Run or fight?

The same two options pop into Tetsu’s mind.

Run as I fight. He stuck with his original plan.

A cave imp steps forward, swinging its winged blade at Testu. The rest of the hoard was moments away from gliding in and joining the slaughter fest.

At a glance, Tetsu notes the hoard’s positioning, then ignores them to concentrate on the imp up front.

Tetsu takes a step to the side. ‘Tag-along,' he chants and guides the edge of the blade away from him.

The blade misses its target and slashes into the ground as the sudden pull over the blade forces the imp into a different stance.

It misses and gets pinned down by the human.

Tetsu moves his hands in unison. Stinger in each hand.

He etches two runes over the winged blade and the cave imp within seconds.

Using ‘razor-edge’ over the stinger, Tetsu sharpens and penetrates the rough hide of the imp. To seal the deal and make sure healing doesn’t impede the rune, he also uses the skill ‘etched-rune.’

As a precautionary measure, Tetsu also steps on the artifact’s charcoal shards, releasing a cloud of smoke, impeding the cave imp’s vision.

Tetsu never was the athlete kind. But the system, nay, mana, didn’t require one to always fight with their physical stats.

One can fight with their mind and fight with his mind, he did.

An overthinker’s mind always moves way ahead of their body, so Tetsu used it to move his body instead.

The wind works against them as it carries the smoke around the cavern. The farther-away imps got caught up in smoke, while the closer ones still landed nearby to spot Tetsu within the smoke.

An imp lands closer to Tetsu with its blade already aimed at his head.

‘Pluck’ rune activates over Tetsu’s head. It pulls his head away to safety, toward ‘fix-point,’ the second rune etched at a distance over the cave’s floor.

This was a two-in-one rune Tetsu created to complement one another. The ‘Carrier Fly’ and his skill ‘Tag-along’ were the inspiration for both runes.

Two runes that were created for one purpose. To help him move faster.

Before Tetsu’s head smashes into the floor, he deactivates the rune over his head and activates two other runes over his feet.

With the ‘Pluck’ rune over Tetsu’s feet, controlling his movements, his body bends and moves at an impossible angle, cartwheeling away.

Using the momentum and force of his sudden movements, Tetsu also uses ‘tag-along’ over the imp he had pinned down.

The pinned imp gets dragged along as Tetsu plans and releases it into another cave imp about to strike, knocking them both out of commission.

Along the way, he makes more runes, pulling and pushing imps onto one another.

Based on how Tetsu moved, pulled, and pushed the imps around, one would consider him a telekinesis user. But little do they know, Tetsu simply switched runes on and off with his mind to mimic the effect.

‘Tag-along’ required direct touch to activate, but once Tetsu touched the target, they followed him around by breaking every physical law—at least the physical law from back on Earth.

‘Come,’ Tetsu commands by stretching his palm.

The artifact flies into his hands, blocking the follow-up attack from an imp.

With his current strength and his entire body weight behind him, Tetsu kicks the imp away with ease.

His kick packed enough force to send the imp flying. Or the wing-blade at the wrong angle caught the wrong current. Either way, it flew away.

Tetsu takes another step in the air and glides back with an impossible angle, dodging a few more blades.

He next aims and throws the artifact straight into a mana-bubble.

‘Come,’ Tetsu commands, gesturing with his hand.

In the incubation grounds or his new reality, Tetsu’s mana is, well, a part of him.

The caster’s mana acted like extended ethereal hands for ‘tag-along’ that carried stuff and ran behind the caster. Like telekinesis with hard-core rules and system fuckery simplifying things.

Tetsu took this telekinesis to the next level by using the skill over his mana, seemingly extending his reach from physical touch to mana touch.

“Mana blast to the rescue.” Tetsu cheers. “And you thought it was pathetic.” He snarls at his system and the saint.

“Now, come,” Tetsu commands another mana-bubble to come to his aid.

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Tetsu’s mana over the artifact acted as mana-touch, which allowed him to activate the ‘tag-along’ skill.

Tetsu aimed and touched different bubbles, as the skill ‘tag-along’ coursing through the artifact flew back and forth. Each time tagging a different bubble and pulling them closer.

‘Devour’ worked overtime to consume all the mana within the bubbles, while vampiric fangs topped Tetsu’s health pool.

The smoke clears and a human with fangs, smiling more devilishly than the devil, startled every imp.

The smoke blocked the boss imp’s vision but couldn’t block its other senses. Boss Imp kept a constant eye on how the human fought and moved. At every turn, Tetsu confirmed its hunches. Even more so when he commanded its minions to come and go.

The human was definitely a vamp.

No one else can regain their health and cover up their wounds faster than those freaks of nature. Also, no one else commands the others like they are beneath them.

The pinned-down imp must’ve been the latest victim, the boss imp assumed. Good thing it took up to higher ground. Close-quarter fights are a death sentence against a vamp.

The boss roars again. With a higher pitch than before.

A prickling gust of wind blasts through the cavern, flowing into other openings.

“Calling for more help?” Tetsu steps back, worried.

Fight or run? His instincts creams to run but a part of him wanted to fight more and find out more.

The thrill of a magical fight was exhilarating and the progress during the fight was astronomical. Yet it conflicted with his principles. It was still the same violence he hated. The same meaningless fights, justified acts of revenge, and a slew of other nonsense.

There always is a stupid reason and now more than ever, as everyone has those stupid levels to grind.

An idiotic reason to justify their inner animal. The senseless violence.

Tetsu had no strong grounds to argue. Levels meant strength and only the mighty were free. Still, at what cost, he asks.

An answer even the almighty Kile didn’t have. A useless victory he wished Kile had won. At least then he would have an answer.

“This is unnecessary.” He tells the boss imp. “If the treasures mean so much, you can have it. If not, scoot it over. Let’s talk this over.”

Boos imp snorts at Tetsu.

This made one thing certain. It was intelligent enough to understand him. How can an Imp understand human speech? Must be the system or a skill. Tetsu didn’t care. Boss Imp wanted blood, and that made it fair game.

Or did it? A part of him still wondered.

Boss Imp swings its wings in a circular motion, creating a mini cyclone inside the cavern.

‘Pluck’ Tetsu pulls the first Imp’s wing blade buried in the ground. He mimics the other imps and learns to ride the winds. Courtesy of his Forger class merged with Artificer.

Tetsu stayed one step ahead in their game of tag. His superior intellect and perception helped him draw more runes during this dance.

Tag-along was used to divert one’s attack. Like a martial artist using an opponent’s novice moment against them.

Blades never touched him. While he dodged sudden pikes and wind blades with improbable movements. Courtesy of ‘Fixed-Point’ and ‘Pluck’ used at usual places around Tetsu’s body.

‘Fixed-point’ meant a fixed point at any given point, or where Tetsu draws the rune.

‘Pluck’ is made to remove the rune or pluck a rune out.

Both meant different things, but together made each other whole.

Runes hates conflict and ‘Pluck’ is a genius invention that played to that weakness, converting it into his strength.

‘Go.’

‘Yes, sir.’ And it’s gone.

The rune 'Fixed-point' doesn’t move. So either Pluck has to go to FP or FP should come to 'Pluck.' A high-tech magnet of sorts that works with runes.

Or ‘Tag Along 2.0.’

Draw FP on a boulder and Pluck on your hands. With a condition of ‘Ease Paths,’ it’s better to walk over and touch the boulder.

Once Pluck reaches FP, it registers the conflict and stops functioning, while Pluck fulfills its role and stops functioning as well.

Modify the power used and if you're stronger, you bypass the condition, pulling the boulder toward you. But if you are weak, or in the air? Now a semi-condition is applied, pulling you to the boulder.

All of this theorizing is amateur stuff compared to an overthinker. Tetsu, being a god-tier overthinker, took this complex theory to the next level.

By activating the Pluck rune on various parts of his body and by switching them on and off before contact, he deleted the requirement of drawing new runes.

Each body part moved on its own with his brain activating and deactivating runes as it sensed danger.

An aspect inspired by those crazy ‘Carrier Flies.’ They might be working with some advanced mana physics.

Physics with implications of mana in short.

The same poles repel. Similar to those floating lamps, bulbs, water fountains, and those discs floating in a circle, serving beer.

The ‘Carrier fly’ might have magnet powers to place the south and north poles. Constantly shifting them to move their oversized magical bellies.

How they consume anything is still a mystery, but how they move can be answered by this theory.

It’s a weird and stupid theory, and Tetsu made it up to make these awesome runes, but we can use the concept in a practical sense. We just need ridiculously massive magnets or mana magnets.

Back to the fight on hand. Tetsu placed rune magnets ‘Fixed-Points’ around the cavern and over some imps and their winged blades. Now, by shifting himself from positive and negative poles, he zoomed around the cavern with unpredictable, improbable movements.

What’s there to predict? He moves a body part or his entire body to dodge or attack.

And with Tetsu’s brain scanning and predicting everyone’s moves. None of them could so much as graze his skin.

More Imps crowded the cavern. Later, three more boss Imps join the fight. Yet Tetsu stayed one step ahead.

By the aura Tetsu sensed coming from one of the larger holes, the real monster still had to make its entrance. The real boss of the dungeon.

“This has been very enlightening, but I am leaving for now.” Tetsu relaxes his stance, facing the fake boss. “I will be back.” Tetsu takes heavy breaths, cutting his sentence short.

“All of this.” He looks around the scared cave imps. “Is self-defense.” He stares back at the fake bosses. “Tell your boss... The real one.” He turns to the largest cavern hole and back. “None of you are harmed… By choice.” He lets out a smile.

“If you can come out, and you do. Don’t think about revenge.” His fangs drop, converting his friendly smile into a menacing smile.

“I’m not a fan of dying, which leaves me with one option.”

Tetsu’s smile grows into a toothy smirk before he zaps out of reality.

A giant pointy tail breaks through the ground, emerging moments after the human disappears.

Tetsu reappears out of the dungeon and immediately collapses to the floor.

“Fuck!” Tetsu chuckles, his entire body throbbing in pain.

Tetsu crawls into the closest pit beside the cave’s entrance and hides, using leaves and his new stealth skill.

“Still at level one.”

He lets out a broken chuckle, his pain breaking his laugh.

This confirmed the theory that one had to kill to level and Tetsu was proud of the fact that he didn’t kill anyone yet. Even though they were spawns of the devil themselves.

Hours zoom by with no movement from the dungeon.

“Dungeon creatures can’t escape.” Tetsu makes a mental note. “Well... my principals will kill me before any dumb creature can, anyway.” He laughs, and the pain shuts him up by force.

There had to be another way, and who else is better equipped to find it than himself?

Peace, power, and free will. How do you have one without comprising over the other?

Maybe one had to become a real monster to attain them all.

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