4 A brawl
Chapter: 4
"A brawl"
After he left the alleyway, Zen had to keep an eye out for any people who would roam around the streets at this time. As much as he would like to avoid attracting unwanted attention, he knew it would be extremely difficult since he was stinking like a skunk. Not to mention his clothing looked like they'd been in a struggle.
While walking towards his bike as his apartment's keys were there, Zen noticed the blue bar at the bottom of his field of view was slowly running out and turning yellow. The fact that it was constantly fading back and forth was also an indicator that forces him to look at it.
Frankly, he was also out of breath. Considering the number of times he had to hide from people, he was exhausted eventhough he had only been walking.
"Why do I feel so fat?" He thought.
Not before long, Zen found a discreet spot chilling in an alleyway between a chinese takeout and a convenience store. Both were opened as stated from their 'opened' sign, meaning time was still on his side. He began taking a seat, void of any public eyes under the shadows of these two buildings. "Ugh... I'm exhausted." He muttered while glancing at the intriguing blue bar.
Presumably, He thought it was an indicator that showed him the amount of stamina he has left. He came to that conclusion because of a simple perception of the blue bar refilling back up after he had sat down. "Interesting... This system can even track how much stamina I have left too."
With that in mind, he waited for his stamina to regain back to full before continuing on his path. Upon half an hour of repeated walking/hiding and resting, Zen managed to get to a nice park that was close to his workplace's district.
After taking a seat on the bench in front of a lamppost, he began relaxing his sored-up feet. The bench he sat on felt like a monk's sanctuary and the fresh nightly airs were cool as the winter breeze. The light shining upon him was bright but wasn't in any way, blinding.
"Damn, didn't realize it could be so peaceful here." Zen sighed before rubbing his chin. He then checked the system and the quest it had given him before staring up into the starry sky. "Hmm... So the system uses the word 'quest', huh? Like an RPG?" He muttered.
Soon, Zen began repeatedly reading through the quest logs until an idea struck his mind. "If this was a game based on real-life then getting more stats should be easy. The training was, and would always be the natural way of becoming stronger." He theorized while shaking his feet up and down in excitement.
"I wonder if there's a limit. I wonder if I could infinitely get stronger." Zen thought.
Just the idea of stacking forever and becoming god had given him shivers. "Wait wait wait, hold your horses. Why haven't you questioned if you're still alive or not? Chances are, this could all be a simulation inside your mind."
He instinctively pinched his cheeks to determine if his tin-foil hat theory was true or not and wasn't surprised to find out he could feel a sharp pain. "Nope, definitely real." He chuckled.
Suddenly, Zen caught an echo of a young man shouting in the distance to his left. The guy sounded like he was trying to shoo an animal away, annoying the living crap out of our him. The voice had a vivid, but also aggravating tone, "Why the hell is a vermin doing here in our spot?"
Zen immediately turned to the voice before frowning. He could hear himself sigh upon spotting three black figures approaching him from a few distances away. It was also a pretty bright night, revealing a weapon in each of those vigilantes' hands.
"Right, city night is not really the best time to go for a walk, eh?" Zen thought.
In his eyes, each of those delinquents was wearing a pitch-black uniform with black baggy pants and a straightened collar. Other than that, they each had a sigil, sewn on their left shoulder and a few yellowish buttons running down their necks.
There was a bald guy standing in the group who had tattoos on the side of his face and a fucked up jawline. He wasn't as muscular as the caretaker, but he did have a modified cricket bat sitting on top of his shoulders behind his back.
"Yo, this dude's wack."
Meanwhile, the other two had mohawks and bats of their own. They were a lot smaller than the bald guy. One of them was wearing sunglasses which Zen found hilarious considering the time right now.
Our protagonist stopped frowning as they got within his personal distance/personal space.
"I don't have time to be dealing with you kids. Go shank someone else or something." Zen said in a bitter tone while having one of his legs raised above the other. He then glared at the bald guy before laughing his throat out. "It seemed like after using a weapon once or twice, even an ape would consider itself the king of the world."
"Huh? The fuck did you just say?" One of the mohawks said, tapping on his bat like an Asian teacher who's about to smack his/her students.
"You trying to pick a fight with us?" Another mohawk spoke as he got close, putting his feet on the bench's handrest. Obviously, this guy did it to threaten Zen. "We're one of the Red Demons, better respect us or else."
Upon hearing what the delinquent had said, Zen widened his eyes before getting out of his seat. He quickly grabbed the mohawk by his collar before shoving his face close to him. "Oh? So the demons had new faces, huh?"
Suddenly, a sharp sound came from his side. It was a fist crackling, indicating that a fight would start if he doesn't let go of their buddy soon.
Meanwhile, the one being lifted up began showing a terrified but also confused expression. "The hell are you even talking about? Why would we give a damn about a guy wearing fucked up quick foodie's uniform? Who the hell do you think you are?"
The atmosphere began shifting ever so slightly, turning from just a dense cloud into a massive storm. Zen then threw the guy down like a sandbag before spitting his saliva to the side. "You want me to beat your ass to find out?"
After pissing the three for long enough, they'd finally begun to surround him with a triangle formation. Before they could initiate their formation though, Zen had already tensed up his fist, ready to jab it into the guy going behind him. Because his stamina was back to full, our protagonist wasn't too worried about getting tired in this fight.
As for consuming their souls, he was still figuring out whether these guys had parents of their own or not. Usually, a delinquent would stray far from their parents but it didn't mean that they don't have a family to go back to. If he were to do something as horrifying as consuming their souls right now, their crew would surely come and take revenge.
Zen didn't want to wait any longer and the guy behind him had gotten close enough to his fist. Immediately, he threw a swift punch into the guy's stomach before smashing his head down. "Ugh!" The guy let out a groan before being grabbed by the head and kneed to the face.
After knocking him out, Zen spotted the other mohawk coming close to him, already in the motion of swinging his bat.
"Fuck off with the bat, you coward!" Zen shouted while keeping his eyes on the hilt. He brought up his forearms to block the attack before grabbing the bat out of the mohawk's fist and using its hilt to quickly thrust at the guy.
Unfortunately, the guy wasn't as unprepared as the first one as he tilted his head and managed to dodge the thrust. "Now!" He shouted, alerting his ally and startling Zen.
"Take this!" A voice suddenly came from behind our protagonist.
Before Zen could turn around to see where the attack was coming from, there was already a strike hitting the back of his neck, sending him down to his knees. In the process, he dropped his bat and had a nosebleed.
"Tch! How could I forget?" Zen glanced at the bald delinquent and was surprised to see that the guy hadn't moved an inch yet. Immediately, he assumed this guy had an attribute that allowed him to send invisible attacks from afar. "Fuckin' hell."
Zen wasn't scared though, he couldn't even tremble at the fact that he could easily die in this situation right now. Death wasn't in his mind though, his body was hot and pumped full of adrenaline, similar to when he was fighting the caretaker.
Zen took a stance. He split apart his legs to have a strong balance before having his arms closely tucked into his chest. Looking at it from afar, the stance is reminiscent of a sumo stance, ready to bring his opponents down. He then charged at the bald guy with great speed.
"What kind of an attack is this?" The bald guy mocked before lifting his bat. His hands were at the back ready to swing and his foot strode forward. After Zen got close, he exploded his back hips towards our protagonist.
"I was hoping you wouldn't use your ability, dumbass," Zen said before halting his movement completely, dodging the attack before sending a kick into the bold guy's neck.
"What the hell!" The guy shouted as if he knew Zen's stance wasn't able to let him stop like that. Before he could figure out what had happened though, his vision became blurry before blacking out completely.
Meanwhile, the last guy started to drip cold sweat. Seeing his leader, who had an attribute, being knocked out in one hit, made him ready to give up on the pursuit. He knew his powers wouldn't do him any good and started to run away. Before getting far from the bench, Zen was already behind his back.
"Wait please!" The guy shouted before our protagonist lifted his body into the air and slammed him into the ground. He let out a gasp of air as the feeling of heat struck through his spine. "Gya!" He grunted before passing out.
"In a fistfight, I ain't waiting, bucko." Zen sneered as he looked at the body of his opponents.
After this small brawl, Zen began deciding if he should consume their souls or not. Knowing they would be out cold for a while, he began rummaging through their belongings and found a piece of paper, smashed inside the bald dude's jacket.
Zen did his best to straighten it before instantly seeing a word that caught his interest. It was black and the handwriting was horrible, but also readable. Under the lights now surrounded by an eclipse of moths, he sat down and had a read. "So they tried to register for the gang but ended up getting rejected. What an idiot."
*ding!*
〚※〛 〚※〛
[Congratulations on finding a hint for this soul!]
[Hint Found: Kain Bernin: use this hint to get more souls from this person.]
〚※〛 〚※〛
Suddenly, a textbox appeared in the center of his cornea, brightening it malevolently. He could feel a grin forming on his face as his system also allowed him to get more stats from finding out more about people's history and insecurities.
A burst of laughter erupted from his solar plexus.
The note then transformed into a black cloud before dissipating into his chest, similar to what had happened to the caretaker.
With all that done, Zen decided to go up to those unconscious guys before inspecting them thoroughly. He started examining their faces one by one but reached an unsatisfying conclusion of nothing special was found. The only exception was the bald guy's jawline, it looked grossly dislocated even before Zen had done anything to him.
Zen moved the guy's head around to check for any signs of hints he could get but the system didn't show. To Zen, it seemed like this guy had recently been in a fight and lost badly. "What an idiot! Should've healed back first before starting another one." Zen thought before stealing the guy's weapon.
"Damn this is light," He uttered as he was throwing it up and down like a pen, spinning it in midair before catching it.
*ding!*
〚※〛 〚※〛
[Would you like to have dominance over this weapon?]
[Yes/No]
〚※〛 〚※〛
After reading through this new textbox, Zen assumed it was a strange option to have dominion over an item. It's not like this weapon would consciously attack him or anything. As soon as he pressed the 'yes' button, the weapon started to dematerialize itself into nothingness, poofing into a cloud of shadows before being absorbed into Zen.
*ding!*
〚※〛 〚※〛
[Weapon dominated!]
[Obtained: Weak air blast: Your attacks can now inflict wind strikes that deal {50%} of your current attack damage.]
[Tip: Using a weapon can also activate this skill!]
〚※〛 〚※〛
"So the system considers something as a weapon if that 'thing' is infused with an attribute?" Zen thought as he took the other bats to swing around. Having obtained an attribute by the looks of it, he needed to try it out.
He then raised his arms up before swinging them back down like a volleyball spike. Suddenly, a force of energy could be felt coming from his stomach and into his palms. This sort of energy has got him feeling ecstatic.
The wind traveled into a nearby forest and rustled a few leaves. It stopped at the closest tree before dispursing. Even though the tree didn't take any significant damage, the wind force can still be used as a powerful close-range attack.
Having used powers for the first time, Zen knew he could easily get addicted to this feeling. It felt like he was high on drugs or something, shivering from the goosebumps and electric shock going through his spine.
"Never thought they get to feel like this every day." Zen grinned.
He then spotted a word called 'mana' under his health, showing a division of 19/20. Since he didn't know that the people at this time had reclassified the word 'mana' as a source of crystalline essence that stemmed from a biological energy source, he thought it would be similar to any Fantasy RPG game he had played.
After testing his abilities many more times, a message popped out, giving him quite a shock. It stated something that caught him completely off guard.
*ding!*
〚※〛 〚※〛
[Warning: Your mana is half!]
[Using more will reduce your max stamina until it has regenerated back!]
〚※〛 〚※〛
