In order to make sure the plan was workable, I need to first confirm the stats of the dwarf, Aston.

StatusName:Aston RedhillTitle:NoneRace:DwarfGender:MaleLevel:7Experience:41.2%Class:BerserkerHealth:240/240Rage:0/100Health regen:2.4/sRage decay:1/sStrength:28Intelligence:11Dexterity:11Wisdom:10Vitality:16Willpower:14Attack:8-33Defence:20

Skills

Class Trees

Berserk[Level 15]

-Rage Control[Passive]

-Rage Cleave[Active]

-Pure Rage[Active]

Racial Skills

Iron Heart[Passive]

Berserk[Level 15]

This tree converts your mana into a resource call ‘Rage’. ‘Rage’ needs to be built up, either through hitting things or getting hit. It is still possible to use skills without enough ‘Rage’ resource, but the amount of damage done will be reduced accordingly, up to 50%.

Rage Control[Passive]

This ability increases your attack by an amount depending on how much ‘Rage’ you have.

Rage Cleave[Active]

By using the skill, you will be able to attack 180 degrees in front with greater damage, based on the amount of rage you have. The cleave will affect all targets within the range and it cannot be blocked. Costs 40 Rage.

Pure Rage[Active]

When the skill is activated, the amount of damage increased by [Rage Control] will be doubled. At the same time, the amount of damage taken will also be increased by 50%.

Iron Heart[Passive]

Being born and raised in an environment that is as hard as iron has enabled the person to have the durability of one. Increase the amount of health gained per vitality. Resistance to effects due to willpower is also increased.

“Damn! His strength stat sure is high, but I suppose that is right for a berserker who cares more about strength than anything else. But his defence is too high for my plan to work, unless I…”

-----

From the viewpoint of the dwarf, Aston:

I am now standing in the middle of a lake, totally drenched and fully naked. As a dwarf that grew up in the mountains, where there wasn’t much water bodies, I didn’t bother to learn swimming. Thank god that this was a shallow lake, enough so that it barely reached my chest even with my height of 1.5 metres.

While I am being grouchy here, there was an elf standing at the lake bank laughing at me, my pile of equipment and clothes by his side. How did it come to this? Let’s look back to an hour ago.

-----

I was travelling with my friend Chris, an elf, through the forest. We were here to complete an extermination request for wolves that had become too plentiful on the other side of this forest. Normally people wouldn’t bother to travel so far just to do such a simple request as it takes too much travelling time; We chose it since we knew the forest like the back of our hands and could travel at a fast enough speed to make it worth the time. The reason we knew this forest so well is due to the amount of time that we had spent here.

We met each others a couple of years back, here in this forest, when we were just starting out with our adventuring career. To be honest, I was too arrogant back then. Although I didn’t have any battle experience, I immediately picked out an extermination request for a swarm of goblins in the forest as my first job. I didn’t want to do all the other jobs that seemed suitable for a novice adventurer as I deemed them to be too easy.

It wasn’t as if the guild didn’t try to stop me from picking up the request, I was too stubborn and fully ignored all their advice. There wasn't any veteran adventurers there to knock sense into my head, so I just went into the forest, ignorant of the danger that I was about to face.

The forest was considered big, but it wasn’t hard to spot the group of goblins when they were so plentiful. I found them within an hour and immediately dived into them. I was expecting the swarm to be easy to kill off but I overestimated myself too much. Instead of finishing off forty plus goblins without feeling too tired, by the time I finished off my 10th one, my endurance was already barely keeping me standing.

I realised then that I should have heed the sensible advice that was given and not work on this request alone or even at all. Just as I had begun giving up hope of surviving, someone dropped down from above, taking down 2 goblins at the same time. To me, he was like a hero, appearing in my time of need.

My expectations was betrayed when I saw that he was just a novice like me, judging by the way he swung his sword and wore basic novice equipment. Still, him being there meant that my chances of survival had increased. I joined him and fought back to back with him. By the end of the battle, we were both filled with bruises and cuts, but at least we still had our lives.

Later on I found out that he saw what happened at the guild and was worried about my safety. He decided to follow me and watch, helping out only when needed. I assumed that he did not want me to think that he was out there to steal my request.

The fact that he was willing to risk his life to help me, a stranger, earned him my total trust. I suggested forming a party with him and he readily accepted with a big grin.

Since then, we had mostly been accepting requests that were in the vicinity of the forest, like the current request. We reached the lake nearing the middle of the forest and sat down for a short break. Even before I had sufficient rest, Chris was already raring to go. He is an elf in a forest after all; He recovers fast. Thus he decided to proceed first, I will catch up in a short while.

Once I was well-rested, I walked towards his direction. I heard his pain-like roar shortly after. I quickly ran towards him. What I saw there was something that we had never encountered before. There was some humanoid creature standing over Chris. Other than the body, which looks like that of a young child, it's head was something grotesque.

To save Chris, I had to fully make use of the element of surprise that I have, since I had no idea what that thing was capable of. I then remembered how Chris saved me when we first met and decided to use the same tactic. I creeped up to the tree towering above the creature and climbed it, hoping it wouldn’t notice me. I managed to get above him while it was standing still and readied my axe.

I shouted while I jumped down to provide myself with the courage to stare at the creature until the last moment; I didn’t want to waste my only chance for a surprise attack and miss. The creature turned due to my shout and I felt stupid for alerting it of my attack. It did not dodge though, as my axe landed cleanly into his head, cutting it in half. It fell on the ground right there, no longer moving.

I was worried about Chris but after waking him up and finding that he was alright, I started to examine the creature. Like what I saw before, the body is that of a young child. The head is bloated in such a way that it resembles a mushroom. There were also cracks on the head itself, splitting itself into 4 sections even before my axe went in.

Chris then suddenly shouted,

"Wait! You didn't touch that thing did you?"

"Yes I did?"

"I remembered seeing something similar to that creature in the books back in my village. Remember the lake before? You’ve got to quickly get there and jump into the water, or else you'll die! Take off everything before you jump in, or else it wouldn't help!"

Having complete trust in him, stupid me decided to follow his instructions word for word.

After jumping in, I felt that something was wrong. My suspicion was confirmed when Chris started laughing. That brings us back to the present.

“Dammit Chris! How can you take your joke so far, I really thought that I was going to die there!”

“But this isn’t a joke. I’m serious.”

“What?”

“If I didn’t make you strip naked and jump into the lake, you’ll really die. To me, that is.”

I immediately went from anger to confusion.

“Oh, don’t look so confused, you just need to do all I say and you’ll live. Come over here, out of the lake, and let me tie you up.”

His command left me even more baffled. Why would Chris be doing this, I’ve fought alongside him for so long that I knew him inside out. It shouldn’t be possible for someone to hide their real personality for so long. I have total trust in him, it still doesn’t change now, so I didn’t know how to react to this. What he said next cleared all my doubts,

“It’s okay, Chris wouldn’t be doing these to you right? I expect you to be thinking these things, so let me clarify your question; I am not Chris. If you want Chris to be safe, do as I say, NOW.”

I didn’t know if following his commands would keep Chris safe, but in the current situation, I think that that would be the best thing that I could do. Even if I ran away, without any equipment, I wouldn’t be able to survive the journey back to the city. Thus, I listened to his commands and hoped that Chris and I will both be safe in the end.

And that was how I was captured.

-----

Author’s Notes: Thanks again for reading this chapter :D. I actually had this chapter done on Sunday, but it wasn’t proofread then, so it couldn’t be published. And I had been busy the past few days(till today) while having a lack of internet. Thus I’m only able to post it now. This can be said to be caused by something work-like that I’m doing and there will always be this 2 or 3 days break every 2 or 3 days.

I also have written chapter 5 and 6, but they are neither edited nor proofread yet, but I should be able to publish them later today(chapter 5) and tomorrow(chapter 6).