What am I doing?

  I think about the situation I just created for myself. Two of the Red Hawk members are standing behind me, on either ends of the door I just ran through. The other three members are in front of me. In other words, I'm surrounded. Of the five members, two of them have guns. Of the two guns they have, one of those guns is in front of me, and the other is behind me.

  As for me, I have a gun with fake bullets. No matter how I evaluate the situation, isn't it pretty bad right now?

  The silence sts for several second. The members of the Red Hawk gang look between me and themselves. The customers and shop cashier remain frozen in pce. Finally, the Red Hawk with the gun in front of me starts speaking.

  "What is this nonsense? Can't you see we're busy here?" He motions to his friends to start surrounding me. "Listen, we- the Red Hawks- are pacifists at heart. Just give us an appropriate peace offering and we'll let you go!"

  The men start ughing as they move closer to me.

  "S-stay back! Or I'll fire!"

  Of course, the bullets in my gun aren't lethal. Whatever I do, I can't actually fire my gun and make that obvious. I only need to hold out for five minutes.

  Bang!

  Whoops.

  I fire the gun by mistake. The bullet hits the ground, and a yellow, bubbling ooze sizzles on the floor. Several screams resound in the shop, as everyone scuffles away from the ooze. In the chaos, two of the Red Hawk members shout in shock.

  "A-acid?"

  "Sir, he's more armed than we are!"

  Acid? I thought these bullets were non-harmful! Why is it acid? I thought the bullet would be foam or rubber!

  I'm as shocked as they are by this development.

  Vorsichtiger expined to us this morning that bullets weren't just bits of metal anymore. Well, a lot of them were, but you also had some variety. Due to the system strengthening the natural body, the brute impact of a metal bullet wouldn't necessarily deal damage capable of incapacitating people anymore- let alone deal a lethal blow.

  Obviously, this meant people started to research other ways to incapacitate someone. Since there wasn't a known limit to how tough a person's body could get, people looked at other ways a bullet might be able to inflict damage outside brute force.

  Pellet guns in particur were built to be able to use a wide variety of bullet types, called pellets. For example, fsh pellets would emit a blinding fsh on impact; stun pellets might discharge a massive amount of electricity. Explosive pellets contain some form of gunpowder and explode on contact.

  You could make pretty much any type of bomb or grenade into a pellet. Imagine shooting an EMP from a distance, or shooting tear gas directly into someone's face. Lets not get into details about nuclear pellets or pellets that contain biological weapons.

  You could also make corrosive pellets which contain a deadly corrosive substance that eats away at human skin; the damage done by these pellets was proportional to how long the acid remained in contact for. Since heroes can't exactly pause a fight to wash their face, the hero would need to either retreat to wash the acid off or risk prolonged exposure to the corrosive substance. These pellets were often made by people with a power called chemical-synthesis.

  The point is, some pellets are considered more dangerous than others; a lot of these pellet types are legal, and a lot of them count as chemical weapons and aren't.

  Ahh. It's too te to do anything about it now. Let's just ignore it. Maybe I'll have a chance to deal with it ter.

  I give up worrying, deciding to let future me will deal with it. Thanks to the 'non-harmful' bullet, I'm back in control of the situation. I just need to stall for a bit longer.

  [The Super Viliny System encourages the host to continue his acting!]

  Yes. I'm currently an armed thief. I should act like it.

  But I have a small problem. I have no idea how to act like it. Should I just go to the till and ask for the money in it? Yes. That sounds like a good idea.

  I slowly walk over to the cashier, who's as confused as he is terrified by what's going on.

  "Sir, would you please be so kind as to..."

  What's the term I'm looking for? hand over the cash?

  [Empty the tills!]

  "Thats right, empty the tills!"

  "I- I'm sorry, sir. They're currently empty." The cashier replies, looking towards the Red Hawk members.

  "Oh. My condolences."

  That makes sense. "Beachball! What do I do now?"

  [The customers! Ransack the customers for all they're worth!]

  I really don't want to get them involved, but I guess I have no choice. I reluctantly turn my eyes to the customers, scanning them to see who whould be least offended by my act.

  The old man? No, he looks like he's about to faint. The kids? No, children have too votile emotions. I don't want to risk the chance of upsetting them in this scenario; who knows what the Red Hawks might do? The old dy with the zimmerframe? Definitely not! Mrs Grace? Given her personality, she's probably the safest choice.

  I call out to Mrs Grace in the politest voice I can muster. Since I'm in disguise, I should pretend not to know her.

  "Excuse me, madam with the pink handbag, could you assist me by handing over all your cash?"

  "Me? Oh dear, I'm afraid I don't have any on me. I haven't even had the time to take the money out of the ATM yet for my shopping."

  Mrs Grace fumbles with her handbag, before showing me its insides. It contained a case for reading gsses, two books, a jar of cream, and some personal items like house keys.

  "It's okay, ma'am. please follow me." I escort her to the ATM. "Now, how much money did you need to take out?"

  I enter the amount she tells me, and hand her the notes.

  "Here you go. Do you need anything else?"

  "Actually, I saw something I wanted to buy earlier, but it's too high up for me to reach." She points towards the top of a nearby shelf.

  "Of course. I'll get it for you right away, ma'am."

  "And while your at it, could you also find..."

  "No problem!"

  "Oh and I also wanted..."

  "Easy!"

  I dart around the shop, fetching various items until her shopping basket is heaped.

  "Thank you, dear."

  "You're welcome!"

  Unfortunately, the fear of chemical weaponry quickly faded. Perhaps my actions were not intimidating enough? But I thought I was doing a pretty good job at it, so maybe the Red Hawks are just brave.

  "What is this nonsense? Is the Red Hawk cn some joke to you? I, Keen Hawk of the Red Hawk cn, cannot stand this disrespect!" One of the masked men shouts.

  He aims his gun right at me and fires. I hear a rge 'bang' and feel a searing warmth on my forehead. Screams echo from the customers.

  "Ouch!"

  That hurt a lot. I rub my forehead through the newly made hole in the paper bag, and note a small amount blood running down it. Luckily for me, he targeted my head. If he targeted somewhere more vulnerable, I might have been injured. Man, I'm fortunate that tolp armour exists!

  Tolp armour was the name given to a mysterious phenomenom that arrived with the system. To put it simply, a lot of would-be lethal injuries became minor wounds that would heal within a week or two.

  There's a lot of specution about how tolp armour works. Nobody knows for sure, but there are three main theories.

  One is that tolp armour is just the natural result of the system's blessing. Tenacity strengthens a person's durability, increasing the strength of the individual cells. This means skin and bones appear tougher. In most parts of the body, like the arms, legs or stomach, the bones serve as structural support rather than protection. However, the heart is protected by the ribcage, and the brain is protected by the skull.

  The theory is that this extra protective yer is vastly improved by the system, increasing the protection to the head and heart. Furthermore, as tenacity also increases the regeneration rate of cells, some people suggest the system's blessing can regenerate any damage to the brain that would otherwise be permanent.

  In other words, the first theory is that tolp armour isn't special, but just appears special. The problem with this theory is that even people with a low tenacity level still can experience tolp armour.

  Another theory is, since the system's interface with a human is located in the brain, the interface itself acts as a protective cover on the brain, making it much harder to damage. Thus, it wouldn't matter whether or not a person's tenacity level was high, as the system itself shields the damage.

  The downside to this theory is that it only expined why the head had special protection, but there are also a few reports that other vital organs dispy signs of tolp armour as well.

  The third theory was- I can't remember, sorry.

  Regardless of why tolp armour exists, it seems that humans frequently find themselves almost unhurt in what often appears to be the most hopeless of situations.

  "Tsk. More stubborn than I thought. Nevermind. I don't need this anyway." On seeing his bullet bounce off, the Red Hawk member tosses his gun on the floor, and puts on two spiked knuckes hidden in his coat. "I've always preferred dealing with people in a more... personal way."

  But before he could do anything further, the angry voice of Mrs Grace interrupts him.

  "How dare you!"

  A pink blur whizzes through the air and strikes the masked man square on the chest with a 'pah' and an "oof" sound. On impact, he flies backwards into the wall, and slides down it onto the floor unconscious. Mrs Grace strides forwards to collect the handbag she just threw.

  "Just what do they teach kids these days? Disgusting behaviour!"

  Woah! Since when could Mrs Grace do that?

  "Are you ok, ma'am?" I ask.

  "Of course. Got over fifty years worth of status flowing through my blood." Mrs Grace starts swinging her handbag menacingly and gres at the remaining Red Hawk members. "And I've also got over fifty years of teaching hoodlums manners."

  A chill goes down my spine. I think I've found a new reason to respect the elderly.

  Half a minute ter-

  "Police!"

  "Hands up where we can see them."

  "You're surrounded!"

  The three policemen burst through the side door of the shop. Cheers erupt from the room.

  "Finally!"

  "The Police!"

  "Save us!"

  More specifically, the cheers eminate from the remaining four members of the Red Hawk gang. They crawl over to the feet of the policemen and start grovelling.

  "These two are monsters!"

  "Look at what they've done to Keen Hawk! He's unconscious!"

  "We'll go quietly; just take us away from this pce!"