Living Life As A Game: Through And Through 35 Brutal First Blood

About a minute into Elizabeth's Dirt Bullet Forging, Elizabeth completed her first real piece of ammunition.

[Forging Skill Actualized!

+500 Forging Exp

Forging Level 0 → Level 2 (500/625)

Description: The art of manipulating base materials, reinforcing and tempering them to create armaments of imminent power.

Current Effect: Armaments and ammunition forged by the user come out 20% more powerful.

Status

Name: Basic Loose Soil Dirt Bullet

Grade: Low-tier Mortal Grade Bullet

Description: Crafted by the user, this is a piece of magical ammunition imbued with Inner Strength and various Sub-Basic level principles of the path of forging. Tis the first piece of ammunition that the user has created which one could call a forged product.

Effects: Damages ent.i.ties up to Level 15. Typically fatal to beings Level 5 and below.]

"Strange… This dirt bullet is just as powerful as an iridium bullet? Why?" Elizabeth looked puzzled as she tried piecing together how it was possible for common dirt to be as powerful as dense Iridium.

"Here's a hint… Why did your Forging Skill appear now?" P's disappointed voice rained down from the ether.

"Mhmm..." Elizabeth stopped moving as if to contemplate the issue with all her energy. Her actions only further stimulated the beasts scattered around her as their prey stood eerily static; it was definitely not the kind of behavior their undeveloped brains expected as Elizabeth — a random, unheard of, ent.i.ty — within the forest — their domain — didn't stop to eat.

Slowly, they crept up closer and closer to Elizabeth, making as little noise as possible. Eventually, Elizabeth reached the conclusion that her dirt bullet managed come out as powerful as the iridium bullet she had "forged" earlier because unlike the iridium bullet, Elizabeth actually completely refined the dirt in the forging process. For a material as weak and common as dirt, though she did manage to completely refine it into a bullet, her Inner Strength was barely exhausted in the process, and the time taken was also considerably shorter. It goes to show the vast difference between materials of different degrees of refinement.

After coming to that conclusion, Elizabeth fumbled with her purse to bring out one of her pistols. She pulled out her cyan-black Dawnbringer and then stared at the gun for a couple seconds wondering how she would load in the bullet. Her pistols weren't exactly revolver-types and she didn't have any magazines or clips on hand to store the bullets. So once more, she stood wondering how magical guns worked.

"Inner Strenght…." A haunting voice startled Elizabeth as P was getting tired of giving hints the normal way.

Elizabeth squinted her eyes as she noticed P becoming increasingly causal or maybe even familiar with her the more the two of them interacted. She stopped her overt staring and followed through with the suggestion to use Inner Strength and the craziest thing happened. From her hands, as the white coating of energy that represented her Inner Strength came into contact with Dawnbringer, from the base of the gun's grip, an illusionary and translucent magazine materialized as the gun took in about 50 units of Inner Strength.

Elizabeth wasn't exactly a gun nut, but she did have a general understanding of how guns worked. There were several prevalent RPGs that she had previously played that had once inspired some fanaticism towards guns within her, but after the 20th shooter rpg, the concept of instantaneous long range combat lost its that initial spark.

However, during that honeymoon period where she had practically swooned over the various cool and shiny guns within the rpgs, she begged her parent to take her to a shooting range to experience what she considered to be pure awesomeness realized. Back then, at the tender age of just ten years old, she went to shoot for the first time, but the experience was less amazing than she imagined.

Sure, there were grandiose feeling of power after every pull of the trigger. But real life was just not as fun as the hyperbolic versions of reality she had come to love within the world of video games. Wherein a game of GTA or Saints Row, guns would cause all sorts of wacky mayhem, shooting in real life would just be a loud, slow, methodical, and worst of all, a tiring process.

There were all sorts of rules she had to follow in the private gun range her parents had secured to teach her how to shoot and experiencing first hand the effects of Newton's third law every time the recoil of a pistol struck her arms ruined her imagination of real life shooting as a recreational activity. How could there be chaotic explosions and total anarchy when she was confined to such a tepid locale?

In any case, Elizabeth didn't stick around with the real world aspect of shooting as she was more than content with her western and shooter rpgs. But, because of her past experience, she now knew to use the magazine release to get access to the clip she had created out of her own Inner Strength.

Elizabeth took out the magazine and loaded it with the dirt bullet she had just made before putting it back into her Dawnbringer. As she clicked the magazine back into place and c.o.c.ked the gun to chamber the round, a bit more of her Inner Strength was consumed as the bullet changed ever so slightly to match the barrel of the pistol. Elizabeth didn't know whether the bullet came out too large or too small, as only with more experience would she get the feel for exactly how large the bullets she created ought to be.

Then… as she looked down the sights of Dawnbringer thinking of where to test out what kind of power a measly dirt bullet would produce… Whoosh! From behind her, three ugly feral-looking wiener dogs shot out of the bushes, clawing and biting at her before she could react.

Pain. Searing and sharp pain shot through Elizabeth's body as two of the dogs hung from her body. One had its teeth embedded through the flesh and muscles of her free arm, while the other took hold, attached to the leg on the opposite side. The last wild dog bit through the soft flesh on the side of her waist, failing to latch on to Elizabeth to tire her out. It had had begun swiping with its claws at her leg to further escalate the damage her body had accrued.

Surprisingly, Elizabeth didn't scream in pain as the adrenaline coursing through her veins drowned the worst of the pain she should have felt. Upon noticing the dogs that were such viciously attacking her, apart from the initial panic she felt from the unsuspecting situation unfolding before her, Elizabeth almost completely abandoned what made her a human, attacking and flailing around like a frightened beast in fight or flight.

Her reaction finally registered as normal behavior to the three hostile dogs as they had seen time and time again through their hunting session the cycle of preys fighting back in futility as they were exhausted and bled to death. However, Elizabeth animalistic state of mind only took hold for a short two seconds before, the last shred of intellect she possessed convinced her body to start utilizing the weapon she currently had on hand.

To the dog that hung from her right calf, Elizabeth didn't hesitate to press Dawnbringer barrel right atop its skull and pull the trigger. Bam! A loud gunshot startled both the other two dogs, but didn't stop them from continuing to either hang from Elizabeth's arm or claw at her lower body. The dog that previously had its teeth dug into Elizabeth's leg had half its head destroyed, but consequent to having half its teeth blown out, Elizabeth's leg was further damaged from the dog's teeth which acted almost like a grenade after being shattered and blown up.

Wincing in pain from furthering the damage to her leg, Elizabeth stumbled back a single pace, but not without taking a moment to pistol whip the other dog which hung from her arm. The blow from being struck by Dawnbringer backed by Elizabeth's flaring Inner Strength imbued +20 Strength was more than enough to knock the dog from its ensnaring position. Though, the action of forcefully knocking the dog off her, tore a large gash where the dog once hung as it previously had its sharp teeth firmly pressing against her flesh, continuing this cycle of taking a hit for every hit she dealt.

Yet, the acc.u.mulating pain Elizabeth was experiencing from the damage she kept aggregating acted against expectation. Instead of causing fear, dread, and panic, each subsequent moment Elizabeth experienced thinking that her life was in true danger, the colder and more sinister her actions became.

Elizabeth took a deep breath as she cemented the image of these dogs that caused her to feel like death was around the corner. Not a single verbal tick had escaped her lips throughout this encounter, and unlike in the beginning where she was surprised, the dead fish-like eyes she had at the moment accompanied with an expression that looked uncannily neutral for the situation at hand, conveyed that she probably wouldn't yell or scream no matter what happened.

Elizabeth stared at the dogs and the dogs stared back. On one side a greenhorn Quasi Time Mage was devolving emotionally as she reached into her bag while dead-eyeing the beasts before her. While opposite to her, the two remaining beasts were cautiously eyeing their prey back as they grew alert with their companion's death. The beasts weren't intelligent enough to understand how or why their fellow beast had half its head blown off, but they knew that it was due to the unfamiliar prey before them.

The standoff between Elizabeth and the two remaining dogs continued until, Elizabeth had her Inferioria blade on hand. With only thoughts of eliminating the threat before her, Elizabeth shot with ghostly speed; she was much faster than even before she was injured. And with a reckless slash of her blade, the dog that she had previously pistol whipped had its body skewered by her blade.

At the same moment Elizabeth attacked though, the other dog jumped at her quite high from the ground apparently aiming for her neck or face. With the boost her blade granted to speed, Elizabeth managed to ground herself in time to narrowly dodge the pouncing dog's evidently scary canines. But as she escaped having her face mauled, the dog she impaled with her blade flailed around trying to escape. Though its actions only furthered the damage it had sustained by further opening up the wounds to its impaled organs.

This was Elizabeth first rodeo with dangerous and hostile beings, so she though the dog was still very much a threat. And though she could have just thrown it to the side and let it succ.u.mb to its injuries, that sociopathic side to her fight aspect in fight-or-flight mode reared its ugly head and she did the unthinkable… the unspeakable… the grotesque…

She tossed the almost dead feral dog right beneath her and stomped it to death in what could only be described as disturbingly brutal. Granted, though the dogs death was horrific and bordering across immoral, it was still a quick and "mostly" painless death. At least it didn't have to slowly feel its life snuff out through exhaustion and bleeding.

The last dog, at this point grew a bit fearful of Elizabeth. It had already witness two of its companions die horrific deaths even though their prey was noticeably smaller than the largest organism their group of three had conquered. And watching the hypnotic swaying Elizabeth was displaying only further convinced the instinct driven dog to flee. Flee as if death was hovering behind Elizabeth. So… flee it did, as it couldn't tell that Elizabeth's swaying had less to do with a display of being fine, and more that she was already at the brink of collapse.