Retry Hunter

In small apartment room, a life or death battle was being fought. Staring at the flashing computer screen, Jake Pelt was focused to the extreme.

On the screen, green smoke covered the surroundings, only a small area having visibility, showing two arms holding up a powerful automatic weapon, the vandal. 

Hearing footsteps to his side, Jake flicked to the right, but it was too late. With a bullet hitting his characters head, the screen change showing the words 'DEFEAT'.

"Fuck I hate that viper ult" Jake yelled, chucking his mouse towards the wall. Not yet relieving his anger, he typed in the chat 'Jett you piece of sh** duelist, how do you have a 3/16/7 kda, pls delete this game to save others from having to suffer through your gameplay'

Letting out a heavy sigh, Jake took off his headset planning to take a walk to calm his mind. That was his 7th straight loss today. Not even taking time to close his computer or pick up the mouse on the ground, Jake put on his slippers, opened the door and walked out into the hallway.

Moving along the hallway, Jake observed the familiar walls, ceilings, and apartment doors. Although boring it did help him calm down. Just then a blue screen suddenly popped up in his vision. In a black on blue text the screen read 'Survive the Portal Break'

Making sure he wasn't hallucinating, Jake blinked a few times and then tried touching the blue screen.

His hand simply passed through the screen, which showed no response still showing the same text.

Just as he was about to do more tests with it the screen disappeared.

Maybe he was hallucinating, the stress of losing 7 consecutive games might have gotten to him.

Letting go of the weird event just now, Jake walked along the hallway in order to further calm his mind.

Moving onto a divided path, just as he was about to turn right to go down the staircase. A group of heavy breathing people from the right rushed forward, not giving Jake any attention.

Looking at the group of runners, Jake wondered what it was they were running.

Turning his head towards the right hallway, Jake's question was quickly answered.

In his line of sight, a green creature rushed towards him. Using its two front limbs, almost as long as it's entire body, to move; much like a baboon.

In its left hand it held a stone dagger the tip having fresh blood.

As it saw Jake, it growled in excitement showing its razor sharp teeth filled with bits of human flesh.

Not sparing another glance, Jake turned back sprinting through the halls, planning to hide in his room. Due to his nervousness he almost tripped but swiftly recovered his balance.

Nearing his room, Jake took out the apartment key from his pocket. Just as he inserted the key into the keyhole, he heard the excited growling of the creature.

He was about to ditch going into his room and continue running but the creature suddenly leaped towards him.

In panic, Jake froze seeing the creature in the air with its mouth open wanting to tear him into bits.

In the nick of time, Jake was able to move his arm and block the creature's jaw.

Falling backwards, he felt searing pain from his forearms as the monster's teeth tore through his flesh.

That was soon followed by a sharp pain on his left shoulder as the creature stabbed it with the stone dagger.

Jake tried pushing the creature away, but it was relentless; gnawing on his flesh the monster wouldn't let go as it continued stabbing and clawing him with its hand.

Feeling tremendous pain as blood poured out of his wounds, Jake felt that death was about to come.

In that moment, he felt an unexpected surge in strength and energy, as the pain dulled.

Taken over by rage and adrenaline Jake slammed the goblin like creature towards the wall.

Quickly standing up while the goblin inflicted more damage, Jake grabbed its neck with his other hand putting as much pressure as he could.

The goblin didn't seem to mind as it continued biting on his forearm.

Even though the goblin kept stabbing and clawing his arms, Jake kept strangling it.

As time passed the goblin started losing strength due to the lack of oxygen.

It loosened its grip on Jake's forearm, trying to gain some air through its mouth, in response Jake pushed his arm deeper into the beast's mouth.

Soon the goblin turned slightly blue, its two arms dangling by its side, its teeth no longer putting any pressure on Jake's flesh.

Strangling the goblin for a few more second, Jake let go while letting out a deep breath.

Without his hands support the goblin fell lifelessly on the floor. As Jake tried to move, his body collapsed. Falling to the ground he barely managing to turn his face towards the flickering light on the ceiling.

As life slowly drained from his body, Jake thought about his 20 years of experience in this world, all the things he did and all the things he wanted to do.

Letting out his final breath, Jake had one last thought, 'At least I didn't die a virgin'

*******

Expecting external darkness, Jake unexpectedly saw the blue screen with the same text 'Survive the Portal Break'

Looking around he realized that he was at the same spot where the screen suddenly appeared.

Searching his body and finding no injuries, Jake walked along the hallway till he saw the intersection.

Waiting for a bit, the same group of people rushed through, Jake not wasting a single moment turned back and sprinted to his room.

Once inside he locked the door and started piling as many things as he could in front of door in order to block it.

After that he took a breath in and took a deep breath out to calm himself. He didn't consider what he experienced before his 'death' to be fake due to the intense pain he had experienced.

After making sure that the same events followed, he quickly went back to his room. It seems like after he died, he was brought back to the moment the blue screen appeared.

The only thing the screen said was to survive the portal break. Which was definitely not enough information.

Assuming that the group was going up or down the stairs to run from the goblins. The only reason they would go on this floor is that they encountered another goblin or creature that blocked their path.

Based on this the goblins might have already surrounded the entire building or there were multiple portals; at least one on the upper and one on the lower floors.

Feeling calm enough, Jake took out his phone and called emergency services.

"911, what's your emergency?"

Quickly thinking of another response other than 'Goblins that came out of a portal are killing people'

Jake responded "There's a shooter at building 456 on ridge street"

The dispatcher responded "We have already received multiple emergency calls from that building and emergency services are on their"

"Please try to stay calm" they added. "If you haven't already, find a secure place for shelter. If you're safe, it's best to stay put until responders arrive."

"I'm in my apartment, but can you tell me when emergency services will arrive"

"Emergency services should arrive in 5 to 10 min, to pass the time you can talk about past experiences you've found calming or relaxing"

"I'm good, thanks for responding to my call" Jake said as he pressed the end call button. Lying down on the floor he tried to get his thoughts together.

As the dispatcher said the best choice for now was to wait till emergency services arrived. He didn't know how many goblins there were but based on his experience with one of them they shouldn't be strong enough to breakdown the door, especially with all the reinforcements.

Since he lived on the 6th floor of an 8th story building, if the emergency services arrive in 5 to 10 min, they'll take a much longer time to arrive to his location, especially while fighting those creatures.

Thinking back to the blue screen, Jake had read a good number of novels to know that it was probably a system panel.

He tried to summon it in his mind 'Status panel open', 'Status window', 'System Panel', 'turn on button'

Seeing that his thoughts had no effect, Jake tried to summon the window by speaking "Status Window On", "System Panel Open", "Mission Screen" but none of them worked.

Thinking that maybe it was the Sussy type of system, Jake voiced out in his mind 'Uncle System pls help me', 'System Daddy, I admit I'm your son', 'System ancestor your bloodlines about to die out, do something'

However, the blue window still didn't appear. Jake didn't even think about speaking those words out loud, if someone, somehow heard him, he would die of embarrassment.

In the next 6 minutes he tried various ways to bring the blue panel back; doing Jojo poses, praying to all of the gods in existence, even trying to bribe the panel by saying he would give it $50 if it appeared.

Just as he was about to try even more special things, he heard a faint thump.

3 seconds later it was followed by a boisterous scream of a man begging for help. Within a few seconds the noise died down.

The scream came from the right, probably from a person living in an apartment in the outermost side.

The building Jake lived in was shaped like an H with his room right in the middle of the —.

On each of the endings there was a staircase, the building having 4 stairwells in total. The group he saw came from the top left staircase. While the screaming came from the rightmost side of the —.

As his apartment was in the middle, there were only 5 other apartments to his right, including the apartments on the other side 9. 

As he tried to think of a plan to get out of this situation. He heard another thump, which he assumed was a door breaking, followed by another scream.

Noticing that nobody came out their apartments, Jake hated the fact that his neighbors were such heavy sleepers.

Not even waking up to the sound of someone's shout. They wouldn't be of any help now, but they might have been able to aid him when he was fighting that goblin.

Then there was another thump, no screams followed this time, whoever rented that apartment was extremely lucky avoiding this event.

Another thump was followed by another person's scream. Thinking of ways to get out of this situation, Jake used his brain.

It's been 6 minutes since he called emergency services assuming they arrived a minute ago, there still wasn't enough time for them to get to the 6th floor much less rescue him.

He thought about making a dash for it but taking off all of the stuff blocking the door would take too much energy and there was no guarantee he could outrun the goblin, in addition that didn't even account for whatever was breaking through the doors.

The 4th thump came, not followed by any screaming.

Jake thought about hiding but considering the fact that they were tearing down doors to kill people this idea might not work.

He could hide in the bedroom, but they'd probably just tear through the bedroom door.

While Jake was thinking of spots to hide.

The 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th thump came, some followed by people's cry for help.

Not thinking of any good places to hide, Jake turned towards his apartment window, overlooking parts of the city.

Opening the window, he saw the familiar sight of some city lights, he could barely see the sides of the apartment though.

Not having the guts to climb out of the window, Jake tried to think of another plan.

Then the 9th thump. Still trying to think of other ways to survive, Jake hesitated whether he should climb out or not. The apartment building didn't have balconies, but it did have edges sticking out in order to look fancy, just enough for him to step onto.

Then he heard another thump behind him, looking back he saw the door being pushed back but the things he put in front of it made it able to take another hit.

Seeing that it was now or never, Jake carefully went over the window finding his footing, moving to the side he pushed the windows back, closing them.

Although he knew it was a steep drop the darkness made it seem never ending. Hearing another thump, Jake remained calm not moving an inch. Waiting a few seconds, just as he thought he was safe, from the room the sound of aggressive sniffing came. The sound drew closer and closer to the window.

The window was then pushed open by the goblin. Seeing it's ugly face poking out of the window, Jake thought that there was no way it was suicidal enough to try get him.

The goblin turned its head and the moment it saw Jake, it let out a shriek as it used the window to swing over to Jake.

'Fuck, I Jinxed myself'

Since he couldn't really move anywhere, Jake tried to deflect the goblin, pushing his towards the goblin's chest.

The goblin lost its momentum, starting to fall but it managed to yank at Jake's hand making him fall too.

Thinking that there was no way to survive from this height, Jake dove in headfirst hoping for a quick death.

In his mind he counted 1 second and just as he was about to count the 2nd second.

His vision changed, having the blue screen once again in front of him. Not wasting anytime this time Jake ran through the hallway making a left turn. Just as he neared the staircase, he saw two goblins pop out from the entrance. Immediately turning back and running, the two goblins chased after him. Just as he was about to pass the group of people coming from the other side. The person at the front upon seeing the two goblins pushed Jake towards the ground before turning around.

While desperately trying to regain his balance the two goblins lunged towards him. Trying his best to fight the two goblins. Jake memorized the face of the person who pushed him, if he survived and they did too, he would get his revenge someday.

Fighting the two goblins he was at an extreme disadvantage; he didn't last very long till he was once again brought back.

This time Jake rushed towards the other end of the hallway instead, hoping to have more luck in the other two stairways.

Making a left turn he rushed towards the stairs but then a goblin came out of the entrance, upon seeing him, the goblin rushed towards him like a dog in heat finding a couch. This time instead of running away, Jake kept his pace.

Through his multiple encounters with the goblins, he realized that when he approached a certain distance, they would leap towards him.

Making sure his timing was right, Jake slid on the floor lowering his body close to the ground, while the goblin leaped over him.

Midair it tried to changed direction when it realized it would jump over Jake causing it to tumble when it touched the ground.

Although safe, Jake kind of regretted his decision, although mostly naked the goblins did wear a small leather tarp across their waist covering their private areas.

However, while sliding due to him being under and the goblin being up in the air, he caught a glimpse of the goblins genitals and asshole which should NOT be described any further.

Rushing down the stairs now on the 4th floor, Jake saw another goblin downstairs rushing towards him. The goblin he encountered on the 6th floor was still chasing after him.

If he tried fighting this goblin the other one would catch up forcing him to be in a 2 v 1.

Jake quickly thought up a solution, still going down the stairs as the goblin neared him, Jake jumped over the stair railings, he was able to grab onto the railings of the second floor but lost his grip. Falling down from the second to the first floor, he was able to land on his before rolling back on his ass.

Jake hurriedly got back up; his ass hurt like hell, but he needed to run away first.

Exiting the apartment, Jake didn't stop running until he was a few blocks away from the building.

It was at that moment that the blue window suddenly appeared now showing

'Survive the Portal Outbreak - Complete

Rating: E-

Rewards: +1 strength and 100 points'

The screen then changed

'Consuming +1 strength and 100 points to repair system function current repair rate: 15%'

Looking at this Jake felt a little disappointed that he couldn't receive any of the rewards and that his efforts trying to summon the panel were worthless due to the system needing repairs.

However, he was still grateful for the fact that it allowed him to survive by giving him 3 extra lives.

Reflecting on today's events, it was definitely the craziest day of his life, starting with losing 7 straight games of Valorant then getting killed by a goblin, falling to his death, being pushed towards 2 goblins (he was definitely going to get revenge if that dude survived), to finally making it out of the building, and last but not least, his ass still hurt.