Chapter Forty-Two - Bleeding a Little

Chapter Forty-Two - Bleeding a Little Fighting skeletons turned out to be both hard, and kind of easy. They had no vital organs, nothing to stab, and nothing to shoot. I supposed that a shot that hit their spine and blew it up might do the trick, but I wasn't going to bet on my ability to hit something so small, even from up close. The skeleton ahead of me swung in a wide arc that I leapt back to avoid, then it shifted back into a simple fighting stance. It knew swordfighting stances? That wasn't great. There was a heavy clunk to my side as Miss Ojou deflected a blow from the hammer-wielding skeleton with the crowbar. "Do something!" she snapped. That was a fair point. I waited until the skeleton swung a second time. The plan was to dip in right after and get into striking range. I didn't expect the skeleton to abort its attack mid-swing, take a step forwards, then chop from a different angle. I gasped as rusty metal met the flesh of my hastily-raised forearm. The sword had cut right into the material of my coat and I think I felt it hit bone. The pain rang through me like vibrations through a gong, and I felt like I was about to lose my lunch. Then the skeleton yanked the sword back and the pain flared up. Shit. If I didn't do something, I was dead. So I did something, running up and into the skeleton's guard and swinging up with a wild left hook. The undead monster ate that on its jaw. It hurt my knuckles, but its jaw shut with a hard click and a few teeth went scattering away. I dove in, grabbed it by the forearm and pulled while swinging my leg around to tip it off balance. The skeleton weighed, unsurprisingly, very little compared to a normal person. In most sparring I'd done, the advantage of weight wasn't on my side. I flipped the skeleton over, then landed on it in a standard grapple, then I struck it in the skull with a quick jerk of my knee. The skeleton started to fall apart. First one arm popping out of its socket, then its skull disconnected from its body. Its legs continued to kick out, but I rolled over it and got to my feet, then gave the skeleton a swift kick in the ribs that sent it tumbling deeper into the room. Then I heard the zombie, the one I'd kicked earlier, stumbling over. "God, dammit," I swore before dipping down and picking up the skeleton's sword. Zombie or the other skeleton? Miss Ojou was backing up, running a small circuit of the room while the hammer skeleton made wide, wild swings at her that more often than not ended up striking a shelf or a wall. The zombie was closer. But... stabbing it was gross. So I waited until it was even closer, then kicked it in the chest again before running over to the skeleton fighting Miss Ojou. It might have sensed me coming, or... heard me? How did that work when it had no organs? In any case, the skeleton swung the hammer around in a wide arc that almost struck me, but I retaliated quickly, smashing the sword down onto it with more enthusiasm than skill. Soon, it was a pile of twitching bones on the ground. "We need to keep moving," I said. "You're bleeding," Miss Ojou said. I glanced down at my arm, then swore. That was a lot of blood. Now that I was paying attention, I also felt rather faint. "Damn. Okay, we check the next room, at least," I said, gesturing to the door opposite the one we'd come in from. There were four doorways in this room. The archway leading into the passage we'd come from, and then one door in each cardinal direction. One one had a lit torch, and something told me that was a sign of some sort. "Ah, this isn't good," I said. "What's behind that door?" Miss Ojou stared. "You're going to bleed out," she said. "Curiosity first," I replied. Behind the door, as it turned out, didn't have much. A long corridor with stone walls. There were a few... very old looking gurreys, with what were possibly corpses on them, but they were covered by cloth. I went in, closed the door behind us, then fumbled around to find my first aid kit. "Might still make something of this loop," I said. "We need to scout as much as we can." "What are you talking about?" she asked. The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there. "Ah, too hard to explain. Help me bandage this up?" She did help, though I could tell she wasn't at all pleased with getting any amount of blood on her pretty nails. I winced as I tightened the bandages as much as I could. It would reduce my range of motion a little, but it was better than bleeding out. If it wasn't for the knowledge-gaining opportunities, I'd have Reloaded already. This shit hurt. The corridor we were in seemed empty enough, so once I had taken a moment to breathe, I decided to continue. Miss Ojou and I traded weapons. She got that sword and I got the warhammer. "A saber," she said, swinging the sword. "I think cavalry, British, or French, from the 17th century or thereabouts." "You know your swords," I said. "I've never fenced with something like this, but I can adapt," she said. "How's your wound?" "Grevious," I said. "Let's keep moving." We did just that, only for about a dozen steps though, before one of the blankets on those old wooden gurneys was ripped aside and a skeletal arm reached out and grabbed me. Stumbled back, then started wailing into the undead with the hammer. No grace, just lots of hard smacks. That did do the trick, but by the time I'd turned the one into a heap of loose bones, three more had climbed off their own gurneys and were rushing at us. They were unarmed, which was a positive, but they were also suicidal and already dead. Miss Ojou and I were almost overwhelmed, but she managed a strike that took off one undead's head, and then I set all martial prowess aside and just started swinging. It kind of worked, actually. Soon, we were both panting next to a heap of still-twitching bones. Then I heard it. Someone, or someones, moving behind us. "Shit, let's move," I said. I reached out, grabbed Miss Ojou by the hand, then started running. We barged into the next room. It was a morgue of some sort. There were a dozen more undead here. Something like eight zombies and four skeletons. They turned towards us, but I was moving already. There was only one door in this room, a big set of double-doors made of old wood with iron bands across it. I ripped the door open, aware of the approaching undead, then continued running. The corridor widened, the carved stone blocks replaced as we moved by raw stone. A second door was ahead, and I barged into and through it. This time, we were in a cave, not massive, but not tiny either. There was a tomb to one side. Standing guard on either side of it were two more undead. One of them a skeleton, still wearing boots and a steel cap and a rotting gambeson. The undead had a quiver at its hip and a crossbow in hand. On the other side was another in armour, but the gear was of higher quality. Gloves, greaves, old leather boots, a kettle helm and rusty iron breastplate, and a long halberd. Around its neck was a chain on which hung a shiny silver key. To our right, a door. A nice one, all polished, if old, wood, with a faded family crest painted on it. Two green torches on either side, both spitting and hissing. The boss room, then. I heard a crash behind me, then the rattle of automatic fire. Yup, we were screwed. So I Reloaded. Being back home was sometimes so jarring. Still, it was nice to not have my arm burning. I rubbed at it while I turned back and returned to my apartment. That last loop had taught me a ton. I was fighting undead, I now knew where the boss room was, and what I had to face to get there. I'd also figured out how to get past the guards. All good stuff. Now to supplement all of that with some good old research. There were databases of common portal world monsters, and the undead weren't that uncommon, even if they were widely considered a D-rank threat. They were mostly annoying because normal small-arms weren't as effective against them. Magic, on the other hand, was exceptionally strong against the undead. Too bad I didn't have fireballs to fling around. I sat at my laptop and booted it up. Time for some theory crafting, then I'd run over to the warehouse and put that to the test. This loop and the next would be more scouting, and then... I think I had a good chance to get things done perfectly. Everything was in place, I just needed to assemble it correctly. ***