The Gamer Chapter 1107 – Classified and Chained 4 – The Great Wolf’s Demand (Patreon)

“Remind me of the smell of blood,” Fenrir finally demanded. “Freshly spilled in glorious combat. Show me that you cowards still know the glory of battle.”

‘I don’t know what I expected,’ the Gamer thought. Since he had already accepted that Fenrir was in the definitive ‘evil’ category (even if for understandable reasons), the great wolf’s request would have naturally been something brutal. ‘Can I do that though?’ he wondered. Fighting Metra wouldn’t do it – neither of them bled. ‘Well, technically I do, but the wound typically seals too quickly.’ “Does it need to be actual blood?”

“How would I smell non-actual blood?!” Fenrir barked aggressively.

On the table, the three vikings laughed heartily, slamming their hands on the old wood with enough force that the furniture skipped over the ancient stone. “Not everyday that someone offers the old Fen something,” Olaf said and stood up. “And a great excuse for me. Mind giving me a go, Gamer? I always wanted to see what you became since the intel dried up - first-hand.” He clenched one of his paws into a fist. Battle scars stretched over the knuckles.

“A fistfight?” John asked, glancing over to a rack of weapons in the nearby corridor. Knowing the man’s Stats thanks to the passive Observe, the Gamer was certain they could have an actual brawl with both of them using the extent of their abilities, the most lethal ones put aside, without killing the other. Whatever he did to Olaf, Undine could fix afterwards.

Then John’s eyes wandered over to Fenrir and the various chains anchored to the cave. In a proper fight, particularly one involving the elementals, there was no telling where the wild back and forth would take them. If any damage or loosening of the seals could lead to the great wolf’s freedom, then that was evidently out as an option.

‘I wonder if that’s what he is hoping for.’ The Gamer stared at Fenrir directly. The wolf stared back, with a desire for violence written clearly into his eyes. ‘No, his Intellect is low even without the hunger. It’s a wonder he can still string working sentences together, really.’ “Fistfight sounds good,” John followed up his own question with a nod. “What are the rules?”

“No weapons, no magic, winner is whoever makes the other give up or throws them off this balcony.” While Olaf spoke, the other two warriors grabbed one end of the table each and moved it to the back of the room.

Meanwhile, Stirwin walked up to the edge of the balcony. “Are you certain this needless violence is what you want?” he asked. The Celestial Devourer sounded disappointed. Perhaps that bit of curiosity he had voiced earlier had been a wish to find an entity like him to talk to about their particular lot in life, regarding prophecies and the potential of their powers. Instead, he got a certain growl.

“Yes.” Fenrir’s lips pulled into a haunting grin, as saliva dripped from his chin and down on the skeletal remains of a hand left there since the day he was sealed.

John rolled his shoulders and then sighed. “I can’t agree to those conditions,” he confessed.

“Afraid of the beating?” Olaf taunted in his continuously jolly fashion.

“Gamer’s Body isn’t a thing that I can just toggle off. If you want to fight without magic, I literally cannot do it,” John explained. “You can accept that or you can brawl with one of my lovely assistants.” While he gestured at Metra, Gnome, Salamander and Siena appeared next to the First of Wrath. All four of them would be as much if not more of a challenge in a fistfight as John was. Specifically, only Metra was currently inferior to him when it came to Physical Stats, a circumstance born purely out of her debuffed state.

Even with that in mind, the blonde berserker babe had a wealth of experience and confidence in close quarters that John entirely lacked.

Olaf cracked his knuckles and looked at the assortment of potential challengers. “Alright fine,” he raised his fist and extended the index finger at Metra. “You look like you’ll be the most fun.”

“You’ve got a good eye,” the First of Wrath grinned and rolled her neck, “you might even be able to take me right now.”

“I sure would like to try,” Olaf countered in a tone that bordered on flirtatious.

The Gamer felt his entire body language change in response. It was an instinct, competitiveness and protectiveness driving him to immediately defend what was his. The emotions manifested as a warning sensation in the air, communicated by the Charisma Perk that let extreme emotions radiate from his being.

Olaf involuntarily took half a step backwards and his comrades dropped the bench, before John got his emotions back under control. Although all three were impressive warriors in their own right, the comrades around level 150 and Olaf reaching 243, they had to respect the arcane power backing up the Gamer’s emotions.

“Sorry about that,” John gave a hollow apology. Borders firmly established, he felt no need to give any further warning or words of advice. It was clear what he would and would not allow in regards to his women. Reactions to this from them were mixed. Gnome was a bit embarrassed, Siena hardly cared, but Salamander and Metra were supportive of the dominant behaviour. “Continue.”

Olaf shook his head and his limbs and picked up where he had left off – without anything beyond friendliness in his tone now. “Alright then, do your best to make me bleed!”

The shout was the signal for both of them to charge at each other. Olaf had his arms raised, clearly showing that he wanted to lock hands and go for an immediate competition of physical might. At first it looked as if Metra would play along, but at the last moment she turned her shoulder sideways, turning her charge into a tackle. That she was smaller than her opponent worked to her advantage, elbow ramming into Olaf’s bare stomach.

“Ooof!” he wheezed, losing no time on the counterattack. Closing his raised arms around Metra, he got her into a bearhug. He whirled around and released her in a swift toss, before she could counterattack. The same swiftness made the toss fairly short and the heavy metal woman landed several metres away from the edge of the balcony.

Olaf charged again, this time with his own shoulder pointed at the First of Wrath. Her Stats were currently decreased by 75%, the rage that boiled up inside her nothing more than a motivating emotion, and still the First of Wrath stood her ground and waited for the bulldozing hulk of muscles to come to her.

Suddenly, she went low. Incredibly low. Her butt connected to the heel of her left foot, while the right rushed forwards, aiming at Olaf’s stride. Swiftly, the massive warrior interrupted his charge to instead knee her in the face. Thanks to the lack of brain behind that pretty face of hers, all Metra experienced from the blunt trauma was damage – no confusion. She let the force make her fall on her back, pulled in her legs and then sprung at Olaf before he could regain his balance.

Her heels dug into Olaf’s stomach and the Norseman bent over from the pain. Along with an amused grunt, he raised a hand and tried to grab Metra’s legs, but she was already backing off. Rolling off to the side, she tried to get up before the viking could reach her. Halfway on her feet, she was kicked in the ribs. Rather than be sent flying, she managed to lock the leg in her armpit and held onto it.

With a roar and raw force, she turned her standing up motion into a falling roll. Olaf was swiped off his feet and both of them hit the ground.

John was used to seeing Metra fight in many ways, most of them brutal, challenging and straightforward. To see her, an ancient weapon with space-tearing powers, deploy one of the standard grapples was new and fascinating even to him. Keeping her enemy’s arm straight, she locked his shoulder between her thighs, and pressured his neck and other arm with the rest of her legs. Even though Olaf had the physical superiority, the lock made it near impossible for him to properly utilize it.

Trying desperately, he curled his restricted arm in an attempt to break her hold. Biceps bulging and face growing redder, it seemed he would succeed, but Metra clenched her teeth and held on. There was an advantage she firmly had over him: her body did not tire. Any prolonged struggle would inevitably end in her favour.

Such was the case here. After several minutes of them contesting for superiority, Olaf finally had to take a break. “Giving up?” Metra asked.

“Just changing the strategy!” Olaf declared and angled his legs. In the mundane world, the armlock was effective because people could not stand up with the weight of another person attached to their torso. In the Abyss, the situation was slightly different. Sick of the endurance contest he could not win, the warrior was attempting to stand up.

Metra had evidently planned for this too. The moment she had the space for it, she let go of the arm and instead locked up the warrior’s head with her legs. That wouldn’t have prevented Olaf from getting up and planning his counterattack, but the freed fist Metra brought down on his nose did.

John felt second-hand pain when the sniffer got flattened into a bloody, cracked pancake under the force of her fist. Crimson splattered over his face and continued to run rapidly out of the burst blood vessels. Olaf shrugged off the pain, grabbed Metra’s ass (in a purely practical fashion), and pulled the First of Wrath forwards and over his head, like an unwanted scarf. Clingy as she made herself, eventually he succeeded and threw her across the balcony.

Unscathed, Metra landed shortly before the table, where the other two men had sat down. While the berserker babe straightened up, Olaf casually corrected his broken nose. “Not the most honourable place to bleed from,” he complained.

“What did you expect when you asked for a fistfight?” the First of Wrath asked.

“Fair enough… you win,” Olaf surrendered just like that and Metra lowered her hands. “Good fight.”

“Yeah,” Metra grinned and the two exchanged a fist bump, while Undine flowed her way over to properly care for the bleeding nostrils.

That the two of them didn’t fight until the point of utter exhaustion or until one of them fell off came to little surprise to John. If there had been honour on the line, maybe Olaf would have cared more. As it stood, this was little more than a spar with benefits for the Gamer. Taking that to its extreme was the path for the stubborn young warrior, not the jolly, seasoned veteran.

“That enough for you?” John asked the great wolf observing them.

“I am unsatisfied… but blood was spilled and that was my condition.” Fenrir stood as relaxed as the many chains slung around his body allowed. “Take of me what you want. It will regrow before the fated war.”

John and Metra looked to the guards, who nodded in silent approval, and then the two of them jumped off the balcony. Down to the feet of the apocalyptic beast, it was a twenty-metre drop. Down there was nothing but bare stone. Apparently, Fenrir lacked a number of bodily functions, which thankfully kept things rather hygienic. Either that or there were more people tasked with the upkeep of the barrier hidden elsewhere.

The latter was a lot more likely. There was no way that, with all of the other safety measures they had put in place, they’d only station three warriors of respectable powers between the Gamer and Fenrir’s freedom. Other entities must have been lurking in the tunnels, ready to strike should they show any intent of damaging the chains.

‘I wonder if they’re keeping out of sight because they know that I can pierce most illusions by now… alternatively, they are so good I can’t perceive them… that’d be more disconcerting.’ Shaking off the paranoia, John followed Metra to one of Fenrir’s feet. They got close enough that, even in bondage, the great wolf could have tried swiping at them. Nothing happened. Malevolent he may have been, but he was not an oath breaker.

Metra pulled Rex Magnar out of John’s inventory. The shredding music of the weapon was down with the sickness, protesting being used as a glorified nail clipper. Regardless of what the weapon might have thought with its limited consciousness, the prismatic edge of the halberd severed the tip of one of the claws cleanly. John picked the basketball sized fragment up. It was heavier than he would have thought and smooth despite the generally poor condition of Fenrir.

“Any idea if that’s enough?” Metra asked.

He was about to ask her if she shouldn’t know, since this was her body. ‘If I was missing a kidney, I wouldn’t know how big the replacement should be either,’ he thought before he could formulate that question. Instead, he said, “Let’s be prudent and take a second one.”

Had it not been for the warning growl Fenrir let out when they clipped a second claw, the Gamer would have gone for a third. Rare materials like this had to be harvested in whatever quantity was offered. “You asked for one claw,” Fenrir told them. “You took two. I will keep the tooth in return.”

“I understand,” John answered and sighed. He was dealing with a real stickler when it came to promises. Ultimately, they only needed the claws, so this wasn’t a massive loss.

John put the two claw pieces into his inventory, while Sylph and Salamander returned with a sack filled with fur they had cut from the thick pelt of the great wolf’s sides. Once that was stored away as well, the Gamer looked up at Fenrir. The wolf stared back. Both of them waited for the other to say something, then they realized there was nothing to be said. “I hope your suffering will be diminished,” the Gamer said his goodbye.

“I hope my suffering was worth the cost your gods will endure,” Fenrir growled.

That they weren’t his gods would have taken too long to explain and so John changed the direction of his gaze over to the three warriors, who had returned the table back to the previous position and were observing things while drinking. “If you ever want to visit Fusion, give me a call,” he shouted. After the earlier warning, a bit of friendliness felt appropriate.

“I will,” Olaf shouted and waved.

Then John turned towards a nearby tunnel. For the most part, the elementals followed incorporeally, only Stirwin remained. Trotting ahead of them, the infinity elemental was quiet. His golden light cast soft shadows over the unevenly worked and many times raw walls of the cave.

Metra folded her hands behind her head. “You doing okay, Stirwin?”

“…I simply hoped for a fellow noble soul,” the Celestial Devourer responded. “His circumstances are unfortunate, but as one sealed away himself for several millennia, I cannot say that his hatred strikes me as earned.”

“Honestly, if there is an outlier here, it’s you,” John said. “You should wear that much with pride.”

“Perhaps I should… perhaps I should…” Stirwin mumbled.

Soon they emerged from the cave.