Second World

The Skeleton Captain let out another roar before charging towards them. Jack was half expecting the monster to jump directly up to where they were and he was ready to sprint out of the room if it did. Instead, it rammed through the front door underneath their room. He could hear it crashing through everything down there, trying to find the stairs up. Luckily the stairs were at the middle section of the house, unlike other residential which have stairs immediately after the entrance. It should take it some time to come up to this floor.

He tried to open the window, it didn't budge. His hand went to the latch before realizing it was not in a locking position.

"Can't open your window!" He said to Bill.

The guy was still sitting on the floor with a pale face, he seemed lost.

"Hey! We need to go out the window or we are toast!" Jack yelled to get his attention.

"I–It's jammed," he stammered. "It has jammed for years. Ca– can't be opened."

To hell with this! Jack summoned out his sword.

"Power Strike!"

The window was blasted into pieces.

Jack looked out the new hole in the wall; they were at least four meters from the ground.

'Shouldn't be a problem,' he calculated, 'with the game physique I have now, even if I get hurt from the fall, I should only lose a few HP.

"Come on, let's jump." He said as he turned back to see Bill was still sitting there on the floor.

The sounds of crashing were getting louder.

"Man, you seriously gonna freeze up at a time like this?"

Heavy footsteps were coming up the stairs in the hall, with several thumps as the monster must have hit the wall trying to fit its colossal body onto the narrow stairs. Jack could feel the house shaking.

Bill was still on the floor with a blank look on his face.

He bent down and gripped the man's shoulders.

"Look, man! This might be a game, might not be. Might be the real world, might not be. You might really die here, or you might resurrect again like what happens in a game. But do you really want to find out? That thing will charge in here and it will hurt you. And trust me, it will hurt. The pain will be real! I've seen it happen to someone. I have felt pain when fighting those things outside. That is real! Now if you don't get your butt up now, I'm going to leave you. I mean it!"

Some awareness seemed to come back to the older man's eyes. He focused on Jack, gasped a few times, and nodded heavily. The loud thump was heard outside the room. Jack pulled Bill up, they went to the crashed in window. Bill looked down and pulled himself back. He shook his head fiercely.

'Motherf***er!' Jack cursed in his heart.

The wall with the door tore apart like paper, revealing the gigantic figure. It glared at both men. It lifted its saber up high. The huge weapon scraped the ceiling of the room as it was swung towards Bill.

Jack dashed in front of the useless man and brandished his sword.

Parry!

A loud metallic clank sounded out as Jack flew back from the force of the impact. The red number 62 appeared above him. He was shocked to see such high damage. His HP and defense were high due to the combined starting bonus of two classes, but even with Parry skill, the monster still took out more than one-fifth of his Health. If he didn't use Parry, he might not even last three hits. And it looked like that was only the monster's normal attack. What if it had a skill? In a normal game, a specially named monster usually possessed at least one powerful skill in addition to normal attack.

As he was flying back, Jack grabbed the petrified fool who was still on the floor. Utilizing his momentum, he shoved Bill out of the window and jumped out himself. Bill landed heavily on his side, losing 16 HP. Jack landed safely on both feet. He immediately pulled Bill up.  The man seemed to be in pain but didn't seem to have broken any bones. Jack then scanned his radar.

"Crap!" He cursed out loud.

There were red dots all around them. Right now, they were safely outside the range of perception of those monsters, but, any direction they ran to, they would attract some monsters. If they got held up fighting the weaker monsters while being pursued by the Skeleton Captain, it would be the end for them.

Jack heard a roar from above. He instinctively pulled Bill away from where they had landed. He felt a rush of wind at his back and heard a loud crash. The ground shook beneath them. He turned and saw the Skeleton Captain standing in the spot they had just vacated with its saber stuck deep in the ground. He could feel Bill's shivering.

He slapped Bill on his face. "We don't have time to mess around. We are trapped. We have to fight here. Take out your knife and protective vest!"

"Wh– What vest..?"

He fought the urge to slap the man again. "The equipment you received from the black box. I explained them to you before, the ones that are in your storage bag."

Bill made a few gestures, and, thank goodness, the knife came out and a vest appeared on his body.

"Stay back! I will deal with it. You just try not to get killed!" Jack warned him as he signaled for Bill to put some distance between them. Having a level 1 single-class player join a fight against a level 6 special monster would provide no help at all. Better to have him to back away than to stay and just be a distraction.

Jack shifted his attention back to the Skeleton Captain. He took out his magic staff and got ready to combat the monster. It was having a difficult time trying to pull its saber out of the ground. It gave a powerful tug and, finally, the saber came free. Chunks of dirt and rock flew everywhere from the forceful heave. Although the monster was very powerful, its movements didn't seem to be particularly quick or agile, so there might still be a chance to defeat this foe. Jack focused all his attention. He would evade it once it made its lunge, then counter-attack when it was off-balance.

The Skeleton Captain lifted its saber up. Jack tensed up and made a ready to jump to one side. The saber swung, but not where Jack had predicted! The saber left the monster's hand. Did it slip? Was such a stupid mistake allowed by the game program? The saber twirled as it flew further.

Jack didn't dare to look away from the monster; it might have thrown the saber as a distraction.  Even as the saber left his field of vision, Jack kept his eyes squarely on the Skeleton Captain. Just then, he heard a pained cry and realized the saber toss wasn't a distraction. He turned to see Bill impaled by the saber. It had gone right through his chest with the sharp point sticking out of his back. Bill's eyes slowly lost color and he fell limply to the ground.

Jack was dumbstruck, the fellow really got instant-killed!