The woman had a strange accent, but somehow Jaeger was able to understand her. He would have to assume it was some form of verbal transfiguration within his mind that allowed him to understand her language but it wasn't important to know how it happened.
The building he was within was a 'Pagoda' and had 7 floors; she was a princess which was cheesy as all hell. Her father and clan had been killed, and as she was whisked away while her clan was dying in the city she made it home only to find everyone had left. The clan who won, obviously having heard she was alive was rearing their head towards the Pagoda to capture her.
'Why does this seem like the tail of some novel? Blechk' it was like he was the knight in shining armor supposed to save the princess and fight off ten thousand men. Who wrote this damned book?
Jaeger sighed and lit up a smoke, after combing over every inch of the Pagoda he had found quite a few dry goods in random rooms and cellars. Most probably failed throwing her in the basement, and then fighting just to have her starve to death. This world didn't seem like it had hit the technological age at all, and thus her belief that he was a sovereign was probably heartfelt.
"One month?" She asked shyly, now more comfortable with him.
"Yes…one month, I know it will be boring and you may go crazy…but you will live, I promise that" he made sure to sound caring, because for most tense and purposes he actually was. This world was no different than the one he came from, and as someone who wouldn't stand by when something went wrong he had to help her; Even if it was for his own benefit in the first place.
As she walked down the steps leading to the basement, Jaeger sighed. The cover for it was a complicated patching of wood working and stone. It was a fort, and the door alone was several tons of granite. Obviously it was a heavy duty shelter in case the Pagoda was ever attacked. If everyone died outside it though who could escape to it.
After several metal levers were pulled, Jaeger and the woman shared one last look. Jaeger smiled, but she gave a determined look in reply. She probably felt vengeful to those that killed her family for power. Jaeger didn't know the politics of this world and for now didn't have the time to care to.
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Standing at the bottom floors front door, the surroundings to the pagoda were covered in water from an endless rain. Jaeger breathed in the smell with love, it was the perfect setting.
Looking down at the spear head, with a pull on the loop the chain came forth from the spear. As long as his finger was on this loop, he could control the length however he wanted. With a twirl, it made a whizzing sound most likely from the enchantment of sharpness placed on it.
"Mmm…you and me…we gotta become friends now."
The rain was endless, taking in all sounds with it as thunder crackled off in the distance and lightning lit the sky. Shadows danced about the buildings surrounding the pagoda. It was obvious that there were ninja swarming all around.
'Can't use my gun…or at least…try not to use my gun…try…' Jaeger turned around and walked up several flights of stairs before hopping out a window onto the roof. He threw the chain up into the sky continually until by luck lightning struck the spear head and sent a bolt down towards his body.
The force blasted him through the wood roof, but he got his runes filled in the end. Somehow, it wasn't as painful as it was before.
'Enigma…he must have increased my affinity…thank you' Jaeger looked at the glowing lightning bolts on his hand. Although all three would be great, he couldn't use the third without being drained. Jaeger cast the energy out to the surroundings, with no effect noticeable in the air. The third bolt disappeared finally.
Looking around their wasn't any metal, it was all wood.
"I will have to wait until I get ahold of their weapons then…hmm…" His mental speed was currently increased, as well as his reaction time and the reaction of his body to thought. It would make handling the weapon far easier, and give him a needed edge in fighting.
Jaeger walked back down to the bottom of the Pagoda, before stepping out under an overhang and waving his hand into the distance.
'Come'
As if to answer his call a throwing shuriken danced through the air aiming for his head, he dodged it narrowly and motioned again. Seeing that a shuriken might falter alone, a mass of metal came flying through the sky. Or in other words 100's of shurikens and throwing darts were spiraling down like rain drops.
If it wasn't for the rain, Jaeger might have heard more of the metal sinking into the door he had quickly just slammed shut behind him.
'Bastards…that's not what I meant'
The mild splashing sounds of footsteps sounded beyond the door. Jaeger quickly threw a board over the two horns on this side of the door and watched the windows. Several things flew threw them and shattered them across the room. Before the last piece of glass struck the ground black robed men and women flew through the new openings.
They didn't scream "Die!" like some evil villain, they just began attacking. Jaeger with his increased reaction speed dodged a sword coming straight down, and pierced the man in the throat. A woman came forward with daggers to pierce from the side but was met with a chain to the nose blinding her for a second. Jaeger took this chance to pull the blade out of the man's throat and shove it into hers.
Another black robed man came forward over his companions swinging a bo staff, Jaeger weaved his body backwards and stabbed the man in the foot. He leapt backwards after feeling the excruciating pain, but this gave Jaeger the chance to leap up and slash at him several times. After a second or two the man loss the use of his arms and received a cut to the throat.
'Proficiency in chain blade increased by .01% Proficiency is now .02%'
"Proficiency in chain blade increased by .01% Proficiency is now .03%'
"Fuck this is going to take a while" Jaeger muttered under his breath as he ducked from a nun chuck thrown at him, grabbed it and threw it back at them. He missed by a mile, but didn't care because he ran up and stabbed them in the throat.
Until he actually had a high enough proficiency in this damned thing, he would have to suffice with the most direct method of stabbing them in the throat, because he couldn't risk losing the weapon and defaulting to using his gun.
Another came sailing through the window with daggers, Jaeger weaved from a slash before sending back his own straight into their stomach.
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"28 an hour…alright…not bad…" 27 men came an hour approximately, for 12 hours straight, sometimes there would be more and sometimes less. It seemed that either they were testing him, or that they didn't want to send everyone in at the same time. It would be useless to set the building on fire, because they would lose capturing the princess and so an onslaught began. Jaeger would have to kill 333ish a day to reach ten thousand, and after a 12 hour shift he felt it might just be possible.
Jaeger slid down a wall, and looked over the numerous cuts and bruises he had. It wasn't easy, even if they were better or worse than him fighting constantly was tiring. Even if he had short windows between when they came and when they didn't, it was taxing.
Jaeger popped a potion back, causing energy to come back into him. From what he was told the ninja's would wait 12 hours, and then begin again. So he had time to sleep a little bit. Jaeger walked down to the door into the basement fort and layed against it before sleeping. The whole time, a little frog sat on his shoulder watching the stairs.
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Again, another day passed and more wounds were carried on his back. This time they seemed stronger then yesterday, and yet miraculously he survived. If it wasn't for the mildly inhuman boost to his dexterity and mental processing it would be impossible to go two days doing this.
28 more days.
So far he had gained 6.6% proficiency in the chain blade. It seemed far easier to swing it around, and in fact already he had tied a man up with the chain before slitting his throat in one fell swoop.
Tidd bits of information were being used by his body to perform things he hadn't thought about. It was like the 'Proficiency' was in fact some form of muscle memory.
Another day passed, Jaeger had brought in one potion of healing and duplicated it after every fight with the bracelet. It could only do this once a day, it also took up all the space of the bracelet so even if he wanted two he couldn't have it.
The fight was tough, more wounds then before appeared on his body as the enemies became stronger. It definitely wouldn't let him make this easy by getting proficiency and thus killing them all easily. This world made them stronger too, or maybe each batch of people they set were always a rank above the last. Either way, the potion wouldn't be able fully heal him and so only after rest was he able to heal entirely as it ran through his system. Bruises disappeared, but scars remained.
'Proficiency at 9.98%.'
"Almost ten…" Jaeger through the blade out with the chain and sliced someone in the face as he whirled it around before catching it again. A robed woman danced with a whip not far away constantly assailing him with metal beads at the end, lacerating his back and legs. It cracked like thunder, and struck like lightning. Jaeger had to prioritize her. Lately they had started using team strategies to go against him instead of sending a group of people heedlessly.
He wasn't the only one learning.
Jaeger struck a man down with the chain loop cracking his jaw in the process. With a quick slash his throat spilled out its crimson contents. The woman scowled at him before whirling the whip around and lashing out. Jaeger smiled and whirled his chain around before throwing it diagonally towards the whip. It struck him, but it also brought back the chain wrapped around it. After successfully seeing the two were tangled Jaeger yanked and ripped the whip out from her hands. He ran up and after a series of slashes on her she fell.
'You have gained .01% proficiency in chain blades; your proficiency is now 10.00%'
"Finally…fuck…it took 3 days to get just 10%. Exactly 1000 people had come in the last 3 days. Ten times the amount of days as well as people…ten thousand…might as well kill me." Jaeger collapsed on the floor, he didn't even go to a safe spot and just drank his potion back before falling asleep.
Jaeger woke up, ate some dry food and anything not rotting before drinking back water from a barrel.
Jaeger sighed, 'still have 2 hours'. He walked up several flights and sat in a good chair that looked meant for someone noble. Jaeger fidgeted with his lighter for a while looking out the window to the rain peppering down. A red glow reflected his face in the window before fading as fast as it came.
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Jaeger piled up all the swords, knives, spear tips, axe heads, and anything metal the ninja's had left behind in the middle of the floor. Their weapons were thin pieces of metal or simply made of other material or wood and thus it took a while to accumulate it all.
"Gets at least a little less damaging from here on in" Jaeger pressed his hands to their weapons and absorbed the metal. Soon his skin gave off a metallic luster and shine. His weight also became slightly heavier.
A ninja popped through the window and slashed at his throat, the ninja was surprised because Jaeger didn't budge in the least. An actual 'Huh?' could be heard, in all the time the ninja had spoken the first thing one of them said was 'Huh?'!
"Could've at least said hello" Jaeger smiled and lifted his chin to reveal the most mild of Knick marks on his neck from the blade. The man looked at him like he was looking at a demon before his eyes lost focus as the blood drained from his neck. Jaeger took a breath in and leapt towards the window to his right and caught a ninja before slamming them onto the ground and stabbing them in the neck.
Then another, and another, and another.
'You have gained .01% proficiency in chain blades; your proficiency is now 20.00%'
6 days, not even a week and Jaeger had already killed 2,000 people. An astronomical number to most as how could a group train so many damned people? Fuck.
Jaeger tapped on the large stone that made up the basements fort entrance, and not long after received the same rhythm of taps back. 'She's still alive…alright…' he had done this the last couple days to make sure she was okay, as well as let her know he hadn't died which would keep her mind at least that much more intact.
*woosh* *woosh* *woosh*
Arrows came flying through the windows and pegged a person that was sleeping on the bottom floor. When several ninja came in to check on the kill, they were horrified to find that it was a body of their comrade dressed as Jaeger.
*whizz*
Three more dropped next to the already dead body they had shot. Jaeger hopped down from above the entrance door and wiped off his spear head and chain before retracting it into its smallest form.
Several more day's passed, and the assaults only grew more gruesome. Several people that weren't even ninja were thrown through the windows to test where Jaeger was in the room before they assaulted that spot with arrows and kunai. They had tried every trick in the book of 'kill-this-guy-' and was reaching a point where Jaeger was questioning his own decisions.
Psychological games was something he used against them too, like putting his clothes over one of them and trading them for himself. He even acted like he had been blasted out the window, by himself, and landed on the ground. Indeed there were quite a few ninja around him, and because of their intense glares on the window they didn't notice their comrade in black garb was in fact Jaeger.
He slaughtered them in the rain one by one, silent under the rain. The smell of iron was washed away in the wind before the last heard him coming.
After that day, they had gone farther away from the Pagoda and only sent them in waves.
'You have gained .01% Proficiency in chain blades, your proficiency is now 80.00%'
Jaeger couldn't describe the feeling of whirling around the chain blade at this point. It felt like his tail, or another limb. He was that attuned to it physically, and at this point he had long forgotten about his gun after calling this chain blade his doll.
That didn't mean he wouldn't use guns, he loved his gun too but this spear head and chain was just…a real babe.
80% meant that he had gone 4/5ths of the month or in other words 24 days.
Less than a week was left and Jaeger felt like he might just make it, around the pagoda was a crimson lake of red from the thousands of bodies piled up high all around. To the ninja assaulting it this place was no different than a blood bath or an entrance to hell. The upper floors of the pagoda weren't there anymore, as several had climbed it and entered through the top only to fight to a bitter death and destroy the floors. The lower half of the second floor was left, and the bottom floor mostly intact except for holes covering every square inch.
"Come! This is the last!" A loud booming voice echoed through the rain causing Jaeger to stir from his rest, right on time for the twelve hour mark.
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Jaeger swung the front entrance door open, it was barely on the hinges and fell off next to him. He stepped over it and looked out through the rain and past the bodies left and right to see a large man standing far away in the rain surrounded by thousands of ninja.
None of them had bows, because at this point Jaeger could swing the chain at rapid speeds just fast enough to knock them away while hiding behind the dwindling walls for those that he missed.
"Why do you want her so bad?" Jaeger asked what had been on his mind a long time.
"Because we are forced to acquire her, or we all die anyway." The man gave a downward look, and somehow Jaeger felt like the creator of this world had also tasked them with a mission.
"Come then" Jaeger motioned with his finger and stepped out into the rain. Several ninja came spiraling down from afar and landed on the crimson ground. Jaeger dashed forward and swung his blade in an arc. They lifted their weapons only to have them be cut in half before a second swing severed their throats.
"This demon…" The large man muttered from afar.
A hundred ninjas stepped down onto the ground this time to assault him all at once. Lightning flashed in the sky lighting up the area with the reflection of blue light across the blades they held. A second flash of lightning illuminated the whirling chain and it's blade that was hard to follow with the human eye.
Another flash accompanied by thunder, the large man watched as bodies fell around Jaeger and that was when he noticed a luster like metal coating to Jaeger's skin.
'Armor? So thin though?' he didn't know what to make of it, but it covered the area's that stuck out from the ninja clothing that Jaeger had long traded for his own tattered clothe.
A flash of lightning shot down from the sky, and the man watched on as it connected with a chain that was flung up into the air before whipping down onto Jaeger. He staggered once, but then quickly moved before he was attacked in that vulnerable moment.
'What was this man? To call lightning onto himself, and look like a golem of metal?'
The large man scoffed, and waved his hands to those around him.
100's more poured down onto the ground and used their own brethren as footholds against the mud to pour attacks onto Jaeger.
*whack*
*swish*
*bam*
*swish*
'You have gained .01% proficiency in chain blades, your proficiency is now 95.00%'
Thousands were around him. The metal skin he had was covered in cuts and wounds revealing the flesh beneath, Jaeger bit through the pain though and drank his potion for the day back.
He picked up several metal weapons and then melted them into himself to recover his skin in metal.
The man hopped down with the last several thousand ninja at his command. They wanted to end it all here, if they couldn't win in waves as they were only allowed to send several hundred a day at him within the Pagoda then they would hit him with everything they had outside of it.
"Come on!" Jaeger screamed over the rain enticing rage from the large man.
"Go!" He screamed back calling his forces to fight.
'You have gained .01% proficiency in chain blades; your proficiency is now 95.15%'
'You have gained .01% proficiency in chain blades; your proficiency is now 95.45%'
'You have gained .01% proficiency in chain blades; your proficiency is now 95.85%'
'You have gained .01% proficiency in chain blades; your proficiency is now 96.00%'
'You have gained .01% proficiency in chain blades; your proficiency is now 96.45%'
'97.15%'
'97.45%'
"Ahh!" Jaeger and the man screamed at each other through the rain and fought to the death.
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The woman was cradling her legs as she felt the tremors above, it seemed that the Pagoda had collapsed. As the rain finally let up, it grew silent all around. The light peppering sound that echoed down to here couldn't be heard anymore. However in its place was the creaked of wood being thrown back and forth and stone shoved away.
Someone was coming.
She put her ear to a listening tube that funneled into her side and listened as best she could, after a while the sounds stopped and someone arrived on the other side. She backed up slowly as she looked around for a weapon before grabbing a dagger off the wall. Holding it before her she braced herself to stab it into her own chest in case she was captured.
She soon dropped the dagger and weeped as she heard the light sound of….
*tap*
*tap*
*tap tap*