Training Week
Stripe earned a lot of respect and, in some cases, jealousy from the other recruits.
His performance in the sparring matches was amazing.
He never lost.
He kept getting better and better at fighting armed opponents.
Around one week into training a recruit named Myra introduced herself.
The recruits nearby stopped and stared.
A few laughed.
Most did not.
They looked offended, like a vagrant had wandered into their last chance at a better life.
A woman with short black hair and a long scar across her jaw took a step toward Stripe.
Stripe was in the middle of arguing with Crown over its refusal to explain its capabilities.
STRIPE:
A woman should be more supportive. All you do is sit around like a background character.
WOMAN RECRUIT:
Are you joking? What the fuck man. That's sexist as fuck.
STRIPE:
That was to the voice in my head. Not to you.
A lot of recruits took offense to the things Stripe said.
He always blamed the voice in his head and claimed he wasn't speaking to them.
But they all just thought he was being an asshole.
WOMAN RECRUIT:
Whatever you say. Also I'm not just a "woman." I have a name. It's Myra.
STRIPE:
I'll be honest. I don't really care.
MYRA:
Why are you so rude all the time?
STRIPE:
I've never even spoken to you.
MYRA:
You say mean shit to people everyday then blame the voice in your head. If half the recruits weren't scared of you already they would have attacked you in your sleep.
STRIPE:
I already told you, I'm talking to the voice.
CROWN:
Only user can hear The Crown. Crown is internal to the user only.
Stripe is again reminded that he looks bat shit crazy.
He thinks back to Hobb and how he judged him.
STRIPE:
Fuck.
Myra shifts her position to get Stripe's attention.
The whole time they talked he never really looked at her and this aggravated her.
MYRA:
You should really be more respectful. We will be fellow adventures soon and you may need one of our help some day.
STRIPE:
You're right. I'm sorry.
Pause.
STRIPE:
For absolutely fucking nothing.
CROWN:
Social acceptance index rapidly declining.
STRIPE:
I'm joking. Someone I knew said that after a big fight and everyone laughed.
His gaze shifted up to Myra.
A woman with short black hair and a long scar across her jaw.
She wore clothing that was practical for battle.
She was decently attractive even with the large scar.
She reminded him of some of the women fighters in the league.
The kind that had men simping for them but were amazing at their craft.
Lean.
Muscle in all the right places for combat.
The instructor blew his whistle signaling that the time to train had come again.
The intensity was much higher this week.
Faster running.
Harder workouts.
More weight.
More aggression.
More failures.
During one sparring match a small recruit with a sword and shield was paired with a large framed man wielding a spear.
The spear hit his shield.
Then splintered.
The wood lodged itself into the small man's neck.
He kicked and squirmed.
He cried and bled out in a matter of minutes.
The healers arrived around five minutes after the man stopped moving.
That shifted the mood.
This was the real deal.
Death could happen.
And with these response times, it was unlikely you'd be saved from mortal injuries.
STRIPE:
That's brutal.
CROWN:
Survivability decreases with fatigue and hunger.
STRIPE:
That makes sense. We are hungry and tired. Mistakes are bound to happen.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
His body was dragged away by two instructors.
It was never addressed.
Dinner
That night during chow there was an extra tray.
Everyone knew it belonged to the recruit who died.
No one touched it.
Stripe finished his food.
Then stood up.
He walked over and began eating the food from the tray.
CROWN:
Hunger levels decreasing. Survivability rising.
The recruits audibly booed and jeered at him.
None of them dared to actually stand up however.
They were unarmed and knew in a fight with fists they stood no chance.
That was when Myra approached him with a disgusted look on her face.
MYRA:
That's disrespectful.
STRIPE:
How?
MYRA:
He died!
STRIPE:
So he doesn't need it? It would be disrespectful to leave it behind.
MYRA:
You are insufferable.
STRIPE:
I'm a survivor. In the streets you eat when you can.
Myra took a step back.
She was angry.
But he was right.
She knew he was right.
In the real world you do what you must to survive.
If an ally falls you use their equipment or rations to make it home.
He was just adapting better and faster than anyone else.
She reluctantly sat back down.
CROWN:
Host performance increased by point one percent.
STRIPE:
Wow. I am thriving.
CROWN:
You are in your own way.
The last word landed wrong.
Almost warm.
Almost flirtatious.
Stripe paused mid bite.
STRIPE:
Say that again.
CROWN:
Clarify request.
STRIPE:
You sounded human for a second.
CROWN:
Incorrect. System voice remains unchanged.
Stripe stared at the wall for a moment.
Then went back to eating like he did not care.
Reputation
Over the weeks, the recruits stopped treating Stripe like a stray dog.
They started treating him like a dangerous one.
He was weaker on paper.
Everyone could see it.
The Crown’s numbers sat in the back of his mind like an insult.
But when it came to hand to hand, Stripe was wrong in the way a nightmare is wrong.
He moved with muscle memory that did not belong in a training hall.
He cut angles before people knew they had angles.
He slipped strikes by millimeters and made it look lazy.
He took people down without wasting motion.
The highest level opponent he fought was level 17.
When the match started Stripe became aggressive striking weak points.
Each one was a crit strike.
He finished the fight in 20 seconds.
A level 5 beating a level 17 was already insane.
Luckily the recruits didn't know his level.
They all assumed he was around level 15.
System Alert
Then during training the Crown spoke.
CROWN:
Stats increased through rigorous training.
STR +1
AGI +1
END +1
Stripe glanced at his updated stats.
═══════════════ STATUS ═══════════════
Name: Stripe Level: 5
Class: Unassigned
Title:
Toxic Fisherman
Pugilist Specialist
HP: 134/134
Stamina: 118/118
Mana: 0/0
━━━━━━━━━━ Attributes ━━━━━━━━━━
STR 9
AGI 10
END 9
INT 6
━━━━━━━━━━ Skills / Proficiencies ━━━━━━━━━━
Hand-to-Hand Combat — Basic Retention
Improvised Weapon Handling — Beginner
Survival — Novice
Pugilist Proficiency — Level 1
━━━━━━━━━━ Passive Effects ━━━━━━━━━━
Minor Poison Secretion
━━━━━━━━━━ Artifact ━━━━━━━━━━
Crown of Reflection
━━━━━━━━━━ System Effects ━━━━━━━━━━
Alcohol Intoxication Immunity
Experience Calculation
━━━━━━━━━━ Inventory ━━━━━━━━━━
Iron Dagger
Leather Chest Piece (Bandit Armor)
Wolf Pelt (Crude Clothing)
Bandit Ring
Strip of Dried Meat
Monster Gauntlets
━━━━━━━━━━ Currency ━━━━━━━━━━
Silver: 7
══════════════════════════════════════
STRIPE:
With my Agility being 10 I should be much faster now?
CROWN:
Slightly faster. Users Agility stat is now within the average human parameter. Previously it was below average.
STRIPE:
10 is average?
CROWN:
10 is the baseline for average humans. The goddess set that herself as an indicator for the users baseline.
STRIPE:
WOW! My stats fucking suck.
CROWN:
Correct.
Stripe continued his run slightly depressed.
Then he saw a recruit falling out.
Her name was Makel.
She was one of the only recruits who didn’t avoid him.
Stripe ran beside her.
Helping her keep pace.
Encouraging her.
And occasionally threatening her.
She finished the run and never fell out again.
Over time he began helping other recruits too.
Not with speeches.
Not with inspiration.
But with practical help.
Correcting footwork.
Dragging exhausted recruits to water.
Sharing food when someone looked ready to collapse.
Sometimes he did it because of a voice in his memory.
WIFE:
You cannot just use your hands to destroy. You have to help sometimes too.
Promise me you wont just be some douche who bullies the weak.
Stripe didn’t remember agreeing.
He just remembered the way she believed he could be better.
So he helped.
When a recruit named Jalen took a wooden spear through the thigh and nearly bled out in the sand, Stripe tore his shirt into strips and held pressure until a healer arrived.
JALEN:
Why are you helping me?
STRIPE:
Because you are still breathing.
Jalen graduated.
Limping.
But alive.
Graduation
The recruits stood in a line with bruises and bandages and eyes that had learned new meanings for exhaustion.
The instructor walked past them.
Staff tapping the sand.
INSTRUCTOR:
You did not die.
That is the standard.
Do not look proud.
You are still trash with traditional weapons.
I hope you don't run into something those gauntlets can't handle.
Stripe stood with his gauntlets on.
Feeling their weight like a promise.
Myra nudged him.
MYRA:
If you get killed on your first mission, I am taking your food tray.
STRIPE:
Fair. Just make sure you eat it.
It would be offensive not to.
She snorted.
MYRA:
What level are you.
I have a bet that you are level twente.
STRIPE:
MYRA
Liar
Stop teasing me.
STRIPE:
MYRA
The fact that this level five dominated every hand to hand fight shook her.
MYRA:
STRIPE
Stripe had grown attached to the recruits.
He was starting to regard Myra as a friend.
The recruits had grown to like Stripe even though they occasionally thought he was being rude to them.
He was strong and reliable, he helped others.
That was enough to win them over.
Hobb showed up at the edge of the hall.
Soaked from rain.
Grinning like he owned the place.
Beside him stood Maribel.
His imaginary wife.
A broom with a face drawn on it.
Stripe had learned not to comment.
His experience training had shown him how he was perceived and now he was aware of how he judged Hobb prior.
Hobb was happiest when people played along.
HOBB:
Look at you. All fancy.
Maribel says you look like a respectable adventurer now.
Stripe’s throat tightened.
STRIPE:
I'll try to deserve the compliment.
HOBB:
STRIPE:
HOBB:
Hobb leaned closer.
Suddenly clear.
HOBB:
Tell the voice in your head I will miss it too.
Stripe nodded once.
HOBB:
And tell that snake of a man he looks just like he acts.
Nearby, Varn stood smiling.
Stripe looked at him.
STRIPE: I was told to tell you, you look how you act.
Varn blinked.
Then laughed.
VARN:
Thank you.
STRIPE:
CROWN:
Statement is correct.
Stripe ignored it.
The instructor began handing out mission papers.
When Stripe's name was called he broke the seal and read the contract.
Forest of the Damned
Ore Expedition
Dwarven Subcontract
The payment looked insulting.
The payment would be based off the amount of ore extracted.
At most he could pay off around one hundred gold of his debt.
Assuming he was not tipped.
Tips went directly to the adventures and not through the guild.
This was the law of the empire.
Several recruits read the header and flinched.
MYRA: You're fucked. This is a suicide mission.
═══════════════ STATUS ═══════════════
Name: Stripe Level: 5
Class: Unassigned
Title:
Toxic Fisherman
Pugilist Specialist
HP: 134/134
Stamina: 118/118
Mana: 0/0
━━━━━━━━━━ Attributes ━━━━━━━━━━
STR 9
AGI 10
END 9
INT 6
━━━━━━━━━━ Skills / Proficiencies ━━━━━━━━━━
Hand-to-Hand Combat — Basic Retention
Improvised Weapon Handling — Beginner
Survival — Novice
Pugilist Proficiency — Level 1
━━━━━━━━━━ Passive Effects ━━━━━━━━━━
Minor Poison Secretion
━━━━━━━━━━ Artifact ━━━━━━━━━━
Crown of Reflection
━━━━━━━━━━ System Effects ━━━━━━━━━━
Alcohol Intoxication Immunity
Experience Calculation
━━━━━━━━━━ Inventory ━━━━━━━━━━
Iron Dagger
Leather Chest Piece (Bandit Armor)
Wolf Pelt (Crude Clothing)
Bandit Ring
Strip of Dried Meat
Monster Gauntlets
━━━━━━━━━━ Currency ━━━━━━━━━━
Silver: 7
══════════════════════════════════════
