I kicked out with a Muay Thai shin kick. He was running right into it, and the bottom of my leg smashed right into the side of his head. I didn’t use my full strength, but it probably didn’t matter. I was strong, the man was short, and he was running at me.
I expected his head to snap around with a broken neck, but it didn’t. The man spun with the impact like a tennis ball, and he rolled across the floor of the hold before he smashed into a pile of crates.
“Yesssss! I have tasted your power!” the small man shouted as he sprang to his feet. He looked completely unaffected by my attack, and I sighed when I realized I was probably going to have to use my swords on him.
He circled back toward his cell. His long nasty hair covered most of his face, but his fighting stance looked intimidating. The little guy obviously knew what he was doing, and he feinted a quick grab at my left arm. I guessed he was going to make the movement, and I lifted my arm so that he couldn’t grab it. I realized my mistake half a second later. His movement had been a feint, and he shot toward my legs in an attempt to do a leg take down.
I stepped back with my right leg to strengthen my base, and then I brought the pommel of my magic short sword down on his muscular back. I didn’t use my full strength again, but I still figured that the hit to his spine would have put an end to his struggle.
My blow bounced off his back as if I’d slammed the pommel into a slab of concrete. I didn’t even think the gnome even felt it. He didn’t even grunt when I hit him, and my world tumbled as he took me down.
I had spent thousands of hours wrestling on the mat, and I guessed his next move just as he tried to get a mount position. I slammed the hilt of my sword into the side of his skull as I lifted my knee to stop his advance. My hit twisted his head around, but the guy didn’t stop moving, and I had to punch him in the nose with the grip of my left sword. That attack made his head snap backwards, and I saw the man’s face when his hair flew away.
He was smiling.
I managed to free my left leg from under him, and I stomped on his stomach with the bottom of my boot. He flew off me and then crashed into the metal of the cage with a rattling boom. I flipped my legs around to the side, and the action gave me enough momentum to stand without needing to push off the ground with the hand that held my sword.
The gnome landed on his feet, and he wiped the back of his arm across his dirty face as he took up his fighting stance.
“Do you feel it, Leo? This is who we are. We are alive. Only in battle are we connected as lovers, sons, brothers, enemies, and fathers. After I break you to my will, I will challenge Cornalic. Then you will both serve me until your bodies give up their final death rattles.”
“Look, last chance. I don’t want to kill you. Just surrender. You might feel better after a meal and some water.”
“I am fueled by battle. As are you. Our souls are the same, and will be united once I’ve beaten the sense of the gods into you.” He moved to dart forward again, and I guessed he was feinting. I was correct, and he made his true dash forward after I flinched.
He shot low again, and I greeted his takedown attempt with a front kick to his face. I felt his nose break under my boot, and his legs kicked out beneath him from the force of my impact. I had thought that he would have been knocked unconscious, but the gnome somehow wrapped his arms around my shin, and he kicked his legs into the knee that held all of my weight.
My leg broke with his kick, and I gasped with shock when I hit the ground.
He was on me instantly, and I twisted my face to avoid a palm strike that he had aimed at my nose. The attack left him unstable on his right side for half a second, and I hooked his legs with my boot so that I could roll him over. He seemed to have predicted my movement, and he pushed his elbow on the wood floor of the ship so that he could hold the position. It didn’t matter, though, I outweighed the man by probably eighty pounds, and I was able to roll on top of him.
Then I was flying through the air.
My back slammed against the ceiling of the hold, the air exploded out of my lungs painfully, and I fell back to the floor. My mind spun as I tried to figure out what had happened, but then I realized that the gnome was jumping up toward me with some sort of uppercut move.
I used Guardian of Fortune half a second before his fist hit my falling face, and the blow glanced off me without causing any pain. I tried not to land on my broken leg, but my fall was too twisted, and I ended up collapsing backwards as soon as my uninjured leg pushed against the floor.
“The end is near!” he shouted as he tapped his right elbow with his left hand. It looked like he was charging it up, and the elbow did actually start to glow with a strange pink light. Then he jumped into the air and aimed his body down so that he would land with the sharp point of his arm on my stomach.
I rolled on the floor and heard the sound of his small body smashing into the wood planks next to me. I glanced toward the sound and saw that the crazy gnome had actually smashed through the thick planks. He was all tangled up with the split wood, and I guessed I had a few seconds to plan my next move.
The fucker’s health bar was still at full.
How was that possible? I’d hit him really hard a few times. I had accidentally killed NPCs when I kicked them. This crazy gnome didn’t even seem fazed. I was going to have to cut him with my blades if I wanted to get this over with quickly.
I used Breath of Life on myself, and my shattered leg started to itch. As soon as the orange glow came to my body, I also triggered Rwunidar's Might. It was probably too heavy of an ability to use against an unarmed opponent, but the crazy was making this motherfucker strong.
“You will bow before--” the gnome started to say, but then one of the crewmen stepped at him from the side and brought his cutlass down on the gnome’s head.
My leg wasn’t strong enough to stand on yet, so I could do little but watch the blade cut into the small muscular man.
Except it rebounded off as if the bare-chested gnome was made of rock.
“You dare defile our battle with your presence!” The gnome spun his arms around, and his fists crushed the wooden planks around him as if they were fragile stalks of wheat.
The crazed man leapt at the crew member that had tried to cut him, but as my leg now felt strong enough to bear weight, I dropped down to shoulder check him. My hit knocked him back into the cage, but he bounced off the steel as if it was one of those bungee ropes that they wrapped around a wrestling ring. He jumped to tackle me again, but I drove the point of my magical sword into his stomach.
The blade in my right hand made a snapping sound and then broke off from its hilt.
His small fist swung from below and smashed into my face while I stared at my broken weapon, and my head whipped around. The punch had caught me totally off guard, but it didn’t actually hurt that much because of my stance.
“Your weapons are useless against me, Leo Lennox. We are engaged in a blood struggle for dominance. Just as the ancient gods wrestled for control over the sacrifices of the mortals. We wage war against each other to see-”
I kicked him in the face while he was talking. It was a snapping side kick, and the edge of my foot connected squarely with his face. I thought that I had already broken his nose, but it cracked again, and he staggered back into the metal of his cage. His health dropped a bit, and I guessed that this guy might have some sort of ability that made him immune to weapon damage.
I let go of the broken short sword and started to beat the shit out of him. Old school style. My left fist smashed into the side of his face, and I felt one of his teeth break free of his mouth. My next punch hit him from the other side, and his head bounced back to smack into the cage. He raised his arm to block my third attack, but I draped my arm over his shoulder, stepped in toward him, and then kneed him in the face. He actually grunted against my hit, and I saw his health bar drop a little more.
Damn. This guy was tough.
I kneed him again, then again, then a third
time before I let loose of my grasp on his shoulders. He tried to dance away from me, but the cage was right there, and I just slammed my fist into his muscled stomach again.
“Gooooooood. I thought you would never start fighting back!” he shouted as he threw a flurry of punches back at me. The first two were aimed at my balls, and I used a combination of parries and backpedaling to escape them. The blocks made my body hunch over a bit, and he seized the opportunity to try and uppercut me. I saw the attack a mile away, and I brought my left hand up to push his hand outside of my face. This made his left side unprotected, and I slammed my fist into his side with enough force to lift him into the air.
“Ooaf!” he grunted, and I heard several of his ribs crack. The health bar above his head dropped a little more, but the small man was only at about eighty percent.
He was out of range of my punches, so I feinted another Muay Thai shin kick. He raised his hand to block me, but I twisted my leg in mid-air so that the ball of my foot slammed into his face again. He stumbled back, and I shuffled forward with another snap sidekick that broke two of the ribs in his chest.
The gnome smashed into the stack of barrels, and a spray of flour filled the air like a poof of fresh snow.
“You will not beat me. I own your soul! Just as the--” he began to yell at me, but I grabbed onto his nasty mane of dreadlocks and started kneeing him in the head. I thought he would have fallen unconscious after the fourth or fifth powerful strike to his face, but his health was only halfway gone now, and he finally caught my knee when I tried the seventh attack.
He lifted me up with a surprising surge of strength, and my back slammed onto the wooden floor of the hold again. It didn’t really hurt me, and I was able to get a few more palm strikes into the small man’s face before he could let go of my leg. He was trying to go for a mount position again, and I decided to let him have the opportunity. I moved my leg around as if to kick him, but I made my movement slower than I normally would have, and he managed to lie on top of the limb.
I snaked out my right arm and then grabbed the back of his long hair. We both flailed against each other for a few moments as he tried to get my hands off him, and I tried to get his head into position. The fucker was unbelievably strong for his size, but he wasn’t as strong as me, and I managed to spin him around so that I could hook the heels of my boots in behind his leg.
Then I wrapped both of my arms around his neck in a classic rear naked choke.
The gnome tried to punch my face with his right hand, but I pulled my face down against my own arms to protect my nose and eyes. His fist just scraped the top of my head, and Rwunidar's Might kept me from taking any real damage. He tried to push off the ground with his bare feet, but I had my legs hooked around him, and I just pulled tighter against him like a python.
He groaned frantically and tried to elbow me. He was too close and couldn’t get enough leverage. Then he tried to strike me in the groin. This was actually a good plan, but I didn’t take any damage from his strike.
I kept squeezing my choke hold.
His squirming started to weaken, and he began to tap against my arm. In martial arts training, this would have meant that he was submitting, and that I had won the match, but I guessed that the guy just wanted me to let go so that he could attack me again, so I continued to hold onto his neck until his body stopped moving. I held onto him for another ten seconds after I thought that he had fallen unconscious and then I let go of the man.
“Sir Lennox! Are you okay!” the captain asked as the men rushed to my side.
“Yeah,” I said as I coughed up some flour. The Rwunidar's Might stance faded from my UI, and I saw that the gnome’s health bar was a little under halfway. It was a kind of reddish-gray color, and I guessed that it meant he was unconscious.
“He was a monster.” One of the crewmen signed.
“We’ll throw him overboard. No sense in having one such as he on--”
“No,” I said as I stood. “You gave those pirates quarter, and they killed your passengers and crew.” I looked at the unconscious gnome and thought about my parents. There was something obviously not right with his head, but he had strength and great fighting abilities. “I want to see if we can heal him when we get to Tylue. Can you tie him up with a rope?”
“Sir Lennox, the man is dangerous and strong. If I had not just seen him bend those bars, I would have not believed it was possible. I fear that we cannot contain him.” The captain crossed his arms and let out a huff.
“Then chain him and find a better cell for him. You let the pirates live. Let this man live. Please.”
“Very well, Sir Lennox.” The captain nodded to Tarry, and the boy ran back through the ship. “We will take him off this vessel and keep him down where we have the captured pirates. The cells onboard my ship have thicker bars. And you will be closer if he escapes.”
“Sounds good,” I said as I picked up the pieces of my broken blade. I almost couldn’t believe that my Short Sword of Minor Damage had broken off against the man’s bare chest. He must have some crazy cool abilities.
How in the hell did the little man know my last name if the crewman didn’t tell him?
Chapter 5
“How did it go, Champ?” Ky asked as he helped me step out of the VRIU.
“Good. Is Zarra back yet?” I asked. I’d spent my last hour in the game telling Cornalic and Allurie about the strange gnome before I decided to log out for the night.
“I’m not sure. She hasn’t been in the lab room. Should I give her a call for you?”
“Naw. I’ll call her when I get changed,” I said as I stepped into the privacy alcove.
“Gotcha,” the man said. He had already grabbed his paddle and was working on the black liquid of the VRIU.
“How is Zarra going to sell this unit? It seems like you need to maintain it each time I log out,” I asked.
“We are almost done with the self-maintenance systems. Well, it is actually ready to roll right now, but we don’t want to test it on you in case it messes up the system. Ms. Zerne doesn’t want you to miss any game time.”
“Ahh. That makes sense,” I said.
“Hey, Leo. Do you have any feedback for me?” Jennifer’s voice came across the speaker in the room.
“Yeah, a few things. I’ll sit on the stool.” I walked out of the alcove and sat in my usual spot next to the VRIU. I realized that my heart wasn’t racing like it normally did after a game session. Maybe I was getting used to the VRIU?
“What feedback did you have?” Jennifer asked as she sat across from me. The blonde woman was wearing a tight green pencil skirt with matching heels, and she crossed her legs as she spoke.
“Cornalic didn’t show up on my party window when I first logged into the game, but he came later when I saw him on the mast of our ship. Was that some sort of range thing going on?”
“I’ll take a look through the log files. Sounds like it could have been a bug. There is a range limit of half a mile, but it seems like you two were much closer.” Jennifer made a note on an old fashioned notepad with a ballpoint pen.
“Yeah. The blind effect that the weapons placed on me were cool. Just wish the pain didn’t hurt so bad.” I rolled up the sleeves of my robe and glanced at my forearms where the pirate had sliced me with his magical daggers. There was no scar there of course, but I could still remember the pain of the cuts.
“That’s all Ms. Zerne’s idea. Haha.” The lovely woman laughed and gave me a sweet smile. “I think you already talked to her about the feedback. She wants this to feel--”
“Real. Yeah, I know. Guess that is what makes it so addictive. So…” I smiled at the blue-eyed woman as my voice trailed off. “Zarra isn’t going to give me any help with my quest, but maybe you could? Wanna tell me who the spy is on the ship?”
“Teehee,” Jennifer giggled a bit, and her cheeks turned red. “If I knew, I would tell you, but I don’t. Honest. The AI has come up with it all by itself. I have no insight into
this. It could be anyone.”
“I’ve got a week or so to figure it out. The travel time is killing me. I only have a hundred weeks to find these relics, and I don’t want to spend two on a ship. At least I got lucky with Chrysa.” I smiled at Jennifer, and she nodded back at me without speaking.
“She’s an interesting character. Don’t you think?” I asked.
“Oh, I’m afraid I wasn’t paying much attention to your session, Leo. I’m sorry. I wish I could say you were my primary job, but I’ve got a bunch of others that I need to do. You’ve been playing enough hours for me to feel comfortable double tasking while I’m in the observation room.”
“I see,” I said. I didn’t know what to think about Jennifer’s words. It made sense that she shouldn’t be expected to just sit and watch me play a video game all day, but I thought that Zarra had put a lot of importance on my task. Hell, she was giving me a shit ton of money and ownership in her company once I completed it. I would have thought that the purple-eyed woman would have assigned me someone that could devote a hundred percent of their attention.
“Was there anything else you wanted to talk about for game improvements?” she asked.
“Did you see that gnome at all?” I asked.
“I caught a little of him. He seemed like an interesting character.”
“Does he have a mental illness?”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“He thought he was the god of battle or something weird like that. Seemed like he might have had some sort of split personality or a Cluster A personality disorder. I’m not sure. He was a bit off.”
“I can review the game logs. There have been a few NPCs like that in the game. We have plenty of doctors here that can review the recordings and let you know. I’ll send them tonight. Should be an interesting experiment.”
“Yeah. Cool. Let me know tomorrow. I’m going to take a shower, try to get a hold of Zarra, and then get some shut eye. What do you two say about eight tomorrow morning?”
Lion's Quest: Trinity: A LitRPG Saga Page 6