Every time his metaphorical finger almost pressed the metaphorical Sword Saint button, something stopped him.

  The only reason to not take the skill was the possibility of angering some overpowered dude somewhere, and Dennis cared jack shit about that.

  So why?

  It just felt wrong. It felt like forcing yourself to get up from the bed early to go to work that you didn’t like, because you needed the money. Like doing homework on a subject that you’ll never need because you needed the grade. Like living a healthy lifestyle because it was ‘good for you’, but having no commitment.

  It felt like something was forcing him to pick it.

  Common sense, maybe?

  It was the right thing to do.

  Like getting a degree and not living in his mom’s basement.

  He hated doing things that he didn’t want to do.

  The skill would make him fast. Even when thinking about it just in terms of what it could give him that he wanted, it was the greatest boost to his overall speedstery-ness.

  Like having a good job that would give him money to buy expensive merchandise.

  It was just…

  Dennis didn’t care about fighting. Killing goblins to level up was a chore that he gladly performed, but there was exactly zero enjoyment in the process. He just wanted those stat points to pursue his dream.

  He didn’t care about his katana, or the swords in general. Not in a way a real ‘Sword Saint’ probably did. They were just another kind of merch. He liked the idea of having a real katana. Its place was always supposed to be a decoration. Something pretty to look at, to brag about, a piece of furniture that allowed him to live in his own world better. In a world of comics, and manga, and heroes, and speedsters.

  This system worked like a game, and in games that had random selection of skills it usually worked in a way that next skills would be influenced by the previous ones. The skills he got here now were already clearly influenced by his actions. There was a reason why he didn’t touch guns.

  But wasn’t taking a skill an action?

  Sword Saint was definitive. By taking it, he would become The Sword Saint. He would become the guy who was very good with a sword. He kinda was already.

  His talent was a blessing in a way that it allowed him to be very good at this whole fighting thing. It made Dennis strong. Overpowered, honestly, especially compared to everyone else. He was yet to see another human with such strong protagonist vibes. Richard, maybe?

  If only he cared about fighting, or swords, or being strong. Out of those three it could be said that he wanted to be strong, but it never was the goal, just a consequence of being a superhero.

  His talent was fucking great, it was amazing, lifesaving, but it also defined him too much. It was such a huge deal that only two out of five skills that he got offered weren’t because of it. Arguably, only one.

  Aside from fighting, the system decided that his notable achievements were running around rescuing people and being good at ignoring distractions.

  If skills were a part of something greater, or if there was some sort of a skill tree, and it was probable that there was…

  Then it all became quite clear, wasn’t it? There was only one skill that he would pick without the feeling of doing something that needed to be done instead of wanting it. Just one that he would pick without feeling that uncomfortable weight in his heart.

  His metaphorical hand hovered over it. He hesitated.

  It was stupid. Irrational. He could be a fine sword swinging hero. Arguably, he would be a very very good sword swinging hero.

  But…

  Was it really that stupid to see a chance of your deepest dream coming true and grasp it?

  Skill selected:

  Heroic Dash.

  Points allocated:

  Heroic Dash 2.

  Heroic Dash 3.

  Heroic Dash 4.

  Heroic Dash 5.

  Heroic Dash 6.

  Heroic Dash 7.

  Free points: 0

  Heroic Dash 7.

  Just save everyone. Maybe apply a bit of triage.

  Passive. Unique.

  Effect: +7 Mind, +7 Dexterity while reaching an ally to save them.

  Time resumed its flow.

  He smacked the arrow that was flying nearby, knocking it off course.

  The goblin wizard was looking at him with a huge grin, surrounded by a few melee goblins in a protective formation. It felt like it was taunting him.

  Getting there and dispatching them would take what… five seconds? Way more if that magical shield blocked his hits?

  Dennis had another option now.

  “Wait a bit, fucker,” he murmured a took a single step back, towards the groups who so desperately needed his help.

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  Everything changed.

  The layout of the battle that he was holding in his mind became crystal clear. The most effective path that he needed to take calculated itself almost as if on its own. Dennis knew where he would step, how he would slash, and who he would kill a dozen moves in advance.

  The Mind stat didn’t make people think smarter, but it sure as hell made them think faster. With the effective stat of 21 Dennis was reasonably sure that his thinking speed was beyond the human limits. Faster than any records, if only by a small margin. Any competition that relied on quick thinking or reaction would’ve been obliterated by him, in the world before the system.

  And his fighting talent? It shined brightly, like a superadvanced program was finally allowed to run on a decent computer instead of the old calculator. He knew how the fight would play out with a dozen goblins in advance, down to every movement. He just took a step, and he already more or less knew in which direction the second goblin’s head in the middle group would fly.

  He took a second step while he was turning, quicker this time, and immediately stumbled.

  Too fast.

  His other leg readjusted his fall and stabilized him faster than he could think.

  The calculations changed.

  The numerical difference in his Mind and Dexterity was the same, but in reality he was way faster than he could manage. If he could hold back a bit and be fine before, now he would need to control even the most basic of his movements. There was only one explanation.

  Every stat point was worth more than the previous one.

  He wouldn’t be able to use his top speed for anything other than the most basic of motions, but that was fine. The speed that he would be able to control was ridiculous as it was.

  He looked at the group that needed the most help. It was one of the archer groups, the one that didn’t have a kid with a silenced gun. Ness was in it, and he saw her pulling out her own gun as five goblins were almost in melee range to them.

  That group was at least two dozen yards away from him.

  Reaching them took him less than a second.

  Ness didn’t pull out her gun yet when his sword decapitated the closest goblin to her. He didn’t have the strength for it, but thankfully he had the second best thing, which was inertia. He would need to explore the physics bending aspect of his power later.

  The moment the goblin died his buff disappeared, since he reached the person who he wanted to save. No, it disappeared the moment his blade touched the goblin, it was just hard to notice the precise moment.

  Dennis looked at the other group where goblins were already killing people. The speed returned.

  So that’s how it was. He could work with that.

  0.6 seconds later two goblins died in the middle of that group, one was decapitated with a sword while the other with the dagger.

  He really enjoyed his newfound ‘slashing things off’ ability. Who needed strength when they could swing really fast?

  He wasn’t looking around too much as he remembered where everyone was and what they were doing a second ago. He could extrapolate what was happening now from that. He didn’t have eyes on the back of his head, but he might’ve as well, because the whole battlefield was simulated in his mind, giving him a crystal clear picture of where he needed to go next without even looking.

  0.7 seconds later three goblins were cut in pieces near the edge of the battlefield. It was a complicated manoeuvre that was possible only because he planned it perfectly even before he started moving towards them. Doing fast and elaborate motions was beyond him, but he cheated by setting them up and then just letting his body perform them at top speed without much control. By knowing where his body was and what forces he applied he could extrapolate where he would end up, even if the movement itself was too fast to follow.

  Dennis wasn’t killing the goblins that were closest to him, because everyone was close to him. Any point of the battlefield was less than a second away.

  It was a small battlefield, true, but still.

  He was killing the goblins that presented the most threat. The ones who were in the process of performing a killing blow, or just a moment away from it.

  Dennis was fast enough to parry a killing blow a dozen yards away from him.

  Which he did. Repeatedly. While chucking away heads and limbs because his swings were fast enough to deal enormous damage.

  There was nothing sane about the way Dexterity fucked with inertia. It felt arbitrary, like someone just decided what speed of movement meant without knowing physics and the universe went with that for some ungodly reason. Dennis knew that he shouldn’t be able to stop like he did, or turn rapidly like he did.

  And yet he did.

  The constant going in and out of that speed-state was annoying, but it was easy to deal with. He just planned who he would save next even before he reached his first target. The moment his blades touched yet another batch of goblins, he was already on the way to the next one.

  He was a blur of rapid movement that made limbs fly all over the battle in what felt like arbitrary locations. One moment a goblin died not that far away from the wizard, the other he was already chopping them down on the opposite side of the fight.

  And the weirdest fucking thing? The one that confused him even more then the way he absurdly fucked with inertia?

  He wasn’t getting tired. Not as much as he should. Dennis covered the whole battlefield from side to side for what felt like four times already, and the exhaustion?

  Like he was running at his top speed for five seconds. Which was more or less true.

  From the moment that he took the skill only five seconds passed. He was running around for five seconds.

  And he felt like he was running around for five seconds, despite covering a ridiculous amount of distance.

  The goblin wizard? That clown was still mid-casting his fireball. That thing took a ridiculous amount of time to cast. And there was no way for the wizard to aim at Dennis anymore. He was a bit too fast of a target.

  Only five seconds passed, and Dennis already made a noticeable dent in the amount of goblins. How many there were in the beginning? Less than a hundred for sure, but not way less. And he killed more than a dozen already.

  He didn’t stop.

  Kill the one who was thrusting his spear, and simultaneously adjust its direction.

  Kill the three remaining near the archer group so they would be able to shoot again.

  Save the last survivor of the group that was holding goblins back from reaching the archers.

  Two more here.

  One there.

  The wizard finished casting. Dennis thought that the fireball was slow even before his level up, but now it might as well be crawling. It was flying towards the archer group with the gun kid, which made sense. There was no way the wizard would be able to hit Dennis.

  He threw his dagger at the fireball and missed, because he had no idea how to throw a dagger.

  He ran to the group that had a goblin with the dagger threatening them, killed it, took the dagger and tried again.

  The second try was way easier since he already had a feel for how it worked. Most likely his overpowered talent applied to much more than just swords.

  It hit the fireball in mid-air and the thing exploded, scorching some people nearby but not doing much of anything else.

  Dennis grinned. He’d like to see that clown of a wizard cast another fireball for six goddamn seconds.

  He picked up the dagger on the way to the other group, and continued the slaughter.

  Six seconds later another fireball started flying away from the wizard. Dennis was ready for it, and threw his dagger even before the thing started moving.

  It impacted the fireball the moment it left the weird magical shield space, exploding it in the wizard’s face. The creature screamed as its body flew away from the force of the impact.

  Was the shield not that good against explosions, or was it more of a friendly fire issue? Anyway, it worked.

  Less than ten seconds later there were no melee goblins left. Most of the enemy archers were either dead or running away.

  Dennis looked in the direction of the wizard, but it was gone. Hidden somewhere? Teleported?

  He stood in the middle of the group, blood dripping from the sword on the ground. Tired and trying to catch his breath yet again today.

  It was over.

  They won.

  He heard a chuckle nearby. Then another one, from the other direction. Some people fell onto their knees and started laughing.

  Cheering. Celebrating their survival.

  “Dude, that was insane!” Travis grabbed him, shaking his shoulders. “I thought that that was it. But we did it! Fuck!”

  Dennis was glad that Travis survived. He was a good company, and a great transportation. Dennis' legs were killing him. It was hard standing straight.

  More people approached him, hugging him, saying thanks, recounting this or that moment where they thought that they were for sure dead only for Dennis to appear out of nowhere, kill everything in a blink, and disappear somewhere else.

  Lots of people were dead. Lots of them were wounded, and were desperately trying to mend their injuries, but the overall mood was that of a celebration. Of a miracle.

  Dennis was their hope until this fight.

  Now, for all of those who survived, he was their hero.

  It felt nice.