“Zeke!”
Her heart wrenched in horror after seeing a knight plunging an actual sword into Zeke.
Blood. Blood was everywhere. It coated the silver blade in crimson, dripping down to a small puddle on the floor.
Zeke stood aghast, but more than anything, in pain and agony.
His pupils widened, darting around at the scene of carnage put onto him. The knight mercilessly pulled the blade out of his body, making a gross squelching sound that brought Clara to shriek in terror.
Zeke fell to the ground, landing on the wooden floor as blood gushed out of his stomach. It dribbled from his mouth as he coughed, his own blood filling the wrong places inside of him.
The scene reminded her of those gladiator movies she watched, but it wasn’t fake. Everything she was seeing right now was real.
Zeke kept looking around, panic in his gaze. Eventually, his distraught eyes focused to a pinpoint. Did he actually plan on…?
Mikella couldn’t believe it. Even with a gaping hole in his stomach, he still pulled out his axe from the pack in his hand.
Zeke focused as the knight never planned on stopping. It sluggishly but ferociously swung its sword down at him again. Zeke tried to protect himself, but he was clearly no match for the knight as it parried the axe and threw it off to the side.
It was obvious. The man was on the ground with no stance. There was no way he could defend himself. The knight may be slow and somewhat rusty, but it was strong. Zeke only had enough energy to just protect himself for just a few bare seconds.
Before the knight was ready to end his life with another swing.
Mikella just stood there, frozen. Her muscles tensed up and her mind blanketed. She only thought of one thing–grabbing Clara and running for their lives.
Zeke did his best, but he was no match for the knight as expected. He was just an office clerk. He didn’t train for this like in the military, nor was he some practitioner of any martial arts.
He was just a dude in a suit for god’s sake, easily stabbed with a sword to the gut. And if she wasn’t careful, she could be next.
Or worse, Clara could be next.
The only thing in her mind was to escape. To let the knight do his dastardly thing and let Zeke get what he wanted–to be a hero for the girls. Mikella will surely remember him after his sacrifice, and for a guy, who wouldn't wanna go out in style like that?
She kept thinking like that. And the more she thought, the more she remained frozen in fear. Why isn’t she running? Clearly, running away was the smarter option, the better option right now.
Zeke was staring at the knight, awaiting death with his widened eyes and blanking face. He looked pale, possibly from the blood loss just gushing out of his abdomen. Even if they did survive and managed to drive the knight out, Zeke will surely die from the amount of blood he was losing.
So why isn’t she running, taking this chance to take Clara and run? Why can’t she move? She knew she was afraid, it was obvious. But she shouldn’t be so afraid that she wouldn’t move at all. She wasn’t an idiot.
Yet… she couldn’t do it. Eventually, she realized something about herself. Why would she run? She clearly had better physical stats than the guy. She can do something about this.
But what can she do? She only trained in gymnastics. She never once fought anyone, especially in live combat before. Yet as she stared at Zeke, for just a moment, he looked straight at her.
He mouthed something. She couldn’t believe him as he read his lips.
Run.
He couldn’t speak, blood filling his mouth as it trailed down the corner of his lips. But it was clear as day for Mikella on what he meant.
He knew he was done for. He knew he was about to die, so rather than yelling for help, Zeke wanted her to run, take Clara, and survive.
To leave him to die. That’s what he wanted.
So why is she grabbing her longsword out of her pack that Clara dropped, gripping the hilt hard with resolve?
She roared, her mind not willing to listen to any more reason or knowledge. And yet, she finally moved. Her legs acted upon her will for one thing.
To protect Clara and Zeke. To take down the knight. To survive.
She didn’t care much else about the points either. During her roar, she opened up her status screen and put all her free points into Strength.
A spark of adrenaline unlike anything she felt ran through her body. Her veins pulsed, and her muscles grew taut like a bowstring. Her legs pushed harder, and her hands gripped the shaft tighter.
She plunged her longsword right at the knight, and thanks to her increase in Strength that is now 8, it showed.
It truly showed. The longsword crushed right into the knight’s torso, splitting the armor in twain as it fell over from the sudden bout from behind.
Mikella’s arms flexed their upgraded muscle power and forced the knight away from Zeke. The knight’s body was thrown away, the blade escaping the suit’s grip as it fell over.
Once again, there was no blood, proving that the knight was just empty inside. It made it that much easier for Mikella to strike again, her longsword at the ready.
The knight seemed to barely adjust to the sudden attack, flopping around the wooden floor with many metal scratching sounds that almost grated her ears. She took the chance to stab at it again, but to her surprise, the knight dodged out of the way and swung its sword straight at her midsection.
Thanks to her longsword’s reach compared to his own sword, she backed away easily enough.
The knight managed to get up in time while she was still analyzing it. It turned with a furious gait and swung like a madman, the blade reaching towards her face. She backed away again, realizing that her movements somehow seemed… adjusted.
As though she was meant to do this. Her mind was charged to the point that all adrenaline was coursing through her veins, allowing her to think a little better. She clearly wasn’t supposed to move this well, but somehow she did. It was as if her body was responding easily to her thoughts.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
It was her stats that helped her. Compared to before, her stats showed up after being initialized. So now with them being active, including her increase in Strength, she never felt better before in all her life.
Unfortunately, just because her body felt better doesn’t mean it was proficient in combat. The longsword’s weight added to the difficulty, putting her aim off as she tried to pierce the head to finish it off like before, but the knight dodged it with ease.
Her hands kept clamoring, unable to keep a tight grip. Just as she was about to regrip the hilt for a better position, she made a mistake.
A costly one that got her arm to get cut by the sharp swing of the knight’s sword. She yelped, pushing herself away but found herself landing straight to a nearby wall. The knight pushed forward, plunging the tip of its sword straight to her head. She gasped in horror as she made a split with her legs, the sword piercing straight through the wooden wall and causing splinters to break apart above her.
This was the very same one that pierced Zeke’s gut straight through. She feared what might happen as she crawled out like a dirt worm between the knight’s legs. At this point, she didn’t care how ungraceful she was.
Funny how during her training, her main focus was to be graceful and poised. Irony really hits hard as the sword went straight for her back now.
Somehow the knight managed to pull the sword out, but Mikella quickly parried it with the blunt edge of her own. The blow alone nearly made her fingers numb as she was pushed hard to the back again. She managed to uncorner herself, but she was now at the open room where the knight could come in at her from anywhere.
She panted hard, sweat riddling her brow and back. It almost hit her eyes, causing her to close them shut and open them wide in a heartbeat. If she looks away even for a second, she’ll get stabbed. If she makes a single mistake, she’ll get stabbed. The pressure was more intense than all of her training and performances she made in her entire life.
But it was also thrilling.
She roared again as she plunged her longsword straight at the knight. But this time, it acted first.
The knight pushed straight on through, ignoring the longsword blade as it slightly scratched off the surface of the iron suit, and plunged its sword straight forward. Sharp pain shot out through her hip as the sword cut through her waist. She yelled, the pain causing her to kneel out of instinct. She held it tight, her earlier jubilation completely disappearing.
Now, only pain and fear filled her as she looked up to find the knight holding the sword up to the air. With both hands gripped onto the hilt, it was ready to decapitate her, execution style.
Her breath left her body. She couldn’t move. Fear struck her true. It was too late to do anything else. She closed her eyes, hoping that at the very least, the knight would be kind enough to let children go free.
But a ferocious roar bellowed out from somewhere else. It didn’t come from her or from the knight. But from someone running beside the knight and swinging the axe down with all his might.
Zeke’s eyes were bloodshot as he cut the knight down by the shoulder and forced it to the ground. Its knees crushed the wooden floor from the weight, but Zeke didn’t stop as he kept hammering the knight with the axeblade. He kept roaring, losing his sense of reason as he swung up and down like trying to hammer a nail down hard.
“Screw you!” Zeke cursed. “Stay down and die! Go to hell!”
He kept screaming, possibly from the mixture of near-death rage and pain as blood still flowed from his body like a gnarly red river. But even when his once-nice suit was painted crimson, he kept swinging his axe, crushing the metal and the being inside once and for all.
He kept going for another few seconds, nothing but roars and screams echoing around the pantry as the knight finally became still, no longer moving.
Or rather, the parts were no longer moving. Zeke made so many cuts that it created a mess of parts out of the once pristine suit of armor.
> You have defeated Arthurian Knight, Level ***
>
> You have gained experience points.
>
> You have—
She ignored the notifications that popped up, thankfully being put to the side by her will. It even tore itself off of her vision, now just put into a tiny corner of her vision telling her that the notifications were waiting for her like an actual video game would.
She watched Zeke as he breathed, all the energy he mustered seeping out of his body. He fell to his knees, coughing loudly as blood burst out of his mouth, making more of a mess than usual.
“Zeke!”
All Mikella could do is watch before realizing what just happened. The crazy bastard actually took it apart while bleeding to death. She threw her longsword aside and held onto Zeke’s shoulders, blood still pouring out of him.
“Zeke! Oh my god, are you okay?!” Mikella asked, then quickly chided herself for it. Of course he wasn’t okay. “W-W-What do I do? Is there anything I can do?!”
She panicked. Her earlier injury on her hip was still burning mad, like flames stuck to her waist as blood stained her clothes. Weakness was already filling her, so she can’t imagine having a sword straight through her gut.
Yet he still had the energy to kill the knight. That act alone might be enough to do him in. She searched the pantry, trying to figure out what to do as Zeke’s panting was getting rougher. Then, it started getting slower.
“S-Sissy…!”
Mikella’s eyes shot open to find Clara hiding between the tables and the shelves of the pantry. Her eyes were tearing up, realizing the situation, wanting to help.
But what can she do? She can’t ask her to find some bandages or gauze to help him heal. Even then, how can she stop the bleeding? She didn’t have cloth to use to hold the blood flow, and she certainly can’t leave the two behind to look; there could be more knights around.
She searched the pantry hard, trying to find out what to do. What is it in video games that they tried when they needed to heal? She could try and find a potion that restores health, but where the hell can she find a goddamn potion in a pantry of all places? Then her mind sparked an old memory.
She would remember going online and spotting funny memes. She recalled seeing a meme of a famous game where rather than using a potion like a normal adventurer, they just eat massive amounts of random food, slowly but surely restoring health all while adding almost a hundred pounds to you.
It was funny at the time, even though she never played that game herself. She always wanted to, but she didn’t had the time while training.
Back at the present, that might actually be the miracle she needed.
“Food…” Mikella muttered. “Food. Zeke, you gotta eat! Clara! Come over here and give me your pack!”
Mikella left her own pack but Clara ran over there with ease, bringing her pack with her. Taking it, Mikella instantly dropped the barrel on its proper position after angling the pack over the floor and just slithering it out of the pack with her will.
She didn’t think that would work, but she was thanking the system for making this easier as she pulled an apple out of the barrel.
“Zeke, you gotta eat. M-Maybe you can restore health like in a game or something!”
She practically shoved the apple to his mouth as she made her . She wished she could sound like she knew what she was doing. But she wasn’t. There wasn’t any proof. Even so, Zeke looked up, his eyes starting to go cloudy as he watched the blue apple in front of him. His mouth opened and closed slightly, but he forced himself to take a chunk off the apple. Mikella made sure to keep it steady for him to do so.
She fed the apple to him bit by bit, even helping him chew the apple as the blood certainly wasn’t helping with the taste, his face contorting to disgust. She was used to feeding Clara, so this was easy for her. Even Clara, afraid of all the blood, rushed forward to help Mikella anyway she could.
Mikella told Clara to hold the apple for Zeke, and as she did so, she ripped up her tank top from the bottom hem. Thanks to her increase in strength, she made a good rip to show her gray shirt from underneath and wrapped the cloth up into a bundle. She gently pushed it deep to his wound to stop the blood flow.
Zeke hissed loudly at the sudden weight to his wound. Mikella grimaced but still forced the cloth into it to stop the bleeding. She didn’t know what else to do. Even Clara was doing her best, helping Zeke eat using her hands to help make the apple steady in his mouth.
A few minutes passed. Mikella closed her eyes to try and stop her rapid heartbeat. All the while, she kept a mantra going in her head, the same way she did when she was forcing herself to train no matter how tired her body was.
He won’t die. I won’t let him die. He won’t die. I won’t let him die.
It helped calm her nerves, even if the results won’t work. If it doesn’t, then she’ll figure something out. She always does. If she can get away from her parents and take her sister far away from them, then she can help this man survive.
Finally, Zeke breathed. It was a deep breath, like he could finally take in oxygen after going so long without air.
She looked up to find his eyes starting to clear. Blood still poured from his mouth, now mixed with the juices of the apple and the blue bits still stuck to his lips. He looked absolutely disgusting, but she couldn’t be any happier.
“Zeke…” Mikella’s eyes were about to tear up.
“Holy…” Zeke breathed, his voice hoarse but cheerful somehow. “It worked.”