rabid squirrel or an undead gestating minion and a human being.
Logan picked up the rope, studying it carefully. It was back to a regular rope. It had shrunk again, the fibres frayed and rough against his palm. The blood was gone. Either absorbed or sloughed off.
Logan willed it into his spatial collar, letting out a quiet exhale when everything went as planned and it disappeared.
Despite the fight leaving him with an unsettled, sick feeling, he couldn’t deny that it had resulted in massive gains. He’d gained two levels for defeating Keith, with hardly any effort on Logan’s part. Shane’s death had also pushed him to the cusp of another level. He couldn’t help but notice that the System had rewarded him for killing another human being, way more than it did with regular monsters. It was incentivizing murder.
But two extra levels meant he had ten attribute points to burn.
Logan studied his physical stats:
Intelligence: 55
Constitution: 30
Strength: 25
Agility: 17
Dexterity: 20
Endurance: 17
Perception: 20
Wisdom: 40
Luck: 35
For the first time, he hesitated. Before, the decision had been easy. Now, Logan had too many choices. He could continue increasing his Karma pool or Karma regeneration rate, but would that help him? The tree fridge was stuck at the cabin, and Logan was heading to Hope’s End. Based on this fight, if he didn’t want to resort to using the Cursed Rope, he didn’t need Karma. He needed to be able to win in a fight, using only his bat if necessary. That meant physical stats.
Strength would let him hit harder, agility would let him be quicker, and endurance would ensure he wouldn’t flag before the fight was over.
Forget the daily cheat exercises—he needed to improve now. Massively.
Decision made; Logan allocated his points.
[Strength: 26]
[Strength: +]
[Strength: 29]
[Agility: 18]
[Agility: +]
[Agility: 20]
[Endurance: 18]
[Endurance+]
[Endurance: 20]
As the changes took effect, energy surged through his body and his lethargy disappeared. Such a large increase to his strength attribute also made him grimace as his body remolded itself, muscles tightening, any remaining excess fat evaporating as his tendons hardened into a layer of steel.
Logan lifted his shirt, unable to resist the temptation.
He could only stare in amazement.
Five days ago, his stomach had a slight round belly and ‘abs’ weren’t in his vocabulary. Now look at him. Rather than continuing to bulk up like a bodybuilder on steroids, his existing muscles were being fine-tuned with each strength increase. It was as if he had a layer of flexible steel underneath his skin and each increase in strength fine-tuned that steel into a higher quality.
Logan pulled up his stats for a full review, this time displaying the dynamic view.
Name: Logan Hart [Hidden Name: Idiot]
Rank: 95,292 out of 6,701,090,043
Level: 15
Skills:
* Deepwater Idiot Lv. 2
XP Progress: 27,000/30,000
Intelligence: 55
Constitution: 30
Strength: 29
Agility: 20
Dexterity: 20
Endurance: 20
Perception: 20
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Wisdom: 40
Luck: 35
Even though he had gone up two levels, his ranking had remained static, although he didn’t like to see the continued drop in population. Things must be brutal out there.
He was also on the cusp of another level, only needing a few thousand to reach level 16.
Logan needed to do one more thing before he left… storage. He couldn’t leave the handguns and shotgun here for anyone to find. What if Matt wandered over? Plus, they could come in handy for Lara and the kids.
Logan willed them into his spatial storage collar and then did an inventory of the remaining items in the kitchen.
The former owners had stocked their cupboards, from cans of soup, vegetables, to fruit cups. Once he returned to Jack's, the food would last the group at least two weeks and would give them a variety in their diet. And if the former owners had stockpiled frozen meat, they were golden.
When he opened the fridge, a noxious, rotten odor made him scrunch his nose in disgust and promptly slam the door shut. He was hoping for a six pack of beer, but even he wouldn’t go searching in that cesspool.
They must have lost power. Either that, or something here had run on natural gas and it had blown up. Hell, even power lines next to the natural gas pipe would have screwed everything up. He suspected it was the same for many homes in the Okanagan.
The pantry it was. Logan threw everything he could into his spatial collar, and then hesitated as he glanced at the gory remains on the kitchen floor. He debated doing something with the bodies but burying them when he was the one who killed them in the first place felt disrespectful and insincere.
He sent off a text message to Tasha and Jack before making his way back outside.
Logan: Don’t worry about the men next door. It’s taken care of.
***
The canoe was still where he’d left it, half in the water and half on the beach. Logan gave the property one more lingering look before pushing the canoe into the lake and jumping into the middle seat.
All in all, it hadn’t been a complete disaster. He had enough gear to get to Hope’s End and back and then some, he’d learned that the rope was fucked to all hell, and he’d eliminated a threat that could have hurt Jack’s group. Still, unlike with the monsters and undead minions, this victory was hollow.
Logan didn’t like how he’d won.
It was also suspect how quickly he’d managed to brush off their deaths. If he didn’t get some time to analyze his feelings, he could freeze up in the middle of a fight or hesitate when decisive action was needed.
Logan had killed another human being. Two human beings. Fact, they were murderers. Fact, they would have killed Jack and the others. Finally, they would have killed Logan if they had the chance. Say what you would about the gory method for how he’d killed them and the use of the Cursed Rope, but the fact was, they needed to die.
No, he’d made the right decision.
Logan drifted in the canoe for an hour, making steady progress, his arms getting a workout as he rowed. He suspected that if he hadn’t already capped his daily cheat point for the day, he would have received an endurance point by now.
Eyeing the sky, he judged that he had a few hours until dark. Logan kept passing sporadic cabins on the shoreline, but after his last encounter, he’d rather avoid as much potential conflict as possible. That meant camping.
Logan narrowed in on a beach that was flat and isolated, surrounded on either side by forest, pine trees and bush. No human habitation at all. At first, he wondered how he was going to drag the canoe up the beach on his own, a reflexive thought based on the Logan of five days ago. Just how much could he lift with 29 strength?
Logan jumped out of the canoe into the shallow water and then dragged the canoe up the beach, then considered. Could he lift this thing on his own? It wasn’t like it was a car—it was a canoe, but it was still hefty.
Logan positioned his hands on either side of the canoe’s edge, being careful not to jar his missing finger, and then braced himself to…
To…
HOLY CRAP! He didn’t need to brace himself. Lifting the canoe was as effortless as lifting a bucket of water. Amazed, Logan glanced down at his arms, checking that he wasn’t imagining it, but no, he really had lifted a canoe that had to weigh at least 300 pounds up in the air. With almost no effort at all. Could he…
He could.
Logan could lift the thing with one hand.
Reeling, he almost dropped the canoe, he was so shocked. Then, carefully, he set it back down, not wanting to damage it.
Logan was a superhero.
And there were still so many things he hadn’t tried. He’d only scratched the surface. His [Life Cycle Master] and [Deepwater Idiot] skills were in their infancies. In fact, he’d been putting it off due to his dislike of deep water, but now was the perfect time to use his new skill to figure out if he could fish underwater. At least while he still had daylight.
Logan studied the definition of the skill to make sure he wasn’t missing anything.
[Deepwater Idiot: This uncommon skill is granted to idiots who fall headfirst into water deeper than 10 meters while mortally injured. It grants the ability to breathe underwater. Duration of the skill advances per level.]
The skill was level two, but he wasn’t sure how long that translated into minutes underwater. The only way to find out was to test, test the hell out of it.
Logan pulled a few items from his spatial collar before he left—bedding, a pillow—to set up a small shelter underneath a tree. That way, after he’d finished fishing, he could head straight to bed.
Lastly, he took out the spear gun, a fishing net, and the scuba diving mask before glancing down at his shirt, debating taking it off. However, he’d only grabbed one spare set, and this one was still filthy with blood and gore. At least if he swam underwater, he might clean it a little. He did take off his shoes, though, grimacing as he caught sight of his missing toe. While wearing shoes, he’d almost forgotten about it, but with bare feet, he definitely noticed an unevenness to his gait.
Because it was still so hot, the water was a mild temperature, and the sandy beach soon turned to rocks underneath his feet the further he moved into the shore. It felt unnatural to walk into the water and keep walking when the water had reached chest height. Normally, he’d be swimming, but he wanted to drop underwater.
That didn’t mean he had to go that deep to start, though. The way he figured it, he had two goals. The first, level up his [Deepwater Idiot] skill. The second, fishing.
Logan put on the scuba mask, fiddling with the straps until he had an airtight fit around his eyes. Then he took a deep breath before sinking underwater. The water engulfed him, his brown bangs swaying in the current as he dropped. The sun was still bright in the sky, and he was shallow enough that everything was clear and bright, the water blue and sparkling. A small underwater seaweed forest surrounded him.
Once he’d dropped to the bottom, Logan crossed his legs, the spear gun and fishing net loose in one hand. There was no way to time himself underwater other than counting in his head.
Logan counted one minute.
Two.
He had no problems breathing, and although he wasn’t releasing air bubbles, he felt as if he were inhaling and exhaling. Bizarre.
Three.
After four minutes, he began to feel a tightness in his chest, as if he were congested or breathing in air statured by smoke. After five, it hit him, just like that, an overwhelming need for air air air. It went from one extreme to the next. However, Logan didn’t give in. He’d learned the hard way that the System wanted you to advance through pain. If it wasn’t hard, it wasn’t worth it.
Logan endured. Endured and endured. He stayed down there so long, the surface so close yet out of reach, that he became convinced this entire ordeal was a ploy by the System to drown him. Finally, when he’d reached his absolute limits…
[Deepwater Idiot is Level 3!]
Logan gasped underwater, air surging into his lungs. It was like opening a door into crystal clear air after suffering through a sauna for five minutes straight. It had worked! He could breathe underwater once again. He’d been down here so long that the animals that had scattered when he first dropped to the sandy ground had started to drift over in curiosity.
Logan kept still, his eyes wide as a fish the size of his lower arm swam up to him, inquisitive. Identifying fish was so far out of his wheelhouse it wasn’t funny, so he used [Idiot’s Inspect] on it.
[Rainbow Trout: Level 0. This is a fish.]
The trout had a pink stripe on its silver sides and seemed interested in investigating his orange kitten-patterned swim trunks. Excited, Logan subtly maneuvered the spear gun, pointing directly at the fish.
He pressed the trigger.
The spear jumped forward in the water, piercing the fish’s side dead on. Yes!
At first, when Logan didn’t receive a System notification, he deflated, but then he realized the fish was just a fish. No XP would be coming.
He’d caught it!
The System Ding! interrupted his small internal celebration.
[You’ve received a Quest: Big Fisherman! Catch twenty edible fish in the next hour.]
[Reward for completing the Quest: 30 bonus attribute points.]
[Penalty for not completing the Quest: Your constitution stat will drop to 0.]