Chapter 15

The Request

Part 1

I didn't know how to measure the speed or strength that I wanted to use, but internally, I didn't intend to use much force. At the time my weapon connected with his, I didn't wait to see the results but instantly turned to the other one, who was lowering his hand to stab me with his weapon. Switching the gun to my other hand, I saw his head was in a good position for me to hit it, and I did exactly that.

It didn't take me more than a split of a second to turn and hit the other one with the bottom of my gun at the same spot as the other one. While preparing to turn again and hit the first one once more, what I saw made me freeze on my spot. The first man I hit that I wanted to follow up

with a second attack on was nowhere near his primary position; all I saw was the man laying on his back for more than twenty meters and not moving. When I turned to the other one, the same scene was the same; the only difference was that the man over there was face down on the ground.

What was that? Was the only thing in my mind, and for an instant I even forgot that I was fighting, and it was not only me who was frozen; the other four men were also taken by surprise just like me; they even forgot to complete the formation they were taking. This is not natural, and I was wondering what kind of strange skills I was given to throw an adult man with one hit for a distance of more than twenty meters and where all this strength came from.

I remembered "Strength 80/200" was on my screen, so that was where it came from, so the question I asked myself was, if 80 was capable of doing that, how much strength would I gain if I reached the maximum level? It was an incredible strength to have, and also, "Intelligence 80/200" was under it, so does that mean my intelligence was also higher than the average? Since I don't know the average of this planet and its inhabitants, I couldn't get the answer to these questions. There were so many questions with absolutely no answer, but for sure, one day I will get all the answers that I am seeking.

One of the men came out of the shock while I was deeply thinking. Of course, what happened was not normal, but there was no reason to relax in a situation like this. I immediately noticed the man who broke the formation and was running towards me with a short gun-like weapon in his hand, pointing at me with a really steady hand. The trajectory was to my face; all it took was for him to pull the trigger and it would be game over for me. Apparently, the other three men also woke up from the shock they were in and aimed their weapons at me. Like they were in sync, they pulled the trigger at the same instant.

For some reason, seeing all four of them shooting at me at the same time didn't scare me the way I thought it would, but of course it did sacred me, and almost I felt my heart beat increasing. This was the first time in my life I have been in a situation like this, I guess since I don't remember anything from my life, but that was what I felt at that time, and there was no way for someone at my age to be subjected to something like this on earth. That was according to what was left in my memory that Emm extracted. I wonder what happened to Emm? But this was not the time to think about all these. Actually, why am I thinking of something that has nothing to do with my situation?

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I don't have a timer to let me know if the time of my skills runs out or the cool-down ends or not. All I have to do at the moment was to use my best guess to estimate the time. I have used one skill so far, and the result was totally incredible. I still have two more skills that I can use, "Slash and Strike" from the short description, which didn't explain much to me but made me understand the way that I can apply the skills and use them, although most of that

was left to my imagination since they didn't provide me with a manual of how to use the ski and when, but I guess that was enough for me to know that none of them was suitable for me to use them at the moment.

The four bullets were heading straight to my head, covering every side of my face. I felt heat surge from my body the instant they pulled the trigger, and my heart was telling me to flee, run away, and use the sprint skill. For sure, it will enable me to avoid any confrontation with the bullets, but my mind was telling me to stand my ground and strike. I activated that skill not knowing the consequences of my actions, but since there was not enough time for me to do anything else and running away was not the best option, that was the only skill I presumed would be the closest thing usable at the moment.

At the same moment I activated the skill, the time slowed down. That was the conclusion I reached when I saw everything slowed down. The whole environment around me was moving in slow motion; even the air that was surrounding me became different. I was able to see and sense everything just around me in a radius of approximately five hundred square feet. Was I lucky to choose this skill? I don't know. Was it due to the intelligence that I gained? Whatever the reason was, I was thankful that I would be able to survive this situation.

I was thinking to use the speed that comes with the strike skill and shift my position to somewhere else to avoid the bullets, but I saw a different opportunity now to change

my tactics and continue on the offensive instead of being defensive. "Can I strike the bullets? That question came to my mind as I saw the bullets in mid-air, like they were standing still. If everything stays as it is at the moment, then I have twenty seconds to do whatever I want. That is really plenty of time, considering the situation. To not lose any more time, I decided to strike the bullet closer to me that came from the first man who jumped towards me, running and shooting at the same time.

I slapped the first bullet sideways as a test to see if that worked, or else I would strike the man who shot it, although I was going to do it anyway, so whether to stick the bullet or not would not make any difference at all, but I just wanted to test if the second was possible for me or not.

Fortunately, as the skill description mentioned, I could strike any hard surface. The instant I slapped the bullet, the slowed time went back to normal, and the bullet changed trajectory and instantly hit a tree and went through the trunk of the tree, leaving behind a small see-through hole.

All that happened within less than five seconds, give or take, since I was just guessing the time frame, and as per my guess, I have fifteen seconds left for the skill to end. I didn't stop at that after losing a couple seconds wondering how strong the weapon and the bullet were to go through the trunk of the tree. I then constructed on the men, starting with the first one who was half kneeling and preparing himself to jump on me after his bullet hits me, apparently, so I hit him on top of his head with my hand sideways,

and this time I didn't wait to see what was going to happen, but I went straight to the next closest one, hitting him also in the same way.

A few seconds later, all four men were on the ground unconscious like the other two, except these four were all facing down on the ground. Since I didn't intend to kill anyone, the question I was laminating on was, What to do with them now? I can't leave them like that and go back, and I can't take them back with me either. I could tie them up and leave them, but was that a good idea? I didn't think so; the options that I had were limited in this situation. Still, the first thing I had to do was disarm them, and I took all their weapons and stored them in my inventory.

When I finished doing that with the last one of them, before I could reach a decision on what to do next, I heard some sound coming from the same direction they originally came from. Although I was unable to see through this dense forest, somehow I could tell that more of them were coming; obviously they were following them, whether they were with them or not. I couldn't tell at the moment, but that was the most logical thing to assume in this situation. I looked around me, looking for the biggest tree near me to hide behind its trunk, and as soon as I did that, what I saw was definitely not what I was expecting.