Chapter 41. Frightened to submission

Jack's insult made the Fighter's face go red with anger. He threw away any thought of caution and lunged at Jack. Jack saw the longsword coming at him in an expectable arc and swung his own black sword to meet it. The two swords collided and the Fighter was sent flying backward.

All the eyes of the people watching greatly widened. They had seen plenty of fights since the world changed, including fights between players, but they had never seen someone get sent flying with one stroke.

"So strong!" About to flank Jack, the Ranger stopped in his tracks, completely stunned.

Jack didn't plan on continuing to fight defensively. His enemy was paralyzed from shock, so Jack used this opening to dash towards the Ranger, sword raised to strike.

"So fast!" The Ranger was shocked again, this time for a different reason. In his shock, he forgot to use roll, and tried to block Jack's attack with his dagger. The dagger was immediately deflected by Jack's blow and the Ranger's hand was thrown to the side. He felt as if he had blocked a blow from a sledgehammer. His hand had gone completely numb and he thought he must have dropped his dagger. However, thanks to the logic of the game system, the dagger was still in his hand. Since the Ranger didn't have a Parry skill, he received full damage from the blow. Red number 56 appeared over his head.

The eyes of the people watching widened again when they saw this damage number.

Before the Ranger could regain his equilibrium or think of a countermeasure, he was hit by another two rapid slashes.

These slashes were not a game skill, but part of a martial move that Jack had used often in his previous VR RPG games. This flowing movement consisted of three lightening fast sword slashes in a circular motion, all done through a twisting motion of the wrist. This was a move that Jack had been taught by his grandfather when he was young. It was originally a skill done using a long staff. But after he immersed himself in VR RPG games, Jack modified the move for use with his favorite weapon, the sword. The three slashes were normal attacks, so the damage the move inflicted was not as high as damage from game skills, yet, in Jack's hands, its effectiveness was undeniable. And, unlike game skills, the move didn't use any stamina and had no cooldown.

Damage of 59 and 61 appeared on top of the Ranger's head.

"So damaging!" The Ranger was terrified. His 190 Health Points were almost immediately depleted just from three normal slashes.

At this moment, Fox lifted her staff and pointed at Jack. She was just about to cast her spell when she saw movement from the corner of her eyes.

"Watch out!" Just then, she heard her leader's warning.

Fox ducked to the side, but a flash of light passed by and she felt cold pain at her waist. She fell to the ground as she saw her leader move and slash with his broad sword towards her location.  She saw a woman roll back and evade her leader's slash. It was the loudmouth's friend who said she didn't want to be involved in this fight!

Fierce Flame was proud that her ruse had worked. She had been keeping an eye out for an ambush opportunity and struck at the precise time that Fox was about to make her move.

Fox was outraged by this humiliation. The fact that the woman managed to sneak up on her had made her looked incompetent, and she cared very much for her image. She rose up and prepared to cast a spell to retaliate, but she saw a blue ball of light rushing in her direction. She immediately cast Magic Shield before the Magic Bullet hit her. She looked around and saw that the Magic Bullet had been cast by the loudmouth Magician who had started all this. Fox was apoplectic with rage.

Bowler called out with joy when he saw Fierce Flame's action, "I knew you wouldn't abandon us, sister!"

"Shut up and concentrate, you fool!" Flame reprimanded him as she jumped around dodging the gang leader's assault.

The other members of the gang were about to join in when they heard a loud clash and saw a figure land hard on the ground not far from them. It was the Fighter. He looked miserable and his health bar only had 10% left. They were flabbergasted. Mere seconds into the fight and the two people that were fighting with the loudmouth's friend were almost dead! Even the gang leader stopped attacking when he saw this.

Jack stood beside the Ranger who was lying on the ground. He was still alive but too terrified to make a move.

"Should we continue this?" Jack asked with a domineering tone.

Silence descended on everyone around the bridge.

"Who are you?" The gang leader broke the silence at last.

"I'm just a guy who wants to cross the bridge," Jack answered.

The leader looked around at his members, and finally said, "You can pass."

Bowler immediately took this chance to utter, "And all the people here will pass as well! Do you have a problem with that?"

The gang leader glared at Bowler with an ugly expression. If he could have killed the hateful guy with a look, he would have done so.

"Fine!" The leader said reluctantly after a long consideration. He waved to his people and had them step aside.

The folks who were originally depressed because they couldn't cross the bridge immediately ran forward with joy. Some didn't forget themselves and came to thank Jack and Bowler before following the others.

'Well, at least some are decent enough to express gratitude,' Jack thought.

He, Bowler, and Fierce Flame were the last to cross after the others all made it into the City Park.

Though they didn't dare to make a move, the gang members glared hatred at them as they passed. Especially Fox. She stared at Fierce Flame intently, intending to remember her and get her revenge later. Flame just glanced at her and grinned disdainfully, this infuriated her even more. She would have pounced forward if her leader had not noticed and put a hand on her shoulder to stop her.

"That's what you get for double-crossing me!" Bowler didn't forget to taunt his two old teammates. The two were too frightened to give a retort, as their health was just a hair away from zero.

The three finally left the bridge and came into the city park. There were numerous people around the park. There were even old people and children. It seemed that when the world changed, it hadn't discriminated on who was brought over into this game world.

"What should we do now?" Bowler asked.

Jack glanced back and saw that the Weary Wolf people were still staring at them from a distance.

"Let's go to someplace farther from here," he said. He was not afraid of conflict, but he would prefer to avoid it if possible. If he got into a fight, he might end up killing people. And this place was not like the old games; people dying here didn't seem to come back. So here he might actually be killing people for real. He did not want more lives on his conscience, unless he had no choice like the incident with Ogre and Mouse. Bigarm and those Weary Wolf people owed their lives to Jack's moral scruples. In old VR games, he would not have spared their lives.

They traveled further into the park. The other people tended to ignore them. The crowd was separated into groups clustered together. There were groups with ten people in them and there were also groups with almost a hundred people. Most of the groups were noisy as people discussed what had happened and what would happen in this place after the five day time limit passed.

Jack and his friends decided to go toward the central part of the park, where the abstract sculpture stood. It was a sculpture made up of multiple iron rods bundled together to form an unidentifiable shape. Jack had visited this park before and had seen the sculpture, but he never could make sense of it. He guessed that's why people called it abstract art.

The light beam above was creating a strange yet beautiful backdrop in the sky. Like an aurora borealis, the light shifted continuously and made the whole sky seem as if it was alive.

Now that he had time to think, Jack wondered what kind of a place the Main World, mentioned by that notification from the sky, was.