Chapter 43 Not Enough

It wasn’t enough.

[Error. Redacted corrupted. Error – missing code. Shield property invalid. Restoring files. Searching. Searching. Summon applied.]

[Have a nice day.]

I hit the ground. I was so far beyond pain that it barely registered. I was alive. Why was I alive?

My vision filled with red. Health was critical, but ticking up as the shaman’s poultice worked. The little trip down the mountain had left me injured, though. Broken ribs. Internal bleeding. I hadn’t fallen as far as the day I’d arrived in this place. Then again, I hadn’t already been beaten to a pulp that day either.

At least this was the Doomsday trial. Small mercy. Meant I didn’t need a hospital or anything like that, but I would need a long rest.

Once I could walk. Once my legs started responding.

Where the fuck was I? I had fallen twenty feet. No. I had been dropped twenty feet. Better than a thousand feet. Now that the world wasn’t spinning anymore, my mind retraced the last twenty seconds. Ironclad grasping me over the mountain’s edge. Hitting every sharp contour of the mountain on the way down until I had arrived here, a stony outcropping. I looked up, fighting back the rising fear. If he saw me…if he came down here…

Nothing. The day was misty. I couldn’t even see the summit anymore. Good. That meant he couldn’t see me. I checked my status, watching with excruciating patience as the timer for the health poultice ticked down. Three. Two. One.

I applied another.

The red across my vision was still there, but it wasn’t quite so in my face. I took a knee, getting to my feet. My weapons were gone, back on the summit. Bow discarded. Spear broken in half. I looked into my gear screen, seeing more red. My armour was about as useful as a cosplayer’s. Durability was shot. All of it beyond repair. I at least retained the comfort perk from the full hide set, giving me 60% resistance to cold. I wouldn’t freeze on the mountain. That was good. I could tell, the descent was going to be slow going.

“Human.” The low voice cut across the winds, and my own primal thoughts. I turned to see a single vandal, a scout by the looks of him. The vandal held a spear in his hands, glaring at me.

I stared at him. I didn’t even need to examine him. From his primitive armour pieces, his low-level spear, I knew this mob couldn’t have been more than level five. He took a step forwards. Hate in his eyes. Hate for humans, like the one he had stumbled upon right here on the mountain.

Behind me was a path down. Rocky outcropping. I had a dexterity of 26. That didn’t just translate to combat, it made me as nimble as a chimpanzee. The vandal would never be able to catch me. That was the smart play.

But I had left all the smart left in me back on that summit, oozing out onto the fresh snow beside Kaleo’s corpse.

Fuck it. This thing wanted a fight? Well, so did I. I took a step forward as an urgent notification flashed across my HUD.

I had a debuff I’d never seen before.

[Critical Injury – You are critically injured. You must rest and heal immediately. Your maximum health, stamina and mana are reduced by 70%. All minor healing sources provide half healing. You cannot use any abilities.]

Great. That would make this even more fun, I thought, as the vandal beat his own chest like a war drum and advanced on me. He thrust his spear, testing my defences. I took it in one hand, breaking it in half. He stumbled back, enraged. I threw down the broken spear piece and walked towards him. My breathing was hard, and the pain. It was overwhelming.

I ignored it all.

“Come on,” I said, “come on!”

The vandal launched at me, catching me off-guard, and we both went spinning across the ground. His fists beat at me, no technique, pure rage. I responded, feeling the surge of strength that the system had granted me. Feeling every point into the strength stat coil behind my own fists and feet as I pummelled my would-be killer.

He landed clean blows. Didn’t stop me. My vision bloomed with red again. More notifications. I ignored it all, as I grabbed the vandal, thrusting him against a rock and beat him. I watched as his hit points diminished. Each strike against me feebler than the last.

My mind was empty as my fist came crashing down, the vandal’s body twitching as it hit the ground. I fell to my knees. I felt no better. Rage consumed me. Anger. None of it had been sated, none of it abated from the fight. I needed more. I dragged myself to my feet, and walked down the mountain path. More vandals. Three of them, as I dragged the corpse of their friend with me, throwing it at their feet.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

They stared at me, and I stared back. One raised a bow. I stood there. Unmoving. I would catch that arrow and then I would-

“Stop.” A new vandal appeared, this one riding atop a sabretooth tiger. He looked to me, with a strange look, and I realised. I knew this vandal.

I thought the three others might protest. I was covered in blood, human and vandal. But they said nothing, lowering their weapons.

“You want to fight do you?” said the vandal, in that guttural tone of theirs. I nodded, my fists tightened at my side. “Good. Then you come with us.”

He let me ride with him, on the back of his giant sabretooth tiger. I was barely aware of where we were, or what we were doing. Mind still blank. Notifications piling up now. Ignore. Ignore. Ignore.