It Isn't

“Crap crap crap crap crap crap crap!” John wasn’t really cursing this apparent attack. Well, he was, but not because he was being attacked. Honestly, he figured that PVP would be a thing he would have to deal with inevitably, as humanity just seemed to love to fight and kill its fellow humans. No, he was cursing his luck. He just figured out rune magic, just used up almost half his mana on recasting the only rune he COULD cast, and only had one offensive spell that he couldn’t even cast, so this gaming system figured it was time he actually had to fight other players.

At least other games gave you a few offensive abilities before dashing your hopes that you would be good at the game. And those game deaths wouldn’t result in your actual ****. Unless you're SAO. But the less said about that game the better.

“What the hell am I supposed to do?” he muttered to himself. “I mean, I guess I could try burning my attackers with Kenaz or maybe blinding them with Glo- Oh Shit, am I going to get smited if the students see me casting spells in self-defense?” John slowly slumped back down in his chair. This seemed hopeless. How the hell was he supposed to deal with any of this? He had nothing offensive, only 45 health, and never gotten in a fight before in his life. That is, if you excluded Frank and the various bullies who would beat him up as often as they could. Those were, at least in John’s mind, less fights and more savage beatdowns.

John looked over to his work stations, the reference books and his attempts at writing runes staring back at him. He smiled a bit, the embers of pride still burning in him at discovering how to do a new form of magic. ‘I didn’t give up with that. I can’t give up just because things got harder. I’m not just John Newman anymore. I’m the Gamer, Runic Mage. A good gamer doesn’t give up and neither will I.’

John pushed himself out of the chair, stretching his arms for a moment before turning and walking out of the room into an empty hallway. ‘Huh… I thought it was nearly the end of the period. Shouldn’t students be starting to flock to some of the other classrooms?’ John wondered, but quickly wrote it off as him just losing track of time. ‘Alright. Gotta defend myself. Where can I get something that I can use for self-defense?’

John thought through the various classrooms, figuring they might have something to use as a weapon. ‘Maybe the gym? No. Ever since the jockstrap incident, Coach Keller keeps all of the baseball bats and such locked up in her office. Science lab? Probably not. Plus, I might get in trouble if I just barge in looking for acid to throw in some people’s faces.’ John kept thinking through rooms, but came up empty handed at every thought.

Just as John was about to say fuck it and just pick up a chair to use as a weapon, it hit him. There was one room he knew he could find a few deadly implements, one room that had a teacher who liked him enough to let him get away with things, one room that he might have a chance of preparing himself to fight others in.

John smiled despite his less than favorable situation before sprinting down the halls towards Ms. Summers’ art room.

‘Goddamn… Stupid… screw…’ John muttered to himself, trying desperately to unscrew the blade from the Guillotine paper trimmer in Ms. Summers’ office. On the way here John had been having trouble coming up with an excuse to tell Ms. Summers of why he suddenly needed any dangerous items he could hold, preferably if they were useable as weaponry. However, it seemed this “illusion barrier” only held him and this Squad Gamma. On the plus side, this meant John could loot this shit out of the school for weapons and self-defensive items. On the down side, he was alone and couldn’t ask for help in keeping himself alive.

At first, John wanted to grab something big and deadly, maybe a mallet or some sharp knives. Sadly, John had overestimated what he would be able to find in the room. Turns out most of the things in the room were dangerous in terms of getting a bad cut or burn, but nothing deadly. That was until he recalled the giant Guillotine paper trimmer, which as he correctly recalled could be disassembled with a little elbow grease.

Well, it could be if he could ever get this stupid screw undone. The blade was on a hinge, and the screw that held it together had long since rusted to a point where it seemed shattering the whole cutting board was the only way to free the blade. John had made it this far, however, and wasn’t going to let a rusty screw get in the way of his self-defense. He figured he had a bit of time, as the academy was rather big and it may take this Squad Gamma a while to find him.

“Well, well, well. And here I thought you would be harder to find.”

… Or not.

Very slowly, John turned his head to take a look at who just spoke up. Standing behind him, leaning against the door frame, was a young man who looked to be in his late 20s. He was tall, taller than John at least with his blue tipped black hair nearly touching the top of the door frame. He was dressed rather casually, blue jeans, black wife beater, and a light jacket that was currently slung over his shoulder. He looked like a guy one would find in the club with his bros, either doing a line of shots or hitting on a girl. He smiled and pushed himself off the frame, slowly walking into the room.

“Nice school you got here, kid. Reminds me of one back home back when I was a bit younger. ‘Course, I never really had a mind for books. Was usually too busy getting into trouble.”

John stayed silent, instead using one of the few magic spells he had that could help him at the moment. One observe later and John was looking at the stats for the man in front of him.

Brett Danielson
Lvl 12 Ice Mage
23 Years Old
Status: Cocky, amused, excited
HP: 150/150
MP: 275/275

“You mute or somethin’, kid? Ah, doesn’t matter. Brett Danielson, at your service. Well, not really, but I figured I could be at least a little polite.” The man offered John a frost covered hand, like this Brett fellow was just outside playing in the snow and it had yet to melt.

John stared at the hand before shaking his head. “I-I don’t know much about this world y-yet but I d-don’t think it would be w-wise to shake your h-hand,” he said, his teeth almost starting to chatter.

“Well, look at that, our little mystery man speaks. Not only that, but he’s observant too.” Brett shook his head, putting his offered hand into his pocket. “See, here’s the deal kid. Me and my crew saw what you were doing earlier. And we have got some big plans for someone like you. But I and one of my crew members, Callie, have a bit of a bet going. See, she bets that you are stupid enough to think you can fight me. But I think you are a bit smarter than that. So we bet twenty five bucks to see if I can get you to do this the easy way or if I’m gonna have to do this the hard way.”

Brett leaned forward, his face so close John could smell his minty fresh breath. “Now we can do this the easy way or we can do it the hard way. It’s your choice. What’s it gonna be?”

For only a brief moment, John felt fear. John felt legitimate fear of this man before him and wanted no more than to hide and give up. This mage before him was triple John’s own level, clearly used to hunting down other mages, and his mere presence seemed to be giving off a frosty chill to the air. In his fear, John really wanted to just give up and do this the “easy way.”

However, John did not quit on runes. John did not quit when faced with fighting people. John was not going to quit now.

“I think… We are gonna do this the hard way.” The moment John started talking, he slipped his hand down to the ground where a secret weapon lay. Well, not so much a secret weapon but one of the many screwdrivers that did not work on the paper cutter screw.

Turns out when one was terrified and backed into a corner, a screwdriver became a very hand weapon for stabbing a guy in the leg.

15 Dmg!

Brett screamed out in pain as John sent the metal tool into his thigh, causing Brett to stumble back and fall on his ass. He looked up at John in fury, his hand quickly rising up to send a powerful bold of frost straight at John. However, John planned for this and quickly brought the paper cutter in front of him, catching the frost bolt which immediately began to freeze the paper cutter over.

“You little fucking BITCH! I’m gonna turn you into a fucking ice cube for that!” Brett yelled as he sent bolt after bolt at John, which John was deflecting rather well. John, now just focused on escaping from this room, ran straight at Brett, holding the cutter in front of himself. Brett realized what he was about to try just in time, bringing his arms up to protect his face right as John slammed the cutter into Brett.

5 Dmg!

At this point, the tool had taken enough. It had been flash frozen half a dozen times and had just been slammed into some guy’s rather strong arms. The paper cutter gave way, shattering the plastic part, leaving only the blade in John’s hands, who was currently too startled to even notice. He had nearly fallen over Brett as the paper cutter shattered, and was trying to recover by running straight out the door.

Brett, clearly pissed off, turned just in time to see John about to run out the door. “STOP RIGHT THERE, KID” he yelled, throwing another frost bolt at John. He intended to freeze the kid’s foot to the floor; however, the pain in his leg and the woozy feeling from the kid slamming into him made his aim a bit off as the ice bolt shot and hit John square in his hand instead.

-10 Hp!

John hardly noticed the fact that this clear hit barely even hurt, for he was too busy getting some distance between himself and the angry ice mage.