Beginning Run 17.
Set Attributes.
Strength 10
Endurance 10
Agility 0
Intelligence 30
Luck 0
Father put the car in drive and pulled forward. As soon as the lobster made it out of his car with the baseball bat, Father put the car in reverse and slammed on the gas. He never needed to go out and let a lobster beat him to death.
A few more passes over the lobster ensured his shell was thoroughly cracked and that he wouldn’t be causing anymore difficulties. At least, not for this run.
Father took the wallet and the bat, and waited for the pigfish. Adding ten strength and ten endurance didn’t make Father some mighty warrior, but every point did make a difference. Having anything at zero was just leaving Father at his actual level of each attribute. He wasn’t weaker, slower, or more stupid when keeping his attributes low.
That much he had realized in sixteen lives.
Father did his best to look injured as the pigfish left their vehicle. He leaned against his car and clutched at his torso.
“What happened?” one asked as they both ran up. One pigfish dropped to the lobster’s side while the other approached Father and tried to move his claw.
A swift couple swings of the baseball bat took out the pigfish. Father grabbed the handgun and took out the other before he had time to get a shot off. His agility was lower, but he was better. This was all routine.
It was clear that handling guns was far from what Father would consider a skill he had acquired in life. He had killed a surprising number of sea creatures over the last sixteen runs, but most of that had been from the sheer number of bullets fired or from literally pressing the barrel of the gun against their heads.
If he wanted to keep using guns, which made the most sense in most of the fights, Father needed to be an expert. He couldn’t have another situation in which he didn’t know how to reload or that he was just unsure if his gun was jammed or out of ammo. Ignorance would get him killed, and if he was going to dive into the Buttress, he needed to be sure he could handle himself.
Choosing a new class was also welcome.
For the next few runs, intelligence was the most important. Father intended to keep endurance high enough to avoid any headaches, and strength helped acquire the guns from the pigfish, but intelligence would help him come up with a plan and learn how to properly use firearms.
Father drove away from the carnage and headed into the modestly deep trench. He had always seen signs for a gun club on the opposite side of the trench, out in the kelp wilds. It wasn’t a place Father had ever really thought about before. Not until his guns stopped working.
Knowing time wouldn’t truly continue if he died took an odd weight off Father’s shoulders. It was like a reset button, even if that reset button sometimes caused intense, unbearable pain.
Father would kill himself or withstand every death imaginable if it meant saving his Son.
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He stopped in a sparsely occupied parking lot. The modestly deep trench gun club didn’t seem like a popular spot, which was probably the best thing he could hope for.
Father brought his gear inside, spoke with a few different fish, a sea cucumber, and a few other old men before being escorted into a room that reminded Father of his time in school.
The old fish had taken his guns, unloaded them, and laid them out on a table. It was quickly determined that Father didn’t know what he was doing, and upon admitting that he was a novice, a sense of relief seemed to pass through the room.
Father sat in a chair with three old fish in a semi circle around him.
They started with gun safety, which Father wasn’t interested in learning, but he paid attention anyway. The safety, how to hold, holster, and care for the gun, and all other details about wielding the gun in the safest way possible took most of the day.
“Come back tomorrow and we can look at how the handgun operates.”
“Sure. Thank you.” Father stood and stretched. As the old men got up, Father punched the nearest in the head, took the old fish’s gun, flicked off the safety, and put it against his own head.
“Wait!”
Father smiled and pulled the trigger.
Beginning Run 18.
Set Attributes.
Strength 10
Endurance 10
Agility 0
Intelligence 30
Luck 0
Waiting until morning was going to take too long, and even if his Son wasn’t going to remember the time he spent in captivity, Father had no interest in letting his Son sit around for any longer than necessary.
He got the three guns and the wallets, and drove through the trench to the gun club. This time, Father introduced himself as an enthusiast who knew the basics of gun safety, but not of gun operation.
The same old fish briefly quizzed him and had Father run through some basic tests before showing him into the same dingy classroom. They jumped into gun operation, like unloading, reloading, and how the loading mechanisms between Father’s handguns and a shotgun varied. The old fish had their own firearms that they used to show different styles and how to operate each. The shotguns they had available were slightly different from the one he had taken at Trash Co., but it was similar enough that Father was sure he would be able to figure that one out when he went to kill Mister Logs again.
It was clear to Father that he would have never learned how to properly use a gun while running around in his previous lives. He had some form of luck, even without adding to the attribute, that the guns he had taken and used were actually loaded and functional.
Father practiced unloading and reloading his handguns and the shotgun, using different tips from the old fish. With enough practice, he hoped it would burn into his mind, even when his intelligence score was lower.
Intelligence was helpful for learning and understanding, but there was no way Father was going to be fighting dozens of Hardbody Crustaceans without high agility, endurance, and strength.
He practiced over and over, trying to force his body to remember every little action. Before long, the old fish went about their own day, but Father remained practicing until the gun club was going to close for the evening.
Before they could kick him out, Father put both handgun barrels against his head and fired.
Beginning Run 20.
Set Attributes.
Strength 10
Endurance 10
Agility 0
Intelligence 30
Luck 0
Father arrived at the gun club, ready to show off his knowledge on gun safety and gun basics. He was able to unload and reload the handguns with some proficiency, though he could feel how much work he had to do. It was really only one day of practice, which wasn’t anywhere close to enough.
After buying some extra ammo from the club, Father was escorted into the firing range where he was shown how to operate the targets and some basics in actually holding and firing the handguns.
When he was finally left to his own devices, Father burned through the small amount of ammo he had acquired. His aim was horrendous, but it was nothing practice couldn’t fix.
With the one bullet he had saved, Father restarted.
Beginning Run 21.
Set Attributes.
Strength 10
Endurance 10
Agility 0
Intelligence 30
Luck 0
After getting the guns from the pigfish, Father sat in his car unloading and reloading the guns. He switched magazines, fired some bullets into the dead Hardbody Crustaceans lobster, fixed a jam, and did it all over again until he was low on ammo.
Father grinned. He was getting better.
