Long Island

Chapter 5: On top of the hill

'Oh, so this was happening because I didn't sleep. What a pain!' Swamy sighed.

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Raka was trying to climb as fast as he can. He looked behind at the monster chasing him and scrambled to find the next foothold. This was the third time he was climbing this hill, but he still had trouble remembering all the footholds he used in the previous climbs.

Whack! And a painful feeling came up from his behind numbing his mind. He willed his legs and hands to move from sheer fear of the monster behind her. Raka had a hard time believing people when they say that they had run away from monsters in other games. He always guessed that was because the monsters were strong and they did not want to lose their experience. Now he knew that he was wrong. It was because they were terrified.

'Terrifying' had a whole new meaning and it was what chased him.

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The first climb up the hill, resulted in the most painful 5 hours he had ever experienced. After the first whack, Raka ran up the gentle slope as if his life depended on it, however ten minutes later, he got hit again. He tried increasing his speed but the slopes simply started getting steeper and steeper till he was climbing using his hands and feet, finding toeholds and holding up branches or grasses to lift himself up. But still ten minutes later, another whack!

As he reached the rough part of the slope, he started slowing down, most of it due to the difficulty of the climb, but also because he was getting tired. He realized that his stamina stat came to play as normally he would already be exhausted by now.

Raka got hit every ten minutes till he finished that first climb. He fell face down exhausted not even looking at where he had landed up. Instinctively, however, he felt Lady Altia's presence behind her and scrambled away protecting his behind with his hands.

Taking heavy breaths he said, "Hah...hah...please don't hit me with that. Its painful!!" almost shouting by the end. Lady Altia simply smiled.

"He he he well wasn't that a fun game. And ofcourse its training"

Looking at her happy face, Raka thought this seriously 'I am gonna die here'.

"Alright then, now that we know how fast you really are, we will aim to beat your time in the next climb. For now, you need to run on down as fast as you can. Oh and its all training~" saying which she tried to make a cute pose whirling her little stick.

Raka did not wait for her to say anything more. He quickly got up and started scrambling his way down.

Going downhill did not prove to be any less painful.

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By his third climb he had reached his limit in both pain and tiredness. The only thing moving him was utter fear. Or adrenaline, he wasn't sure anymore. Then he saw,

%

Stamina increases by 1

%

He started feeling less tired than he was before the message. Seemed like the more he pushed himself, the more his stamina would increase. In fact after coming this far, every few minutes he was getting this message saying his stamina is increasing. His third climb over, he had increased his stamina by an incredible 25 points.