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Cantankerous Cheater
Chapter 2

-VB-

It’s been three days since I left my original me and came back to Earth Bet.

My original family remained safe but disconnected from me.

My new family slept six feet under.

I had no reason to not do anything I wanted, and what I wanted was to take some revenge for my family and others who suffered because of the gangs.

I wanted to rid the city of its criminals.

Sitting on the edge of a rooftop and looking down at a scene in an alley three stories below me, I pondered about how I should go about killing the men cornering a blonde girl. I knew enough about men to know where this was going.

… Gah, who am I kidding? If I truly wanted to remove criminals, then I would join the cops or the PRT or the Protectorate. It would be the right way to do it.

My thoughts were dominated by this fucking need to kill. To make those who made me suffer to suffer in turn.

I wanted revenge.

I wanted pain and misery upon my enemies.

I wanted them to scream for mercy.

I wanted …

Fuck, I sounded so edgy. I may have also become a little fatalistic.

Whatever.

I guessed that I was just being honest with myself.

The soles of my boots pushed against the red brick wall of the building, and I slipped off the edge.

I landed effortlessly on the railing of the fire escape. The clang of my boots hitting the metal rail jolted the people underneath me, but by the time they turned around and looked up, I landed for the second time on the ground with my crudely welded and reinforced road sign cleaver.

I Charged at the closest pistol-toting gangster, and he noticed me as my cleaver came swinging around.

“It’s the -!”

He didn’t get to finish as I used the momentum of my Charge to spin my cleaver around. The cleaver’s crude edge chopped into the man’s neck, but continued on more because of the momentum than the sharpness of the edge, and came out the other side while dragging bits of the man’s spine along.

“Fuck, it’s that psycho!” someone else shouted.

I ignored their buzzing annoyance. Unfortunately, Charge was on cooldown, so I had to make do with regular running. My boot stomped onto the ground as I ran towards them.

“Shoot him!”

And of the four remaining gangsters, three of them who had guns did.

‘Power Word: Shield.’

And before the bullets could hit me, a holy shield covered me in its warm embrace, dimly lighting me up in this dark morning alley. Some bullets hit me, but they did nothing.

Then I was upon my second target.

“Wait, no-!”

The spear-tip at the top of my the cleaver punched through his clothes and stomach, and he crumpled while screaming in pain. I pulled the cleaver back - more of a halberd, really - and Charged the third one.

This guy tried to dodge, but he underestimated the range of my attack, and got his neck clipped by the speartip. He gurgled as he went down.

The fourth guy’s gun clicked as its magazine ran empty.

Finally, I was on him.

“Fuck, no, sto-!”

I did not stop.

My cleaver rose up and came slamming down onto his shoulder as he tried to dodge, and sliced down into his chest and then to his stomach.

He screamed in pain but soon cut off when I stabbed him in the throat with a combat knife. He gurgled as he fell to his knees and then to his side. He probably wouldn’t live for another minute.

I let out a short stream of pent up breath as my adrenaline died down a little. Then looking up at the woman, I asked, “You okay?”

She nodded shakily.

“Go then.”

She did. She ran.

I sighed before looking around.

I’ve killed again, but I no longer felt anything bad about it. At least, I didn’t feel anything positive for these individuals anymore as I did before. I no longer doubted myself in killing.

I killed because I wanted to.

I was a sinner.

I didn’t mind it.

In fact, the fact that I was ridding city of its scum gave me a deep satisfaction that continued to build with each kill. It made me happy in a way I hadn’t before. It was a dark satisfaction, but I wouldn’t say that it was an unjustified or even sick satisfaction.

After all, no one felt bad about removing weeds or pests.

Still… that woman, who couldn't be older than twenty, was cute. I saved a cute lady and got to kill even more gangsters. Today was productive!

I winced when my stomach chose that moment to growl.

I guessed I needed to eat soon.

… did any of these guys have their wallets on them?

-VB-

Yawning, I cut into the pancake in a pancake house across from the bank. I wanted to make a bank account and I was hungry, so I came here because it was convenient.

Yawning again, I put one piece of pancake in my mouth.

Unfortunately for me, I felt tired because I didn't sleep. I mean, I didn't need to because of my Gamer but there was this mental sluggishness polluting my mind like leaves in a swimming pool. I might need to sleep soon.

CRASH!

I paused and then looked to my left towards the bank.

The glass front doors laid in pieces, there were masked villains, and there were Wards.

They were fighting.

They were fighting at the bank that I intended to go to make my bank account today.

I was going to have to go somewhere else-.

Oh. Wait.

Villains.

I dropped a twenty dollar bill, which was more than enough to pay for the meal, and then walked out. The moment I crossed the doorway and then to the right, out of anyone’s sight, I equipped all of my gears.

In an instant without any flash, I changed from a middling high schooler to a man decked out in perhaps one of the most casual costumes this side of Boston: a red bandana, white and black stripped motorcycle helmet, brown leather jacket ripped in multiple places, spotless long sleeve button-up shirt beneath the jacket, a pair of dark blue jeans, a pair of black steel-toed boots, and the road sign cleaver.

Hell, my costume looked more like the attires of the bystanders than it did the professionally tailored costumes of both the villains and the Wards.

“Move,” I growled at a small family staring at the fight with open mouth. The father of the group turned to say something, but stopped when he saw my cleaver. He paled and hurriedly ushered his family out.

As I got closer, I noticed who the villains were. They were the Undersiders. The “professional” thieves of the bay.

Scums. They were responsible for more than two dozen car accidents since their debut. Maybe killing them was too much because they themselves have never killed or raped, but I very much intended to let them know what I thought about their career choices.

With the bleeding fucking edge of my cleaver!

Two of the dogs barked and gnawed on Clockblocker, except he didn’t seem to be screaming at all?

Whatever.

I Charged the van-sized dogs, zipping across the empty space between the bystanders and the fight itself. ‘Demon Skin. Power Word: Shield,’ I intoned just as my cleaver struck down at the dog’s neck.

The beast yelped in pain, moving and attacking despite the cleaver digging a full three inches into its neck. With a yank, I pulled the cleaver out from the flesh and jumped away. The dogs, now wary, growled at me and Clockblocker, who was getting up.

I chose right then to call up the fel energy of the Warlock class from within me, and they coalesced into a disturbingly flaming ooze in my hands.

“CORRUPTION!” I hissed before pushing the spell forward. It sped forward far faster than my push should have given it speed and slammed into the other monster-dog.

The fel fire clung to it and began to burn.

‘Curse of Weakness!’ I mentally invoked while pointing my hand at the dog with the cleaver cut. It suddenly lurched. Its legs trembled as it grew weak, which … wasn’t exactly what Curse of Weakness was supposed to do, but who was I to argue with a much more favorable result?

“Oh shit.”

I turned to look at Clockblocker, who was now staring at me. I couldn’t see what kind of expression he had underneath his helmet, so I just looked back towards the monster-dogs.

There was another monster-dog, and it looked like it was about to bite down on someone.

Extending another hand, I channeled [Earth Shock].

The dog lit up in a green flash and yelped as it crashed into the ground.

Everyone turned to look at me.

“Oh shit, it’s that psycho.”

Comments

Tom smith

That should be his name. It’s That Psycho