Cinder swung the mace without looking. All he had to go on was the boar's heavy footsteps and the puffs of air it blew while breathing.
But, as if to make up for his earlier bad hits, his mace crashed straight into the boar's snout breaking a tusk and its jaw. It was a lucky hit. It was desperately needed.
It saved Cinder's life. However, the boar still knocked into him with its shoulder, sending him flying again and breaking another few bones. More pain blazed through his shoulder and arm.
But the boar was down for the count, and Kode just had to finish it off. While walking closer, he drew his bow and aimed at the boar's head. He shot his arrow before taking another step while pulling an arrow from nowhere and drawing his bow again. Release, step, draw, release, step, draw, release, repeat.
Kode turned the boar's head into a pincushion until he finally pierced it and killed it with a lethal blow to its brain.
Kode wiped the sweat off his forehead and sighed in relief.
"First try."
Kode walked up to Cinder, who was squirming on the ground in pain, tears welling up in his eyes.
"...That looks pretty bad," Kode said with a hint of pity. He could see the expression of pain on Cinder's face. He could also see some blood on the ground around him. But most of his injuries were censored or covered in flashing images of band-aids and bandages. He had trouble empathizing with Cinder when it looked like that.
Through gritted teeth, Cinder asked,
"...What…Now?" What was he supposed to do when he was this injured? It wasn't like the village had a hospital. Even if it did, how was he supposed to get there?
Kode scratched the back of his head awkwardly. He shrugged with an uncomfortable expression.
"Die?" He suggested.
Oddly enough, Cinder understood what he meant. If he died, he would resurrect with an intact body. Kode was not turning his back on him for the meager two Tokens in his pocket and whatever they got from the boar.
"I'll…wait…for…you…at…the village," Cinder boar through the pain and made sure that Kode knew what he meant. Kode would not betray him and take all the spoils without consequence. Of course, he could still scam Cinder out of the Tokens they got from the boar, but if Kode made him suspicious, Cinder would just not team up with him and consider it a learning experience.
"Sure. Ready?"
Cinder nodded.
Kode strung and drew his bow one last time, freeing Cinder from his misery.
Cinder once again appeared in the grassy flatlands with a soft and warm breezing brushing against him and dancing in his hair on its way to the horizon, dragging the faint clouds in the blue sky with it.
He also had the same system windows in front of him as before. Cinder stroked his neck as he looked at the warning window which was noticeably bigger this time.
'I wonder if that grows every time I die.' If he died a hundred times, wouldn't that window cover the entire flatlands, even if they seemed to go on forever?
After taking a moment to calm his beating heart and patting his body, making sure it didn't hurt anymore, Cinder asked to be sent back. A moment later, he was back in Rata.
Cinder frowned.
"Here ya go," Kode said as he handed Cinder the poor mace and a tiny pile of Tokens. Six in total.
"...How are you already here?" Cinder asked, eyes narrowed with suspicion. It had taken him only a few seconds in the afterlife before he asked to go to the village. With Kode's speed, it should take him at least fifteen minutes, and that was if he sprinted all the way. He still took his things and the Tokens, though.
"Oh, right. I didn't get the opportunity to mention it, but if you die repeatedly, it takes some time to resurrect. I'm pretty sure it's worse for Naturalists, but it's not like I've conducted a study. Can't afford to pay the Naturalists. There's no way they would put themselves through something like that without proper compensation, am I right?"
"Mhm. How long did I have to wait?"
Kode looked at his bare wrist and said,
"I've been here for about eight minutes, so maybe half an hour?"
Cinder frowned. That was an unnecessarily long time. But more than that, it felt like no time had passed at all for him. It was strange. The world had moved without him. At least when he slept, he woke up with a feeling that time had passed even when he slept.
This time, it was like he really had been dead and separated from the world for those thirty minutes.
"Got it. That means its soon time for me to get going."
"I see." Kode was a little regretful. It wasn't perfect, but they had hunted a boar. If they could continue like this and Cinder didn't die next time, they could maybe pick off three in the span of an hour. That was a lot of Tokens.
"I'm happy to do this again sometime," Kode said.
"...That depends. How much did you scam me?" Cinder asked, not joking.
"Haha."
"..."
"I didn't! I felt a little sorry for you since you died again, so I gave you four of the six Tokens we got. Three from the boar and three from the materials."
"Mhm," Cinder hummed with narrowed eyes. Still, it was better than nothing.
"I'll forgive you if you help me turn this into money."
"...Sure."
Kode guided Cinder to a wooden booth. It looked like an old-timey outhouse, but it was located in the middle of the village next to the big important building, and it didn't smell. So, it wasn't an outhouse.
It was the Sisyphus Online Open Market.
It was Cinder's first step to earning a fortune through Sisyphus Online.