Chapter 16: Ball-Buster’s Debut

As I trudged toward the bathroom, my mind, unbidden, flickered to the day’s… highlights. The frantic kicks. The desperate, squealing targets. And a notification pulsed quietly in the back of my consciousness, one I’d been ignoring since the final, groin-shattering punt of our escape.

[Skill Evolution Detected!]

’Shin-Kicker’s Surety’ has transcended its humble origins. After repeated, enthusiastic application against critical anatomical weak points, the skill has matured.

[Shin-Kicker’s Surety] → [Ball-Buster’s Bane]

Description:A refined, almost artistic understanding of low-blow kinetics. Strikes to an enemy’s ‘sacred jewels’ now carry a 15% chance to inflict ‘Critical Hit: Existential Dread,’ momentarily stunning the target and causing a deep, soul-level regret for all life choices leading to this moment.

Current Integration: 1%

I paused with my hand on the bathroom door.

Ball-Buster’s Bane.

My power, my secret, soul-stealing ability, had looked upon my actions—my frantic, poop-avoiding, groin-focused combat style—and decided, “Yes. This is the path. Refine it. Master it.”

It was so stupid. It was so perfectly me.

A snort escaped me. Mia looked up from her chicken. “What’s funny?”

“Oh, nothing,” I said, shaking my head and stepping into the bathroom. “Just… heaven’s grace. It works in mysterious, and incredibly specific, ways.”

The hot water hit my face like a physical blessing, washing away the grime, the sweat, and the psychological trauma of having been a fecal artillery target. I leaned against the tiles, letting the steam soak into my bones.

“Ahhh… that’s the stuff,” I sighed to the showerhead. “Civilization.”

My mind drifted back over the day. The frantic dodging. Lindis using me as a stepping stool. The poop barrage. The sheer, unmitigated gall of it all.

And then, the quiet little ping in my soul.

A powerful skill. The thought made me grin into the spray. Not powerful in the traditional sense. Not like Lindis’s Cleaving Arc with its cinematic energy. Not like some mythical S-Ranker’s World-Sundering Fist.

No. I, Ethan, an E-Ranker who couldn’t be bothered with most things, had somehow refined a stolen goblin shin-kick into something… uniquely mine.

Ball-Buster’s Bane.

A 15% chance to inflict ‘Existential Dread.’

“A powerful skill on my first day,” I chuckled, the sound echoing in the tiny stall. “A unique skill. One befitting an E-Ranker… Or, more accurately, one befitting me. I don’t need flashy. I don’t need dangerous. I need efficient. And what’s more efficient than making your enemy question their entire existence with a well-placed kick?”

The ultimate lazy man’s combat technique. Low cost, high psychological return.

My grin widened as I remembered the other little prize of the day. The shield.

That poor, loudmouthed rookie. He’d left his shiny new shield behind, covered in... well, goblin organic matter. He’d been in too much of a hurry to spit out his new reality.

And I, in my great mercy, had adopted it. Washed it off with about half a gallon of water and a whole lot of gagging. A free shield. Free.

“Heaven’s grace,” I repeated, lathering up shampoo. “Or maybe just the universe’s way of balancing the scales. Here, Ethan. You had to deal with poop-throwers. Have a slightly-used shield. I’ll take it.”

I rinsed off, the last of the sewer smell finally disappearing down the drain. “Maybe,” I mused, turning off the water, “I will need to buy a new weapon soon. Something with a little more… reach. Just in case.” I pictured myself poking a goblin from a safer distance behind my new, poop-free shield. It was a good image.

Stepping out of the bathroom, towel around my waist, I was greeted by the sight of Mia, now surrounded by empty food containers, diligently scribbling in her notebook.

She looked up. “You were laughing in there.”

“I was contemplating the absurdity of life,” I said, heading to my room. “And free loot. It’s a surprisingly funny combination.”

...

Kaela and Zane’s shared apartment in Mapo was a study in organized chaos—tactical maps pinned to one wall, a drying rack filled with freshly washed combat gear, and the lingering scent of reheated jjajangmyeon.

Lindis, freshly showered and wrapped in a fluffy robe, sat cross-legged on their couch, a mug of tea steaming in her hands. And she was chuckling. Not a polite giggle, but a deep, wheezing, remembering-something-unhinged kind of laugh that shook her shoulders.

Kaela glanced up from sharpening one of her many knives, an eyebrow arched. “You’ve been doing that since you got here. What is so funny? Did you find a diamond in a goblin’s… pocket?”

Zane, sprawled in a beanbag chair, muttered without looking up from his phone, “She’s broken. The sewer broke her. The fumes get to you.”

Lindis wiped a tear from her eye, her laughter subsiding into hiccups. “No, no. It’s… it’s our new friend.”

Kaela paused her sharpening. “Ethan? The guy with the face of a man who just remembered he left the stove on?”

“That’s the one!” Lindis burst out, another wave of giggles hitting her. “You have to understand… there are two sides to that man. The first is the one we know. The calculating overtime pay face. The deep, profound desire to do the bare minimum.”

“Right,” Zane said, putting his phone down. “The ‘Reluctant Rescue.’”

“Exactly!” Lindis nodded furiously. “But then… there’s the other side. The side that appears only when his life—or more specifically, his cleanliness—is in mortal danger.”

Lindis painted the picture. The tunnel. The horde blocking the exit. The terrifying, wet splorts of the Bioweapon Brigade closing in from behind. “We were trapped! A poop sandwich! And he just… snapped.”

She described it with the fervor of a war correspondent. The frantic charge. The piston-legged kicks—PING-CRUNCH! THUMP-THUMP!—delivered with the precision of a master watchmaker and the panic of a man whose last clean shirt was on the line.

“He wasn’t fighting to win,” Lindis wheezed, clutching her stomach. “He was fighting to stay unsullied! He was screaming things like, ‘JUST LET US PASS, WE’LL COME BACK TOMORROW, I PROMISE!’ while punting a goblin in the family jewels so hard it became a bowling ball!”

Zane’s mouth hung open. Kaela’s knife was forgotten in her lap.

“And the face!” Lindis cried. “Pure, unadulterated terror! But not of death! Of getting dirty! He looked like a man trying to sprint through a room full of cockroaches in his good socks!”

She slumped back into the couch, breathless with laughter. “I saw a man achieve a state of pure, focused battle-rage… motivated entirely by the fear of goblin poop. It was the most heroic, most pathetic thing I’ve ever witnessed.”

Kaela looked at Zane. Zane looked back.

“So,” Kaela said slowly, a grin spreading across her face. “Our ‘Reluctant Rescue’… is actually a ‘Fastidious Fury’ when sufficiently grossed out.”

“A ‘Cleanliness Crusader,’” Zane added, nodding sagely.

“Exactly!” Lindis sighed, a blissful smile on her face. “He kicked a goblin so hard in the… ahem… that I felt a sympathetic twinge from three meters away. All to avoid a shower that wasn’t water.”

---

Author's Notes:

A thousand thanks for reading and sharing in the ridiculous journey of a profoundly lazy—and profoundly fastidious—E-Ranker. Your patience and humor make writing this weird slice-of-(hunter)-life a joy.

About My Schedule:

I try to post new chapters on Mondays and Thursdays, usually in the morning (around 8-9 AM) and evening (around 6 PM), my local time.

A surprise chapter between those times is a fun idea, but my energy is a fickle muse, so I can't promise it often!