Been a while, eh? I have no excuse other than having a lot on my plate, that and a new laptop. Yippee!
PS: My bad about the short chapter, um, get used to it?
LET'S GO GAMBLING!
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"Hah... hah..."
Kenshin stood on half-bent knees, his breath rigid not from exhaustion but from something a little different. Exhilaration. He was high. High as the fucking sky, the term commonly used here would be something akin to "power high", essentially, a sense of unlimited might stemming from a newly acquired power. A wide, teeth-filled smile was not the usual expression of this man, far from it, yet he just couldn't stop himself.
His casual outfit was covered in blood, his brown hair dripping with the red liquid as dozens upon dozens of dead, massacred bodies surrounded him. They were far from human, even in their mangled state, but the sight was no less sickly. Kenshin didn't care. He didn't necessarily enjoy the bloodshed, but he enjoyed the process. Not the killing necessarily, but the ease of victory.
"I'm fucking invincible..." he spoke to himself, voice tinged with madness before he suddenly slapped himself with both hands, his expression turning stoic, "Right... keep yourself together... these were just grunts, after all..."
Kenshin watched enough anime and played enough games to know that a sense of overwhelming power can very easily be one's biggest enemy. Like half the crazy ass villains in anime that believe they are above everything, only to then get comedically clowned on by the main character. Kenshin didn't need—or rather want—something like that to happen to him.
"I feel like I'm having way too many of these one-off encounters..." he muttered to himself, smacking his pants clean of dust, "This is probably what the professionals have to deal with anyway, better get used to it."
He wasn't wrong. A proper hero would have a monster encounter every few days, sometimes even several times in the span of a few hours on particularly busy days. It would be to his benefit to just get used to this shit instead of acting surprised whenever he gets jumped. Then there's that. Kenshin couldn't take the fight to the monsters because, well, they just randomly appear sometimes either due to unfortunate circumstances or as part of some elaborate plot.
So the best he could do was get better, stay on his toes, and keep his head in the game. Opening his attribute panel again, Kenshin was pleased to see his Ability attribute going up by one.
◇──◆──◇──◆◆──◇──◆──◇
>[Name]
Kenshin
>[Age]
Irrelevant, legal.
>[Ability List]
Compulsive Gambler [N/A]
-In combat: roll a d20, the higher the number, the greater the critical strike, however, low numbers run the risk of the attack outright missing.
-Out of combat: play a variety of minigames at the cost of currency or items, each giving special rewards. The greater the risk, the greater the possible reward~
Perfect Self [EX+]
-View and edit personal attributes portraying to one's physique and even luck.
Photosynthesis] [C-]
The user can survive off of sunlight.
Autonomous Ultra Instinct [EX+]
Activated automatically at the loss of consciousness during combat. An auto-combat ability that pushes one's body beyond its limits, maximising speed, power and durability at the cost of stamina. For continued use, go into monkey mode. Do not think. Just do.
Cardcaster [A+]
Generate a deck of cards and imbue them with energy depending on the drawn card's value. The greater the value the greater the explosive or penetrative force.
>[ATTRIBUTES]
Strength: EX+
Stamina: EX+
Speed: EX+
Charm: EX+
Ability: S- -> S
Luck: EX+
◇──◆──◇──◆◆──◇──◆──◇
And a realisation struck him. Golden tickets would soon be worthless, at least for himself. He wasn't sure if other people could use them, but he wasn't going to test that theory. While it would be very helpful to give them to allies, if someone nefarious got wind of them, shit would hit the fan very quickly. That was assuming they COULD even be used by other people, which he doubted but again wasn't planning to test it out any time soon.
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"Get tough~ Don't back out~ Time to ditch your doubt~ Gate crash~ Don't you stop~ Countdown to the drop~"
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A content sigh escaped Kenshin's mouth as he walked out of his bathroom, fresh out of a hot bath to clean any gunk off of his body. Now clad in a loose pair of shorts and no shirt, the man was a bit stumped on what to do. He wasn't going outside again, he didn't feel like getting into another bloodbath after just getting cleaned, and it was still to early in the morning to talk to Saitama about what exactly happened.
"I REALLY need that gaming rig..." plus, it would help with hand-eye coordination or some shit like that!
But it would mostly serve as a distraction during times like these, where he had nothing to do but think. Or watch YouTube shorts. Or- yeah no he's not getting on TikTok fuck that. Well, there was still one thing he could do to pass the time.
With a sigh, Kenshin put on a pair of headphones to draw out the oncoming sound of slot machines. He could only hope the walls here were thick enough so that Saitama wouldn't get disturbed. If not, well, he could always buy some foam padding later.
"Let's go gambling... yippee!"
And gambling he went. It was nice that he didn't have to physically turn on the machines to use them, but it would've been a nice thing to do just to keep his body moving. Touching random shit was fun for all of two minutes before it became a chore.
Kenshin also kept some of the more valuable items, even some luxury-brand purses for the day he hopefully gets a thicc GF. Bitches love gifts. It was nice to see more golden tickets, even if there was hardly a use for them now, still, fully maxing out his attributes was always very, very nice.
◇──◆──◇──◆◆──◇──◆──◇
>[Name]
Kenshin
>[Age]
Irrelevant, legal.
>[Ability List]
Compulsive Gambler [N/A]
-In combat: roll a d20, the higher the number, the greater the critical strike, however, low numbers run the risk of the attack outright missing.
-Out of combat: play a variety of minigames at the cost of currency or items, each giving special rewards. The greater the risk, the greater the possible reward~
Perfect Self [EX+]
-View and edit personal attributes portraying to one's physique and even luck.
Photosynthesis] [C-]
The user can survive off of sunlight.
Autonomous Ultra Instinct [EX+]
Activated automatically at the loss of consciousness during combat. An auto-combat ability that pushes one's body beyond its limits, maximising speed, power and durability at the cost of stamina. For continued use, go into monkey mode. Do not think. Just do.
Cardcaster [A+]
Generate a deck of cards and imbue them with energy depending on the drawn card's value. The greater the value the greater the explosive or penetrative force.
>[ATTRIBUTES]
Strength: EX+
Stamina: EX+
Speed: EX+
Charm: EX+
Ability: S -> EX+
Luck: EX+
◇──◆──◇──◆◆──◇──◆──◇
"Hurray," Kenshin cheered, a bit dead but also happy that his stats were fully maxed out.
He promptly gambled the rest of the golden tickets away, keeping them around for someone to randomly stumble upon if he got a visitor wouldn't be ideal. Kenshin could do nothing now but hope his maxed out attributes could carry him against powerful monsters before he got a more powerful ability. Something like a force field or healing would've been nice...
"I love gambling."
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