First, that the start point is always the same.

  The face on the mud.

  If only he could change that.

  It is not a good feeling waking up to that

  Second, there is some rules to this.

  Henrik doesn’t know what it is yet, but he believes if he survives long enough he would find out the rule.

  Of course, by now he has quite a good idea what is happening to him

  He seems to have the ability to return back to the point before he dies.

  But how was this point, or what he called checkpoint is determined is something he did not yet understand.

  This mechanic of dying and then reviving also did not explain anything to him. As natural as the mud on his face

  That is how he described the mechanic of this revival. It is like some kind of natural laws

  He also thought that maybe he would have some kind of powers or abilities. After all, he was an avid reader of online novels before

  Maybe he would have some abilities like magic like in some Japanese isekai novels he had read before.

  Unfortunately, no, he did not have such thing. No magical power or divine strength.

  Then he thought maybe like some Korean or Chinese novels where he got some kind of game like system where he could level up and raise his stats.

  No, he doesn’t have that either.

  What he does have is this ability to die and live repeatedly

  Like he is stuck in a loop.

  And unless he survives, he probably would never escape this loop.

  He doesn’t know yet whether these loops would grant him anything or whether he would have any benefit in escaping the loop.

  Or maybe this loop itself is a reward for him

  Because judging from his initial reaction, without this loop system, he would have already died in the ditch

  And considering his lack of survival skill, he would never survive that long anyway without this kind of looping mechanic

  Thirdly, the stick is not the best weapon.

  He had learned that the hard way

  And he also has some other options by now

  “I just need to time it right” he thought to himself as he got up.

  It is still the same scenery. There is mud on his face and near his mouth. But even that disgust has long faded away. He has done this nine times

  Right now, he is very calm. The first few times he was still panicked. But after nine times, it is like he is in a game trial where he could be calm.

  By now he is quite sure, even if he dies, he will just get revived again

  He now has the leisure to look around.

  “It would take three minutes and thirty-seven second before that squire would come here”

  Henrik doesn’t know if that person is a squire.

  But he already met a knight. And that person who had killed him does not seem like a knight.

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  He has a sword and he has armours, but the sword is not as sharp, and his armours is not as complete as the arms and armours of the knights he had met before

  If he times it just right, some knight in a few meters away from here would have his sword disarmed and that sword would be flung a few feet away from his original position of revival.

  Henrik himself doesn’t know who has the capability to fight against a knight and force that knight to have his sword being deflected so far away.

  But that is not his concern. What he needs to know is where and when the sword is going to land.

  On his fourth try, he did not run and he look around and watch everything and try to remember anything useful.

  Of course, that in turn make him an easy target for that person who kills him.

  On the fifth try, he managed to get that sword just right and then he fought against that person.

  But he lasted only three moves before that person cut off his throat

  A squire. That was and is and currently would be his enemy. It is understandable that he would lose. He is probably a peasant.

  And he has no experience of fighting with a sword. He did not know how to deflect, how to strike effectively and how to dodge efficiently.

  Not to mention, he himself is not a large man. And his strength is not particularly striking.

  If he wants to win and want to survive, he needs to be agile, need to feed on his strength and capitalize on the weakness of his enemy

  And after that he fight that squire a few more times and he had learned quite a lot.

  Especially with fighting.

  There was one time he uses a spear when he missed the timing to pick up the sword.

  There are only a few short windows of time to take that sword.

  If he did not take it in that window of time, a battle would erupt there between them the rebels and these people who might be a noble army

  Even though Henrik did not know what this all about after nine deaths he pieced a few things together

  First, is that they are a rebel army.

  That alone should make him feel despair.

  Rebelling against what or who is something he doesn’t quite know yet.

  Though it did not take him long to guess. They are peasants. Since they are peasants and not nobility, the target of the rebellion must be the kingdom or the nobility

  Whatever it is, peasant rebellion rarely succeeds. It is why those who succeed is rare story.

  The reason is simply because peasants is barred from knowledge.

  In ancient China, only powerful families hold the power to knowledge

  In Europe, it is the nobility and the church who holds the keys to knowledge, and they use it to enslave the people

  Of course, even with knowledge people would still get enslaved. In the modern world, they all think they are free, but they are also enslaved.

  The pursuit for freedom is a personal journey.

  Total freedom is impossible because it is paradoxical in itself. Of course, Henrik did not want to philosophize right now and that is not what he should be thinking right now

  Right now, there is only one thing he should be thinking

  “And that is how to escape from this hellish loop”

  He believes if he survives this loop, he will have time to understand all of this, so he did not sweat it.

  He first must survive this if he wanted to know

  The second, this battle while it seems lopsided, it seems they have more people on their sides.

  Of course, this is balanced with the fact that most people here seem to be peasant. Though, that is not the reason for him to be pessimistic.

  The reason he is not happy or feel at ease even though it seems his side has more people, it is that they are unarmed

  Not really unarmed. They are armed of course. But they have rusty sword, hoe and farm tools repurposed to become weapon.

  This is not the basis of a successful rebellion

  This is another reason why peasant army rarely succeeds.

  Without a firm and clear leadership, without weapons and strategic thinking, most rebellion by peasants are doomed to fail when they meet an organized and superior army

  Henrik saw a few of these peasant wears armours and have some steel swords and spears.

  But it is clear with a glance that none of those weapons and armours belong to them.

  Probably taken from the dead or maybe they were battels before this, and they won and they loot the noble army

  Henrik had a guess in his mind.

  A peasant rebellion? Of course this is just his thought, and he could not be sure just yet

  That is what he currently knows about his own situation.

  He himself is one of these peasants.

  Judging from his shirt and his weapon and without any steel weapon and any steel armours, Henrik believe he is pretty indispensable.

  And then the other things he had learned that fighting is not only about skill. It is also about balance.

  He had died a few times because of slipping

  The mud around his feet hinders his movement and one time when he put too much force on his feet, he slips.

  That squire kills him quite easy when he falls down.

  There was this one time when he had managed to meet on that squire attack more than three moves, and he was quite happy

  It shows that he was improving.

  But he was happy to early

  He deflects one of his attacks, he was ready to strike but that squire simply rush toward him, using his shoulder to push him and he falls down.

  Spearing him down to the ground

  A knife appears and when they both falls down to the ground that squire stab him in the gut.

  One time he already passes ten moves and there was a great chance of winning.

  That was the closest time he had to winning.

  He had been careful to position himself, swift enough to avoid a few slashes here and there and he had high hopes of winning.

  But then he was sniped by an arrow from behind

  He did not realize that he was surrounded.

  The world does not pause just because you have a duel.

  ..