“You alright?”
“Markus!”
I hear the loud voices from a distance. Mostly female.
“Astrid?” I respond with a muffled voice.
“Wait.” I raise my head with concern.
The bug is somewhere close and must be alive; I didn't hear any notification at all, so it might be still dangerous.
Or was this the old man's kill?
There is only one way to find out. I need to shoot it with the glock anyway, just to be sure.
Raising my arm, I assess the damage. The sleeves on my shirt are completely torn to pieces; there’s no reason not to just rip them off right now.
I slowly stand up, feeling joy and cracking a smile. My feet are buried in the hot sand as I stretch my arms and torso.
“Hell yeah!”
Looking all around myself, I assess that I’m basically undamaged.
The heat and uncomfortable sleeves filled with sand and soaked in sweat.
I tear them off with ease and toss them onto the sand. I shake the dust and sand out of my hair while looking at the approaching trio in the distance.
Taking off one sneaker, I pour out a good portion of sand. They were white when I bought them, but now their default color is light brown.
I’m surprised at how weathered they look after just a week of heavy use. They look like they’re years old now.
While slipping the shoe back onto my right foot, I hop on my left, turning around to search for the bug’s location.
The trio is running toward me pretty fast. I see Mike, topless, with his headband wrapped around his neck too; Astrid behind him, and the old man, even further back, sweating in his bulletproof vest.
They have trouble walking over the deep sand dunes, yet they move fast and take huge steps.
It looks exhausting.
The bug lies still a few dozen meters from me, so I decide to attempt the difficult walk over the deep sand dunes by myself.
What if the thing has some sort of healing? It still might take off and with my precious hammerhead is still inside its head.
----------------------------------------
Walking toward the bug, I feel my calves burning. My inventory opens in front of me as I call it, and I pull out the glock.
The trio is closing the distance faster than I can walk. This won’t work, after what I've been through, I want the kill!
Time to try my special move on sand.
I crouch and channel my power to my thighs. The only pain I feel is in my knee, where the blood circulation and heat are concentrated around the bruised area.
Three, two, one.
*Release*
*Swoosh*
I jump about four meters forward and quite high too, leaving a cloud of sand rising behind me.
I could definitely jump over a small car, despite being weighed down by the sand.
“Cheater!” I hear a manly voice yelling.
*Jump*
*Jump*
And another *Jump*
Almost near the bug, I can see its health bar.
Still present, yet fully depleted. One last jump and I’m standing in front of the creature.
Finally comprehending how dangerous it was and how easily I could’ve slipped off the shiny, colorful armor.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
“Boy, you’re one hit from death,” I tell the creature as if it could understand me.
I aim my glock at its eye, calculating the correct angle to pierce the head from inside.
My finger almost presses the trigger, but I stop myself.
I sit down with my legs crossed in the sand and wait for the rest of the crew.
----------------------------------------
The couple seems glad to see me in one piece.
Mike examines the carcass. As his gaze lands on the creature’s eyes, he frowns deeply.
“What the...” The girl is visibly disgusted too, and she asks me about my arms, now fully exposed as my sleeves are off and arms bruised, covered with skin stretch marks.
“What’re you waiting for, boy?” the old man greets me.
“Finish it off. You deserve the kill.” He encourages me with a smile. I almost forgot how great his teeth are.
“I guess we can’t split it, right?” I look at him with an innocent expression.
He nods at me in agreement.
I crouch and aim my gun inside the hole, again.
Harald clicks his tongue to make me stop and look at him.
“The safety,” he gestures, showing me where and how to unlock it.
“Yes, there,” he adds as I move my fingers around the tiny lever.
I unlock it tediously, feeling dumb.
*Bang*
The bullet disappears inside, piercing the deflated, baggy eye.
The health bar vanishes instantly, and I hear the satisfying *Ding*
As if that wasn’t enough excitement, I hear the satisfying drumroll next.
Total amount of malevolence has decreased.
The progress bar flashes, looking almost the same as before. Maybe it’s lost a tiny bit of substance, but it’s insignificant.
“Wow, wow, wow. Wait a moment.” The old man steps back, a bit afraid and confused.
I’m in shock, as this means only one thing—he received the notification too.
When I killed the Exiled One, I thought it appeared only for me.
I was looking Mike in the eye; he didn’t move a muscle back then.
“Anyone else see it?” I ask them curiously and suspiciously.
Mike and Astrid nod.
“I’ve seen this twice already since I’ve been here,” mentions the old man.
“You all three saw it?” he asks, relieved.
I guess he thought he was missing something important or was going insane and glitching.
"Twice?" I ask.
"Twice including now or this is the third?" Mike steps in.
"This is the third time, if my mind isn't playing tricks with me." He answers calmly.
We look at each other a bit worried, with our eyebrows raised.
"That means we're not the only ones?" I say, while frowning.
"It seems like it." Astrid adds. Mike nods and the old man's smile freezes.
----------------------------------------
We sit down in the sand and discuss what to do.
Opening my status window, I feel joy seeing two available points. My level has increased by two.
Its going pretty fast, now I’m at level 63.
I raise my hands to eye level and examine them thoroughly.
"Ugh." Of course, Mike is watching me. I bet he is... Wait, he seems just curious, not jealous of my boss takedown.
Despite knowing him for so little, I can tell when he envies me.
Or is this deceiving because he’s watching me with only one eye? I wonder.
We kinda stopped telling each other our levels, stats, and skills we’ve invested in. So I conspire in my head: is Mike planning on switching to an endurance build?
Why is he so interested all of a sudden how it will react on my body? And his wounds from the small bugs aren't that bad at all. He's in some sort of pain, but I swear those claw wounds were deeper. He must be experimenting with an endurance too.
The old man, now treats me too like a guinea pig in a laboratory. I see out of the corner of my eye that he’s observing me, waiting patiently for my next move.
“All to Endurance.” I say out loud.
The skill points successfully travel from the corner of the screen to my total endurance, which is now nine. Nothing special happens for a few dozen seconds, and I start to get disappointed.
A weird tingling sensation slowly spreads across my skin. Is this a placebo?
No, I look closely at my arms.
The itch starts mostly on my forearms and palms, where the stretch marks are.
I definitely see the changes more clearly than before, when I tested the endurance effect for the first time with that sharp stone.
The stretch marks narrow and their color lightens, making my arms look less gross. The itching is now unbearable.
I can’t resist and start scratching my arms with my long, dirty fingernails.
It’s relieving, yet a little painful, as the scabs from beneath my fingernails are puckered out.
I put my finger in my mouth and lick it to moisten the dried blood and release the tension a bit.
Markus Hale foreigner level 63 Strength 60 Focus [Bonus Skill] Agility 3 no skill Willpower 4 no skill Endurance 9 no skill
After that, Harald walks closer to the bug.
He examines its body from a distance and does a swift hop up to the bug’s bottom, where the colorful backplate covers the wings. He wobbles it over the muscular hinge.
“This is excellent material,” he states, pulling out his combat knife with serrated top edge from the belt holster. He tries to pry something and fiddle around.
Mike, meanwhile, joins him and pokes the baggy eye with his saber. He pokes it with medium force, but it resists well; the baggy thing starts wrapping itself around the saber.
Astrid deeply inhales and turns away, looking into the distance, where nothing can be seen.
Now I understand why Harald didn’t mention the castle or the volcano. The sand dunes are so tall it feels like we’re on a different planet. What makes me believe we’re still in the same place is the forest to our right in the distance and the mountain ridge behind me.
Well, what seems to be a mountain ridge, but I know those silhouettes are the giant trees.
“Wonder kid, toss me your hammer,” the old man asks.
“I lost it. I hope it’s still inside the bug,” I respond, disappointed.
*Spurt*
“Fuck! God! Damnit!”