The standoff between us and the rustling bushes felt like hours. Just as I was about to think we were insane, we heard a loud horn blowing. Gray human-like creatures burst forth from their positions and the battle has begun.
Two of the oddities launched themselves at me, one from a nearby bush and the other from a tree. I saw some arrows whiz at them but none struck. Despite my years of training with a sword, I froze. This is a living being. Not like a deer or a boar, its human-like figure made me hesitate for a split second until I I heard Dikyu shout "Its either you or them! Fight!".
I sprung into action, blocking the left oddity's makeshift dagger, I felt a jolt of pain and saw text near the bottom left of my far peripheral vision.
Calculated damage: 2% left arm blunt damage/no permanent damage
They even have a preinstalled doctor. Nice.
A spear from behind me lunged towards the right oddity, striking them in the stomach and making them fall onto the ground, shouting in some language. "Nice one Bean," I said. No response. I felt the power on my shield loosen, as the oddity turned to face the injured oddity, screaming something and then screaming some more while crouching down and picking up the dying body. The dying oddity whimpers in a weak voice and points to the forest. Shit.. it feels like they're communicating or something, I better have not killed a family. Taking advantage of the situation, I flipped my sword and prepared to plunge it into the male oddity's throat. I almost did until the dying oddity that Bean stabbed screamed, resulting in the crying oddity to flee back into the woods. This thing stole my goddamn kill. Angrily, I drove my sword into the neck of the dying oddity instead. Another two message showed up as the oddity gurgled and died
Calculated damage: 100% Neck, Slicing damage +1%, 101%/Instant death
Calculated experience: 12.3%
Re-posturing myself, I stood up just in time to hear an ear-piercing "h-HYAAAAH" to my left. Turning to the origin of the scream, I see white hair girl, on her ass. Both she and the spearman behind her are too petrified to get up or do anything. The bow couldn't shoot with the spearman in the way and in a second or two the oddity, wielding a makeshift stone sword with sharp edges etched onto it, was about to slice the poor woman to death. Jumping at the oddity would break formation and put me in danger, so I did the one logical thing anyone would do. I threw whatever was in my hand. Turns out, it was my buckler. So I threw it at the oddity with as much force as my left hand could muster. I hit it on the left side of its head, an inch or two above its ear.
Calculated damage: 39% head blunt damage/mild concussion
"GET UP" I screamed at Renho, she looked at me like she was about to piss her pants. She got up as fast as she could, but it was not fast enough. While she was halfway up, the oddity regained its spatial awareness and charged at Renho. Thankfully, it didn't have full motor control yet, its sword missed the attack and it flipped over Renho, like how an athlete fumbles a hurdle. Not thankfully, accidentally or not, the male oddity ended up stabbing the frozen spearman in the thigh
"WUAAAAAAAA" Should have helped her, idiot.
While the sword was still in their thigh, the spearman unfroze and started repeatedly stabbing and screaming at the oddity as its screams turned into cries. By the end of the whole ordeal, the poor oddity looked like a shishkabob. Guts all over the place, its human-looking face now unrecognizable. The spearman's adrenaline then fades, and he falls onto the ground. One of the people with wands hurries over to his side and tries to rip off some hide from the oddity. Oh yeah, the oddities are clothed with hide-looking tribal-style outfits. Anyways, the wand person fails and decides to yank the entire thing off to give first aid treatment to the spearman, leaving the mutilated oddity's wing-a-ling out in the fly. I offered Renho my hand to help her again, but she brushed me off. Getting up herself, she saw the dead oddity's 'oddity' and took the liberty to smash the weed inside out. This dick smasher is scary. Now that my immediate threat is over, I take a few seconds to get a grasp of my situation. The first thing that came to mind was the noise. Clashing of iron with wood and stone, the occasional scream, and the smell of blood in the air. Looking to my right, I see two dead oddities on the ground, with my sister and the spearman behind her helping the people to her right. Looking to my left, I see a cluster of swords, maces, and spears, battling clubs, stone knives, stone swords, and stone spears. This isn't good I thought we were breaking formation. The bows are wide open for some attack, any attack, arrows, swords, spears, anything. Even though as I could see, we didn't have a single casualty, things could quickly change. As expected, things DID change. A second horn blasts, in a different pattern. Another wave of oddities charged out, except this time, we weren't in position. I had to fend off both me and my right, as my sister was defending her right. While some of the oddities were pulled towards the increasingly large cluster that was forming, others rushed past the cluster, coming into contact with our archers. While a few of them died from the archers' attacks, most did not. I couldn't focus on them, cause I had my own problems to deal with. 4 more oddities, one of them had a large belly and chest. Was it pregnant? Doesnt matter. It's me or them. An arrow cuts down an oddity with a sword, the rest have a stone axe, a stone spear, and an iron sword. As they approach, Bean stabs the axe wielder in the leg. Not enough to immobilize, but enough to weaken. This time, I didn't have my buckler. So I'll have to be extra careful. Gripping the sword with both my hands, I held it up high, putting my years of kendo to work. I may be a bit rusty, but I am still capable. As soon as one of the oddities came into my kill zone, I slashed downward, as if cutting a bamboo mat. Unlike a bamboo mat, the oddity screamed. It sounded similar to the last few oddities killed, and gave me a feeling of disgust. I had cut straight into their skull with a satisfying crack, stuck about halfway from the top of the head to the nose.
Calculated damage: 98% Head slicing damage +1%, 99% damage./Certain death
Almost instantaneously afterward, another message showed up
Calculated EXP: 13.2%
My sword was stuck in the damned thing's head, so I did what I saw in a movie once and kicked the body, dislodging the brain-splattered sword, now a reddish iron hue in color.
Seeing my actions made the two remaining female oddities stop in their tracks, right outside of my kill zone. I took a step forward, they took a step back. I took a step back, they stayed still. Both of them were an easy kill, one was injured and the other was sluggish. I looked at the spear-wielding oddity with a big belly with long hair, it made a "hii!" kind of sound and dropped its spear on the ground. The injured one held its arm up in front of the pregnant oddity. Even without speaking the same language, I understood what it said. 'Fight me'. I focused on the injured oddity, and spoke to Bean "If the other oddity runs, throw your spear at it." I don't know if Bean agreed with the plan, I don't even know if he's behind me. But I trusted that he did.
I took a stance I saw in a novel once, Left leg out, right left bent sword next to your head, pointed at the enemy, left hand in front of your chest, and waited for the move of the injured female oddity.
A second passed. Another. And another. It felt like forever, but the oddity was just standing there, axe drawn, frozen like a statue. So I decided to let go of my weeb-ass posture and advance for the first strike.
Feigning. The art of lying. It's perfect for sly people with no honor. It's also perfect for me.
With one hand, I positioned my sword to the top right, planning to cut down diagonally. The oddity responded by preparing to block to his left. Contact. The sword gets blocked by the axe
Calculated damage: 1% left and right arm blunt damage/No permanent injury
Now, I'm not quite confident in my punching skills, especially with my left hand. But the snazzy official said that these things were weaker than us. As the sword was blocked, I pulled back my left arm and let loose the hardest side punch since my 8th-grade year. Right into the oddity's fleshy cheek. Its face spun to the right with the impact and it let go of the axe in shock.
Calculated damage: 18% head bludgeoning damage/Light trauma
With a swift motion, I pulled my sword up once again and disarmed the oddity.
The big-bellied oddity let out a scream as I swung the sword down, repeating what happened to the first oddity. Surprisingly, murder felt pretty good. I could do this all day.
Calculated damage: 64% head slicing damage +1% 65% head damage/Faital hit
Calculated EXP: 11.5%
The thing didn't even scream, I kicked it over and slashed my blade to the side, getting rid of some of the blood and guts. The final bellied oddity turned around and started to run, screaming and crying. A spear came flying from behind me but missed and struck the trunk of a tree, hitting the ground with a clang. I rushed to help the archers, but it was already finished. I saw 9 bodies on the ground, two of them were ours. Standing near them was a tall and bulky man with long flowing black hair with a short ponytail and a scar on his upper lip. Blood was still dripping from his sword, and his school uniform was covered in splotches of the stuff. For a second, he looked really cool, like a hero who saved the day. He then looked around, saw the people staring at him, and then immediately crouched into a fetal position. All of my respect went down the drain. Before I even had time to react or do anything, the horn blared again. Three quick blares and one long blare. The oddities on either side started to run away, some of them getting cut down and shot down on the way. Like they weren't running away before I thought to myself, sighing. It was over.
Cheering erupted among the students. We had finally won. Backtracking to where I killed the female oddity with the iron sword, I found the corpse and picked up the sword. It looked different from my sword, it was thicker, with a long black handle instead of my brown handle. It was a bit longer than my sword and it was heavier. It had chips and dents in the blade. It's been used a lot. The base was rusty and looked as if it would crack and detach any day now. I decided it wasn't good enough to be a trustworthy blade, so I threw it back onto the dead oddity. Adrenaline fading, I looked back on what the hell I just did. I... I killed three people. And I was about to kill a probably pregnant or just really fat person... My hands started shaking uncontrollably. My vision started blurring. Did I really think... That murder felt… good? I fell to my knees and dropped my sword. Looking up to the sky and trying not to hyperventilate. Ahh, how beautiful the clouds were, I thought, before passing out.