Code Zulu Alpha: Nerd in the Apocalypse!

Even though I am of Asian descent, not to disparage it or anything—in fact, still proud of it—since I may have been blessed with uber-tier genetics, but then again, Artem and his group—Alexander, in our case—just had the Slavic propensity to be bigger and stronger than most of my kind.

However, even with a reach advantage, Alexander couldn't be more surprised that I hit him first and dodged his jab all at the same time.

"What the fu—"

And before he could even finish his sentence, I stepped in to his right side and sent a compact hook to his torso before kicking forward his left knee that was sticking out from the right side.

Well—it was more of a push to his knee, if anything, just to throw of his balance as he braced his core to defend from the hook, but yeah—I didn't even need to create a simple opening, yet I did to make the next hit count.

However, right as I was about to nick his chin with a knockout left hook, the motherfucker powered through with his huge arms and attempted to grapple me—but right as everyone thought it would've been a ground battle, Alexander dropped to one knee as he passed out for a second.

"The fuck?"

"What happened?"

"Open your eyes, Rubs', it was clearly an upper…"

"Don't call me that, dude— wait, an upper?!"

"A right upper, I think…"

"You think?"

As everyone else watching was confused as hell, well—while it was technically an upper, it was more like a straight-upper coming from below since it didn't follow an upward arc but a straight one. Doing so would shorten the distance from my fist to his chin—and obviously I didn't even need to put much power since all I had to do was connect cleanly and as precisely as possible.

'It's not like I have to break his jaw, all I had to do was shake his brain…'

But yeah, I would've ended our bout if I started to wail on Alexander's ass, and even though he was still trying hard to get up, I waited patiently on one corner without looking anywhere else. And once he did get up, he just shook his head while wearing a smile before looking right at me:

"Was that the move you used to beat everyone else?"

"Hah? I just made that up on the spot."

"Then—"

"I beat everyone else because I'm me."

"Hah! I'd fucking love to say that once I beat you—"

"There's a line, a long~ fucking line. We're just getting to know each other now, no? I didn't finish it since you'd be back in the hospital after this is over."

"I guess I'll have to say thanks. Thanks! But I'll land a hit at least!"

"You'll hit the floor again, sure!"

"HAH! FUCK— ENOUGH TALKING!"

At that point, I felt Alexander's desire to hit and get hit—and it would've been a nice action sequence if I only favored the former and detested the latter. Still, I planted my foot in front of him as he also did, but the only difference between us right now was that he was clenching his gloves hard while I had more or less an open palm.

And right from the get-go, the dude opened with a right hook followed by a jab and then another right hook but I just leaned back, twisted my head, and then ducked low before suddenly using my legs to spring up and land another upper on his chin.

"GcHK!"

Obviously, these Russians were a hardy bunch—making them take more knockout punches—but let's just say I'm a quick one for umm… sending knockout punches one after the other.

Because even before he could recover, I messed with his footing once more by matching my left foot with his right and then sweeping it outside. It made his stance stagger for the second time but instead of aiming for his chin a third time, my uppers turned to a right hook aimed for his left temple.

However, the guy finally learned to use his head, literally, to twist it in a way where my blow would just glance at his forehead—but as he wound up a wide-ass hook to counter my blow, I had already met with his fist and pushed it down before using the same arm to send an elbow to his other temple.

Still, the motherfucker was still standing—despite his two downs from earlier, but his breathing had become more ragged either to his body heating up from excitement or exhaustion.

But yeah, I broke his fucking concentration by sending a crisp jab on his nose, circling to his right side again, and then sending even more jabs to disrupt his rhythm. If anything, getting hit by small hits—which could value a -1 HP—was annoying as fuck, even more so if you'd have to roll for concentration checks from each one.

Getting into the groove was anyone's way to turn the tide or even have a proper hold onto any fight—and it just my way to disrupt it any chance I had to also have my way.

While I do have my own rhythm I would've loved to follow, I used it alongside everything I learned—akin to a random playlist containing all the music genres.

It might sound random at first but like my basic sword technique that encompassed attacks from all sides, it was more of the same but a step higher. Another person might figure out the trick eventually but figuring it out wouldn't do them any good either.

Everyone's too focused on whether it was hard or soft, fast or slow, but not one of them ever thought about what's in-between or the amount of sectors, layers, or the exact percentages one could draw out from the opposing ends.

Still, let's just say I favored doing it hard and fast for the most part because one, it was less tiring, and two, I'd have more time doing shit elsewhere.

So yeah, after sending a couple dozen jabs in Alexander's face, he failed to notice I changed my orthodox stance into a southpaw stance where my jab essentially turned to a straight. In addition, I twisted my arm for a corkscrew blow and the onslaught of -1 HP attacks suddenly turned to a -100 HP with crit applied.

Alexander just fell on the mat unconscious, a few seconds before the bell rang, and like everyone else who fought me, they woke up confused with everyone else looking at them with a mix of expressions.

"T-The fu— What just happened?"

Tatiana chortled, "You got knocked the fuck out what's happened!"

Alexander looked at her weirdly, "Since when do you talk like that?"

"Since when do you use your fists?"

"What?"

"Huh—"

I suddenly rushed in, "Oh, shit— EVERYONE BACK AWAY~!"

While nothing drastic or violent happened the last time he got "corrected", I wanted to make sure that there were no accidents—and yeah, just so that Alexander could vomit in peace. However, even Tatiana felt the pressure Alexander emitted as he was in mid-regurgitation of his dinner.

But yeah, Tatiana wasn't Tatiana if she didn't shut shit down by smacking the shit out of Alexander's head with the butt-end or the pommel of her sword, and then proceeding to beat the bejesus out of her comrade by using cock and ball torture.

Everyone else was just staring in silence, shock, and fuck it, morbid curiosity if they could ever have Alexander's place instead.

It's just that when things died down, Alexander got up and asked to fight me again, and this time, he wanted to use kicks and some throws. The thing was, I would've agreed if it weren't for his skin looking worse than a person getting mugged since he had fifty shades of black and blue on his skin right now.

"Why don't we put that on hold?"

"Why?"

"Why? Can't you see your face?"

"I mean— It's a flesh wound!"

"Nahhhh~ You already did more on a day. How about you head back to your room and I'll send you more food? You did vomit again."

He shrugged his shoulders, "At least I'm piecin' myself together."

"Does it just happen everytime?"

"I dunno. Means just I need to talk more to people or I'll never know."

I turned to Marisha, "How about that other technique?" Enjoy new tales from My Virtual Library Empire

Marisha just gave me a glance, "Different things work for different people, young man. Are you saying this isn't working? It clearly is, right? It's just isn't wise to change treatment plans or whatever it was you're insinuating I can do. It's one small victory after another, alright?"

'Ah, fuck… I forgot we shouldn't talk about that…'

With that said, it wouldn't surprise me if Marisha went nuclear and pulled out the same device to make people forget from Dudes In Black if I ever leaked her superpower because that was just a lot of power and responsibility that needed to be kept secret.