I Acquire Overpowered Traits Just By Taking Damage

I peered inside the leather bag, watching the greenstones we had gathered so far. As the name suggested, they looked like stones and were colored green. But you would never guess that they glowed like magical gems, light pulsing inside them like a beating heart. It was hard to believe such beautiful artifacts came from such ugly, crude creatures as greenskins.

"This is really my day. The gods must be in agreement about my plan for departure tomorrow. How many silver do you think this already totals to, Devon?" Edmund asked just as he extracted yet another stone from the many fallen greenskins around us.

I looked at the bag again and made a quick count. Twelve already. Sixteen including the one in his hands, and the ones still inside the three untouched corpses waiting to be freed from their slimy, stinking flesh.

"In the bag, 36 silver," I cheerfully informed him. It was meager and too much work and risk compared to my Fishweed stint, but silver was silver.

I thought Edmund was full of hubris, and I still do, but I learned he was not confident for nothing.

Like he predicted, the wild path led us to many greenskins. After our first encounter with two, we met another group of four, then another of five, before finally running into this largest group yet—six in total.

And like he had said, he was indeed a skilled warrior. It was entertaining to watch him dance with his axe in battle. He swung it with both grace and firmness. It was bloody and brutish, but I recognized it as a form of art. The creatures never stood a chance.

"With this, and the other three still in the corpses, that would be about 42..." he said as he threw the stone at me. I caught it directly in the open leather bag. It landed with a sharp sound, like clashing marbles.

"No... 48." It seemed I was right to pin him as a muscle-brain. And that was alright. I guess physical and mental prowess rarely coincide.

"Yup... I said 'about'..."

"Suurre."

He proceeded to work on the three corpses and we resumed our search. We were getting deeper and deeper into the forest. The trail had almost vanished, requiring close inspection to follow among all the foliage, grass, and fallen debris. But I was with someone at home in this kind of environment, so I chose not to be overly anxious.

"Well, I think I am doing almost everything here. Surely you wouldn't protest if I slightly decrease your portion of the loot to five percent from ten percent," Edmund finally said, after a long stretch of silence. I was enjoying the scenery, and the many curious things I was seeing for the first time. I had never been inside a forest before.

"That's alright with me," I answered. Thinking about it now, I hadn't even asked about what I'd get by following him. But he wouldn't force me to cut flesh for just a handful of silver.

"You really are strange, Devon," he said a moment later, still without glancing at me. He kept alert without appearing tense, letting his axe rest on his shoulders.

"Why do you say so?"

"Anyone else would have been angered by that suggestion. After all, although you didn't extract the stones yourself as expected, I exposed you to more harm than expected."

"This level of harm was unexpected?"

"Yeah, this is too much greenskin act—ack!"

An arrow landed on his shoulder plate with a thud.

I drew the sword I had sheathed earlier and spun around to where the arrow came from. I failed to see it immediately, having been looking at the ground. The damn archer—a greenskin the size of a small toddler—was perched atop the branch of an ash tree.

The steel plate must have absorbed most of the punishment since Edmund remained standing. The arrow still jutting out of his shoulder didn't affect his posture.

Shouts and squeaks, distant at first but growing louder by the second, told me this was not the end of the encounter. The volume of the noise did not suggest a mere rabble... tens... maybe a hundred.

"What's happening, Edmund!" I shouted, dropping the 'Master' title in my panic.

"Something's wrong... I knew something was wrong..." he muttered as we watched the greenskins appear behind the noise, tens of them emerging from cover. "Those damn soldiers... I don't think they made an initial sweep."

"By the gods, what are you saying!" My voice cracked.

"The watch would typically launch an expedition first to get rid of the bulk of the greenskins. Freelancers are often tasked with the remnants," he said, while the greenskins continued their slow advance. "But heavens, this is a greenskin army."

"What... what do we do?" The fear in Edmund's eyes finally hammered the seriousness of our situation home.

"We run!" he said, then looked at me. "Run! We can't fight them and live!"

With that, he started running into the trees, away from the encroaching greenskin encirclement. Emboldened, the slow march of the greenskin horde turned into a charge.

I followed. My physical upgrades should take care of me. I had fast reflexes. I was strong now. I could even see into the dim shade of the trees. I think I was even faster than Edmund, because I was catching up to him—when my view suddenly shifted from his silhouette and the trees to the ground. I dove face-first into the dirt as something rope-like, perhaps a vine, caught me by my left boot.

I ignored the dull throbbing pain in my nose, trusting my traits to work their wonders, and scrambled to my feet.

I let out a silent scream as something sharp poked me in the back. I willed through it, but then got pierced again, this time in the back of my knee.

Like an approaching rain, I heard the rest of the greenskins coming, and I hastened to rise. But several more strikes followed, keeping me down, until it was too late—I was surrounded.

I was sent sprawling with multiple hits to my back and the back of my head. Then the horrifying barrage came down like the downpour of a storm.

My pain tolerance almost did nothing. The brigandine dulled some attacks, but many still came through. I was introduced to new kinds of pain I hadn't experienced in the river—like the lingering, burning pain of being stabbed, or the shock of being hit in the same place multiple times.

It was almost as terrible as that river debacle, were it not for one thing: I knew that somewhere along my suffering, the blue sheet of light would appear, and once it did, it would ease things bit by bit.

Sure enough, after a while, the blue sheet of light popped up:

[Trait Acquired: Pierce Guard I]

[Condition Met: Endure multiple piercing wounds in a short amount of time]

[Effect: +50% resistance to puncture damage; muscles subtly shift to deflect glancing hits]

At once, the frenzied stabbing at my side, which caused much of the pain, didn't go in as deep.

[Trait Progression: Pain Tolerance III]

It took a while for it to appear again, but when it did, it dulled much of the pain to a bearable level.

But my anger outweighed the sense of relief.

If this power was destined to me only through pain, then was it really a blessing or a curse?