Dual System: Ascension of A Nameless Nobody

"Yeah! Get out of here, firehead!" Reggie yelled out.

For some reason, that comment struck a chord within him as he was almost going to leave, but that was the deciding factor as he slid his hands out of his pockets.

"...'Firehead'?" He repeated.

Reggie looked at him with a raised eyebrow, "Got a problem with that, redhead?!"

He sighed out, cracking his knuckles as he entered the alleyway, which seemed to strike fear into the two bullies as it looked as though they finally noticed his level.

"Only friends get to call me that," he said, "And you two aren't any friends of mine."

Another reason he chose to fight was one he'd never admit: he wanted to get some exercise so he'd be tired enough to fall asleep through his friends' snoring.

Trevor stepped back, "--Crap! Level twenty-eight?! This guy's insane!"

As the two thugs were confronted by the so-called "firehead", the bullied player used the opportunity to duck out of the alleyway, hiding around the corner but opting to witness what was about to go down.

Gritting his teeth, Reggie, the one who seemed to call the shots between the two thugs, held his ground, "Fuck it! You don't scare me! You don't even have your weapon out! And there's two of us, right?!"

Trevor was hesitant to join in, bue nodded while sweating, "R-right!"

The two thugs manifested their weapons, standing side-by-side and staring him down nervously, but ready. The one with the half-shaved head, Reggie, wielded a smooth club that was forged out of what looked like hexagonal-designed cobalt; the club was large and definitely capable of packing a punch.

Trevor manifested a flail into his grip; the spikeball had crimson spikes that spiraled like a drill.

A club and a flail? Interesting, he thought.

He neglected to manifest his full armor nor his daggers, simply relying on his fists as he kept his hands down.

"Huh?!" Trevor let out.

Reggie scoffed, "Bastard has a death wish! Whatever! We won't kill ya–but we'll beat ya half to death until ya give us your coins!"

It wasn't a concept he'd run into before, that being people robbing others for their angel coins, but it wasn't surprising in the slightest that it existed.

"Raagh!" The sour-faced thug roared out, "Try and dodge this!"

The flail was launched forward as its chain extended and its velocity amplified like a bullet.

With his heightened reflexes, forged from countless life-or-death encounters, to him it moved in slow-motion. As he had leveled up, so did the optimization of his Sage System.

Comparatively, if the level twenty-one thug who launched the flail was able to world in [120 Frames Per Second] then he could see in [1200 Frames Per Second]—this difference allowed him to casually evade the spiked ball with a simple movement of his head.

"Wha-!?" Trevor let out.

As the flail missed, zipping by his head, he reached up and grabbed onto the chain with a vice grip.

Trevor tried pulling the flail back, but the chain didn't budge against the fingers of the red-haired assassin.

"Pull it back already!" Reggie yelled.

"I'm tryin'! This fucker is strong!" Trevor yelled back.

Tugging on the extended chain, the scar-faced player's dismayed expression suddenly shifted into a wicked smile.

"—?l" He looked at the man.

"Gotcha!" Trevor announced, "Cast: Eel Chain!"

Surging through the length of the metal links, electricity was birthed as a blue light emitted into the dark alleyway.

"Hah! Served the arrogant fuck right!" Reggie smirked.

"Got him! Let's take—" Trevor started speaking, but stopped.

The celebrations of the low-life players, who certainly didn't lead much of an honest path going by the way they seemed to take joy in the act of violence on their own kin, died out as quick as it came.

"—Is that all? A few volts isn't anything," he said.

[Health: -10 | 3540/3550]

It was the sheer difference in levels that made the resulting attack from the much lower assailants negligible, at best. Unlike him, a gap in levels couldn't be summoned by them with the usage of combined skills.

"Huh!? Bullshit! It's not fair!" Trevor complained.

"Not fair? You've been ganging up on people, and you're talking about fair? If you took any time to understand how to use your skills properly, maybe that would've done some damage, but—you're just novices," he said.

"What're you doing!?" Reggie yelled at his companion, "Shock him more!"

"I—Gkk!"

The flail-class player was suddenly yanked forward by the superior strength of the curly-haired assassin, who pulled him into the air by their shared hold of the chain and dragged him straight towards the fist he reared back.

"Oh crap—!" Trevor yelled.

With a powerful uppercut thats force was aided by the direction the thug fell into his fist, the resulting impact unleashed an echo of his knuckles meeting the man's chin.

The single, pivotal blow was more than enough to make the man's eyes roll behind his head and his body to go limp as he landed on the ground, unconscious and drooling.

[Martial Arts Proficiency: Boxing: +1 | 2/9999]

Reggie sweated, glancing at his knocked-out partner, "…Shit! You're useless, Trevor! Always leaving it to me to finish this crap!"

Holding his hand out, the thug cast an unheard of spell: "Cast: Veil!"

Around the alleyway, a curtain embedded itself that canceled out any noise from within and made them invisible to any outside eyes.

The club-wielding thug held his weapon up and stomped his boot down, invoking a crimson aura that clad itself on his body like an amplifying armor.

"Cast: Ogre Presence!" Reggie yelled out.

Fully invoked, the full-manifestation of the spell caused the man's size to grow as his muscles bulked up and his complexion reddened with veins pressing against his skin.

It wasn't just the man's body; the mystical aura swirled around the club, causing it to enlarge as spiky protrusions stretched out along its brutal appearance.

Reggie growled, "I'm gonna to pulverize ya!"

The voice of the figure had become distorted as if two voices were overlapping; his own and a deeper, malevolent force that laced his words with concentrated violence.

"Are you done powering up?" He asked.

"Shut yer mouth—!!!"

Spiking up, the man's hair, or what was left of it, stood up in the presence of the violent aura as he stomped forward.

Watching from around the corner, Yun was shaking in fear, but not for himself as the aura of the club-wielder caused his glasses to tremble.

Get out of here…You'll die!…Reggie isn't normal! His level is misleading! He was infamous in my region—he's got the "Berserker System!" Yun thought.

Though the boy stricken with cowardice could only say such words in his mind as fear had stayed his tongue.

Still, there wasn't any shift in the red-haired man's demeanor; worry didn't exude from his calm self as he opted to continue without summoning his gear still.

Stomping forward, Reggie looked at him with his eyes that lost their pupils and an expression contorted in absolute rage before raising his club.

"I decided—I'm gonna smash you into red paste!" Reggie proclaimed.

"Go ahead and try," he replied,

His unaffected response seemed only to stoke the unending fire of the man's magical rage as he slammed the spiky club downwards towards his head.

Though the massive weapon was swung down, it only met with a solid impact once hitting the stone floor below.

"Huh!?" Reggie let out.

Blinded by rage, the man was unaware of the assassin's slippery nature, who blinked behind him.

"You're not going to hit me by just swinging like a toddler," he said.

The words that came from behind caused the berserker to swing around with a roar, spinning his club around at the same time, but failing to hit the curly-haired man again. This time, he ducked beneath the club while keeping his emerald eyes locked on Reggie before countering with a straight kick straight to the man's gut.

"Pyuh!" Reggie gasped, sliding back a few feet.

Though there was definitely some level of hubris that guided him not to summon his daggers nor his armor, the main reason was that a perfect opportunity to cultivate his martial arts proficiency opened up to him.

While Reggie definitely was somebody he could defeat, it wasn't as though he was completely immune to losing, should he let his guard down completely. Leaving himself only with his fists added another level of pressure that made raising his proficiencies possible.

"—I ain't feeling a damn thing!" Reggie spewed a palpable lie before rushing in again.

This time, he wordlessly swept the initiative from right beneath the berserk's boots as he closed in with a blink, entering the personal space of the man, who was midway through swinging his club back.

Using leopard-style shaolin kung-fu, he rapidly hit the man in the throat and armpits within a moment, canceling out his assault instantly.

[Martial Arts Proficiency: Kung-Fu: + 1 | 5/9999]