"Y-You bastard...! How dare you hit Kael!"
"Let's go beat this crazy fucker up!"
"Everyone, gang up on him!"
"Huh?"
Lost in my own thoughts, I'd almost missed them entirely. My bully's lackeys—a handful of faces whose names I'd never bothered to remember—were charging toward me with all the menace of wet paper. Their footing was wrong, their shoulders were wrong, their whole posture was wrong. A firm shove would've sent any one of them spinning into next week.
None of them were armed, either. Threat level: roughly equivalent to an angry tick.
'If this is a dream, then what's the point of it? To make me feel guilty about bullying the weak?'
Watching them close the distance, I felt like a maxed-out warrior who'd wandered into the starting zone just to stretch his legs.
"Oh..."
A fist swung toward me—slow, telegraphed, practically gift-wrapped. Was my earlier punch really the same way from his end...? Damn. This dream body was sluggish, almost frustratingly unresponsive compared to what I was used to.
Not that any of that meant I was going to just stand there and take it.
Even as a Berserker, HP management is the most basic of the basics. You don't wade into a crowd without accounting for incoming damage. That's not bravery—that's stupidity wearing a brave face.
I tracked the punch's arc, stepped back just enough to let it pass, and slid my foot forward at the same time. The lackey's momentum did the rest.
"WAAH!"
He pitched forward and crashed directly into the two charging up behind him. The three of them went down in a heap of flailing limbs, tangled and groaning.
Two left standing.
"Y-You...!"
The nearer one bared his teeth, fury overriding whatever was left of his survival instincts. His form was screaming amateur—every intention telegraphed, nothing held back in reserve.
With a light redirect, I deflected his fist up and away from my face and drove my shoulder hard into his solar plexus. A classic technique—Shoulder Bash, in game terms.
"BUFU—!"
Every ounce of air evacuated his lungs at once. He folded, crumpled to the ground, and stayed there, unconscious before he'd fully landed.
"...Even for a dream, this is almost embarrassing."
I was growing more and more certain this whole thing was some kind of guilt trip. A morality lesson, dressed up as a beat-em-up.
The last lackey hadn't moved. He was standing perfectly still, face cycling through several shades of pale.
"What about you?" I asked, tilting my head. "Not coming?"
"W-Waaah! He's a monster—!"
He turned and fled. Fast. Impressively fast, actually, for someone whose legs appeared to be failing him in real time.
"..."
Alright. Enough of that.
No more pretending. No more hedging. Whatever this was, it was not a simple lucid dream—the sensations were far too crisp, too grounded, too there for that explanation to hold any water.
'Is this the reward? Did the wish actually get granted?'
I stepped over the tangled pile of lackeys and pressed my foot down onto the back of the nearest one—firm enough that a few bones made themselves known with an audible protest.
"You guys," I said pleasantly, looking down at their rapidly paling faces. "What day is it today?"
"M-Mercy—"
"I-I'm innocent! I was just following Kael's orders! I swear, I—!"
"P-Please, don't kill me, please—!"
"...Huh?"
Were they not listening? Or had they decided my question was some kind of preamble to an execution?
"If you don't answer me," I said, helpfully, "then it might actually become your last day on earth. Just so we're clear."
"I-It's Friday! December 31st, 2060! Please, I'm begging you, let me go—I've got brothers who depend on me—!" The one beneath my foot managed to get it all out through split, bloodied lips.
The date landed in my memory like a key turning in a lock.
The day before Heaven's Path launched.
'Which means I'm back to being a second-year college student...'
Now that I thought about it, that much should've been obvious from the start. These bullies had been from my department. Of course they had.
"I really did come back..."
The three beneath me exchanged glances at the murmur, their expressions shifting from terror into something more confused—like men trying to decide whether the person standing on them was dangerous or simply unhinged.
Honestly, fair.
Thinking back on what they'd put me through, back then...
Hm.
Actually, I couldn't. Not really. This was thirty years ago from where I was standing, and whatever wounds they'd left had long since been buried under far worse ones—things the game had done that made these guys look like a minor inconvenience at best. I couldn't even muster the energy to be properly angry anymore.
The only reason I'd hit them at all was self-defense. Preemptive self-defense, specifically—neutralize the threat before the threat can become a problem. It was the single most reliable rule I'd carried through thirty years of survival, and it hadn't failed me yet.
CRACK—!
Anyway. More pressing matters.
"Today is the best day to buy the game hardware."
The VR rig for Heaven's Path was going to run about ten thousand dollars on release day. As a scholarship orphan whose entire financial situation could be summarized as "several part-time jobs and a prayer," I didn't have a tenth of that. Not even close.
Which meant I needed to get creative.
"You."
"ACK—!"
I grabbed the nearest lackey by the hair and leaned in.
"If I remember right, you're all members of the Red Axe Gang." I kept my voice low and pleasant, which, based on his expression, was somehow more alarming than shouting. "Take me to your boss."
"Y-YESH!!!"
"..."
...Did he just wet himself.
By reflex, I shoved his face into the person beside him. Both went limp. But the damage—and the smell—was already done. I had been one second too slow. A yellow stain already touched my shoes.
I looked at the third one. The sole conscious survivor. He was staring at me like a man facing a natural disaster he had no vocabulary for.
I smiled at him.
"I'm going to go change my clothes first." I kept my tone warm, conversational. "Be ready to guide me when I get back."
Stepping away from the mess, I walked over to my bully—still face-down where I'd left him—and crouched to examine his shoes.
"Oh. First-edition Jordanes?"
I picked them up, turned them over in my hands. Barely a scuff on them.
"You've got good taste, you bastard." I pulled them on. Perfect fit. "Is this from the money you were always stealing from me? Damn. I really should've done this years ago. Curse the spineless past me."
Newly shod, I turned to leave—then stopped.
Right. One more thing.
I glanced back at the survivor and gave him a bright, cheerful look.
"If you're gone when I get back... you know what happens. Yes?"
"Y-YESH!"
"..."
Yep. Him too.
I sighed, casting a brief look at the ground.
"Change your clothes before I return," I added, as a parting courtesy. "If you smell like that when I get back, you're dead."
With that settled, I walked away—feeling, all things considered, fairly good about how the morning was going.