Luke ducked, easily avoiding the clumsy blow. An impressed whistle rang out from the observers as he weaved around Johnny, dodging most of the punches. Their spar may have started out more evenly but Johnny was very quick to tire.

  As Johnny fell for one of his feints, Luke finished him off with a roundhouse kick, making him fall to the ground. A second later, he looked up at Luke with a weirdly happy expression.

  “Unarmed combat got to level 13!” he exclaimed.

  “That’s good but you have some serious weaknesses to work on” said Luke as he helped him up.

  “I think you need to learn how to kick, even if you mostly use punches” said Jim, walking up to them with Matt in tow.

  “Having more reach may come in handy” agreed Johnny.

  “I can teach you some Muay Thai, or maybe you learn kickboxing from Matt” said Luke.

  “That’ll be good. Now if only we could just level up” sighed Johnny.

  Luke nodded in agreement. It had been five days since the rest of the platoon had accepted reality, and in those five days he had slain over a dozen monsters and helped kill many more. Yet it all led to a disappointing result.

  STATUS

  Name: Luke Carpenter

  Race: Human (Lesser)

  Level: 9

  Rank: 0

  Class: N/A

  Health: 100%

  Stamina: 71%

  Mana Reserves: 100%

  Free points: 0

  Skill points: 0

  STATS

  Strength: 28

  Agility: 26

  Toughness: 28

  Stamina: 29

  Vitality: 22

  Perception: 27

  Soul: 25

  Spirit: 22

  SKILLS

  [Unarmed Combat (Lvl.21)]- One does not need a weapon if they can truly harvest the power within their body…You currently possess moderate skill in unarmed combat

  [Swordsmanship (Lvl.22)]- The sword can split oceans when used by a Master but fail to cut wood when used by a novice…You currently possess moderate skill in swordsmanship

  [Stealth (Lvl.12)]- A foe that is strong from ahead may be weak from behind… You currently possess moderate skill in stealth

  [Tracking (Lvl.14)]-Great opportunities come to those who look for them…You currently possess moderate skill in tracking

  At least my skills improved a lot thought Luke, trying not to focus on the fact that he’d only levelled up once.

  “Is there even a point in us going hunting today” muttered Matt.

  “What are you saying? We can’t just give up” said Jim.

  “I know, it’s just frustrating to risk your life and see no results” he said, to which they were all in agreement.

  “Look on the bright side” said Luke.

  “Which is?”

  “There’s a high chance that something special happens when he hit level 10, that’s why it’s been such a grind” he said.

  “You better be right. If level 10 is no different than the rest, I’ll jump off a cliff” said Matt.

  “Oh no, what would we do without our knife wielder?” joked Jim.

  “I don’t know, we’d have to find someone with an actually good weapon” cried Luke.

  “Maybe something that has more than a foot of reach?” suggested Johnny.

  “Pot…kettle…black” grumbled Matt, walking towards his cabin.

  “You’re not allowed to be mad after what you pulled last week!” shouted Luke.

  “It worked out, didn’t it?” he called back.

  “It really did” commented Emma, appearing out of thin air next to him.

  “Indeed”

  “You didn’t get scared this time” she muttered sadly.

  “Your level 30 stealth no longer surprises me” said Luke.

  “I still can’t believe you spent so much time levelling stealth” said Jim, shaking his head.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  “I regret nothing, it’s been very fun!” she declared.

  “I’m pretty sure you’re the lowest level out of all of us” said Johnny, looking genuinely concerned.

  “Don’t worry, I’m getting to level 8 by the end of the day” said Emma.

  “And what makes you think you can do that?” asked Luke.

  “Because you’re going to help me” she said sweetly.

  “Try and make me” he said with a laugh.

  An hour later, the two of them were standing in front of an enormous tree. Emma turned to him with a smug smile and spoke.

  “You still haven’t admitted that I’m the most persuasive woman you know”

  “Being able to cry at will is not something to be proud of” muttered Luke.

  “It is, but why did you bring me here?” asked Emma.

  “There’s a bunch of suicidal monkeys here” said Luke.

  “What the hell is a suicidal monkey?” she asked with furrowed brows.

  “Exactly what it sounds like” replied Luke as he picked up a rock.

  He tossed it at the tree as hard as he could, and as soon as it hit, a cacophony of loud screeches went off. Emma watched in shock as over a dozen small monkeys started to climb down from the tree and charge towards them.

  “Don’t just stand there, be ready” said Luke, drawing his sword.

  She nodded and pointed her spear to the approaching crowd. Like always, these creatures were entirely unfazed by the two of them slaying their kin with ease. They just kept attacking, and of course, they just kept dying.

  In just a minute, they’d slain every last monkey that had come down from the tree. Luke sighed at the disappointing notification from the system.

  *You have slain 6 [Grazian ape], 820 EXP earned*

  “I levelled up” said Emma when he looked towards her.

  “Good, let’s do it again. This time I’m not helping you” said Luke, bending down to pick up another rock.

  “There’s more of them?!” she cried.

  “This tree is taller than some mountains, I’m pretty sure there’s a million monkeys up there” he said.

  “You’ll save me if I’m about to die, right?” asked Emma.

  “…Yes” said Luke after considering it for a few seconds.

  “Wow”

  Luke ignored her expression of “I feel so betrayed” and chucked the rock at the tree, prompting another wave of suicidal monkeys. Once that batch had all died, they simply restarted the process of throwing rocks to summon apes and eventually, Emma reached level 8.

  Keen to level up himself, Luke demanded that they leave at once and started walking back to the village.

  “I can’t believe you didn’t let me take a break” she complained on the way back.

  “I can’t believe it’s this hard to reach level ten. I really wanna get there” he muttered.

  Emma fell silent for a few seconds before looking at him with a peculiar expression.

  “You actually like this place, don’t you?” she asked.

  “I’ve told you this before” he said.

  “I thought you were just saying that to be optimistic or something. Try and get people to have a bit more hope” she said.

  “They should absolutely have more hope. This world is a thousand times better than our old one” said Luke, with a genuine smile.

  “You only say that because you never tried to have a positive outlook back then. You were so insistent on not caring about anything” she said sadly.

  “You could be right but it’s just as possible that I was doomed to be unhappy in that kind of environment” said Luke.

  “Either way, that ship has sailed. Maybe you should take your own advice and have a positive outlook on this world” he continued.

  “I suppose freaking people out with my stealth is pretty fun” she admitted after a bit of thought.

  “That’s the spirit” said Luke.

  The two of them kept chatting until they reached the village but as soon as they did, Luke ran off to Jim’s cabin, leaving Emma to grumble about his lack of manners.

  “It’s not locked!” called a voice from inside when Luke knocked on the door.

  When he went inside, he saw the reason why no one could come to the door. Just because he saw it, however, didn’t mean he understood why Jim, Matt and Johnny were all sitting on the floor holding hands.

  “Are you doing a ritual?” asked Luke.

  “Matt thought he could use magic” replied Jim, rolling his eyes.

  “I thought it would let me feel their emotions!” whined Matt.

  “There is something seriously wrong with you” stated Luke.

  Everyone nodded in agreement, including Matt. After the three stooges stood up following their failed experiment, Jim turned to Luke with an excited smile.

  “We had a brilliant idea while you were away!” he said.

  “Oh yeah” agreed Matt.

  “No, it’s actually a stupid idea” said Johnny flatly.

  “I hate that I’m starting to trust Johnny more than you two” said Luke, with a deadpan expression.

  “You know that cave we found two days ago?” asked Matt, ignoring his earlier statement.

  “I already hate where this is going”

  “Don’t be so quick to assume, Sarge. Just because it looks dark and scary doesn’t mean a deadly monster lives there” said Jim.

  “First of all, there is definitely some sort of eldritch horror living there. Secondly, if there’s no monster then it’s just an empty cave which is useless” said Luke.

  “No, what it could be is a dungeon!” said Matt.

  “What?”

  “You know, the typical fantasy dungeon. You go in, you fight monsters and you can get a bunch of loot and treasure” said Jim.

  “There’s no way that the first cave we find just happens to be a dungeon” sighed Luke.

  “No harm in checking it out” said Matt.

  “Yeah there is! What if we get eaten by whatever lives in that cave?” cried Johnny.

  “I agree” said Luke.

  “Look, we don’t know how dangerous the trial will be or how much of a power up level 10 actually is, but I have a gut feeling that level 10 is what we need to survive” said Matt.

  “You also had a gut feeling that holding hands lets you use magic” retorted Luke but he too had that strange belief that level 10 was crucial to their success.

  “Fine, we’ll go check it out” he muttered.

  “You guys suck” said Johnny as they all headed towards the door.

  “Shut up man, you use brass knuckles” said Jim.

  “If that shithole is actually a dungeon I’ll eat my shoe” muttered Johnny.

  Half an hour later, they were all stood in front of the cave. Luke was already starting to regret his decision as he stared into the entrance of the cave, feeling a sense of danger. It just looked menacing, the entrance was long and narrow. It was shaped like the blade of a sword, which felt rather ominous.

  “So how do we go about this?” asked Matt, having lost quite a bit of gusto now that he was actually in front of the dreary cave.

  “…throw a rock at it” said Luke after a few seconds.

  “Why is that your solution for everything?” muttered Matt.

  “We’ll throw rocks into the cave, while Jim shoots arrows into it. If something actually lives in it, we’ll have a better chance of escape if we make it come out instead of entering its lair” explained Luke.

  “So we do this for a while and if nothing comes out, we’ll go in?” asked Johnny.

  “Yeah, this is the least risky way” said Luke.

  The other three were in agreement and so, Jim started to shoot arrows into the cave while Luke, Matt and Johnny gathered rocks.

  As it turned out, they didn’t need the extra ammo. Jim had only shot two arrows into the cave before something slithered out of the narrow opening. Of course, the entrance was only narrow when compared to its height, and so what came out had a width of several feet.

  The green scaled serpent hissed furiously, opening its jaw wide and revealing massive fangs. Luke felt a sense of déjà vu as he saw the horns on its head, it reminded him of the dragon that had terrified him last week.

  “Run!” cried Jim, turning around and fleeing as fast as he could.

  Luke, Matt and Johnny did the same thing. None of them wanted to fight this gargantuan beast, all of a sudden, level ten didn’t seem that important.

  Luckily, the monster chasing them was not a fast one. Thanks to their levelled up physiques, they were running at extreme speeds and soon, the serpent started to fall behind. Luke smiled, sure that they’d be able to escape.

  But once again, the world was keen to show them that monsters could have the strangest of powers. Luke suddenly heard a loud sound behind him, he considered looking back to find out what it was but he didn’t have to.

  The ground in front of them split open, dirt and rocks flying everywhere as their assailant burst out of the earth. The serpent had tunnelled through the ground with absurd speed and now, it was keen to have its revenge.

  We are so screwed thought Luke.