The OP MC

by Logan Jacobs

  During one attempt, he was spinning his spear around like a madman, and it was all I could do to keep my distance or parry him without getting stabbed by one of the other seasoned warriors. Twice he drove me into the spears of two of his companions, and the third time it happened I managed to turn and break the points off with my shield before I got myself impaled. The men were too stunned to defend themselves, and I was able to sidle up to them and drive my sword into their exposed necks. Blood stained their shiny armor red and nourished the dry grass around us.

  Sir Terrowin advanced on me with his deadly swinging, and I kept shuffling back to avoid getting smacked upside the head. There wasn’t anyone behind me at that point, and I was able to put enough distance between us that Terrowin grabbed the spear in both hands, and he lifted it over his head and swung it down.

  I caught the spearhead on my shield, and when the weapon snapped, I lunged forward and sliced through his femoral artery. Blood pooled around us as though I had turned on some kind of grisly faucet, and I could almost see the pints of blood draining from the man’s body. He was unconscious before he hit the ground, and the remaining men in his group pounced on me before I could finish him off.

  Chime.

  Sir Reynald was leader of the second wedge of spears, and although he was probably the largest man on the field, he wasn’t by any means a marshmallow. His jabs came at me with all the force of a battering ram, and more than once he knocked me off my feet and plunged his spear into the unprotected parts of my body. He used the soldiers under his command like pawns on a chessboard, but I quickly found the weakest link in a man named Terric.

  There was a man in the first wedge named Tedric, and when I killed Terrowin for the first time, the young soldier was so beside himself that he tore ass for me and tried to take me down without any kind of back up. Tedric was his older brother, and I was the world’s biggest monster for killing him. I learned that all I had to do was kill Tedric in the first wedge before killing Sir Terrowin, and then Terric’s rage would break the formation of the second wedge.

  “Get back here, Terric!” Sir Reynald barked as the young man came to avenge his brother’s death.

  The poor guy was probably a little bit older than I was, but his rage and grief made him look like a child. I almost felt bad as I parried his reckless jab and smashed his face with my shield. I could feel the bones crunch through the metal, and when I looked down there was a smear of blood across the front of the shield. I think I managed to knock out a few teeth during one attempt, but I didn’t stop to check.

  Once Terric was dead, the rest of the formation fumbled for a bit to recover their positions. They were obviously trained to reevaluate in a heartbeat if one of their own fell, but that heartbeat was how I got in. In the shuffle I was able to slip forward into the defense of a left-handed spearman and pierce him in the gut through the gap between his breastplate and the weird scaled skirt he wore.

  It took me a few tries to perfect that specific kill, and more often than not I had to respawn because I didn’t time it properly. But once I managed to kill the left-handed spearman, I was able to play a game of leapfrog and avoid the spears being jabbed at me while plunging my blade into whatever nook I could find.

  Sir Reynald, for all his barking and strategy, wasn’t as much of a threat on his own as I was expecting. He was able to do some of the battle staff moves that Sir Terrowin was famous for, and his blows came at me like I was being hit by a train, but so long as I dodged out of his range, he couldn’t do much more than bellow at me like a raging bull.

  He swung around so much that he must have gotten hot in his armor. The leader of spear-wedge-number-two ripped his helmet off and glared at me.

  “I’m gonna kill you, boy!” he roared as he charged at me.

  “I really wish I had a red cape right about now,” I muttered.

  It was easy to dodge him, and once my sword was in his throat, he didn’t do too much more bellowing at me. His brains covered my sword like slimy worms, and his eyes rolled into the back of his head as he collapsed to the ground.

  The leader of wedge number three got revenge for that.

  Chime.

  I had probably already hit fifty respawns, and I had only managed to figure out how to kill Lucian, his horse, and twelve of the fifty-four other men in the army, but I was making some great progress.

  And I could do this forever.

  “Only forty-two more to go!” I cheered as my sword splattered Sir Reynald’s brains on the ground again.

  The third wedge of spears was led by a man named Sir Saerus. This man knew how to hold his own, but the rest of his men were a little bit green when it came to real battles. They were definitely trained well, but they made foolish mistakes that their predecessors had not.

  It was going to get a bit easier.

  One always dropped his spear when I knocked it aside with my shield. Another was too thrust-happy, and it was so easy to just drop my sword and yank the spear away from him and turn it on its master.

  And boy was it fun to use a spear. I could keep the rest of the men at bay, and although I had watched Sir Terrowin spin his spear around like a battle staff a million times, I soon realized that it wasn’t as easy as it looked. My shield made it impossible, and when I first dropped it to try my hand at battle staffing, Sir Saerus pounced on my exposed side and took me down.

  Chime.

  I lost count on how many attempts it took to figure out how to use the spear like a battle staff. I wasn’t as strong as Reynald or as skilled as Terrowin, but I managed to knock nearly the entirety of Sir Saerus’ wedge formation to the ground and spray blood everywhere with a strong jab to the underarms.

  The man himself was a seasoned warrior, and I quickly realized that fighting with my spear wasn’t going to work. He knew how to duck and dodge every swing, and when I tried my new battle staff moves on him, he just dropped his own spear and yanked the weapon out of my hands.

  “Oh, shit, that was good,” I laughed just before the spear sliced me underneath the arm.

  Chime.

  I was getting so much better at fighting, and Sir Saerus eventually went down by using the tried-and-true tactic of breaking the spearhead with my shield and just going for the exposed neck with my sword. I was getting so much better at avoiding the spray of blood by that point that, even after killing all eighteen spearmen, I only had a few stains on my boots and across my right arm.

  The ground, on the other hand, was happily soaking up the salty nourishment, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the waist-high grasses shot up several feet in the next few days.

  Fighting the swordsmen was easier for me, as I had gotten good at sparring with Mahini and Lucian. I learned the basics from the desert goddess, and the more advanced techniques from the Loser Lord himself. I had to stand much closer to the swordsmen than the spearmen, but I was already so well-versed with how to duck and dodge and parry by that point that proximity was no problem.

  They were organized as a single unit following the command of Sir Owin. I assumed that Lucian usually called the shots, but I made sure to kill him during each attempt just so I didn’t have him trying to run me down while I was busy learning how to kill all of his men. It didn’t seem to matter who was barking orders at them since they just kind of rushed at me as a roaring horde in an attempt to overwhelm me.

  That was when the fighting started to get interesting. Each soldier had the same general tactics as Lucian did with just a little bit of personal flair here and there. The majority were just as skilled with their shields as they were with their swords, and only the little greenies struggled to turn a defense weapon into an offensive one.

  The green boys were the easiest to pick off, since they probably weren’t used to opponents of my calibre. I may not have been on Lucian’s level when I first challenged him to a duel, but by the six-millionth respawn, or whatever number I was on by that point, I had definitely reached high-level status in terms of sword fighting. When
ever one of the green boys crossed blades with me, it was only for a few swings before he staggered or left himself open or just fumbled with his sword. Killing them was almost too easy, and I probably should have felt bad for doing it.

  But I gave them the chance to turn tail and run back home, and they didn’t take it. It wasn’t my fault they were a bunch of cunts.

  Bolts from the crossbows were plinking off my shield more consistently once the majority of the army laid dead at my feet. Sometimes the fools managed to shoot their companions, but it was usually the greenies that got in the line of fire or probably some green crossbowman that fired at the wrong time. Only once did a bolt manage to turn the tide of my slaughter of the swordsmen, but since the crossbowmen were so well defended, I had to get rid of all the other soldiers before I could properly take care of them.

  Chime.

  As I painted the grass red with swordsman blood, I kept my eye on Sir Owin. He would bark out orders at his men from time to time, but he wasn’t trying to squeeze in and take me down. He was probably hoping that his men would weaken me to the point that when we did finally clash swords, I wouldn’t be able to stand up to his might.

  He needed to be knocked down a few pegs, didn’t he?

  Fighting him was no easy feat, though, and his men did wear me down sufficiently by the time I first stood against him. His blows reminded me of Sir Reynald, and I wondered if Lucian had learned his shield bashing techniques from this guy. He was constantly trying to bash my head in, but since I had fought Lucian a million times, it was easy enough to anticipate and dodge.

  In the end, he managed to disarm me by smashing the tip of his shield into my right shoulder. My arm went limp, but I didn’t let my sword touch the ground before I respawned.

  Chime.

  During one of our encounters, my sword shattered completely. I stared at the empty hilt for a few seconds too long, and I just barely managed to dodge an overhead swing from the swordsman. I knew that my feather sword only had a maximum durability of eighty-percent, but I still didn’t know what kind of damage it took when I parried and shoved it through people. The magical aspect was too good to pass up, but I knew that I would have to drop it at some point in the battle to pick up a weapon with more durability to it.

  I managed to grab a new weapon, but the distraction of my shattered sword worked to Sir Owin’s advantage, and he managed to kill me.

  Chime.

  Since I knew my blade would probably shatter by the time I reached Sir Owin, I made sure to swap it out for the weapon of the first green swordsman I killed. It felt like holding lead after the feather aspect of my own sword, and it took me several attempts to get used to swinging around a heavier blade again.

  When I reached Sir Owin again, I managed to parry every one of his attacks, and I even made him stagger backward with a powerful shield bash. A crossbow bolt ricocheted off his helmet and came at me, but I swatted it out of the air like a fly. I was getting really good at that, and I always loved the look on the swordsman’s face whenever it happened.

  “What’s wrong, Owin?” I taunted. “Aren’t you skilled enough to do that?”

  He shared more than just his love of shield bashing with Lucian. Once his temper was flared, he would make some pretty foolish mistakes. It took about a dozen attempts before I managed to take advantage of his rage and slice through the padding under his arm. His blood seeped from the wound, and I lifted his arm and stabbed up through the armpit for good measure.

  All that remained was learning about the crossbowmen, and if they were anything like the kobolds I had slaughtered in this spot only five days ago, they would be the easiest to kill.

  I learned very quickly that while they were definitely the easiest of the army to kill, they weren’t quite as stupid as the kobolds. For starters, each crossbowman had a sword and was quick to drop his favored weapon to defend himself with the more reasonable one. They also had better aim, and once I was at a closer range, those bolts of theirs were harder to block.

  I hadn’t bothered trying to dodge any bolts up until that point because they couldn’t do any damage to me. But during a brief lull when most of the crossbowmen were rewinding their crossbows, I checked the stats on my breastplate to find that the durability had dropped down to about sixty-two percent during the battle. It had probably been much worse when I was still learning in the earlier respawns, and it was still at least protecting me, but I could only imagine how bad it would get as the durability dwindled further.

  If my blade shattered when it reached zero, what would happen to my armor? I really didn’t want to find out right now.

  The crossbowmen were clearly dual-trained, and whenever they lifted their swords against mine I had to admire the skill that they had. It must have taken years of practice and discipline with each weapon to reach the level they were at.

  “I don’t suppose I could convince you to stop trying to kill me and join me instead?” I asked each and every crossbowman. Their answers were always the same, and in the end, I left them choking on their own blood.

  When the last crossbowman fell to my sword, I looked around the blood-soaked battlefield with a sense of displeasure. Sure, I had finally managed to kill every single soldier in the army, but it wasn’t a perfect run through. The horse was still dead, and Lucian had been one of my first kills. He was the whole reason I was fighting in the first place. It left a bad taste in my mouth not to be able to see his stupid face as I killed every last man in his army before his eyes.

  Not only that, but I wanted to be able to go through the whole thing without taking hits on my armor. A little bit here and there was fine, but it was just like when my shoulder guard was dented in the mine. I wasn’t about to walk back to the town with severely damaged goods.

  I was going to walk back like the god I was.

  I might as well go for one-hundred percent completion. The gamer in me demanded it, and I couldn’t let down my fans.

  Since everyone was dead, the townspeople were cheering in the distance and were pouring out of the makeshift gate. I ignored them as I picked my way to where Lucian and his horse laid.

  “Now, how do I do all of this without getting you killed in the very beginning,” I mused as I looked down at the dead beast.

  Chime.

  Since I knew how to defeat every man in the army, I now had all the time in the world to perfect the very beginning of the battle. It seemed a little out of order, but what did it matter? Nobody else knew that I was doing it wrong, and even if I told people that’s what I did, they would think I was just exaggerating to make the story better. I could do it however I wanted because only the last attempt was the one that mattered.

  “Don’t suppose I could convince you to just get down off your horse?” I asked Lucian as I strolled forward.

  “Are you crazy?” he responded. “Even with Cotinus, you will never manage to defeat us all!”

  “Dude, you have no idea,” I muttered as the horse came galloping toward me.

  I stood my ground as the horse bored down on me, and when I dodged at the last second, Lucian pulled that same rearing dance move from before. Rather than stand there like an idiot and wait for the hooves to smash down, I took off as fast as I could for the first wedge of spearmen in the army.

  “Kill him!” Lucian shouted as he kicked his horse after me.

  “That seems like a redundant order!” I yelled as I slashed at Tedric the spearman.

  I managed to get pretty far on that attempt, even with Lucian barking out orders to his men now and again and chasing me on his horse. It didn’t change the skill of the fighters I was facing, but it did change some of their tactics. Lucian’s orders were contradictory to those of each unit’s leaders that I had already learned by heart, and although it didn’t confuse the men under his command, it definitely threw me off.

  Sir Terrowin managed to take me down that first time.

  Chime.

  Because I already knew the styles of each man I was
fighting, it took me fewer attempts to overcome my enemies with Lucian controlling them like some kind of user playing Command & Conquer. He kind of reminded me of the orange kobold with all of the circling and barking he was doing, and when the thought first popped into my head, I was killed because I was laughing so hard that I fell over.

  Chime.

  About five attempts in, I found myself getting closer and closer to Lucian and his horse. The man was too busy barking out orders to the men on his other side to notice me, so I was able to leap up and wrap my arms around his neck.

  “Arggggggh!” he choked out as I ripped him down from the saddle.

  Cotinus pranced forward a few steps, but he was clearly used to the harsh sounds of battle around him to not immediately gallop off. He turned his armored head my way when I approached and from the way his ears flattened against his head, I could tell he wasn’t too happy to see me.

  “Hey, buddy, we’re gonna go for a little ride,” I cooed.

  The closest I had ever been to riding a horse was a mechanical bull machine at a county fair when I was in high school. It had been easy to just throw my leg over to climb on top, but Cotinus was easily twice the height of the machine, and all I had was a tiny foot loop attached to the saddle to help boost me up and over.

  “Well, this oughta be fun,” I mumbled as I put my foot in the stirrup.

  I expected Cotinus to take off on me as soon as I put weight in the loop. I wasn’t his rider, after all, and I could see him watching me. Hope flared in my chest at the thought that maybe he wanted me as his rider as much as I wanted him as my companion.

  “Up and over,” I muttered to myself.

  As soon as my body laid across the horse’s back, he let out a loud whinny and took off running.

  I lasted about three strides of the horse’s long legs before the bumpy ride bucked me off. I was lucky I didn’t get a hoof to the face as I fell to the ground, but the wind rushed out of my lungs as the combination of metal and solid earth slammed against my body.