All of that seemed to shock me back to reality as I took in the scene around me. Grandpa and my father were double teaming the black armored red person.

  Unfortunately I didn’t have time to focus on them as every movement of my body which led to my arm being moved kept sending signals of excruciating pain rocketing through my body.

  “Don’t worry Freddy, I got you boy. Let your dad and pops handle that bastard. You’ll be fine.”

  It was Uncle Grant’s voice I heard.

  Ah so he was the one pulling me back.

  I definitely felt multiple hands though…oh maybe dad helped him get me out of the way before letting go to fight with Grandpa.

  Whatever it didn’t matter…I was being helped.

  Despite the fact it felt like my arm was about to fall off and I was just barely holding it up, there was a part of my mind that saw it fit to laugh at myself and this situation.

  If I was reading one of Grandpa’s books or just any LitRPG series in general, I would’ve thought that the main character was a little bitch if he was behaving the way I was.

  Like damn man, killing one guy made you throw up.

  You finally get to fight for real in a Dungeon, and you go through a mini identity crisis.

  Then you get a real old school war thrown in your face, suffer one real injury and you damn near lose your mind in the middle of battle.

  …I suppose sitting there behind a screen and reading about something I thought was fake, and questioning or doubting the MC in a random story is a lot easier than having to do this shit in real life.

  I’d never had to swim from sharks before, fight big ass snakes, not to even mention fighting to the death with an alien species. And some of the MCs I read about had to deal with even worse circumstances yet I had the nerve to judge them.

  Funnily enough…I still feel like a little bitch.

  These thoughts about those fictional MCs didn’t change how I was feeling in any way shape or form. Because that’s the thing. They are fictional and this is in fact real damn life now. Some author isn’t controlling my behavior and how I’d react to things.

  It’s me.

  This is my life, and all my reactions are my own.

  If I wanted to mope and cry then I could choose to do that. Or if I wanted to get my shit together, recover from this injury then do everything possible to make sure it never happens again, then I could do that too.

  I knew right then and there which choice I would pick.

  Then Uncle Grant spoke up again.

  “Freddy we got some of that healing paste stuff, get ready this shit might hurt.”

  Uncle Grant then began applying the paste and in the same moment someone else stuck a piece of cloth? I don’t know, but whatever it was they stuck it into my mouth and I bit down on it hard as Uncle Grant had no idea how right he was.

  It hurt like shit.

  Especially since he was practically holding my arm together as he applied the paste to the wound.

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  Man fuck!

  Trying to find anything at all to distract me from the pain, I finally took a look at the notifications waiting for me off to the side.

  Ding!

  12,509XP Earned!

  [Level +1]

  Alright…that should’ve given me 2 more points to spend, and I didn’t waste anytime in putting them in Vitality. The increase wasn’t much, and apart from the warmth that did little to distract me from my arm, I couldn’t notice any immediate changes.

  But this is all I can do right now.

  “We’re laying you down Freddy, your doing good, we got you.”

  This time it was Aunt Abigail’s voice I heard.

  I looked around a bit to see a few of my family members around me. A couple of them were fussing over my arm, while I could literally see Uncle Grant out of the corner of my eye shooting off more of those mana missile things.

  Guessing he probably switched with Aunt Abigail.

  The screams of the battle hadn’t died down in the slightest, and by now it all just sounded like white noise, as my own pain continuously pulled my mind away from focusing on anything else for too long.

  So I just laid there.

  There was chaos all around me, and there wasn’t going to be any thing I could do to help my family.

  We could all literally die right here and now, and I wouldn’t have a say.

  I clenched the fist of my still working hand as those thoughts swirled around in my mind. Yeah…never again. I said it already but no…this is serious. I’ll never allow this to happen again.

  To be reduced to being nothing but a burden.

  Tch.

  …

  At some point the battle had ended and my family and I returned home. It was the type of battle that couldn’t be called a loss or a victory.

  Well I suppose it depended on how you looked at it.

  They likely came to kill everyone left in the area, and since quite a few of us were still alive, then we managed to stave off that reality. In that sense then yeah it could probably be seen as a victory.

  On the other hand, while a lot of us remain alive, there were plenty of bodies on the floor that weren’t there yesterday.

  A lot of people died to protect what we had left.

  And we didn’t kill all of them. Just enough to force a retreat.

  The chances that they would be back weren’t slim. Not at all. The only silver lining in all of this apart from the fact my family and I were still alive, was the fact that with all the death caused today, everyone who survived the battle received a lot of XP.

  So while our numbers went down, the strength of each remaining individual should have gone up somewhat.

  But would it be enough?

  For some reason I didn’t think so.

  No, I knew it wouldn’t.

  They had more numbers than us in the first place, so some individuals getting a little stronger wasn’t going to shift the tides in our favor.

  Which was part of the problem. We were individuals. They were an organized army. It was only a matter of time until we simply wouldn’t have enough bodies to contend with their numbers.

  And I doubted we would be getting any reinforcements anytime soon…so that takes us back to that induvial power.

  A lot of people getting a little stronger wouldn’t change much…but what about one person getting exponentially stronger?

  Strong enough to kill 50 or even more of those bastards on their own?

  That would change everything.

  Now I don’t necessarily have any desire to be that person or anything like that, but the only way to ensure what happened to me today wouldn’t happen again, was simply to be stronger.

  And no matter what type of mental conviction I had, at the end of day it would just be thoughts in my mind without any action behind it.

  It was like when people, me included, would have random bursts of motivation at 1am to change something about your life and strive for something more….and then it would all go away three days later.

  I can’t afford for that to happen now.

  So…after resting and allowing my arm to heal, which it did surprisingly well for a few hours…I left the house…and the only person I told was Rakeon. If I told anyone else, they probably would’ve physically tried to force me to sit my ass down.

  And honestly they were probably right. My arm didn’t look like it was one hard swing from falling off now, and that healing paste stuff really worked wonders over the last few hours, but it wasn’t like my arm was fully healed…it still hurt like shit but this was no time to sit around and it was functional enough.

  It would do me no good to have the same thing happen in the next attack.

  So…I would take a risk.

  I couldn’t leave without telling at least one person, and that person had to be someone who wouldn’t be trying to keep me here and could also keep his mouth shut for a few minutes, while I ran to my target.

  Rakeon served that purpose well.

  It wasn’t the first time we’ve held secrets for each other.

  Anyway, I now stood before the entrance of something we were supposed to leave alone.

  Enter Dungeon: Gauntlet ?

  Grade: F*

  Yes/No?

  (1 Person Entry)

  I don’t know what that asterisk means but who cares at this point. Let’s do it.