True to what Fillmore said, Sean seemed to be absurdly fast when it came to healing. He never thought of it before, but whenever he cut his fingers, he’d find the injury gone in a day —even the more severe ones that had cut through half a finger. Did he always have this, or did the system grant it to him? Whichever it was, he didn’t care. His ankles were almost back to normal and Sean could now walk, albeit it elicited a grunt every few steps and he couldn’t run. Manageable, but still clearly injured.

But more importantly, he finally looked at the notification he’d been putting off. It had been helpfully hovering just outside of his peripherals when he remembered it and pulled it back into the front. What he saw pleasantly surprised him.

 

 

Sean thought about it. Increase to Spellcasting Speed? Indeed, he just thought about the words and the magic happened, far too used to the shapes to even bother thinking about them. Wait, was it connected to that? Studying likely meant that he’d learned the structure of the Spell Circles to the point that they didn’t take effort, like how people didn’t think about how they wrote 1 when solving 1 + 1. They thought about the results. Somehow, Sean knew what array of commands it was referring to. The System showed his current progress to him, and not necessarily the other way around with the System allowing him to do something. That meant that whatever the System rewarded him with in terms of Skills, he would feel the change even before getting the notification.

It was very much like perfectly learning a subject and the test result coming in later after you’ve learned that you’re basically a god at something, thought to a lesser degree at the moment. But said ‘knowing’ was subconscious, whereas the System made that known to an individual even consciously.

“They’ll be coming soon,” said Fillmore as he stared at the sunset. It was beautiful, to say the least. The sun slowly, but surely fell behind the Giant’s Mountains, as the System called it, as a gentle yellow and red light washed over the land. It was beautiful. He wished Clara was with him here, watching the sunset. But he was stuck with an old man, having to prove himself. It’d be two days after he came into the Calibration Stage tomorrow. Hopefully, his mother wouldn’t worry much —she should know what her husband and son were like.

“I’m almost fine,” said Sean, hopping on his legs lightly, “I can go now and cross them, like the plan.”

“You could, but I think you’ll be more useful here, hunter,” said Fillmore and put a wry grin on his face. It was almost sarcastic, but not at the same time. He truly believed that Sean was an order of magnitude greater a man after finding out he had a hunter’s blood. Why, he didn’t understand, but somehow they had this immeasurable respect for them, “There will be six of them up in the mountains and Helthur. There’ll be six or seven of them here. Doesn’t hurt your chances much. Just throws the element of surprise out the window. And if you had cut the bridge down, then perhaps we wouldn’t have been alive for much longer, I assume.”

“Any suggestions? Don’t tell me to aim for the head, or balls,” said Sean, cringing at the concept. Just about everything would die if their skulls were broken and if their hearts were pierced. Not that he was sure his Mana Balls would do that. The Burning Damage from the Revolving Mana Ball would most likely be the changer. He didn’t know how long the Mana Ball would hover when not used with a Push component and had tested that out —apparently five seconds in their exact location, but a hard enough impact had broken that. Fillmore hit it with a hammer and turned it into mist.

“Eyes, then,” said Fillmore and got up. They were visible from the distance. His kitchen window overlooked the direction of the mountain on which the giants resided, and from there they came. They were large, Fillmore didn’t lie about that. There was a lone tree or two out there, and they were shorter than the giants. If only he knew of their HP amounts, this would be a lot easier, “And the back of their neck and head. They’re weaker there, just like humans. They’re just oversized ones, don’t overthink it.”

Sean clutched his fists and said “Status” out loud, summoning the Character Screen. The System knew what he wanted and only showed him his HP and MP this time. Almost full, only 3 or so MP short of it. His HP was already full and he was overflowing with vigor. There was a tingly sensation running through his entire body, probably adrenaline. It’d be really convenient if he unlocked those three question marks during the fight to get some leverage during the fight.

“So the classic bullies,” said Sean out loud and cracked his knuckles. Not that he’d be using it. He wore leather armor over his jacket which wouldn’t really help, but Fillmore insisted. It only covered the chest, abdomen, and back area, and not the area exactly behind the arms where the shoulder blades were or the front side, allowing him freedom of movement. It felt like a cast more than armor, but Fillmore insisted that plate armor was worse, “Heh, I guess I’ll have to try my hand at standing up for others.”

He didn’t have his backpack right now, for he didn’t need it and he wore a belt with a scabbard hanging from it, which contained the dagger Fillmore had given him when he woke up —a dagger meant to be used for suicides now about to be used for murder. It didn’t make him feel easier knowing that they were giants. He’d still be taking lives, but he had to. Protecting those dear to him would be impossible if he was weak. He couldn’t just hide behind the laws if they were gone.

“Don’t get the village destroyed, if you can,” said Fillmore and grabbed his hammer. He would fight. At least that’s what he said. Giant or not, if you got hit by a hammer in the nose, chances were that you wouldn’t be unfazed. Especially if it was thrown at them. And Fillmore had a lot of hammers.

“Were they hidden well?” asked Sean as he pulled out his dagger. Casting a spell only needed a single hand at most, and he had two. It only made sense for him to have another one. As for the people of the village, they’d gotten the ingenious idea of hiding them in one of the uninhabited houses —the ones that the giants knew to be empty, using their own knowledge against them.

“I hope so. For all his big talk, Samson’s tucked in well,” said Fillmore, referring to Ashley’s dad. He’d bragged about having berserker’s blood, but when asked, no one wanted to volunteer for the fight. So two against six. Sean didn’t like his odds, but everyone knew the consequences. Ashley would be taken if they let the giants have their way, and then the next girl when she was of age. That’s what had happened for the last hundred years. The lucky ones returned, but most weren’t lucky. They were slowly dying off.

“Didn’t expect berserkers to be more afraid of death than hunters,” said Sean, now playing along. But it was unfair. Sean wouldn’t die, but Samson would. No matter how he had this absurd Vitality, he had a question for his father now. For some reason, everyone in the Calibration Stage believed so much in the hunters, as to sacrifice their livelihood for a plan that would most likely fail, “Well then. Let’s just hope that their HP isn’t that high. Would be a nightmare if they were tanks.”

They would be.

It took them around ten minutes to come to the village, laughing merrily. Just as Fillmore said mere minutes ago, they were oversized humans wearing fur clothes. It seemed to be a singular piece, so there existed animals on par with their size? That was a terrifying thought. A bear twice as large as a building would be far more terrifying than a human that was the size of one. They only had one chance at taking down two of them and dropping their numbers to a manageable level. Thankfully, there were five of them there. It’d be harder later on, with Helthur and 7 of his guards back at the mountain, but hopefully, they’d be separated and not together like this.

“Where is the girl?” asked a gruff voice far too deep to belong to a human, and loud, too. The duo couldn’t discern which one was speaking, as they were just too far. Fillmore wasn’t exaggerating. They were as large as a one-story building, roof-included, meaning they were a little over four meters tall. Twice as tall as Sean in height, but at least six times his frame in width, “We come to collect the girl.”

It was night now, finally dark. Stars glimmered in the sky, but Sean didn’t want to stargaze at the moment, no matter how beautiful the sky was. The moon was large, almost twice as large as the one back on Earth, making the night look glamorous and bright, as if there were streetlights. So much for hiding in the shadows of the night. Not that he could. Mana Balls were bright, at least in the dark.

The village had a radius of around 250 meters, with the buildings being more or less spaced out, located on small hills one by one or scattered in bunches of two or three. They were at one end, and they were still audible at the middle, where Fillmore’s house was. The duo didn’t have any lanterns or candles lit, and simply stared at them from within the house, waiting for them to split up. Guerrilla warfare would have to be executed perfectly for the two of them to survive.

With a distance of around 80 meters between them, Sean and Fillmore could technically sneak up on them if they were sneaky enough. But Sean didn’t like their odds.

“So… how do we do it?” asked Fillmore, clutching the duo of hammers in his hands with a white-knuckled grip, but his facial expression did not betray him, staying as stern as he could look. He’d taken off the straw hat, showing his overgrown, graying hair. The hat was for during the day, when there was a sun.

“I’ll get up on the roof and distract them,” said Sean. Fillmore’s house had two floors, and that meant that it was the tallest place in the town. There was another two-story house, but that wasn’t as large in terms of design, giving off the image of being small; but that house was too far away to matter, “Go and sneak through the shadows and try to take down whichever side is the least —the ones that charge or the ones that are left behind. Sorry. Just… try to do that, is what I meant.”

He became quite a bit more authoritative, almost like a commander, when he spoke. Maybe that was because he was one of the nerds in class that had the duty to assign duties to his assigned teammates back at school before he was finally forced to do it solo. Hopefully, Fillmore was more competent than some lazy bastards who thought they were big deals. Sean hated their kind.

What he was suggesting was to split up the giants in two and to take down the smaller side. But the emphasis was on the word ‘try’. The giants could wrestle grown men and berserkers, and Sean only hoped that magic would give him an edge against them. If it didn’t, they were done. Just in case, there were two horses at the ready, and the rest of the stables had been emptied —one of the village people had gathered all the horses and cattle and had herded them a fair distance away from the village, out in the plains where the giants would most likely not visit, giving off the image that they had evacuated while they hid right underneath their noses.

Now came the execution. Sean had already formulated a plan with Research. Focusing on the plan helped. He didn’t bother checking its effectiveness, but no matter what percentage it was, it gave him some time to think it through. The grayscale had almost become something instinctive for him, turning on whenever he focused on anything whether that be planning something or reading the Spellbook —there was nothing that could help him in it unless he had time to finish another 2 chapters, one of the many downsides of Theoretical Magic. Apparently, there were many spikes much later down the road, but not yet.

The plan was simple: to split them up as much as possible and pick them off one by one. Sean didn’t expect his mana to be enough to take down all the giants, but he could hopefully take two. He could use around 16 Mana Balls with the Push Variation, and considering the fight lasted a good 10 minutes, then he’d be able to recover enough to get enough Mana back to cast another one if he had any leftover. 4 for each. That was the preferred method. The others would hopefully retreat.

If he could run around just fine, it’d greatly help, but his ankle still hurt from the fall before —the most anti-climactic injury he’d gotten in his life, acting all big before he did the equivalent of falling down stairs to break his hands right before an important match. Only his absurd Vitality had saved him.

“Come out, humans,” sounded out the voice again as they scattered across the village and searched. That was their cue. It was somewhat intimidating when they weren’t visible when they walked behind a building and could pop up from anywhere, but the small thumps that sounded out when they walked would be enough to keep track of them.

“Change of plans. Let’s pick one of them up. The one that’s behind all the others,” said Sean and pointed at one of the giants. The village wasn’t very spaced together, and that was both a blessing and a curse in one. A blessing because they had many covers, and a curse because the distance between the covers was difficult to shift through, “Well. Time to slay them.”

They conveniently separated, giving Sean and Fillmore a chance to pick one of them up. But still, getting to them was a problem. Thankfully, the particular area they were in —the center— had quite a few buildings. If they moved well, then they could maneuver without being seen and sneak through the tall grass to catch them off guard.

“Ha, who knew that I’d be throwing hammers at giants one day,” said Fillmore as he walked to the door. He had leather armor as well, similar to Sean’s, but also a helmet. They had to be silent, but they were too far to hear them for now, so they could rest easy, “Me ol’ man wouldn’t have taught me smithing had he known that.”

The door creaked as it opened, and Sean’s heart pounded. It was like playing a horror game, except he would really die. Well… feel the pain. However, real-life would become a horror game soon enough. Or at least a survival game with mobs so hard to kill that it would be easier to commit suicide. And he had to adapt for that to protect those dear to him —to protect Clara. His family, Sean didn’t care much about. Probably his dad could protect his mother. Being the only child was great in situations like these.

And then they snuck around through the shadows. The moon was bright and shone down on them, but the cover of the night was still there, even if it was small. The shadows were just a bit darker than during the day, and that was exactly what they needed. They walked through the door, and slowly closed it. Now the giants were far closer, around 40 or so meters away from them.

No matter how meticulously planned the situation was, though, it was prone to errors if one was unlucky.

They were.

Before the plan even started, one of the giants saw them, and called for the others with a simple “They’re there!” When you were near a giant, you realized how small you were. It was the intimidation factor from fights against bigger guys, but that was magnified a hundred times —and you knew they’d kill you, for real, and in the most painful manner possible while crushing you.

“You only got one shot at this, kiddo,” said Fillmore as he twirled his hammer. It had a rope that stuck out its back, much like Mjolnir from the MCU, allowing him to spin it around. It was definitely not for forging and more for combat. This scene reminded Sean of the story of David and Goliath, and if a rock was dangerous enough, surely a hammer right in the nose would do its share, “We’ll take down at least one.”

Sean’s heart thumped and he could hear it. The giant was like a caveman, and the distance of around 20 meters they had between each other was halved in only 2 steps. Its sheer size made it large, and Sean couldn’t really outrun it even if he was fully alright. Just trying to evade its legs would be the best he could do. While running was possible, he was limping, putting more pressure in his right leg as his left was a tad bit painful —almost healed, he assumed.

And he simply thought, “Condensed Mana Ball: Push,” so used to the action and his Computation Skill helping him almost instantly create it —at least for him, it felt like an instant. The circles appeared from Sean’s outstretched finger-shaped in a gun shape as the giant hastily walked toward them. It was a walk and not a run! But he couldn’t lose focus. He then tapped on the circle and saw the mana ball appear.

One nice thing about the Mana Balls was that they were simply point-and-shoot projectiles. There was no recoil. It was created and propelled in the exact direction Sean was aiming at. Thus, the baseball-sized ball aimed itself at the face of the giant. It was large, and that made the giant fast when scaling a distance, but it seemed it wasn’t all that fast when it came to moving, as it did get hit by the Mana Ball and a puff of blue smoke appeared, covering its face —it wasn’t really smoke and more a gaseous form of Mana as it dispersed after it impacted something, not allowing Sean to see exactly where it hit.

“Now!” shouted out Sean, not caring about stealthiness. They’d been caught. And he obliged and spun around. The hammer was then thrown at the giant, flying at his face. After being struck by the Mana Ball, the giant was reaching out for them, most likely trying to grab the duo by bending forward, but that meant the hammer would hit even harder. And with a thump, hit it did.

Sean glimpsed to the side. The giants were coming. They had to move, and quick. But they also had to take down one of them —it was definitely more successful in his imagination. Being found so quickly wasn’t one of them. One thing that Sean liked about the System was that there was no cooldown, but his Mana didn’t have the same benefits as his Vitality. So he couldn’t necessarily hit and run. And he just wished he could take down two at least. Then three would be left, and could technically be intimidated.

“Ugh, you will pay,” said the giant as it held its nose. Wait… This one was debilitated. He was stumbling! That meant they could somewhat handle them by injuring them and whittling them down bit by bit. But not being able to finish them was sad.

“Fillmore, grab your hammer. Let’s go for another one,” said Sean hastily and ducked right underneath the giant. The pain was there, but he couldn’t care less. The adrenaline rush took care of that. Even without knowing, Sean had donned a grin as he ran. As he ran underneath the giant, Sean tried to slash his shins in passing, and found that he could pierce the skin but the flesh underneath —the muscles—were far too tough to cut. Not without great effort or strength.

After he crossed the giant and looked back, though, Fillmore had been left behind, throwing his other hammer. Sean saw him panting. Was his stamina really that bad?

“Come on!” shouted out Sean, hoping that he’d come. But another giant appeared behind Fillmore, even as he grabbed the hammer he threw first and slammed it into the nearing hand of the giant.

“I’ll stall for you. Now go!” he shouted back, and Sean let out a deep breath. He’d been developing a sort of friendship with the man, and he couldn’t just leave him behind. Then the three others were sighted, coming closer. Screw this! If there were only three, perhaps it’d have been manageable, but it wasn’t, “I have to make amends.”

“Fillmore,” said the giant behind him with venom seething through his teeth, “Did you not learn your lesson all those years ago? No man can defeat us. Certainly not a boy like that.”

The giant they’d assaulted had slumped forward, holding his head. Three hammers thrown to the head would affect anything. Sean was jealous. If he was able to do that, then he wouldn’t worry about Mana too much. But the magic was what defined him —what made him unique.

Sean then thought. The muscles were tough, but what about the areas without? The bones would undoubtedly be sturdy to support their immense weight, but that didn’t mean their veins and arteries would be hard. Cutting the wrist could work. But that seemed far too impractical. He had 15 Mana Balls left.

The world itself took over a gray hue as Sean opened his book. It was so close —he could almost feel the growth. Just one more page, and he’d get access to something good. Or so he hoped. And he found nothing, then turned to the Table of Contents.

 

 

He found the Explosion Component far, far from where he was currently at, studying the concept of inputs for the System. It was exactly what he needed, but he couldn’t use it without understanding the time component, or the sensory component. That’s what the book said, but Sean knew otherwise. He could, but it would be dangerous. No mage would explode something right in their face. But Sean had an advantage over them —his Vitality. It was a wild gamble, but a necessary one.

The grayscale faded as Sean let go of the status screen of the Spellbook and caught the giants still berating Fillmore. And he simply rushed toward them.

“Your so-called savior is paralyzed,” said one of the giants, the one that was squatting. It was a bald one, with a nasty scar across his cheek, pointing at Sean. But then the giant noticed Sean rushing at him, the dagger sheathed. All 5 of them were there, with one of sitting, leaning on a nearby house. Two of them stood behind the squatting giant, who was in the opposite direction from Sean —the ones that had come from behind Fillmore. The last one was standing to the side, encasing Fillmore against the building the injured one was leaning on. His face had three nasty bruises.

Sean then jumped at the squatting giant. He was close to the ground, and that was why Sean had selected this one. The giant tried to grab him while he was mid-air, but Sean pointed a finger gun at him first. He readied a Mana Ball: Push, but he didn’t let the mana escape his finger to create the circles. Then he added the Explosion Component. It was an interesting one, far more complicated than the others.

It was a triangle that hit the outer circle, one that overlapped with the triangle from the Mana Release Circle. And there was a circle contained within a triangle, much like an incircle taught back in high school. Then three lines were there, connecting the middle of the triangle’s sides with the outer circle. Sean quite literally poured his Mana into it, supercharging it with almost half of it. At least he thought he was doing it.

This time, he didn’t need to ‘tap’ it, as he was jumping forward and the momentum let him touch it while moving forward after the circles were created. They were currently inept, but in a moment, it wouldn’t be so. The Mana Ball first appeared right before the giant’s eyes, devouring its own circle for energy to create a basketball-sized ball of Mana. It was denser now that his Intelligence had increased. Push was applied and forced the ball to start moving forward, but for some reason, it was held back.

And then Explosion was applied.

The circle touched the Mana Ball and said ball devoured the mana that made up the circle for energy and lit up brightly, then shot forward the moment the third circle was activated. A notification popped up, but it was nigh-instantly shot away. He’d check later, if he survived. And he was pretty sure Computation wasn’t applied.

Then the world was filled with light.

Sean was shot away, pain coursing through his bones. He’d managed to bring his forearms and knees in front of him before he was hit by the explosion, but the giant wasn’t as lucky. Most of the energy from the explosion was used to send Sean flying away, but even then, his forearms seemed to be broken —thankfully not knees or the shin. At least they hurt like they were. Over ten meters away, Sean hit the ground with a thud. It was dirt, not concrete, thankfully. But his back still ached. Right… better recovery, bad durability.

As for what happened to the giant wasn’t gore like Sean had imagined. The giant was simply… lying there, unconscious. Blood poured from his head in several places. The pain was great, but the adrenaline hadn’t left him just yet, so he could manage. Using only his feet, first getting up on his knees, and later up to his feet, Sean finally climbed back to a standing position.

“There’s a lot more where that came from!” he shouted and then pointed his finger at them. Fractured bones hurt when moved, and Sean winced slightly, but not enough to be visible from the distance of 10 meters. And bluffing his way through to the end, Sean extended his hands, as if to hug, but a little bit lower, “Come then.”

The giants slowly, but surely, backed away. The injured one was pulled up to his feet casually and thrown over one of their shoulders. Getting hit by one of them would be certain death, even more so than an explosion. At least Sean had protected himself, and the giant was spectacularly unlucky. Probably a brain injury or a cracked skull. The dead one was left behind.

Sean kept standing for a good while as they left, aiming to look all tough. Only when they faded from sight did he finally fall down, but this time, he didn’t support himself up —broken arms. He’d just have to depend on his Vitality now. And he was exhausted. Were fights this exhausting? Probably not. Mana something something…

He got another notification and looked at it.

 

The System sure worked fast. Not that he was complaining. But then he remembered about the other one. Sean didn’t even notice that the world was grayscale now, the effects of Research sneaking into his life and embedding itself as an ever-present part of it. The other Skill Notification seemed to be a great upgrade to his arsenal, and albeit flawed, it was useful for a last resort. But it wouldn’t be easily usable later on, when his magic grew more powerful and he could potentially easily kill himself from the impact rather than being damaged.

 

 

He didn’t even notice Fillmore who’d come to tug at him, and fell asleep —his Mana had been depleted.