Dokeshi March: Chapter 6 (Patreon)

Chapter 6

Grant and Suki were at a loss of what to do with Phil’s body, so they moved to the room across the hall to get some rest.  It had been a long day, and things looked like they would only get worse.  This entire district was more than either had been expecting.

They took turns getting some sleep, with only a few mild complaints from Suki about the accommodations.  She was used to living in a palace, but she was no glass flower.

Not long after Grant had finally fallen asleep, a tap on his shoulder woke him.  Sleeping in armor was far from comfortable, and he had yet to fall into a deep slumber.

“Wake up!”  Suki hissed loudly into his ear, jolting him fully awake.  “There is something in the room with Phil.”  She shuffled over to the door, peeking out into the hallway.  “It sounds like… slurping?”

Grant tip-toed over to see for himself, trying his best to keep the rattling of his armor to a minimum.  The sounds of grunting and fabric tearing reached his ears, and he poked his head out to try and see in the dim moonlight.  In a shaft of light passing through the broken roof, he could faintly see the back of a furred creature the size of a large dog hunched over the prone form of the body in the room across the narrow hallway.  The hairless tail swirling through the coagulated blood on the splintered floorboards told him it was no dog.  Instantly disgusted, Grant drew his uchigatana with the righteous ring of steel echoing into the dilapidated building.  Phil didn’t deserve to have his corpse desecrated by some monster.

With a jumping slide, his sword plunged into the back of the giant rat feasting on the innards of the recently dead.

The creature let loose a screech that set his ears ringing, and Grant whipped his sword free of the dying beast.  Before he could turn to speak to Suki, his vision filled with the already hated combat screen.

Combat initiated

Action: Attack with weapon

Result: First opponent defeated

Opponents remaining: 22

Actions: Please select one option from the following list

Attack: Lethal, Non-lethal, Spell

Defend: With weapon, Without weapon

Run: Attempt escape

“What?”  Grant was confused, clearly not prepared for more than one enemy.  The creak of the wooden floor behind forced him to spin around to confront the approaching mischief.  There was a missing floorboard, and a steady stream of the monsters were pouring through the gap into the small room.

<Well, I guess it was a good thing we did that training, huh?>

The swarm of rats rushed Grant, who hurriedly selected to defend with his weapon.  The next few seconds were a flurry of activity that left him heaving and exhausted.  The strain of trying to strike with his sword made his arms ache with the strain.  Whatever was enforcing the turns made it impossible for him to make any move that might be interpreted as offence, and his reflexes were fighting it.

Unfortunately for Grant, the rats must have had plenty of practice fighting in the odd style it enforced.  They had timed their attacks so he could only block one or two attackers, leaving him open to the sharp teeth of their putrid brethren.  They were abnormally adept at finding the gaps in his armor, and the runnels of blood covering his legs and lower back accompanied the stream of damage notifications that stormed through his vision.  At least he had given as good as he had received.  The bodies of six more rats joined the first, and now it was Grant’s turn.

Action: Defend with weapon

Result: Seven opponents defeated

Opponents remaining: 39

Actions: Please select one option from the following list

Attack: Lethal, Non-lethal, Spell

Defend: With weapon, Without weapon

Run: Attempt escape

“Hold on Grant!”  Suki finally made her presence known by sweeping into the room in a storm of limbs and metal-coated fists.  The whirlwind attack left another eight furry corpses on the ground.  Her arrival meant he could no longer use his spell without injuring her as well, and she had disrupted the turn-based system, giving the rats another chance to attack.  Suki was unprepared for the swarm of teeth and claws that assaulted her, and her lack of armor was especially damning.  “My legs!  Why can’t I move?!  Help me!”

Grant selected attack, and his sword slashed through the beasts still clinging to the ragged flesh of her exposed legs.  As Suki fell back into him, Grant selected the ‘Run’ option that appeared in his vision and sheathed his sword so he could lift her off her feet.  The number of remaining rats had increased to fifty, and was still climbing.  The small room was quickly filling with the bodies of the slain creatures, making footing a problem.  It was only a matter of time until they fell, and the swarm left them as nothing but a pile of bones.

As he scooped Suki off her feet to run, it was like running into a brick wall.  He had used his considerable strength to try and hop over the creatures blocking the way, but the woman in his arms had run into something invisible.  Grant had been clotheslined off his feet by her body, and she landed on top of him, adding insult to injury.

Both of them were groaning in pain when the rats pounced, tearing into Grant and Suki with abandon.  Getting the breath knocked out of him had made his head feel woozy, and he was convinced he might actually be dying.  He glanced at his health, seeing he was down from over three hundred to just above one hundred.  One more attack like that, and they were both dead.

<Tell Suki to select ‘Run,’ so you can both get away!>  Sarge’s voice thundered in his mind, clearing up his thoughts.  <This system is a corruption of the bushido!  Whoever came up with it has no idea what it means to walk the Way of the Warrior!>

“Suki, select run, or we die here!”  By selecting the run option, Grant no longer had the chance to fight or defend, leaving him unable to even use his spell.  From the condition Suki appeared to be in, it would have killed her instantly anyway.

The pressure holding Suki down on him disappeared, and he clambered back to his feet, rats hanging off of him like a macabre suit of lumpy fur.  He sprinted down the hallway, purposefully smashing against the walls as he ran.  The momentum smashed apart both rats and walls, and soon the only thing holding the house up was the layers of dirt encrusted on the outside.

Grant was a little out of it from the blood loss, so he didn’t see how or when Suki managed to grab their packs, but when they stumbled into the alley out the back door she had both of them flung over her back.  They were both covered in bloody wounds and coated in the filth and hair of the rats.  He shivered at the thought of the infection they would face without the healing potions in the packs she had grabbed.

Luckily, the rats didn’t follow them outside.  He guessed the system deemed the house as the battlefield, and escaping it’s confines counted as an end to the battle.  From the sounds of squealing beasts and tearing flesh, they were distracted by the fresh meat their battle had provided.

Condolences!  Your new battle count moves from [2 Wins / 0 Losses] to [2 Wins / 1 Losses].  Remember, fate favors the bold!

It was the only good thing Grant could figure out about the system he had found.  At the moment, the loss was secondary to the relief felt at getting out alive.  If he was free of the system, that would have been an easy fight.  He might have even won if Suki hadn’t walked in at the worst possible time, but she hadn’t understood just how awful the controlled manner of the fighting in the area could be.  Now that she had experienced it first-hand, they would be better at planning any future battles.

<I have some good news at least.>  Sarge brought him out of his thoughts, forcing him back into the present.  <Your armor and mental cultivation both saw a minor increase in numbers after the battle.  Even in a loss, you gain strength.  Like a true samurai.>

He pulled up a truncated version of his stats, checking the changes for himself.

Name: Grant Monday

Rank: Lord of The Month (January, February)

Class: Foundation Cultivator

Cultivation Achievement Level: 17

Cultivation Stage: Mid Summer

Inherent Abilities: Swirling Seasons Cultivation

Health: 112/347

Mana: 19/19

Characteristics

Physical: 198

Mental: 73 -> 79

Armor Proficiency: 108 -> 110

Weapon Proficiency: 140

“Why such an increase in my mental cultivation?”  He could understand the increase in armor, but it should have seen more of a gain than mental.

<There are benefits to fighting through the pain.  It was more survival instinct than focused control, but that’s something we can work on.>  Grant shuddered at the thought.  <Now, get to a safe place and use your Live by the Sword ability to heal some.  There is too much damage for a simple potion to heal by itself.>

They quickly put actions to words, and climbed on the roof of a flat-topped building a few streets over.  As Grant entered the meditation necessary for his healing to activate, his last thoughts were on how much he disliked this Dokeshi March.  He had to be insane to implement such a foolish system on his people.