Far From Vanilla: Modded Game Reincarnation

The large man lunged forward, the knife in his right hand flashing straight for me, but I didn’t flinch–

 I forced myself not to flinch.

 The man was strong, strong enough to put enough strength and speed into his blade, and since I was sitting still, I took it.

Cut!

 The slash was deep, but not deep enough to sever most of the muscles in my arm. I successfully blocked him from my vitals, but in this fight, my left arm is done for.

 In combat that is.

 I stepped forward as he slashed again. 

 Slash!

 This time my right arm took the hit, but it was not as deep. He slashed again, but this time I weaved under the blow, tilting forward and to the right.

Slash!

 It grazed my cheek.

 “Slippery one, aren’t you?” He slashed again. “I’ll cut you up at this rate, kid! Is that all you can do?!”

 I titled back to the left this time and he completely missed.

I remembered this saying from somewhere… and I was betting on it.

I was praying that my gamble paid off, I was praying that the wider the attack, the wider the gap for me to intercept.

I was looking for that opportunity. 

These men use daggers and daggers require close proximity with their targets.

 Unarmed enemies would naturally back away and create that distance, so they’d inch forward to close the forming gap.

 And this man hasn’t noticed it yet…

 I haven’t backed off even as this man was slashing my arms like meat.

This is payback, Motherfucker!  “You’re wide open!”

I lunged forward as his blade was still pointed away. I put my weight on my right foot, lifting myself up in my dash forward. When I was within range, I stomped down on his knee with my left.

Crack!

 The blow was effective, the angle of his footing tipping the scales in my favor.

  Pow!

 “Aghhh!--” The man howled, his right knee bending the wrong direction. “w-wait–”

 In his pain, he dropped his dagger as he fell down onto the roof, clutching his leg.

There! The opening!

I didn’t give him the opportunity to grieve his end and so I sent my right foot into his throat. He was reaching for his dagger under the veil of a false surrender.

He didn't even break a sweat at his clearly shattered leg. It was all an act.

"Oh no, you don't!" Using the tip of my boot, I crushed his windpipe.

Pam!

 “guh–” The man gasped, putting his hand forward in surrender, or to dissuade what I was doing. 

 “You wouldn’t have done the same for me If I asked you to do the exact same thing.” I picked up the dagger and grabbed his arm. “So this is nothing personal.”

***

 “A-Are they gone?” A young boy managed to stagger up to his feet. His face was covered in bruises, his arms all sore from being used to throw him. He looked at his grandmother, whom the low-lives pressured into telling where the gold coin had come from.

 “They should be…” The older woman sighed from behind the counter.

 The young boy looked broken, wracked with guilt, and his face contorted as he shed tears. As he fell into his grandmother's arms, he cried and spoke in broken words, trying to communicate while sobbing. “H-He…T-They– b-e-because of m-m–me….”

 He was not alone in the guilt of regret, but she understood. In that situation, it was their own lives in balance with another. The choice was out of fear, and she understood it out of necessity, but a young boy shouldn’t have been forced to make that choice.

 “You did nothing wrong,” She said with a comforting hug. Her wrinkled hand stroked the boy’s back. “You did nothing wrong, you did nothing wrong…”

 The boy swallowed as much air as he could, his lungs aching for him to breathe. He tried to talk again, but his words were interrupted. Not by his grandmother, but by the stranger he allegedly sold off to their attackers.

 “Yeah kid, what she said.”

 The boy’s soaked eyelids opened in shock, his face looking up from his grandmother’s shoulder. He saw me walking down the stairs to the first floor, bloodied everywhere, but much or less alive.

 “Y-You–You—” He stammered, pointing at me in disbelief, “Y-You’re okay…”

 “I’m starving, yeah, but I’m not dead.” I grinned at him in the friendliest way I could. I was covered in blood, both mine and theirs, I must look like a cereal killer. “ Why don’t you go make me something to eat? On, the house, of course.”

 But, above all else, I was hungry. Weird, as I had the heaviest meal I ever had earlier, but oh well.

 Thankfully there were flushing toilets.

 But it wasn’t entirely unexplainable. I had a pretty good idea on why.

 The boy’s face beamed in relief mixed with joy. He got up from his grandmother’s embrace and made a beeline for the kitchen behind the counter, leaving the woman there to look dumbfounded at me.

 I tossed her a gold coin. 

 “I was joking, I don’t like freeloading. You need to run a business don’t you?” I chuckled, “I’m going to be eating a lot from now on, and the boy shouldn’t break down like that. What do you say?”

 The grandmother looked at me with a steeled expression, pocketing the gold coin. “Are they…”

 “They won’t be bothering you, or anyone else.” I answered curtly. 

 We locked gazes. 

She understood what I meant, but let it remain unsaid. 

 “We can get wood. Those low-lives shouldn’t be buried in the ground.”

 And I shouldn’t be in the radar of the guards outside of Rudolf’s faction. 

I can work with this lady.

 “Done. Let’s do that after I eat.”

 I’d much rather finish my food before smelling burning human flesh.