George Knows Best [Mud Wizard LitRPG]

Bob had gained three levels. And despite the most earnest prayers of a sincere heart, the system had pointblank refused to invest a single point of those increases in wisdom, choosing instead to maximize dexterity and dabble in strength. Dexterity and the strength, the bread and butter of the close combat specialist.

Bob was not comforted. For one, he hated close combat. Fighting from a safe distance had always seemed the (obviously) superior strategy. For another, there was a war on the horizon and war meant longer, many-person engagements. Bob was going to need as much mana recovery and common sense as he could lay his hands on. After all, as leader of a city, you aren't really allowed to pop into the fray and then pop out again to cool down. People would talk.

George, well, George had never learned how to speak, so Bob was guessing off corpse numbers, but the dog was probably about the same, maybe a level higher. George's dog eyes shone with intelligence and his golden beard wagged with wisdom. A mage build, Bob assumed, going off the dog's lack of physical confrontations and his absurd mana reserves.

The team could now face down swarms of stachelflieger with an easy confidence and glib showmanship. Bob actually enjoyed fighting them. He appreciated their bright colors and death fireworks. There was something profoundly comfortable in a world where Homo sapiens, i.e. Bob, could dominate grassland insects. He remembered striding around the grasslands in an older time and killing raupenflieger automatically, without thinking, the way you get on and off escalators without breaking your stride.

Sure, these D rank caterpillars were a significantly more powerful adversary. They even had an attack that didn't involve exploding themselves (evolution demanded it). They could sorta spasm their bodies and javelin individual needles from their tails.

It was a cute trick. A good way to harry opponents from a distance and start the poison flowing. Sure, it hadn't saved them from George's fire breath. It hadn't saved them from Bob's mud dart. But Bob enjoyed the aesthetic and entertainment possibilities.

Yes, enjoying life is all about injecting fun into the little activities. Competing on who can carry the most dishes in a single go, or solemnly agreeing to go through an entire meeting with a different accent, or adding a brief how-are-you-feeling tag in small font to the end of every bug ticket (Bob's feeling great today; Bob's feeling blue today...).

Bob and George spotted a company of stachelflieger in the distance. They were grazing calmly on the grassland grasses. Bob and George approached nonchalantly. Bob whistled a merry, walking tune and George chewed on a stick. The stachelflieger wheeled around. Rows of angry spikes zoned in on the pair.

Bob gave a nodded greeting in response, with a firm, dignified business-man expression and the dog wagged and barked (dropping his stick). George picked up his stick. Together the pair kept walking. There were on an oblique trajectory, passing just by one side of the caterpillar-grazing ground.

The air was tense. The sunlight glinted on the little spikes. Bob whistled unconcernedly. And then, all at once, as though they'd discussed and agreed beforehand, the caterpillar swarm jabbed up their back tails and started javelining at Bob and George.

Bob kept whistling. He strolled forward at a leisurely pace, arms behind his back. "Wonderful weather, don't you think?" The needles closed in. "Catch-pop!" The hail of needles disappeared. Bob's whistle continued on unbroken.

They tried another volley, then another. "Catch-pop, catch-pop!" Nothing seemed to work. The caterpillars grew mighty wary of that phrase. It seemed to be the ultimate counter-spell to their needle guns. They eyed each other. They gestured. They weren't the brightest of creatures (an excess of pus in the brain), but they had enough sanity to see when a thing wasn't going their way.

Maybe this time, they'd happened upon a creature of a different class, of a higher order of strength. Wouldn't it be advisable to dial down their indiscriminate violence and evacuate to safer pastures? Bob stopped his walk and turned to face the caterpillar cohort. He wore a merry grin and could hardly hold back a laugh.

Swoosh and then distant, like it was coming from far underground, a muffled boom. What had happened? The caterpillars exchanged glances They did a quick headcount. Where was a fat Joe? Swoosh... boom. We've lost Gordo. The caterpillars swiveled on Bob.

Bob was standing there. A wide, television grin on his face. He shrugged his shoulders, like how could you possibly suspect me, I've been standing here the whole time. He pointed to one bare wrist and then the other. Nothing suspicious here. Magic tricks are 30% magic and 70% showmanship. George was sitting beside him, thumbing his tail excitedly on the ground.

Swoosh... boom. Bob kindly pointed out the position of the caterpillar who'd vanished. He also dramatically flourished his eyebrows in surprise, as though to say: "did you see that? The creature just popped out of the air. I can't believe my eyes."

Unfortunately, the caterpillars were slow swivelers and the magical swoosh always targeted a caterpillar at the edge of the pack, one whom none of the others were facing. They tried again and again, but they could never quite catch the swoosh in its act.

Pus-brained insects they might be, but even a pus-brain knows how to sense danger. A swoosh was one thing, but the boom, even muffled, even separated by a great distance, the boom was unmistakable. Every stachelflieger knew that sound. It was the glorious death music of their tribe. Their companions weren't just disappearing, they were dying. They were under attack.

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Swoosh... boom, boom. Bob held up two fingers and gave an exaggerated wince. The swoosh monster had swallowed up both the Chubbs twins in a single magical gulp. Things were bleak. The caterpillar community was in crisis.

Some caterpillars reasoned the monster was invisible and just started firing tail shots in every direction. Some decided that, even if they couldn't see how it was done, the strange man standing in front of them had to be the cause and trained their shots on him.

Pandemonium broke out. Bob and George stood there unfazed. Bob with his television smile and George grinding on his favorite stick. Any pus, needles or bad intentions directed their way were popped smoothly away into the void.

Finally, just as the caterpillar community faced its darkest hour, the swoosh monster revealed himself. He was a giant, brown bat. Or maybe he was a magic carpet. Revenge of the soiled tablecloth. Either way, he was the enemy. And the caterpillars charged en masse.

The swoosh monster welcomed them. He embraced death. He was needled and pus spattered and poisoned. The swoosh monster endured. He was a stoic of the old order. He was of divinely indifferent mud and let nothing bother him.

In the end, it was massacre. The peaceful glade was a mess of sizzlingly caterpillar pus and scattered white-black needles. The last stand of the caterpillars. Bob gave a rousing round of applause and George barked his approval (dropping his stick again). Who doesn't enjoy a good death show?

In all the destruction and ruin, one caterpillar alone remained. Young Jason. Last of his clan. He had been intentionally spared. The swoosh monster deftly avoiding his kamikaze flight, running the caterpillar in circles until he was so tuckered out that he had come down to rest on a blade of grass. He was the prisoner of the monster, a plaything in its evil games.

But then the swoosh monster turned its attention on the two bystanders. It plunged into the taller man, swoosh! It swept about him and over him. Its dark throat crunching into his head. Its dark arms wrapping around his chest. He was swallowed under, consumed whole. Jason waited. Jason waited. Where was the boom?

There was no boom. And young Jason's little segments all quaked together as he looked ahead of him. Because before him was no swoosh monster, before him was the mud magician. A hooded man wearing a brown mantle. Yes, sometimes knowing how the trick works is far more terrifying than being in the dark.

Bob looked indulgently at his little captive caterpillar. Bob had plans for young Jason. See leveling up is important. A bump in stats makes a man faster, stronger, smarter, thinner. But more important still is practice.

As Bob had learned the hard way, abilities are all about how you use them. George had just had a skill-up moment and Bob wanted his own. The bandit king was an axe wielding, close combat specialist. Bob was a lie-in-bed-until-lunchtime lazy, old sod. And practice is the uphill road to perfection.

And to practice effectively one requires a training partner. Bob stepped forward and beckoned to the insect. Young Jason spasmed defensively, shooting out a tail spike. It was a desperate move by a desperate creature. And it was just what Bob had been hoping for. The spikes were fast and painful. Perfect for training one's reactions. And the sharp painful jolt on failure was exactly what the brain needed to self-motivate.

Bob's self-imposed mission was simple. Bob wanted to catch a needle. You know, like they do in those kung-fu movies. His hand would blur up, then the camera would pan around, taking in the amazed faces and open gasps, before zooming in on the glistening needle suspended between thumb and forefinger.

The feat wasn't a pipe dream. Compared to the pre-system average, Bob's dexterity was masterful (system's word not Bob's). And that didn't even take into account his mud monster bonus. He had the necessary equipment, all he needed now was the skill. Hell, maybe he'd pull it off on the first try.

Bob's hand flashed up. The needle promptly jabbed into it. Ow! The skin started to bubble an angry red and grow unpleasantly itchy. Bob had just about forgot how unpleasant stachelflieger spikes really were. "Time out," Bob held up his open palm.

The caterpillar ignored him. If anything, he increased the rate of fire. Sportsmanship is dead. Thankfully the golden referee stepped in with a timely catch-pop. Bob extracted the needle and rubbed in some ointment. "Ready."

Bob had done extraordinarily well. He had gotten his hand in position with time to spare. All that was left was to pick the needle out of the air. Some minor adjustments. A millimeter here or there, it would be a cinch. He'd be done by lunch time.

Bob was not done by lunch time. If he was honest, things were not going well. Partly he just needed time to adjust to his body's new capabilities. The system did include a fair bit of intuitive feel with its dexterity bumps (lucky thing too because he would probably have lost the ability to walk), but his mind still reasoned on old world assumptions and he had to shatter down these prejudices.

Mostly though the task was just inherently difficult. The movies don't do it justice. You have sub-millimeter errors of margin here. Your thumb and forefinger had to come together on the first third of a 0.1 millimeter wide needle hurtling at tremendous speeds.

Too early and the needle jabs into your finger. Pain and itchiness and frustration. Too late and the needle is speeding through your fingers and jabbing you in the neck or the arm or on one very unlucky occasion bang between the eyes (Bob had decided he ought to wear some safety googles).

And that was only the temporal axis. A smidge too high or too low, a tad too far to the right, a breath too far to the left and yes, the needle was hitting you. Bob got hit frequently. Almost every single time.

Maybe that's why young Jason never stopped. He enjoyed the evident pain he was inflicting on his clan's great enemy. He reveled in Bob's incessant cursing, in his mounting frustration and his fearful eyes. Already the ground was littered with spent stachelflieger scratcher tubes.

Of course, Jason didn't have much choice in the matter. If he stopped shooting, Bob would step menacingly forward. And when he started up again, Bob would step back, giving the caterpillar his space. The deal was pretty transparent. You get to live as long as you keep firing needles at a regular pace.

George had long ago laid down and got himself set up nice and comfy. He'd popped out a travel bed, a few of his favorite toys (a little, torn up octopus and a knotted rope). Next out came a prefilled bowl (this had been Bob's lazy optimization so that he didn't have to keep pouring the dog food).

Bob noticed. Bob's mouth watered. Bob's stomach grumbled. But Bob had a stubborn streak. Good QAs have to have a stubborn streak to them. Running the same flow over and over with a vindictive eye for minor discrepancies takes a certain amount of pigheadedness.

Bob had picked an arbitrary and unreasonable goal: to catch the needle midair. And he would die on his arbitrary and unreasonable goal. Men are defined by how vehemently they enact their stupid ideas.