The Unexpected Grace of a Genius

After we left the abandoned classroom, we once again entered the halls. This time, we proceeded forward, in the direction where the previous cyclops originated. It didn’t take long, maybe a few minutes walk, before we once again ran into a couple of combat ready monsters.

Like our previous encounter, they were also Cyclops. Three this time. None of them wielded the familiar wooden club, instead, one was unarmed, while the rest used broken down steel pipes as makeshift weapons. The pipes were rather large, and looked to have been part of the school’s water filtration system.

Upon combat, we first confirmed our positions. Hina and Cielle were positioned at the back, as long range support, while I stood as vanguard alongside Cher. As expected, Cher still hadn’t gotten used to monster hunting. Her shoulders still trembled while her face was masked with a rather pitiful expression.

As the monstes saw and approached us, we readied ourselves. I didn’t wait for them to get any closer though, rather, I dashed forward, somewhat eager to test out my newly crafted weapon.

With a sweeping slash, I aimed at a startled Cyclops’ arm. As expected, despite the club’s sword like appearance, its functionality was more akin to its original form, acting like a blunt weapon rather than anything else. Upon contact, the arm did not detach cleanly, rather, it was crushed with an unimaginably strong force. The steel pipe it carried dropped to the floor as an unruly, primal wail of pain erupted forth from its mouth.

The initial force of my swing and its unexpected power sent my teetering off balance as I took two clumsy steps forward. As expected, even I was caught off guard by my sudden increase in strength. I leaped back, just in time as the monster’s remaining arm sweeped my initial location.

“Ah… the power was… greater than I expected…” I muttered to myself while I gleefully glanced down at the boken like club. This newly designed weapon, despite its ametaur appearance, had tremendous capabilities. This club alone was comparable to jumping 20+ levels all at the same time. What’s more, a majority of those levels were solely focused on strength. While normally, I possessed an agility build, this weapon overturned that, forcing me to adjust to more straight forward- strength based fighting.

Shaking my head helplessly, I once again focused in on the injured Cyclops. It held its broken hand rather pitifully, as it trudged forward, a look of malice simmering beneath its eyes.

As it moved, so did I. This time around, I decided to forgo my usual fighting style, and instead, strike randomly. With a single step, I quickly closed our distance, and bombarded the monster with a flurry of unaimed overhead strikes. To the chest, neck, shoulder, collarbone, rib cage, armpit, elbow, forehead, anything, I aimed randomly, overwhelming him with my newly attained strength. This way, I could get a feel for my new stats, while adjusting-if need be- to this new weapon’s peculiarities.

After a brief 10 seconds, I was able to reduce the Cyclops to a beaten pulp. It’s legs were broken, arms battered, while a majority of its ribcage was fractured. It only retained a sliver of its life, thanks to my grace, and the fact that Cher needed to to be the one to kill it. Confirming that everything had been dealt with on my side, I turned towards the others.

As expected, it was utter chaos. Pitiful screams -from both my side and the enemies- as well as a bombardment of various magic filled the space next to me. Cher was at the frontlines. Her makeshift shield had been bashed and beaten, but unexpectedly held up. This was probably as per my instructions. Instead of taking hits directly, due to the shield’s innate weakness, I instructed Cher to deflect the oncoming blows at an angle, lessening the burden on the shield itself.

While she did an admirable job following through with what I instructed, her own constitution wasn’t so formidable. Her face had an expression as if she was ready to run at any given moment, which was understandable, given her current circumstance.

Cher was currently sandwiched between two cyclops. Even if she ran, she couldn’t. These monsters were endlessly beating on her, one with its fists, while the other with a badly deformed steel club. The shield, which blocked most of these attacks was severely chipped and dented, and as expected, it could not block everything. Every now and then, a pained yelp would escape from Cher, which further cemented how pitiful her situation truly was.

With battered arms, and a tear stricken face, she tried her hardest to cling to the very scrap of her life.

Normally, Cher would have died. Normally, Cher would have died ten times over, but due to our healer’s peculiar skill, she was still standing, albeit unwillingly. Cielle, was constantly healing our vanguard. Rather than continuously shooting a steady supply of [Blue Gemini], on every exposed piece of skin, a bluish layer of slime covered her. Steadily, as the fighting extended, the slime would evaporate into Cher’s constantly attacked body, only to be replaced soon after. Like this, Cher was both constantly taking damage, and constantly recovering hp.

Of course, normally this wouldn’t be enough, seeing as how the damage dealt was greater than the damage recovered. The several blobs of black that rised out from Cher’s body, floated freely around her, keeping the Cyclops at bay, and lessening the constant blows. In addition, Hina’s own support fire helped divert most of the oncoming attacks.

A continuous mix of water magic flowed freely through the battlefield. Hina, upon her own discretion, wanted to experiment with her current arsenal of magic. As such, she chose to mainly focus on water type magic this time around, instead of relying on the more damaging fire magic.

In addition, Hina also casted one of her buff spells which she never really implemented up until now. A [Defense-Earth] kept Cher from outright croaking, despite her originally weak constitution.

As I watched this scene from the sidelines, I decided to finally take action. If we delayed anymore time onto a mere three cyclops, then our grinding session wouldn’t progress any further.

With that in mind, I sneaked around the fight, carefully positioning myself behind them. Using two brief, but well aimed striked, I aimed behind its knees and crushed the weaponless Cyclops’ legs. Its legs buckled before it tumbled to the floor with a look of brief confusion on its face. Following through, before the other one could react, I moved past the sprawled out cyclops and towards the other one. With a strike almost indiscernible to the human eye, I sent a quick jab towards the monster’s weapon-gripping hand. The instant the tip of my club impacted its hand, a sickening crunching sound filled the room, as a steel pipe hit the floor with a resounding thud.

Following through, I then retracted the club, before jabbing at the Cyclops once more, this time aiming for its exposed throat. The blow wasn’t enough to kill it, but it was enough to incapacitate. Its throat almost caved inwards, as the monster made varying gurgling noises, a vain struggle to breath, just before it fell to the floor.

I quickly crushed its limbs, fully incapacitating it. In the meanwhile, Hina had managed to knock the other one out by drowning it. Using her water magic, she used a steady stream of liquid to flood its nose and mouth, a feat that looked quite difficult to manage.

Before it could wake up, I walked over to it before I crushed its remaining limbs. As the fight neared its end, the scene of three badly bruised and crippled Cyclops filled our vision.

Afterwards, Cher was tasked with dealing the final blow.

She was complacent of course, more than eager to strengthen herself, but her anxiety and nervousness was readily obvious. Whether or not she still had trouble adjusting to “killing” in general or the fact that these particular monsters greatly resembled humans, Cher was hesitant and showed signs of brief remorse as she repeatedly stabbed the first Cyclops in its large beady eye. After her 2nd kill though, her nervousness did sort of mellow down, killing the remaining Cyclops just as effortlessly as breathing. Cher was indeed a person who adjusted fast.

Like that, she gained another level, bringing her closer to the target 8.

****

This sort of pattern continued as we proceeded forward.

We would encounter mobs of Cyclops every so often. Their numbers ranged from 2 to 3 with every encounter, although on occasion, there would be a lone cyclops that wandered the halls. The largest mob we encountered was a group of 5, but at this point, dealing with them became just as easy as dealing with 1.

Our battle strategy was a simple one. I would hold off one of the monsters (two, if the situations needs it), while the rest worked as a trio and held back the rest. After I incapacitated my prey, making sure not to kill it, I would then quickly deal a couple sneak attacks on the remaining monsters, ending the battle rather unceremoniously.

Afterwards, it was a simple matter of Cher dealing the final blow.

In each encounter, I forced Cher to fight in the frontlines. This sort of action, despite her unwillingness was greatly beneficial. For one, it allowed her to get used to fighting.

Cher’s current fighting style involved repeatedly taking hits, while wailing around pitifully. This was obviously not ideal, as her build was specced for agility (at least right now). In the future, I wanted Cher to take up a fighting style which utilized both agility and defense. A person who could effortlessly fly through the air, all the while deflecting oncoming hits and drawing aggro. While it was obvious that such an ideal was still far into the future, at the very least, getting her familiar with taking hits was something worthwhile.

One other benefit included a sort of experiment.

It was a common pattern that repetitive action spawned new skills. For instance, my experience with dissect and butcher resulted from repetitive action. This was also the method to increase skill level. In the end, I simply extended that logic over onto stats. Things like repetitive running, or repetitive weight lifting might directly increase one’s agility or strength. Of course, I haven’t witnessed that phenomenon myself, then again, I’ve merely focused on surviving, taking shortcuts rather than outright training my body.

If such a logic did apply to this game world, then acquiring a defense stat or something similar would be a reasonable extension to repeatedly guarding (taking) hits. At least, that was what I hoped for as I glanced over at Cher’s tossed around figure.

While this was persisting, the others as well, were trying their hardest. Unfortunately for the rest of us, most of the exp was going to Cher, all in an effort to speed raise her level. If we were a normal party, then things like equal stat distribution would occur.

Whether or not such a system did exist was still questionable, but thanks to this dungeon’s special feature, we could only rely on this crude method to level her up.

That’s why, despite not rising in actual level, Cielle and Hina both trained in different ways.

Hina for example endeavored to grasp a better understanding of her magic skills, and magic/mana in general. Her skill, [Full-Element] was something which gave her access to all elemental based magic. Unfortunately, as to expanding her own arsenal outside the original fire, water, wind, and earth, she was lost.

In the end, just like that time with her [Pyrokinesis] skill, Hina experimented. With a gloomier than average expression, she stuck to using water magic, hoping to gain a hydrokinesis skill or something similar. As expected, large waves and water shots lack the same destructive force as fire magic. Instead, Hina approached the situation differently.

In her fights, as rear support, she would target vital spots. Eyes, ears, nose, mouth, even open wounds, she would send a blast of water directly towards such openings. Lately, her favorite method of attack was pseudo-drowning the Cyclops in mid combat by filling their throats and lungs with a torrent of water.

This method was unexpectedly effective, disorienting, or sometime out right knocking them out. Although as expected, such a difficult attack required pinpoint hand eye accuracy and magic accuracy. This was also why Hina acquired something unexpected in the midst of her training; A new stat, and two to boot.

A stat rightfully labeled [Accuracy] and [Magic Accuracy]. Something with obvious enough names, that even a four year old would be able to guess as to their functions. Nonetheless, for Hina, who specialized in long distance attack, this was essential.

Purely on conjecture, accuracy and dexterity seemed pretty close, and should have a sort of synergistic effect to them. Although in any case, it seemed a bit unfair. After all, my stats are kind of dexterity oriented, but something like [Accuracy] hasn’t flashed in front of me. While it would be a given not to acquire [Magic Accuracy], something like [Accuracy] should be available right?

As I thought about it more and more, I drew several conclusions.

For one, stats themselves might be different regarding each individual. This was a reasonable theory, considering how, at the start of the apocalypse, the stats were arranged to match a person’s prior physical condition. It might just be that stats themselves, much like an individual’s constitution, come easier for some than others. For others, things like raising their stats outside usual leveling up, was somewhat easier. Similar to how a few people had a faster metabolism, or generally greater fluid intelligence.

Truly, even with the “game system” implemented, people are still born unequal. The system of leveling was just a small step in bridging that inequality, but in the end, you can’t change the very basis of nature.

And if this were the case, then Hina herself might be qualified as a genius, being able to acquire such stats with relative ease… If I recall, she also acquired some grandiose title like [Grand Magician] a while back…

There was also another theory. Magic itself might be a harder element to control, so the system might just reward such actions greater than when I whimsically throw my daggers around. Also, regarding magic itself, it might also be something that facilitates outside stat growth. An unimaginably important feature, which I have no right to.

I could only pray the latter wasn’t the case, since if it was, then [Equip]’s demerit, has an even greater effect than what I was first led to believe.

In addition to those new stats, Hina quickly learned [Hydrokinesis] with relative ease, once again cementing the idea that Hina was an unexpected genius when it came to magic.

Cielle also somewhat mimicked Hina’s actions. Several tiny dots of darkness darted across the battlefield, directly homing in on the open wounds that I inflicted. Like with Hina’s case, such a feat was harder than it first looked. First of all, Cielle was positioned several yards away from the monsters. Hitting such small space from so far away required either extreme luck or skill, maybe both.

In no time at all, just like her sister, Cielle also gained the [Magic Accuracy] stat. Although unlike Hina, the [Accuracy] stat remained out of reach. One thing she did gain though was [Magic Endurance]. Magic endurance was a stat which lowered mana consumption, as to how she was able to acquire such a thing… it might have been due to Cielle’s continuous healing, and equally as continuous attacking.

Since I neither had magical competency nor the ability to use mana, I had no idea what limitations or setbacks came with continuous, non stop usage. Merely speculations and theories, but in the end, wasn’t something like gaining a new stat pretty hard to do?

Once again, I was reminded of my earlier theory, which caused an uncontrollable sigh to leak out.

-These two sisters, despite how they look…

Whether genius or not, such unexpected stat growth was outside my current limits. For now, all I could do was rely on the items I painstakingly created by myself.

At the very least, it comforted me that Cher herself wasn’t a genius, unlike the other two. Although, she did undergo a drastic change… or at the very least, her mind set did. While the first half of our nonstop grinding showcased her pitiful self, a series of terribly annoying and slightly ungraceful expressions as she took hit after hit, something changed halfway through.

That terribly pained expression loosened up. Those pale, sweating cheeks reddened as they flushed. Her annoying wailing and screaming, lessened, replaced by heavy… panting. It was indeed a bit creepy, but in the end, it resulted in Cher gaining a stat called [Physical Resistance]. Physical resistance was similar to defense, in that it lessened oncoming damage. The difference was, that while defense lessened both magic and physical damage, Physical Resistance only affected physical attacks.

I could have probably acquired [Physical Resistance] as well, but stretching out Cielle’s already thin healing capablities was too much at our current pace.

When Cher’s level finally reached 8, her newly acquired points, as well as her saved points, where all equally distributed to Defense and Physical Resistance. Just as I expected, when Cher added points into Defense while the desk shield was equipped, it turned the defense stat into a permanent addition.

The addition of the defense stat and physical resistance stat allowed her to effectively tank more hits. In addition, being able to use an actual shield (one that was qualified as an in-game weapon) greatly boosted Cher’s own defensive capabilities. Although, much to her chagrin, the Physical resistance had an unexpected effect of lessening pain.

Like this we continued to progress forward.

Along the way, none of the Cyclops dropped actual item drops, but they did leave behind a few clubs. These clubs were valuable in that they were perfect raw material for my crafting skill.

During one of our rare breaks, I utilized the given time to either create, or enhance our current arsenal.

I repaired Cher’s shield with using some of the wood from the Cyclops Club. Since the shield was poorly constructed, and durability was easily reduced, repair became vital. By replacing, or covering the splintered portions of the shield’s surface, I was able to either restore durability or add to its maximum value.

In the process, I gained the sub-skill, [Repair].

All-Purpose Crafting

Skill Type: Rare

Skill Rank: Beginner

Skill Level: 1

Skill Experience: 50%

Effects:

A rare subtype skill that falls under the crafting specialization. It allows access to most, non-unique and non-legendary crafting skills.

Ways to acquire more skills: Tutelage, direct experience, leveling up [All-Purpose Crafting]

Currently Known Skills:

Weapon Crafting- Allows for the crafting of weapons with innate attributes (i.e. stats, damage, durability, etc.)

Weapon Customization - Customize pre-existing weapons, be it for better or for worse.

Repair - Restore weapons, or various items. Increases durability, and prolong a weapon’s life.

[Repair] was useful, since it allowed me to restore some of the lost durability on my heavily used weapons. After all, it would have been a terrible joke had Efhermet broken down before I was able to properly use it.

While producing things like armor, and the like were still beyond me, I was able to craft something like a bo staff. Its performance was less than my boken like club, but still qualified as a weapon. In the end, I gave it to Hina, since she was the only one who met the level requirements (level 18). Like with the boken, it increased attack, but was more centered on speed rather than defense. For a magic caster like Hina, the strength boost might be irrelevant, but at the very least, the speed boost makes running away easier.

If I stuck something like a magic stone, or something… I could probably produce one of those magical staffs you often see in fantasy settings, but unfotunately, I had nothing like that.

I made something similar for Cielle aswell, although due to her level, she could not properly equip it yet.

As for Cher, I refrained from giving her a weapon. Normally, something like the long sword (now that she fit the level requirements) would be handed down to her, but I chose not to do that. For one, an unexpected backstab would be bad, and there was also the fact that she was unexpectedly clumsy with the sword.

Wielding both a shield and a sword in both her hands only slowed her down and made her clumsy movements more so. Rather than looking like a knight, with her shield and sword combo, she came off more as a giant target.

In the end, she herself was complacent with sticking to a shield. Commenting about how she was better at taking hits rather than giving them.

***

On occasion, I would sneak out into the hallway by myself, with the pretense of scouting. Since this was something I usually did, nobody found it odd.

In actuality, I was doing research. Or more specifically, I was dissecting.

Cyclops corpses resembled human anatomy. Of course, with the exception of its palm sized eye, and flat nose, these things could have passed as burly construction workers.

I knelt besides a corpse. Its fresh blood flowed freely through the floor, giving off a metallic scent to the air. The first thing I did was scoop out its larger than average eyeball. As expected, when you think of cyclops, you instantly think of its giant eye, right?

I pulled it out from its head, and examined it under the passing sunlight. It was oblong in shape, and sort of resembled an egg. It had the consistency of glass, which was rather unexpected. I severed the connecting tissue, with the tip of my dagger, just as I gently placed the oblong eyeball to the side.

Using the opening provided from the hole in its head, I excavated its brain out. It was difficult, seeing as how the passage connecting the eye and the brain was rather narrow, but in the end, I managed to remove chunks of it by not focusing on the whole, but rather its parts.

As expected, it looked like a sponge. A wrinkly, pink mass which resembled all the pictures of a human brain that I’ve seen. As I dug the brain out, I noticed that towards the back, where the brain stem probably connected, was a sort of purplish mass. It was obviously still part of the brain, but looked rather unnatural.

A discoloration in that otherwise mass of pink.

After digging out most of what its head had to offer, I moved on to the rest of the body. Methodical, precise, well aimed. I continued my usual routine, desensitized to its human like appearance. What its body had to offer was nothing I hadn’t already figured out.

Its bone structure, resembled a goblin’s although larger. The bones themselves were somewhat brittle, more so than I expected from a monster of its size. As if to make up for that, its muscle mass was great. Denser than even the tusk boar’s.

After I finished, I identified the individual body parts that I severed, before I dragged its body out into an abandoned room, making sure to hide my work from the girls.

Like that, our progress with level grinding continued, and I was able to keep my dark secret hidden, beneath the pretenses of leadership and caution.

****

Author's Note: If you liked this chapter, or this story in general, please rate or review. The feedback is always appreciated.