My Plot Armor System

[ Day 5 ]

“Today is a good day.”

In total, only five days had passed, but Damian felt that months had gone by. Although he had been persistent with pushing forward so far, Damian couldn’t say that his resolve hadn’t been slowly dwindling away.

However, that was precisely why special events and upgrades were a crucial part of any successful game. Just as the challenge and difficulty were necessary to attract those who were searching for a spark, well-timed rewards were just as essential.

After going through a few rounds of upgrades, Damian was no longer a piece of soft meat that had to rely on infinite redos to survive.

If the monsters that he met until now were all that he had to deal with, Damian was confident that he wouldn’t need more than one run to get to the end.

‘Though that’s extremely unlikely.’

Regardless, Damian had no plans of clouding his clear head with the difficulties of the future. After horsing through so much, it was now time to do a proper harvest.

‘Maybe even a speedrun.’

In order to prepare for a busier day, Damian ate a little bit more jerky and drank an additional mouthful of water.

‘Hopefully, I can find bread at some point.’

There were some people who wished they could eat meat for every meal, but a meat-only diet wasn’t really that good for the stomach.

Considering the calories that he had to burn by walking for the majority of the day, Damian couldn’t help wishing for some carbs…

After walking slowly for a bit to ensure proper digestion, Damian’s first Labyrinth marathon started!

‘This is all to get out of here quickly.’

Having had to use the cleaner parts of the Goblins’ clothes to tie the torch to his hand, Damian had to forget one of the passive skills of a modern man, germaphobia.

It was a bit late to consider that after going through so much blood and guts, but dirty clothes were just different.

Thankfully, the Labyrinth’s torches were magically resistant to the wind, so Damian had one less problem to deal with.

This time, it only took him half an hour before he chanced upon a duo of stray Goblins.

“Grr.”

As usual, the Goblins followed their first instinct to attack, and so did Damian. Once again, he realized that the effect of enhanced Agility was better than he expected.

The Goblins were still a bit more nimble, but Damian could finally follow them properly. Before, even if Combat Instincts allowed him to keep up, everything had been a bit blurry.

‘Not bad.’

Thanks to Iris’ initial Agility being more reasonable than the rest of her Stats, Damian had fewer hurdles that he needed to overcome as a warrior.

[ You have defeated a Goblin. FP +1 ]

[ You have defeated… ]

Although there was likely going to be a while before he could level up, Damian was happy to see the accumulation of his FP, he even started using the free time he had between each encounter to think of the most optimal Stat distribution.

[ You have… ]

By the end of the day, Damian found an additional stray Goblin trio as well as an easy Den containing 5 normal Goblins.

The ten monsters only gave him 3 Life Stones, but it boosted his FP up to 18 points!

[ Day 6 ]

The following day, Damian fell into the same routine. With no hiccups so far, there was no need to change anything with this speed run.

‘They are growing scarce again.’

The day was less fruitful as Damian only met a single stray Goblin every few hours. However, after meeting the third one, more bad news came his way.

His initial plan was merely built on hope, but his dreams were completely crushed by the expected revelation. More so than the game version, the reality patch couldn’t be abused.

‘Looks like farming is still impossible.’

[ You have defeated a Goblin. FP +1 ]

[ By plundering a total of 50 Fate Points from the Goblin race, the Possessed Subject had reached the maximum limit of absorption. ]

[ You will no longer receive Fate Points for defeating a Goblin. ]

Fate Limit.

Fate’s Guide wasn’t user-friendly to begin with, but aside from the various inconveniences, it placed a clear restriction on those who abhorred the challenge.

After experiencing the game’s difficulty for a dozen levels, Damian attempted the concept of farming at the 13th level where he fell into another starting dungeon, only to experience the Fate Limit for the very first time.

The gamer in Damian was both annoyed and intrigued by the concept, so even though he went through the rest of the level in the normal way, he continued testing how far he could push it.

In the end, he came to the conclusion that every race and species had their own limit. The factors that decided that limit included overall strength, hunting difficulty, group behavior, abundance, and so on, but one thing was for sure.

One couldn’t just keep beating small fries and continue powering up forever, and Damian was faced with the same fact in the reality patch.

‘Guess I will have to take that approach.’

Naturally, since he was already expecting the plan to fail, Damian had plans B and even C in mind, but the disappointment made him lose the motivation to start.

[ You have defeated a Goblin. ]

Meeting one more Goblin at the end of the day only made things worse. The revised System Message wasn’t so encouraging anymore.

Thankfully, its function as a loot box was still the same. After opening up the Goblin, Damian managed to obtain his first Life Stone of the day.

‘At least one element of the grind remains.’

Damian continued walking ahead until he found another empty cave to rest in. It wasn’t yet the time that he usually slept, but he decided to call it a day.

Since he had to change his routine, he might as well start afresh from the next day. After chatting a little bit with Iris, Damian slipped into the land of dreams.