Matt was excited. He had never really gotten a chance to test his abilities if you didn’t count the encounter he had with the beta testers. This was the first time he was actually using his strength, although only a portion of it. If he went all out, they wouldn’t end up in a good state.

He didn’t like harming people so every hit he made on the thugs was calculated to just incapacitate them. He just guessed how much strength he needed to use and it seemed about right.

‘4 more left.’

He had been taking them out one after another to the horror of everyone there, besides him. Ned was staring with his mouth open. In reality, it had only been around 10 seconds since Matt started his assault, which barely gave Ned or the other criminals time to react in any way.

In just a few seconds, he had taken out over half of the entire group. This was the scary power of a system user. Even Matt was a bit surprised. He had acted so fast that he had only just noticed a notification flashing in the corner of his view.

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[New Quest]

Defeat Ned’s group [5/9]

[Reward: +1 Skill Shard, +5 Unassigned Stat Points, +60xp]

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‘Decent rewards, maybe too good for how easy this is.’

As he said that, he heard a gunfire. He felt a sharp pain in his shoulder as a bullet hit him.

[-10 HP]

‘Shit, I forgot about the guns.’

Matt looked over and saw one of the men pointing a gun at him, shaking with fear. He must’ve gathered enough of his senses to use it. Matt saw the man aiming at him again with trembling hands and quickly put up his storage in the way.

Like before, the bullet quietly sunk into his spacial storage, which only struck more fear into the man, not understanding how it didn’t hit. He dropped his gun and ran away shouting and crying.

‘No, you don’t, I can’t lose out on the rewards’

Matt zoomed after him, only causing the poor criminal more terror. Before Matt could even reach him, the man collapsed, having fainted.

‘Well, I guess that works.’

He turned back to the rest of the group, but something caught his eye.

Defeat Ned’s group [5/9]

‘It didn’t change?’

He was about to get really confused, but the answer came quickly. One of the men he had knocked down was slowly getting up.

‘Ah, makes sense. So, theoretically, if I take them all down, even if temporarily, I still get the rewards. Strange system.’

He zoomed back toward the group, and at this point, everyone was running. Even Ned. He had lost all of his earlier bravado and realized he had basically dug his own grave. He was running as fast as he could, not even thinking about his co-criminals.

Matt observed the group around him. 2 of them had dropped their weapons and ran, 1 he had knocked down before and was now up and running as well, and finally Ned had made it the farthest, sprinting like there was no tomorrow.

‘I feel kinda bad for hunting them down like this…’

Matt knew they attacked him first, but he felt silly feeling bad. But he didn’t like to think of himself as a ruthless type. Though, he wasn’t going to miss out on the rewards. Either way, he wasn’t hurting them that bad.

‘I’m much faster than them, so I’m not going to worry about them getting too far away.’

He decided to start with the closest one to him, which was the gang member he had already knocked down. Matt sped toward him, grabbed his top and bottom, and spun him horizontally, causing him to fly a few feet, flipping head over heel.

The man wiped out onto the ground and the quest marker updated once again.

[6/9]

Next, he flew toward the two that were running behind Ned and simply slammed them into each other with both hands. Sadly they had been running close together, so it was simple. They both collapsed and the quest updated once more.

[8/9]

Ned had heard the sound of one of his comrade’s footsteps stop as he heard a thump against the ground behind him. From Matt’s perspective, it was just a quest, and he knew he wasn’t harming them. But from Ned’s view, he was in a horror movie and in this moment he assumed everyone Matt had taken out was dead.

Ned looked back and saw a dark figure like a demon grab the two last men and smash them into each other like he was closing a book. Ned was crying and running like a baby deer.

“Mommy!”

Ned had reverted to his base instincts and put on a shameful display. Calling out to his mother who wasn’t even there like a child. Matt just stood there and watched as he ran.

‘Sorry man. Gotta finish the quest.’

He knew that after this, there was no way his identity was safe. He just hoped the thugs wouldn’t tell a system user, though he doubted they knew a system user or knew what a system was. But it was always possible the word could spread.

‘I’m not a killer though, so it’ll have to do.’

He had needed to get stronger anyway, so it didn’t matter. He was just on a time limit now. He never liked lying or being secretive either, so he was fine with being known, as long as he had the ability to fight off anyone who attempted to take him down.

‘Looks like I’m going to be busy.’

He casually drifted over to Ned and gave him a good smack, causing him to fly a few feet and faceplanting onto the ground. Matt wasn’t sure how the quest counted as a defeat since he knew they weren’t unconscious. Using force to knock someone unconscious was dangerous and potentially lethal, so he tried to avoid that during this fight.

‘It’s probably if they lost their will to fight, and are taken down.’

He saw Ned trembling on the ground as his quest updated again.

__________

[Quest Complete]

Defeat Ned’s group [9/9]

+1 Skill Shard, +5 Unassigned Stat Points, +60xp [XP 124/172]

__________

-

-

-

-

-

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||Stats||

Name: Matt Peterson

Age: 18

LVL: 4 [XP 124/172]

HP | 40/40

MP | 0/0

Status Effects: +10% Speed, +10% Defense, +10% Physical Combat Skill Damage

-

||Attributes||

[Stat Points]: +5

[Str] - 3o

[Con] - 19

[Agi] - 24

[Dex] - 14

[Int] - 20

[Luk] - 13

[Cha] - 10

-

||Skills||

[Skill Points]: 1

Inspect [LV.2], Map [LV.2], Help [LV.2], Storage [LV.1], Mind Palace [LV.1] (Cooldown: 20 Hours), Self Defense [LV.2], Boxing [LV.2], Karate [LV.2], Kung Fu (Unspecialized) [LV.2], Wrestling [LV.1], Judo [LV.1], Kickboxing [LV.1], Interpersonal Communication [LV.1], Basic Survival [LV.1], Running [LV.2], Freerunning [LV.2], Message [LV.1], Crafting [LV. 1]

-

||Quests||

-General-

Reach LVL 5 [4/5] [Reward: +10 Unassigned Stat Points, +1 Artifact]

Compete in an event and win [Reward: +1 All Stats, +75xp]

-

-Daily-

*Daily quests not available in beta*

 

||Equipped||

Feet: Sports Shoes of Bursting Speed (Ability: Speed Burst)

 

||Storage||

-Items [4/25]-

Used Bullet +1 [2], Gun [1], Knife [1], Smart Phone [1]

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