Chapter 3

The next five days was worse than hiking through Kansas; not that I ever did, but I imagined just how boring endless corn and wheat fields could be. Wheat, corn, more wheat, and even more corn. The occasional roadside farmstead was the only distraction. There weren’t even many people on the road, just slow-moving horse drawn carts with single drivers who frequently walked alongside their steeds. Thank god for my sunglasses. The clouds remained infrequent as my tireless jogging pace ate up the miles. Bypassing the first few villages, which were even smaller than Hamlin, I slept in unlikely spots. Normally with my back against trees.

Of course, my internal comment on rain caused a gale force deluge that lasted two full days and nights. Only on the third day did it show signs of lessening.

While my clothes did not stain, that didn’t mean that they wouldn’t get dirty. Or wet. Streams, lakes and rivers all became targets during my travels, extending my journey by an unknown amount. One of my target destinations was a couple full days travel out of my way to the north of a major intersection. Besides bypassing a ‘notorious’, Martha warned, small city, my goal was to head to the forest and do some experimentation.

Since I took the occasional detour, my travel speed varied. Even so, I knew I was jogging faster than my best run speed in high school. That, and I was able to keep it up for countless hours, which surprised me. My near infinite endurance had to be a side effect of my regeneration defense power set.

Martha told me that up to Klawson City, bandits would be ‘few and far between’. Maybe an individual or a two-person team might prey on the solo merchant. The reason being, that there was nothing worth stealing in this area of the kingdom. This was considered the breadbasket, my word – not hers, of the kingdom. Once I passed Klawson, the threat of bandits and marauders would increase. Adventurers and Mercenaries, if chanced upon, were also not to be trusted as there was little reason for them to venture this far east other than for criminal activities.

The main reason I sought out the forest to the north of Klawson was for training. I had not been able to adjust the power of my attacks. Each skill had a fixed power level and would do no more and no less. I was actually afraid of my two strongest attacks. Hell, even against the hyena-like beasts I only used my lightest attack, which blew chunks off or out of them.

Narrowly avoiding a mounted patrol of ten men, I dove headfirst onto the ground, letting the wheat mask my presence. For some reason, whenever I saw a group of mounted men, I thought of the mayor’s son and cronies. It might well have been my imagination, but I felt no need to test the local waters just yet.

A mile into the dense forest that had been my target for the last day or so, I paused and looked around. Most of the trees in this area were older, but there were some younger ones interspersed. Starting with a two-foot diameter maple, I began practicing my unskilled boxing against the rough bark. While I never seriously took any martial arts or boxing classes, my lengthy time in VR playing this character and earlier ones in my teens, refined my moves. I didn’t even have to think about activating a skill or making a non-powered attack, they had become automatic over the seven years of wielding this toon in Hero World.

Using all non-skill attacks, I kept at that pace for an hour. Then I swapped to moving around, only taking imaginary attacks of opportunity against the trees. The last week and a half showed me that there was a huge difference between VR and this body. Although my reaction time was slower, I had greater potential of precise control of my maneuverability and strikes. This body had a much greater mass than the VR version and I realized that I wasn’t using a game system’s approximation any longer.

My kicks didn’t have anywhere near the power of my fists, though they too made solid sounds on contact with the trees. After half a day of beating the hell out of the trees, I ate lunch and checked on my hands. No damage whatsoever. The pain was light, comparable to hitting a punching bag and similar to extended use though VR in the game. Even the pain faded within minutes of me resting after the set attacks.

What was unlike the game was what happened with me being injured anywhere else besides my hands. The slash I received across my exposed arm two days ago hurt and itched like hell at the time. Some sort of thorny vine had infiltrated the wheat field I was passing through. The sharp vine ripped a four-inch section of flesh along my forearm. I rinsed it out with some water from the water-skin and watched the skin heal completely over the next few minutes. I didn’t have to activate SuperRegen for not even the slightest scar was left.

The pain was real, just like as if it happened on a hiking trip back in the real world. But the pain, like the wound, was short lived.

I would need to get some upper body armor before I did any real adventuring. After the second hour of jogging away from Hamlin the first day, I swapped tops to my second favorite one. The deep-red laced-corset was the original match for my current pants and boots. The extra support was greatly needed for running or any prolonged movement, especially fighting and shadow boxing. It was too bad that the matching jacket was in my Guild room’s closet with the rest of my HW apparel. The sole other piece of clothing I brought with me was a miniskirt that was a very close match to my primary set in color and material that I very much liked, but I acknowledged its impracticality in this world.

Once I finished lunch, I started with skill attacks. The lightest attacks first. Eerily, the concussions were noticeably audible, each hit sounded like a sledgehammer crashing against the trees. The damage was notable too, chunks of bark and wood were destroyed or removed with each attack. I continued on in that vein for a while before upgrading to my next attack. Each one stronger, louder and more effective than the last.

Dark Crush chased away the birds, making a low boom that had to have echoed forever in the quiet forest. The damage to the trunk of that oak tree was significant. Four of those attacks alone caused the older oak to wobble. I had to finish with a fifth strike, knocking the hundred-year-old tree down for my safety, so it didn’t fall on me later.

Horror Touch had no visible effects on the local vegetation. Though besides a raging forest fire, I doubted that the trees feared much. Besides I saw the skill’s effect on that wretch of a guardsman in Hamlin and knew that it worked quite well.

Setting up knocked down trees, I continued working on finding a method of easing my skills attack strength. Starting with Dark Jab, or just Jab, my lightest attack, I continued experimenting with it for the rest of the day. Admitting defeat, I rested when I no longer could see from the darkness.

“Warden, warden!” shouted a lumberjack while running into the base camp.

“What is it, Branstad?” Questioned an older man with a long gray and red beard, who sat with his underlings around the cook fire.

“There is a cloaked man in the forest to the south, destroying trees.” The young lumberjack got out after catching his breath from the wild sprint through the forest.

“Destroying trees? How and where? Show me.” The seven other men in the camp stood up, grabbing their axes, and wordlessly followed their leader.

“He’s at the border of the maples and oaks. And he’s punching them.”

The group stopped and started laughing at the joke that the youngest of them just played on their boss. The warden was a good man and could laugh with the rest of them.

After the laughter and the jokes settled, the young man insisted. “The intruder is using some magic skill, each of his punches takes a chunk out of a tree. There are over twenty trees felled already.”

“Twenty!” That was serious. Logging was strictly regulated in the Lord’s forest. “How many are with him? Did you see any carts?”

“No Warden, just the one man. I didn’t stay long. Anyone that can fell a tree with a fist ... well...”

“You did right lad. Let go see this poacher.” The group of experienced woodsmen moved at a pace that normal men could not hope to keep up with in the canopied darkened forest.

Each lumberjack carried a limited use magic fireless torch, since fire in a forest, regardless of the season, was asking for trouble. After nearing the area where the criminal was felling the Lords trees, the group paused. Only Branstad and Warden Wills stealthily approached the criminal, concealing themselves with experienced practice. Using gestures and pointing, the woodsmen made out a hunched figure resting against a pair of crossed trees over a shattered four-foot stump. Surveying the damage, the good-natured warden silently groaned. The Lord would have someone’s head if he could not capture the villain. Each of the felled trees were over a hundred years old. What was worse was that they were not cut from the bottom but three or four feet up at that.

The two returned to their fellows and made plans. After an hour of waiting to be sure that the cloaked man was indeed asleep, they surrounded the mage with weapons ready. At his shout of, “Now!” the nine men charged with their axes foremost.

A feminine voice gave out a startled “Fuck!” and ran between two men faster than they had a chance to react. Even with their great wood skills, they were unable to keep up with the fleeing woman. She never seemed to get tired. Two hours later they gave up pursuit. Even the warden admitted that the mage was too far away and following in the darkened forest at that pace was too hazardous.

“Damn bandits...” I ran for three hours before taking a break, a sliver of light through the canopy revealed a natural depression for me to hide in. It also provided good cover from rear sneak attacks. Besides I was mentally exhausted and desperately needed sleep.

The fitful sleep that night and the next didn’t help to speed up my journey. Bypassing the first city was indeed a good idea of Martha’s. If bandits were this close, then the city itself was indeed lawless.

If the Warden could only hear my thoughts or I his...

The next three weeks were spent hiking through the low grasses, avoiding patrols and any organized groups of travelers. The few times I was ambushed by bandits, I easily avoided them by full out sprinting before continuing in my ground eating jog. I even outran the ones on horseback, not that they pursued for long.

Only once did I receive a light scratch on my right arm from a bandit’s arrow, which healed quickly without a trace. Even with my frequent trials in the vast wooded areas, I failed to modify my lowest tier attack. That meant I had to be very careful not to insta-kill any of my opponents.

Weeks passed with travel and forced survival skills training. At one point I found a broken knife, which I gladly used as often as I could. It beat fingernails.

When hundreds of the hyena-hybrids ran by me one afternoon, I thought I was in for a fight. When they didn’t even lunge or stop to growl at me, I Knew I was in trouble. Slowing down, I watched multiple flocks of birds launch themselves from the nearby forest canopy. Even more foreboding was that they all headed in my direction, away from something quite large and quite scary.

A giant lizard with a strange green and red feathered crown pounced out of the woods, chomping a straggler hyena beast in half. A mottled sickly-green-scaled mutated iguana the size of a train box-car, with the mouth capable of holding an elephant in its entirety, stood dozens of feet away, keeping an eye on me while it chewed on the lion sized beast.

I was unsure if running or standing still was the better options with reptiles. It even had webbed feet - wouldn’t that make it an amphibian? I knew that alligators could burst run up to twenty-five miles per hour on land. One that size had to be faster. Right?

If I made a single mistake while fighting it, I would get chomped in half just like the hyena, or trampled by those car-sized feet. Suddenly the crest opened and the monster hissed loudly at me and charged.

Shit. It was fast!

I dove to the side and struck its leg with Crush. Stopping that leg’s motion for a second, giving me a chance to regain my footing and strike with Strike. Each hit of mine knocked scales off the monster, causing a pain filled hiss.

Oddly, the Hold, which was a byproduct of Dark Crush, only worked on the leg. And for a second at that. The same length of time as an Overboss from Hero world.

After two minutes of pacing while focusing on its rear right leg, the feathered iguana changed tactics and whipped its tail at me. I didn’t get out of the way in time and was batted twenty yards in the air. The tail wallop hurt like hell and damn well near killed me. Even as I landed, rolled away, and bounded to my feet, the creature caught up with me and breathed a grayish fog at me which was accompanied by a bone chilling shriek.

I felt myself slowing down and my exposed arms were turning gray. The pain was beyond anything I ever experienced before. My arms were feeling as if they were being crushed by a giant hand while lit on fire. Activating SuperRegen, a Pure green and white Aura lit up the area even in the bright midday sun. Before its mouth could close on me, I tucked and dove under the monster’s fifty-foot-long body, rolling out to its right. That rear leg was bleeding heavily from my earlier attacks. I hoped that continued attacks would cripple the appendage.

The creature wasn’t very bright, and could only attack with its mouth or tail. I had already figured out by its pattern that the tail sweep was a blind attack. The tail even had an easy to read tell - the head would look away from me before sweeping. The creature needed to be able to twist its body completely to get the most of its rear tail sweep. After jumping over the tail for the third time and refocusing on the same front leg, the iguana breathed at me again. That time I only took the scattered edges of the breath weapon and not the full hit, so I remained unaffected.

I was familiar with petrification attacks in Hero World. One of the five main Overbosses could randomly use it three times per battle. Glancing hits from the power didn’t affect me, while its eye beams turned to stone every other class besides the Stone Tanks. Only direct hits would petrify me for thirty seconds unless I activated SuperRegen or the healer Purified me. Anyone that wasn’t purified within five seconds was normally killed as they were vulnerable to one of the Overboss’s’ smash attacks, which sent the toon to the map respawn area.

Finally, the creature’s leg lost support when I changed my target to the upper tendon. The creature had a weak spot that I discovered late. It was a foot-wide tendon on the inside upper part of the leg. I didn’t know what to call it and didn’t spend any time pondering the issue of its anatomy. Once I focused on that area, the leg collapsed shortly after, greatly affecting the giant lizard’s maneuverability. Dragging its right rear, the beast slowed down enough to give me more breathing room.

Not that I let up my vigilance, I had no idea if the monster had other special attacks yet unused. The front right leg gave out after a few minutes, I vaulted over its wriggling body as it tried to escape and disabled the other two legs in quick succession. At least it seemed quick, I knew it wasn’t.

I saved the back of the head for last, since I was afraid of its breath weapon. I jumped on its head before the crest and proceeded to alternate between my various attacks, yet the skull took longer to penetrate than I had expected. His thick bone plate behind the eyes just didn’t want to crack.

With a loud snap that had to reverberate for miles, my fist punctured the trapezoidal bone between and behind the giant creature’s eyes, killing it instantly.

Covered in blood and withdrawing my fist, I collapsed on its truck sized head panting. I so-oo didn’t want to move anymore that day, or even that week. A twenty-five-minute boss solo was just too exhausting without VR’s assistance. Hearing horses nearby, I wearily glanced in their direction. I hadn’t noticed their arrival. Or the men riding them.

Forty horsemen in metal armor, lances raised, all stood stock still one hundred fifty feet away.

Groan.

There was no way I could fight another battle. Taking a long swig of lukewarm water from my wine skin, I washed off my arms and doused my head with the rest of the flask. I felt sick even though I was hungry enough to eat a whole cow.

A handful of dried apples helped replenish my energy. Not enough to move though. To my chagrin, two of the horsemen started trotting forward.

“Go away, I am too tired to fight again right now.” I gasped out. Half-hour fights in VR were DEFINITELY not the same as in real life. Even with regen.

I heard a rueful laugh from the knight on the right. “Lady, may I get your name?” called the knight on the left.