Robert woke up from direct sunlight, shining into his closed eyes bright enough to disturb his sleep. Disoriented, for a moment he thought that he overslept, but, after a few moments of confusion, his last memories rushed into his mind, wiping out all sleepiness immediately. Despite that, he stayed motionless to gauge the situation around him. There were two main options – either he was a single taken down guard or all of them met the same fate, leaving resting soldiers vulnerable. The latter outcome still left the possibility to repel the attack but with fewer chances or bigger losses.
Shit… Never had I thought that damn status screen would almost kill me. And it even has a current mana bar – what fucking for? Damn, it is so dumb… and I am also dumb to relax beforehand, especially while patrolling! Moron!
While cursing himself, Robert didn’t stop listening to the surroundings. Fortunately, everything was quiet, therefore he tried to open his eyes with caution. What he saw was the distorted bloodied face of his squad mate with a glassy look and a crack in his skull. It almost made Rob scream, but he managed to stop himself by sheer will. However, such a close distance from the corpse started to cause the need for vomiting. A few deep breaths slightly calmed him down, before he carefully looked around. However, the scenery threw him into real despair from a mere glance.
There were corpses everywhere. Not just corpses, but his mate’s corpses. He saw Daniel with an almost severed neck. All other guards on patrol with sliced throats. Valenzo with his usual overconfident smirk, froze forever on his face. A few soldiers had deep wounds in the chest right beside the heart as if they were pierced with a knight’s longsword. Speaking of it, Robert even found that damn bastard, who almost knocked his teeth because of imaginary damage of honor. All dead, stripped from valuable armor, and dumped in an empty yard right on the ground without any care. There were no enemies around, definitely putting the endpoint in Baron’s Highmoon forces.
Feeling anxious, Robert hastily started to check the fallen in search of his friends. He hadn’t found Baron or William to his surprise, but there was Wolf. Lawrence’s body was severely mutilated to an almost unrecognizable state as if he was beaten to death with the mace by some psychopath. Only his thick body hair served as a pointer to the owner.
Rob stayed silent for some time before sighing. Brutal reality didn’t want him to be at ease, each time hitting harder and harder right into his face in the most unexpected moment. He didn’t know if it was God’s goal in the first place – to place them, envoys, in such circumstances where they either break or prevail such tampering. Stated apocalypses hadn’t even started yet, but the pressure was already enormous. However, he didn’t care. Right now, all he wanted was blood. Rob wasn’t going to blame himself for such a tragic outcome – he wasn’t the only one on guard, despite making the clear mistake of not checking the surroundings better. The reasoning was simple – even the sergeant didn’t believe in a real threat, setting patrols just for show and to keep everyone in check. That was literally his last words. Robert wouldn’t be supersized to find out if one of the guards was just sleeping from the beginning.
There was no “what if” in real life, so he had to live with this. Still, the revenge couldn’t change anything – only to give a short feeling of pleasure before replacing it with emptiness again. So what? It was enough for him. Robert never tried to make a grand goal for himself. The loss didn’t make him into a righteous person, who wanted to stop the war, or to kill the enemy’s leader, who had sent his force here, or even to aim for the life of the disappeared Baron, who led them all here in a first place in stupid race for glory. No, for him it was indeed enough for everyone in this village to die. Simple as that.
Therefore, Robert stood up, took a fist-size stone, and walked out of the yard. He was impulsive in this. Emotions clouded his mind. However, the luck was on his side during this windy morning. He managed to find his first enemy, while the latter was pissing on the wall with his back open. Rob didn’t speed up at all, keeping the same pace until he reached the soldier. Without the change in expression, he swung his hand, putting whole his body weight in the hit. The stone cracked the skull around the man’s temple. Still, Robert followed with a few more, splashing the blood on himself.
He stood for a second near the dead body, before finally starting to undress it from the armor. Everything smelled of sweat and piss, but as far as it could protect him, Rob wasn’t bothered. Not now. Adjustments of straps on brigandine, vambraces, and cuisses took some time, but fortunately, no one disturbed him. Weighting the axe in hand, he gripped it tighter before proceeding further. Covering his face with a helmet in addition to his stubble gave him the ability to walk calmly almost in the open without alarming anyone. At least for the needed time to close the distance between him and those soon-to-die bastards.
The next few enemies were eating their food around the bonfire. Both were undressed, unequipped, and fully relaxed, which made things a lot easier. His hasty steps turned their attention, but Robert immediately pretended to trip. A clumsy fall ended up hitting the back of one of them, pushing him directly into the fire. The first reaction from others was a loud laugh before someone went to help the fallen. At this exact moment, Rob started his attack.
The axe blade deeply cut the nape of the neck of the nearest warrior. Without any pause, Robert again pushed the body of the already dead soldier onto the injured from the fire, further pushing him into the flames. His helper quickly turned around, showing an absence of understanding of what was going on, only to be met with a kick directly into the groin. Several following swings ended his life before Rob finally returned his attention to the injured from the flames. The latter managed to stand on his feet and even point the knife, despite reddish skin on places of contact with flame. Still, Robert was calm as ever.
Maybe it was the result of his Adaptation ability, which finally put his Mind and its multiple focus to work together after another “death”. Maybe it was just a life-and-death experience of a battlefield, temporarily improved by his cold rage. Maybe it was both. However, if earlier only his inner stoppers had disappeared, removing anything that slowed him, right now the ability to use perceived motions properly was added on top. Together, they increased his effectiveness by a good margin. It was almost the same as when he controlled his mechanical army. He still lacked additional eyes as his own two couldn’t be compared to high-quality cameras, but it still made an impact. A noticeable one. His body didn’t move faster – more like he didn’t waste even a single moment or motion, raising his own effectiveness to a new level.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
Robert saw the exact moment when his enemy tightened the grip. Rob didn’t miss where the soldier’s sigh was focused. He noticed a clenched fist. How injured warrior started to carry his weight on the front leg. And many more small things, which finally managed to merge together by his own experience of combat into something bigger and extraordinary. Something that might help to predict possible moves based on observation directly during the battle. Something that might decrease unneeded motions to an absolute minimum. Robert felt it was just the first step to fully grasp it, but it was only a matter of time and training for him. Nothing completely new – just better usage of his own mind in a new way.
Therefore, when the enemy made a quick thrust, Robert just slightly turned his body to the left, avoiding the blade of a kitchen knife. His arm was already risen, stopping the arm swing at the beginning of the motion. In the next moment, his own blade made an impact directly against the soldier’s chest. It wouldn’t be critical if the latter was wearing the armor. But he wasn’t, and a cloth shirt wasn’t the best protection. Blood splashed from the mouth of the soldier together with all air in the lungs. He tried to take another breath, but the metal blade of the axe was already descending again.
Robert stood for a moment above the dead bodies, before continuing. His inner world felt burned out and empty. Only this self-proclaimed goal of revenge made him move and not howl in despair about his terrible life before and after rebirth, unfortunate events with lots of deaths and losses. He knew it was his temporary self-protective mechanism to save his mind in a single piece after a devastating shocking experience, that turned him into a walking function. The function with a solo purpose of killing. However, Robert sincerely willed to use it to an extent. And so he did.
Rob just went as an unstoppable machine, killing everyone at sight. What helped a lot was the early morning after a sleepless night for the enemies. Most of them were quite exhausted by this point. That’s why they either were resting or were not in good condition to make proper resistance. Moreover, after wiping out all of Baron’s Highmoon forces, they made the same mistake – no one expected any enemies. Most of the soldiers were quite dispersed throughout the whole village, being tired from cramped tents or barracks. These factors – unpreparedness, tiredness, scattering their forces – are what led them to a predictable end.
However, Rob still had to struggle against some opponents, despite all odds in his favor. The biggest danger came from a small house, where he found two naked men in the same bed. One was quite young, almost a teenager, with a lanky build and clean-shaved face, while the older was a middle-aged bearded brute with fierce eyes. The surprising part of that was the former happened to be the knight, while the latter ordinary warrior with an unimpressive level of skill. Robert made the mistake of overestimating the man, killing him in a few strikes, but instead allowing the teenager to grab his longsword.
Again, Rob was insanely lucky to face such a young knight, who wasn’t even physically stronger than William, in a limited space, while his opponent’s weapons length was more like a disadvantage, and without the armor to protect his body. Still, the fight appeared to be very dangerous, as the imbued blade easily cut through everything, not giving any ability to block it directly. However, Robert managed to use his smaller heights to his advantage, before stomping the bare foot of the knight with his heavy boot after distraction. The clear crack sound was heard before the opponent fell to the knee because of sudden pain. Rob still captured a sad glance of the teenager, aimed at the dead body of his lover, when the axe met his neck.
That scene shook Robert, returning him back from a cold rage state. He still finished cleaning the village from remnants of enemies, but his anger disappeared, turning into some kind of confusion and partly regret. Not because of killing – he was sure that even this teenager wouldn’t spare him if he could. No, but in overall participation in this damned war.
How easy it was back on Earth – just to fight not humans, but aliens with a clear goal of survival. To defend ourselves from aggressive invasion of the enemies, who will never negotiate and who are aimed for full genocide. But here it feels completely pointless and even more bloody. And the reason is just fucking resource, whose sole purpose is to give more power to already powerful class… Moreover, the war is raging right before the end of the world. Right now, I even think that it could be indeed for good to burn everything to ashes. Not even once I've heard from locals that this was something terrible. Everyone was okay with it, seeing it as an opportunity to raise… To get more power. Fucking lunatics!
Calming himself, Robert made a final check of the village for any soldiers left alive before collecting possible necessities in his backpack. He replaced the armor with another one in better condition but didn’t touch the knight’s one – it was too valuable and could raise a lot of questions. As for personal weaponry, he stopped his choice of a familiar axe, a spiked mace, and a knife. He managed to find a good short sword, but the difficulty of maintenance made him throw it away. Wearing out the blade against armor or bones wasn’t an impossible task in fierce battles, but repair in fields was beyond his abilities. Moreover, he already had enough things to carry on him – a blanket, flasks with water, food, spare clothes, grindstone, flint, etc. Seeing the size of it with all the items, he sighed inwardly. All these belongings were bigger than his own torso, and that even without his equipment.
Where is my storage ring? Or at least inventory? Damn, the heroes in these stories don’t even need toilet paper…
When he finally finished, Robert set the village on fire, trying to burn not only all evidence, but also give some burial to his acquaintances and, especially to his friend, Lawrence the Wolf. There were too many fallen to make a proper burial singlehandedly without spending a lot of time. However, Robert knew he was in the middle of the front lines between two forces, so he had none if he wanted to survive. He didn’t want to return to be a meat pawn again. Therefore, he tried to act fast. Unfortunately for him, it wasn’t enough.
By the end of the very same day, he was stopped by a loud shout, making to halt his steps. Sighing, Robert raised his hands to show the absence of any weapon before responding, trying to look as weak and harmless as possible. His small build could help, but the scar on his face and all the weapons on his body had the opposite effect.
“Don’t attack me, please. I was sent by Count Greywolf to find additional forces for reinforcements. We were attacked by stronger forces, so ambush failed and…”
“Stop your nonsense. Slowly drop your backpack and weapons and follow us. You will report to sir Bernard directly!”
Phew, I managed to guess their affiliation correctly. Now I just need to be convincing enough not to be executed. However, here goes my wish not to fight in this pointless war. Moreover, I guess now I will have to change sides… What a shitty luck I have!