With that progress fresh in his mind, Simon wasted no more time. He wahe rematch, and he was going to get it on his terms. Not only did he need something he could take his migraine induced medication on, but felt practically invincible. He had two spells now. That made him a real live magi in his eyes. He could hurt things ahings now, which made him pretty mubeatable.

  At least it would whe better at it. He still wasn’t as good at fire magic as a goblin, and that was holy a little embarrassing, but progress rogress.

  “Mirror, show me my stats,” Simon said as soon as he got home and started to armor up. The mirror obliged quickly as always, and showed him what he ko be basically a fake character sheet within seds.

  ‘Name: Simon Jackoby

  Level: 6

  Deaths: 26

  Experience Points: -7820

  Skills: Archery [Poor], Armor (light) [Average], Athletics [Poor], Cook [Very Poor], Craft [Very Poor], Deception [Very Poor], Escape [Very Poor], Iigate [Poor], Maces [Below Average], Ride [Very Poor], Search [Poor], Sneak [Poor], Spears [Very Poor], Spell Casting [Very Poor], Steal [Very Poor], Swimming [Very Poor], and Swords [Average].’

  “ you add the spells I know to that?” Simon asked, iween bites of cheese. “You know, for pleteness?”

  The mirror obliged, adding a se to the bottom it beled words of power, which made him ugh.

  ‘Name: Simon Jackoby

  Level: 6

  Deaths: 26

  Experience Points: -7820

  Skills: Archery [Poor], Armor (light) [Average], Athletics [Poor], Cook [Very Poor], Craft [Very Poor], Deception [Very Poor], Escape [Very Poor], Iigate [Poor], Maces [Below Average], Ride [Very Poor], Search [Poor], Sneak [Poor], Spears [Very Poor], Spell Casting [Very Poor], Steal [Very Poor], Swimming [Very Poor], and Swords [Average].

  Words of Power: Aufvarum Hjakk Gervuul Meiren ’

  While he was a little disappoihat learning a sed spell hadn’t increased his spell casting ability at all, Simon leased that his level to death rate was increasing. He couldn’t focus oher of those though, because now that he could read the nguage and uand the strange words they no longer sounded like mysterious magic words to him. Instead, they sounded like b abilities from a JRPG with a bad English port. Large burning? Small healing? It was like they weren’t quite jugated right or something.

  Still, the information cheered him up. That meant that there were probably at least four other spells out there just waiting to be found. “If there’s a Large burning, then there has to be a medium and a small burning tht?” Simon asked himself as he belted on his sword and started to pack everything else away. “Who knows. Maybe there’s even a huge burning or a …Mega Burning!” He said that st oh great theatrical fir, but the only thing that happened was a burst of ughter before he lit one of his torches and headed downstairs.

  It was kind of ironic that this was finally starting to feel like the game it should have been, only after Hedes had made it very clear it wasn’t. Simon didn’t care. It was a useful metaphor, and ohat he was sure was giving him an edge over the tless losers that had e into the pit before him. Now he just o figure out how to cast them better, so they hopefully didn’t hurt quite so bad, and he could start breezing through this pbsp;

  As he effortlessly slew the bats and the rats, Simon couldn’t help but think about it more. It might not be a “game” like the goddess had said, but it was starting to feel exactly like what he would want to see i had mohat were easy to kill, a miniboss on level 4, actual spells that worked, and he’d even found his first NPC. Teically she’d killed him, of course, but that was only because she’d thought he was a zombie. It was an ho mistake. All he needed now were some magic items, and some exposition about why the pit existed and what terrible demon he had to fight at the end, and he’d be able to start wreg shit.

  Simon did slow it down a little this time, though. The st few times he’d gohrough the goblin floor and the skeleton crypt, he had do through brute force, as he tried to rush it. This time he focused oh and good kills. If he wao meet that blond babe that had murdered him, then he wao do it without being banged up too badly, and there were plenty of other parts of his character sheet he could be w on besides just swords.

  Once again the only part of the duhat was any challe all at this point was the skeleton knight, and Simon mao take him down in just over a mihis time by dual wielding his sword and mace. He got the timing on his parries right, then smashed the bastard’s fa, a couple of times, and the knight quickly crumbled into dust where it belonged. After that, he took a short break, trying to visualize the spell he wao cast for what came . There was definitely more to words than casting these spells. Somehow, i and visualization seemed to matter as much as the way he said the words. For Simon that was a small problem, since despite the fact that he was obviously a very imaginative person, he wasn’t very good at picturing things like that in his mind’s eye. It was easy enough to recall the things he’d seen on TV or in video games, but even trying to picture those same ideas - things he should have known incredibly well, like pixels fred around his character when he cast the shield spell or unched a fireball in his favorite game, Det into Darkness 2 were difficult to recall.

  Only his favorite waifu, Princess Anmelda was easy to recall, and even her details were a bit blurry, especially if you were talking about some of the outfits he didn’t have her wear very much. He sighed. It was holy a little ridiculous. If he khe words, then the magic should just work. He should just be able to cast [Fireball] and annihite his oppo, because things would be a lot easier in the level if he could just cast his rge burning spell oime and still be able to talk some seo that blond woman before she skewered him again.

  Simon sighed and stood. Now that he was thinking about her, all hope he had of practig his visualization of anything but her cleavage was pletely gohis time he wouldn’t give her the ce to stab him, of course, but he’d feel much better about the whole thing if he didn’t have th her up in the process. Now that he theoretically spoke whatever crazy nguage she’d been using before, he should be able to use his words to get what he wanted, as his mother had always told him growing up.

  He slid the sword into the water the same as st time, and waited for a moment, and then he circled to the north side of the cave i to just bypass the slime without casting that terrible spell, but he almost lost a foot as the thing shed out at him from the water, and quickly retreated. This time Simon got far enough back that he’d have a few seds, and really focused on not just the slime catg fire, but the way that the fmes came out of his hand in a ight beam, that looked less like the fming lightning that the shaman had thrown around, and more like one of Iron Man’s repulsors. If he was going to have to imagine something, then he was at least going to stick to what he ko boost his odds of success.

  When he opened his eyes again, the slime was less than te from him and closing fast. “Gervuul Meiren!” Simon shouted, throwing every ounce of anger and hate he had into it. The result was just as painful as it always was, but much more effective tha couple of times he’d cast the spell. He felt reality twist very slightly around him, and then a veritable fountain of fire erupted from his hand. It wasn’t quite the tight beam he’d imagined, but it didly spray everywhere either. The increased focus bined with the shorter range meant that most of the fmes ended up exactly where they belonged: burning the giant booger mohat was trying to eat him to a crisp.

  “That’s what you get!” he shouted before spitting, this time he leased to here wasn’t any blood, and he only sounded vaguely hoarse rather than like the living dead. It was an improvement, but he hoped in time he could do better. Casting these spells wasn’t just painful, but there was a of dread attached to them, and he didn’t like it. The whole system needed a redesign, holy.

  Simon took the time to refill his waterskin here, even though he didn’t o, because the water that trickled down from the forest stream above was utterly delicious. Ohat was done, he took out his mad walked over to the well-worn tavern door and ope.

  This time as soon as he stepped in he whirled around looking for the zombie that had attacked him st time, but he didn’t see it anywhere in the room. Simon shrugged. He’d pnned on g the thing’s skull in, but ohing to fight was fine by him. He walked over to the table and picked up a tankard of warm beer and looked around the room. That was wheiced the body on the floor.

  He had mixed emotions about how he should feel about the death of a near strahat had been practically beheaded. On the one hand, he was sad that someone had killed such a beautiful woman. She should have been an Instagram model or a TikTok girl, not zombie bait. Oher hand, though, she had killed him st time, so he wasly sad to see her dead. “Guess you shouldn’t have killed the hero of this story. Maybe then someone would have saved you,” he said quietly before raising a gss in the memory of the beautiful barmaid that would never have the ce to kill him again.

  That was when he heard a crash and a scream from somewhere else iavern. Simohe mug of warm beer down and with a mog salute to the dead woman he readied his mad opehe door to the room. This was a on room in a bar. At least it used to be. Now it was a war zone.

  Several bodies y strewn about the floor, but only two people were actually moving. The first was a brue woman holding a meat cleaver defensively as a zombie slowly advanced ohe sed was the deg remnants of some kind of viking warrior. It was a seriously metal Halloween e, but as an enemy it was a little ckluster. That zombie wasn’t the problem. The real problem was the pce where they had broken through the boarded up windows. Simon could see dozens of the bastards milling around outside, and if they all started ing in here, that might be a real challenge. Simon advanced on the ohat was about to take a bite of the girl. She wasn’t as pretty as her friend had been, but that didn’t mean he should let her die.

  The zombie barely had time to turn and face him before he delivered a two-handed blow that caved in the side of its face, a it tumbling to the floor. Simon looked up at her, smiling, but her response was to stare vatly at him and keep pointing the knife in his dire. He shrugged mentally as he turo deal with the window. She probably wasn’t going to kill him. So, as long as he kept her safe for a few minutes, maybe he could actually find out what was going on around here for onbsp;