His hands felt like wet noodles. There were dark spots in his eyes. Breathing was hard and the midday sun was way too hot, burning Dennis from above like he was a chicken nugget in the oven.

  He couldn’t stop grinning.

  Dexterity: 20

  He was addicted.

  It was weird how much of a difference six points in Dexterity made this time. Last time he wasn’t even sure if anything changed. Now? He was fast as fuck. Still probably within the limits of what was possible for a human with good training and genetics, but it was close. Next level up would make him not just fast, but superfast.

  And okay, yes, there was a slight problem of stumbling everywhere if he jerked a bit too rapidly, but that was a small price for greatness. At least he told himself that, secretly hoping that the next level would give him something like a skill to deal with the fact that it was kind of hard to follow his own movements. Splitting his points between Dexterity and Mind to catch up would suck ass.

  This mystical speed felt interesting. As far as his quite lacking knowledge of physics told him, to go from stillness to fast motion you needed to apply considerable force. Logically, for him to be able to move rapidly or change directions he needed Strength, not Dexterity. And also maybe some Constitution, because rapid change of speed like that was supposed to apply a lot of nasty forces on his body.

  But it didn’t work like that. Dexterity governed speed, and the stat clearly said ‘fuck the physics’ in its description. It didn’t, actually, but Dennis could read between the lines. The whole feeling of being sped up by the stat was not related to physics or common sense at all.

  He just got faster. That’s it. Nothing else changed, because the stat didn’t change anything else, and the simplicity of the change was literally magic. He moved faster, but it wasn’t harder to change directions. It was like the inertia of his movement just ignored the fact that he was faster. The strike of his sword was almost blurry with how quick he could do it, and yet stopping that strike required the same amount of exertion as before.

  It was even more weird. He didn’t get more tired from the faster movement. Striking his sword as fast as he could felt the same as always, which didn’t make fucking sense because he was supposed to tire out more from doing the thing quicker. Running for five seconds felt like running for five seconds, even if the distance that he covered now was absurdly more than he was used to.

  He was a bit worried that the way the thing worked would disallow him to abuse inertia to mimic superstrength, but all in all it was better than being killed from the forces of turning his head too quickly or something.

  And he was tired.

  Really, really tired.

  It wasn’t about the speed, but walking around slashing with his sword left and right? Stepping over the bodies on the ground, and dodging the strikes that were aimed at him? That shit was exhausting. He could barely hold his sword. Just for how long he was doing it? Ten minutes? Fifteen? There was a reason why the system assigned his Constitution a value of 7. He wasn’t built for being outside his basement or moving so much.

  Honestly, he was glad that he wouldn’t have to try to reach the third level now. He would die from a heart attack if he continued. Chilling with the group of survivors sounded like a blessed rest from this torture that he inflicted on his body.

  He would totally come back after he rested. And maybe had a good night of sleep. And something to eat.

  “I’m done,” his voice wheezed as he tried to catch his breath.

  “Already?” The old man was smiling as he watched Dennis trying and failing to stand straight. There was no clean place to sit on the ground with goblin’s bodies everywhere. Dennis started to question if it was such a bad idea to use one of the bodies as a seat. “I remember someone telling me he wanted to grind a little bit more.”

  “Very funny,” he said. “You should get an award for being the funniest old geezer I’ve seen today.”

  “Maybe I am the funniest old geezer alive. Who knows.”

  Dennis went inside the house to drink some water and not die of the heat stroke, and he finally saw the people he was supposed to dramatically save later.

  “How the fuck there are so many of you?” he muttered as he saw the chaos that unfolded inside.

  There were people in the kitchen, packing and sorting food and anything that could be used to make it. A few girls in the bedroom were ripping the curtains off for some reason. A lot of noise was coming from the living room, where people who got their hands on saws and hammers were destroying the furniture and trying to make makeshift shields. Everyone was either making stuff or packing stuff. Richard didn’t lie when he said they were cannibalizing his home. He noticed that they also barricaded the windows.

  That was a lot of useless work. Weren't they leaving soon?

  All in all it seemed that about thirty people managed to gather here, including a few kids.

  “Isn’t this too much?” he asked himself as he sat on the floor in the kitchen and sipped a glass of water. Any kind of furniture that could be used for laying or sitting down was already destroyed and repurposed.

  “People are restless,” said the girl who was standing beside the window and smoking a cigarette. The window wasn’t barricaded, but it was most likely because it was looking in the direction of the park, which was safe. “Doing at least something that could help them survive brings a sense of control over their lives, even if it’s pointless.”

  He turned his head to look at the girl. She was a bit older than him and looked like she came straight from the rock concert, with ripped jeans and a skull on her shirt.

  “How is trying to improve your chances of survival pointless?”

  “They improve nothing,” she said. “In fact, being rested will help more than whatever nonsense they are doing. I saw a man trying to make a handle for a steel pipe. It was supposed to be a weapon. You see any problems with that?”

  “There’s a pile of real weapons just lying on the ground outside?”

  “There is a pile of real weapons lying on the ground outside,” she parroted. “And even if there wasn’t, why the hell would he make a blunt weapon? They need spears. Everything else would get people killed. It’s all just… running around. The guy didn’t make the pipe to defend himself, he made it to feel like he was doing something.”

  This girl was a bit pessimistic, wasn’t she? Did she even tell the guy that the pipe with handle idea was stupid, or did she just stand there and judge him silently? She looked like the type who would judge silently, all smug and superior inside.

  “So that’s why you don’t do anything?” he asked. “Because this preparation is pointless?”

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  “Oh, I’m doing everything that matters,” she said, nodding at the small bag beside her. “I packed the necessities, had a snack, didn’t waste my stamina, and most importantly… I’m talking to you. I’m Ness.”

  “I’m glad that my company is so comforting, but I’m kind of feeling that you’re not hitting on me.”

  Mostly because girls just didn’t hit on him. Aside from his ex, but she was just crazy.

  “Maybe I am,” she said as she blew a cloud of smoke in the window. “This is a nice spot here, you know? Seeing Richard blowing the heads off is very good for the nerves. The best thing to do to survive would be to become his granddaughter. He will try to protect everyone, but I’m sure that he will try to protect her more, and he’s capable as hell.”

  “So?”

  “So I just saw the best second thing. I’m pretty sure you could slaughter everyone in this building. So I want in. You’ll protect me, I’ll bake you cookies and stuff.”

  The fuck? She saw his scrawny ass stick a sword in a few goblins and decided that he was the second best thing to literal Deadshot?

  Actually, he liked that thought very much. It didn’t even matter what she was going to do to repay him for this ‘protection’, she could do nothing at all and he would still be happy as long as she continued fawning over him and stroking his ego.

  “Continue,” he said with a smile. “How cool I was? Please elaborate in detail. Leave nothing behind.”

  “I’ve never seen anyone move like that,” she instantly picked up on the game he was playing. Even if the girl had standards so low that sticking a sword in a goblin was somehow enough for her to decide that she wanted his ‘protection’, he didn’t really care what was wrong with her head. Whatever kind of crazy she had, she was smart enough to know how to win his heart over. “Graceful like a ghost, absolutely untouchable. Killing any opponent in one hit, even when obviously very tired from… from a long and exhausting fight that lasted a long time.”

  “Yes,” he nodded, completely agreeing with her. “Like a Ghost of Tsushima. That was totally me. And did you see how fast I was?”

  “Um…” she looked unsure, as if remembering something gross. “Yes. Like Tushima. Very fast and graceful. On an unrelated note, I’d suggest you wash your face while we still have working water. Do I get the protection?”

  “You totally do. I declare you my number one fangirl.”

  The girl smiled for the first time since he’d seen her.

  “Then please make sure that none of those creatures get to your number one fangirl,” she said. “I believe you are very good at that. What’s your name?”

  “Dennis.”

  / - /

  It took some time to wash all the stuff that got stuck and dried up on his face and clothes. He didn’t even know how nasty he was until he looked in the mirror. There were bits stuck in the folds of his shirt. He cleaned everything like a madman and by the time that he was done people were starting to gather outside.

  “Okay, everyone,” said a middle aged man as everyone gathered at the front of the house. His words were sometimes interrupted by the sound of gunshots, but he just made a small pause before continuing talking. “First, we need volunteers to gather the weapons. Pick something long and easy to use.”

  The look of realization on the face of the guy with the metal pipe made Dennis chuckle.

  “Then,” the apparent leader of the group continued. “We will make a formation. Children and elderly in the middle, they will carry the supplies, people with shields and weapons at the sides and at the front. Richard will protect us from the back and help out as much as he can, but we should expect fighting. Our first destination is the gun shop, to get weapons. The second is the supermarket, to get supplies. The third is the police station. It’s a bit far away, but it has the best chance of finding other groups, and it’s easy to defend. We will set up a temporary base there and decide what to do next.”

  Why was Dennis tagging along with these people again? It seemed that they had everything figured out. Should he leave and grind a bit more?

  But he was so goddamn tired. And having someone to at least wake him up in the night before a goblin slits his throat sounded like a good idea. And bothering with securing food and a place to sleep and all that other nonsense wasn’t really something he wanted to do.

  Okay. Fine. These people could do it for him. And he did promise to protect his first fangirl.

  That was a big deal. He was doing this heroic thing for a total of a few hours and already got a fangirl. It meant that he was doing everything right.

  He would protect her with his life.

  Yeah, no. But maybe with his sword? He looked at Muramasa, trying to decide if he would lose the sword in order to protect her life. It was a really hard moral decision. What was her name again?

  “Did anyone manage to contact any kind of authority?” an older woman asked. “The police? Army? Ambulance? Why do we even have to do this?! I am paying my taxes, so why has no one saved us yet?!”

  “This is happening everywhere,” another man said. “The phones work, but there is no news and almost all calls are either unanswered or don’t go through. These fuckers are all over the world. Army? Fighting them with their pants down. The police are probably the same. I don’t think we have an ambulance anymore. Or the government. They’re dead.”

  “Jesus…” someone muttered.

  Dennis stood by as people gathered weapons and made a formation. He, being a hero and the greatest speedster in the world, did not participate, of course.

  “Get in line, kid,” someone said while holding out a shield to him. It was obviously a seat of a chair with a strap connected to it.

  “What is it with people calling me kid?” he grumbled. “Is it the katana? I tell you, this is not some weeaboo knock off, but a real thing. Anyway, I don’t need a shield and I won’t be in the formation. Think of me like a lone wolf that would roam nearby and protect you. Or a guard dog? I think a guard dog works better in this analogy.”

  “What the fuck? Are you–”

  “Let him,” Richard interrupted the man. “I vouch for the boy. Let him do his thing.”

  No one argued with a dude who had a gun.

  They started moving slowly. There was a whole system to supply Richard with bullets as he walked while shooting backwards. Some dude was pushing a cart with the crate of bullets where Jenny reached to fill the magazine.

  He was waiting for the group to pick up some speed while he walked leisurely nearby, holding his katana unsheathed and trying to be on the side of the group where the fangirl was. They actually gave her a shield and a spear and made her be a part of the formation, a fact that she very clearly did not enjoy.

  His waiting did not get him any results. The group was crawling at a snail's pace, and it seemed like it would continue doing so.

  He thought that he was slow while he was getting to the park, but this was just absurd. It took them a whole fifteen minutes to cross the distance that should’ve taken five at most. People were shifty, looking at every shadow like a goblin would spawn literally there, and cars and bodies on the ground took a fucking eternity to move around.

  And okay, sure, a granny in the middle of the group did not help, and Richard having to walk with his ass forward half the time did not help, and Dennis understood that a group was as fast as the slowest individual, but…

  “Just how far away is that gun shop anyway?” he asked.

  “It’s a fifteen minute walk,” someone replied.

  Ah. An hour. They would take a fucking hour to get there, and it wasn’t even their final destination. It was the middle of the day, but Dennis would be blessed if they reached the police station by the nightfall.

  Why was he doing this again? Ditching them felt so tantalizing. Especially that granny. How did she even survive? She was probably Richard’s neighbor or something.

  No. Villains sucked, so he would be a hero, and a hero was supposed to do stuff like this. And he needed people to feed him and give him a place to sleep since he couldn’t be bothered with managing all that minor stuff.

  It’s just that it felt like being a hero sucked at this moment. It was a boring job.

  Though it seemed that it would stop being boring soon as they covered some distance and Richard stopped being able to shoot all the goblins as they spawned in the park.

  That was the problem with single handedly keeping the whole ass spawn point. As they moved, goblins started to populate the park and spread out. None in their direction, because in their direction was the grandpa who killed them, but all the others? If there were some people who decided that they were safe somewhere nearby, they would get a nasty surprise. Which wasn’t really heroic on their group's account, but that was the situation. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

  These people wouldn’t survive without Richard coming with them. Some other people wouldn’t survive Richard leaving.

  That’s why superspeed was the superior power. Once Dennis gets properly fast, he would just save everyone.

  Now, the biggest question was if those goblins were smart and coordinated enough to go around their group and surround them. If they were, most of these people were fucked. Who will even survive such an attack? Dennis, for sure, grandpa if he doesn’t decide to heroically die, maybe a few lucky ones…

  Actually, he wasn’t sure if he would survive a coordinated attack made by a whole bunch of goblins. As he imagined the scenario in his head, it felt more grim by the moment. Especially if there were archers or something, and if the goblins were smart enough to block the escape paths.

  “Hey,” he asked Jenny as she finished loading another magazine. “Did you see any goblins with bows? Are ranged goblins a thing?”

  “Yes,” Richard answered instead. “Ranged goblins are a thing.”