Why?

Was that a stroke of genius, or stupidity?

I had the push dagger clasped in my left hand again.

I scanned all the green shrubbery surrounding me.

As soon as the thought reached my head.

"Alright, bear your coat of arms proudly.

We are going to take advantage of this situation."

"Surely if I had one." Ki remarked.

"Here I go."

I walked off towards an opening in the brush.

A singular man slogging along on the forest floor looking vulnerable.

"Please work…" I whispered to myself.

I looked backwards and saw that Kaiya had already scaled a tree and was waving towards me.

The positioning is accurate, and the wind has rested for the time.

One thing that I lack is a compass.

I have a smooth brain.

Usually looking at the sun is fine, however the forests are harder to navigate.

I silently scanned around.

The slightest shadows of the branches were an indication of where the sun was shining from.

Breathe.

I headed towards the east, always keeping my eye on Ki's position.

I shrugged my hood off to be able to look up.

There was a light as Ki started conjuring up some shadow arrows with soul energy.

The pressure of the area changed dramatically.

Not just the air, the — uh — air was kinda different.

I blinked.

A whoosh of air hit me and there was a longsword right in front of my face.

I parry with my arms pushing it aside barely.

Face to face with the ghoul.

It is a two inch difference between me and the sword.

I stood oblong and sideways with my sword out ready to counter.

I took 2 steps off center.

I am not efficient enough to be able to dispatch a ghoul or a person quickly.

But I know I will win.

It lunged at me, or that is what I think.

It was faster than I can see.

My hand reached for the punch daggers instinctively and they did not get far.

The tip of the sword pierced right into my stomach.

Or, that would have happened.

I gripped the sword with my hands.

It still got me, but it was very shallow.

I tightened my grip and my hands started to bleed.

Before I could do anything else, he was dead.

A bolt between two eyes.

That was an 80 meter shot from the tree.

"Damn, a saint's pastime.

Legendary accuracy." I shrugged.

I grabbed the last inches of the shaft with my torn hands.

At this point I don't know who's blood is who's.

The bolt went straight through and almost out the other end.

The reaction time of a ghoul is about the same as a human.

Those numbers are good!

I have a tendency to now know crap about what is happening.

"Pfft, ag!" I gagged while pulling out the bolt.

I see that it was a small game head.

Little curved hooks that were to make a 3 point wound in the target.

They are very dangerous to handle.

I wiped the rest of the brain matter off with my shirt.

The soaked pieces of bone as well were poking out of the little chunks.

Ki snatched the bolt from me and swore loudly.

"Go for the eyes to ensure a quickie." She later explained.

I let Kaiya turn in the ghoul's head.

There were more problems as well in this country.

Somehow Chris is low on budget after lowering the taxes and somehow I feel less frantic when there are more things to worry about.

Clearly there is more to it.

A good day in my book, and we never found any more ghouls… nor the bear den. — quite suspicious.

I sat down on the grass somewhere.

Mainly, I cannot believe that people still listen to me.

"Can I see the crossbow?"

"Yeah, sure I guess." Kaiya indicated.

I tugged on the crossbow and nodded.

"This one is a stubborn buck of a string— a compact high powered lil' nut.

Where can I get one of these?"

"I got this from the alleyway market, you know — uh — the black market type shit?"

"Yeah."

"The string for me requires 4 fingers to pull.

When I am shooting I use either 3 or 2 fingers."

"I need to get one of these because I am very, very insecure.

I do have very quick recoveries from the hospital trips.

Every time, I am always in danger in stupid ways." I hinted.

"I am also angst for different reasons.

Later there are going to be more and more combat missions.

Ghouls have not been here in our world for a long time."

"So is it surprising or something?

Are you used to it?"

"Totally used to it, similar to fighting another country.

The only thing is that we are forced to be in a defensive war."

"I am not worried about that — the thing is that people are going to hate the ghouls even though war destroys the sanity of sane people, no matter the people."

"How do you know?"

"I invented it.

Also my brother thinks that war is the worst case scenario.

Screw that, war is not a scenario it is a challenge."

Can I imagine that working ever?

Sometimes the basic idea of not being an idiot and missing things will make a huge difference.

Me being me, and my brain being inactive, I walked right into a lil' ghoul trap.

~~~~

I feel a burst of shock as a knife impacts my arm.

I was fitting all the puzzle pieces together into my brain.

"AuuAHHGH!" I scream.

A sharp fragmenting pain slithered through my body and I lifted my hand without trying.

Whatever it was it completely paralyzed me stiff.

"Oof." My head collided with the ground and bounced off it.

My ears were ringing and my head was in pain.

I was dragged while barely conscious by Ki as fast as possible.

We were both silent.

The scariest part is that we cannot see the enemy.

In this situation, we cannot fight what we cannot see.

My mouth was wide open and stiff as if I was in a state of awe.

At the same time I squinted subconsciously.

As I started to focus on staying alive, my eyes started to feel energized.

Yet again, the grid popped into existence.

"Alright here is the deal, usually in this situation I would shoot you and leave you for death to catch up.

However, if you use your third sense to alert me, I will not let you decompose." Kaiya slowly says.

"How?

Why?" I barely say.

"I dunno, you have a reaction time that is too fast and if you can do stuff like that, it would be really helpful rather than being dead weight." She mumbled.

As Ki jumped over a log, a knife arched around a tree and skipped right over my head. I watched as the knife flew off behind us.

As my ass was grinding against the dirt and catching leaves in my pants, I started to pick up some dots on my grid.

"Watch your right!" I gasped.

Kaiya noticed it and ducked.

As soon as her feet hit the ground, she started to accelerate faster.

Somehow my senses got sharper.

ShhhTHWACK!

"Aughhh Shit!"

Something had impacted her.

I was already bracing for impact mentally, but I was not ready for such an attack.

The movement became more sluggish and the pacing became sloppy.

However, as soon as her foot hit the ground again, she started to accelerate again.

This time, I saw more and more of the dots.

My legs slowly recovered from the paralysis.

Ki let go and made me run.

"There are 5 to 15 of them — I can't count," I said, breaking the silence.

I watched as she nodded slowly.

Blood dripped from where the knife cut clean through her collarbone.

Very good accuracy, but not fully on target.

It looks like it was for the neck, and I can tell if it hit it would have been a KIA.

Slowly but surely I regained strength in my arms.

As I hopped a rock, I looked back and I felt a strange sensation.

"Daf-huck was that?" I questioned.

Another knife landed close to us as we neared the hills next to the city.

As we escaped the tree line another knife flew out and struck me in the back.

The warmth of my own blood crawled through my tunic.

"I hate Monday." Ki exhaled.

"Can you help me get this knife out, I can't really get it out."

I reached for the knife and touched it with my fingers

"Leave it in for now, just get it out later."

I sat down silently.

I need to go back to get my things because I left them all in my room.

I needed some water.

The dots slowly left the scene and I was stunned.

Ki still had the head of the ghoul in her left hand.

"Do you have information on those things?" Ki asked me.

"Yeah:

->

Skills: Sharpshot, Escapism

Abilities: Shadowstep, Knife-1?, ??as?resis?????, B???????P????????

<-

I did not get all of that info though."

"That's alright, how many were there?"

"I think 6 of them."

"That's lucky…"

"Why?"

"We got out alive, and for me, again."

I found myself being salty from the back pain.

I handed the special ghoul knife from earlier to Ki.

I also have forgotten to tell her about the knife's special material.

At night, I reviewed everything I know.

->

Speed test

Melee power

Melee combat test

Day 1

Ranged aim test

Ranged combat test

Day 2

Military strategy test

Tactical combat test

Day 3

Ability casting test

Day 4

Tournament

Team Tournament

<-

Section one of the test has drawn to a close already.

I am still unsure if I am going to pass the written exam for the strategy test and ability casting test.

I looked at my hand wrapped in bandages, which were quite unnecessary because the pain had worn away.

I still also had a bandaid for my cuts and a larger bandage for the stab in the back.

I sat on the same hill overlooking the city and looked at the town lights and the night sky.

"Hey there…"

Holy shit what was that?

I turned my head and saw a silhouette behind me.

"Hello Ivan, I am here to send you this package from your friend."

"Oh hi, who are you? I ask.

"It's me, Ned."

"How in the hell can you change your voice like that?"

"I don't fuckin know."

"It is also pitch black out here, why are you creeping me out like this?

What are you, a stalker?

Child molest–"

"I don't fuckin know, okay?"

He handed me the package and walked away.

"Why the hell did that dickhead Luki send me all the wa–"

He yawned.

"– out here this damned late…"

I heard him mumble.

"That is Ned alright, he has a terminal mental illness."

I chuckled while joking to myself.

Well it was about time I went to my room and actually sleep under a roof for a day.

I grasped the cardboard box which seemed to be in mint condition.

There was a piece of paper crudely taped on.

Hello Ivan,

Fuck you. Anyways, the knife when I went to clean it literally screwed up my right hand. Now I have to write with my left hand. Even though I can write with both hands because I am an amb-dex person, I now have to do stuff with my left hand. Great!! Awesome!! I am having so much fun looking at my horrible writing and having to give a complaint.

You are a damned idiot

K.K.

Then I realized that Ki's handwriting is more than 10x better than mine even with her left hand.

She probably feels like she was stabbed in the nerves and I don't blame her.

I opened the box and there was the knife.

She sent it back while it was still warm.

"Hello there roomie!" Aurora said cheerfully while doing a one armed handstand.

"What in the hell?"

"I am practicing both balance and strength, really should be done by now."

I stuffed the note into my backpack.

I brushed my teeth and went to bed.

Silently, I fell asleep.