Max and the guards sprinted into the forest. Parker led at the forefront, impaling a goblin with the end of her spear as she raced past. “We don’t have a lot of time!” Her voice quivered as she spoke, “If you have a plan, tell us now!” She called out to Max.

Max wore a pessimistic face; this was the worst-case scenario. He had no idea if he’d be able to take on the number of orcs that would be chasing after them. “We won’t be able to outrun them, so we need to change direction. They’ll be following our scent, so the plan is to reach Faul River and wash ourselves off. It’s a few kilometres east of here.”

Parker looked at him grimly. There was no way they’d be able to make it all the way to the river with orcs chasing them. “What about a more immediate plan?”

“...” Max was silent for a few seconds, and an orc roar was heard in the distance. “We’ll split up. I’m slower than you guys on account of my low agility stat, so I’ll hang back and fight. You stay with the others and protect them.”

“Alright.” The look in her eyes changed as she realised Max was willing to sacrifice himself for them. What a noble soul! “Is there anything else we can do?”

“Yes. I need three of your shirts. The smelliest, if possible.”

“????”

—Pfft hahahaha

—Dude at least ask for her number first

—Life or death situation and he suddenly wants them to strip lmaoo

—The smelliest ones?!?! D:

The stream chat, which had been somewhat quiet during Max’s infiltration, erupted with comments after Max’s absurd request. What could he possibly want three shirts for?

“That, uh.”

“Quickly! The orcs are following our scent trail, and I need to confuse them. Any three will do!”

“Oh!” Parker nodded. So that’s what he was talking about!

“I’ll do it!”

“Me too.”

“Take mine.”

Three squad members immediately volunteered to give Max their shirts in order to preserve their vice-captain’s dignity. Max didn’t notice their thoughts and quickly tied the shirts around one of his arrows. He didn’t know if this trick would work, but it was worth a shot.

“Quickly, start heading east! I’ll catch up with you later.”

“Yes! Thank you... uh, benefactor. You never gave us your name.”

“It’s Gun. Now go! Hurry!” Max fired the shirt arrow in the direction they’d been travelling, aiming for maximal distance. Due to the added weight, it didn’t travel far and landed only about a hundred metres away.

Changing direction, he followed the others east for a short distance and took cover next to a thick tree to make his preparations. Taking arrows from his quiver, he stabbed them shallowly into the ground in front of him, forming a row.

—What is he doing lol

—I think he officially went insane

After planting six arrows, Max abruptly ducked behind the tree. Right at that moment, a group of orcs could be heard arriving at the south-to-east intersection.

“Wait.” The frontmost orc warrior stopped and sniffed the air, snorting loudly as it did so. “I smell them two different directions. How possible?”

Another warrior caught up and sniffed as well. “I don’t know, so we just split up. We waste too much time already! Your squad go that way, and mine the other. One has to be correct.” The orc started running in the direction of the arrow.

“Okay.” The first warrior shrugged and turned in Max’s direction.

Max exhaled slowly and took four more arrows between his fingers. ‘Alright. Here goes nothing.’

He drew his bow and did a short countdown in his head, before leaning out from the tree.

An orc instantly spotted him.

“Hum-”

Shik!

An arrow carved into its eye, followed by a second which accurately struck the other eye.

As it fell to the ground, the other orcs realised they were under attack and roared in rage. However, Max had already launched another shot. His fingers moved adroitly as he slipped another arrow into the bowstring and fired with no change in expression.

A second orc fell, while the others charged toward him with incredible speed. Max briefly glanced at them. They numbered three, two with spears and one with a short battle axe.

Max was now shooting from the pile of arrows he’d stabbed into the ground. Positioning them this way allowed Max to slot the nocks of the arrows into the bowstring with maximum efficiency, causing his firing speed to increase significantly.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!

“Kugh!”

“Urgh!”

Glimpsing a fast blur in his peripheral vision, Max snatched up the last two arrows in his palm and rolled to the side. Instantly after, a spinning battle axe shredded through the earth where he’d been, leaving a small trench in its wake.

Rolling to the other side of the tree while drawing an arrow, he came out of the roll in a shooting position.

“Raghhh!!”

This time, Max aimed for a leg joint, causing the orc, which had almost reached him, to topple over and land squarely at his feet. Max sent his last arrow into its skull, which landed as a critical hit and killed it. Ignoring various system notifications, he yanked his arrows out of its corpse and quickly broke into a run.

‘The other orcs definitely heard that. I gotta move.’

—??????????????????

—NANI?

—???!!?!!??!?!

—WHAT DID I JUST WITNESS

There were some stream comments, but he didn’t have luxury to read through them. There was a second group of orcs a short distance away and they definitely would have heard the screams just now.

He took some arrows out from his inventory to refill his quiver while he ran. It took two seconds to take any item out of the player inventory, so this was a very slow process. It was unknown how many orcs were in the second group, but if he was lucky, there wouldn’t be too many.

Checking the arrows he recovered from the orc with his other hand, Max frowned. These arrowheads were made from iron, yet they had clearly become mangled, probably because they struck bone. A single glance at the twisted arrows was enough to tell that they wouldn’t fly straight, so he tossed them aside with annoyance.

‘They cost so much, and yet they can’t even be reused on beginner enemies. What a scam!’

If the other players had been able to hear Max’s thoughts, they might vomit blood. Most of them had been unable to clear the goblin dungeon; yet some guy was killing monsters twenty levels higher and complaining about the cost of the arrows.

Already, Max heard the sound of rapid footsteps approaching, so he quickly took cover behind a tree and took a stone from his pocket.

One fortunate nuance of rock-throwing as a diversion was that it was particularly effective against stupid enemies. After throwing the rock, Max saw that every orc turned to investigate the noise; another group of five.

Taking advantage of the situation, Max shot the rearmost one in the neck. The other orcs turned to the sound of their squad member choking and frantically searched for the enemy.

They barely searched for more than a second when a second arrow found its home inside another orc’s ear. The injured orc screamed and clutched its bleeding ear in agony.

A chorus of arrows struck in succession and finished off the injured monsters, before Max was surprised to find the remaining three were running away.

‘What?! That’s not what orcs usually do!’

Max hurriedly let off more shots but was only able to take two of them down; the last managed to escape among the dense trees.

“Damn!” Max cursed. That surviving one would definitely come back with reinforcements.

He was about to turn and keep running east but noticed a spherical red crystal in the hands of one of the dead orcs. He quickly grabbed it before continuing since it might be valuable. He couldn’t move it to his inventory for some reason, so he just threw it in his pocket.

Max ran as fast as he could to catch up with the others. Virtek games were designed so that the player recovers stamina extremely quickly, to prevent the player from feeling sore or uncomfortable while playing. Basically, what this meant was that Max could run forever without getting tired or having muscle-aches; he was indefatigable.

Conversely, the NPCs could only maintain full sprint for short periods of time; especially in this instance, where the group of fleeing guards were exhausted and needed to carry their injured comrades. This meant that Max had a good chance of catching up to them, despite his inferior agility.

He also remembered he had been rewarded ‘free attribute points’ each time he levelled up, which could be used to permanently increase any one of his six core attributes. Max had 4 of these points, so he decisively added them to his ‘agility’ stat to increase his leg strength. A slight burst of speed followed, proving it had some effect.

While thinking of what to do next, an orc voice boomed right on top of him, making him flinch involuntarily.

“Dromar, have you caught the humans yet? You’re taking too long.”

‘?!’ Realising the voice was coming from him, he looked down and saw that a red light was emitting from his pocket.

‘The crystal was a communication device!’

“Dromar, respond or I’ll use you for tetherball again. You have five seconds.”

‘What should I do?’ Max was stumped. Just as he was debating whether to do his best orc impression...

“Huh? You... I forgot your name. Why did you come back alone?”

‘Goddamn, that orc was quick!’

“Drillmaster! My name is Bazur. I have report: Squads Dromar and Qog were ambushed by archer and defeated. I am only survivor.”

“What?”

“Sir, I repeat. Squads Dromar and Qog were-”

“I heard you the first time you imbecile!”

The transmission was silent for a moment, as if the orc was thinking.

“ARGH!” Max heard the sound of something smashing in the background. “How many archers were there?”

“Just one, Drillmaster!”

“No, you dullard. I said how many archers, not squadrons!”

“Yes, I understand. It was just one, Drillmaster!”

After a short pause, a loud choking sound could be heard through the crystal. “You expect me to believe that a single archer bested ten of you and killed nine? Do you take me for a fool?!”

“AH! HOT! P-PLEASE SIR, IT IS TRUTH! THERE WAS ONLY ONE!”

“SHUT UP!” The orc roared, “I could be sleeping like a princess right now, but nooo, you had to go and lose to ONE F*CKING HUMAN.” Another series of smashes resounded, as though something was thrown and bowled through several objects. “USELESS!”

After some angry breathing, the transmission went silent again.

...

“You’re listening in, aren’t you human?” The voice said softly.

Max frowned.

“This is a two-way message bead; I can hear you running.”

“...”

“Pitter-patter. Pitter-patter. Pitter-patter.”

“You’d better run faster, because I’m coming for you.”

The crystal stopped shining and changed to a dull red hue.