Chương 15: Willpower
Stanis didn't know how long it had been since the chase. He didn't know how long it had been since he had last collapsed, and he didn't even know what the time was. But he did know something, and that was the fact that he wouldn't be getting any help.
Despite screaming his lungs out before collapsing, nothing had still changed when he woke up. He was sure that the nurse lady had come around a few times to check up on him. But all he could remember from her visits were how she treated him coldly, almost like he was just a prisoner awaiting death.
It was then that he realised how cold all the survivors were; even the warmest person here, who was willingly looking after the sick, wouldn't help him. In fact, Stanis was sure that the other two severely injured he had shared this tent with, were now both dead, and not through natural causes but rather because the others wanted to end their misery. Well, that and conserve the supplies…
There was only one thing that would serve you here, and that thing was power. Only with power would others care about him, only then would others know him and fear him. Stanis remembered how he had briefly asked the nurse lady what had happened to the Wolf, to which she bluntly replied, his loot, which had turned out to be a skill scroll, had been taken by Juan… Only with power could his life be anything here, and not just another body in the mud.
It was this realisation that hurt Stanis so badly: he didn't know if he would even be Stanis by the end, rather than some kind of power-hungry lunatic. A lunatic perhaps, but at least one that people respected. Stanis's fears were quickly replaced by longing, a longing to be acknowledged by others but most importantly a longing for life. And the only way to both was power.
So Stanis forced himself up, using the ground to push himself. His whole body was dirty, he didn't need the light to show him that. He could feel how sticky his body was, and how it itched all over.
Next to him lay his Malitsa coat, and the cuirass he had been wearing during the fight with the Wolf. Both were ripped and had holes in them. Additionally, both were dry with blood. So Stanis forced himself to lean down in order to pick the two articles up, before traipsing towards the flap.
It was light outside, but the Camp was empty as most people were trying to level up in the Forest. After the initial scouting, the Camp had realised how experience-rich of a place the Forest was, and so most were hunting in there in a bid to increase their survivability. And so not many were left in the Camp, but the few who were there openly stared at Stanis as they saw him stiffly walking around.
However, Stanis gave no care to these people as he continued his laborious trek towards the Sea, which was to the west of the Camp. People stared at him, but none offered to help him. He was clearly injured as all his movements were forced, slow and heavy, but all of them had their own difficulties to deal with. Even Jayesh, who was definitely the closest person to Stanis here, was busy in the Forest trying to level up.
The body of water, which was a ten-minute walk from the Camp, took Stanis thirty minutes to reach. Close up to it, he could finally classify it. It had large waves in the distance that gradually shrank into careless dribbles onto the beach. It was clearly a sea.
The sea was a deep azure colour, and spread as far as the eye could see, even past the horizon. There was a gentle hum produced by sea, which was superimposed with the clashes of the colossal waves in the distance. Alongside the countless bird calls that echoed each other, it created music that one could relax to.
But Stanis didn't have such that luxury, instead, he stripped bare before drowning his clothes in the sea with his one good hand. The gentle tide nibbled at the dirt on his clothes, and then at his body as he threw himself in. It created a tickling sensation all across his body, apart from on his left arm. Stanis had no soap with him, but he was still able to wash away all the mud, sweat and blood from himself.
After the soaking, he dried himself in the midday Sun, simultaneously examining his own body. Surprisingly enough there were only a few bruises left on his body, and the legs he had beyond-overworked in the chase now only had a dull ache. It was clear that the Constitution he had was beyond anything Humanity had before. Even his left arm, which he could remember being raw, now had all its cuts sealed up.
Forcing himself to not stay on that matter, Stanis then clothed himself before trekking back towards the camp. His clothes smelled of salt and had an uncomfortable sensation to them, but it was barely noticeable after living several days in blood, mud and sweat. The journey back took only half the time as his mind and body felt refreshed.
"Grrrrr"
His stomach let loose a low groan as if to communicate its desire over to Stanis. Within minutes, Stanis found himself back at the supply centre, which was currently unmanned. There were several dry rations and a few bottles of water in a wooden chest, which Stanis feasted on, before turning his sight towards the arsenal. All the armour had been taken and so he was stuck with his ripped Cuirass. Luckily there were still weapons left over.
His choice was now far harder than it had been last time, despite the massive reduction in selection. This was due to the fact that he only had one arm remaining, meaning that he had to be able to protect and attack with a single arm.
In fact what had knocked the final nail into the coffin hadn't been when he had lost sense of his arm, rather when he had seen it in the bright sun. More than a little bit of him had died as he had seen that it was actually healing, and at quite a rapid pace. And yet he still couldn't sense it whatsoever. The only hope he now held was that there was some kind of miraculous cure in this crazy world!
He was to be one-armed for the rest of his life, all he could now do was adjust to that fact. And so he began going through the remaining weapons. He instantly ruled out weapons like bow and spear, due to the fact that the power behind both came from using two arms.
This meant his already small selection became even smaller, leaving behind only axes, clubs, maces and swords. There were also knives, but Stanis highly doubted his own ability to defend with such a miniscule thing. The decision between them was very quick, as Stanis realised the limited defensive capability held by maces and axes. Only the two-handed ones had a wide reach, whereas the single-handed ones had reaches smaller than the sword. The clubs, too, were out of the question as the ones left behind were all of low quality, being brittle wood and blunt nails.
Eventually, Stanis picked a sword that was about one and a half his forearm in length, with a blade that wasn't too thick nor thin. It was quite a simple sword as the handle was made from simple wood without much embroidery, and the rough blade looked to be made of cold steel.
As he was going to walk away, his eyes caught onto a pile of shields at the corner of the arsenal. A phantom pain crept up his left arm, one which was gone within a second, before Stanis walked away.
He found a small satchel sized bag that could go around the waist, in which he stuffed some supplies before once again walking away from Camp. His destination was the beach; it was weird but he felt a strange calmness at the beach. Perhaps it was due to the fact that it was without danger, both from the World and from other Humans.
It was halfway through the journey that Stanis found that his shoes had torn apart. The fabric that held the sole together with the rest of the shoe had ripped. And so Stanis merely left them there before walking on his bare feet. Interestingly enough, the ground wasn't painful at all to walk across. He wasn't sure if this was due to how much pain he had been already been through in the previous days, or whether his body had just toughened due to his attributes. Most likely a mixture of the two.
He soon reached the beach, where he began practising using the sword. The reason why most people preferred other weapons over the sword was since it truly more difficult. While other weapons had simple motions used in attacks, the sword had multiple simple motions which had to be weaved together in sequences to be successful. Of course, this was true for most weapons, but the importance of such factor was only amplified when using a sword.
He began with simple swings and then swings while moving around. Then he began varying his movements, and then his swings into slashes, slashes into hacks, and hacks into shielding. The attacking was fairly simple on the sword, which was in direct contrast to shielding with it as it was far more difficult. This was due to the small surface area of the blade, especially when compared to something like the shield which was specialised into such function.
Soon enough, night came around and Stanis found a small crack in the cliff next to the beach, one large enough to be a cave, and unoccupied enough to be his cave. Stanis used his coat as a pillow as he drifted away to sleep, with hopes that this would all be a dream the next time he woke up.
Not only would Stanis wake up the next day to figure out that it hadn't been a dream, but he would also realise that he had forgotten to ask anyone how long he had been in the Injured tent for. Because if he had, he would have figured out that he was actually out-cold for a lot longer than what he expected. In fact, tomorrow was the day of the second supplies, and thus the second battle…
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