Part 3: Rob’s Antiheroic Misadventures

The green leaves were in constant motion, producing a rustling sound under the influence of strong wind. The latter, strong enough to bend the tree crowns, wasn’t showing any signs of stopping, putting more and more pressure on nature as if trying to dedicate all its life to destruction. Searching for the weak spots, it broke branches, and tore the leaves, while raising them into the air together with dust. It never paused to take even a moment for rest, blowing with a robotic indifference. However, despite such dedication, it struggled to bring any devastating effect onto the forest, except for some minor damage.

The wind was a complete ruler everywhere, but not in this natural greenery. It could easily lift even the largest animals if they decided to roam beyond the delineated border while failing miserably with a tiny bug within the forest. The whole world had turned into its territory. There was not a single obstacle left after its gusts had turned everything into a powder, creating a flat and lifeless landscape. Everything, but not the forest. The lifeforce itself seemed to work as a protective layer, helping it to avoid the fate of being erased from existence. Still, the wind wasn’t going to stop its attempts as the last bastion of life wasn’t that peaceful, regularly losing its habitants. Therefore, the wind patiently waited for so desired opportunity. It had all the time of the world, unlike the living beings. Especially, when they actively tried to end each one’s life.

Rolling to the side to avoid the wide swing of the hobgoblin’s spear, Simon jumped on his feet with a supernatural swiftness. Tilting his head to dodge the thrust from a smaller ordinary goblin, he shortened the distance before pushing his dagger right into the neck of the green creature. The following twisting motion almost beheaded the already dead enemy, whose weak physique was on par with children. Gripping the long ear of the goblin, he pushed the corpse into the group of its relatives, preventing them from attacking him with their primitive wooden spears. The won second gave him the ability to meet the swing from the hobgoblin head-on. The force from the strike almost threw his weapon from the hand as the more advanced creature with brown skin obviously had much more strength.

Moreover, Simon’s class wasn’t meant for direct clashes. Ducking under the next thrust, he gripped the dirt from the ground before shoving right into the face of the enemy, effectively blinding the opponent. It gave him enough time to whisper a skill trigger command.

“Blink”

The short instantaneous teleportation brought him behind the hobgoblin’s back, who was in the process of wildly swinging its crude spear. Still, Simon spent another second to stabilize his own body and endure the impulse of dizziness. Despite the acquaintance of his mind, his body wasn’t ready for the effect of skill that changed his position in space. Not with his current skill’s rank or stats. That almost led to dramatic consequences. Fortunately, the experience of almost conquering the Tower was deeply engraved in his mind, pushing his instincts to the superhuman level.

The quick thrust had pierced the spine of the creature right around the neck, crippling the hobgoblin in one hit. The latter immediately dropped down, opening a view of half of a dozen green creatures that were still alive. As always, the weak enemies tried to compensate for the lack of battle power with sheer numbers or sneaky attacks. Not that it could help against him, who was basically a returnee.

“Let’s dance, bitches!”

Catching the sight of the archer, Simon blinked again, reappearing behind the goblin’s back. The splash from the slit throat painted the surroundings in red. However, seeing such scenes multiple times in the past, or more precisely speaking in a possible future, Simon didn’t spare a single glance at it, pushing himself in motion. Hitting the shaft of the spear, whose owner tried to impale him, the young man moved it to the side and opened the way for his dagger. A moment later his blade was already piercing the eye of the green creature.

Simon’s grin was getting bigger after every drop in the goblin’s ranks as he was clearly enjoying the process. He wasn’t even near in terms of stats from where he was before the forceful return after the “death”, but his hard skills were here, ready for usage. And this time he wasn’t going to die from the twin axes of one of the Overlord’s Generals right on the steps to the final battle with the main threat of the Tower. He already got a better start from the before and wasn’t stupid to lose such a huge advantage. Especially, when his family’s lives were at stake.

Jumping against the tree’s trunk, Simon threw his body into the flight that ended with his foot twisting the head of the nearest goblin to an unnatural angle. Rolling under another, while making a wide slash, he cut through the neck of the next enemy. The inertia almost brought him under the clumsy thrust of the other foe, but Simon was fast enough to bend to the side. Severing the green fingers of the enemy, he gripped its neck and squeezed. The goblin attempted to fight back, creating an arrogant smirk on Simon’s face.

“Pathetic!”

Making a few quick strikes, he ended the creature’s struggles and turned his attention to the last pair of opponents. He wasn’t surprised to see the fear on their faces. Despite being artificially made creatures that were literally produced by the Tower to create living obstacles before challengers, they had all basic instincts, including a desire to live. At least it related to the low-level enemies, while higher floors turned them basically into machines with a single desire - to kill. That gave Simon the ability to test things.

“Let’s see how that artifact works.”

Like the others, newly summoned Challengers, he was met with a wooden open arena on the first floor. His group, which consisted of ten unknown people, had to face a deadly match against the very same goblins, being barehanded and outnumbered. Simon was shocked to know that the death of a Challenger meant the same penalty for their sureties. All his family together with several friends were branded as such, leading to him to put a real effort to save himself and others from a sad ending. Therefore, he had put everything he had to live through the intensive fight. Maybe his life was pitiful and lost all purpose. However, the responsibility gave so needed pressure to finally wake him from a self-slumber.

Exactly the next floor had changed all his being, giving him the chance not only to survive but to thrive. At this point, Simon understood that the Tower was a scenario-based obstacle course, which was trying to tell a story of a hero’s rise that meant to prevent the Dark God from Ascending. The theme of the second floor was about the group's escape from the goblin’s village after surviving through the arena. Unfortunately, he didn’t have one as he was a solo survivor, barely able to win the last confrontation with a broken arm and deep wound on his stomach. Luckily for him, the transition between floors had completely healed him. Still, it left a mark of fear. Maybe that was the reason why he stumbled upon a shaman’s hut and found a strange stone table in a deep corner, while he was trying to be as careful and sneaky as possible to avoid detection. Then the owner suddenly returned.

Simon still couldn’t find a logical reason why he panicked and attacked the shaman. Or how he managed to kill clearly a more powerful foe. Or how he decided to spend some time in staring at that tablet, wishing to get a magic class. It was a dumb luck. And it gave him much more – the opportunity to live through his whole life in the Tower until his death. He wasn’t a classic returnee. It was more likely a very detailed prediction of what would happen in the future, which was cut off upon his own death.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

Simon awoke in the very same hut near the corpse of the shaman. This time, instead of the tablet, he found an odd artifact in the form of a chain and Soulbound metal that under his request had got the shape of a dagger – the weapon, that Simon always preferred to use. Everything was lost, including even his connection with friends and his Emily. However, now he knew how to save most of them as his knowledge was still with him. Therefore, Simon continued his way further, stepping out from the village into the third floor. That brought him into this forest, where he was chased by goblins under the influence of the scenario. As far as the description was true, it was always a solo challenge, meant to check the abilities of everyone without the possibility to rely on outer help like it was on previous floors. He also knew he couldn’t leave the forest as it was a sure death because of the wind, but with the way out from this place that was deeply engraved in his memory, it wasn’t a hard task. That was why he decided to test the artifact, wanting to feel its usage in real fights before they became dangerous.

“Heavy Bind!”

Piercing through the air, the chain lunged at the pair of goblins. Following Simon's hand’s motion, it captured both bodies before flashing with light. The set of runes appeared on its surface, making the chain tighten the binding until both green creatures were pressed against each other, unable to move. They still tried to struggle, but the next effect had even more stopping power. Shining with purple shades, the chains started to increase their weight, dropping the enemies on the ground.

“Not very effective… Drains too much mana. Maybe versus a single strong opponent,” muttered Simon, while thinking. Halting the effect, he quickly killed the last goblins, before checking his status screen.

Simon McNair

Combat Power: 107

Experience: 165

Mana: 15/100 [+5 mana per minute]

Title: Time Returnee

Class: Spatial assassin

Might - 12 [STR 10, SPD 16, END 10]

Agility - 20 [CRD 20, FLXB 16, RCT 24]

Body - 10 [VIT 11, TOU 9]

Mind - 13 [PRC 16, INT 12, WIS 11]

Magic - 10 [PWR 10, SPRT 10]

Personality - 12 [CHA 10, CUNN 14]

Skills (3/5):

1) Combat mastery (Daggers) [Rank 1]

2) Blink [Rank 1]

3) Acrobatics [Rank 1]

Simon knew it wasn’t anything special from the viewpoint of higher floors, but on the third to have three skills and class was a huge achievement. Especially the latter. The Tower had a quite strange system of leveling, using experience points for everything – to increase stats, to get skills, to strengthen them. The cost was always increasing, depending on the summary of stats and skills, having additional multiplicators in most cases. Still, he was really lucky to get a free skill from his “previous life” through the title – “Blink”, which led to the upgraded version of his class from the beginning in exchange for losing one free skill pick. The combat mastery with daggers was a reward from the first floor even before his time travel, which he had chosen because of his experience with knives. That thing had set his way right from the start.

“But now I can optimize my route better. I know where to cut corners, the way to get a truly unique advancement option for the skills, the correct set of them to upgrade my class to tier 3 with more free slots, and how to use experience properly. I don’t need many stats to deal with such trash,” nodding to himself, Simon gazed at the lying bodies with disdain. They were too weak, having around 50 CP on average. Considering that experience gain was fully dependent on that index and rarely exceeded 5% of combat power, that was a complete waste of time. Of course, if it wasn’t a boss.

“I need to push into higher floors and quickly. I’ve got Acrobatics skills as the first-class pick. The next must be Stealth and I know where I can farm the skill book, compensating for not getting it with regular means from class rank up. However, the last will be tricky, but it will be a problem for future me,” Simon decided, before lunging his body forward. Using his Agility which was already twice as big as an average human, and Acrobatics, he was swiftly moving through the dense forest, jumping over fallen trunks or even bouncing off living trees into somersaults. He was almost like a shadow – an elusive, nimble, ethereal. Nothing could stop him. Even the chasers were long left far behind, simply not able to catch up with his pace. However, Simon still paused at some point when he saw an oddity – something that he had never seen or heard before.

“Was there a cave on the third floor? Not sure, and I was actively searching for anything useful, despite knowing that you couldn’t return to the previous floors. Can it be another hidden event? Hard, but with high reward, similar to the shaman’s hut? Hmm, is it worth wasting time to check it in the first place? Yeah, it’s better to lose time, but not an opportunity. Let’s check it.”

The cave appeared to be well hidden from inattentive eyes. Looking like a small knoll with a tree on top, it barely differed from the surroundings. Even the entrance was looking in the direction of the way out from the floor, so most of the Challengers would simply miss it. However, Simon’s eyes were quite trained to search not only the traps but also the places with treasures. The first sign to notice was exactly the tree, which had a mixture of yellow and red leaves, while all others had only one color – green. The second was the elevation, which made a gap in the crowns above his head.

Just a few steps inside the cave showed oddly straight walls, which couldn’t be possible without deliberated actions from someone sapient. The short pathway led deep under the ground, making few turns until stopping before the wide door. At this point Simon paused, paying attention to the inscriptions made right on the wooden surface.

“Sealed under the decree of the Covenant… Were they the black mages from higher floors?”

Muttering his thoughts aloud, he tried to recall the details. Simon knew a lot about them, but that didn’t mean everything. Still, it wasn’t hard to see that it was some kind of hidden laboratory that was abandoned at some point. And that was wonderful. The seal always meant the hast escape or even no survival, leading to the precious treasures, which were left as a possible reward for bravery. Obviously, after overcoming the danger. It was the Tower after all.

Gripping the handle and feeling the coldness of the metal, Simon unlocked the door before opening it. The dark corridor inside showed the light on the other side. Carefully checking the place on the exitance of traps, he slowly reached the end only to find himself inside a huge chamber with a high ceiling. Hanging on the walls, the magic stones were lightning the place, completely erasing any feeling of dread. However, such space only increased his confidence in an upcoming fight.

“It’s an arena,” Simon whispered, looking around. The empty large room was too convenient for it. Moreover, it had several doors on the opposite side, leading into an inner area, “Everything is so game-like. Okay, bring it on!”

Shouting the last part, he made it to the center of the chamber, while looking around with caution to avoid a sudden attack. He still felt uncomfortable without his Stealth, almost as naked. However, there was no pressure that he couldn’t handle, patiently waiting for the enemy. At first, there was nothing. Then Simon heard heavy steps before the door on the other swung open. Ducking under the frame, the tall figure emerged. Stepping under the light and showing its slightly reddish skin, the muscular man spoke something in an unknown language. Simon knew that there was no way to understand it as all aggressive NPC used it, while the Challengers had no means to learn it. It was the system restrictions, that made it impossible to communicate in an attempt to change the scenario of the floor. Moreover, the dark red text, which could appear under the focused intention directly told that it was the enemy by default.

Laboratory Experiment, CP 101

The combat power was almost the same as Simon’s which wasn’t strange as the third floor couldn’t put an irresistible opponent in front of the Challengers, while Simon himself was quite overpowered for this stage. Still, it wasn’t the reason why he became motionless after seeing the potential hidden boss of this place. No, it was because Simon knew this blood-thirsty creature from much higher floors. The Tower used artificially made fodder in most cases, but most named enemies had a story, which was tied to the main scenario.

“Why are you here? And you are much weaker… No, it is even good – I can make you pay for what you have done in my future-past while saving so many lives in the process. A win-win situation for me, but not for you, bastard. I will skin you alive. This time your death wouldn’t be so easy,” Simon’s eyes were radiating with the desire to kill. The enemy spoke something, but he didn’t care. All he wished right now was to feed his dagger with blood, “Blink!”