Frank had no time to react as the stags charge carried through the wall and across the small office. He watched in horror as the jagged antlers approached, knowing how easily they had taken out the wall.

This might be it.

The antlers caught him on the chest, on his armor, and grazed his shoulder, setting him bleeding. With a force like he’d been hit by a small car, he was pushed into the wall, driving the breath out of him. He heard a loud, dull crunching sound and felt an intense pain in his chest.

It hurts! Is this what it feels like to have an antler in your heart?

He opened an eye and glanced down.

A tip of the antlers had pushed its way into the cardboard on his chest, which had fully crumpled. A part of his mind realized that the armor crumpling was where the crunching sound had come from. Most of his mind simply marvelled at how much it hurt, and he hadn’t even been pierced.

The deer bellowed in anger, shaking its head. Frank winced in pain, nearly dropping his axe. Then he remembered he had the axe. His lip curled.

“Let’s see how you like it.” he growled.

Mustering all the strength and dexterity he’d built in his sedentary life, he swung at the deer's head. With his level of proficiency, and being jostled by the antlers he was almost-but-not-quite impaled on, his swing sheared off the beast's left antler at its base.

It roared in pain and rage as the antler fell, blood trailing it from the stump. It pulled back for a moment, then reared up onto its hind legs before using all its body weight to slam the remaining antler into the wall where Frank had been pinned.

Frank, of course, had rolled away as soon as he could.

The stag completely demolished the wall, roaring in anger as it shook its head to clear away the drifting dust of the drywall. Frank scooted away, trying to get his legs back under him. Casually, the deer swung its head. He barely managed to get his bracer-clad arm up in time to block, and the blow sent him tumbling back to the floor.

He crawled away, trying to get some distance, but the deer was faster. Turning, he readied his axe to try and take out the other antler.

As he did so, backed further into the office, he saw the rest of the herd crowding in through the holes in the walls. There were just a few of them, and he was already fighting the only one with antlers, but his heart sank.

In that moment, another swipe of the antlers knocked the axe from his grip.

He backed away in panic, bumping into the desk. Roaring in triumph, the stag reared back, and impaled him through the shoulder, finally tearing through some of the armor. The desk broke under his back as he was brought to the ground, screaming.

He instinctively tried to push the deer away, cutting himself on the antler stump as he did. Then he remembered his final weapon.

Reaching under the stag's head, across his waist, he grabbed Papercut. In one smooth motion, he pulled it from its sheath and across the beast’s neck.

Stolen story; please report.

Almost immediately he was slick with its blood as it screamed, rearing away from him. It stepped back, shaking its head, and stumbled. Soon, it fell to the ground. Dimly, he noted a notification at the corner of his vision.

The only sound Frank heard was his own panicked, gulping breaths as he held the blood-soaked and increasingly flimsy paper dagger out towards the other deer.

“S- Stay back! I’m really strong!” He scrambled to pick up the discarded axe, ignoring the pain in his shoulder.

The herd dipped their heads, and silently departed.

Frank’s legs gave out shortly after. He felt tears of relief welling in his eyes as he looked at his shoulder, and at his health pool. 25% and dropping. “Ohh, that’s a lot of blood.”

Frank rubbed his shoulder, wincing. He’d been able to stop the bleeding, but his health had dropped another 6% in the process.

I mean, I probably shouldn’t have taken the time to test ‘healing’ as an enchantment.

It turned out, writing ‘heal’ on something did enchant it, but it wasn’t quite enough to convey the intent of ‘heal me’. Thankfully, he still had the first aid kit so he was able to stop the bleeding and get his wound patched up. A visit to the doctor would still definitely be needed.

Or a healer, he realized. I guess there could be someone with healing skills now. Hell, maybe I could become that person. He glanced at his phone, still navigating to the library. I’m sure there will be some kind of medical or anatomical book that could get me something useful.

With a thought, he brought up the notification he’d received on the death of the deer.

Congratulations [Native]!

By besting a foe of greater advancement, you have earned the title [Underdog]!

Would you like to equip it now? [Y/N]

He stared at the notification, bewildered. “Title? What is this?” He muttered, trying to slide the window up and down to see if there was more information.

There wasn’t.

He shrugged. “Uh, sure, I guess.” His profile popped up again.

Frank Vila, Underdog

Human [Native]

“... Is that it? It didn’t even change my stats. Hmm… Frank Vila, Underdog. It does have a nice ring to it.” He nodded, grinning. “I’ll take it.”

Mood bolstered, he walked out of the office for the final time. He made his way over the nearest bike rack, and used his axe to cut a bike off its chain. Dipping his finger into a bit of collected deer blood he had, he wrote ‘fast’ on the bike. Hopefully that actually does something.

Transportation secured, he wandered around to the front of the building, by the freeway. It was still a mess of wrecked cars.

Frank sighed, looking out at them. When he’d first seen them, he’d been nauseous. Seemingly everyone he knew was suddenly gone, teleported to who knows where, where they were likely in danger. He himself had been left behind, and suddenly confronted by the possibility of death when he saw the freeway. Then, he confronted his own death when he fought the deer.

Strangely, he felt a bit better about his situation now. Like he had more control.

He put his hand to his chest. He’d replaced his busted ‘armor’ with another box, similarly enchanted. On it were words that had struck him to his core.

“Never stop improving.”

Possibly his emotional state had influenced how much it meant to him in the moment. Smiling lightly, he started pedaling down the freeway, wobbling a bit as the severed magic-deer antlers strapped to his back settled in.