“…Sarge this is definitely enough”

  “Yeah, we’ve collected a thousand or so”

  “You’re not even gonna use half of this!”

  Luke finally stopped what he was doing and turned around. Jim, Matt and Johnny stared back at him with annoyance. Each of them held a large pile of sticks in their hands, the result of spending a full hour gathering them.

  “Alright, I’m sorry” said Luke, dropping his own pile of sticks.

  “You’re so over the top man” complained Matt.

  “I don’t even think this will work the way you think it will” said Jim.

  “It will. My sword is unnaturally sharp, it can probably cut stone” said Luke.

  “So we just toss these sticks at you?” asked Johnny.

  “Yep, toss them at me, around me and over me, the whole package” said Luke as he unsheathed his sword and got into a comfortable stance.

  And so, it began. Sticks flew towards him from every direction and Luke jumped, ran and ducked so that he could slice them apart with his sword. Like he said, his sword was able to cut through the sticks with ease.

  After forty minutes of cutting sticks apart (and a lot of failure to do so), Luke finally received a notification from the system.

  *Your skill in [Swordsmanship] has reached level 15*

  “It worked!” he cried.

  “I’m just glad we can stop throwing sticks around like a bunch of apes” muttered Matt.

  Luke may have made a snarky retort but he was currently in a state of introspection. He realized that he could feel a small increase in his swordsmanship skill even though he’d trained for less than an hour.

  Luke didn’t know why he hadn’t felt the same thing yesterday with his tracking skill but he supposed he could have just failed to notice it with everything that was going on.

  “I think the system lets us improve faster, I already feel like a better swordsman” said Luke.

  “I guess Jim’s gonna be a godlike archer soon” said Johnny with a laugh.

  “Hold on, I just thought of something…What do we do when Jim runs out of arrows?” asked Matt.

  “I have infinite arrows” said Jim casually.

  “What the fuck?!”

  “The quiver has some sort of enchantment on it, whenever I remove an arrow, a new one appears to replace it” he explained.

  “And you never thought to mention that you have an enchanted quiver?!” exclaimed Matt, deeply insulted that any form of magic be hidden from him.

  “I was afraid you’d steal it, being the nerd that you are” replied Jim.

  “That’s a fair point” said Luke and Johnny at the same time.

  “I hate all of you” muttered Matt.

  He walked off grumpily, heading towards the village. The other three chuckled and followed him. When the cabins became visible, they noticed that everyone was outside, milling about and chatting with each other.

  “They could level up instead of fucking around” muttered Johnny.

  “We truly live in a strange world when Johnny is more sensible than most of the platoon” said Luke thoughtfully.

  Right as he did, Emma noticed them and walked over.

  “Where did you go?” she asked, frowning.

  “We were training. Instead of wondering what we’re up to, you should be preparing for the trial. None of you have leveled up even once” said Luke.

  “Easy for you to say! We don’t even know where to begin!” she shouted, drawing the other’s attention. Very soon, a crowd had formed around them just like it had last night. Though today, they all seemed to be in a foul mood.

  “We’re completely clueless on what to do! And instead of helping us, our sergeant just goes off into the woods with his pals!” said a lanky man.

  “Your sergeant tried to help you, you just ignored him” said Matt, crossing his arms.

  “Oh forgive us for not wanting to risk it all to hunt monsters in the middle of the night!” exclaimed another man.

  As soon as Luke heard that, he started laughing. It wasn’t a happy laugh, it was a laugh of frustration and disappointment.

  “You’ve been taking risks for years, Andrew. Taking a risk doesn’t scare you nearly as much as accepting reality does” he said.

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  “You all say that you’ve accepted your fate but you haven’t. You want to believe that this all just a dream. That’s the real reason you won’t hunt monsters or go into the woods. You don’t want to step out of the village because this place is your echo chamber!”

  “I think you all realize that if you fully immerse yourself in this world, you’ll no longer be able to believe it isn’t real.”

  With that, he walked towards his cabin. Johnny, Matt and Jim followed him until they were right in front of the cabin, which was when Luke finally turned around to acknowledge them.

  “Why are you still here?” he asked with furrowed brows.

  “Well, we definitely didn’t want to stay there” said Jim.

  “I thought they might beat us up” admitted Johnny.

  “Yeah, you didn’t have to expose them like that” said Matt, wiping an imaginary bead of sweat off his forehead.

  “Annoying as they are, I don’t want them dead. I just hope being blunt about it would get them to do what’s right and survive the trial” replied Luke as he opened the door.

  They all poured into the cabin and shut the door. Luke rolled his eyes at Johnny when he peeked out of the window as though he was expecting a riot to begin.

  “So can we do what I suggested yesterday?” asked Matt, plopping down on an armchair.

  “You mean work together to take down a stronger monster?” asked Luke.

  “Yeah”

  “I don’t know…yesterday we got a glimpse of what strong monsters are like” said Johnny, with an involuntary shiver.

  “Well we can’t let that terrify us into doing nothing” said Jim.

  “Jim is right. We’re obviously going to target something far weaker than a dragon so we ought to be fine” said Luke.

  “But I do think we should level up once more, just in case we get some special perk for reaching level five.” he continued.

  “How about we try and get that done now? Maybe if we pick a different direction there’ll be a decent amount of monsters even in the day” said Matt.

  “Worth a try” agreed Luke.

  Jim and Johnny nodded and so they all stood up and headed towards the door. Right as Luke was about to throw it open, Matt stopped him.

  “What?”

  “The others might come talk to us about what you said, it’s gonna be awkward” said Matt.

  “Oh you’re being ridiculous!” cried Luke.

  “He has a point” muttered Jim.

  “Let’s make a run for it, we’ll get to the woods before they can intercept us” suggested Johnny.

  “There’s no way in hell we’re doing that” said Luke, rubbing his temples.

  Half an hour later, they were all trudging through the woods. Every few seconds, Luke sent a sharp glare to one of the other three.

  “Looks can’t kill, stop trying” muttered Johnny.

  “I suppose you think that was terribly clever” said Luke.

  “It was funny” whined Matt.

  “Yes, it was very funny when you three shouted “Sergeant Carpenter is here, come confront him” and then ran off into the woods” said Luke with a scowl.

  “We needed a distraction, Sarge! As our leader, you should be the sacrifice!” claimed Jim.

  “I’ll sacrifice you to the next monster we see” shouted Luke.

  Just like that, Luke proved to the world that manifestation was real. A second after his proclamation, they came face to face with the largest bear he’d ever seen.

  For a tense few seconds, nothing happened. The black furred bear stared at them with eyes that seemed too intelligent for a beast and just as Luke felt that they’d be able to retreat, it stood on its hind legs and let out a fierce roar.

  A second later, it swiped at them with its massive paw. Luke was able to intercept the strike with his sword, drawing blood but not causing any real damage. It reared back, ready to strike again, but an arrow to the throat served as an effective distraction.

  Amazingly, it didn’t seem to be a serious injury for the hulking beast. Luckily, it did at least give them some time to retreat backwards. Jim was able to send another arrow flying towards it, hitting the bear’s snout.

  Taking a good opportunity, Luke swung at the distracted creature, intending to behead it. Unfortunately, it was able to dodge most of the attack and Luke’s sword struck its shoulder instead of its neck.

  The enraged bear let out an unnaturally loud roar, momentarily dazing Luke which allowed it to smash him to the ground. The harsh impact knocked the wind out of him, he couldn’t even scream as a paw descended to finish him off.

  But before it could, a dagger flew towards it and the monster had to raise its paw to avoid being struck. Luke had just enough time to roll away from the second attempt before the beast was once again distracted by an arrow to the throat.

  At last, its injuries seemed to mean something and the bear turned around and fled but it didn’t get too far. Matt quickly picked up his dagger and threw it at the bear once more. The arrow struck its leg and elicited a harsh roar.

  Pressing their advantage, Jim let even more arrows fly until the monster collapsed. As Luke sat up, rubbing his bruised chest, he was treated to a strange scene.

  Johnny ran up to the fallen bear which was still grunting in pain, ripped the dagger out of its leg and began to repeatedly stab it. It howled furiously as the stabbing escalated but of course, it eventually went silent.

  *You have helped slay [Irontooth Bear (Lvl.13)], 1400 EXP earned*

  *You have reached level 8, stats allocated, free points earned*

  After the trauma he’d just experienced, Luke decided to split his free points between toughness and vitality.

  Status he thought.

  STATUS

  Name: Luke Carpenter

  Race: Human (Lesser)

  Level: 8

  Rank: 0

  Class: N/A

  Health: 88%

  Stamina: 87%

  Mana Reserves: 100%

  Free points: 0

  Skill points: 0

  STATS

  Strength: 27

  Agility: 25

  Toughness: 26

  Stamina: 28

  Vitality: 21

  Perception: 26

  Soul: 24

  Spirit: 21

  Luke let out a satisfied laugh at his new stats. There wasn’t a single one below twenty anymore. He took one last look at the screen before willing it away. Soon after, Matt reclaimed his dagger and plopped down next to him.

  “I thought you were a goner” he said.

  “Me too. A giant bear paw is definitely scarier than bullets” said Luke.

  Jim and Johnny soon joined them on the ground, having reached a silent agreement to sit there until Luke felt okay. Thanks to his increased vitality, it didn’t take long for that to happen. He soon stood up and stretched his arms.

  I think I can see a little better he noted.

  Unlike the other stats, perception didn’t seem to cause significant changes. Even after rising by eight points, there was just a slight increase.

  “You ready to head back?” asked Jim as he and the others stood up.

  “Yeah”

  As they walked back, Luke remembered that he was still mad at them, much to their chagrin. After throwing a few more insults their way, he finally mentioned something more meaningful.

  “I got to level 8, what about you guys?”

  “I also got to level 8” said Jim

  “Six” said Matt.

  “Five” muttered Johnny sadly.

  “Well you ought to be grateful for that! All you did was attack an already dying bear” said Luke with a laugh.

  “And with my dagger” added Matt.

  “I’m starting to think my weapon isn’t that great after all” admitted Johnny.

  “Just stick it through. A few more level ups and you’ll have superhuman strength behind your punches” advised Luke.

  “You still haven’t told us what happened with the others after we ran away” said Jim as they neared the village.

  “You’ll know when you get there” said Luke, making the others roll their eyes.

  But when they entered the village, which was now completely empty, they realized what he meant. Luke turned to the other three with a small smile and spoke.

  “They accepted the truth”