Chapter 2: Waves of Mutilation

Two goblins appeared in the center of the arena. Riley quickly moved to reposition himself so that one of the goblins was between him and the other goblin. Neither goblin seemed to care for the tactics and just blindly rushed at Riley.

Two thrusts of his sword later and the goblins disappeared in a flash of light only to be replaced by three goblins. Three were replaced with four and four were replaced by five but the goblins couldn’t touch Riley. They blindly charged straight at him no matter how many of the monsters spawned. Riley had to be careful about being surrounded but that was the only danger he felt from the small monsters.

As the waves fells Riley settled more into his battle trance, letting his worries fade to the back of his mind as he focused his entire being on the task before him. The system had explicitly told him he would be fine at the end of the challenge so there was nothing to hold him back.

When the fifth goblin fell only a single creature replaced it. Superficially it looked like the goblin’s older cousin. It shared the same hue of green skin and squashed nose but that was where the similarities ended. The orc, as Riley was calling it, was five and half feet of pure muscle. It was wearing boiled leather armor and had a pitted sword in one hand.

When the orc saw Riley, it approached him with more caution than its smaller cousins. The orc sent probing strikes at Riley who blocked each blow with his shield.

As the orc was testing Riley so too was Riley testing the orc. If the waves followed the same patterns as before then he would need to defeat five of these creatures at the same time. With the monster’s clear intelligence Riley didn’t want to take any chances.

Riley moved his shield to block another overhand strike from the orc, prepared to finally finish the fight with a thrust to the orc’s throat when Riley’s shield arm was thrown back into his own face from the impact of the blade.

Riley was reeling as he stepped backwards frantically trying to keep out of range of the orc’s swings. The orc, sensing blood, pressed his advantage not letting Riley get his bearings. Riley’s back hit the wall of the arena and he couldn’t retreat any further.

The orc swung for his head and Riley ducked under the blow.

The orc’s sword got caught in the wall of the arena and Riley used the opening to counterattack, thrusting his blade into the orc’s stomach. The leather armor stopped the blade from piercing too far, but the injury gave Riley the space he needed to get his bearings again.

Riley broke out into a cold sweat, that had been too close. The orc knew Riley was only testing him and had lulled Riley into a sense of complacency waiting for its moment to strike.

The goblins had made Riley had fall into the patterns of a PvE game, where the monsters were dumb and exploitable. But this wasn’t a game, this was real life. Perhaps the goblins were as simple as they seemed, but these orcs were dangerous.

With his newfound resolve Riley threw himself back into the fight. The orc tried to defend but it had to keep a hand on its stomach to stop itself from bleeding out and that was all the advantage Riley needed to end the fight. It was over in three exchanges.

As soon as he did a flash of light and two orcs appeared. Both wielding swords. Riley burst into action as soon as they appeared, his sword slashing at the neck of the first orc while it was still spawning into the arena.

The orc’s body dropped, headless, as Riley pivoted towards the second orc. This one was ready for Riley and was already mid-swing, trying to take advantage of Riley’s distraction.

The orc’s sword met Riley’s shield, properly braced. His arm was still out of position from his initial swing so Riley stepped forward and headbutted the orc, stunning it. Riley’s sword flashed and the second orc was down.

Two of the next batch of orcs were wielding the familiar rusty swords, however the third orc was armed with a bow.

Riley wasn’t able to get a free kill at the start of the fight as he had been too far away from where the monsters spawned. He could finally see how the orcs worked together and it was not promising for Riley’s future.

The two sword wielding orcs fanned out to either side of Riley, giving the archer a clear line of sight on Riley but keeping close enough together that Riley wouldn’t be able to slip past them without taking any injuries.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

It was one thing to throw yourself suicidally forward in a video game without any pain settings on and magical healing readily available. It was quite another to do it with your own flesh and blood body.

“Come on, have it me!” Riley roared at the orcs.

Both orcs were only happy to oblige and attacked at the same time and Riley managed to parry the sword on his left and block the one on the right but that left him open to the archer who fired his first arrow.

Riley moved his head to the side narrowly dodging an arrow to the eye. The orcs stepped back and reset their positions. This wasn’t working. Riley needed to take the initiative.

He threw his shield at the orc on the right and viciously attacked the one on the left. Riley kept the orc’s body between him and the archer so the archer wouldn’t have a shot. The orc, while both strong and vicious, was not as skilled with the blade as Riley was.

Riley already knew all of the orc’s tells from his probing of the first creature and when he threw a feint he knew exactly where the orc would dodge, dropping it before its fellow could recover.

Another arrow flew at Riley who was forced to dodge as he had thrown away his shield. The second sword wielding orc tried to keep up the pressure Riley but with only one opponent in his face Riley was able to make the archer unable to assist its ally.

When the second orc fell Riley sprinted back to his makeshift barrier, zigzagging across the arena as he went, and grabbed another shield from the racks. From there it was easy to corner and kill the lone archer.

The fourth wave of orcs added in a healer to the fight. No matter what Riley tried he wasn’t able to break past the front line. He was forced to finish the sword-orcs in a single blow before he could finally reach the healer.

The fifth wave of orcs introduced a mage into the fight as well and by the end of it Riley was exhausted. His body was covered in blood, not all of it his enemies, but he had been victorious.

The final wave of orc corpses lingered on the field as Riley took time to catch his breath. Remembering the instructions from the sign Riley approached one of the sword wielding orcs and inhaled. Streams of blue energy were drawn from the orc into the mask and system message appeared.

Power Strike

Strike at your target with increased power.

Would you like to accept this ability?

The ability looked like an upgrade to Wild Strike, taking a reduction in damage for more accuracy which was a trade Riley would take any day. However he only had the single ability slot, and Riley was worried he would waste it.

Besides, orcs were usually a common enemy in games. If he really needed to the odds were he could get access to this ability again in the future. Riley declined the prompt.

The other orcs offered different abilities based on their weaponry. The archer’s was a copy of Power Strike specific to a bow, called Power Shot. The mage offered a spell called Mana Bolt which tempted Riley only because it was actual magic.

But that was before he saw the final ability.

Basic Heal

Heal your target from minor injuries.

It was both magic and healing was something Riley needed.

If there was one thing the fight with the orcs had shown him it was that he was vulnerable. His wounds had accumulated throughout the fight and he had no way to address that.

In a game he could just eat some food or drink a potion but neither of those were options here. Additionally he only had the single life. He was playing on hard mode, except the consequence for losing wouldn’t be some lost progress but his permanent death.

With that in mind Riley knew what direction he wanted to push his build towards. He would be a paladin. A tank who could heal himself. Absolutely unkillable, that was his goal. A healing spell was one of the first steps onto that path.

Still Riley hesitated. The fear of choosing incorrectly was crippling. What if he grabbed this ability now, and there was a more powerful ability later? He just didn’t know enough, and it was killing Riley.

With a sigh Riley declined the final ability and prepared himself for the next round of enemies.

The light flashed and a giant gelatinous cube sat jiggling in the center of the arena. It was pale blue with a single orb floating freely in its center.

Riley stared at the slime and shuddered. The slime responded by coalescing a spike of ice out of thin air and sending it at Riley.

Though his shield was able to take the blow already frost was forming on the front of it.

Cursing to himself Riley retreated to his barricade trading his short sword for a spear. In most games slimes were resistant to almost all forms of damage besides magic. Even if you were able to cut off pieces of the slime you couldn’t kill it until you cracked its core.

Riley was only slightly regretting not taking the Magic Bolt skill. Still the siren song of the unkillable paladin kept his regret from being too bitter.

Riley dodged the second icicle the slime threw at him, thrusting forwards in an attempt to skewer the core. He missed. Which was when the slime revealed its next trick.

Tentacles bulged outwards from the cube and swung at Riley who had to quickly retreat out of their range. He was forced the block one of the tentacles and his shield started steaming.

Riley discarded the rapidly dissolving shield and clutched his spear in both hands. Riley danced around the slime, avoiding the tentacles and thrusting his spear in whenever he got the opportunity. Before long he managed to nick the core, cracking it.

Instead of dissolving cleanly the slime burst into five miniature slimes. These ones couldn’t cast any spells, only wave their tentacles around. But every time he defeated one they would leave a pile of caustic ooze behind forcing Riley to be careful with his footing.

The later waves of fights with the slimes were almost easier in a way as they didn’t care for friendly fire and the slimes all killed each other, bursting into a minefield of mini-slimes. Riley had to carefully work his way through the little guys and by the end of it he was awarded with another round of abilities to choose from.