3.11

“No it’s simple, all you have to do is convince five others to buy my Ethelinda’s Essential Elixir™ from you and those five each convince their own five. It’ll all work out, I promise.” - Guild Master Ethelinda Smith the Prosperous of the Dim Ar Rype Merchant’s Guild marketing to her Vice Guild Master.

“Is there anything else you’d like to do?” Dave asked in a good-natured tone, “purchase something? Trick me again?”

I glanced around the shop, “Nothing really…” then paused as my not eyes settled on a cookbook. “Actually, just a few things.”

‘Too fast,’ Noam thought as he levelled the blade against the girl’s throat. His breath was already slowing, the dull thud of his heartbeat could still be heard but it was dimming.

“Too fast,” Noam repeated again.

“Uhh, you gonna stab me or what?” the girl asked.

Noam thought about it for a moment, then realised the answer was obvious.

“Nope!” Noam cheerfully said as he let her go.

“What?”

Noam skipped a few steps away, “Let’s try this again.”

“Are you looking down on me,” the girl said, her eyes taking on a dangerous light.

“Not really,” Noam answered truthfully, “I’m hoping you kill me, T.B.H.”

“Did you just say T.B-”

“Yep,” Noam said, sheathing his dagger. Picking up his dropped halberd, taking one look at it, before breaking the shaft at its centre on his knee. “You play fighting games, right? Which one? Brawl Streets, Path of War, World War?”

“Machitis,” the girl said with a smug look.

Noam’s eyes shot towards her, suddenly bright and expectant, “Oh. Oh,” Noam said, “that’s the illegal one where all senses are turned to eleven right?”

The girl was slightly taken aback by the reaction, but answered, “Yes.”

“Ranker?” Noam asked.

She proudly puffed her chest out, “Prelim for the last Oceanic Blood and Guts Tournament. I’m Red Cinderella. Call me Cindy.”

Noam whistled, “Can I add you after this then? It’s been a while since I met another Ranker.”

“Sure…” her brain caught up to his words, “Another?”

Noam lifted his halberd, now proportioned closer to a handaxe with an extra stabbing end, and said, “Yup, I’m Mattmanfoo, it’s been a while since I played, but I was in an American tournament, can’t remember the name though.”

“Huh, were you famous? I haven’t heard of you,” Cindy said, a finger on her chin in thought.

“Dunno,” Noam answered, doing a few quick stretches, “I quit after a while.”

He had gotten an earful from his mum when she learned about it. Along with Decs’ disapproving silent treatment. God that was a boring month without the asshole to annoy.

“Now let’s do this-” Noam couldn’t finish, as Cindy had grabbed the aisle shelf, and viciously pulled it down onto them.

Noam dodged to his left, but wasn’t fast enough, as the shelf top clipped his right arm. During that brief moment, Cindy closed the distance, her bat pointed like a spear. Noam’s eyes lit up in glee as he realised that she was aiming for his left side, where his arm was still bruised and near useless.

His normal speed wouldn’t make it in time, so Noam flowed aura into his right. Swift Strike allowing him to make the distance. Metal clanged as the bat was slapped away with his axe. Noam kept the aura coming, with a stomp forward, he stabbed the spear point into Cindy’s left shoulder. She let out a gasp of pain, but grit her teeth and weakly reversed the bat swing. Slamming right into Noam’s exposed left.

The attack didn’t have much strength in it. But something cracked. The blow was aura enhanced. Noam tried to fight against his body’s desire to crumble under the pain. But he failed and his legs lost strength. He managed to keep his grip on his weapon, which prevented him from falling entirely as it lodged itself in Cindy’s shoulder.

Cindy screamed as she swung again at Noam, but in her haste she missed his nose by a few centimeters.

The spear point dislodged, eliciting another scream of pain and allowing Noam to fall to the ground.

Cindy recovered when Noam landed and swung her bat golf style, Noam’s head the ugly golf ball. But through aura Noam’s foot kicked into her ankle first, knocking her down. As she fell, Noam forced aura into both his arms and slammed them down. The force pushed him up, his forehead slamming into Cindy’s nose. Blood flowed as she fell to the side and Noam fell back to the ground.

Noam was dazed, his left arm was still bruised and he couldn’t feel his side. Instinct screamed at him to get up and thus he tried to, but an electric spasm went through him and he found it painful to move.

He wouldn’t learn this until later, but consecutive uses of aura had strained his muscles. Regardless, Noam processed the present reality of being unable to make great movements and instead of resting, he forced aura into more parts of his body. His battered and bruised left arm shot out and slammed into the still standing shelf. He found that his fingers were numb and couldn’t grip. So aura flowed into each individual finger and each individual finger activated Swift Strike, slamming into the shelf to grab onto it.

It was false strength, but it was enough for Noam to pull himself up a second faster than Cindy. Two weapons flew out. Both were using aura, but only Noam used a speed enhancing technique.

Noam’s spear stabbed itself into Cindy’s chest, right where the heart was, only a moment before her bat slammed into Noam’s head.

Noam fell back, ones of his horns cracking as he finally lost grip on his weapon.

Cindy’s eyes widened, disbelief and shock dancing across her face as her eyes darted back and forth from the halberd in her chest and the body on the ground. She could no longer hear the beat of her heart and started feeling cold. She took a step forward before her strength failed her and she fell onto Noam.

Noam giggled, the sound coming out like a strained cough, Cindy joined him, her own laugh a gurgle drowned out by her own blood.

Cindy laughed for a few moments more as her body began to dissipate, before disappearing completely.

Noam kept laughing in utter childlike glee until the mob found him in a pool of blood and killed him.

“Damn, you’ve been busy,” Noam commented as he took a bite into the ‘kebab’, “what is this shit? It’s delicious.”

“You don’t want to know,” I answered as I continued cooking. The potato was manning the back, having almost fainted at the concept of customer service. Peps was manning the counter and helping out by being generally cheerful and healing anyone who came in with even scratches.

“Oh yeah,” I began, “don’t eat a lot of it.”

“Why not?” Noam asked, waving a cleaned skewer, “This shit is delicious… Wait, is this skewer made of grilled potato?” Noam bit into the skewer, “It is!”

I glanced at the BBQ. The white flesh of the grubs cooking into a beautiful golden brown. Then at several of our… loyal customers who were buying with a distantly happy look in their eyes.

It was probably fine. They were happy with it, weren’t they? Soda companies used to mix addictive drugs into their drinks too. And I didn’t even know what compound the grubs used to elicit a universal reaction across species. Probably magic shenanigans again. It would also explain how my ‘Poison Resistance’ works, since what is poisonous is relative.

I could argue ignorance if I’m ever caught. Probably.

I lifted another bunch of skewers and handed them to the waiting line. There was a lot of cheering, with several proclaiming that I’ve converted them into staunch insectetarians. A gecko came by with the orders written on its back and I pumped more mana into the BBQ. Before preparing the correct spices for the skewers.

I originally wanted to use the geckos for advertising, but I had a bunch of grubs which were too large for the geckos to eat and the smell was good enough advertisement on its own. So we just hired a few more wall decorations and had a few more helping with service. Not only that…

I glanced as Peps put another gold coin into his afro. I was keeping track of the orders so I knew how much money we had already made. Not that I was going to spend it anytime soon or am that afraid of backstabbing on Peps or the potatoes part.

Traveller Coins were probably a lot more valuable than normal coins. With them you can enter Dave’s Store at any time and anywhere. Buy anything you could possibly imagine. They were a useful backup.

“What the hell were you doing by the way?” I asked Noam, a few minutes earlier a cheerful mob had come in celebrating killing a ‘purple asshole’. They were very spendy.

Noam told his story over another skewer. I glanced at an angry-looking potato, signalling that I’ll pay out of my own cut.

After he finished, Noam asked, “So you figured out what’s weird with the deaths?”

I snorted, “Do you really expect me to instantly know after hearing it once?”

“Yes,” he bluntly answered.

I shook my head in annoyance.

I mulled over it as I handed another bunch of skewers to the waiting line, my mind barely registering my actions on the BBQ, “What is death really?”

Noam took a step back, “Oh don’t get philosophical on me again-”

“No, I mean in a medical sense,” I said. “A person can be revived perfectly so long as no brain damage occurs. Lack of oxygen and blood flow will eventually damage the brain, but the person should still be capable of thought and action for up to six minutes. Even if someone’s heart is blown out they can still be revived so long as they reach a hospital within thirty minutes,” I elaborated, “that explains why that girl-”

“Cindy,” Noam added.

“-Cindy was able to move even after you stabbed her heart. Though that doesn’t explain why she died only after a few minutes-” I paused. A person’s brain can survive up to fifteen minutes without oxygen or blood flow, a person can be revived with only minor memory loss if they are rushed to a nanite pod within thirty minutes. Those were the numbers I knew. But those were numbers of humans of today.

I flipped the skewers over. “No, those numbers are incorrect,” I muttered to Noam. “We should be using pre-G-Mod era numbers.”

“Hmm?” Noam asked in between bites.

“Humans of today are completely different from the ones a century ago,” I elaborated, “they didn’t have G-Modding back then, so they were a lot more fragile than we are.”

“Really?”

“Yep, we can thank the Soviets for that…” I muttered, biting my thumb bark in thought, “I’ll have to search up Pre-G-Mod era numbers whenever I get back to my body. Fantasy creatures probably don’t have overt genetic modifications… That explains how Cindy died but not the ones before…” I was missing something, Noam didn’t inflict lethal attacks but crippling ones. Was that it? A body crippled caused it to die? No, that wasn’t satisfactory either. Matt stayed alive despite straining his body till it was literally unable to move. It wasn’t something related to the body…

“Matt, what was your opponents’ mental state before they died?”

He raised an eyebrow as he cleaned off his skewer, “Hmm… can’t tell. A lot were pissed at me, that was obvious. The more pissed people lasted longer, but I had a weird feeling with a bunch of them who died quicker… Like they were plotting revenge for after they died.”

“Will,” I said, guessing, “not the stat… actually it might be? No, did they realise the battle was lost and gave up? Is that it?”

Brain death was the upper limit of what a body can achieve. But the lower limit was the person giving up all hope. No, hope felt like the wrong word. Will to fight at the current moment might be more accurate.

“I think it’s the will to fight,” I said, “those people gave up fighting after all you did was torture them-”

“HEY, IT’S THAT PURPLE FUCKER!”

“Oh shit,” Noam muttered. “I’m gonna leg it,” he told me as he stole another three skewers and bolted. “SEE YA LATER!”

My not eyes narrowed on the newly forming mob. Was it really will? Those people seemed very motivated to lynch Matt.