Nightmare System

Hard Decision

The lair did not look as he expected, the place surely looked like a dirty cavern at first sight, but he could also see the entrance to a palace-like structure inside, as well. He reckoned that would be where the King of the Imps was. He didn’t have time.

There were creatures different from the goblins in front of the cavern. He figured these were called imps, with a body as large as humans, they seemed to be boasting more strength and were actual threats compared to their smaller counterparts.

They wore identical clothes resembling uniforms, and both were ready to attack as soon as they saw him, having nocked their arrows. They were both just waiting for him to get close.

Hell moved at a moderate speed to see what they could do, but as soon as the arrows were released, they travelled with incredible force and almost hit him albeit his speed. They weren’t holding regular bows on their hands.

His speed, however, had already exceeded what such low-level creatures could overcome with two-bit bows. He steadied his breathing and moved with immense agility that is hard to follow with naked eyes.

More arrows were released one after another, but he dodged them all. Hell didn’t want to spend time unnecessarily, his brother would die. So he got closer and closer, shooting them at close range.

He would have a chance to miss if he tried to shoot from a distance, but he would be sure to hit them from ten to fifteen metres. Conversely, they couldn’t efficiently use their bows at this distance. Hell took four consecutive shots at the two guards and quickly dispatch them.

He took one of the bows and collected around fifty arrows, strapping them onto his back. Archery could be ideal for him perhaps, he thought, and opened the doors to the palace. Hell’s time was running out, this was not good.

“Fuck.” he said. There were twenty more of these guys with various weapons, and he could see fifteen more with bows and arrows on a platform around ten meters higher.

Even if he could kill them all, it would take more time than he had. As an avid gamer, he knew the strategy he should have used with one look inside. Speed-running wasn’t his forte, but he would have to make do.

He also locked eyes with the imp standing on the throne, that one looked more like a human than the others and had a sharp glint hinting at his intelligence in his eyes.

“Welcome,” the King of the Imps spoke in a nonchalant manner. “I’ll bury you here since you were insolent enough to barge inside.”

“Good luck doing that,” Hell mumbled and looked around, assessing the danger he was in.

“Let’s test your mettle first, shall we?” the King said as he signalled at two of the imps close to himself to take action. One of them had a poleaxe while the other had twin blades. These specific imps wore different outfits to the ones outside, and he saw there were ten to twelve more with different outfits in the room in total.

Each one seemed to own a different weapon and looked tougher. He figured these were the veterans of these imps. But it didn’t matter. As long as they failed to properly perceive his movements, every single one of them would die.

The one with poleaxe lunged ahead as the one with twin blades stepped back, examining Hell’s movements. Hell promptly used the opening created by the large swing of the imp’s poleaxe and his glaive found his throat at the same time in one swift motion.

He thought it was the most efficient method to kill these things, he wasn’t sure if the organs would be in different places, either. A lethal attack against humans could be not as damaging against a new lifeform. Since all he had was speed, a well-positioned attack would kill him as fast as he is killing them.

He then continued onto the surprised twin-blade user. He saw the second imp was trying to block his attack, it looked to be out of instinct more than a conscious decision. He had already swung the glaive, so it crashed against the twin blades of the imp. It landed onto the imp’s weapons with much speed and the imp was still unprepared. One of the blades of the unlucky imp lodged into his own eye with the force generated, he also collapsed in mere moments.

“I see,” the Imp King said, his eyes spitting fire. “You, and you,” he signalled at two other imps, these seemed a lot bulkier.

“You kill him,” he said.

“He is testing my skills,” Hell thought to himself. He noticed that it wasn’t just letting his men die for nothing, it was more than that. King of the Imps was certainly cunning, using his men to analyse his movements.

It probably was another minute since he entered this place already, and there was no guarantee his brother had a full 15 minutes in the first place. He figured he had to end this after the next move. He had to be unpredictable, instant.

Hell positioned himself for the Imp King to stay behind him and let the two new bulkier enemies approach him. One of the imps swung a war hammer at him with great force and Hell blocked it with the glaive.

The strength these creatures held was incredible, his hands were shaking from the damage. Each hit from the hammer was enough to push back Hell. The Imp King, on the other hand, looked to be sitting on his throne still with a smug look on his face.

“Let’s see what happens when your enemies are also a bit faster,” King said as he waved his hands, some spell was being cast. However, this was also the perfect opportunity, it would be hard to kill everyone here anyway, so he jumped at Imp King with all his speed along with the grenades he pulled the pins of mere seconds ago. If only he could take him out first, everything would be fine.

“That’s a stupid-“ the King of the Imps stopped mid-sentence when he noticed the grenades strapped on Hell.

“Stop, are you gonna blow us both up?!” he tried to run away with his sword in his hand, designed like a needle, covering his right hand. Everything was happening so fast so he swung his sword at the upcoming enemy and pierced him in the chest.

“Hah! i***t!” Imp King wanted to say as Hell pushed himself further into the sword, his right hand held the King’s head, carrying a string that holds the five remaining grenades he had. The King of the Imps, in panic, cast another spell which blew up Hell’s right side, taking a kidney along with it. Even though he was little more than a corpse, he was resolute.

“It is too late for you,” Hell said, in agony and added: “You’ll die first.”

“No! I can’t die like this!” King of the Imps yelled.

The grenades exploded as the King truly realized his death had come. It was so sudden, the bombs killing the Imp King almost instantly. Hell’s right arm was nowhere to be seen, obliterated by the explosion, most of his body and face burnt up. The needle-like sword was somehow still stuck on what’s left on his side, along with the Imp King’s hand in it.

*Congratulations on defeating the King of the Imps*

*You have levelled up*

*You have levelled up*

*You have levelled up*

*You have levelled up*

*You have levelled up*

The system’s notifications were the last thing he heard as he closed his eyes to leave this world behind.

*Man of Cursed Spirit will be resurrected as a reward for defeating the boss before his death*

*The brother of Man of Cursed Spirit will be recovered as he survived the level*

*As a reward for completing the misfortune, the player will be awarded +5 stat points*

Hell opened his eyes to a string of text messages as he floated in that void again. He thought the system had let him die. “What a surprise,” he said and heard the system’s voice again. It seemed to almost change from voice to text and vice versa according to Hell’s mood. When he wanted to hear them, he did. When he wanted to read it, he also could.

*Devourer has been activated*

*+200 Mana has been acquired*

*The spell “Rapid Move” has been learned*

*Rapid Move: 140 Mana for each use, allows the player to speed any one action by 5 times*

*Nightmare System Stage 1-Level 3 will continue next time the player sleeps*

*Items acquired: Glaive of Hans the Undying, Needle of the Imp King, Enchanted Bow, Enchanted Arrows (50)*

Hell opened his eyes again, feeling rested. He rushed to his brother’s room, but it was empty. “Right,” he whispered, remembering the tracksuit he was wearing as the door to their apartment opened.

“Hello, bro,” Devlin said with a broken smile. He was a kind kid after all. Hell figured he probably still remembered the nightmare he was pulled into. He hoped Devlin would remember nothing and go on with his life.

“Hello, Devlin.”

“Ah, I’m going to have to ask something.” Said Devlin.

“Ask away.”

“It will sound incredibly weird.”

“Just ask.”

“So I was jogging…” Devlin started and seemed embarrassed, changing his demeanour. “I somehow fell asleep on one of the benches!” he quickly said.

Hell figured he decided against sharing it, and, unfortunately, he remembered it. But he played along.

“How the hell did you manage that?”

“I guess I was really sleepy after an all-nighter.”

“You pulled that all-nighter last week.”

“I guess it only just hit me. Not all of us can survive on a couple of hours of sleep and then stay awake for days like you,” Devlin laughed, and spoke again after a moment or two: “Those nightmares you mentioned before…”

“Yeah?”

“How do you deal with them?”

“You just stop thinking about them,” Hell said. This was all right, he wouldn’t pick that smaller wheel again. He couldn’t risk it. “Why? Did the little, helpless kid had a bad dream?” Hell mocked his little brother.

“Oh, shut up, will you?” I have to get to my school, get out of my room.

“I hate you so much,” Hell said with a smirk.

“I hate you, too,” Devlin replied with a smile. This was how the Reeveman brothers expressed their love in the family. Every small prank and insult was meant to be taken as the opposite.

“I’ll prepare you some breakfast before you leave,” Hell said and left the room.

“Okay,” Devlin replied.

Devlin seemed slightly troubled, no matter how much he tried to be cheerful. He ate his breakfast, complimented the skills of Chef Hell, and left for school.

Hell remembered the nightmares had tortured him immensely in his childhood as well. He actually had only managed to get through them as he created some unimaginably powerful heroes to protect himself while he slept. If the monsters were real, so were his heroes, he thought.

Growing up to be independent and self-relying however, he forgot them all after a few years, and fought by himself in his dreams. He was the only one he could depend on, he felt. He liked lucid dreaming in those nightmares, and he didn’t mind having nightmares after a while, either.

He would die in his dreams and then wake up for years to come. Those heroes seemed too childish and he didn’t like to rely on anything else. He liked being strong, so he tried, and tried. But this Impossible Nightmare System was truly something else.

Hell was always fascinated by evil. He remembered when his grandmother told him he shouldn’t say the word “djinn“, because they would come and haunt him until he managed to get rid of them. Hell was only a 6-year-old boy then.

Then his grandmother told him that especially if he said “that word” during nights or 40 times in a row, he was all the more likely to be haunted by them. She was so scared of them that she did not dare say the word “djinn”. It was just simple superstition.

Even more than one could come to haunt him, she would say. Little Hell was excited and promptly promised his grandmother he wouldn’t say it again.

He waited that night until everyone was asleep, until it was midnight. He sat in the middle of his bed and closed his eyes, chanting. “Djinn, djinn, djinn…” exactly 40 times in a row. He realized only recently that perhaps he truly was the reason for such nightmares of his.

Hell remembered his mother calling him soon after he tried to summon djinns, it came from the living room. He went there and looked for her, even thinking he saw someone for a moment, but there was nothing when he turned on the lights, so he went back to sleep and didn’t think of this again, even though the same thing would sometimes happen, waking him up from his sleep during nights, only to find out that there was no one there.

Hell laughed at himself, pouring some coffee, he hadn’t realized he had caused himself to be haunted for at least 14 years! Only last year when he was chatting with a superstitious friend did she tell him “maybe that’s why he always had nightmares”.

He hated the idea of being weak, especially mentally, and saw nightmares or any sort of trouble in life beneath him. He was a cocky fellow, but that mentality was the only reason he hadn’t gone insane by now.

He would like to think his life was basically hell right now, but he loved being able to get strong as such, too. “Strong as hell,” he thought and giggled to himself as he reminisced.

The only problem was that his brother would be sad if he died and such sadness could possibly ruin his life, especially with his university entrance exams slowly creeping close.

Hell then wondered about his speed as he tried to get to his room and back to the kitchen with the coffee in his hand, as fast as he could. His movements quite literally created wind in the kitchen and the frying pan fell down with the oil still in it.

“I mean, I really was incredibly fast just as I was so in the other place… but still, God damn it,” Hell complained. He had to get the oil out from the floor tiles now. It was quite a hassle. He cleaned it, mumbling under his breath as he did it.

Hell then decided to leave the house for the day, going into the forest nearby. This was a rather small town and the foliage in the forest wasn’t too dense, it was great for a jog or a walk, or for trying out his abilities. He would first check his stats.

Player: Man of Cursed Spirit

Age: 21

Occupation: Cursed Hunter

Level: 23

Stats

----------

Strength : 10

Defence : 10

Dexterity : 166

Mana : 220

Vitality : 10

Stamina : 10

Unused Stat Points: 55

Items: Gun of the Clairvoyant, Phone of the Clairvoyant, Glaive of Hans the Undying, Needle of the Imp King, Enchanted Bow, Enchanted Arrows (50)

“Damn, totally forgot about the items!” Hell exclaimed, and rushed back to his room. He couldn’t believe he forgot to check the new items. He pushed the bed and saw the items under it. At least this was an improvement, he wouldn’t want to stab himself to death while waking up with those in the bed.

“What was it again?” He thought for a moment and commanded: “Identify.”

*Glaive of Hans the Undying: Made of the most durable stone in the Lyre Universe. It was forged for 15 years to be sharpened and sculpted for the glaive. Attack+50*

*Needle of The Imp King: Imp King created this needle with magic to boost his power, even if it is broken or thrown away by its user, it will be restored in the hands of the user with the pre-determined command word. Piercing attack +70, Mana +20*

*Determine the codeword now?*

“Codeword, my ass,” Hell mumble. "Who cares?!" He was never good with naming things.

*Codeword has been chosen as “my ass”*

“Wait, no! I will make the codeword something else!”

*Codeword for Needle of the Imp King has been changed to “Something else”*

“Jesus f*****g Christ.” Hell was sure the system was f*****g with him somehow. “Change the codeword for Needle of the Imp King to “Imp Needle.”

*Codeword for Needle of the Imp King has been changed to “Imp Needle”*

“Good.” Hell sighed in relief. He couldn’t imagine how awful randomly summoning these weapons would be, not even mentioning how horrifyingly bad the name was.

*Enchanted Bow: This bow was enchanted by the King of the Imps, its attack power is directly related to the strength applied by the user. 1 Strength=+2 Attack*

*Enchanted Arrows: These arrows were enchanted by the King of the Imps, they double the damage output when used with the enchanted bow and create an explosion of force, focused on one point*

“Alright, this is actually good. Let’s try it out,” Hell said. “Imp Needle.” He tried to summon it the same way he summoned the character page. It, unfortunately, didn’t work that way.

He said it in a faint voice this time, however, and it was suddenly in his hands again. He opened up his character page again, wondered maybe he should invest his current points into strength to efficiently use the bow. Raising his strength to 35 would let him deal a whopping 140 damage with the enchanted bow and arrows. He had to make a smart decision, he had to survive for his little brother after all.

“Ah, I know!” Hell exclaimed as he pointed his finger to himself. “Identify.”

*Man of Cursed Spirit has been identified*