The three hispanics heard Brian yell after Jack, and easily spotted Jack running towards them with a knife in his hand.

One of them dropped his backpack and took a stance with a machete. The other two followed his lead, though forgot to drop their backpacks. One of them pulled out a baseball bat. The other one pulled out a golf club.

Jack had no thoughts in his mind, running off of pure anger and adrenaline and sleep-deprivation. Instead of sleeping last night like they all agreed to, he paced around the room and yelled at the walls.

When he was close enough, common sense kicked in. Firstly, that three outnumbered one, and that they could easily kill him by just surrounding him. Secondly, that they were all using weapons with longer reach, while he was using a knife.

Jack ran in a semi circle away from the other two and towards the guy with the golf club because he looked like the weakest target. He was skinny and still wearing his backpack and using a golf club, which looked a lot less dangerous than a machete or a bat.

And of course that did not work, because the other two simply followed his movements and surrounded him again.

Jack now faced all three of them, nobody having made the first move yet.

Then the guy with the machete spotted Brian in his periphery and turned around. The other two did the same.

Pop! Pop! Pop!

One second silence.

Pop! Pop!

One second silence.

Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop!

Brian shot all three of them down. The gunshots did not sound that loud or that dangerous. And when they dropped to the ground one by one, the last one trying to flee, the only part of the shooting that looked violent was the last hispanic trying to run.

Despite having never shot a gun before, it was very easy for Brian to aim barely 3 meters away from them.

Before saying anything or even looking at Jack, Brian walked up to the three bodies and shot each one in the head. He kept shooting until he heard the click sound from the empty magazine.

Jack’s ears were ringing loudly with tinnitus.

Brian stared at Jack with an annoyed face.

Murder Challenge: Completed. Due to not having unlocked [undisclosed] and [undisclosed] you are assigned a non-[undisclosed] pistol-related skill.

Marksmanship (pistol): Rank 1

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…

“Let’s grab as much as possible and run far away before anybody spots us or their friends see us,” Brian said.

Nobody said anything. They quickly grabbed as much stuff as they could from the dead bodies and ran as fast as they could towards the Balloon Monster territory, avoiding all the slow monsters. Then they ran to the border to the next territory before settling down.

You’re a fucking idiot… What’s wrong with you? What were you even thinking? You could have died. You could have gotten everyone killed. What was even your fucking plan? Huh? Come on? Tell me? Jack thought to himself.

They were all sweaty and gasping for air.

“At least you got a skill,” Lucas said.

“Pfft,” Brian said.

“I’m sorry,” Jack said. He did not share Lucas’ and Brian’s lighthearted mood. He was too caught up in his own head to even see how they were reacting.

“What was even your plan?” Brian said. He did not sound angry or judgemental. It sounded like he was just genuinely curious.

“I don’t fucking know…” Jack said.

“It was very stupid, but just promise to not do something like that again before at least telling us. Okay?” Brian said.

“Yeah, I’m sorry, it won’t happen again,” Jack said, avoiding eye contact.

“Hey, if you two jump off a bridge, I'll jump off with you. As long as you two also jump off a bridge if I jump off a bridge, so don’t worry about it,” Brian said. “But god, my ears fucking hurt!”

“Yeah, it really hurts. Next time give me a warning so I can put on some earbuds or something. Jesus,” Lucas said.

There was a moment of silence.

“If you hadn’t shot them, they would have stabbed me to death. Two fucking skills in knife fighting and I think I’m hot shit and then three burritos with longer weapons have me cornered like a rat about to die,” Jack said, with deep shame.

“Burrito, heh, good one,” Lucas said, laughing at Jack’s racism.

Jack looked at his combat knife, then threw it into the ground, the sharp part sticking into the dirt.

He went over to the loot and picked up the machete. The fake sun in the game shined on it.

“I can’t feel my knife skill activating. I still have the skill, but it kind of feels like they don’t totally apply here to the machete. Too long. But I still have the instinct of posture and keeping it in front of me at all times. But, doesn’t feel the same,” Jack said.

“What’s even the point of fucking knives when some jackass like Brian can run up on you and go pop pop pop. We should just get guns. What were we even doing running around with knives,” Lucas said.

“You do make sense sometimes,” Brian said.

“Thanks, I’m the smartest one in this group for a reason,” Lucas said.

Brian took a deep breath. “Okay, Albert Einstein, what are we gonna do now that we killed a bunch of members from the hispanics gang. Yes, I checked and saw gang tattoos when we were looting them. What now? We’re kinda fucked, no offense, Jack,” Brian said. And sighed again.

“Let’s just grind, get the skill points, buy some mana skill, buy more guns, I dunno,” Jack said.

“Let’s decide it after. For now, let’s complete that stupid challenge. Let’s grind.”

“Yeah but before we do that, look, they had a skill crystal,” Lucas said, crouched next to one of the stolen bags, holding a yellow marble crystal. “Let’s pop it real quick.”