Limitless by John Gold (best e reader for android txt) 📕

forward. I drop left, cutting the distance, and give him a kick of my own with all the force and speed I can muster. My leg breaks; he’s thrown backward. When he lands on the ground twenty meters away, he laughs happily. We’re the only two people left in the portal circle. The Hunters have all retreated to a safe distance, from which they’re recording the fight. I don’t blame them. They’re getting an up-close look at the abilities I’ve been hiding from them.

My opponent gets up, brushes himself off, and stops smiling. Anyone who’s lived in an orphanage knows when you should be afraid and of whom, and the orphan who still lives inside me nervously twitches. The lack of a smile, not to mention any sign of emotion, scares me. There’s something wrong with him!

“My name is Reiji.”

Human, Reiji, Level 10000, non-class

 

To say that I’m surprised is barely the half of it. The best of the Hunters has barely reached Level 8900, and here there’s some guy at Level 10000 without a class.

He continues.

“Did you meet Aurin, too? Did he give you the same ability?”

“Who is that? What ability?”

I can’t say that we became fast friends after that battle or that he told me everything. No, we have another couple dozen battles at full strength. He checks back in every six hours looking to test his strength out on me. All the battles, starting with the third, are held on a plateau a kilometer north of the portal ring. My tree’s crown reaches a good two kilometers, and I’m more impregnable than ever underneath it. Although, Reiji does his best to poke holes in that theory. There are still two places left on my body that are guaranteed to kill me when they’re hit: my brain and my heart. But my lich is too much for him. The only way to kill him is to smash through his head, and after pushing my demon agility to the max, seeing my hundreds of spells, and dropping battle etiquette, killing my lich turns out to be several times harder than killing me.

I only find out how he came by his strength a month later when he gives me the list of his abilities.

“Four years ago, when I first heard the news that Sagie was back, I met Aurin. He gave me the limitless ability—I can use physical strength to whatever extent I can imagine. All I have to do is instill the strength in myself and throw the strike, believing that it has sufficient power. The same is true of the damage I do, though that’s much simpler. Once I do my maximum power, I remember it. But at that point, my subconscious blocks out the attacks. You, though, are able to use different kinds of attacks to the point that I can’t focus on them and fend them off. Covering up with fire, striking with lightning, and sticking your little blade into my skull was smart!”

“That’s cheating! Where is Aurin? I want ten of those abilities!”

“Aurin is a player, and I have no idea where he is right now.”

“Hm, I’ve met a player who became a god before. What class is he? What level? How did you meet him?”

“Non-level, non-class, non-category. He knew I wasn’t normal, and that’s why he offered me the ability.”

What I want to say next needs to be said delicately, so I do my best.

“You have a pathology where you don’t display emotion. It may be physical, or it may be a psychological trauma. Either way, the only feeling you experience is happiness when you’re fighting a strong opponent.” Reiji just smiles, that smile hiding his sadness and complete lack of emotion. “That’s what enables you to stay calm no matter who you’re fighting, switching back and forth to block different kinds of damage. You didn’t notice it because of my bone mask, but I turn off my emotions and become a lot like you when I’m fighting.”

He relaxes and tells me his story.

“I was born in the eastern quarter of one of the stations. Our area was where they settled people from the countries in the Far East, and their children tend to be very sensitive to emotion. They quickly figured out that I was different. Until I was twenty or so, I was an outcast and the black sheep of the family. The other kids and even the neighbors called me Reiji, threw rocks at me, and beat me up. Whenever anything happened, everybody blamed me. Occasionally, they went missing, and the security service came around to talk with me.”

“But you didn’t do anything, did you? And don’t lie to me. I’m from an orphanage, so I know when and why people are lying to me.”

Reiji smiles again, and LJ sounds the alarm in my subconscious.

“Put it this way: once in a while, I might have been a distant factor in what happened. Anyway, I don’t feel any emotion whatsoever. All I have are desires and needs. Happiness for me is when somebody strong is nearby. That’s something you get with limitless. Every time I try to get a grip on your battle potential, I feel like I’m going to die of joy. How? How can you be so strong? Aurin showed me his strength, but even he had nothing on you.”

This guy Aurin sounds like quite the interesting character. How was he able to add an evaluation of the enemy’s fighting potential into an ability he had made? How was he able to make it in the first place? The gods have a fixed set of abilities they can give out depending on their type, rank, and focus, while players, even the most unusual of them, are still just players. But he was able to make an ability and then give it to someone else. It’s definitely a violation of the game balance, and quite a blatant one at that, so he definitely won’t be just handing his ability out right and