Dean woke up the next morning after spending all night learning all of the new things he could. He flipped through books about manufacturing, enchantment, magic, and etc. Dean got up from his bed and opened his stats.
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Name: Dean Ashford
Race: Human
Class: The Jack of all Trades, Tier 1
--Attributes--
--Skills--
[Lesser Soul Invigoration(Active): E+]
[A Special Kind of Place(Active): E+]
[Pride(Passive): D-]
--Talents--
[Basic Swordsmanship: A], [Basic Street Fighting: D-]
[Basic Gunslinging: D], [Basic Driving: E-], [Basic Manufacturing: D],
[Basic Enchantment: D]
--Spells--
[Nihil: C-], [Zap: D], [Blaze: D]
--Affinities--
Black Magic, Tier 2 -- Lightning Magic, Tier 1 -- Fire Magic, Tier 1
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Unfortunately, the library didn’t have that many helpful books, so Dean had to work with what he had. After spending all night with his new abilities, Dean made a new type of gun. It was a western-style revolver that he dubbed the AA - 001. AA stood for Ashford Armaments, it was going to be Dean’s new line of weaponry. The main basis around the gun was that it shot projectiles using electromagnetic currents, something Dean picked up in the library as well. The bullets would be shot at higher speeds than your normal bullet; plus, he wouldn’t have to make gunpowder everytime. It was cost efficient.
Dean took his new gun and stashed it using another thing he made. It was a ring enchanted with the power to open a void in space to store things. It wasn’t a new concept in this world as Dean had already read a book on it. Dean bought the suit he had his eyes on in his past life as well. Since the three-piece-suit was too big for him, Dean enchanted it with a spell that would adapt to a person’s size. Once again, this enchantment was common. Dean applied all of the spells that would protect him and hoped he wouldn’t get killed again. He wasn’t interested in killing himself just because he made a tiny mistake, or dying for any matter. He considered it a step backwards.
Dean put on his new suit and grabbed some gold rimmed sunglasses with red lenses; it fit well with his black and red three-piece-suit. Dean’s first order of business was to open shop. His whole idea of a store was to revolve around the fact he was a jack of all trades. Someone who could do anything, for anything. Dean put the sign in front of his home and made sure to tell Nancy that he wanted the first floor to look like a business. “I don’t understand how you can just understand something by looking at it,” Nancy said.
“I’ve always been like that. I don’t get how it works, it just does.”
Dean walked to the town center and handed out flyers for people that passed by. Unfortunately for Dean, no one took the flyers, and for those that did, they tossed them away. Dean sighed at his misfortune and contemplated going home. That was until Red showed up.
“Hey, you’re that jack of all trades guy, right?”
Dean turned his head, “Ah, the girl from the forest. It’s nice to see you again!”
Red was dressed up; she was wearing waist high jeans and a red sweater that was tucked in. She had black-rimmed glasses that covered her brown eyes as her short brunette hair flowed in the wind.
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“My name is Blanchette Locket by the way, but my friends call me Red.”
“Mine is Dean Ashford. It's a pleasure to meet you.” Dean extended his hand and Red shook it.
‘She has a surname,’ Dean thought, ‘She didn’t tell me it the last time.’
“What are you doing?” Red asked.
“I'm handing out flyers for my new business.”
“Business?” Red grabbed one of the flyers and looked at it, “You weren’t kidding when you said ‘Jack of all Trades’.”
“That’s what I call myself!”
“What is it exactly that you do?”
“Anything.”
Red rubbed her chin, “You should make it more appealing than just ‘anything’.”
“What do you mean? Isn’t being able to do anything appealing enough?”
“You have to specify what your range of abilities is, it can’t just be everything, it’s too broad.”
“Do I just put what I’m good at then?” Red nodded while Dean sat down and went to work. Red took a seat next to Dean as he fixed his flyers.
“Do you plan on getting a haircut?”
Dean ran his fingers through his hair. He didn’t realize how long his hair had gotten, mostly due to the fact that he had more important things to do. “I like it the way it is.”
Red smiled, “Yeah it looks nice.”
Dean looked up for a second and saw a hooded man walking through the groups of people in the plaza. Dean noticed this one man because something was off about him. Dean looked at the hooded man’s hand and saw some sort of remote. Dean’s eyes widened when he saw the man lift the remote into the air. Dean jumped to the side, tackling Red in the process, as an explosion went off. Dean heard people running past him as more explosions went off. After a couple of seconds, Dean lifted up his head and looked around at the chaos around him. Dead civilians littered the ground, some missing body parts, some missing their whole body.
Dean watched as military vehicles began to pull into the plaza, that was Dean’s queue to leave. He picked up Red and began to run as fast as he could. “What’s happening?” Red asked, her voice shaking.
“I have no idea,” Dean said, “But those uniforms do not look like the local military’s.”
Dean kept running until he reached an empty alleyway. He set Red down and formed knuckle dusters with his gloves.
“Has anything like this happened before?” Dean asked Red.
“Never,” Red said, “But I’m pretty sure those uniforms are the e-emperor’s army.”
“Emperor Charming?”
“Yeah I saw the blue accented colors with the b-bright white.”
‘That’s right,’ Dean thought, ‘There’s a civil war going on right now.’
“I think we just got caught in the middle of a battle,” Dean said.
Red leaned against the wall and collapsed to the ground. “I’m gonna die here, aren’t I?”
Dean walked over to Red and slapped his hands on her cheeks. “This is no time to be panicking, we need to stay calm if we want to get out of here.”
Red quietly nodded her head and stood up before Dean grabbed her hand and dragged her behind him.
He ran to the entrance of the alley and saw hundreds of soldiers on the street, but before Dean could do anything, a shot from a mana rife went off, and pierced Dean’s skull.
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Dean gasped for air and saw he was back in the House of Cards with Adam sitting in front of him.
“Wow, you came back pretty fast!” Adam said with a surprised look on his face.
“What just happened?” Dean asked
“You died kiddo, it happens.”
“Now I have to start from the beginning!” Dean stood up and kicked the chair he was sitting on.
“No, you don’t.”
Dean calmed down, “What do you mean?”
“Go through the door.” Dean walked to the door and opened it.
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Dean opened his eyes to him sitting down in the plaza. He looked around and saw Red sitting next to him. Dean looked up and saw the suicide bomber about to blow and dodged out of the way again. Everything went the same way as last time except Dean grabbed Red’s hand and ran before the military got there.
He ran down a street and turned the corner to troops walking down the street. Again, Dean was shot in the head.
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Dean opened his eyes for the second time, and before he did anything, he grabbed Red’s hand and ran away. Dean got a good hundred feet away before he heard the suicide bomber explode. “Did you hear that?” Red asked.
“Yeah we need to get aw--” Before Dean could finish talking, he was shot in the back of his head.
Dean opened his eyes and died over and over and over and over and over. It was an endless cycle that Dean felt he could not escape. Many of the times he died, he saw Red die before him in bloody and grotesque ways. Dean tried to soldier on until he couldn’t take it anymore, he was broken. He opened his eyes in the House of Cards for the 54th time. The darkroom and single spotlight didn’t surprise him anymore. He had died so many times that Adam stopped appearing before him.
Dean’s mind was cracking at the uncertainty of whether or not he could get past this obstacle. He sat slumped on the flood-out chair that he had become accustomed to, his eyes darting across the empty vacuum that was the House of Cards.
Dean sat in the chair for what felt like hours before he felt a hand touch his shoulder. He looked to his right and saw a bearded man right next to him. Next to the bearded man was a woman, then a man and so and so on until he felt another hand touch his left shoulder. He looked up and saw Adam. Adam smiled and said two words. “Go ahead.”
Dean’s eyes began to light up once again as he threw himself off the chair and walked towards the door, going back in time once again.