As an intricately engraved sword dug into his shoulder, Matt felt an intense pain. It was the worst pain he had felt in his life, even with the pain dulling of his constitution. At the same time, he heard a notification.

__________

[Training Successful]

+2 Constitution

__________

‘Shit! I need to focus!”

Matt turned and saw that the sword user had finished climbing and was standing on the edge of the roof. His sword flew back towards him and into his hand once again.

Not wanting to take another hit, Matt looked into the distance and found what he was looking for. Only a very high place would work for his plan, and so he spotted a tall building that was being constructed. It had a tall crane at the top as well.

‘Perfect.’

The sword guy was aiming at Matt again and not knowing if he could take another hit, he jumped off the building, making sure to swing off of a pole sticking out of the side of the apartment building. After gaining some horizontal momentum, he landed in a dumpster to break his fall.

He could see the other player looking down at him with veins bulging on his forehead. He seemed to only get angrier the more trouble Matt caused him. He looked like he was talking to himself, which Matt assumed was him raging aloud.

Matt heard the sword cutting through the air again and quickly dodged it. It cut through the dumpster like butter, but luckily he had completely missed him. He ran as fast as he could onto the street and started sprinting toward the construction site.

He didn’t even look behind him. But he knew the other player would probably be able to climb down the building they were on fairly quickly, at least in comparison to a normal human. So he used all of his focus to try to gain as much distance as he could in that time.

‘I wonder if he has a quest. That’s the only reason I can think of that would cause him to be so insistent on taking me down.’

Matt thought about how there was probably a level difference between them since it was unlikely the sword guy put all of his points into agility. Matt had 23 agility, which meant keeping up with his speed, shoes, and maneuverability skills, the other player’s agility must have been maybe 30 or more.

‘He could be an agility main, but that doesn’t matter right now anyway.’

Matt heard the sound of a sword hitting random objects behind him, so he assumed the other player was close behind, and throwing his sword while running.

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‘Didn’t he ever learn to not run with sharp objects?!’

Luckily it was almost midnight, so there were no people around. The street he had been on with the bar earlier was a particularly busy street, considering the time. Right now, they were running through a very quiet and deserted area with closed stores and offices.

Above the buildings, Matt could see his target in the distance. But it was still several blocks away. He also realized he was in a bad spot.

They had turned onto a street that was solid buildings for at least a hundred feet. There were no alleyways to turn into anymore. Matt looked behind him as he kept running because he had guessed the worst.

The man chasing him was aiming his sword again, and there was a clear line of sight to Matt.

‘It would take too long to climb a building…’

With nowhere to break the line of sight, Matt started to zigzag through the street, hoping it would throw off his aim. It looked pretty stupid from the outside, but Matt didn’t care right now.

It seemed to have worked as well. The next sword came flying by once again, but due to his unpredictable movement, it missed by a lot. It was enough for him to get to the other end of the street as well, turning another corner and getting one block closer to his goal.

He noticed something as he was running, he felt strangely calm. His low health worried him, but he was devoid of anxiety. It didn’t really sink in how if he took another hit, he could possibly die.

‘It’s probably just a delayed reaction.’

He swung around another pole and could see the construction site right ahead. However, something concerned him. He didn’t hear the sound of footsteps or swords crashing into things. It was dead silent.

Even though this was the case, he kept running. He wasn’t sure what the sword guy had in mind, but he didn’t like it. Something was off.

‘Maybe he just gave up?’

He didn’t believe it. At this point, he had been tracked down by this guy for hours straight. There was no way in his mind that he thought he would give up. Though, maybe he just didn’t know enough about the guy to determine that.

Just as he was trying to understand his new situation, he saw something that made him really confused.

A young man was standing ahead of him, at least a few hundred feet away. He was in between Matt and the construction site. He had black hair and a very kind-looking face. With dark brown eyes. But something about him unsettled Matt.

Matt slowed down a bit since he wasn’t sure what was up. But as he was evaluating the new stranger, they pulled a large dark scythe out of nowhere.

‘Are they a player!?’

As this was happening he heard footsteps slowly approach from behind. It was the red-haired man, who seemed very relaxed and had a big grin on his face.

‘There’s no way I got this unlucky. Are they a team?’

That was the only thing Matt could think of. But two beta testers meeting up and working together wasn’t something that had even crossed his mind. He had assumed being granted a system was too rare to form a team this fast.

Without any further delay, the sword guy and the new stranger nodded at each other and ran full speed toward Matt from opposite directions.