Was his house some kind of important landmark? Not that he knew. Maybe some famous dude lived there before Dennis’ family moved in? He never heard about it. Skill-places were made by people, he was pretty sure about that. They were born from belief, like the church with all the people who prayed there, or longing, like the canteen and all the people who eagerly awaited warm food and a chance to relax with comrades, or familiarity that didn’t mean much but was always undeniably there, like that statue.

  Skill-places were made by people, because no matter how eldritch their whispers were they were also human. They spoke of human concepts, expressed human emotions, cared about things that humans cared about, and resided in places where people thought about them.

  Who else would decide the place?

  Lily was surprisingly perceptive, thinking back on it.

  He didn’t know all the conditions needed for the skill-place to be born, but the basic assumption was ‘lots of people think about it a lot’.

  So…

  Who the fuck was thinking about his house so much?

  If his dad was secretly a billionaire he would be very disappointed in the man. Share a bit before fucking off, no?

  “Yeah, okay,” Dennis said quietly to himself while still peeking around the corner. “No point in pondering on it a minute before I’ll get the actual answer. Or die, I guess.”

  “W-what…” Gareth emitted a confused noise.

  “Not talking to you, my guy. Just high Mind problems. You wouldn’t get it.”

  “I… I see–”

  “Is your skill still recharging?”

  “Y-yes…”

  “Do you think the Arm will attack us if we stand in the middle of the street? What’s the aggro range?”

  “It’s safe… if we don’t cross… the sign…”

  “Good enough,” Dennis nodded before retreating and placing Lily’s body on the ground a bit further away from them. Not too far, but far enough that he wouldn’t worry about her accidentally aggroing the monster if things went really off-script.

  The sight of her lying lifelessly on the asphalt still made his skill–or was it Soul?–whine at him, but he was getting used to the constant errors and the general uneasiness he felt every time he took an eye off her. He was able to endure it, if only for a time.

  Luckily, he needed just a minute, or maybe even less. He was a speedster. No fight of his would ever last too long. He would either win in a few seconds, or… well, not win.

  “Okay, so, here’s the plan,” he said to Gareth. “It’s very important for you to not fuck this up. You’re listening?”

  Gareth nodded.

  “I want you to walk there,” he pointed to the middle of the street, in plain sight of the Arm but outside the aggro range. “And stand in that spot.”

  Gareth nodded.

  “It’s imperative that you stay there completely still,” Dennis continued. “In that spot. Without moving.”

  Gareth nodded.

  “That’s all. Did you understand what I want from you?”

  “Ehh…”

  “Oh for fuck’s sake.”

  He took the man by the collar and led him to the spot. It was a bit scary to be directly in the line of sight of the Arm, but for once Gareth wasn’t wrong and the creature didn’t attack immediately. Didn't even look like it noticed them. Trusting the half-crazy hobo didn’t feel like that smart of an idea, but Dennis remembered how the Arm ignored him before when he was reminiscing on the roof, so he was mostly confident that the things did actually have an aggro range.

  “You stay here,” he said sternly. “Stay. Here. Got it?”

  “S-stay…”

  “Good boy.”

  Preparations complete, all that was left to do was to kill the Arm.

  He took out his weapons slowly, almost reluctantly. Dagger in left hand, katana in right. The grip of his right hand was good enough to hold it, but not for much else.

  He took a deep breath.

  Just win. Just kill the Arm.

  The creature sat on the porch, unmoving and uncaring for its impending doom.

  Dennis stood near Gareth, frozen.

  He was committed to this whole hero gig. Right? Fear and doubts were what made his skill flicker and turn off. To have power, he must fight for the others. And, more importantly than just the system-mechanics, a hero was supposed to risk his life to save those who needed him. He shouldn’t waver.

  He was the guy who fearlessly charged into hundreds of goblins, almost single-handedly saving everyone in the fort! No matter the chances of success, as long as there are some he will do it. Because he was a hero.

  But that guy who charged those hundreds of goblins didn’t have his arm almost chopped off yet. Didn’t almost die, spending days bedbound afterwards. Didn't get his ass whooped by the Arm once already, in a one-sided beatdown that took all his skill and luck to simply escape.

  Didn’t care who would surely die if he failed.

  He took another deep breath. His chest hurt a little from doing so. Gripped his weapons stronger, and his right arm trembled.

  Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

  What difference did 6 Dexterity make? Really? He would be fast enough to comfortably dodge and counterattack. It would make no difference if the Arm would out-tank his damage, or outright regenerate it faster than he could deal it. He had mastered the blade but… It was probably just to feel better about his chances. There was no world in which waving a sword for a few minutes made someone stronger. He didn’t feel stronger after doing it. It was a platitude, made by him for himself.

  He took a ste–

  He tried to take a step forward. His legs didn’t listen to him. He didn’t move. Just stood still, staring at the Arm.

  What the fuck was wrong with him?! He fought countless life-or-death battles already. There was nothing different about this one except… except he didn’t know if he’d win? Was his fearlessness born of belief that he was unbeatable? Just casual faith that he was the best, reinforced by every fight where he easily decimated all his opponents?

  Or was this because this fight was unnecessary?

  Gareth coughed nearby, unsure at what was happening.

  “Stay fucking still,” Dennis growled. “Don’t. Fucking. Move.”

  He could just walk away. He didn’t know the reason, but there was a reason why his skill didn’t count Gareth as savable. Maybe he really was doomed. Maybe Dennis’ plan was flawed and wouldn’t do anything. Maybe the skill didn’t believe that Dennis could win, and protected him that way from even trying.

  Dennis wasn’t even sure if he’d be able to escape if things went wrong. The far-away target existed, yes, but Heroic Dash was not just a mobility skill with weird targeting. If the Arm charged Gareth, would the skill even allow him to run towards the far-away target for escape, dooming Gareth in the process? It would be the opposite of what a hero would do, even if it should be allowed by a technicality. The skill wouldn’t care about rules-lawyering if Dennis tried to use it in opposition for what it stood for, that was his guess. Trying to cheat the rules could be allowed for heroing, not against it. Probably. Maybe. He didn’t know.

  “Fuck,” he muttered, trying to make his legs move.

  This was what he chose for himself. This was what it meant to be a hero.

  If you see a doomed hobo, you save a doomed hobo.

  It was that simple.

  The thought did not fill him with resolve. It did not disperse his fear. The worries about things going wrong were still as prominent as they were. The doubts were still there.

  There was no rush of confidence. Only fear.

  He took a step.

  The price of failure was everything. The price of not trying was a blip on his conscience.

  He took another step.

  The reward for success was not betraying his dream. And some sweet exp.

  The far-away target was still dying. Waiting for someone to save them. They were on the way.

  His third step was too fast to track for a human eye.

  Two seconds. That was how long it took him to reach the Arm and stand in front of it.

  It didn’t matter what he felt. It didn’t even matter what he thought. The only thing that mattered were his actions.

  So he forced himself to move.

  The Arm was only starting to stand up. From his perspective, it moved almost lazily, like a tired grandpa who had to get up to do chores. Not necessarily slow, but the movement was ridiculously easy to track and react to. Like instead of lunging at him at the speed that would put some cars to shame it was half-assing it. Only pretending to fight, and not bothering to display the sheer speed it possessed.

  It wasn’t half-assing it. It wasn’t any slower than the one he fought before.

  Dennis had an overwhelming advantage in speed. Just from seeing the Arm’s movement he understood that he was twice as fast.

  Didn’t sound like that much, but being twice as fast as someone in a fight? With his fighting talent? He could dance around the creature while reading a book and it would have no hope of touching him. As long as his Constitution kept up, he was unbeatable.

  That was a relief. Without that advantage his plan would’ve been doomed from the start. But not dying was only step one.

  He turned around and threw the dagger up in the air, as high as he could manage.

  He was very, very fucking good with the whole fighting thing. As long as it was something that could be done by being insanely skilled, he could do it. He didn’t know why, but that was the reality. 33 Mind and Dex meant that every micro-movement, every motion was done perfectly the way he wanted. There was no air, no wind to introduce uncertainty to the throw.

  In five and a half seconds the dagger would drop from a ballistic trajectory, killing Gareth.

  Step two was to make Gareth helpful. There was no point to any of it if Dennis didn’t manage to shove the exp down the dude’s throat.

  He switched the target, simultaneously dodging the first hit the Arm sent his way.

  He was so fucking glad it worked.

  Saving someone from being killed by him was a gray fucking area as far as his skill was concerned. Technically, it should be allowed. Practically? He was learning new curses in skill-speak. His only saving grace was the fact that he was still doing it to save Gareth. The action, while ethically questionable, was heroic in greater context. If he did that because he just wanted the buff he would’ve been fucked, he was sure.

  He absentmindedly dodged another strike while relaxing the grip on his katana and catching it with his left hand.

  Now he had five or so seconds to kill the Arm. By the end of that time he would have to catch the dagger. If the Arm still lived by that time, well…

  He wasn’t wrong when he thought that speedster fights didn’t last long.

  Step three, do damage.

  He backpedaled towards Gareth, fast enough to be there before the dagger fell, slow enough for the Arm to keep up.

  Two small steps to the left baited it into overextending, placing the monster’s neck into a perfect position for cutting as he dodged another strike without even looking, but just through basic understanding of motion.

  Anime lied to Dennis. All of the cool secret techniques, the mystical powers of a Japanese katana and superpowers that came along with knowing how to wield it were nothing more than fantasies of some wackjobs who couldn’t admit that they wasted their life on a piece of steel.

  A sword was a simple tool. There was nothing profound about it. The sharp edge could cut things because the force of the strike was concentrated in a very thin line. During a swing, the tip of the sword carried more force than any other part, because it was the one that was the fastest, and force was mass times acceleration.

  Dennis was in a perfect position to make a very wide swing, at the perfect angle, with a lot of acceleration and at the perfect distance to touch the neck with just a few inches of the very end of his sword.

  The Arm’s body was as tough as wood, at the very least.

  It didn’t matter.

  The blade parted the space.

  A sharp high-pitched ring of steel filled the air.

  The Arm’s head flew off, hitting the ground. The rush of experience was like nothing he ever felt.

  Half of his blade clattered nearby.

  The buff dropped. From the moment Dennis threw the dagger, the fight lasted… a second.

  “Muramasa, no!” he screamed. “Four grand! You can’t just break!”

  He heard another clatter as he fell to his knees in sorrow.

  Oh fuck the dagge–

  Gareth stood awkwardly near the dagger that Dennis threw. Unharmed.

  “Did you just fucking move?!”

  / - /

  Somewhere, far away.

  “I need you to find a person,” The Sword Saint said to The Wandering Oracle.

  “Who?” replied the pleasant voice.

  “I don’t know.”