Ackster didn’t even know he had blacked until after he woke up, still sitting on the rock lizard’s neck. His brain was numb, and it felt like his thoughts were swimming through tar as he tried to remember what he had been doing before he took a nap.

“Urgh!”

However, a splitting headache impeded his efforts of trying to recall what had happened.

And like a match thrown onto a plain of grass, where rain was naught but a faint memory, the headache incited flareups of pain all over his body.

Ackster almost lost consciousness again. But the feeling of life beneath his legs made him acutely aware, even through the pain, of his current circumstances. He would die if he blacked out again.

He would have wondered why he wasn’t already dead yet if the first wave of pain brushing through his body wasn’t so intense.

And when the pain gradually cooled down, Ackster had better things to think about than question why he was still alive. The first thing was why both his legs felt like they were broken.

However, he quickly got an answer to that question when he looked down to the side and saw that the rock lizard had collapsed. He could sense that it was still breathing, but it had fallen to the ground for some reason. And in doing so, it pinched both Ackster’s feet below its neck and took revenge on Ackster’s legs for what he had done to it.

Ackster felt like both his legs were broken because both his legs were broken.

“Fucking bastard.”

Ackster groaned as he leaned back and closed his eyes.

At least it looked like he had managed to knock out the rock lizard. He glanced at the wound on its forehead. It looked pretty shallow, and it was hard to see the details since his and the rock lizard’s dark and thick blood mingled and covered it. But the indentation told Ackster that he had been a little successful in headbutting the rock lizard.

It hadn’t been enough to kill the stupid lizard, but it was enough to save Ackster’s life.

Now, he only had to hope that he could recover before the rock lizard. He also had to get his feet out from under the rock lizard’s neck. He was pretty sure that as long as the rock lizard was heavy enough to break his legs just by lying on them, his recovery would never be enough to heal his legs while they were still trapped.

There was also the matter of his broken arms, which limited how much he could help his legs move. But it seemed like he had been knocked out for a couple of minutes since he could move his arms. He could even bend them at the elbow, even if he probably shouldn’t since he could feel the bone fragments grind against each other.

It was a wonder he had survived and that the rock lizard had also lost consciousness long enough for Ackster to wake up again.

However, there was no guarantee that the rock lizard would stay down long enough for Ackster to recover even more.

With the state of his body, Ackster didn’t think he would survive if the rock lizard recovered. The quickest way to ensure his survival would be to remove the threat.

Ackster forced his arm to pain, regardless of how broken the elbow was, and put his hand against the wound on the rock lizard’s forehead.

Since he had mostly bashed against the same spot to break it, there wasn’t a clear opening he could use to get his fingers inside, but there were cracks. And fortunately, there was one large enough for him to start fiddling his way through the rock lizard’s armor, skin, and skull.

Ackster dug and plucked away several scales and tore open the split skin, and revealed a dented skull with multiple fractures running through it. It was no wonder the lizard was out cold with an injury like that.

Ackster touched his forehead with a tentative hand, barely wanting to believe he had caused it by using his head.

Ackster winced as he could feel the swelling and soreness of his skull. It also felt like his forehead would cave in if he pressed too hard. But Ackster decided it was an illusion to comfort himself before promptly returning to shoving his hands inside the rock lizard’s skull.

By mustering some of the energy he had left, Ackster rammed a fist down onto the bare skull and crashed the poor rock lizard’s head in.

Ackster sighed in relief as the shards of the rock lizard’s skull pierced its brain, and he could feel the remaining tension in the rock lizard’s body trickle out as the monster died. All the muscles relaxed, and the monster stopped breathing.

Ackster was so relieved he didn’t even feel the pain of the rock lizard’s body pressing against his legs even more with its newfound deathly relaxation.

A little extra pressure on his legs, which were already teeming with pain, was nothing in comparison to having survived this ordeal.

With the rock lizard’s death, Ackster could finally relax. Well, almost. His legs were still stuck by the rock lizard and ground vice.

Ackster took a few long moments where he closed his eyes and breathed deeply as he tried to gather enough energy to endure what he was about to do.

Since he had already confirmed that he could kind of use his arms, he put his hands on one leg before leaning forward slightly to get better leverage.

And then, with gritted teeth, Ackster threw himself backward and managed to free the leg he had used to kick the rock lizard. Since it was broken from before he straddled the rock lizard, he hadn’t managed to cinch it around the rock lizard as well as the other, which also meant that it wasn’t as far beneath the rock lizard.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

With one leg free, he could throw himself over one side and crash into the ground, groaning in pain, but in a better position to free the leg that was still stuck under the rock lizard.

He just had to breathe a little first.

After taking several deep breaths and pushing his free foot against the rock lizard’s neck to see what would happen if he tried to shove the neck off his leg, Ackster decided to take a little break. His foot, ankle, and half his lower leg could wait a little.

His free foot was still too mangled and crushed to provide any stability, and if he pushed with enough force to lift the rock lizard’s neck and free his other leg, he was in for a world of pain and possibly even damage that not even his Strong Body could fix it.

While Ackster wanted to get free as soon as possible so that both legs could recover, which would let him move around, something incredibly useful for doing stuff, there was technically no rush.

He had killed the rock lizard. And since it was so territorial, no other monsters would be nearby. The largest threat was maybe adventurers or scavenger birds looking for a snack.

There wasn’t much he could do while waiting to recover aside from sleeping, which Ackster didn’t want to do, considering the position and state he was in. But there was one thing he could do to pass the time.

Check his Nominus Card. After this fight, which pushed his mental, physical, and skeletal limits as well as ended with his victory against a superior foe, he was bound to have grown significantly.

Fortunately, his hand was intact enough to grab the Nomi from a designated pocket inside his shirt.

With how essential Nomis were, especially for adventurers, and the fact that they worked better the closer to their user they were, most adventurer-made clothes had pockets for the cards, which would make sure the card would be one of the last things they lost should adventurers lose everything in an accident.

It wasn’t the whole world if they lost the Nomi, but it was a procedure and a half to get a new one since the connection with the old card wouldn’t just disappear because one lost track of it.

The Nomi would either have to be tossed into an active volcano or eaten by a dragon to sever the connection with its user. So, if it simply were lost and not destroyed, an adventurer would either have to find it or undergo an expensive and cumbersome ritualistic procedure that severed the connection on the user side of things.

‘I should really start looking for upgrades to this thing.’

Ackster flapped the card a couple of times to wave some cool air on his face before he took a look at its contents.

[Name: –]

[Profession: (Adventurer)]

[Stats:

[Strength: D]

[Agility: E]

[Fortitude: D]

[Mana: –]

[Spirit: E]

[Skills:

[Strong Body]

[Pain Tolerance: C]

[Poison Resistance: E]

[Keen Senses: D]

[Iron Stomach: E]

[Sprint: E]

[Strike: D]

[Soft Footsteps: E]

[Leather Skin: D]

[Survivalist: F]

[Stone Fists: F]

[Iron Will: F]

[Clear Mind: G]

“Huu.”

Ackster let out all the air in his lungs as he looked at his Nomi.

Not only had several of his stats and skills ranked up to D, but he had also gotten three new skills, all of which were good, and his Pain Tolerance had reached C-rank. The clear signs of his growth and the rewards of his victory were almost addictive.

Ackster was especially pleased with Iron Will and Clear Mind since they would help him stay clear-headed in tense situations and focused on his goal. As long as he didn’t get too lazy or lose sight of his goal, Iron Will would keep him going in the direction he needed to go.

Since their acquisition conditions were pretty esoteric and imprecise, Ackster didn’t think he would get them that quickly. But thinking about it again, it made sense.

He had trained to keep his mind working even through pain and poison, so Clear Mind was only a matter of him. And with how much he had resolved himself to do whatever it took to save his life, it was the same with Iron Will.

On that point, it was more surprising that he had gotten Stone Fists that quickly. He had engaged in multiple exchanges of fisticuffs with other monsters after he left Degrest. But he had only managed to get Strike, which was similar but easier to get.

However, one proper pummeling of the rock lizard had granted him the skill and even ranked it up once. But it was a slight shame that it was the stone variant of the skill. He understood why he had gotten Stone Fists instead of Iron Fists since his punches had been pretty slow and heavy, and his fists had broken, much like stone might do when bashed against the rock lizard’s armor.

Ackster already had Iron Stomach and Iron Will, and with Iron Fists, he could have started getting synergistic effects. And then, upgrading or evolving Leather Skin into Iron Skin and breaking his bones until he found the version for his skeleton as well would have made him even stronger.

Why stop there? If there were strengthening skills for his fists, skin, bones, stomach, and will, why not the rest of him? His muscles, arms, legs, other internal organs, and head were also likely to have them. That was how skills worked, after all.

So far, Ackster had relied on his knowledge of the skills that The Hero had and what was told in the original story. But that didn’t mean that was all there was to know. There were an uncountable number of skills out there, ready for Ackster to learn.

And for the ones he couldn’t learn on his own, he would sell the monsters he killed during training to buy information on how to get them or to buy Skill books.

Ackster could almost feel himself growing stronger just by thinking about it, especially when he imagined the skills working together with his main skill, Strong Body. Although it was mostly auxiliary at the moment, Ackster couldn’t deny the fact that Strong Body was the reason for his survival this far and the number of skills he had.

Ackster was convinced that he wouldn’t have gotten as many skills as he had now, even if he replaced Strong Body with an endless amount of potions that would let him be just as reckless.

It felt weird attributing all his growth to a single skill. But without Strong Body, Ackster wouldn’t have his regeneration, innate strength, mobility, and his body’s ability to learn and memorize new movements almost instantly.

Ackster continued thinking about his skills as he waited for his leg to recover. Maybe he should wait before getting a skeleton strengthening skill until his recovery rate improved so that he wouldn’t be out of commission for at least a day every time he trained.