Deadworld Isekai

When Matt was fourteen, he wanted a potato launcher. His parents wouldn’t buy him one. So he built one in secret. After convincing his friend to spring for a bag of potatoes and some hairspray, they hauled it to a field just far enough away from Matt’s house that his parents weren’t likely to drive by and bust them.

Being lazy, they quickly abandoned the potatoes for windfall crabapples. The field was lousy with them, and they found the smaller fruits easier to load and fire. Being stupid, they also quickly abandoned just firing the launcher into the air. They moved on to targets, first trying to hit trees before progressing to the next logical step of trying to hit each otherwith organic mortar shells.

The spudgun was, like most spudguns, not particularly accurate. They alternated the relationship of being the target and hunter every five shots. Neither of them came particularly close to hitting the other. After a couple of dozen shots apiece, they were about to give up.

Then it happened.

Matt hit the firing button on his salvaged BBQ igniter, and before the hairspray charge was fully ignited, he knew. He felt the descent of something almost holy as the crabapple pushed out of the barrel and launched through the shifting winds. It flew straight and true towards his friend’s dumbstruck face, but Matt didn’t even have to watch to know it would hit. It was like he had always known, somehow.

His friend got his hands up to catch the shot, but the structural integrity of the crabapple was so compromised by that point that it atomized on impact, covering him with a fine sheen of gross, rotten crabapple sauce that he complained about the whole way home.

The moment the shovel made contact with the fire bolt, Matt could tell this was going to be the exact same thing, minus the apples. And the friend. And, he supposed, the part where he’d be in trouble if his target died.

Sure enough, the dart sailed through the air on a direct course back to its point of origin, adjusted to account for the distance that Leel had moved forward in that time. He was still laughing hard enough at Matt’s lowbrow weapon choice that he failed to see the dart incoming until it had actually hit him square in the chest.

Matt had been hit before, and his Survivor's Garb had apparently been a huge help. Matt had thought that the fire darts were just meant to impart heat when, in fact, it was the garb that was flame resistant. That made sense, since it was arguably designed for “you are going to live through a lot of stuff” type circumstances.

Leel's clothes, while not exactly Gaian Starter Tunic level basic, didn’t seem to have the same feature set. When he got hit, his shirt immediately combusted into a significant, softball sized fire.

“WHAT IN THE NAME OF SORCERY?!” Leel yelled, and then went to bat at his chest with his free hand. Unfortunately, his free hand was already loaded with a bolt, which meant Leel was slapping himself with another unflung bolt of energy. It didn’t seem to pack quite the same punch, but it was another distraction, which was a huge bonus for Matt, who had been sprinting towards Leel since the moment the shovel made contact with the bolt.

“Matt! Why are you running TOWARDS the sociopathic murderer? We had a good thing going with running away!”

“Can’t run away forever. There’s no place to run to. Besides, didn’t you notice how easily he was keeping up?”

Matt had been sprinting away from Leel for some time before getting his shovel out. When he did that, his Survivor's Reflexes highlighted something strange about the chase. Although Leel never looked like he was moving very fast, he kept up. If Matt had to guess, Leel almost certainly had some spell or skill that let him trade mana for battlefield mobility. Matt didn’t have Spring-Fighter buffing his speed, but he was betting that his raw physical stats were higher than Mr. I-put-every-point-in-mental-stats. On the other hand, if Leel's mobility skill was any good, there was no guarantee that Matt could ever get away.

“What can you possibly do against his magic right now? You might not even be able to hurt him. What if he has some sort of magic armor?” Lucy said back in a concerned tone.

“Running means getting ground down by fire bolts. We have to do something different. I have a plan.”

Leel keeping up with Matt meant that there wasn't an absurd distance gap, but it still wasn’t exactly close. By the time Matt was nearing melee range, Leel finally extinguished his very real fires on his chest. His calm, mocking demeanor was gone, replaced by a look of outraged disgust. His hand flickered with a different, almost transparent energy, one that Survivor’s Reflexes took one look at screamed at Matt to avoid.

“That was a mistake, Matt.” Leel snarled. “Do you think clothes are easy to replace in this pit? That I want to return home looking injured?”

Matt was fine with Leel continuing his always-on external dialogue, since it was buying him time to close the remaining gap between them. He decided to add some more into the mix, hoping that Leel would be panicking after taking a hit.

“Did you really think you were the only one with tricks, Leel? The only one with magic?” Matt internally winced at what he had to do next. Extending his hand for a throw, he began to yell at the top of his lungs. “DEATH-HYDRA VENOM POCKET SAND!”

Matt needed Leel to think he was about to be on the receiving end of an ultimate attack. He wasn't hopeful, no one was that gullible.

Except for Leel, apparently.

“You think I don't have defense spells?” Leel yelled, dropping the attack in his offhand, and suddenly slamming down his staff. A shimmering wall barrier immediately sprung up around him, and blocked the vicious sand from the lair of the fictional death-hydra.

“Matt! Be careful! You can only use that move FOUR MORE TIMES!” Lucy screamed.

She gets it! Matt thought, ecstatic.

“Quiet!” Matt yelled. “Don’t tip our hand!”

“It’s too late, you idiot!” Leel said, chortling. “I’ve seen your attack, and I can easily block it. It’s no use! Go back to your running!”

“Never!” Matt yelled as if he were a classic two-bit villain. He had one more reason to put this guy down. The dialogue was beyond bad. It was shameful. Leel would pay for this. But first, Matt had more stupid, dumb lines to deliver.

““DEATH-HYDRA VENOM POCKET SAND!” Matt yelled, dodging to Leel’s blind spot while the mage was wincing away from him. The reflected fire bolt had taught Matt something that Survivor’s Reflexes was now confirming. Every part of Leel’s body was a weak point. This was a guy who didn’t like to get hit at all. He shut his eyes every time Matt threw the sand, allowing Matt to change directions and get closer.

Leel turned, only to have Matt yell out his ultimate attack again. Matt thought there was no way Leel would fall for it all five times, but he did. The only problem was that Matt was now out of, or should have been out of, his entire stock of giant viper poison dirt, and he was completely out of ideas for an encore.

“Matt! There’s no choice! USE THE SHOVEL BEAM!” Lucy screamed.

God bless you, Lucy.

Matt plunged the tip of the shovel into the dirt and started screaming as loud as he could, like his hair was about to turn yellow and crackle with lightning. The sheer noise of it startled Leel, who then threw up two more layers of shimmering shields to block the beam as Matt leveled his finger at him in a gun shape.

It was only after three or four seconds of nothing happening that the shields dropped.

“Are you…” Leel choked on the words a bit, visibly enraged. “Are you mocking me? Me?”

Leel’s hand immediately lit up with the same transparent power it had before. Matt tried to beat him to the punch by bashing him in the face with the shovel. Unfortunately, Leel’s staff crackled with power and came down in a magically enforced parry, colliding with the shovel with much more force than Matt could deal with right now. Matt managed to keep his hands on the shovel, but the sheer force of it pushed him badly off balance.

Leel sneered. “Die!”

The transparent force in his hand shot out, connected squarely with Matt’s chest, and sent him flying dozens of feet away. He landed flat on his back, knocking most of the air out of his lungs. Before impact, Rub Some Dirt On It had already mostly healed the fire bolt burns. It kicked in again for just a moment to work on the damage from the impact before suddenly stopping.

Ding!

Advanced Mana Deficiency Malfunction

Due to a sustained consumption of mana-deficient foods, your body’s flow and production of mana has been disrupted. This disruption has reached a level at which system enhancements are unable to interact with your natural mana levels.

As drastic of a disability as this is, there's a more intense symptom if this disorder continues. That symptom? Death. Further failure to adjust your diet will come at your own ultimate peril.

Effects: System-provided physical skills and stat increases disabled.

“Matt!” Lucy cried out.

“I'm ok. But we have bad news,” Matt said.

Matt sucked in a painful lungful of air, tried to stand, only to collapse back down. Without VIT, his whole body felt frail and like it was about to fall apart like a rusted mechanical hunk. But none of that mattered. Leel’s eerie movement speed accelerated his movement from a leisurely approach to a breakneck speed.

In a few more moments, he stood only a few paces from Matt.

“Do you know the saddest part of all this? Magic can do so much more than you think.” Leel waved his hand in front of his burned chest, his hand glowing white. Where it passed, the skin suddenly healed. Another pass of his hand mended the shirt, not perfectly and not color-matched, but securely patched and closed. “The bolts I’ve been sending after you are the simplest spells in my arsenal. I could use them to hunt birds. And would, if I didn’t have servants to take care of that concern for me.”

He held up his hand, producing a bolt, the same one as the bolts he had thrown before.

“This splinter of flame is part of a family of five spells. Each of the spells is more powerful than the one before it.” The bolt suddenly intensified to the next level, then did so three more times, until it was incomparably brighter than the bolts Matt had tanked earlier. “Interesting, correct? It takes years to master each level. And did you know with the proper class and achievements, each spell can be amplified further?”

The bolt began to glow even brighter, audibly buzzing with power. It also grew to the size of a small sword, or a very short spear.

“Amplification is one aspect of what I can do. Size is another. This is considered to be of the pinnacle versions of the Flame Splinter spell, dubbed the Lance of Immolation.” He glanced down at the shovel, still death-gripped in Matt’s hand. “It will pierce just about anything. Your little spade included, I’m afraid.”

“Leave him alone!” Lucy was suddenly standing between Matt and Leel, hands on her hips.

“Or what? You can’t touch me.”

“I’ll…”

“You know, I’d listen to your threat. I really would. But I’m afraid that I simply don’t have the time.”

The bolt flew from his hand, through Lucy, and straight at Matt.