Aggro Litrpg || Progression Fantasy

I'd been riding for about forty-five minutes before I remembered how much I hated motorbikes.

Even before the various anatomical upgrades that had come to me via my System integration, I'd been too big to fit comfortably on anything short of a Honda Gold Wing. And even then, I still looked like a cross between a Hell's Angel and a rugby forward who'd decided to try out luxury touring.

Me on a motorbike was a visual that made pedestrians cross the road, dogs bark at a safe distance, and the local police start casually querying INTERPOL.

Basically, unless the covert surveillance op specifically called for the operative to resemble the bass player in a discount outlaw country band, I was never going to be the obvious candidate for bike-based recon. Surveillance is about blending in, and it's hard to do that when you blot out your own mirrors and radiate a vibe that makes milk curdle.

And now, post-integration, I'd become even bigger. Denser. Heavier in the chest and shoulders, like the System had pressed "enhance" too many times. Which all meant that every bump, turn, and divot in the Worcestershire roads was being transmitted directly into my lower back. Oh, and whoever designed motorbike ergonomics clearly hated knees. And my knees in particular. They were currently somewhere up near my ears, hips locked in protest, with my elbows vibrating at a frequency normally reserved for dental equipment.

My Stamina had been gradually ticking down from the moment I'd climbed onboard. Not fast, and not especially dramatic, but still a slow, steady leak. Like a tyre with a nail in it. I'd considered toggling my armour set back on just for the extra Endurance boost, but one hundred extra kilos of metal was probably not the kind of weight distribution Yamaha had optimised for.

Thus, when I saw the lopsided pub sign swinging in the wind ahead, my body made an executive decision without my mind getting involved.

Call it logistics. Call it tactical recalibration. Call it I really needed to get off this bike.

But then, as I pulled into the car park, I had a brief, rational moment where I remembered that pubs, by and large, don't tend to open at the crack of dawn. Fortunately, I then remembered I was in England. And not just England England, but countryside England. Which was one of those places where time had a wobble, licensing laws were more of a suggestion, and breakfast pints were a recognised medical intervention. There was actually a decent chance the pub hadn't closed from the night before. Score one for cultural alcoholism.

I parked my bike beside two battered Land Rovers that looked like they'd recently transported a combination of sheep, hay bales, and at least one person who hadn't technically consented to the journey. The Yamaha, with its blacked-out plates and tactical murder aesthetic, looked immediately out of place. Like a goth student at a Young Farmers meet-up.

On the plus side, the moment I swung my leg off the bike and let my boots hit solid ground, I felt the Stamina drain cease. The doom-spiral downward ticking stopped, and my internal fuel gauge began to do a quiet little shuffle upward.

[Stamina Regen: +6/hour]
[Mount Disengaged – Rider Load Penalty Removed]

I let out a breath and felt some of the ache unwind from my calves. I'd fought Shadow creatures, defeated Imperial forces, and suplexed two men into a ditch before breakfast. None of that, not even the point-blank Remington to the ribs, had managed to make me feel quite as knackered as that bike ride. Apparently, I could survive celestial trauma and the existential dread of cross-dimensional warfare, but give me forty-five minutes of bone-jarring motorbike riding and I'd be begging for early retirement.

I limped toward the pub door, fantasising about a cup of tea strong enough to stand a pencil up in, a bacon sandwich so crispy it could have been prepared in a crematorium, and a chair that didn't vibrate aggressively against my thighs every time I shifted gear. Just one seat. Which was added. And very stationary.

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And if I was very, very lucky, a kindly bunch of locals who wouldn't immediately shoot me for being an outsider.

Although, given my current Charisma stat, I wasn't holding out much hope on that one.

The interior of the pub was exactly what you'd expect if you'd ever watched a folk horror film and thought, Well, surely the guy won't go in there. Low ceiling? Check. Immediate head injury from an ancient beam? Check. The unmistakable scent of damp plaster, wet dog, and beer mats that hadn't been replaced since decimalisation? Oh, absolutely. The fireplace in the centre of the bar was ornamental in the most tragic sense, and I was willing to bet its last real blaze had coincided with a Queen who wasn't still taking posthumous PR hits.

Four locals turned to regard me as I stepped in. They were all the wrong side of retirement and the right side of remembering the miners' strike. Their clothes looked welded on, and their pints had that half-inch of head that suggested serious experience. And, what was more, each of them was staring at me like I'd just walked into their living room, kicked their dog, and asked for the Wi-Fi password.

It wasn't outright hostility, yet, but it was very much the atmosphere of we've seen your type before and we didn't like him either. My presence had clearly upset something finely balanced, like I was a calcium deposit in the kettle of their routine. Or a new variable in a very, very old curse.

I nodded at them and then picked the seat least likely to collapse under my weight. The table in front of it bore the ghosts of a thousand wet pint glasses, a few deep carvings, and something sticky that looked so gnarly I had to quickly check it hadn't gained System sapience.

Within seconds of sitting down, a waitress appeared beside me. I say 'waitress', but this was a teenage girl clearly home from university and needing to earn some cash. It didn't look like she was living any version of her particular dream working here. Her apron was too big and her expression was far too small,

"Do you have a menu?" I asked.

"We've got a breakfast, mate. Full or half. Tea or coffee. No changes, no substitutes, and no vegan options. If you want avocado, you're in the wrong postcode."

"Awesome. I'll take a full. And a cup of tea."

She scrawled something on a pad and vanished into, presumably, the kitchen.

I did my best to settle in, letting my boots rest on the carpet. The pub murmured pleasantly around me. Old wood, old men, and older opinions. This was most definitely not a place that people just casually wandered into. Still, it was warm, dry, and no one had tried to murder me in the last five minutes. My Stamina bar was improving, and my minimap was showing only ambient neutrals.

All things considered, it might have been the safest I'd felt on Earth in days. Which was either deeply comforting or a really bad sign.

And then one of the dots on my minimap blipped. It didn't change colour exactly, but it certainly did something weird. It went from being a neutral blue to the ugly off-white the System liked to use when it wasn't sure if someone was going to shiv me or just start telling me a Very Important Story.

My head turned before I'd even finished that thought, instincts dragging my gaze in the direction of the bar.

One of the locals had gone through a bit of a physical transformation. Not a massive one, don't get me wrong. He was still old and grizzled, but now, he also had a flat cap, a gravel coat and a face like someone had carved it out of scorched driftwood. It was, undeniably, the old man who'd stopped to talk to me outside Halfway Hold. The one with the walking stick and the general air of regional myth.

Which meant either this pub served a full English and had access to interdimensional fast travel… Or something hinky was going on. My minimap gave me no further insight either way.

The odds of this being a coincidence, though? They must be lower than my Charisma stat. Either this man had access to a tactical mobility scooter with cloaking tech, or he'd just materialised into the bar. Which was ridiculous, of course. Unless it wasn't. Unless this man wasn't just a cantankerous local with an overdeveloped sense of property line etiquette.

Unless, just possibly, he was here for me.

Obviously, he'd clocked that I was looking at him. Or, more likely, he'd been the one to change the way my minimap recognised him. Which was a whole other can of existential fish fingers I was about to have to wrestle with.

He clapped the man sitting beside him on the back, said something that made the other bloke laugh and cough simultaneously, then picked up his tankard and began ambling over toward me. Yes. This was a definite amble. A deliberate, nothing-to-see-here stroll that screamed 'I know exactly how much this is going to freak you out and I'm enjoying every second of it.'

"Morning, Warden," he said. "Probably best we have a chat, don't you think?"