Nikolai heard a screech before something jumped on him from behind the fog. It was a crazed rabbit, the lowest of the F-rank monsters.

It seems to be wounded and it came hurling at Nikolai with its fangs ready to rip through his skin.

BANG!

The gun’s recoil was stronger than he could remember, making his shot only graze the rabbit that kept hurling his way. With his dagger, Nikolai slashed the dagger at the rabbit that suffered a superficial wound before running away.

Nikolai sighed as he watched the rabbit run away into the fog, leaving a trail of blood. He thought about following after, but he heard hurried footsteps and shouting.

It came from the direction the rabbit ran from, so it must have been wounded by another group of students. Nikolai found a big tree and hid behind it with reassuringly in hand. As he waited, the fog parted as three figures came following after the rabbit.

‘Julian, Luke, and Erza.’ The two people who had tried to team up with him earlier were now with their friend, another person who bullied him in his past life and a little in the present one.

Erza was a beautiful girl who had a crush on Julian. However, Julian didn’t think much of her because of her lacking background and talent.

That made Erza do anything to make Julian accept her. Including, but not only, bullying Nikolai and spreading rumors about him during his second year.

“Did you hear that?” Luke asked. “It was a gunshot. It must be that wimp. He was the only person to choose a gun.”

“So?” Julian asked. “Are you scared of him? Judging by the blood here, he must have tried to shoot him but missed. I guess he’s running after the wounded rabbit now. Let’s go.”

The three followed the trail of blood that the rabbit left behind. Nikolai weighed his options for a moment before following after them.

From what he remembered, none of the students got a skill before the end of the first semester of the academy, except for Julian. However, his skill was an offensive one so it didn’t’ have perception capabilities. This made it safe to follow after them without being found.

The fog parted as he dived into it. He could hear their footsteps getting farther so he wasn’t worried about losing them. He could also hear their shouting.

Being a ranger, Nikolai learned a set of techniques to reduce the sound of his footsteps. He was also adept at avoiding stepping on things that would give him away.

This body was still weaker and less dexterous than his past self, but it was enough against these F-rankers. Suddenly, they stopped.

“The trail splits here!” Luke shouted. “There are two now, did the rabbit meet another one and they had a fight?”

“No, it’s that bastard. He must have caught up to the rabbit and the monster injured him, hahaha.” Julian laughed. Nikolai was astonished at how much he hated him, but why? “Luke, follow this trail. We’ll follow the other one. If you find that wimp, you know what to do.”

“Got it.” Luke’s reply came and the sounds of their sprinting grew farther away.

Nikolai rushed to the scene and found the blood of two monsters. As he checked the scene, he found a strand of fur lying on the ground.

It didn’t belong to the rabbit, but a different monster. As he examined it, he was able to figure out what monster it was. It was a burrowing fox. A monster that lived in colonies underground and liked to build holes to hide in.

It fed on human’s and monster’s meat alike. With their high number, it was a dangerous F-rank monster to encounter. Since the rabbit seems to have encountered only one, the colony must be close.

‘Didn’t Mr. Heartwrath say the area was only for pre-adolescence?’ Nikolai frowned. ‘It means the foxes shouldn’t have reproduced yet.’

He stood up and followed after Luke’s footsteps, who were a single pair instead of two. As he dived farther into the fog, he started to hear someone shouting.

“You damn monster!”

Nikolai hid behind a tree and saw Luke fighting against a burrowing fox. It was small but agile. After being injured by Luke, the monster turned tails and ran away.

Luke stood there huffing as he bled from his arm. He ripped his clothes and tied them around the wound as he looked around.

“Damn it, it wasn’t the wimp. It was a different monster like I said. I need to go back.”

‘Now is my chance.’ Nikolai grinned as he tightened his hand around the pistol. He looked at the trail of blood the monster left behind and concluded it must have headed toward its home.

With that in mind, Nikolai ran back into the fog and changed his position. He stood on the top of a hill and looked at the approximate location of Luke. He stood on top of the trail of blood that the fox left.

“Hey, Luke!” Nikolai shouted into the fog. He raised his gun and aimed at the general direction of Luke.

“What? Who is it?” He actually didn’t recognize Nikolai’s voice. Maybe it was because Nikolai always talked quietly or simply because Luke was scared.

Without saying anything else, Nikolai readjusted his aim toward the source of the voice and fired. This was an essential skill in the army that he had gone through hell to learn.

It also brought unpleasant memory because the person who killed him trained him to master it. The bullet left a trail in the fog and the sound of flesh being pierced rang in Nikolai’s ears.

“Ah!!!” Luke’s scream came right after and Nikolai ran from the hill. He descended downward but his body couldn’t handle the slop so he began rolling down. His descent stopped when he slammed into a tree’s trunk.

“You fucking bastard, I’m going to kill you!” Luke’s roar came from behind and Nikolai, despite his pain, and crawled behind the bushes.

He could hear the sound of Luke climbing the hill so he frantically looked for the trail of blood. Luckily, he found it to be a distance away. It ended in a grove of trees and bushes, making a grin appear on Nikolai’s face.

He stood up and circled around the grove to stand beside a tree, leaning on it. He saw a movement from behind the trees and aimed his gun again. With a loud bang, the bullet traveled to land beside Luke.

“You motherfucker, I got you now!” Luke rushed his way in a crazed manner. When Nikolai finally goes to see him, he realized the bullet he shot earlier has simply grazed Luke’s leg. It seems his lacking intelligence stat made his perception unlike what it was before.

‘I got lucky, hehe.’ Nikolai laughed inwardly as he saw Luke cut across the grove. He counted the steps and without realizing it, Luke fell into the hole between the bushes.

“Ah! Ugh!” His screams resounded throughout the grove and Nikolai walked toward the hole to look down on it. It was a giant hole with tunnels around it. The foxes have built this hole as a trap for large animals.

He saw Luke groaning at the bottom of the hole, lying on his back. He looked at Nikolai with rage once he spotted him.

“You…”

“Enough with the cursing, Luke. It’s time for a lesson.” Nikolai aimed his gun at Luke. “Do you know of something called energy channels? Well, of course, you do. We took that lesson today. Do you know what’s the point where they intersect in the body called?”

“What the fuck are you…”

“Dantian, the energy center of mana. When this point is damaged, you’ll find it hard to use mana. You’ll also lose strength. However, with how small it is, it’s hard to strike it. Furthermore, you’ll need a certain amount of strength to destroy it for strong people.”

“I’ll fucking kill you, you crazy bastard. I’ll hunt you down until the last breath you take.”

“With enough training, however, you can aim for it.” Nikolai adjusted his aim. “Like this.” He pulled the trigger and Luke howled with pain.

“I…”

“You can no longer gather or use energy or mana.” Nikolai jumped into the hole and rolled over the ground to alleviate his fall. “You won’t die from this bullet with your stats, but I’ll make sure you do.”

“No, please… don’t… I didn’t do anything to deserve this…”

“Oh, but you will.” Nikolai grabbed the dagger in reverse. “This is for all the nights I didn’t sleep because of the wounds you inflicted.” He stabbed toward the bullet’s hole and twisted.

Luke’s scream grew louder until his voice turned hoars. Nikolai, however, didn’t care and extracted the bullet. It was a messy job, but he got it out and pocketed it.

“This is for the time you broke my leg so I didn’t participate in the exam and failed.” Nikolai stabbed again. “This is for the girl you assaulted in the army because she was friends with me.” He stabbed again. “This is for stealing the crystals I chanced upon to make sure I never grew stronger.” He stabbed again.

As Nikolai saw that Luke was about to die, he opened his system and chose a new event. The probability of Luke dropping crystals was 10%, so he used two points and it turned to 30%. And then, he died.

[Fate has been stolen. A total of 23 Fate Points has been generated. Character Luke Oslin has been deleted from the system.]

After it ended, Nikolai was huffing with tears in his eyes. He has finally taken revenge on some of the people that wronged him. Yet, he killed a person for the first time in this life.

It felt liberating. He knew the future, so he knew all the harm he had undone by killing such a human. Nikolai looked at the sky that was growing darker.

He heard something buzz and looked down to see two crystals floating above Luke’s body. One of them was green while the other was blue. Strength and agility. Nikolai grabbed it and pocketed it as well.

The weather didn’t change in this lifetime too, Nikolai smiled. Rain began to fall as crawling voices came from the tunnels. Nikolai pushed the corpse toward the tunnels and the foxes jumped on it to devour it.

With this, the evidence will be lost. These foxes will eat his flesh for days until nothing is left. With the sky raining, the blood trail left behind by the foxes will be washed away.

Nikolai climbed out of the hole using the last of his strength and started heading toward the stream. As he did, he calculated how much fate can he change with his new points.