Sudden and confusing…
It took a while to understand my current situation, right now, I was lying under a huge tree. It was different from the usual view of the hospital ceiling that I always saw whenever I woke up. At first, I thought that I was just dreaming… but I was sane enough to realise the difference between reality and dream.
It hurt when I bit my finger and felt real when I breathed the air around me.
What was more interesting was the System Window floating in front of me…
[Awakening Has Been Completed]
' Isn't this just like games that I have been playing?' I thought.
There was an option to check my status window as well and I clicked on it, many truths unfolded and finally, I had a better grasp on my current situation.
[Name- Sheehan Ashbourne]
[Age- 16]
[Rank- F rank Awakened warrior]
[Attributes: HP-100, Strength-10, Agility-10, Endurance-10, Defence-15, Mana- 25, Constitution- 5, Intelligence-5]
[Combat Arts- Proficient Swordsmanship, Mixed Martial Arts, Marksmanship]
[Bloodline Element- Darkness, Fire]
[F Rank Bloodline Skills- Curse Resistance, Blessing Of Night, Fire Resistance]
[F Rank Awakened Skills- Insight]
[Equipements- Twilight Long Sword, 3×Healing Potions, 2×Basic Fire Ball scroll, Poisonous Dagger, Leather Armour chest piece]
'Sheehan Ashbourne… Isn't that ?'
The name of the weakest character from the game that I played just a few days ago…
'So… Am I in the world of a game?'
It sounded unbelievable but it was real, I was really inside a game world and I possessed one of the playable characters in the game… but the question remained, How?
Did someone do this to me? Maybe an entity like a god or a demon brought me into this world similar to what happens in a novel. If that is true then what was their motive? Why would they specifically choose me to possess one of the playable characters in the game?
Just when I was gathering my thoughts, suddenly I heard a faint voice… voices of people coming towards my direction. I quickly climbed the tree to hide myself.
I remembered the scenario of every character when I had played the game… in the first Scenario, Sheehan who was travelling to the academy to start his first year, was betrayed by one of his guards.
[Scenario #1 is Active]
[Frugo the Guard has betrayed you and conspired with the enemies of the Ashborne family, Currently along with Frugo four assassins are chasing you in the forest]
[Clear condition: Survive Until Dawn or Defeat the enemy]
This was truly not a good situation to be suddenly put in… however, it was nice that I knew more about my current situation.
Normally in the game players choose to find a way to survive by running away from enemies… However, this forest is like a maze. If it were a game I would have cleared it easily but in reality, it was much too different.
I saw a man in knight's armour approach… that man was probably Frugo, I took out the dagger coated with poison and threw it using all my strength… The dagger pierced just a bit above his thighs deeply.
'How do I use Insight on him?'
It was a skill that only a few characters in the game had, fortunately, Sheehan was one of them. As I was thinking the skill activated on its own and showed me the system window of the man in front of me.
Insight allows the user to see a person's identity, Rank, attributes, Combat arts, Bloodline arts and skills. In the case of non-living things, it provided much better info… but this was still very useful.
[Attributes: HP- 139↓, Strength- 12, Agility- 9, Endurance- 20, Defence- 20, Intelligence- 3, Constitution-20, Mana- 1]
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
Furgo's HP was constantly decreasing… In-game, there was no option to hide over a tree so it was easier to catch him off guard.
Since I played the game, I knew about the pattern of this scenario, Frugo had many ways to kill the players.
He had several poison gas bombs on himself which could cause any F-rank warrior to die instantly. He was also very good with a sword so a direct close combat was a bad choice. The best method was to fight in a long range first and weaken him…
I had 2 fireball scrolls which I could use to attack him and weaken him to the point where I could easily defeat him even in close combat but then I would have no chance of facing the assassins.
I jumped off the tree and ran before Frugo could determine my current position… his agility has been greatly decreased so I was easily able to outrun him for a much better opportunity to kill. Also, I wanted the poison to weaken him a bit more.
A simple strategy of hiding… First I needed to be aware of the position of those assassins and where they were hiding. The second reason I needed to hide was that it was still not nighttime so I couldn't use the 'Blessing Of Night'.
I was amazed since Sheehan's body was much physically stronger than an average boy his age… considering he was one of the playable characters, that's nothing to be surprised about.
Using Insight Twice some of my mana has also been decreased, fortunately for my strategy, it was enough. As I ran away from where I first was, I made sure to keep myself aware of my surroundings and didn't move in a straight line to get caught by any long-range attacks.
After running for almost an hour, Suddenly I felt several footsteps catching up to me… it seemed that it was finally time to face the assassins. I gripped the hilt of Twilight, one of the rare-grade swords in the game.
[Twilight Sword is Equipped]
[Maximum Damage- 100, Defence- 10]
[Unique Ability to cut through both magic and physical attacks]
The assassins were clever… unlike Frugo, They managed to track me down and planned to surround me from every direction. Unexpectedly… They first fired a basic wind spell using a scroll.
I got out of the way but the ground was shattered and the shock made me lose my balance, soon another spell was fired, this time I used Twilight to cut through the spell.
The attacks were fast… another one might hit me but fortunately, there wasn't another. I had already made myself ready for any other attack… they still didn't show themselves to me for some reason.
With Twilight in my hand, I could easily negate any basic magic attack but I wasn't confident in facing four assassins in close combat… after an uncomfortable silence suddenly there were sounds of people running to me from every direction.
"... So running away wasn't going to work?" I readied myself for their incoming attack.
A man completely dressed in black threw a dagger towards me, the first attack was deflected by Twilight but the second attack came too fast for me to handle with Twilight. I shifted my body so the dagger was somewhat blocked by the leather armour and couldn't completely pierce my skin.
[You have been poisoned]
[HP is decreasing]
I expected the dagger to be poisoned, fortunately, it only affected my HP. I moved towards the first assassin at full speed, the assassin tried to block my attack but when our blades crossed, twilight easily cut through his blade.
The assassin tried to bend his body but I still managed to cut deep and then retreat my momentum, I pulled back Twilight for a stab.
The sword passed through the heart of the assassin…
[You have killed a Rank F Assassin]
That was clean, as if not expecting this suddenly all of them chose to reveal themselves.
" Sheehan Ashbourne, You seem to be stronger than what we had heard."
[Insight has been activated]
I activated Insight, among the remaining assassins there were 2 more F ranks and one E rank. They were weaker than Frugo.
Regular Assassins of F Rank, still I couldn't get complacent in my current situation. The poison was continuously decreasing my health, the system showed a message that told, me I was losing 5 HP every minute…
20 minutes… Was It enough to end this battle? I hoped so, as I ran forward holding Twilight in one hand. Targeting the F-rank Assassin on the right, The Other Two maintained their distance to corner me in the middle of some strategic formation.
As I moved forward the Leader of the Assassins threw smoke bombs at my way… I knew it was what they would do.
Suddenly the F-rank assassin that was on the right was caught up in the blast.
" What?" The Leader of the Assassins Exclaimed in surprise as his move backfired.
" He is not supposed to be a mage, was our information wrong?" The Other assassin spoke.
" No, He used a scroll, He may have more of them. We need to hurry before the Sun Disappears."
I was still in the smoke and was covering my face, It wasn't a poisonous gas but it still hampered my vision…
I took out a small bottle from the side pocket, It was the healing potion.
[ 30 HP has been restored]
[Poison is still in effect]
'This is enough, soon it will be Night.'
My efforts to evade any fight before the night seemed to be almost working well… I ran out of the smoke with the last fire scroll in hand, Away from the other two.
Now there was quite a lot of distance between us… but multiple daggers flew at me, I swung Twilight to deflect the attack but two of them left a deep cut as they flew past me.
"Eugh!"
[HP has decreased by 10]
[You have a new type of poison in your body]
[Your Endurance and Speed stat has been halved]
[10 more minutes before Nightfall]
10 minutes seemed like a lot of time considering, I was in a miserable state already and there were still many enemies to kill.
I became much slower compared to before, So I hid behind the trees as I tried to buy as much time as possible…
But suddenly, The Leader of the assassins was already on me, I swung twilight at him but he easily dodged it and thrust his dagger towards my face. I quickly lowered my body but in the middle, the direction of the dagger changed. In the end, he got me as he stabbed deep into my right shoulder, I dropped twilight to grab his hand.
Just then I activated the scroll…
" What? You will die too!"
A blast occurred and the area around us was engulfed in flames… There was no pain of being burned but I was thrown back because of the blast.
[You have killed an E-rank assassin]
Now only two assassins remained, One was on the brink of death because of a fire scroll that I had used before and the other was unsure of the aftermath.
I gulped down one bottle of healing potion as I saw the last remaining assassin running towards me, Twilight was not in my hand, the only thing I had was the dagger that the assassins had used on me.
As the assassin came very close, I quickly took a fighting stance with the dagger in my hand. His first attack was dodged easily but he managed to land a kick.
My movements became slower because of the poison and hardly had any strength left in my body.
[3 minutes before the Nightfall]
I just tried to protect my vitals as I fought off his attacks… Fortunately, This guy wasn't as skilful as his leader. There were many openings but I didn't have the strength or means to deal a fatal blow… Just defence.
I just defended and defended… the assassin also became desperate, as if sensing some kind of threat. I grinned… they are afraid of nightfall, and I waited for that moment.
Sheehan Ashbourne was a character that many players thought of as the weakest… but in reality, He wasn't as weak as others thought him to be. He was just incompatible…
[Blessing Of Night Is Active]