《Magic, Monsters and Medieval Mayhem.》 0: The Incident (prologue) The incident John woke up. His slightly wavy hair was covering his eyes as he sat up, rising like a corpse. He went to a mirror and grabbed a brush to start his morning ritual : brushing his teeth, showering and then searching for his uniform before he went downstairs to have breakfast. In the mind of John and every student from his school today was going to be a normal day, tedious studying with a little bit of occasional interaction with friends. John didn''t hold much hope for today being very fun. His lessons mainly consisted of subjects he was perfectly average in : english, mathematics, chemistry, history and product design. He had never been particularly focused which had led to him having overall unbalanced grades since he poured exactly the same amount of time into his weak and strong subjects, he had unknowingly min-maxed his education to focus on sciences and completely neglect humanities. He got dressed into his uniform and sighed. John realised he had forgotten to finish a homework for history, he had put off on doing it to play games all weekend and eventually just forgot. He went down and had breakfast: toast, a glass of orange juice and some cereal. John had a bad habit of never switching his books for the days lessons between days, so his bag was heavy with the books for every lesson. He walked to school because his mother was off to work before he woke up and his father was on a business trip in Germany. Today''s walk was a little noteworthy in Jhons mind, because he felt strangely enticed by the flowers he passed and appreciated the mild spring sun on his skin.You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. He continued on until reaching the school. Three buildings made up the school''s campus ; two of the school''s buildings were built in the 19th century but one was far more modern, being built in the 90''s to keep up with the higher student numbers. He went through the entrance of one building, walked down a flight of stairs and exited again. He wound up next to a locked room full of sports equipment, continuing on to his first lesson he walked to a building just across a partially filled carpark. John climbed a set of stairs and opened a door, he was greeted by a young woman in her 20''s and a group of his fellow students. "Sorry for being late" He was calm as he walked to his seat. This teacher was far from cruel and in fact was one of the nicer ones he had been taught by, demonstrated as she merely smiled and waved him away. "We just started so its fine, just try not to make a habit of it." He pulled the seat back, dropped his bag and sat down. "Late again? I told you to set an alarm." A girl to his left nudged him with her elbow as she berated him, she was a pretty girl : shoulder length brown hair, mostly perfect skin with just a few freckles on her cheeks, a smile that made even John a little shy, she was certainly one of the prettier girls in the school but this no longer had much of an effect on John after knowing her for so long. "I forgot" She smirked a little before looking forward at the teacher, john did the same as he finally settled for a typical day of learning. The ground rumbled as a loud wooshing noise was heard ; bright light poured in from the windows and hit every student in John''s classroom, including John. "FUCK! MY EYES!" Several cries along these lines were uttered as the bright light settled and students held their eyes in agony, they calmed down eventually and everyone started to focus on a new question that was bugging them all. "What just happened?" The girl to john''s left was the first to ask this fairly important question. "Look! The windows are cracked!" One of the boys at the front was quick to point out a set of spider web esque patterns that had spread across the windows, everyone in the room rushed to the windows expecting to see the muddied school field. John walked over as everyone went quiet. In front of john for miles and miles was a thick, dark green sea of trees. "What the fuck?" This was evidently not a normal day. 1: New reality New reality John was terrified, he had no idea what was going on but he wanted it to stop. "Trees? How? There was definitely no trees here." The teacher herself had wandered over. "Alright everyone stay in this room, im going to find some of the other teachers and we''ll try to work out exactly what is going on" John had absolutely no idea what was happening and he could tell the other students didn''t either. A bespectacled boy walked to the middle of the room and tried his best to speak in an authoritative voice. "Alright... lets just sit down and wait for miss to get back" John wasn''t the first to sit back down but eventually he decided to try and push the thoughts about his situation to the back of his mind and just sit down. The girl to his left, chloe, spoke to him nervously. "John im scared, this really isn''t normal." John put his head in his hands and tried to rationalize what he had just seen. An endless sea of trees and... there was something else that slightly caught his eye and it bugged him, but he forgot about it for the moment. At that moment the teacher returned with two other teachers, a fellow english teacher and a sport teacher. The two extra teachers went past the door but john''s teacher came in and shut the door after herself. "Alright... everyone else seems to be sat in their classrooms, we''ll just have to treat this situation carefully and not leave until we know for sure the school buildings aren''t damaged." The students looked relieved and john himself felt a slight easing of the burden this had placed on him, everyone was still panicking but the mood was noticeably lighter. "Does this mean we can use our phones miss?" The teacher sighed before nodding. The bespectacled boy turned to the rest of the class from his seat at the front and spoke up. "If anyone can call them from here, calling the emergency services might be a good plan. My phones out of battery so you''ll have to use one of yours. Just say that there were tremors and the school might collapse if we try to evacuate."If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. Some of the other students were getting noticeably irritated by him trying to take charge but eventually one of them tried to call the police. "Huh? The call isn''t going through" Another student tries and fails to call the police. "Mine isn''t working either." "Look, there''s no signal up here either, we usually get at least some reception here right?" Other students nodded in agreement as John tried to connect to the internet, failing as every page he tried failed to load. "Nothings working, the wifi is down aswell." The students anxiety quickly returned as john decided he was going to look through the window again. Checking more thoroughly he swept his eyes over the sea of green for any signs of the field that was once there, noticing a small wooden shack he realised what had first caught his eye and bugged him, it was quite a distance away from the school but it was still where the field once was so he turned back to the others with a worried look. "There were no buildings or anything on our field right? There''s some kind of hut over there... which means one of two things." The students looked at john as he spoke. "Either we''re not in the same place anymore, or the place around us completely changed. Both are unlikely but id prefer number 2." The boy in glasses looked at john with a little respect for noticing something even he didn''t. More students began to panic. "If we''re not in the same place... where are we." A student at the back slowly stuck up his hand, extremely nervous. "Um... from what i saw the trees don''t match any that ive seen." The other students turn to him. "I just mean... i like plants and animals... but those trees have slight differences to any other trees ive seen..." The boy with glasses is the first to speak up. "Well that information was helpful, thanks. So we know that either unknown trees and buildings formed from nowhere, or us and the entire school building went to somewhere completely unknown." John went back to his seat and sighed as he was nudged in the side again. "Come on chloe, that hurts" She smiled and gave him a thumbs up for trying to stay rational. The teacher stood up again and tried to cheer the class up. "Alright everyone... phones dont work and things might look bad but once the others get back here we''ll know the situation and we''ll be able to carefully try and evacuate." The students all seemed to relax a little after this and sat down for what seemed like hours, the ticking of the clock seemed to take minutes between each and john felt himself grow more and more anxious as time crawled by. A scream rung out from further down the hall as a nearby classroom erupted into shouting, screaming and crying. The teacher from before came running back and desperately knocked on the door. "It isn''t safe outside, there are... people... They are walking around outside and attacking students that leave. No ones died yet but people are injured, we need a first aid kit but there''s only one in the first floor bathroom and im pretty sure some of them managed to get inside the first floor already." The students began to grow more and more scared as even john found himself shaking. "If its just about getting to the first floor, you could send a group of people." Glasses spoke up again as the teacher looked at him like he was a moron. "Intruders, remember?" Glasses seemed to think for a second. "But you didn''t say armed intruders" The teacher looks at him before staring in realisation. "You''re right... they had no weapons... a few of the teachers will go down with... whatever we can find. We''ll get the first aid kit and be back upstairs no problem." Even john sighed with relief when he heard they weren''t armed. "Im going to try and find some people to help, for now we''ll gather more students into different classrooms. We need to give them space so that they dont panic too much." The students were well beyond the point of just panicking. 2: Hypothesis Hypothesis. John was currently sitting in a classroom with around 15 other students, he only recognised 2 of the people in there with him : glasses and chloe. A blonde girl spoke up, she was quite beautiful but John was currently in full panic mode so he hardly noticed. "So what do you guys think happened?" John remained quiet but glasses spoke up as was quickly becoming his role. "We figured out that we''re not in the same place, and that the trees aren''t a match to anything in europe at the very least." The blonde girl spoke up again. "We didn''t pick up on the trees being different but we saw a few small shacks in the forrest." Glasses looked at john. "John saw one shack... you''re saying there are multiple?" John just lay against the wall as the conversation carried on. "Yeah, we saw at least 20 or 30 shacks." John sat back up and looked at the back of the room, a boy was grabning various things from a storage cupboard. John went over to the boy. "You''re finding weapons right?" The boy looked up at john, the younger boy seemed a little intimidated but john didn''t intentionally try and threaten the kid. "Yeah... you haven''t actually seen them yet, have you? If you did you''d be making weapons too" Johns interest was piqued. "Them? The people outside?" The kid chortled. "People!? They were green and had razor sharp teeth!" John looked at the boy confused. "Well it makes sense that if the plant life is different the animals are too. Did any of you manage to hurt them?" The boy was shaking.The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. "Not even a little... they are huge, their skin is like stone and even the strongest kid in our class couldn''t move them." John hoped the boy was just exaggerating but his fearful tone and shaking didn''t make it seem like that was the case. "So... what kind of weapons are you making?" The kid showed a sharped pencil to john that could hardly qualify as a weapon. "Might hurt if you poke them in the eye?" The kid seemed to get mildly irritated by John. "Well then do better!" John thought to himself about usable weapons but he couldn''t think of anything without getting into the technology block or getting into the sports equipment shed. "The sport shed!" The boy looked a little confused. "They have javelins, metal bats, heavy balls, hockey sticks and even tackle pads, if the green people aren''t armed we could have at least some advantage over them..." The kid looked at john like he was a genius. "Yes! But the key would be with a teacher and they wouldn''t let us go and get them." John sighed as his plan was unravelled. "Instead of what you''re doing make something with a longer reach, if it comes to it and they get up here a makeshift spear is more useful than a crappy dagger pencil." The kid smiled and got to work. John walked back to where he was before as he heard running, and then silence. Everyone''s faces went dark as they heard footsteps approach the room, then grunting and sniffing, then more footsteps that gradually got quieter. All of the children who had encountered them had been mostly unaware of what was going on up until that point, then they began crying and shivering. John walked back over to the kid making weapons. "Looks like they were right about them being on the first floor." The kid was shivering and crying before john placed a hand on his shoulder. "We''re in a locked room, and you''re making weapons, even if things go wrong we''ll be fine so don''t panic." Glasses spoke to the blonde girl again. "Use your phone to set a timer, if we dont hear from the teachers in 15 minutes i volunteer to go out and try to find them." The blonde girl spoke back. "Dont be stupid, you dont get it, they aren''t alive if they got found by those things." More students were crying as everyone seemed to be extremely anxious and scared. Glasses spoke up again. "They knew that, they were prepared to come back up whilst being chased, we''ve locked ourselves in so all im saying is to go and check if they are out there, come back if we find the... creatures, find the teachers if we dont. Its not a hard plan but we cant do it from inside here." John spoke up. "Im with glasses on this one, its a hallway so if we see the... things, we can just shut ourselves right back in no problem." Glasses spoke back to john. "Glasses? I have a name, its cameron. Now john is right, we just need to check if any of them are out there." Cameron stood up and the girl set and checked the timer. "Now if I''m right about this the doors on the hallway will be closed and locked and the green people will have already moved on to the third floor. If not i only have to be out there for a second so don''t close the door after me" John looked at the kid who had just finished making a pencil spear. "Its probably only single use but if you thrust hard you could hurt at least one." He patted the kids shoulder who smiled as he tried to make another by putting a long wooden ruler together with a pencil. John helped the boy make 4 more DIY spears before running out of rulers. They each took 2, giving one to cameron in case there was a green man close to the door. Cameron took the spear and nodded. "Thanks, ill feel a lot more confident with this at least." Cameron began to shake and shiver as the seconds ticked by. Eventually the timer hit zero and cameron stood up, unlocked the door and walked out, very much expecting dozens of giant green monsters to rush at him. He turned down the hallway and checked, seeing that the coast was clear. 3: Encounter Encounter. Cameron sighed with relief as he turned back to the people in the classroom. "No one out here, honestly it might be best for all of us to leave at once." A few of the students started to stand up but the blonde girl looked at him and spoke. "Not a good idea till we know there aren''t any nearby, anybody who wants to go can and anybody who wants to stay can." John stood up and walked, along with chloe and the boy who had been making weapons, they left the classroom as john handed chloe a chair to use as a weapon in case of an emergency. The four of them walked down the hallway and noticed rooms of students just sat down and panicking. They continued on until reaching the room where the teachers were supposed to be. The door was locked and the teachers were inside and safe along with the students who needed first aid. The four sighed with relief and decided that if everyone was fine heading back was the right decision. A loud, wet grunt was heard from behind the group. John felt warm breath on his neck and could smell something disgusting. They didn''t want to turn around as the grunting was almost right behind them. John was the first to turn and saw it, the creature was around 6 feet tall, extremely muscular and with a green pigment to its skin, its head was bald and its nose was a snout like a pigs. Without hesitation john thrusted his spear forward through the eye of the creature, snapping the pencil and forcing the thing back. Now that john finally saw it the realization of what was going on finally clicked in his head as the creature howled in agony. "Orc?" The creature writhed and struggled to move as it set the remainder of its sights on john. The green, muscled pig man threw a punch at john that forced him to raise the remainder of his spear in an attempt to block.The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there. The spear snapped in two as he was hit in the face and knocked onto his back. Cameron and the young boy both stabbed the creature in the chest and shoulder themselves before moving back to avoid a counter like the one that had hit john. The creature stepped forward to throw another punch but it was hit in the head by chloe with the metal legs of the chair and was forced to take a few steps back. The orc growled as it began to tense its muscles, running toward the trio who had just hit it and running straight past john who''s ears were ringing. Cameron and the boy stabbed once more, chloe smacked the creature with the chair. They had seemingly hurt the creature enough to make it start to think about retreating but it first threw another punch and struck cameron in the stomach, knocking him onto the ground. The young boy ran past the orc back to the classroom, seemingly retreating in fear. John stood up and rubbed his head, vision blurred. He walked up behind the creature, jumped onto its back and used the remaining spear he had to strangle the creature, pulling it tight against its neck as it violently struggled and fought against him. It kicked and struggled as john was shook around, eventually it got hold of johns left leg and held tight. John was thrown from the creature hard onto the floor smashing down onto his stomach but not hitting his head this time. Cameron stood up and stabbed at the creature again as his spear broke on contact. John tried to punch the creature but was once more knocked onto his back, john was never a delinquent and rarely got into fights so he barely knew what to do in this kind of situation. The orc just laughed at the trio as the boy returned carrying something, he ran straight past the creature before empyting out a tub of thumb tacs between the group and the creature that rolled all accross the floor. "It probably wont do much but it might give us time to breathe..." John looked up at the kid. "Thought you''d ran away..." The orc interrupted them with a growl as it tensed its muscles once more. It approached catiously before howling in pain as it stood on the thumb tacs, moving back wildy and falling over. The creature struggled and writhed but couldn''t quite stand as it had easily twisted its ankle as it fell. "We need to stab it with something, in the head" John struggled to get up as he walked towards the creature. He noticed that it wasnt getting up and stumbled towards it, out of breath and tired but filled with adrenalin he hovered his foot over the creatures skull. "No, we don''t." He slammed his foot down hard on the orcs skull, repeatedly crushing it against the floor, the others looked at him with a bit of horror as he tried to keep calm whilst curbstomping the orc. He had been stomping for at least a minute with all he had before the skull caved in and the floor was caked in red fluid. Cameron looked at the grim scene before speaking up. "We know at least that they can be hurt and killed now..." John pulled his shoe out from the mess of brain and broken bone. "This wont work twice, we know what can hurt them now and we know they struggle to get up. We need a concrete plan for in the future if there are more" Johns attempt at a stoic and confident front failed as he threw up all over the floor and he held his stomach in pain. "Lets not make so much of a mess next time..." Walking very carefully past the creature they walked by other classrooms, students noticed them and saw the corpse of the orc as they returned. "No one has broken anything right? The guy hit hard but even someone super strong wont do that much actual damage without a weapon." The group finally returned to the classroom as John knocked. 4: Heist Heist John knocked on the door to the classroom, the blonde girl opened the door and let them in. "We heard shouting and... there was definitely one of those things." Cameron looks at her. "We''re pretty tired, there was one of them, the weapons really only annoyed it. We only won because it fell over and john was able to... put it down." John felt his body shake as information rushed into his head and a black rectangle appeared before being slightly filled with blue. {Earned 25 exp during battle with Lv. 1 orc} John put his hand to his head as the words rung through his mind. "Exp? This is starting to make less and less sense..." The other students were seemingly unable to see the black bar so john decided to mention it. "Just now i heard a voice speaking to me, and a saw something like a progress bar. It told me i got 25 exp for killing the orc" A few of the other students who heard this laughed, the majority didn''t. "Then... if what you''re saying is true we''re supposed to kill them and level up or something? Dont make me laugh! You four were just extremely lucky!" The blonde girl spoke to john with a stern face. "Im not saying you HAVE to kill them, im telling you that when i did, that happened." As the two raised their voices more creatures could be heard from the floor above, sound travelling through the stairwell. The blonde girl glared at john. "Well fuck, if your fight didn''t let them know where we are our argument just did" John put his hand to his chin for a second, holding the remaining pencil spear he and the boy had made. He walked over to the boy. "Thanks, we would have died without your help, i have a plan but its super risky and i could use help." The boy looked at him excitedly. "We''re going to the sports shed?" John smirked and nodded.This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. The boy looked up for a moment. "Ok ill help you, but first, your name would be nice." "John, you?" The boy smiled. "Alex, so john, do you know how we''re gonna get the key?" John gestured to where the room with the teachers was. "We have a P.E teacher here, and before they went to the first floor he left his coat in the english classroom we were in, im just suggesting we borrow the copy of the key that they all have." The kid smirked. "So we just need to steal the key and get to the sports shed for weapons, we wont be able to carry them all right?" John shrugged. "There are scared and angry students everywhere, 1/10 will probably be angry enough to want to fight back." John went straight to the door and opened it. "Are you trying to kill us?" John continued through the door and went down the hall, knocking on the door to the classroom he had initially been in. The door opened for him as around a dozen students were laying around, some crying, some angry, some completely not functioning. John took the P.E teachers coat and grabbed the key after checking the left, then right pockets. "If any of you want weapons I''ve got a plan to get some, we''ll need to be quick but we could probably get enough to kill a few more when they eventually come." A few of the students looked up at john at these words and some got up to follow him, alex was already behind john along with cameron. "Ive been caught up already but i think the plan is our best bet, you got the key right?" John dangled the key before heading to the stairwell and cautiously heading down. Each step of the train of now 7 students echoed through the stairwell but eventually they got to the first floor and walked to the sports equipment room. John used the key and opened the creaking door, inside was a dimly lit room full of various sports equipment. "Take everything, even the people who didn''t want to come will need something eventually" After raiding the room the group of students headed back to the stairwell, noticing how eerily quiet it was until they heard screaming coming from some of the other buildings. "So it wasnt just here, well if the situation is across the whole school that makes it even worse." John cautiously went back to the smaller classroom as the blonde girl opened the door. "You were stupid and reckless but at least it payed off...lets try and prepare in case they come." John walked in and had the students place all the sports equipment in piles accross some of the tables. John took a javelin and an aluminium bat, Alex took a javelin, cameron took a leather tackle pad as a shield and a javelin, chloe grabbed a hockey stick and some headgear and shoulder pads, various other students grabbed weapons and armour and eventually everyone was fully prepared in case the orcs managed to come back down. "They''ve been quiet since you left, there are probably still classrooms on the 3rd floor trying to resist them." Cameron spoke up again. "Then we have a better chance if we get them with support from the 3rd floor right?" The blonde girl immediately rejected his proposal. "We aren''t super hero''s, we''re not gonna win just because you tripped one over and stomped it to death after getting your shit kicked in." Cameron angrily shouted back. "You''re right, you aren''t a hero, i have friends in those classes and i should just leave them because its dangerous?" The blonde immediately jumped in again. "We''re trying to survive and you''re just trying to pretend you can save the day. Just wait for the police to come and sort this out, things will be fine." John spoke calmly but clearly distressed and woriedly. "Think about it, its not trying to play hero, its just attacking pre-emptively. If the 3rd floor are struggling well against them we have extra numbers and a better chance of winning if we help them out." The blonde tried to shout but cameron jumped in again. "I dont care if you dont want to, i never asked, anyone that does should help and we should try and make a plan beforehand." Around half of the people in the class including all the people from the other room followed cameron to a white board at the front of the room, he grabbed a whiteboard pen and started drawing up a plan. 5: Strategy and warfare. Strategy and warfare. John walked up to the board as Cameron drew a birds eye perspective of a corridor. "The plan that I came up with is relatively simple, people with these pads like me should shield every one from the front and people who have javelins throw them. We''ll sweep along the entire corridor and people armed with other things will sweep the classrooms in case any got inside. With proper weapons and numbers we can win." John looked at Cameron, fairly impressed. "Thats assuming there''s not too many up there though, right?" Cameron nodded. "If there are more than 10 we should retreat and try to bottleneck them through the stairwell." John got up and practiced how he would throw his javelin without actually thowing it. "So when do we start this plan?" A few of the other students had readied their weapons and were perfectly prepared to go. "I''m ready and I''m presuming most of you are, anyone who is should get ready, we''ll head off in three minutes" John opened the classroom door and stepped outside, seeing the corpse of the orc from before in the middle of the hall he went from room to room, knocking on doors and explaining the situation concisely. When he reached the room the teachers were using and knocked his english teacher came out. "John whats going on?" He looked at her and calmly explained. "We''re properly prepared and the people upstairs are keeping them busy so the best plan is to try to get rid of them quickly." The teacher was about to scold john but sighed and waved him off. "If you get in trouble remember we''re down here for any injuries... i wont tell the other members of staff what you''re planning until youve done but youll probably get in trouble." John returned to the classroom as everyone was ready, cameron lead the group up to the third floor as sounds of intense fighting and screaming sounded through the stairwell.If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. "It sounds like its gotten way worse. If we dont hurry people might... get really hurt." Cameron led the group faster until reaching the top of the stairs, then he formed 3 lines of people in the corridor who were using tackle pads as shields and formed 4 lines of people who were using javelins, john was placed as a spear thrower and was on the 5th line overall. If the battle went quick john thought that he might not even have to fight at all. Cameron made the group slowly march, noting that only 4 orcs could be seen and none of them had weapons. As the group marched john passed by classrooms which people at the back checked on, the further he got along the corridor without incident the better he felt about his chances of surviving. Then the first orc came into range, he had been pinning a boy up against a wall and strangling him. The green mass was showered with javelins by the first group which went surpisingly deep and hurt the creature, the makeshift shields mostly protected the group as he charged and punched at them. The orc fell after bleeding out and the javelin throwers picked up their weapons and continued to walk forward. The second and third orcs were quick to yell and shout, though seeming harmless at first it made john and Cameron feel uncomfortable. Then there was the sound of rumbling which was slowly approaching. John turned to see at least 7 orcs running towards the back of the group. Everything after that became a chaotic blur, john saw people in front of him knocked down, he himself was knocked to the side by an orc and hit the wall of the corridor. The people with shields split into two groups and defended each side of their now tiny group. Johns blurred vision slowly began to restabalize as he stood, he still had his javelin and threw it at the orc who had knocked him over, the creature was struck in the back of the head and died rather quickly. John felt slightly reinvigorated as the black and blue bar reappeared and grew to halfway, followed by the same voice saying something he could barely make out in the chaos of the situation. John stumbled and grabbed his javelin, throwing it at another orc who he hit in the stomach which caused the creature to stumble and fall. Another orc grabbed john and pinned him against the wall, grabbing his bat he beat the creatures arm and loosened its grip, he tried to swing again but his swing was caught and he was knocked down by a hard punch. John crawled forward and grabbed the javelin of the closest person to him, throwing it at the creature as the remaining members of his group hid inside the classrooms. The javelin flew into the creatures chest but missed the heart, john got up and grabbed his bat tightly. He walked toward the creature and swung, hitting its head against the wall several times he felt it cave and was relieved to see the bar and heard the voice speak into his mind. 3 more orcs approached john as he prepared to fight again, then he heard choking and wheezing from the orc he had hit in the gut. He walked to the creature and smacked it in the head as hard as he could until he saw the bar fill and heard the same voice, he heard a door open and was pulled into a classroom. John hit the ground as he stumbled in. John felt a wholly unique sensation spread accross his body as he shook. He could see that his veins had turned blue and were glowing brightly as tingling spread throughout him. Johns vision was given a bright blue hugh as his eyes shot beams of blue light like flashlights. The sensation eventually calmed down and john was trying to process what happened, and then he heard a voice in his head. {Congratulations! Levelled up from level 1 to level 2.} 6: Comeback. Comeback. John got up and looked around the room, 8 other students were inside and only 6 of them were conscious. "What the fuck?! What the fuck?!" The boy who was banging his head against a wall began to complain loudly, turning to john and revealing himself to be Cameron. "How? My plan... it was supposed to be simple... i didnt think about the ones downstairs... the shouting drew them up..." John sighed and realised that like the bar, they probably couldn''t see what just happened to him. John felt something was slightly off and tried his best to pick up on it. "My vision... it got way better..." Every single detail of the room was easily identified by him, he felt his breath was steady and he could hear cries from far down the hall. He mumbled to himself. "My senses... if that light was me levelling up then..." John grabbed one of the tables nearby and tried to lift it, whilst it wasn''t completely effortless the ease of him picking it up was far beyond how strong he had ever been. John thought about a plan to try and save as many people as he could but in the end without enough people taking on orcs just wasn''t something he could think his way around. Another person in the room spoke up, a girl who had been in the room where the attack was planned. "You shouldn''t have attacked them head on, we dont have any information on them. We dont even know if they stay dead!" Cameron looked down in sorrow at these words. "I should have waited and thought through the plan." John sighed. "Everyone who came openly agreed with your plan so we all share the blame. Priority is saving anyone who isn''t dead yet, I think I''m able." Cameron looked at John with suspicion. "You''ll die, no one can beat so many." John shrugged and picked up his bat. "I killed 3 already, that means there shouldn''t be that many left right? If the plan is saving we can just run away when things get dangerous. taking them on head on is impossible, we found that out the hard way, but that doesn''t mean we can''t save people who are just knocked out or slightly injured."Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author. Cameron seemed to gather himself and got up. He handed john his own javelin and then sat on a table, clearly extremely tired. "Send them back here and we''ll hold them till we leave, if we manage to get everyone in the building back to the second floor we can work on getting to the next building and work logically till we have swept the entire school." John nodded and went to the door, as he exited he spotted two orcs close by. He threw his javelin straight through the first orc, spearing it straight through the chest. The bar appeared and grew much less significantly than prior, about an 1/8th. He picked up his javelin. John slowly crept to the closest person and shook them awake, sending them to the classroom, then the next, then the next. Eventually John had cleared the first section of the hallway and had to kill another orc to reach the next section. He watched the orc seemingly patrolling the hall and snuck up on it. He used his arm to tightly choke the orc which caused it to fight against him roughly, slamming him between the two walls of the corridor. John kicked the orc in the back of its leg to get it to the ground and backed up into the wall so it couldn''t move him easily. He held on tight, even once the creature gave up he held tight, finally letting go after alnost 3 minutes had passed by his count, stopping only whem the bar finally appeared and filled to 1/4th. He crept down the hall again, nudging unconcious students sending them down the hall, orcs seemed to mainly use their fists so the students were only unconcious or had sprained or at worst broken bones. John reached halfway down the corridor, past the point where the initial group had made it before being attacked from behind. In front of john was a scene of chaos, several heavily injured and soon to be dead students, an orc that had been speared heavily before dying and a door to a classroom knocked onto the floor with shouting and screaming ringing out through the empty doorway. John woke the students that could be moved without pain and sent them to the room to wait. John snuck through the doorway to find more unconcious students and around 19 students fighting against a group of 3 orcs and being beaten badly. John shouted and drew the attention of two before throwing his javelin and striking one of them in the shoulder. "Fuck..." The two enraged orcs rushed towards John who moved out of the door way, got down low and out of their lines of sight and held his leg accross the base of the doorframe. The first orc tripped over his leg and hit its head against the wall, knocking itself out as the second climbed over before tensing its muscles and getting ready to punch John. John grabbed a javelin from the shoulder of the orc and pulled hard, ripping it free. He grabbed it tightly and held it out in front of himself to attack if it continued to approach. The orc growled before charging and swinging its fist towards john. John''s level up had given his reaction time a boost and allowed him to get low to dodge. The creatures heavy punch hit the wall and caused it to scream in pain, trying to stomp of john to squash him he thrusted the spear and hit it in the gut. John crawled backwards and got up, pulling the spear back again before thrusting and hitting the creatures other shoulder and causing its arms to flail uselessly and he went for a final strike, hitting the creature in the chest. The orc had been pre-empting what john would do and stepped out of the way, it grabbed john by the throat and held him tight as he kicked and struggled. He threw a punch to the creatures face that created a cracking sound from both his fist and the bones of the orc. The punch had created an opportunity and john headbutted rhe creature and used his spear to push deeper and twist. The creature finally stopped struggling and the progress bar and voice appeared. He moved to the other orc and speared it through the eye, killing it aswell as the bar filled to half way. John sighed with relief before realizing that only two orcs had been dealt with out of three. 7: Silver lining. Silver Lining. John walked into the room to find the orc already on the floor, beaten with chairs till it had simply died. John walked over and made sure by piking it through the skull. "Come with me and get everyone else on this floor, we''re going down to the second floor and then the first so that we can reclaim the building." The students in the room complied and went from room to room, getting out everyone that they could and carefully moving the injured. John walked back to the classroom and opened to find everyone he had woken up resting and waiting to head downstairs. John patted cameron on the shoulder as alex ran into the room. "You guys were ok? I thought you were dead when you got put on the ground john." John smiled as he looked at the chipper kid and more students flooded in, once everyone had been moved to the room cameron began to speak. "We should try to move downstairs to the second floor as soon as possible, that way around 2/3 of the people in this building are able to evacuate at the same time and fight if necessary." Cameron gave the students a few minutes to get ready before opening the door and making the journey down. As they reached the second floor they were greeted by a group of teachers that had grown from 3 to 7. "You are all extremely irresponsible!" "You could have gotten killed!" "Are those weapons?!" John and the others were led to a seperate room whilst the injured and the people from the 3rd floor were moved into various rooms. John had his weapons confiscated, as did alex and cameron, they were confined in the room and locked in. John decided that a break from fighting was good and that itd give him chance to investigate. John went to the windows and looked over the forrest with a slightly different angle under the late evening sun, he noticed far more shacks as well as small, green figures moving between the shacks with suprising speed. John stared, transfixed, he wanted to go outside and see what the creatures were but as he was locked in he couldn''t leave.Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon. John layed down and rested, what was supposed to be a few minutes of rest turned into an hour, and eventually he fell asleep. John awoke to a knock at the door and the turning of keys. Two teachers walked in and gave the three of them food from a vending machine on the first floor. John walked straight out of the door, the teachers staring in shock. They were about to shout before he spoke up. "This is well beyond your authority, and locking us up isnt exactly safeguarding, you''ve just made it harder for people we could have helped elsewhere." The teachers backed off and walked away as the trio walked around, the three of them eventually found their weapons, unfortunately confiscated by the P.E teacher. "You kids stole my keys to get these? It was a smart idea but the adults should have done it, not you." John walked by after, lacking a weapon seemed to make him feel vulnerable and he hated it. "The teachers are treating this light the students are at fault, without help saving people is the best idea." Cameron spoke up and clenched his fist. John walked over to where the P.E teacher was and took back the bat and javelin. "Hey! Put those back!" John ignored the teacher as he walked off and went straight downstairs. "Cameron, even if it was mostly luck and stealth i can kill them, i can coordinate a rescue for the people downstairs faster than those bumbling teachers can coordinate one. I just need you two to stay here, more people will just drag us into a head on fight that we can''t win." Cameron shrugged and nodded "i dont think trying to stop you will help the situation, come straight back if there are more than you feel you can handle." John nodded and went to the stairwell, walking down the stairs he was careful not to make a sound. He reached the first floor and could smell orcs. Heading down the hallway instead of through the exit he saw orcs strewn about everywhere, bloodied corpses that were viciously beaten and brutally dismembered. There were also plenty of human corpses around too. "Tried something similar to us and it went sideways...'' John moved from room to room gathering a few students and sending them up, most had either died or ran straight through the exit. A tall figure approached john from behind and he heard loud footsteps. He turned, javelin in hand and was about to strike when he realised it was a human. "You''re... thomas? Right?" The tall and muscular kid nodded, his hands were bloodied and his face was clearly irritated but he helped john go from door to door gathering students and taking them upstairs. As the last batch were sent up john breathed a sigh of relief before heading up himself, followed by thomas. The sound of chattering and conversations sounded as teachers waited at the top of the stairs for john. "You are completely irresponsible! You are putting everyone in danger!" John shook with anger as a teacher berated him. "At least im doing something! Yeah, we have injured students, yeah, you guys dont think we can fight them off. But there''s no reason not to do low risk things like just investigating and helping people out. You people dont have authority in this situation, we''re not on school grounds, fuck i dont think we''re even on earth, your degrees and training mean nothing now. Think practically to save the most people." The students seemed to appreciate what he said but the teachers were prepared to rebuff him. "We''re making sure the people who are here right now are safe, once we''ve done that we will rescue everyone we can." John walked past the teachers, thomas followed and stayed close. "Do you need something?" Thomas looked at john before speaking. "You were about to stab me right? I figure if i stick with you and your friends things will be easier given how eager you were to pike an orc, plus i can fight." John thought that the kid sounded cocky but he was well built and looked tough, so he was a commodity. John headed to another room as a question that he had been pushing back finally became the most important. "What exactly did levelling up do?" 8: Experimentation Experimentation. John walked into a room and sat down, he focused as hard as he could on the voice for 5 whole minutes. Silence. He tried waving his hands around to open a menu. Nothing He tried saying keywords that''d make sense given the context. "Open!" "Status!" "View status" "Open status..." Still nothing. John decided that instead of trying to make something appear that he would instead try to recall the image of the progress bar he saw when he killed or levelled up. He closed his eyes and focused until he could see it clearly, he slowly opened his eyes and there it was. A blue bar sat in the centre of his vision, half full. Next john tried to imagine a typical video game window in the style of the bar he, he pictured something as simple as he could whilst focusing hard. A pure white window popped up with a silhouette of his body inside a window, showing various minor injuries, the window wasn''t 1:1 how he imagined but he realised that this system might be based off of the perception of the person using it. It had felt strange to him that the system began reffering to the green creatures as orcs after he had picked up on it, perhaps a coincidence but john doubted it. He swiped the first window to reveal a new tab, a screen displaying various numbers and words.
John Maxwell Level 2
Strength 10
Agility 10
Dexterity 10
Perception 10
Vitality 10
Intelligence 10
Fortitude 10
Unspent status points. 2
Unspent skill points. 2
John was shocked at the screen before him but above all confused, if he was to estimate how much stronger he''d gotten in one level he''d say he had doubled in most aspects, putting his original stats around 5. John looked at the screen before trying something. "Spend status points, one agility, one strength." {Strength increased by 1}Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel. {Agility increased by 1} John had already been considering it but this had proven that where he was operated under the rules of a game. He checked his status once more to reveal the changes had been reflected.
John Maxwell Level 2
Strength 11
Agility 11
Dexterity 10
Perception 10
Vitality 10
Intelligence 10
Fortitude 10
Unspent status points. 0
Unspent skill points. 2
The reality made john both anxious and excited, but he still had things he wanted to check up including skills which he only had a few guesses about, he had to put that on hold as the door recieved a short, sharp set of knocks. He went to the door and saw two teachers staring at him, they were carrying all of the food with them as well as the first aid kit and were clearly angry at him. "We''ve made the decision that everyone who is able to move is to follow us and evacuate, we''ll be searching for a police station and reporting the situation to the authorities. We are going to prepare and then leave once everyone is ready" John stared at them in disbelief. "So now we have to leave? You get that this might not even be earth right?" The teachers looked back, Slightly smug. "Don''t act so childish, there were just some tremors, well be fine if we get to the police." John rolled his eyes before walking away from the teachers, he walked to cameron, chloe and alex as thomas followed behind. Chloe smiled and patted john on the back as she saw him again. Cameron was secretely talking to a group of students, he turned to john. "We''re gonna get out of here with anyone who wants to come with, the injured people are staying here anyway and the teachers are gonna march us straight to death if we dont run." John nodded and gathered everyone he could and explained, students deciding to leave immediately and running through to the stairwell before the teachers could figure out what happened. The teachers angrily walked over to the classroom. "John you cant just walk away from us like that!" As they came in they found no students inside and hurried to check the other classrooms. The rest of the teachers helped search as the students hurried down the stairs and out through the exit into the parking lot. Orcs seemed to be wandering through the lot and weaved between the cars, they turned to face the huge group of students and all howled. John stared in horror as cameron spoke up. "There''s... dozens... we''re gonna have to run to another building." The group began to run as a small green blur approched, then another, then another. Dozens of small green objects were approaching quickly, running towards the group, tiny bodies with extremely muscular and powerful legs, pointed ears and noses and a similar green pignent to their skin. John shouted for everyone to keep running as he threw a spear that hit one of the creatures through the chest. {Earned 25 exp during battle with Lv. 1 goblin} He swung his bat and hit another as the bar grew to around 3/4ths filled. {Earned 25 exp during battle with Lv. 1 goblin} He grabbed his javelin and continued to run after the others as they reached the other side and went up the stairs, he looked behind him and saw at least a hundred tiny goblins moving towards him faster than he could run. As he ran up the stairs as fast as he could he could hear dozens of them running up the stairs after him. Chairs were strewn about the stairs and people above were panicking, all the doors he tried were locked as he reached the top floor, dozens of them running up the stairs behind him, he started to panic. Swinging wildly john hit two of the creatures and knocked them down the stairs as two tackled him and held him down, he couldn''t swing as they kicked and punched him aggressively and a third held his bat. John fought as hard as he could and tried to shake them off, kicking two of the goblins down the stairs he saw the bar fill to completion as his body was hit by the blue light and strange sensation. 9: Going all out. Going all out John felt the weird tingling spread throughout him as his eyes shone with blue light. He felt his body become lighter as he lifted his right arm and punched one of the goblins back, more of the goblins rushed up and grabbed him as he shook them off and piled them up along the stairs. More and more goblins rushed up and began to fall, rolling down the stairs and knocking others down with them. John took a moment to breathe and pick up his javelin and bat before knocking frantically on the door. The door was opened and he ran in, shutting it and locking it behind him as the goblins got back up and banged against the door. "That won''t stop them for long! You fucking moron you let them know we''re in here!" One student shouted at the one who had opened the door. The window of the classroom was pushed open and several goblins rushed in, more and more poured in and swarmed the classroom whilst the students watched helplessly. John began to panic and used his javelin to knock one of them at the back out of the window. This sent 5 of them falling to the ground, the bar only filled partly. The other students used chairs to beat the goblins down roughly, but the goblins had the numbers and the speed to swarm the students and incapacitate most of them. John swung his bat to free some of the others who fought off the goblins. The goblins were weaker than the orcs but smarter, as the tables turned they retreated and went back through the windows to escape. John held his bat out, his arms shaking as he collapsed, exhausted. John and the others breathed heavily before John decided to check his progress to distract himself. The bar was filled to around a third which made John sigh considering that he''d killed 5 goblins. John lay on the ground and sighed deeply as he calmed down, he knew that the goblins would come back but once he was prepared he''d be able to fight them properly, first he needed to see exactly how levelling up worked and fully explore the benefits. Two people stood by the windows, on guard. One of the students approached John. "You''re really strong, there are adults that couldn''t pull stuff like that off." John nodded before trying to sit down and experiment to relieve some of the built up tension. He focused on systems for learning skills in games, stores and skill trees came to mind and he focused on those.Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more. His first attempt was a page of various skills of alternating usefulness. His second attempt was to create skill trees, he tried but was unable to get a clear enough image in his head. "Stores for now then..." As he went through the store and checked skills very few caught his eye. big swing, throw spear and spear recall seemed to be the most suitable for his equipment but he decided against them so as not to restrict his fighting style. He eventually settled on a skill that cost 4 skill points which was the most expensive he could afford, hard body. Using the skill gave his body a x5 fortitude effect for a maximum of 15 seconds and consumed 5 MP per second. John had no idea what MP meant as he had not customized his system enough to get a proper UI. John spent his 2 status points on strength and agility again, this gave him a physical edge but he decided that he would emphasize magic in the long term, he noted that even though magic skills were expensive they sounded extremely useful and that in a world of unknown factors having unknown magic of your own could be very beneficial. John stopped concentrating and got up, wandering to the door he called the one with the key over. "I''m leaving; there are other people here who can help if anyone needs it." The boy looked at john. "You''re insane... there are people in the main hall downstairs I think, the small ones or the big ones must have killed them all by now though." John nodded. "I''ll keep that in mind then" John left after the door was unlocked and walked downstairs, finding Alex, Thomas, Chloe and Cameron one floor below. Cameron looked up solemnly at John. "They are worse" John nodded. "Much worse." Exchanging pleasantries brought a sense of calm to the group. As everyone was about to head inside a small green figure was seen, then another, then another. As the numbers built up john held his bat tightly. More and more goblins arrived before rushing up the stairs. John swung hard and knocked some of them back, the ones he hit moved back and were replaced so he couldn''t get kills and level up. They tried to shut and lock the door as a goblin stuck its hand in the frame and blocked them. John swung down hard on the arm and forced it back. A heavy punch was heard as an orc punched the door and knocked Cameron back. 7 orcs and dozens of goblins rushed in as John shouted. "Block them with the tables and run!" The students flipped the tables on to their sides and stopped the goblins mostly as orcs rushed through and broke the tables. Javelins hit the orcs and killed 3. 4 more orcs ran with the next wave of goblins and 2 were speared, one was beaten with hockey sticks till it died but the last grabbed a boy and threw him into the other students. A lot of the students knocked down, the orc was about to stomp on Cameron''s head before John tackled it. He was able to barely hold the orc with pure strength, as he tackled it he got on top of the orc and began punching it heavily and repeatedly. Fist after fist hit the creature as John eventually realised it had died and that the bar appeared again finally. He knew his next experiment would be about getting a clearer picture of how many he needed to kill to level up but for that moment he lay on his back and didn''t move. 10: A well deserved rest. A well deserved rest. John was laying on the floor, his body felt sore and he was barely able to move. The other students weren''t in much better shape compared to John. Cameron had his eyes closed and was just trying to rest. "We shouldn''t have been pushing ourselves like that, we''re in a safer position now so the priority is recovering before another wave of them come." John heard what he''d said but was trying his best to focus. During the battle he didn''t want to try out his new skill, hard body, he''d been apprehensive because the skill might have have detrimental side effects like making him tired afterwards or causing extreme pain. He thought that effects like that would just ruin his chances of winning so he decided against using the skill till he was in a safer situation. John decided that trying the skill out was fine since he had recovered a little. He focused on the name of the skill but that didn''t seem to activate it, he tried visualizing his body and trying to make it tougher but this didnt work either. John eventually gave up and with a slightly red face he quietly mumbled. "Hard body..." John felt his skin seem to tighten and become thicker and tougher, he then noticed that his ability to focus was quickly diminishing over the course of a few seconds and eventually he got a headache and his body returned to normal. John sighed as he realised that his MP wasn''t enough to maintain the skill for long. John thought to himself for a moment. "At least we have a metric for it now... i went from full to empty in about five seconds... so if the cost of the skill is... 5 mp per seconds... then i have about 25 mp?" John tried something else. He brought up the menu and tried visualizing a mana bar for himself, concentrating on trying to get the bar to display a number. Eventually john saw the bar fade into the corner of his vison, a blue bar with white numbers reading 4/25. John realised that this confirmed his theory about the system developing according to how the person visualizes it, he also realised that this would give people who play games like himself a UI with more utility and practical value.Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site. John got up, head still pounding, he walked to the corner of the room and looked through the window. Below john was the tech block of the school as well as a group of dead orcs and goblins, this worried john and caused him to search for signs of what killed them. John spotted it as he looked directly down from the window. He saw a pack of large, three headed canines with jet black fur, snarling mouths wreathed with blue flame and chunks of orc and goblin meat being fought over by them. John hurried over to the others and pointed out the pack, Cameron''s face was panicked. "Fuck! thats not good!" John realized that avoiding the dogs was of a high priority. "We can''t clear out the other builsing then, not without taking the long way which will leave up open to the orcs and goblins" Cameron tilted his head. "Orcs and Goblins?" John''s face flushed as he realised how embarrassing his words sounded. "thats just what I call them... ignore it" Cameron smiled and patted John on the back. "No it''s fine, orcs and goblins makes it clearer which we''re referring to." The tone became more serious as cameron continued. "But what you said is right, we either have to abandon the others or take the long way." A voice came from behind cameron, the blonde girl who he''d been arguing with the day prior. "You''ve had plenty of chances to save people, we need to look out for number one. Anyone who wants to live can stay here and think of a way to escape with me and the other reasonable people'' Cameron went to argue back but John grabbed him. "Don''t. Acting overly emotional will just cause more conflict, we can''t force anyone here to help us find people but at the very least we can help them to stay safe here." Cameron seemed to calm down as he walked to the other side of the room and sat down. John focused a little up and to the right to see that his MP bar was full and back at 25/25. John walked back to where he was as alex and chloe approached Cameron to talk to him. Thomas walked towards John and leant against the wall next to him. "I was happy someone was helping out with saving people, people I knew are already dead... those... orcs... got to them before i could help anyone." Thomas went quiet again before eventually speaking up. "I killed three so far, and something weird has happened each time." John looked at thomas before realising what he meant and speaking. "You saw a bar that filled each time you killed one right?" Thomas looked suprised as he turned around to face John. "How did you...?" John spoke back before he could finish. "I saw it when i killed the first one, then the second, third, fourth and so on. Point is after the bar filled once i got stronger, like levelling up in a video game. That''s why I was so bloodthirsty, i''ve been treating this like a game without thinking about the fact that if I die that''s it. You should kill them when you can but don''t be stupid and fight against so many like I did, I have come close to dying too many times even just today." Thomas went silent as he stared at John. "I think... i get what you''re saying. Don''t be an idiot is the gist of it right?" John smirked and nodded. "Yup, that and try to think of a menu like you''d see in a game. That''s pretty much it." John walked over to the sink of the room and tried the tap, the water didn''t flow which he was fully prepared for. The teachers had enough water for everyone to drink for the first day but John realised dehydration was going to become a problem, fast. John took at seat at one of the tables, he had a plan for being able to produce clean water but he was going to need more skill points. He was going to have to ignore his own advice and hunt down some orcs or goblins. 11: Happy hunting. Happy Hunting. John had thought up a plan to get clean water. It depended on whether the skill would give him potable water or not but he had spotted the skill water ball , a skill that created a small ball of water that would stay in place and then disperse after 5 seconds. John thought that the skill sounded useless for combat but he had another idea that he had put off on trying again, forming a skill tree. John sat and then tried his best to focus, forming a much clearer inage of a skill tree now that he had gotten a skill. John smiled as he saw the potential evolutions of hard body. This included liquid body and elastic body amongst others, henoted that they split off as was typical for skill trees in games. "If its about designing the UI ourselves then people who play games have an advantage..." John then realised that if he was to purchase water ball that he would both take care of the need for water and to open up branches to learning magic. John unlocked the door and grabbed a javelin from one of the goblin corpses and brought it back with him. He spoke to Cameron as he came in and locked the door. "We''re running out of weapons and fast Cameron, we''re already out of shields and everyone''s weapons are starting to fall apart." Cameron nodded. "Sports equipment was good short term but they weren''t designed to fight with." John sighed and looked around for alex. "Hey, if we can get the right materials me and you could make some better weapons right?" Alex spoke with a slightly disappointed tone. "Yeah... but the materials we''d need are all in the tech block. Even making better makeshift spears will be hard for us without powered tools anyway." John sighed deeply before walking to a table and sitting down, he tied his shoelaces tight and prepared to go hunting. "Im going out for a bit, I won''t go far and I''ll come back if there''s too many." Cameron wanted to refuse John but sighed and gathered everyone else to discuss plans to rescue people in the third building.Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. Meanwhile John was leaving and heading down the stairs, careful to stay quiet in case there were any goblins or orcs nearby. He then went from the bottom of the stairwell through the exit and back out into the carpark. He looked around and saw no goblins and only 3 orcs, deciding to target the orcs he snuck behind a row of cars to the first. As he approached he caught the disgusting scent of the orc and saw its muscular frame. John quickly stabbed the creature through the back of its skull as the bar appeared once more. John counted in his head that he''d killed 6 since his last level up and the bar was at about a 1/3rd of the way full, meaning killing at least 12 more of them wasn''t an unreasonable goal. John sighed and slowly approached the second orc, stabbing it in the bast of its neck up through the brain and killing it relatively easily. The third orc had caught sight of John but John threw his javelin, striking the creatures chest and causing it to move around in pain. John ran towards the creature and pushed the javelin deeper before pulling it out and stabbing the orc directly through the heart. "That makes 8..." John hadn''t gotten used to the sight of the corpses and decided against looking at it as he made his way to the other side of the parking lot, looking for more orcs to kill but finding instead a gathering of 6 sleeping goblins. John''s hands shook as he slowly approached and raised his spear to the skull of the first, plunging it in and killing the creature painlessly. John repeated this process, trying to not look at them as he killed them in their sleep. John finished as the bar was nearly full and moved, he was going to start looking for new prey to kill. John had come to learn that killing orcs and goblins through stealth was wiser than trying to run or fight directly, not that he couldn''t do either if all else failed. John gave himself a few moments to rest before walking past a wall and turning a corner, then turning another corner and walking straight. John came to another corner and turned to see a green fist flying towards his face. John had no time to guard and was knocked to the floor by the figure. John looked up at what had punched him, vision blurred he barely made out the orcs body though it looked more muscular and also had glowing white markings under its eyes. Johns vision cleared as he got up and gripped his javelin, ready to stab the creature. The orc charged at him again and john used his javelin to try and stab it, the creature dodged to the left before landing a punch to John''s gut and causing him to drop his spear. John fell to the ground from the creatures punch and felt himself nearly throw up after being punched in the gut. John slowly rose as the creature charged again. John tried his best to think and instead of stabbing or punching he activated his skill, hard body and tackled the orc. John barely managed to restrain the orc which seemed to be helpless on the ground as any other orc. John felt weak and lightheaded from being punched but still felt strong enough to knock the orc unconcious and then crush it''s skull. John punched the creature in the head repeatedly and knocked it out, afterwards John got up and dropped a large rock on the orcs head. Noticing that the bar was almost full he figured out that only one or two more kills would be sufficient to level up again. John felt like he was unable to move and so leaned against the wall and rested for a while before slowly stumbling back towards where cameron and the others were. He travelled across the car park and tried to make himself hard to notice, eventually he spotted a slightly strange figure. Ahead of john was a goblin, the thing was taller and skinnier and was also holding a staff with a glass orb on the end. John shook as his mind raced, realizing ehat the thing was John froze. A goblin wizard. 12: powerless powerless. John went in to panic mode as he saw the goblin wizard. John ducked down low and tried to hide. The goblin was stood between him and the door to the stairwell so he couldn''t go back inside. John clenched his hands around his weapon and was prepared to launch it at the creature if it spotted him. John stood slightly and started to sneak to the next car as he heard a noise. John checked where the goblin was to find it was staring directly at him and holding out its staff. The orb of the staff shimmered with bright orange as embers gathered and eventually formed into a small ball of flame. John began to hurry and used the cars for cover as the fireball was launched towards him. He heard a loud bang as it hit the car protecting him, John then stood up and threw the javelin as hard as he could at the creature. The goblin snarled and gritted its teeth as the orb began to glow with purple light, strange runic symbols swirling around the orb as the goblin chanted in an unknown language. The javelin was stopped in midair before it could hit John and was turned to face him and released, the spear smashed through the windows of the car and barely missed John as he ducked low to avoid it. He heard more strange chanting and saw the ground covered in bright orange light. John ran as fast as he could as a large fireball slammed into the car and exploded, knocking John off of his feet and causing him to fall face first onto the concrete. John''s head was spinning and his ears were ringing as he stood to try and get away, more bright purple light and chanting as John felt his body get lighter and lighter before ascending off of the ground at least a dozen feet into the air before being released. John panicked and hurriedly tried to concentrate. "Hard body!!!" John hit the ground with a thud and groaned in pain, coughing roughly as he found himself unable to stand. Loud howling was heard as the goblin screeched in front of John. A pack of the three headed dogs heard the sounds of the fighting and came over.Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more. John''s panic intensified and he prepared himself for death as the creatures spoke words to the goblin in yet another language he didn''t understand, this seemingly went wrong as the next moment a few of the freatures bit and scratched the goblin. The creatures seemingly had no interest in John as they ripped and tore through the goblins scrawny frame. John saw as the orb turned white and a beam of white light shot out from the top of the orb. The goblin swung its staff around, cutting up the dogs and nearby cars as John got up and limped away. John stumbled further and further away from the scene, only turning back to see a completely black cloud had enveloped the battle, before flashing white with lightning. After the battle was out of sight John leaned himself against a wall and took a moment to breathe. He thought about how unprepared he was for a magic using opponent, how he was barely able to dodge and landed no hits on the creature at all. John tried to clear his head and think of a plan to get back to the other students but he couldn''t come up with anything. John decided that risking a fight with the wizard goblin again was beyond pushing his luck and that until he knew magic himself fighting magicians was ill advised. John did his best to walk to the back entrace of the first building, he didn''t particularly want to see the teachers but he knew that trying to get inside would give him a better chance of living through the night. John heard a quiet whimpering as he went through the door, spotting one of the three headed dogs. John immediately went on his guard despite lacking a weapon but the creature didn''t move, still whimpering. John rolled the creature iver to find that it had already died and underneath it was a young pup. He tried his best to ignore the cries of the pup but eventually took off his blazer and used it to cradle the creature. He held the pup tightly and leaned against the wall of the hallway he was in. John laughed as he realised something, he had failed to kill another creature and get the skill points from levelling up. John glanced down at the pup, no longer crying and instead soundly sleeping. John didn''t contemplate killing the puppy for even a second, even if it would grow into a strong looking monster he knew right now it was powerless and couldn''t do anything but sleep and cry. "I''ll try and look after you for a bit. Just sleep for now" He moved into a classroom and shut the door after himself, shutting the blinds to block out the light he tried sleeping by laying down. John''s vision was of the windows in a dark room one second to the ceiling in the next, he rubbed his eyes as he sat up and saw the pup was licking his face. John smiled before yawning and stroking the pups fur, he didn''t know how old it was or how long it would take to grow but the thought of a three headed fire breathing devil hound as a pet made him laugh. The puppy he was currently stroking looked nothing like the ones outside and in fact looked cute if anything. John took the blazer he had been using to blanket the pup and put it back on. John spoke to the puppy enthusiastically. "We''ve gotta go and kill something today, that means you get food and we both get water. I don''t want you to hurt yourself in here but you can''t really fight right now... hmmm..." John pondered for a moment before deciding not to bring the pup along with him and instead hide it, maybe the pups of the three headed dogs were super strong by default but he didn''t want to take a risk. John stretched and yawned once more before deciding that he could just shut the door and let the puppy nap. "Alright... just need to kill one" John opened the door before closing it tightly and hurrying back out through the exit to find an orc to kill. Johns eyes went wide. "Well fuck..." 13: Chloe Chloe John at first wasn''t really a friend of hers, he seemed to her a little rough around the edges and hard to approach. However when chloe finally talked to John she realised that he wasn''t really anti social at all, he just didn''t look particularly friendly. Chloe made a habit of talking to John when she could, she always had fun talking with him. Before she knew it the two of them were friends and hung out regularly, John seemed to clean himself up a bit before he hung out with her which she found to be quite cute. Chloe looked down, she had considered it before but she might have developed a bit of a crush on John over the years. As she thought about how John had helped to try and get everyone to relative safety, she hoped he had enough sense to make sure he stayed safe too. The entire classroom turned to the windows as a small explosion was heard. Every student climbed over each other to go to the windows only for another explosion to sound moments later. The second explosion shook the room and caused students to fall over, after that no on dared go near the windows in case whatever caused it spotted them. The students all sat down and tried to stay quiet as loud howling could soon he heard. Chloe''s heart raced as she thought once more about John and realised that he''d probably died. Chloe began to cry softly and held her face in her hands.Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator. Cameron was currently frantically talking to the blonde girl who was sat next to him. "What do we fucking do?! That wasn''t something we can fight..." The blonde looked just as worried and spoke back. "I dont know... we need to think." The two calmed down and Cameron eventually spoke up. "Whatever caused that was close by, I''m not the biggest fan of us all moving again but we need to find water soon anyway." The girl nodded. "We have enough to drink for today right? What do we do after that..." Cameron''s expression was worried but his words were hopeful. "We''ll think of something... besides.. There''s a chance John isn''t close by and will be back later..." The blonde girl leaned against the wall and tried to rest. Cameron did the same, closing his eyes. Chloe decided to get up, just high enough to see outside. She looked outside and saw a sea of corpses. Dozens of dogs were dead : cut in half, burnt, bodies twisted in strange directions. The culprit was nowhere to be found but chloe instinctively knew to avoid whatever caused it. "I...i couldn''t see John... but i could see a bunch of the dogs we saw earlier, they were all dead..." The students faces became even more nervous. Chloe, however, looked a bit happier. "This means we can get to the other building right? And it also means that John should be someplace else... so its not all bad news..." The students seemed to cheer up as alex approached chloe and patted her on the shoulder. "John is fine, he''s strong and he had weapons." Chloe rolled her eyes at the thought of him charging against dozens of orcs with a sport javelin and then laughed a little. "Speaking of weapons, if we get you into the tech block there should be nails and hammers and all sorts of stuff right? Think you two can make some better weapons?" Alex smirked. "No problem, only issue is that there''ll be students and teachers in the tech block too." Chloe thought for a moment. "Yeah, you''re right. The teachers might have realized we can''t evacuate now though? They aren''t stupid, they were just trying to follow procedure... we could honestly use experienced adults." Alex nodded and then sat next to chloe. "We''ll probably head off when John gets back" More intense shaking sent some of the students tumbling and explosions could suddenly be heard. "It''s starting again... further away though" The students listened closely as shouting could be heard in a language none of them spoke. The explosions grew closer and the shouting grew louder, the shaking was knocking the students around. Chloe used the hockey stick John had given her to hook herself to a table and not fall. Eventually the shaking stopped as laughing and cheering could be heard, followed by even more intense shouting and screaming. By this point the students just had to look outside and as they did they saw a scene straight out of a fantasy movie. A group of more than a dozen knights in plate armour were stood opposite to a lanky goblin and a huge orc. The creature was perhaps 8 or 9 feet tall, its arms and legs were muscular and thick and its face was less pig like than the orcs. The creature breathed heavily and eventually began to move. With just two steps it reached the knights and used it''s huge fists to punch the knights. The knights themselves were shaking as the creature moved towards them, as it punched their armours were crinkled and warped by the force of the punch as they were sent flying back. The head knight gripped a spear and used it to stab at the creature, but with just a swipe of its hands the man was disarmed and soon punched even harder than the rest. The remaining knights tried to flee but were struck by a beam of light shooting out if the goblins staff. Both of the creatures began to laugh as they walked away, searching for more prey. 14: Gourmet Goblin Gourmet Goblin. John had walked out to find that there was a group of goblins sleeping in front of the entrance. John knew killing them where they slept was a better decision tactically than anything else so he searched for a large rock. John returned from his search with a rock slightly larger than the head of the biggest goblin ; John raised the rock above the first goblin and dropped it. John closed his eyes as the rock slammed into the head of the goblin, he didn''t find the cracking and snapping of bone to be a particularly fun noise. The light began to flow through John once more as he felt his level rise and the power of his body increase. He picked up the same rock and repeated the process, killing all 5 goblins and dragging their corpses back to the puppy. "You''re free to eat them pup, I don''t think they''ll taste great but the other dogs didn''t seem to mind." John shrugged and sat down, he focused himself on opening the skill menu and eventually he found the skill he was looking for : water ball. John purchased the skill but realised he had nothing to contain the water in. He spoke to the puppy as if it were a human. "Alright, we''re heading upstairs to find my bag and my water bottle." The puppy had been viciously tearing chunks from each of the goblins, once it had a taste of each goblin the puppy trembled. {Nearby monster >1 year has consumed sufficient prey, lvl 1 Hellhound evolving into lvl 2 Hellfire wolf} John tilted his head as the puppy grew and grew, reching the size of a young golden retriever after a few moments. The puppy had grown enough that John was worried it might turn on him, even ignoring the appearance of the beast. The wolf''s fur had turned jet black and blue flame was coughed from the creatures mouth occasionally, its ears had grown more pointed and longer and its teeth looked significantly sharper. John remained still, unsure if the creature recognized him. Eventually the wolf yawned and walked over to John, sticking its head out to be stroked. John stroked the puppy and sighed with relief. John laughed as he realised it was the same puppy as before, nothing had changed but its appearance. "Good boy, let''s go" John patted his leg and whistled as the beast began to follow him. "Wait a second... we haven''t given you a name..." John thought to himself for a moment. "I wanna call you Cerberus but you don''t have enough heads... let''s see... since you breathe fire I''ll call you Celsius for now."You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. The wolf seemed to be pleased by John''s name as it rubbed his hand affectionately. The two of them walked through the halls of the bottom floor and up through a stairwell, from there John could see where he had been when the tremors started and so headed in that direction. Celsius followed behind John obediently until they reached his classroom, both stopping. John opened the door and let Celsius inside, quickly making his way to his desk. Picking up and then emptying his bag. John grabbed and opened his water bottle before he put his bag on his back. Shutting the door to the classroom, John sat on one of the desks and began concentrating. "Water ball" John held out his palm as a ball of water formed, it still caught him by surprise that it actually worked but since he was slightly prepared he began using his free arm to catch the water inside of his bottle. John twisted the bottle shut and took a drink. He had considered trying to boil the water but knew that it''d take a while and that he wasn''t even prepared to filter the water correctly. "In the end I just have to drink it..." John remained still for a while, the water was similar to tap water but with a minor difference in taste.
John Maxwell Level 4
Strength 22
Agility 22
Dexterity 20
Perception 20
Vitality 20
Intelligence 20
Fortitude 20
Unspent status points. 2
Unspent skill points. 0
Experience for LVL UP 100/800
John realised that it had slipped his mind to use his status points. "Apply two intelligence" John saw the numbers rise and felt pleased with himself.
John Maxwell Level 4
Strength 22
Agility 22
Dexterity 20
Perception 20
Vitality 20
Intelligence 22
Fortitude 20
Unspent status points. 0
Unspent skill points. 0
Experience for LVL UP 100/800
John remained still and checked through his status before stretching and standing up. John felt that a weapon would be of help, especially if something strong like the wizard appeared again any time soon. He searched through the other rooms of the second floor but couldn''t find any javelins, he found 3 hockey sticks on the ground before choosing the sturdiest of the three. The stick was jet black, a sturdy but comfortable rubber grip allowed John to feel like he could use it effectively. John then realized something and whistled. As Celsius ran over to him he stroked the creature. "Good boy... or girl..." John then sent Celsius over to the corpse of the first orc he killed and allowed it to feed, John figured that four bodies allowes Celsius to level up just like him and that he probably needed eight more to get to level three. "Come on, let''s go to the third floor." John smiled and rubbed Celsius before taking him upstairs and letting him feed. Celsius returned satisfied but still the same size and shape. "No change? Well we don''t want you getting scarily big right now anyway." John hugged Celsius before taking him back down to the second floor and getting ready to leave, pouring some of the left over water to Celsius and then drinking a little more himself. He hoped that the water really was safe. John took Celsius down to the bottom floor again and back to his temporary camp. "Home sweet home" John moved the corpses of the goblins out into the hall before shutting the door and thinking about a way to get back to Cameron and the others, John knew water would be an issue for them at this point "The goblin could lift me... shoot fire balls... shoot a beam... a thundercloud? He might have been killed by the dogs, but I doubt it." John sighed and leaned against a wall, he wished that it was as simple as levelling up and fighting the goblin but he knew that magic was an absolute advantage. John looked out of the window over to where the goblin was when they last fought, it was no longer there but instead there was an armoued figure performing what seemed like a salute. "What?" 15: The knights of Parvus The Knights of Parvus. John had no idea what to do, the seconds crawled by like temporal tortoises as he stared in awe at the figure in his vision. A knight? This really is a fantasy world... John looked at Celsius and smiled. "Normally I''d wanna rush right over and ask for help but we don''t even know if that''s a human, do we?" He stroked Celsius happily, becoming accustomed to giving the rapidly growing creature regular doses of affection. John sat down for several minutes, contemplating whether or not the suspicious armed spearman could be a significant threat, before deciding that getting closer to the knight and investigating would be better than doing nothing. John moved to the door before beckoning Celsius to follow and leading him accross the parking lot and toward the knight. John decided that stopping at a safe distance was for the best and got low to avoid detection by the knight, or even worse a goblin or orc. The knight was stood before a pile of dead knights, all crushed and badly damaged. The knights didn''t appear to have any weapons which made John slightly suspicious. As he managed to get a closer look John realised that the knight was in a full suit of plate armour, suggesting to John that the world he was currently in was capable of producing more complex armours and weapons. If they had guns at this point they''d bring them... a spear isn''t ideal against the wizard... John tried to balance his negative thoughts with the hope that the knight was civilized, deciding eventually to go for a reckless gamble. John stood up and put his hands in the air, aiming to be of as little threat as possible. The knight watched John with hawk like eyes before laughing and sliding a ring onto his finger. "Hello there friend, I am a knight of the glorious kingdom of Parvus. Do not be alarmed, my enchanted ring allows me to speak your tongue for a time." John stared at the knight, trying to process the information. A word stuck out to him, enchanted. Enchantments in games are usually magic effects that are applied to weapons and armour to provide bonuses, John wondered what it would be like to wield his own enchanted weaponry. The knights way of speaking seemed extremely odd and cumbersome to John, realising that the ring probably wasn''t capable of translating things like metaphors or expressions, John tried his best to speak in clear sentences without anything that could be misinterpreted. "I am John, this is my school. We were brought here a few days ago and are under attack by green people."Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel. The knight thought to himself for a moment. Children learn here... and probably died here too... John thought of another important fact, one he hoped that the knight could help him with. "There is a small, green creature that can create fire and lift things." John tried not to crack up at the way he had to speak with this knight. They won''t know what a goblin is... best to be clear and not use words that won''t make sense to them. John stared at the knight with a childlike impatience, waiting desperately for his response. "A mage? If the AlUThawks have a mage then you children must have been slaughtered..." John thought about his friends, slightly sorrowful, before trying to distract himself with another train of thought. AIUThawks? Maybe their words for specific things don''t translate directly... John couldn''t help but feel his mind slip back to thinking about the fates of his friends. The knight spoke to John with a grave and serious tone. "Boy, you have done well to survive this long. My companions are to put this area under siege soon and nothing will live, not an AIUThawk or even a Knjek." John nodded but quickly decided to at least check out where his friends were last. John waited for the knight to leave before whistling for Celsius and stroking him once again. "Good boy. I''m glad you stayed so quiet back there." John walked to the classroom to find it empty, this didn''t surprise him. There was a note on the first table of the room, addressed directly to John. John, We are headed to the cafeteria with a group of people from the main hall and from a room upstairs, we''ll be waiting for you if you are still alive. Alex. John smirked to himself and sighed with relief when he saw the letter. At least the wizard didn''t come up here and kill them then... The cafeteria huh? Not a great place to be given current circumstances but there are worse places. John smiled as he realised why they had headed ti the cafeteria. "Bottled water... clever... kinda makes my entire journey pointless for now though..." John sighed before preparing himself for the journey to the cantine. If it comes to it... at my current level I could kill around 3 orcs bare handed. Just in case, I''ll try and create something useful in the tech block before I head to them. John smiled and pet Celsius once more. "With all those orcs and goblins on the way we''ll be getting you to level 3 soon. You''ll probably be as big as me by then." Celsius barked back. John had sworn he''d heard the other dogs speak some sort of language, John considered both that maybe Celsius would know that by default or that perhaps he could be taught english. John headed through the door, Celsius following behind as John laughed at the thought of the possible weapons he could create.
A group of goblins sat down at their camp, they had just finished killing a devil hound and they were preparing to eat it. The goblin leader smiled perversely as he cut up chunks of the meat. Delicious, hound meat is good stuff! We won''t be hungry for days with this! He began to salivate before taking a bite, which turned into a second bite. A third bite followed, then several more. Eventually the goblin realised he had consumed all of the hard earned hound meat in one sitting. It was just so good... Maybe human meat would taste better though... At that moment his friend''s head burst, blood coating him entirely. What is this? Who did this? The creature got up and searched around with his eyes for the perpetrator, finally spotting the person who had thrown the rock as they prepared to throw another. He was struck by the rock and killed instantly. John looked down at the pile of 4 dead goblins, deciding that it would be best for Celsius to feed on them. "Go ahead, eat to your hearts content" Celsius began to viciously tear chunks of the meat from the goblins and consume them without chewing much. Is this even motivated by hunger or does he just hate goblins THAT much? John stroked Celsius once more before the dog''s transformation began. "Come on then... let''s see just what you look like at level 3." {Nearby monster >1 year has consumed sufficient prey, lvl 2 Hellfire wolf evolving into lvl 3 Chaotic HellFlame Wolf} 16: The Cafeteria. The Cafeteria. This is ridiculous... i''m being turned away? Arriving at the Cafeteria, he was expecting to find scenes lifted from a zombie film : Corpses, horrified survivors, armed people. Harrison was completely taken aback by how many people survived the event, he himself had barely survived against a horde of green people. "Why can''t I be let in?" The boy in front of him was holding one the throwing spears that they sometimes used during P.E, a black spear with a dangerous looking sharpened tip. Harrison didn''t want to take a chance and run at him for this reason. Harrison sighed before the young boy spoke up. "They have people at the library too from what I hear, you have a decent chance if you run there before it gets dark." Harrison nodded and walked away from the boys view. This is fucked! The library?! That''s all the way across the campus! I''d have to run all the way past tech and go to the third building... He began to try his best to sneak across the school grounds, hiding near bushes, using fences and brick walls for cover, Harrison decided to use any and all tools for the sake of survival. Harrison had just finished sneaking past a patrol of goblins, a filthy group of goblins dressed in roughly made rags. From seemingly nowhere a rock was thrown at his head, the rock travelled swiftly and struck the top of Harrison''s head with a thud. Harrison was knocked to the ground and his vision went blurry, he had no desire to die and so tried to stand and run. No... not like this... I need to get up and run... Harrison stumbled forward uselessly after getting to his feet. He tried to run but found his legs felt far too weak, like cooked noodles. He continued to stumble forward deliriously as a huge, tattoed creature walked towards him. What the fuck?! It''s more buff than the others... and it could use the rock as a weapon? Harrison turned a corner and found a door into the tech block, he noticed that the door was locked and began to knock frantically.
John was working on his magnum opus, he''d been spending his time for the past day with Celsius. Celsius at level 3 was capable of producing a much hotter flame from his mouth, John had used this new ability to start creating weapons. The tech block contained a wealth of raw materials, steel and wood weren''t in short supply. The first things he created were his twin short axes, Goblin smasher and Orc smasher.Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. John used the steel to forge half a dozen makeshift axes. When the first 5 axes he forged came out flawed John felt disheartened, he put all of his effort into forging two more. John created 2 almost flawless steel axe heads and began sharpening them, after sharpening the axe heads he fixed them onto the two polished metal handles and attached a rubber grip to their bases. These two aren''t bad... if I did it more I''d improve and make some great ones, but for killing orcs and goblins these two are perfect. John held his two new weapons proudly before starting to work on the holsters for them. John created a simple, sturdy leather belt with two metal rings big enough to slide the handles into. "Perfect, goblin smasher and Orc smasher will be your names then. I will use the both of you for now" John put on the belt and holstered his axes. John was about to get to work on some defensive gear when he heard a panicked knocking. Walking to the door led John to sse the terrified face of a student who looked to be about his age. He opened the door and let the boy in before trying to close it, a set of huge green fingers blocked the door and slowly pried it open. John stepped back and drew his axes as Celsius could be heard barking and growling angrily. "Come on then! Let''s do this you big green bastard!" John realised that he had yet to fight in melee with his level 4 stats, and that he was probably able to kill most orcs with relative ease by now. He ran toward the orc and jumped at the creature before kicking it hard through the door, the huge mass of green meat flew backwards as John landed and began to run again. John jumped high and swung his axe down, aiming for the head of the orc but meeting his guarding arm. The orc''s guard was torn straight through but reddirected John''s swing into the creatures shoulder. The orc backed away, missing a hand and barely able to use the other, the creature growled at John with an animalistic rage. John smirked and swung with his left hand, striking the orc''s head and cutting it in two. John immediately turned from the body as the bar appeared once more. He pointed forward with his axe and Celsius happily ate from the body of the orc. John turned to meet the gaze of the boy, he was wearing an utmost confused expression. Harrison was shocked and seemingly terrified as he stared at John. What was that?! That wasn''t something a human being could do! "H-h-how did you kill it so easily?" John shrugged. "Practice? I mean I''m not used to it but I''m physically strong enough to beat them and they don''t typically do much beyond swinging aimlessly." Harrison stared at John still, extremely confused but put at ease as John spoke normally to him. John turned his attention away from Harrison and instead to Celsius, whom he began to stroke, this dog was quickly becoming combat ready and John felt proud. He had an idea that he''d let Celsius practice but progress was slow and so he resorted to using him for forging. The blue flame that Celsius could breath could be somewhat controlled by Celsius, this gave John the idea of him trying to fire out his breath as a beam. Celsius had been practising diligently, but the language barrier and Celsius'' juvenile status left him a slow learner. Harrison spoke up again to John, intending fully to try and ask for his help. "So what exactly are you doing here?" John turned to Harrison and spoke. "I''m making gear, what are YOU doing here?" Harrison pointed in the direction of the library through one of the windows. "I''m going to the library" John spoke back with curiosity. "Are there people in the library?" He''s definitely gonna try and get me to take him there... he wants protection... "Even if there are i don''t want to take you, I am heading over to the Cafeteria." Harrison looked at John happily, realising that his opportunity to persuade him had presented itself. "I came from the Cafeteria, they are rejecting people because they are apparently full" John smiled back at Harrison. "That means that a lot of people survived right? I''m gonna head over anyway. I''m leaving the campus soon and you should too." Harrison tilted his head slightly and spoke with a tone of curiosity. "Why should we leave?" John turned back to Celsius and stroked him calmly. "Because this place is gonna be a warzone soon." 17: Walking the dog. Walking the dog John went to the workbench to get started on his armour and shield, he was going to create some simple pieces of armour for his vitals. He had realised that there was a storage room fairly close to the tech block with props and costumes for theatre productions, this meant that materials for creating the under layer of his armour were available. John left the tech room with Celsius and walked to the third main building, he had no idea what things would be like but he expected similar levels of chaos. As John reached the building he realised that things seemed strangely calm. Maybe they all evacuated right away? The building looks untouched... John tried to open the door but found it to be locked, he knocked softly several times to try and get the attention of the people inside. After around a minute the door was unlocked and a smug looking boy walked out. "Look. We said this to the last guy, we don''t have room for bottom feeders. Kindly leave now before you attract the monsters." John sighed, holding his hand in the door and forcing it open. "Look. I''m not staying here, I''m finding some materials and then leaving." The rude boy tried to block John''s path but was pushed aside. John walked over to the storage room and forced it open, filling his backpack full of t-shirts, sweatpants, hoodies and a few sets of gloves, socks and changes of underwear. John walked back out of the room as Celsius ran through the doors to meet him. A group of students approached John with scowls. "You can''t just force your way in here! Get the hell out!" John shrugged and left, returning to his workbench and beginning to create a much more suitable outfit for fighting. John started by cutting several white t-shirts into sheets of cotton, cutting and sewing them into a long sleeved t shirt that would be the first layer he would be wearing. He thought back to how he never thought to ask his mother for help and always sewed clothes up by himself if they ever got ripped. John got started on the second layer. He had around 4 attempts of using Celsius to heat the raw materials, a hammer and his heat resistant body to shape the metal into a suitably sturdy torso armour. Quenching the dimly glowing armour by repeatedly casting waterball. He eventually created a sturdy armour and gave the armour some finishing touches. The armour would serve as the second layer of defence for him.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it. An idea sprung into John''s head as he looked at his new armour. He sat down to concentrate, eventually forming a menu that was clearly for appraisal and smithing. I fucking knew it! The limits of this system will be decided by how much you know about games! John stared intensely at the screens before him. Pointing to the axe on his left, goblin smasher, he noticed that the screen changed to one describing his axe.
Name: Goblin Smasher
Damage: 10(20) (20 Str = 2.0X)
Rank: Ordinary
Upgrade: 0/10
Enchantment(s):
Upgrade weapon? Costs: 1 Upgrade points. (0 Currently)
John stared at the screen with curiosity and excitement. This is amazing?! If this is truly like a game then a map or an inventory system would be great but I''ll try that later... for now I''ve got to finish my set of clothing and work on a shield. John searched through the remaining clothes he had picked up from the storage room. John pulled out what he was looking for, a plain black knitted hoodie. The hoodie was one he had purchased that was too big for him and had donated to the school, he thought that he would feel more comfortable in an outfit he had purchased himself. John put it next to the armour and shirt before working on some armour to go along his arms. He spent some time forging armour that could sufficiently protect his arms, but he realised that making parts for the fingers on the gauntlet was far too hard for him. He decided to just wear a pair of gloves for protection from the temperature, he however added metal strips along the guantlet that had short rounded spikes on them. A knuckleduster won''t do much... but I don''t think I''ll complain if I wind up needing them. John finished by picking a pair of pants, sweatpants that he could properly run around in. He also put on a pair of sports shoes that were just large enough to fit on him. This will do... alright a shield is up next. A kite shield is out of the question... for now I don''t really even need a shield... but for fighting against blades... a thinner, lighter shield made of metal would work? John thought for a while and decided that he would eventually try to create a heater shield, but for that moment he felt sufficiently prepared. John walked over to Celsius and rubbed his belly. "Good boy. you''ve worked hard and you deserve a rest. It''s nap time and then later we''ll be heading to the Cafeteria, you''ll be fine to show yourself once I get everyone and leave the area. You can kill a few goblins before that if you''d like" John lay against Celsius and slept soundly, cuddling the creature. After sleeping for a few hours John woke up to the sensation of Celsius licking his face, John smiled as he woke. "Hey come on. stop that!" John stroked Celsius before getting up and changing into his new set of clothing. John put on his belt with his twin axes after changing and stretched a little, he got ready to leave for the Cafeteria. His stomach rumbled as he remembered he hadn''t eaten properly in a while, he whined and searched for one of the school vending machines. After walking with Celsius for a while he found it, it was stocked almost completely with snacks. John decided to do something all humans have wanted to try, he smashed both of his axes down hard through the glass of the vending machine. John put away his axes and filled his bag with every snack in the machine, eating a chocolate bar as he prepared to go to the Cafeteria. "This is gonna be a pain." 18: An Unexpected Development. An Unexpected Development. John navigated accross the sprawling campus, both his axes were held nervously in his hands and he was prepared to fight at a moments notice. The goblins and orcs didn''t appear ; John remained vigilant as he journeyed along the schools concrete grounds. John eventually found a large pile of goblin and orc corpses, the stench of rotting flesh pervaded his nose and almost made him throw up. Who the fuck did this? Or... what the fuck did this? John stared in bewildered horror at the stiff and decomposing cadavers. His mind was filled with questions: which students he knew of were capable of doing such a thing? Would they be back? Was this caused by a student or something that hunts the orcs and goblins like the wolves do? Eventually he decided that leaving the area with the corpses was fine. Celsius didn''t seem to have much of a desire to eat the bodies, John didn''t blame the dog as the rotting smell wasn''t particularly appetizing. John and Celsius continued until reaching the halfway point, a lone goblin was visible through a window. The strange goblin was mostly obscured, but it was clearly taller than the rest ; The goblin was a pale green and had much longer ears than the generic goblins. Doesn''t look like a wizard? John didn''t particularly want to add many more unknowns to his plan and so continued on unimpeded by the creature. He eventually reached his destination, the cafeteria. The fairly modern building looked far less impressive in his current situation, looking dull and bland. John climbed the steps to reach the cafeteria, finding a young boy with a spear at the door. "Stop where you are. We aren''t letting anyone in!" John rolled his eyes and simply walked past the boy, searching for the others. He eventually found Cameron and Alex. "Hey guys." They looked at him with suprise and relief.If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. "John! You''re ok... thank fuck." Cameron smiled and patted John on the shoulder. "Chloe has been out with a small group, killing orcs non-stop. I''m sure she''ll be back soon and she will be really happy." John felt that for the first time, he had people other than his family that genuinely cared about him. Taking out two chocolate bars from the vending machine, John gave food to Cameron and Alex. "Do either of you have water bottles, I''m going to show you something." The two of them nodded and took out their water bottles, John led them to a secluded area and used his magic to fill both the bottles. Alex spoke with surprise. "What the fuck?! How did you do that?" Cameron seemed more collected. "Is it drinkable?" John nodded back at them before explaining. "Killing them makes you stronger, granting opportunities to gain special abilities like that whilst also increasing your physical capabilities." It seemed that the two of them took a moment to consider it before Cameron shrugged and Alex drank his water. "We were running out of bottled water so this will come in handy" Alex looked at John before looking at his twin axes. "You''re not in uniform, and you have those weapons. Were you at the tech lab?" John nodded, opening his hoody to reveal the armour plate covering his torso. "Cameron and me have weapons too, we looted them from a bunch of dead knights. There are knights here too." Johns elation and relief from being reunited with his comrades numbed him to the dangerous situation. "We have to all leave soon, more knights are coming. There is also a goblin... wizard." The two of them looked at John seriously and decided to take what he was saying seriously, at that moment a group of students returned. "Fuck! There is an abnormal goblin!" Chloe started to complain abd shout along with the rest of her group. "It was... so fast... too fast..." John approached her and showed that he was alive. This sudden realisation seemed to calm Chloe who had begun to spiral into grief. "John. You''re alive. You''re back, finally you''re back." She hugged John and held tight for around 20 seconds before turning back to the rest of her group. "Look. it was fast, but im sure we can think of a way to beat it''s speed if we try hard enough." The others looked at her with consideration, finally deciding to make a plan to deal with the fast goblin. The guard from outside was sent flying back after a moment of them contemplating. The young boy flew against a wall and was hit hard, Celsius ran inside and rushed to John''s side. Three figures stepped through the door : A much more muscular looking orc, a pale and tall goblin, and the same goblin wizard that had almost killed John previously. John looked around the room at the students who had just a moment ago been relaxing. John wanted to run, wanted to take the people he actually liked and run as fast as they could. But he didn''t. He ran up to the large orc and punched it hard, twisting the creatures head slightly with his level 4 punch. Celsius seemed to settle on the goblin wizard as a target and zoomed towards the goblin like a giant, flaming bullet. A bullet with dozens razor sharp teeth. The large orc tried to punch John to counter but he jumped back just in time. John knew that with the second goblin still yet to join the fight he had his best chance. The large orc roared with unbridled fury as Celsius dodged the wizards attacks, firing blasts of blue flame. John saw from the corner of his eye that a blur was quickly approaching him. The larger, faster goblin was almost upon him as the large orc swung its fist again. John had another idea, jumping to the side and getting low with his leg out. He caused the orc to punch the large goblin and send it flying. At that moment a spear flew towards the orc and struck its shoulder. 19: A team battle. A team battle John watched for a moment as the man who had thrown the spear approached, it was the armoured knight who had spoken with John earlier. "You children seem like you are need of help. I will handle the large one, the others I will leave to you and your pet." John turned to fight the much faster goblin as he heard the sound of the knight flying towards the large orc. John watched the grounded goblin rise to its feet and simply stare at John with its empty and lifeless eyes. The goblin then charged at John with speed he simply could not counter, the creature landed several punches and the speed of the attacks caused sufficient force to send him tumbling backwards. John rose to his feet after a moment and ran towards the goblin to counter attack, the goblin merely weaved through any attack he threw and launched a bullet-like counter that he had both insufficient speed and insufficient experience to successfully dodge. The goblin was toying with John, as if he was moving in slow motion and it simply couldn''t be bothered fighting him. John used both of his axes to try and strike thr creature, but every swing was far too telegraphed and the creature simply sidestepped and struck him back. He stared bewildered at his opponent that was currently speed-blitzing him, John tried to think of a plan as fast as he could. John charged once more at the goblin that began to charge at him in turn, they met in the middle and John swung goblin smasher towards the creature. The goblin seemed bored and decided to have fun at John''s expense, jumping over his swing and landing otop his shoulders. John felt the heavy weight on his shoulders and quickly fell to the ground, barely able to move his arms. John struggled desperately until the creature got off of his shoulders to give him one last chance to attack. He tried to rack his brain for a plan before realising that he had a magic that could apply to this situation and terrain. John used the spell water ball, coating the already slightly slipperly cafeteria floor in a wet layer. As the goblin charged towards John it lost its footing and fell to the ground, an ankle twisted and severe head trauma.The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement. John raised an axe above the creatures head and swung, chopping the skull of the creature in two. Taking a moment to breathe, John observed the bar fill much more than before. The bar had almost completely filled and required at most 4 or 5 kills of normal enemies. John turned his attention to the other enemies; The knight was fighting fairly evenly against the large orc but Celsius was struggling against the wizard. John ran towards the wizard and swung his axe, this surprise caused the wizard goblin to hastily raise a barrier. Celsius took advantage and blasted the barrier with the full extent of his flame, trapping the goblin in what was essentially an oven. The audible sound of searing goblin flesh was coming from within the barrier as the glowing bubble of energy slowly retreated from the battle. John watched the knight and orc, the knight''s spear was embedded into the fist of the orc. The knight used a wind spell that tore the arm of the orc to shreds and left only chunks of meat and a pool of blood in its place. John stared, bewildered. The knight was powerful. The orc seemed to mimic its wizard companion and ran away hastily. John and the remaining students collectively sighed with relief as the orc ran. Cheering could be heard as thunderous and frantic steps became quieter and quieter. John thought it odd for them to retreat entirely when it was clear they only needed to withdraw for a moment, John concluded that they definitely had a plan or whoever was controlling them did. A question popped into John''s mind and he approached the knight. "Are they usually organised and cooperative like that?" The knight shook his head. "No, my king thinks that a deoomun has been commanding their armies from the shadows. It makes sense as they are known to scheme and commanding simpler creatures isn''t a challenge." The knight concluded the conversation by placing a ring in John''s palm and leaving for an unknown reason. Normally John would want to follow the knight, but ensuring everyone would evacuate the school before it became a battle ground took priority. He immediately started to awkwardly explain the situation based on what he knew: They were in a fantasy world, magic exists, monsters exist, they needed to leave before the entire school became a warzone between the monsters and humans. The other students seemed to mostly understand and began to prepare to leave, Cameron walked towards John with a staff radio. "We don''t know if anyone besides teachers will have them, but if any other students are here they deserve a chance to live." John nodded and simply allowed Cameron to do as he wished without discussion. John next went to alex and started to discuss plans for weapons development. "The tech labs were fine as far as makinf fairly decent weapons with our materials and modern techniques. If we are in the wilderness it will be harder, I wish I had made something for you at least. Sorry alex." Alex shrugged. "John we''re in a video game world, magic exists, monsters are trying to kill us. You looking out for yourself isn''t exactly unexpected. Be a little selfish if its so you can live longer." John smiled at Alex''s words and then decided that he would try to help evacuate everyone, then appraise the ring the knight gave him. John knew that things were shaping up to be more and more dangerous the longer he allowed himself and everyone else to stay on school grounds, goblins and orcs weren''t exactly easy to deal with as it was. John knew eventually he would face more enemies like the fast goblin of he stayed in the school, it seemed to attract monsters. The knight returned and showed John and the other students a series of wagons prepared for them. 20: An Unstoppable Force An Unstoppable Force. John and the rest of the students from the cafeteria were taken to a concrete are completely covered in horse-drawn wagons. The sight of dozens of wagons in ordered rows allowed all of the students some reprieve from the stress of their situation. John and his fellow survivors were greeted by many other groups of students being brought to the wagons, this allowed John to understand the intention of the knights. An evacuation. John and the other students were herded into the wagons, Celsius happily sat at John''s feet. Cameron was sat accross from John and started to converse as the wagon set off on its journey. "This might finally be over..." John was clearly not as confident as Cameron, hanging his head low as the horses carrying the wagons started to move. John finally lifted his head and spoke. "Looks like we''re heading off." He looked around the carriage, he recognized Cameron but the other 4 people were a mystery. One of the people turned to John and smiled. "My name is Sam. This is Elena." He smiled and then pointed to the girl next to him. Another person looked at John before speaking. "You''re... John? My name is Oliver." The last person raised his head and revealed himself to be the boy John had saved from the tattoed ogre ealier. "I''m Harrison." The carriage wasn''t the smoothest ride but John much preferred it to running. I wonder where we''re going? I''d ask the knight but he seems to be guarding us all... John stared at the knight who had saved him earlier, he was riding a snow-white horse that allowed him to guard at the front of the caravan. The occasional goblin or orc were dispatched easily by the knight. The caravan never lost speed as they travelled along the road at an impressive speed. John considered something as he recalled his fight with the extremely fast goblin, he used his magic to win the fight. Even non-combat magic had an application, John also considered that magic like waterball could probably turn into waterball shot through just training. It was likely considering that John felt a slight degree of control over the waterball whenever he used it, he imagined that with practice he could eventually manipulate it directly.You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author. John also thought about his other skill, hard body, the skill didnt really give John a sensation of control but he imagined that practice with it would allow him to access stronger versions of the skill with time. John was rocked around as the wagon bumped on the ground, this disrupted his concentration and left him talking to Cameron again. "What do you think will happen when we get where they''re taking us?" Cameron contemplated for a moment. "I have no idea, realistically we''d be evacuated to a place where they can sort us into groups right?. Who knows with this place though." John turned and watched as the trees were passed quickly and eventually the wagon began to cross a beautiful mint-green meadow. John could smell the grass as the wagon rushed by. Leaning back into his seat and breathing deeply with relief, he began to think of what he needed to do to get out of his current situation. At that moment, a large group of goblins and orcs were spotted ahead of the caravan. John froze. The students were on edge but the knights merely smiled before moving towards the creatures. The goblins were the first to die, skewered by more than a dozen knights. The orcs fared moderately better, fighting relatively evenly with the knights for a while before eventually being overcame. The knights cheered and celebrated as a rumbling could be heard. Approaching the convoy were two shadowy figures : a small goblin, and a large one-armed orc. Students began to complain. "They fucking followed us?" John became angry, the knights approaching the creatures and engaging them. The orc punched at each of the knights but missed, only its weaker arm was remaining and its damage was insignificant. The knights danced through the orcs attacks before finishing the creature by piercing it through the eye. The goblin fared much better, it continually deployed barriers to block the knights. The goblin fired beams of white light and shot fireballs continually. Eventually the goblin began to chant, its staff glowing purple and being enveloped in runic symbols. 2 of the knights were suddenly lifted into the air and flung, the goblin laughed sadistically before covering the area in a thundercloud. At that moment a blue beam was fired through the stomach of the goblin, searing through its flesh and leaving a gaping hole in it''s stomach. Celsius held his mouth wide, fire dancing along his tongue. He had finally managed to fire a beam. John began to pet Celsius proudly as the knights and other students stared, astonished. Celsius wagged his tail with pride and jumped down, eating the corpses of the two creatures. The same knight that had helped John earlier approached. "You... have you learnt beast taming? It''s a hard practice to master. But I believe it''s very useful." John didn''t know what to do for a response, simply nodding. Everyone sorta knows how to handle pets right? I had a dog as a kid but I''ve never really had much affinity for pets... Celsius is just so well behaved and helpful though. Everyone began to celebrate their victory over the goblin and orc. John sighed with relief before calling Celsius back into the wagon. As the knights mounted their horses again, the caravan began to move. John felt relieved once more as Celsius began to sleep on his lap. Cameron turned to John and smiled. "With that, every obstacle should be pretty much dealt with, no?" John shrugged and the others stared at the meadow as they moved accross it.
Around half a mile directly ahead of the caravan, a figure was stood. His body was emanating sparks of purple, black and red. A demon. 21: An immovable Object An Immovable Object. John and the rest of his group were all pondering what they would do in the future, events over the last few days had brought their primal fears and needs to the forefront and the children were ill equipped to deal with their situation. I hadn''t thought too much about this... but chances are we aren''t going to be able to just go home. Even if someone knows the method it''s probable that they''ll try and force us into doing something for them in return. If this were a fantasy book killing some sort of dark lord would work, doubt someone that conveniently evil actually exists even in this world. Cameron began chatting with other members of the group as John thought to himself. "Does anyone here know anything about our situation?" None of the children spoke up, Cameron looked down with slight disappointment. "So... where were you guys when this started?" One of the girls looked at Cameron. "We were in P.E. a group of those things attacked us and we were helpless... we couldn''t do anything at all..." One of the boys also spoke up. "I was in English, one of our teachers used a pencil to kill one of those green bastards." The convoy of students and knights came to a halt, a horde of orcs and goblins were blocking the path ahead of them. The knights began to shoot arrows and swing swords at the creatures ; The ground became covered in a layer of red. Soon the obstruction had been removed and the convoy charged forward with a much greater confidence than before. John changed his line of thought, looking down at Celsius and smiling. He''s a very loyal and helpful companion, I''m a little unsure about how easy it''ll be to take him around if he grows much bigger than he is right now though. John and the others were quickly shaken and thrown around the wagon as the ground tremored, John landed on the floor with a thud and Celsius went to the ground to guard him. John rose to his feet along with the rest of the people in the convoy, staring from the wagon to find the cause of the tremors.If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. He looked in dismay as the knight who had helped him kill the large orc rushed towards a smiling figure. "I''ll kill you demon!" He ran with his spear extended and fire in his eyes, the tip of his spear span rapidly as he thrusted towards the creature. The figure simply rose his hand to meet the knights spear and smiled, launching him back with a blast of red, black and purple. Other knights attempted to incapacitate the figure as he effortlessly defeated them all. All of the students began to panic but none dared to leave the relative safety of the wagons. The knights who had fallen to the creature were unconcious or seriously injured. The figure lifted his arm and one of the wagons floated towards him, he checked each of the students before tossing the wagon to the side in disappointment. "No heroes... this might take longer than expected." He dragged another wagon towards him before tossing it aside after a moment. John wasn''t as focused on the figure as Celsius was agitated but when he turned he saw the figure was carrying several students with him. Eventually he began to drag the wagon John was sat in, John tried to calm Celsius as he braced himself dor the wagon being thrown. The creature was wearing a mask but it''s eyes could be clearly seen, vicious eyes with specks of black, red and purple. "Excellent, a hero." Cameron was lifted from the wagon and knocked unconcious as John stared in horror, Cameron being added to the pile of people as many of the students climbed from their wagons and ran away. The figures gaze almost fell onto John but Celsius jumped up and fired a blast at the being, a beam of blue light struck the creature and he became enraged. "You filthy creature! I''ll end your life for that!" The "demon" lifted Celsius from the wagon as John shook with fear, he began to viciously kick and punch Celsius who was whimpering and yelping in pain. John felt powerless, he was scared of the being but tried to focus himself. He focused on the sounds of pain Celsius was making and began to boil with rage. The demon wound up to launch another kick at Celsius as John climbed out of the wagon. John glared in anger at the unaware demon before he prepared to fight. "You rotten piece of shit!" John launched a punch directly to the head of the demon and seemed to daze it ; Before he began throwing more and more punches with rage and striking the creature as hard and fast as he possibly could. John threw another, much stronger, punch to the creatures rib-cage that made it shake as it began cracking with a resounding "crunch". The creature however seemed to brace for this and launched a heavy punch at John to counter him, lifting John and Celsius into the air with it''s power. The wagons were lifted and the students climbed out of them as they were flung at John and Celsius, thrown with speed high enough to make them whistle as they flew through the air. Several wagons crashed into John as he felt immense pain, activating his skill "hard body" to fight through the assault. John covered Celsius with his own body to protect him as the large ball of broken wood and metal was thrown by the demon into a nearby river. The pile of wood debris and metal crashed into the water and John felt the pain of his wounds, he hoped that levelling up allowed him to heal faster since it improved most other aspects of him. He didn''t hear the creature approach and assumed it believed him to be dead. John felt his head spin but saw that Celsius was still alive, his consciousness began to fade as he lay in the rubble of the wagons. "Fuck..."
22: Alone Alone. John woke, Celsius was no longer near him. He crawled through the pile of wagons and looked around for any other students or even the knights that had helped them. John found nothing. The area around where the group has been attacked was covered in a bubble of faintly glowing purple magic, John didn''t enjoy the prospect of crossing it but knew he had very few options. He decided to test the safety of the bubble by putting his arm through, the arm was uncomfortably cold but he suffered no injuries, deciding to try and walk through. John walked through the bubble. His entire body was struck by a feeling of unbearable cold, like a thousand tiny daggers of ice pierced his skin. John felt himself fall for a moment before the hellish cold partially subsided and he found himself in a poorly lit wooden room. John investigated the room and discovered cracked sections of the floor that let in water. "Am I on a boat? How?" John wanted an answer to his question but knew an icy death would provide him no answers, he went up to the deck of the boat to scout out where exactly he was. John had unknowingly found himself on an almost arctic coast, snow covered mountains and boreal forrests in the distance. The shore was enticingly close but John was wise enough to know that he''d die of exposure if he got into the murky water, and his body would probably go into shock if he dove in instead of adjusting himself slowly. "Well I''m fucked... I hardly think waiting around for the medieval equivalent of a coastguard would be helpful even if I wasn''t in freezing cold conditions. I''m probably gonna have to pull a titanic I guess." John had decided to try and free up a piece of the boat to float on and keep his body mostly dry whilst he paddled across, he had figured that it would be a better shot than blindly jumping in. John had begun to sew a seed of hate towards the demon that had almost certainly put him in this situation, he had made a mental note to beat the demon to a pulp once he got back into a more comfortable enviroment. "Alright. Let''s find a good candidate." John spent a while freeing up a suitably sized piece of wood to use for floating, he also made sure to search the boat for supplies but found only a bag of unopened red bottles. "Well there''s an equal chance of them being either a potion or a poison or even just some mundane drink, in any case I''ll take them." John gathered his things and moved the piece of wood to the edge of the ship, he got on and started using the piece of debris like a paddleboard to cross the ice cold water.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. John knew that on earth even the coldest of waters still contained dangerous oceanic predators and decided to paddle as fast as he possibly could. The closer he got to the water, the greater his fear of being dragged back to sea became. John was never an ocean fan but he had to try his best to ignore his gnawing paranoia. When he reached the shallow part of the water he felt two sharp spines pierce his legs, electricity shot up through his calves and he fell backwards. Johns belongings were pushed to shore but he himself sank around a meter before hitting the floor. A school of small fish began to swim towards John, investigating him and shooting more spines into the rest of his body. They seemed to be crystals that created electric current, magical no doubt. What the fuck do I do? I can''t win in this situation! I''m far from in my element and I''m pretty shit at swimming to begin with! John''s arms were already covered in the spines, so reaching for his axes was impossible. He tried to overcome the electricity and somehow move his body forward but the creatures were already biting at John, the combined strength of the group began to carry him away from the shore. Not like this! I''m not dying. That''d be beyond unfunny. These little electric pieces of shit are gonna die, not me. John activated his skill hard body to prevent any more spines piercing his skin, the first few spines had already seemingly ran out of juice and his arms were able to move enough to start pulling out the rest. John pulled more spines from his legs and paddled towards the shore, he got to the point where he was barely in the ocean and stood. The creatures had approached too close to shore and now John was no longer playing in an unfair battle ground, despite his limbs being somewhat dulled and slower he used his axe to kill two of the fish. John''s mind filled with rage as he struck more of them with his other axe, killing enough of the fish to feel satisfied as the reat retreated. The power that came with levelling up filled John. He knew that meant higher stats and more skill points but he wasn''t exactly able to sit down in the freezing cold and mess with his stats. John now had both fish meat and somewhat tough and sharp crystals, he had been given an idea but he needed to rest first. John took both the fish and the crystal spines and added them to the bag of bottles he found on the ship, he gathered them all and tried searching for a temporary resting place. John eventually found an uninhabited cave and tried starting a fire with the wood he had floated to shore with. He was unsuccessful but realised he had probably gotten enough points to purchase some kind of fire spell. and words.
John Maxwell Level 5
Strength 27
Agility 27
Dexterity 25
Perception 25
Vitality 25
Intelligence 29
Fortitude 25
Unspent status points. 0
Unspent skill points. 2
Experience for LVL UP 0/1600
He added 2 of the spare status points to intelligence. John then opened the skill shop and found two fire spells, both one point each warm andEmber. Buying the two spells and trying them out allowed John to dry the wood and warm up his body, and then add an ember which lit the fire and allowed him to rest and stop using his magic. Thinking about this logically... what the hell am I gonna do? 23: Uncivilisation Uncivilisation John had very little time even with the fire and he knew it, conditions like these wouldn''t be beaten just with some hastily constructed fire. John on the contrary was using the fire to warm his clothes, his level five body was enough to survive cold for a moderate amount of time as long as he didn''t get wet. John also had spotted the fire magic he was most looking forward to achieving, Flame Manipulation,like it sounds the skill allowed him to manipulate fire completely. John figured that with a goal he would be able to survive longer, John set himself the goal of achieving a practical level of magic. The creatures that attacked John in the water seemed to use magic crystals, John didn''t know what he could gain from them but knew that they might make decent makeshift arrows if he had time to create a bow. John touched one of the crystals directly and felt something, the power stored in the crystal and the will of the creature he had killed were fused within. John felt the essence of the power within the crystal travel into his body, causing extreme pain as his entire right arm suffered a painful shock. John felt as if his arm was being pulled apart violently from the inside out and his skin seemed to want to escape his arm with a hellish stretching, his arm fell limp after suffering for what felt like an eternity. John had no idea what he did but he figured that it couldn''t be good, he wanted to figure out what happened and appraised the crystal as he had appraised his axes earlier. The crystal only displayed itself as "lightning essence crystal." This provided no help to John who closed the appraisal window, leaving only his status window displayed.
John Maxwell Level 5
Strength 27
Agility 27
Dexterity 25
Perception 25
Vitality 25
Intelligence 29
Fortitude 25
Unspent status points. 0
Unspent skill points. 1
Experience for LVL UP 0/1600
Magic affinity: (lightning) 2
John felt mild confusion, knowing for a fact that he had spent his last two skill points on the two fire skills. What the hell are these crystals? John then spotted the additional stat added to his menu, magic afinity (lightning). Those crystals are insane, I''ve basically got half the effect of levelling up skill point wise. John couldn''t resist touching a second crystal, then a third, then a fourth and so on. John had eventually absorbed all 12 crystals and checked his status.
John Maxwell Level 5
Strength 27
Agility 27
Dexterity 25
Perception 25
Vitality 25
Intelligence 29
Fortitude 25
Unspent status points. 0
Unspent skill points. 12
Experience for LVL UP 0/1600
Magic affinity: (lightning) 24
John felt a craving to find more of the crystals despite the excruciating pain they caused him, the reward was worth the pain of touching them.If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. He knew that he didn''t have time to try and find more of the crystals and instead needed to either find civilization or find his way to his classmates. John left the warmth of the cave but no longer felt the exscrutiating cold quite as badly, levelling himself had allowed him to just barely push past the point of suffering too badly. John walked around, axes in hand, searching for some sign of other people. John''s search eventually led him to a town, the walls were ruined and the town made no noise but John was still excited to find a possible place to stay. When he entered the town John noticed around a dozen shambling figures wandering the streets, their expressions were blank and their eyes were glazed over. As John looked closer he realized each had a large, almost clear blue crystal embedded into them. My first thought is... zombies... but that isn''t a positive outlook. That could just be what people around here look like, I''ll be cautious but not too cautious. John slowly and calmly approached the creatures, trying to look non-threatening. The creatures were clearly aggressive once John got close, a few tried to grab him and he had to start fighting them. "These aren''t good conditions to fight in for me, but your houses look warm and dry and I''m in dire need of a place to stay. I''m sorry." John struck down all the shambling figures with his axes, the system recognising them as "Ice element Undead" They don''t give much experience if I''ve killed this many and not levelled up, but if those crystals are the same as the lightning ones the reward will be more than enough. John pulled one of the crystals free from an undead and appraised it. "Frost essence crystal." John gathered ten frost essence crystals, the remaining undead only had crystals that appraised as "Unformed essence crystal." John was a tad disappointed as he absorbed the 10 crystals.
John Maxwell Level 5
Strength 27
Agility 27
Dexterity 25
Perception 25
Vitality 25
Intelligence 29
Fortitude 25
Unspent status points. 0
Unspent skill points. 22
Experience for LVL UP 0/1600
Magic affinity: (lightning) 24
Magic affinity: (ice) 20
John had more skill points than he had gotten from levelling up in total, he realised that the reason most practical skills cost so many was because points could be earned in other ways. "It stands to reason that if skill points can be earned like this than maybe status points can be too." John looked around the ruined village for a suitable house to stay in for the night, the least ransacked house was at the far end of the village and was fairly large. Entering the mansion allowed John some much needed warmth and comfort as he checked for something comparable to a bed. John then heard a noise and investigated the house, he discovered a group of normal looking humans that weren''t shambling around. The ring that the knight gave John allowed him some understanding of others, he simply tried to greet the group of around a dozen people. "Hello." A large, muscled man approached John and patted him on the shoulder. "You adventures are just getting younger and younger, thanks lad." John didn''t feel entirely comfortable with sleeping near total strangers but figured that he had very few other options. John pulled one of the unopened elixers from his bag and drank, his body was suffering from fatigue and damage that sleep alone couldn''t solve and that he hoped the red liquid was. This is a game esque world, red liquids tend to be health potions in games. If I''m wrong and it''s demon piss then I''ll be annoyed but it''s better to try and to fail than to not try at all. 24: The Northern Continent. The Northern Continent. The liquid that trickled down his tongue had a slightly sweet taste, John would have found the sensation comfortable if he''d been able to appraise liquids to check if the drink would harm him. The fluid reached the back of his throat and went down, no sour taste like an acid but rather sweet like the juice of a fruit. John felt something solid slide accross his tongue and stopped drinking, he pulled the bottle away and reached into his mouth to grasp at the object. In his hand John saw a small, red, slightly glistening gemstone. John hurriedly appraised the gem to see if it would give him information on the thing he had just drank. "Lesser healing core? Sounds like that would make sense to be in a health potion at least..." Smiling, John checked through the rest of the information leisurely. "Edible? Now I know I have to..." The gem itself tasted of very little to John, who pushed it into his mouth and swallowed it down. The next minutes for John were spent patiently waiting, feeling his fatigue and minor wounds heal up visibly fast. "This is amazing, beats all modern medicine back home." The group that had suprised John seemed to watch him with curiosity. The man that had greeted him spoke up again. "Lad, did you just eat a potion core?" The entire group laughed after the man''s words, it occured to John that maybe his actions went against their common sense. "Yeah, I''ve never had a potion before and didn''t want to waste it." Looking around the group led John''s line of sight to a hooded figure hidden at the back of the group. The man came up close to John and whispered. "That one is an elf, we didn''t really want them dying in the cold but I wouldn''t get too close." John had never been particularly political, but he figured that fear towards the person for being simply an elf was nothing more than baseless racism.You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. He walked up close to the person and offered his hand, what he hoped would still come accross as a respectful gesture in this worlds cutltures. The elf seemed to be wearing a mask, but the confusion was apparent from their body language. The elf spoke up. "Humans don''t trust me. What do you gain from this?" John wanted an answer that showed he wasn''t prejudiced against the elves. "I don''t care if you''re an elf, good people can come from anywhere." The elf seemed to relax from John''s words and removed their mask. John in his heart was expecting the typical trope of the secret beautiful girl popping up and falling in love with him, and although the elf was pretty and looked far more feminine that any human boy he could tell right away that he wasn''t a girl. I can''t help it... I''m a teenage boy. I might as well befriend this elf properly at least. John had been slightly disappointed but pushed those thoughts aside and greeted the elf regardless. "My name is Kolir, I can detect the truth in your words and so will place my trust in your character." The elf smiled and offered his own hand, which John shook. "Thanks, can I just ask some questions about this area?" Kolir seemed confused by John''s words. "How would you get here without knowing? Failed warp spell?" The demon that had thrown John into this place had captured several students from his school, he knew there were others who were fine but the captured ones were probably in danger. "Something like that, now where exactly am I?" Kolir answered John like the question had an obvious answer. "The northern continent, can''t tell from the snow? This place is the domain of strong monsters and a lich king, the guy who killed and revived citizens of this town for his experiments." John had a slight idea of what was going on but his thoughts were confirmed, necromancy seemed to be another school of magic. Well this isn''t great, I can''t exactly leave all these people. "Where is the closest city to this?" Kolir thought for a moment before responding. "Closest inhabitable city is Epsom, to the south. But this group won''t make it there, monsters would rip us apart." John thought about ways to take the mostly injured group of civilians through a horrific cold environment, he thought of nothing. Whilst thinking, John could hear sounds of scratching gradually getting closer. The group seemed to hear it too as one of the men rushed to a window with a large axe, swinging it at an enemy John couldn''t see. The man stepped back as another undead climbed through the window, though this undead was covered in a layer of ice and the same crystals John had absorbed earlier. "So this is what the necromancer was trying to make consistently I presume?" John held little fear in his hard due to his encounter with the previous undead, he took out his axes and swung them at the creature. A horrific metal clang resounded as the axes bounced off of the creatures crystal skin. More people approached and struck at the creature, their weapons breaking on impact as they weren''t forged as well as Johns. The undead stumbled towards John first, aiming to gouge out his eyes with its claws. John saw the creatures long arms and realised an enclosed space was a bad place to fight, tackling the creature through the window it came through and then hurrying to the exit. "And I thought I was just gonna sit and buy skills with my new points..." John opened the door to the outside of the building before checking the area beneath the window, the creature was stood there and began to approach John as it spotted him. Feeling worried about getting hit, John decided to try and think of a way of hurting the creature. John knew that weapons and fists were going to be useless so he needed to find a way of at least incapacitating the creature. Hold on, this might work! 25: Bare Knuckle Beatdown. Bare Knuckle Beatdown. John had an idea he hoped would work, but needed to lead the creature closer to water. The air around it is getting colder, is it drawing in all the heat? His thoughts were interrupted by Kolir firing an arrow at the creature, the arrow bounced off but it provided a moment for John to approach the creature and punch it hard. The creature swiped at John with it''s claws, the wind up was large so John stepped away to avoid. The creature seemed to become enraged and began to chase John at significant speed. "Perfect, follow me closely you big dumb bastard." The creature trailed John closely as he searched for a body of water, discovering a river ahead of him through the trees. As John started towards the river at full speed the creature tackled John, he managed to roll away from the creature and threw a punch at it. The creature caught John''s punch in its hand and began to form a layer of ice over Johns arm that encased it. John turned and ran, cracking the ice on his arm as he got closer to the river. He could hear the creature run after him, howling maniacally. "Focus on the water. Focus on the water." John approached the water at his full speed and turned to see the creature following closely behind. "Now I''m here, how do I push the fucker in?" A claw came towards John''s face at speed as he barely dodged, throwing a punch to the creatures side to counter. "If it hits me I''m fucked!" More swipes were taken at John as he frantically tried to dodge and counter the creature. John eventually decided to fight the creature close quarters until it presented an opportunity, he knew it would be hard for him to damage it at all without using the river. Claws dug into John''s wrists as the creature grabbed him, his arms froze from the wrist up which left him helpless as his stomach was slashed deeply by the creature. John stumbled back and smashed his left arm against his right, breaking the ice and freeing his arms as he punched at the creature.Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work! A barrage of blows was exchanged between the two, John landing hits more consistently and eventually managing to stun the undead with a blow to it''s head. "There you go you motherfucker!" John threw a heavy punch at the creatures chest before punching it again in the head. John brought out his left axe and swung at the creature''s side, shattering his axe which froze on contact but embedding a piece into the creature. The creature was finished off when John kicked it heavily and sent the creature flying back into the river. "Those crystals you''re made off are very heavy even in small chunks, guess a big dense bastard like you will sink to the bottom." The creature sank into the river as the water around it froze solid, encasing the figure in ice completely and incapacitating it. "You draw in heat, which means the ice around you won''t ever get warm enough to melt. You''re shit out of luck." John walked away from the river and sat next to a tree, he had nothing to use to clean his wounds or bandage them and he knew he would be in serious danger if left untreated. As John thought about a way to escape his situation, loud thudding could be heard approaching him quickly. John barely managed to hide in a bush before a faceless humanoid entity approached the river on all fours. The creature was no less than 12 feet tall and had stiched together patches of grey skin, its face lacked eyes or any other discernible features and its approach was not impeded by any obstacle. The creature travelled at a fixed pace towards the river, smashing anything under its hands and feet. The giant creature smashed the river and carried the crystal undead away with it. That has to be related to the lich, a monster like that can''t be natural... John was thankful that the creature didn''t spot him, laying down to rest and closing his eyes. Waking up in a pool of his own blood led John to believe he was on the brink of death, but his still present wounds were no longer bleeding. He rose and checked the slashes on his stomach, finding that the wounds had seemingly began to heal. So, I heal faster? But even if the wound wasn''t deep, it looks to be about nighttime so I can''t heal THAT fast. John knew that the danger of infection would still be present and that he had to try and return to the others. I''m one axe down but I can still defend myself against most things I''d say. The night approached quickly as John moved back towards the ruined village, finding small rabit like animals which followed him. John eventually found himself back at the village and stumbled back into the building where the others were taking refuge, leading a train of rabbits behind him as he collapsed. He didn''t know how long he slept for but when he woke the sun was up, Kolir was the first to greet him and was apparently the one who had healed his wounds. "So, these things are gonna follow me?" Kolir nodded before correcting John. "Thing, they are of one soul but numerous bodies. They can split and recombine at will, a useful ability for evading predators." John looked down at the large train of rabbits that seemed to obediently follow him. "But why me? And are they intelligent at all?" Kolir again corrected John. "Not they, it. It likely picked you because it witnessed you fighting the undead and saw you as a strong master to follow. They can be intelligent if it splits and matures enough, all of its abilities rise with time and splitting." John was satisfied with Kolir''s lecture and so got up to stretch, hoping to buy new abilities and work on a plan for getting the group to safety. Buying new skills is long overdue. UPDATE Over the past month I have come to the conclusion that rather than telling the story I WANT to tell with this fiction, I''ve been telling the story that comes to me as I go. This is not how I typically write and the spontaneity of my current writing process is causing massive lapses in logic as well as frequent grammatical errors.This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. I will be putting this fiction on hold as I work on bringing to you the story I WANT to tell. This was my first fiction on royal road and it has been fun but this story no longer reflects the standard of work I would like to put out onto this site, I will leave the fiction up but it will likely not be updated any further. Within the next few days there will be a chapter dropping of something I have been drafting for a while, I hope it''s an intriguing open that leaves anyone who decides to read it interested. Wishing you all the best, Emanresu.