Max and the guards sprinted into the forest. Parker led at the forefront, impaling a goblin with the end of her spear as she raced past. “We don’t have a lot of time!” Her voice quivered as she spoke, “If you have a pn, tell us now!” She called out to Max.

  Max wore a pessimistic face; this was the worst-case sario. He had no idea if he’d be able to take on the number of orcs that would be chasing after them. “We won’t be able to outrun them, so we o ge dire. They’ll be following our st, so the pn is to reach Faul River and wash ourselves off. It’s a few kilometres east of here.”

  Parker looked at him grimly. There was no way they’d be able to make it all the way to the river with orcs chasing them. “What about a more immediate pn?”

  “...” Max was silent for a few seds, and an orc roar was heard in the distance. “We’ll split up. I’m slower than you guys on at of my low agility stat, so I’ll hang bad fight. You stay with the others and protect them.”

  “Alright.” The look in her eyes ged as she realised Max was willing to sacrifice himself for them. What a noble soul! “Is there anything else we do?”

  “Yes. I hree of your shirts. The smelliest, if possible.”

  “????”

  —Pfft hahahaha

  —Dude at least ask for her number first

  —Life or death situation and he suddenly wants them to strip lmaoo

  —The smelliest ones?!?! D:

  The stream chat, which had been somewhat quiet during Max’s infiltratioed with ents after Max’s absurd request. What could he possibly want three shirts for?

  “That, uh.”

  “Quickly! The orcs are following our st trail, and I o fuse them. Any three will do!”

  “Oh!” Parker nodded. So that’s what he was talking about!

  “I’ll do it!”

  “Me too.”

  “Take mine.”

  Three squad members immediately volunteered to give Max their shirts in order to preserve their vice-captain’s dignity. Max didn’t notice their thoughts and quickly tied the shirts around one of his arrows. He didn’t know if this trick would work, but it was worth a shot.

  “Quickly, start headi! I’ll catch up with you ter.”

  “Yes! Thank you... uh, beor. You never gave us your name.”

  “It’s Gun. Now go! Hurry!” Max fired the shirt arrow in the dire they’d been travelling, aiming for maximal distance. Due to the added weight, it didn’t travel far and nded only about a hundred metres away.

  ging dire, he followed the others east for a short distand took cover o a thick tree to make his preparations. Taking arrows from his quiver, he stabbed them shallowly into the ground in front of him, f a row.

  —What is he doing lol

  —I think he officially went insane

  After pnting six arrows, Max abruptly ducked behind the tree. Right at that moment, a group of orcs could be heard arriving at the south-to-east interse.

  “Wait.” The frontmost orc warrior stopped and she air, sn loudly as it did so. “I smell them two different dires. How possible?”

  Another warrior caught up and sniffed as well. “I don’t know, so we just split up. We waste too much time already! Your squad go that way, and mihe other. One has to be correct.” The orc started running in the dire of the arrow.

  “Okay.” The first warrior shrugged and turned in Max’s dire.

  Max exhaled slowly and took four more arrows between his fingers. ‘Alright. Here goes nothing.’

  He drew his bow and did a short tdown in his head, before leaning out from the tree.

  An orstantly spotted him.

  “Hum-”

  Shik!

  An arrow carved into its eye, followed by a sed which accurately struck the other eye.

  As it fell to the ground, the other orcs realised they were utad roared in rage. However, Max had already unched another shot. His fingers moved adroitly as he slipped another arrow into the b and fired with no ge in expression.

  A sed orc fell, while the others charged toward him with incredible speed. Max briefly g them. They numbered three, two with spears and oh a short battle axe.

  Max was now shooting from the pile of arrows he’d stabbed into the ground. Positioning them this way allowed Max to slot the nocks of the arrows into the b with maximum efficy, causing his firing speed to increase signifitly.

  Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!

  “Kugh!”

  “Urgh!”

  Glimpsing a fast blur in his peripheral vision, Max snatched up the st two arrows in his palm and rolled to the side. Instantly after, a spinning battle axe shredded through the earth where he’d been, leaving a small tren its wake.

  Rolling to the other side of the tree while drawing an arrow, he came out of the roll in a shooting position.

  “Raghhh!!”

  This time, Max aimed for a leg joint, causing the orc, which had almost reached him, to topple over and nd squarely at his feet. Max sent his st arrow into its skull, whided as a critical hit and killed it. Ign various system notifications, he yanked his arrows out of its corpse and quickly broke into a run.

  ‘The other orcs definitely heard that. I gotta move.’

  —??????????????????

  —NANI?

  —???!!?!!??!?!

  —WHAT DID I JUST WITNESS

  There were some stream ents, but he didn’t have luxury to read through them. There was a sed group of orcs a short distance away and they definitely would have heard the screams just now.

  He took some arrows out from his iory to refill his quiver while he ran. It took two seds to take any item out of the pyer iory, so this was a very slow process. It was unknown how many orcs were in the sed group, but if he was lucky, there wouldn’t be too many.

  Cheg the arrows he recovered from the orc with his other hand, Max frowhese arrowheads were made from irohey had clearly beangled, probably because they struck bone. A single g the twisted arrows was enough to tell that they wouldn’t fly straight, so he tossed them aside with annoyance.

  ‘They cost so much, ahey ’t even be reused on beginner enemies. What a scam!’

  If the other pyers had been able to hear Max’s thoughts, they might vomit blood. Most of them had been uo clear the goblin dungeo some guy was killing mowenty levels higher and pining about the cost of the arrows.

  Already, Max heard the sound of rapid footsteps approag, so he quickly took cover behind a tree and took a stone from his pocket.

  One fortunate nuance of rock-throwing as a diversion was that it articurly effective against stupid enemies. After throwing the rock, Max saw that every orc turo iigate the noise; anroup of five.

  Taking advantage of the situation, Max shot the rearmost one in the neck. The other orcs turo the sound of their squad member choking and frantically searched for the enemy.

  They barely searched for more than a sed when a sed arrow found its home inside another orc’s ear. The injured orc screamed and clutched its bleeding ear in agony.

  A chorus of arrows stru succession and finished off the injured monsters, before Max was surprised to find the remaining three were running away.

  ‘What?! That’s not what orcs usually do!’

  Max hurriedly let off more shots but was only able to take two of them down; the st mao escape among the derees.

  “Damn!” Max cursed. That surviving one would definitely e back with reinforts.

  He was about to turn and keep runni but noticed a spherical red crystal in the hand of one of the disiing orcs. He quickly grabbed it before tinuing si might be valuable. He couldn’t move it to his iory for some reason, so he just threw it in his pocket.

  Max ran as fast as he could to catch up with the others. Virtek games were designed so that the pyer recovers stamiremely quickly, to prevent the pyer from feeling sore or unfortable while pying. Basically, what this meant was that Max could run forever without getting tired or having muscle-aches; he was iigable.

  versely, the NPCs could only maintain full sprint for short periods of time; especially in this instance, where the group of fleeing guards were exhausted and o carry their injured rades. This meant that Max had a good ce of catg up to them, despite his inferiility.

  He also remembered he had been rewarded ‘free attribute points’ each time he levelled up, which could be used to permaly increase any one of his six core attributes. Max had 4 of these points, so he decisively added them to his ‘agility’ stat to increase his leg strength. A slight burst of speed followed, proving it had some effect.

  While thinking of what to do , an orc voied right on top of him, making him flinvoluntarily.

  “Dromar, have you caught the huma? You’re taking too long.”

  ‘?!’ Realising the voice was ing from him, he looked down and saw that a red light was emitting from his pocket.

  ‘The crystal was a unication device!’

  “Dromar, respond or I’ll use you for tetherball again. You have five seds.”

  ‘What should I do?’ Max was stumped. Just as he was debating whether to do his best orc impression...

  “Huh? You... I fot your name. Why did you e back alone?”

  ‘Goddamn, that orc was quick!’

  “Drillmaster! My name is Bazur. I have report: Squads Dromar and Qog were ambushed by archer aed. I am only survivor.”

  “What?”

  “Sir, I repeat. Squads Dromar and Qog were-”

  “I heard you the first time you imbecile!”

  The transmission was silent for a moment, as if the orc was thinking.

  “ARGH!” Max heard the sound of something smashing in the background. “How many archers were there?”

  “Just one, Drillmaster!”

  “No, you dulrd. I said how many archers, not squadrons!”

  “Yes, I uand. It was just one, Drillmaster!”

  After a short pause, a loud choking sound could be heard through the crystal. “You expect me to believe that a single archer bested ten of you and killed nine? Do you take me for a fool?!”

  “AH! HOT! P-PLEASE SIR, IT IS TRUTH! THERE WAS ONLY ONE!”

  “SHUT UP!” The orc roared, “I could be sleeping like a princess right now, but nooo, you had to go and lose to ONE F*G HUMAN.” Another series of smashes resounded, as though something was thrown and bowled through several objects. “USELESS!”

  After some angry breathing, the transmissio silent again.

  ...

  “You’re listening in, aren’t you human?” The voice said softly.

  Max frowned.

  “This is a two-way message bead; I hear you running.”

  “...”

  “Pitter-patter. Pitter-patter. Pitter-patter.”

  “You’d better run faster, because I’m ing for you.”

  The crystal stopped shining and ged to a dull red hue.