Something awoke me in the middle of the night, the room was pitch black and silent. Awaking like this had become a norm for me since the system came into being. Even in this so-called safe town, my nerves were on edge.

I lay there listening to try and determine what had awoken me. There it was again, a light clank as the chitin plates knocked against each other. I pulled my weapon out of my ring and rose from the couch as quietly as possible.

There was another soft clink from the back door. I glanced at my buffs, noting that Second Chance was still active for another 48 minutes. Good, that meant Fiona's was active still too as I had multicast it after waiting for my mana to recharge before we went to bed. All my other buffs were down so I started refreshing them as quietly as possible

With Fiona still in my party and within range, she would automatically get my area of effect buffs, I hoped that they would alert her to our guests. Everything was cast except my shield spell as that emitted light when first cast. I heard a soft thud from the back door. They must have disarmed the trap. I decided not to play coy anymore, casting Shield.

"Fiona, we have company!" I yelled as loud as I could, figuring it would be better to make her aware of the situation then try to quietly handle it myself.

That's when all hell broke loose, four men poured into the house from the front and back doors. Two came at me and two went to find Fiona. It wasn't a large house and there were only two possible rooms she could be in.

It was just barely bright enough in my house to see, my eyes having adjusted to the darkness but it was enough. I cast Earth Fist in front of the first attacker's feet. Who would have thought having a house with no basement in the north would be a blessing. The man went down with a grunt and a curse, slowing down the man behind him as the hallway wasn't wide enough for him to go around.

"You'll pay for that," The man on the ground said.

"Oh, no, the man who came to kill me in my sleep, says I'm going to pay, boo hoo. Whatever shall I do?" I replied mockingly.

"Your, death will be slow and painful," the man hissed, pulling out a dagger and in one fluid move whipped it towards my head.

I jerked back, barely avoiding the blade as it flew towards me. It impacted the corner of the wall causing the paint to hiss and bubble.

'Holy shit, that was close,' I thought, recognizing the bubbling hissing sound as acid. The man must have some ability that allows him to coat his weapons in acid. I would need to stay clear of his blades. I backed up into the living room some more.

As soon as the men entered the opening to my living room I used Flurry and Blink Step to cover the ten feet before they could react. I don't know if these men thought I was a mage or something, but I could tell they weren't expecting my charge into melee.

Using those spells left me with only 25 mana remaining and unfortunately, I hadn't had time to cast Impact. It didn't matter though. The second guy had come around first. He must have been a decently skilled fighter because his shock wore off quickly. He managed to get his short sword up to block the first blow, but my rapid attacks overwhelmed his defense as I hit him five times.

His arm lay dangling at his side a bruised mushy mess of broken bones. He had used it to block the strikes aimed at his face when he realized he wasn't quick enough to parry the blows with his weapon. While this was happening the other man took this opportunity to try and gut me from behind his friend. Only my armor, which I had worn to bed saved me from the brunt of his attack. I stepped out of reach of the second man, snapping my staff around to catch the injured man in the groin. He let out a squeal of pain and dropped to the floor, his blade bouncing away.

"Get up, you fool," the man who stabbed me said, growling as he kicked his buddy in the back.

"That's cold, man, at least let the man cradle his junk, what little there is left of it," I said in a consolatory tone.

The man threw another dagger at me and this time I wasn't quick enough to get out of the way as it pierced my leg. The sensation of melting flesh is something I wish I could forget. I stumbled back as the pain shot up my body, the system doing it's damndest to mute the pain with my skills. I gritted my teeth and hobbled back another step.

"You aren't going anywhere," the dagger-throwing man said, stepping over his prone friend, who was blocking the doorway, or at least that's what he tried to do.

My banter hadn't been only to piss these men off, it had been to slow them enough for my mana to recover. I had just enough to cast Earth Fist on the prone man causing him to rise in the air tripping the other.

This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

As the dagger man lost his footing, I moved in knocking him over the skull with a hard overhand blow. My leg was barely able to keep me upright. His body went limp and he dropped his sword. A few more blows finished him off. The other man, who I had sucker-punched in the groin had bled out from where the Earth Fist pierced his gut. The weight of the other man collapsing on top of him having pushed it through his skin.

I stepped around the corpses and made my way to the bedroom that seemed too quiet, casting Rejuvenate. I knew the other men had gone that direction and feared the worst.

"Fiona?" I whispered while remaining far enough back from the door to attack anything that came out.

"Paul, that you?" I heard her call back, she peaked out from the doorway and when she saw me she smiled.

I was more relieved than I thought to know she was ok.

"Well, that was intense, so-" I lost my train of thought, the white-hot pain erupting from my chest scrambling my mind. The look of horror on Fiona's face told me all I needed to know. The Assassin had made his move.

The blades withdrew from my chest and heart as I fell to the ground, a massive bleeding effect in my status bar from the attack. I was losing health fast and I had a 5-second silence effect on me so healing was out of the question. Unfortunately, I hadn't rolled high enough on my luck check and my indomitable title failed to activate.

You have died

Death was weird, everything slowed to a crawl and became much more clear at the same time. It also felt like an eternity even though less than a second went by before I got another message.

Second Chance has activated

Indomitable has activated removing the bleed debuff

Well, it certainly was good the title effect activated this time or I would have just bled out again, my previous healing having ended. The Assassin was fighting Fiona just feet from me and I had a choice to make. I only had enough mana for one spell, either heal myself or use my surprise resurrection to stun the man. As the silence debuff ended I chose.

Whipping my staff up vertically I released a Stunning Gust at our foe. The Assassin must have sensed something as he jumped to the side avoiding the attack, what he didn't count on was Fiona redirecting the attack back at him. The man slumped to the floor and Fiona finished him off with a slice to his carotid artery and a jab through his heart for good measure.

"Dying sucks," I said, falling back against the wall. I pulled out one of my health injectors and stuck it into my arm. Tossing that aside I pulled out a mana one, doing the same. This was no time to be stingy; we needed to leave in case there were more enemies.

We looted the bodies finding a tidy sum of credits over 3000 in total. We took the armor, weapons, and another storage ring that the Assassin had.

As we left the house Fiona took point looking out the back door. When she gave the clear signal I motioned her to follow me. I circled the block with Fiona in tow and we ended up across the street from my house.

"Why are we back here?" she hissed quietly, obviously not liking this plan.

"They will never think to look for us this close to my house. It will fool them enough for tonight, then we can move on to another location in the morning." I said softly.

It also helped that I had a key and knew that my neighbors had been overseas when the system came online. Fat chance they would be back, even if they survived. I opened the back door motioning her inside so she could check for enemies. It was clear. I closed and locked the door, making my way to the second floor to watch my house.

A few hours went by and dawn was just starting to break the horizon when I saw three more people creeping through my backyard. I spotted another two watching the front of my house from down the street. All three that entered left a few minutes later and the five started searching for tracks.

They easily enough found the tracks we left in the grass and headed off towards the way we fled. Of course, they wouldn't find us since we doubled back on the sidewalk. It had been a risky play walking on the open sidewalk, but it paid off as we left no tracks for them to follow.

We waited inside until we saw a guard patrol coming down the street. We stopped them, letting them know we saw suspicious activity in the house across the street. A few soldiers went to check it out. They questioned us about the bodies and I told them we heard noises in the night.  Then saw a group of five men leave the house and head off towards the northeast around dawn. I mean it was technically true and that's the best kind of truth.

The soldiers let us go and told us to be safe, although, I suspected that they thought we had something to do with the murders. The fact that one of the dead men still bore his black armband meant they were not inclined to pursue the matter too deeply. There was even a silver lining about the whole ordeal; the fight had brought me up to nearly level ten. The men must have all been higher level than me but not higher than Fiona as I still had my negative title.

Fiona interrupted my thoughts, "You should have all the money we found."

"What? No, you earned half saving us from that Assassin, we can split it 50/50."

"You may need it though, for your trainer and I would like to keep the storage ring if you would allow me?"

I thought this over; while the ring was quite a bit bigger with 5 cubic feet of storage space she really did earn it.

"Fine, but from now on we split all credits evenly, and all gear, deal?"

"It's a deal," she said, smiling.

It was good that she wasn't so glum all the time, she had a nice smile.

"So, where to now?"

"Well, might as well head to the bazaar. I assume they are open twenty-four seven?"

"Twenty-four what?" she asked, confused.

I chuckled, "It just means they never close, we have 24 hour days and seven days in a week."

She just nodded looking at me skeptically, like I had made it up.

"I honestly, don't know," she said in reply, "I have heard certain Bazaars are open all the time, others close, for whatever reason."

"Wait? There are other Bazaars?"

"Obviously, there are hundreds of thousands of worlds connected to the System, not all of them trade through the same Bazaar. It's one of the reasons my Kingdom has to pay to bring someone over."

I simply shrugged and started off towards the Bazaar and downtown.