Chapter 8: Finish The Fight

Aeden charged the last goblin not giving it anytime to react, but it was smarter than it appeared. The last goblin saw Aeden bringing his arm back to release another devastating punch. It quickly tried to dodge to the side only to meet with a forceful kick to the get sending the small goblin a couple of feet back holding its side. The pain wouldn’t last long for the small creature. Aeden quickly seized the opportunity and brought down the rubble down with a hammer fist repeatedly striking it right in the face and as many of its pack mates before the face slowly concaved and it stop moving leaving only nerve twitches before eventually all connection to the brain was lost. Still fueled by adrenaline Aeden got up from the body of the goblin and walked over to one of the ruined buildings and hoisted a large piece of rubble and brought it right over the goblins head. He raised it high and with as much force as he could muster sent it hurling at the goblins face. There was a mix of cracking bone and the squelching of brain matter being sent into all directions with a disturbing splat.

Aeden heard another ‘ding’.

The two would-be survivors had done it, they won. They both looked at each other panting still trying to catch their breathes between the sprint and a new fight for survival. Then they began to smile and then laugh with what energy they had left. A sense of relief both washed over them. They slowly walked over to each other and leaned on one other for support. They stayed that way for a little relishing in their victory and trying to focus themselves once more. Erika was the first to speak.

“Holy shit, I’ve never fought anything before in my life. Let’s never do that again!” She said between deep breathes.

“Honestly That was a first for me too, but damn I feel kind of good right now.” Adrenaline still slowly fading from his body. Aeden wondered if this what he wanted deep down? He pushed that thought aside for now.

As they paused, they looked at each other and started laughing, enjoying their triumph a little while longer. However, it was to be cut short as a loud roar echoed through the ruins. Even though they had been struggling to catch their breath it was quickly under control because it quickly became caught in their throats. They both looked at each other and they immediately began to run towards the tree line, but this time Erika kept pace with Aeden as to not leave him behind this time.

Once they made it back into the forest this time they slumped to the ground once again. As they wound down Aeden looked at Erika, he smiled and said… “Thanks for saving me by the way. I would probably be a dead man if you hadn’t come back to help me.”

“Of course I came back to help you. I wouldn't just leave you behind to get slaughtered. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself to not help someone when I have the power to do so.”

That last comment cut Aeden deep as he had debated leaving her behind just a few minutes ago if she hadn’t agreed to leave. If they had found some random survivors in need of help in those ruins, he probably wouldn’t have stuck his neck out for them. There were just too many unknown factors at play in this place. He left he needed to justify his own thoughts. “No, most people wouldn’t have come back to help a stranger, especially when survival is not guaranteed. I don't know if I would be able to go back after seeing the odds.”

Erika was now beginning to get a small glimpse into the character of Aeden. ‘He didn’t really put much stock in the kindness or selflessness of others’ she thought to herself. He probably went under the presumption that people were selfish and cruel. That did tick her off slightly. She grew up helping her family so being selfish really got under her skin, but she kept that to herself for now.

“Then just think of me returning the favor for saving me and helping me look for my brother.” She said with a large smile.

As Aeden watched her during their conversation when she smiled it's as if the morning sun willed itself to shine upon her. As the sunrays brightened behind her make the ends of her visage glow. She really was beautiful, he thought to himself. He had stared a little too long because Erika opened her eyes and noticed his eyes looking into hers. Aeden quickly broke eye contact and his mind scrambled to change the subject before she could read too deeply into his thoughts. Thankfully he remembered that the notifications went off again in the logs.

He looked back at Erika and asked if anything had changed on her status screen. Before she could ponder Aeden’s staring too much, she thought status in her mind and her personal screen reappeared.

Name: Erika Lancaster

Lvl: 1

Title: [none]

Class: [Dancer]

Attributes: [Human] [Doomed Race]

Free Attribute Points: 1

Strength: 26

Dexterity: 39

Constitution: 19

Charisma: 31

Intelligence: 24

Wisdom: 30

Skills: [Enchant lvl1] [Quick Step lvl1] [Rapid Attack lvl1]

“It looks like I leveled up, whatever that means,'' she said. “It looks like all my attributes went up as well from the last time I looked.” Now that their lives weren’t in any impending danger, she took a closer look at her status. She decided to ask Aeden some questions because he seemed to understand a little of this ‘system’.

“What are all these points and what do they mean?” She asked.

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Aeden took a second before responding. “Let's start with the basics I guess,” he responded with a sigh. He knew this moment was bound to happen, but it was always weird explaining video game knowledge to people who didn’t play video games.

“Those attributes are a representation of your real-world abilities. Each time you level up you receive an increase in those points based on whatever attributes you possess.”

“So are my attributes good?” She told him her current attribute points and his eyes went wide. “Yeah, those are really good, some of them are double mine.” Upon hearing that she put her hands on her hips and straightened her back, chin held high with all the superiority she could muster, and said… “Then thank miss amazing for saving your troublesome butt. You should be thankful you have such a powerful partner helping you.”

They both began to laugh. “You're right, thank you miss amazing for saving my troublesome butt.” Aeden said, still laughing. He didn’t know if that was because of her personality or her high charisma score, potentially both. He was thankful she was there to save him from the bottom of his heart.

“Okay, but what about my class [Dancer]?” She hoped he would still have more answers. Aeden stopped laughing. “You have a class?” Aeden said surprised. “Yeah, you don’t?” She questioned. “No… I… I don’t.” He was now astonished. “So, I guess you can't tell me anything about it then huh?” “I can’t but the system probably can. Focus on your class and think ‘open’ it should be able to tell you more information.” Now he was curious. If this system did operate at least somewhat off videogame knowledge it should give more detailed information. Aeden didn’t have a class, so he wanted to know what a class provided.

Erika focused on her class and a small screen popped up saying…

[Dancer]: You have a very good understanding of movement, sound, and expression. This class provides a +1 Strength, +3, Dexterity, +2 Constitution, +3 Charisma, +1 Intelligence, +2 Wisdom upon level up. This class also allows you to learn all dexterity and charisma-based skills faster. Dancers while not having much strength dancers are effective at using quick and multi attacks. They also have the ability to influence creatures both inside and out of combat.

Note: Due to your high understanding of the class you’ve been awarded three random skills pertaining to your class.

‘Dang’ Aeden thought he really needed to get a class if he wanted to make the most of his leveling. He was also a little jealous of the fact she started with a class while he had nothing. He even had mediocre stats from the start. The system also gave her starting skills from the beginning. If he had known that she had those they could have used it in the fight a few minutes ago. It really started to dig into his ego a little. Here he was in a new world with already with insight into this mysterious system and he hand no starting class and terrible attributes. ‘Luck never seemed to be on his side for years in fact it seemed to work against him’ he thought to himself.

All Aeden could do was sigh. He could feel his inadequacies rising up again. He moved past it and asked her about the skills she had.

The first one she explained was [Enchant]: with this skill you have the ability to distract a target. This skill is affected by your charisma. This skill is countered by an opponent's wisdom. The higher the wisdom the easier it is for the target to break free from enchantment. Increase this skill to affect more targets and its difficulty to resistance.

“Sounds pretty useful.” Aeden said, pondering its uses. “With the ability to distract a target it's useful both being alone and working as a team. Hell, it was an amazing skill to have at level one.”

“You think it's that powerful huh? Then let's try it out!” Erika said with a smile.

“Wait, hold on…” Aeden was cut short on his sentence.

As Erika focused for a second and said enchant Aeden suddenly stopped moving. Aeden couldn’t move his body, or it seemed to react on its own. His head turned to Erika as his vision started to fade away on the peripheries. It was replaced with pink haze, like smoke. He could only stare as his heart rate began to speed up while she inched closer and closer. He tried to speak but no words came out.

“Wow it really does work,'' she said, amazed. However, in Aeden’s mind her words echoed in his head with a sultry undertone. Erika waved a hand in front of his face, but he didn’t even flinch. A small mischievous smile creeped onto her face. “Since you can’t move, I could do whatever I wanted to you.” She said with an evil giggle. “I could take all your clothes and tie you up and leave you for the creatures of ruins.” She said playfully. She was having a little too much fun with this skill. “Come on, you should say something. If you don’t, I’ll take it as you're okay with it. Come on, you have to say something…” She said after poking his cheek. The moment her finger made contact with him, he snapped from his frozen state and jumped back away from her. His face a bright red and his heart trying to burst from his chest. He was panting hard trying to catch his breath. “Please… never do that… again.” He gasped out. Erika just watched him stunned by his reaction before bursting out laughing. She fell to the ground clutching her stomach from laughing so hard.

‘Oh My gosh, why were his reactions so cute,’ she thought to herself. After taking a minute to calm down from her laughing fit, she turned to Aeden wiping away tears. “I’m sorry I won’t do it again.” She said in a playful tone. She couldn’t promise that his reaction was just to fun to stop. She starting to giggle again. Aeden didn’t really believe this woman. He was glad she was laughing despite their current circumstances; he had never been a ladies’ man back on earth, but he had to admit it was rather embarrassing being teased like that.

“Let’s focus back on your skills if we could, it’s best if I know your capabilities before we plan further. Aeden tried to take control of the situation again. “Okay, okay, '' she said, taking a deep breath and focusing back to their earlier investigation.

“What's the next skill in your list?” He asked curiously.

[Quick-Step]: This skill allows you to move in rapid succession for a limited time. At its current level you gain increased speed for three seconds. This skill is affected by dexterity providing an extra three seconds. Increase this skill to increase its duration.

“So, what can I do with it?” She waited for Aeden’s response. “Well, it can be used to get somewhere faster even for a limited time. It would be more useful in combat with dodging enemies or trying to get around them.” She nodded her head trying to follow along, she really didn’t like the word combat. She had enough of fighting for the foreseeable future after her scare earlier in the ruins.

“What about the last skill you have?” he asked waiting patiently

[Rapid Attack]: This skill allows you to attack three times in rapid succession while delivering a small increase in damage compared to normal strikes. This skill is affected by dexterity. Level up this skill to increase the amount of strikes and damage.

Aeden was pretty surprised she had a decent set of skills to balance out her class. One utility skill and two combat focused skills. She could be a decent damage dealer in the future if there was strong enemy, she would be a great at singular targets. The jealousy started to return a little bit. He had been given almost neutral base stats at the beginning, and she was almost double in many of his skills, she had a class and skills to help support her. She was playing easy mode while he got stuck on legendary.

Before becoming too engrossed in that line of thought he started to think, the only thing he was really good at. How did she have a class from the beginning while he didn’t? Did everyone start with a class, and he was just special, or was it the other way around where people like Erika were special and were given a class? He would ask Erika a couple of more questions.

“How do you think you got the class dancer?” He asked quizzically. Erika had an idea. However, she didn’t really like to talk about her job, but if she was going to be stuck with him, she might as well be honest. Rather than he heard it from someone else. Even though he probably wouldn’t run into anyone she knew. She took a small breath to center herself before she began.

“Well, I am a dancer, in both ways.” Aeden just looked at her confused. She face palmed, was he being ignorant on purpose or could he really not tell the difference. “I am both a stripper and an actual dancer, you know for musicals and music videos. “Ohhh… ohh” he said with a mix of expressions. There it was the eventual judgment that came with her job. She was used to it, but it still hurt to be judged based on her place of work. She hated that, so she would explain further in hopes he would stop judging her like that. “My mom was raising both me and my younger brother by herself, and we struggled a lot. Bills were a constant threat hanging over our heads. I had been working to save up some money to go anywhere else after high school, but I couldn’t abandon my mother and brother. One of my friends had been secretly working at a strip club to get out of her shitty house after high school, and she told me about the money she was making. It was too good to pass up, especially with our financial situation. So, I used the money I had been saving for some implants and have been working there for the past two years.”

“I’m only doing it until my actual dance career takes off, or until my brother graduates high school. Not like it matters much now.” She sighed. She retreated into herself a bit even though it had only been a few hours since they arrived, she was already missing her family and her home.