Chapter 15: Hand Of Luck

  It had been a couple hours into the hunt, Marx and Fay had come to an agreement that since both of them were “mage” types, they would take turns using their skills, and since Marx thought Fay had a nullification skill, along with other miscellaneous things that he couldn't quite pin point, Fay had a lot more trouble than he was supposed to.

  Still no levels. Fay dodged yet another attack from the magic antler deer, it shot a beam that sliced right through a tree and left the edges embered and lit up, it looked pretty in the dark environment. He still only had a sword, and couldn't get close enough to use any of the skills he had in his repertoire. The creature was smart and was keeping its distance, making sure it didn’t leave any openings even though it clearly had the upper hand. Fay could stop the beam with the stop momentum skill, but since it was a continuous beam, he had to continuously stack up the skill as well, meaning it took out a lot of MP.

  He saw no way out and groaned, “okay you can join!” He relented, Marx, in the distance took up the opportunity, already building up a hefty ball of flames that he slung forward with an overhand chuck, it was small and compact, but the moment it hit the deer the flames burst outwardly and ignited the deer's skin, burning it asunder.

  “Woo!” Marx clapped.

  [Slain Magic Antler Deer (LVL 3)]

  +40XP

  Same XP as that eagle. “Good job, was that a new move?” Fay stepped from behind the tree and saw the crisp beast.

  “Oh the compact thing? Yeah, been trying to find a way to get around a lot of these creatures' defenses, and I thought, maybe what we need is less of a continuous flame and more of a BOOM! You know?”

  He’s adapting. “Good thought. Maybe try it on a smaller scale? To attack certain parts?” Fay wished he had a skill like that, the adaptability was its biggest strength, even though the MP was high you could control the heat, the size, the shape and behavior of the flames, it was perfect. Marx was figuring that out too, he probably hadn’t fought beasts this hard in a while, especially if he was given the class at the start.

  XP 980/8000

  Fay felt discouraged, he found that he could use the zone skill in a pretty basic way to get some small stat boosts all the time, if he wagered he would finish a step for example he would get a +1 agility boost for five seconds, and he could repeat that every 5 seconds for little to no mana cost, so it had its uses, but barely. It was the equivalent of playing cards on the copper-ante level, inconsequential.

  But that was what was expected of a common rarity skill, useless, in almost all cases. “Let’s continue, my mana is still good.” He moped forward, they had been in continuous scraps every ten minutes, usually taking breaks after each one. They had come by most of the forest monsters by now but stayed clear of that river since that crab was a higher tier of level three than the rest.

  But he wouldn't get anywhere if he kept thinking like a loser, he knew that, he needed to push himself out of this rut, he needed to grasp that same feeling he had in the dungeon, “Marx?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m taking the next one, don’t help me even if I ask. Okay?”

  He smiled and nodded, “sure.” He was overall pleased with Fay, as a partner he was subpar compared to Joey who usually was always in the right place at the right time, or Eddy who could brute force a lot of enemies. But Fay had this fire to him, something he wanted to cultivate, he was a flame mage after all.

  Fay stopped, “okay.” He pointed at a bear, probably level three from its size, it was double the size of a normal brown bear, double his height. “That.”

  “Are you joking?” Marx snickered, “that is a bad matchup, find something else-”

  Fay walked forward, holding the sword out, he was shaking, he was scared. Once he got past a marked tree he entered the bear's territory, it instantly knew where Fay was and turned, giving a low and guttural huff, “urgh…” If he had to fulfill Lily’s wishes he had to be stronger, that much was obvious, a weak bodyguard is useless. But this curse was so draining, today had felt like a chore, like a job.

  I need defense… no, strength… no, agility… no-

  The bear didn’t let Fay finish a thought, it rushed forward, its meaty body piling against its huge legs, bouncing with a weight that could crush multiple bones. Fay wagered that he would survive the next ten seconds… no… twenty seconds… no, minute… two minutes.

  He tried dodging the initial barrage, the bear decided to almost playfully swipe at Fay, knocking him a couple meters to the side and onto the ground, its claws were retracted so it was like being hit with a hammer with no spikes.

  [Activated Stop Momentum]

  Fay stopped mid roll and thrusted upwards, right towards the bear's side as it was already turning, the beast was slow, which meant Fay could get a hit in even with his low agility, however, the sword couldn’t pierce the hide.

  [Activated Stop Momentum]

  Fay undid his forward thrust and quickly slid backwards to stop himself from getting any closer, the bear swiped again. The bear popped its jaw in annoyance, its mouth began to drool, wetting the brown of its face. Its puppy-like features were quickly distorted demonically.

  Stop momentum was first and foremost a defense skill, which he knew already, the only way it could be used offensively was when the creature would have a high speed or would use its weight without worry. That was why Fay realised he couldn’t cut the bear’s hide; he decided to drop the sword completely, opening up both his arms. No sword, that lowers my odds of making it two minutes, doesn't it?

  The bear was riled up now, chasing after the vague position of where Fay happened to be, using its two front legs to swipe and slash, its claws left deep cuts in the dirt where Fay happened to once be standing, and made the ground they were fighting on generally unstable. The bear lifted its entire body up with its back legs and slammed down on the ground, causing a splatter of dirt that hit Fay’s eyes, a mist of ground dust lifted and reduced Fay’s eyesight even further, he had to rely on his perception completely. He chose a random direction to run and got swiped in the cloak, the claw digging and catching the thing.

  Disable cloak.

  The cloth unwrapped and untangled, allowing Fay to roll out of the way with the cloak sitting firmly in his hand. The dust settled and Fay had found himself behind the beast. How long has it been? A minute? He dropped the cloth onto the ground, reducing odds further, after all, he could pick it up later after the bet was won.

  He felt the two defenses and agility leave his body. He was low to begin with on defence, so it was a big wager, a wager within a wager. The bear lifted its head and roared so loud the trees shook and lost branches. The eyes on the monster flashed red as it turned towards Fay again, its mouth was drenched, completely soaked and dripping onto the soil below.

  It leapt forward, double the speed of before and lashed Fay along the chest with its claws, Fay couldn’t react as it lashed again, one of the claws cutting into his chin, the flesh right under his jaw, the single claw made its way into his mouth and slipped into the space until Fay could feel the claw with his tongue. Fay grabbed the beast's arm as it roared and opened its mouth towards Fay’s skull.

  This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.

  [Failed Stop Momentum]

  The bear tried to further sink its claws into Fay, causing it to slip and for him to be flung to the ground.

  [Activated Stop Momentum]

  Mid fall Fay stopped his velocity and rushed the other direction he was heading, throwing the bear off. Fay’s mouth was destroyed, with his tongue he could feel an open hole below it, sucking in cool air. It hadn’t hit a major artery though, so he kept running, this was manageable, he told himself, this I can handle. What was bad was the cut along his chest, which had been deep enough to make one of his lungs feel hit.

  He assigned some stop momentum onto it with some adrenaline fueled focus, his mana was at a healthy 140 while stopping the lung from seeping air into his body cost 3 mana a second. Though every time he had to move the skill disabled itself, every time he breathed he had to reassign it, taking a serious amount of his mental faculties. He assumed intelligence was what was making it semi-automatable, like he had a secondary mind behind his that could do what he could. It was still a very amateur technique with his skill, sloppy and unrefined, but he could feel it barely helping, which was enough. He was just afraid of accidentally missing the skill and stopping his heart.

  The bear rushed forward again, Fay threw dirt but didn't expect it to do much.

  [Activated Stop Momentum x3]

  He jumped backwards as the bear slammed into the small dot of dirt, simply slipping around it as if it were an annoying fence. What a waste of mana, Fay thought. That technique simply didn't work when the creature was so large.

  Fay tried to dodge but yet again was swiped due to his lack of speed, the bear putting enough force to stab straight through his side and probably into some internal organs.

  [Activated Stop Momentum]

  Bad idea, horrible idea. The bear, with its claws having an unmoving target, simply lifted a slab out of Fay’s side by leveraging its strength and weight, leaving a huge square chunk torn out when it should have been a stretchy slice if Fay hadn’t activated the skill. Fay felt a bout of dizziness, he knew with his vitality he could withstand most wounds but this one felt terrible.

  Where is my bet?! Fay slipped away and took a couple steps before he stopped being able to feel his legs. He tried holding the part where the chunk was taken out of him but his hand kept slipping inside. “Marx!” He froze his side, stopping any bleeding.

  MP: (78/200)

  MP: (70/200)

  MP: (62/200)

  Fay managed a few more steps before the bear turned again, showing its teeth with a sneer. This thing kills me? Really? Fay felt his lung completely shutting down, no longer being able to suck in air and causing a sharp pulsating pain throughout his chest. His brain was up in the clouds, every time he moved his eyes, his perception of what he was looking at lagged behind.

  [Bet succeeded: 6 endurance, 4 strength, 4 defense for two minutes]

  That isn't even that good… Fay did feel his lung last a little longer, and the dizziness became less overbearing, “MARX!” Fay slipped back as the bear leapt again. Mid air it got hit by a flame that split its hide in two, the fur curled and ignited. The bear changed its prey and ran for Marx, receiving another compacted flame ball to the face.

  MP: (20/200)

  Fay kept the wounds bleeding to a minimum, the endurance did help keep him awake as he dragged himself to the cloak, getting the extra defense he needed. What he really needed was more vitality, desperately. Something the bet refused to give.

  The bear roared and gave Marx a very hard time, taking another hit from the compacted flames, but Marx’s agility was high enough to dodge the creature's charges, so it was clear who was going to come out the victor, it was an unfair battle.

  Fay tightened the cloak around his side, trying to reduce bleeding even further.

  [Zone LVL UP]

  Max Buffs: 1 -> 2

  +1 luck.

  Fay kept himself awake, hearing the bear finally take its final breaths while it keeled over next to Marx.

  [Slain Alpha Bear (LVL 3)]

  +80XP

  [Class: (Gambler) LVL UP]

  +1 luck.

  +1 random stat (+1 wisdom)

  Fay rested more comfortably on the base of a tree, resting his back on a couple roots as Marx came running over, digging inside his pocket for what looked like dried meat. He stuffed it into Fay’s mouth desperately.

  “Dumbass.” He continued to feed Fay, “dumbass. Huntings over… shit.” He ran out of food, each bite made Fay feel slightly healthier, but the wound was still open, “okay, I’m going to find Joey and Grace, they have healing stuff.” Marx ran off.

  Why does this keep happening? Fay giggled to himself, his blinking growing longer and longer as he stared at Marx’s figure growing further and further away. He giggled again, he knew why, he was stupid, that was why. Another injury, what does that make it? Three in 12 hours? Millie would have him up and about soon, at least that was a certainty.

  He made a wager that he would be awake for the next 10 seconds, making use of that second buff. He had to fight the urge for rest, the dizziness was coming back and his lung was not necessarily being kind.

  [Bet succeeded: 2 endurance for twenty seconds]

  That made it plus eight in total, that was good. He shifted up a little bit and touched the side of his cloak, soaked. He groaned as the twenty seconds timed out, and made another wager that he could stand up and walk for a minute, planning to… what was he planning to do? He didn’t know, he just felt the need to keep himself moving.

  He used his arms to rise upright, his lung stopping him from taking a complete breath. He needed to make a bet that helped with vitality, so he could heal worse wounds. With a stagger on each step he walked, just barely, picking up the sword on his way.

  [Bet succeeded: 2 agility for one minute]

  His original bet that said it would last two minutes was beginning to water down, which he felt clearly as he stumbled around the bear’s corpse, he didn’t even know where he was headed. He definitely couldn’t catch up with the others, what was he doing? He felt pulled by someone, a hand guiding him into this particular part of the forest.

  He slipped on a weirdly high up root and landed on his stomach, being able to peek under a tree trunk through the lifted roots he saw a shiny thing, just a vague shiny flower that was growing under it. Pulled by some unknown instinct he crawled towards it, feeling the dirt run alongside his mouth and into his wounds as he reached inside to grab the flower.

  He ripped it up, and with no hesitation bit down on it, chewing like a cow, grazing the flower until he swallowed, it tasted of bugs and he had to hold back a gag as it slid down into his stomach.

  His body felt lighter, and the lung that had been a persistent pain stopped pulsating, the hole below his mouth closed up, feeling hard, much like the calcify stuff Millie put on him. His side had the same effect, getting an outer layer of hard rock like skin, closing up. That wasn’t to say it was all good, but he stopped bleeding, completely.

  “Lucky…” he giggled into the ground. “Thanks… I needed that.” He turned to be on his back and looked at the sky through an opening in the tree’s leaves, that was likely the same flower that Millie had used, what was it called? The whisker flower? He coughed into his hand, some green remnants of the thing spilled onto his hand, making a gross goo, “Urgh…” he sat upright, slowly returning to normal from his initial bet.

  So luck works like that, huh? He felt it clearly, it was a hand guiding him to a perfect outcome for the situation, something he hadn’t felt before. Lucky. One thing he wanted to find out was, how lucky this was, would this happen all the time now that he had 3 luck? But as he finally stood upright he felt nothing of the sort, the hand was gone. He stood for a while, getting his bearings, while the wounds were clogged up he still lost a lot of blood, and was out of breath.

  “Fay!” Marx sprinted over beside Joey, Jacky and Grace. Joey’s team stopped with an annoyed look on their face, while Marx’s was more one of shock. “H-h-huh?”

  “Sorry to scare you!” Fay held his hands up, in more of a stretch than a gesture of apology, “I’m fine.”

  HP: (40/170)

  That low? “Yeah I’m fine.” Fay repeated as Marx walked up to him and inspected the bottom of his jaw.

  “You have a healing skill?” He prodded further onto Fay, poking him in the face, “why didn’t you tell me?!”

  “I just found a flower that helped, don’t worry.” Fay moved back from the constant touching, he could see Joey already preparing to leave while that Grace girl stared at him with a subtle smile on her face.

  “Lucky.” She said, waved, and left with the annoyed Joey, who kept groaning and moaning about being disrupted. He was in a pissy mood, Fay wondered if they were having the same issue with certain monsters here being unkillable with their skill styles.

  Fay felt sick from that flower, still, he probably shouldn't have eaten it whole, since Millie seemed to use it with scarcity. “Let’s continue?” Fay held the sword to his side and walked into a random direction while Marx followed behind.

  “Dude you almost made me have a heart attack… but... a flower? Do you still have it?” He sighed, “sorry for breaking my word, I didn’t want you to die. Really.” He rambled, Fay was too tired to answer any questions at the moment, he was planning to take a break and watch Marx hunt.

  Thank god. “It’s okay.” He felt more pleased about this, a skill level and a class level was no small feat. “You’re forgiven.” He whispered, his voice was tiny, almost high pitched as his lung was still finding it hard to push and pull air even with the healing.