Daniel died another four times before something truly new happened. Sometimes he was unlucky, sometimes the opponents were just too strong. In the end, his strength, skill, and experience were just too deficient to keep him alive for long. In fact, he was consistently the first to die. Every morning he would appear in the quartermaster’s tent and within the next few hours he would die once again.
It was on the eighth day that something different occurred. They had just entered combat on the front lines when an orc managed to slip in from the left to attack Natalia. Natalia had just lunged in to attack Tian Dong’s target so she was entirely defenseless. Seeing this, Daniel didn’t even think. As the axe came crashing down, he pushed forward with all his might and stabbed the spear deeply into the orc’s gut.
‘Heroic’ Trait Activated: When attempting a heroic deed greatly increases the effect of the action if action is successful.
Surprised by the notification, Daniel barely noticed that he had successfully stopped the orc’s attack on Natalia. It had been pushed backwards several feet and now she was out of reach of its axe. Unfortunately for him, the axe was still coming down and he was in no position to dodge it. With a sharp pain, his world turned black once again.
You have died! Assessing death penalty. Character level 0. Penalty: -0 levels, 1 night.
Welcome Daniel. Your death penalty has been completed. You have lost 0 levels and one night. It is now morning. Fight hard! Your species depends on it!
Daniel found himself once again in the quartermaster’s tent. The other man just shook his head and traded the replacement pieces Daniel would need. One benefit of dying so frequently is that Daniel had become very talented at doffing and donning the armor.
Hustling out of the tent, Daniel ran up to where his team mates had gathered. The three men were looking at him strangely while Natalia kept her head turned away from him. Daniel could tell she was angry so he tried saying something, “Natalia, I oof...”
With a bunch to the gut, Daniel no longer had anything to say. Natalia looked at him coldly as he curled over his painful stomach, “Don’t do something that stupid again.”
Daniel waved in surrender while buckled over and trying to catch his breath. Once he had, they made their way once again to their positions in the formation. Within an hour Daniel was once again looking at the same two pop ups.
You have died! Assessing death penalty. Character level 0. Penalty: -0 levels, 1 night.
Welcome Daniel. Your death penalty has been completed. You have lost 0 levels and one night. It is now morning. Fight hard! Your species depends on it!
One week later, Daniel hit another milestone. He had managed to live for a little over three hours The fighting had been brutal but Daniel had managed to hold on. Chris had died just moments prior and the team had become two pairs, each targeting a single orc at a time. While Tian Dong and Eric worked on the right, Daniel followed Natalia’s movements.
An orc lunged forward at the two of them and Natalia’s spear threatened it’s face. The thing pulled back slightly, using its axe to block. Seeing the opportunity Daniel stabbed forward, striking its exposed gut. More practiced than before, he twisted the spear then withdrew, leaving the injured orc to flail its axe harmlessly at the location he had just been in.
The wild swing left it defenseless and Natalia lunged forward to stab her spear in between two of its ribs. The orc was left struggling, attempting to grab the spear from Natalia’s hands even as frothy blood came from its mouth. Daniel seized this moment to stab forward again, this time targeting its throat.
Congratulations! You have killed a level 2 Orc! Gain 7 experience. You have Leveled up! Current experience 102/200
Congratulations! You are now a level 1 Human. You have gained +1 to Strength and +1 to Agility!
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Daniel quickly dismissed the notifications. The level up was nice. He felt more potency from his muscles while his actions had grown more precise. Having gained a level he hoped that his survival rate would increase.
Shortly after killing that orc, their team rotated with the team behind them. As the next team moved into position, Daniel's team shifted to the back of the formation, passing the other seven teams and taking their new place in the rear. They would then maintain their vigilance while resting up.
The entire light infantry formation was supposed to have twenty columns of ten teams. These teams would rotate to allow the ones coming off the front lines time to rest before rejoining the fight. As the fight went on, the fatigue would pile up and the time that a team could stay at the front would decrease, so the rate at which the formation would shift would increase to accommodate that.
Eventually, the entire formation would be replaced by another light infantry formation that would continue to contest the location with the enemy while they would rest and the pattern would continue until the fighting for the day had ended or some other major change occurred.
This was the strategy with which the human generals preserved their forces throughout the day while consuming as many orc forces as possible. The orcs didn’t rotate their troops, instead their whole force strived to engage at once. Thus the orcs at the front would grow fatigued, allowing the humans to more easily kill them.
In individual contests, it looked like the humans were being hard pressed but across the entire line, and throughout the day, the result could be seen. The bulk of the orc forces would slowly be whittled down by the light infantry, leaving them open to be attacked by the stronger forces available to the human generals.
By this point Daniel’s team had already been on the front line four separate times. It didn’t take long before the shifted forward once more and the team that had replaced them on the front took the spot behind them down one more man. Before they made it up to the front one more time another change occurred.
The formation behind them advanced in an orderly fashion through their ranks and took over the front line. Once that other formation had taken over the front, Daniel joined his team in withdrawing towards the rear. Once they reached a rise not too far behind the other formation, they were given a moment to rest as unarmored people came from teh camp, bringing bread, soup, and water for each of them.
Sitting down in their team’s location. Daniel looked around with interest. This had been the first time he had lived this long and for that matter, this was the first time he had eaten since he had come into this strange place. As he ate the bread and lightly seasoned soup he realized that he had grown quite hungry during the day.
Tian Dong laughed as he saw Daniel eating so quickly. “When you die and reform, you come back satiated, but those who survive the fighting will naturally grow hungry as they should. Since this is the first time you have survived half the day, of course this would be the first time you grew hungry.”
Daniel looked at him and in between bites spoke, “You said you had some things to explain to me back when I joined the team. Do we have time to go over them now.”
Tian Dong nodded, “As long as there is no emergency with the Wild Fire formation or any of the neighboring formations we should have a few hours to rest. So, now is indeed a good time to go over those issues. First you will want to go through all of the notifications you have been ignoring this whole time. Look down at the icon in the bottom right of your screen.
“I suggest reading your notifications in order of when you got them, then take a look around the rest of the menu. Most of the people that have joined us in the last few years have had no problem with these but it was incredibly hard for those of us in the older generations to get used to it, so let me know if you have problems navigating it.”
Daniel followed the Team Lead’s instructions. It seemed like he had gotten through to the actual tutorial now. Focusing on the icon on the right, he chose to check his notifications. Looking at the list, it looked like he was looking at an email page, with many grayed out. Looking at the titles for those, he realized that he recognized them as the ones he had seen before. Manipulating the User Interface was not difficult for him, and he was able to get the oldest of his notifications to appear at the top. Selecting the oldest, he was not prepared for what he saw.
Daniel Cook has died. Cause of death has been determined to be blunt force trauma and internal bleeding following a transport collision. Actions at time of death found to be exemplary. Trait Awarded: Heroic
“I have died? What kind of sick…” Before he could continue a series of images and sensations flashed through his mind. He remembered going to the karaoke bar with April and their friends for her birthday. He had given her a gift, an upgrade to her ‘Pie’. Of course, the gift was super effective.
The party had gone well until Mark and his friends crashed it. After a bit of a scuffle the mood was ruined and everyone left. It was as Daniel was walking April out to her transport that it happened. Another transport came careening around a corner and straight at them. Daniel’s first reaction was to push April to safety, but he wasn’t quick enough to get out of the way.
The transport impacted him and he began to lose feeling. He watched in a detached manner as his Personal Assistant Artificial Intelligence showed him his decreasing vitals along with the holographic image of what portions of his body had been affected. Looking at the estimated arrival times of the ambulances and emergency vehicles he knew that they wouldn’t get there in time. Smiling, he tried to comfort his childhood friend as her bodyguard and chauffeur took control of the area. Moments later, his world had gone black.
He wanted to deny it, but he had known he was dying when he saw his own state after the accident. It was already too much to ask for that he had gotten the time to attempt to sooth April afterwards. The trauma caused by an impact that strong should have killed him instantly.
‘I have died.’ It was a bitter truth and a sobering thought.