Path of Thorns, Many, Many Thorns

Hayashi was suddenly awoken as he was shaken by Okazaki

"Hayashi...Wake up, there's zombies at the gates...a lot of them.." Okazaki seemed to be looking at Hayashi's door as it was closed rather cautiously, even armed with an improved sword from the kendo team's arsenal.

"Zombies...at the gate..?" Hayashi seemed to have a fire lit under his ass.

"Mhm, enough to be seen as a hoard..."

"I'll exterminate them..." Hayashi put on some shoes as he sees some of his combat team members were also awake when walking out of his dorm.

"Damned zombies interrupted our sleep...Looks like a night raid ladies and gentlemen, the only plan there is, is to exterminate them all!" Hayashi talked as if he had a bone to pick with these zombies as he gets.

The combat team members nod as they instantly start to get into formation, Archers at the back and Kendo club at the front, Hayashi plays the vanguard as he jumps onto the gates and into a tree due to his high [AGI] stat making it easy for him. "Death from above! [Chain Rush!]" Hayashi jumped down instantly taking out two zombies effortlessly before the chain attack starts to take effect, his body automatically starts to target the nearest zombies and destroy them all seeing his proficiency in this skill rise pretty quickly.

[Chain Rush] Proficiency up! LVL 4 1300/1361(95.51%)

[Dagger] Proficiency up! LVL6 560/1000 (56%)

"Not bad," He said no seeing as more zombies had been shot down with arrows and some even had their heads sliced clean off. "Good job team, you've outdone yourselves. [Harvest]" The harvest skill does its thing and drains the zombies of their resources as Hayashi jumps the fence.

[Harvest] Proficiency up! 200/1500 (13.3%)

"Everyone get back to bed..." Hayashi jumped through the window seeing as the hoard eliminated did not wake many of the civilians who were sleeping, waiting until morning to wake up again, but he couldn't sleep.

"Can't sleep..." He looked through the inventory and went through a lot of his items in there he remembered he picked up an attribute scroll as well as multiple mutant cores as he remembered what they can be used for.

"I remember that some Awakeners could use mutant cores for multiple uses." Hayashi reminisced. "first it could be used as bait, both zombies and mutants will react. The second recorded use was making a slot in your weapon to give a weapon skill... and the last which were used by awakeners to unleash their full potential, they could use it to enhance their stats, some got lucky and learned a monster's skill compatible with their class." Hayashi picked out the many monster cores in his inventory to put them in a small bag and put them into his inventory again. "It was also recorded that it had a side effect of causing pain to the consumer and even killing them if they consumed too many at a time, I'm not risking that possibility yet. But there's also this..." he tapped on the attribute scroll. "This automatically gives me a high resonance rate with the element of water...if you collect more than one, you can also heighten your resonance rate with most elements giving possibilities of Elemental skills or resistances, it's a treasure...I best get some rest for tomorrow..." Hayashi begins to fall asleep after shutting off his inventory.

-A FEW HOURS LATER-

Hayashi woke up, it seemed early in the morning as he walked around hearing grunts of a grown man, then going towards the source of the grunts only to find a grown man practicing martial arts as Hayashi begins to quietly admire the man.

"Huuh! Hm! Hit!" the man punched, then kicked and jumped up and did an agile butterfly kick.

Hayashi jumped out the window gaining the attention of the man.

"Hm? Looks like I'm not the only early bird haha" The man chuckled

"Mhm..." Hayashi takes out his [Ronin] slingshot and starts to fire it at a target Nishiwaka had set up prior to one of his missions as the man whistles.

"Pretty good marksmanship you've got there. You learned to shoot like that from someone?"

"..." Hayashi looked down before making a proper response "Yes. It wasn't easy." he smiled at the training man. "I can assume someone taught you martial arts?"

"I wasn't taught, despite having a teacher sadly" The man had the face of someone who was embarrassed for all the right reasons. "I had it beaten into me" he bashfully admitted.

"Yeesh, must have been tough huh?"

"Oh hell yeah, I got knocked out every day it was a struggle" He had the same habit that Hayashi had, touching the back of his head every time he recalled a painful yet nostalgic memory.

"Would you perhaps like to learn? I saw your Smithy, he seems pretty well versed in making weapons if he made those bars" He tried to mix small talk into the question so as to not make it awkward.

Hayashi looked at him before looking at his proficiencies in the system looking at the [Unarmed] proficiency. "Yes. I'd like to learn." Hayashi put his hands up instantly rushing at the man.

"Woah Lil guy! your a fast little bugger!" He avoided the rush by moving back.

"It's only right I learn the same way you did." Hayashi put away his [Ronin] slingshot and started throwing his fists at the man who avoided them rather easily.

"You have to hit harder and faster than that if you want to reach me!" The man threw his first strike hitting the silver-haired boy.

"Tch!" Hayashi tried to imitate the man's combo from earlier.

"Hm? just for how long did you watch me?" He blocks the initial starting part of the combo

"I saw you just from this morning when I heard you grunt!" Hayashi imitates the butterfly kick only to be countered by the man's elbow.

"{He's strong to be competing with my [AGI] stat...} [Chain Rush]!" Hayashi thought to himself as he tried to quickly rush him, however without his slingshot-daggers his body moves on its own through muscle memory as he only manages to graze his chest.

"You're not a bad kid!" The man now launches his own assault as Hayashi blocks

"Hm!" he grunts again this time only using punches with no kicks but to Hayashi, they seemed heavier than a normal punch, and suddenly finds his guard broken. "What the-"

He punched Hayashi in the head easily making him stumble back.

"better get used to it, just like my sensei, I'm going to beat these moves into your muscles! Burn them into your memory!" he throws another combo of three kicks having them blocked by Hayashi, as he took the chance to copy him.

"Hm!" He kicks him with a strong double kick

"Good! good!" He commented towards the concentrated Hayashi as he launches a fast punch at point-blank range.

"G-Gack!" Hayashi managed to block it but the impact made his hand hit his ribcage but then raised his fist towards his waist and imitated the skill again before the system would activate again.

"PING!" [Unarmed-Martial arts][Dragon God Fist] Proficiency LVL 2 23/100 (23%) The system sounded off as he had gained a new skill from learning this man's martial art, his combat team now looking at the two while enjoying their breakfast.

"Well, don't let us stop you! Keep going!" one of the combat team members yelled out as he smirked.

"heh, I guess you heard them...let's give them a show." Hayashi rushed at his teacher using all the techniques he had copied, learned, and applied to his movements as his teacher was now hitting harder and doing better combinations.

"Come on boy!" The man yelled at his new pupil throwing another combination technique his way as Hayashi blocked and dodged.

"I'm glad I asked to teach you! you're just like me when I was a student!" He throws a powerful roundhouse kick.

"Thanks, guess I should call you sensei from now on!" Hayashi said as he threw a roundhouse kick himself making their attacks clash and cancel each other out.

"Wait for a second.." Hayashi took off his shirt and then rushed at his teacher again launching a flurry of [Dragon God Fist] techniques aiming for his ribcage, face, and neck.

"You're getting the hang of it but...don't forget your feet!" He sweeps him off his feet as he falls to the floor.

"Ow." Hayashi lay there stone-faced then gets up and rushes at him again.

"I've realized, we've never exchanged names! what's your name kid? I'm gonna be teaching you and I'll have to call you something besides kid"

"Hayashi," he said as he lets out a barrage of punches and kicks using the same martial arts as his teacher.

"you can call me Dan" He introduced himself seeing as Hayashi's moves had improved

"PING!"[Unarmed-Martial Arts][Dragon God Fist] LVL3 20/160 (12.5%)

"Once again the feet Lil guy.." He sweeps Hayashi off his feet, but he was prepared and landed with his hand and swept the foot his teacher used to sweep him making him end up on the floor.

"Not bad Hayashi..not bad" they both got up. "I guess we can call it a day, come tomorrow, no for a month straight. Every time you wake up I'll be here." He smiled

"Thank you, Mister Dan." Hayashi gave a polite bow, secretly happy he now has a new skill under his belt to use besides his hunter skills, now armed with martial arts skills as the student council president came outside and took Hayashi by the shoulder.

"Why don't you come inside to eat?" She asked menacingly her grip on his shoulder getting much tighter.

"Ow ow ow ow that hurts damnit." He said his face showed no emotion making his teammates struggle to hold in their laughter due to their equal fear of the pres.

"excuse me but this place is still a place where you should not be committing public indecencies" Akari became even scarier. "you also have the mission of clearing out neighborhoods of threats so we can secure more resources and members. So tell me why are you shirtless?"

"Still strict on school policy no matter what huh?" Hayashi commented but wanted to annoy her a bit more. "Just know that every day I go to the roof and chill there shirtless just to feel the breeze!" he made his situation ultimately worse.

"Is that so~?" She took out a wooden bat. "I suggest you get out of here and do your job or this bat might hit something other than baseballs." She held up a wooden bat that was just lying around somewhere, Dan was nowhere to be found seemingly escaping during the chaos of it all as Hayashi and the combat team left the school.

"She is ruthless.." Hayashi mumbled to himself "but nonetheless she's right. So let's get this done, right Combat team!"

"Yeah!" The team responded in usion

The team started going into the same neighborhood as Hayashi recognized [The Forgery] despite how beat up the building looked.

"Scrap metal is nearby...but there's a hoard. Team!"He got his team's attention. "Archers please fire and send a volley of as many arrows as possible." Hayashi took out a few long sticks. "[Create Munitions]" He created arrows for the archery team and picked up a lighter from the floor. "Fire these, we need to burn them all."

"Sure Mr. Set your heart ablaze" one Archery member commented as they all took wooden arrows and passed the barely working lighter around but could only light 6 arrows out of 10.

"Those will do. Now fire!" he ordered as they all let their arrows fly watching as zombies burst into flame, those zombies who were defeated fell on other zombies who caught on fire.

"Move!" he directed the team into a building they could easily enter and find a way to avoid all the flaming zombies and waited until the hoard had been reduced to a fourth of its original size. "All of you stay in here. You've done your part, now I'll do mine." Hayashi said as he left the hiding place armed with [Hornet Emperor] "[Chain Rush]!" He called the move out as he started cutting down zombies at the dozens, feeling the stamina get sucked out of him like a wave of lethargy washed over him but he persisted in cutting them down. "[Harvest]!" he called out harvesting all the zombies in the vicinity yellow and green orbs rushed to his hand, closing it as the lights dimmed.

"Let's keep going shall we team?" He asked smiling as his proficiency rises. "We need to go deeper, there's a junkyard a couple of blocks from here, if we can get there we secure metal and can gain metal tools and better defenses."

"You know this place?" A kendo member asked as they all came from the hiding place.

"Like the back of my hand." He nods and then points toward a path to the right. "If we keep going and clear the zombies and mutants from the roads we can eventually make it there, so let's go a little deeper, and then we can get back to the base quickly!" He ran off into the path aiming the slingshot as he now sees a group of zombies with a mutated faster version but to Hayashi and his team, it was no different than a normal zombie as they aimed and fired, effortlessly dispatching the zombies and mutant easily, the kendo team took down any remaining zombies as Hayashi looked around and used [Harvest] suddenly hearing the sound of a grown man calling out to them.

TO BE CONTINUED...