– PoV: Quinlan –
“Whenever you’re present, I feel like I become your sidekick. I don’t like it, not one bit…” Iris murmured while she eyed the troll corpse I decimated.
“We’re all the main characters of our stories. Furthermore, how could I be the main attraction in our duo? I’m the fragile little mage and you’re my knight in shining armor. In every story, the one who does the protecting is the main character. I’m like your adorable princess.”
“I’m not good at restraining my impulses, impulses which are screaming at me to beat you to a pulp, so please don’t force me to eliminate myself from the competition.” She replied with a threatening growl. I chuckled while raising my hands in surrender. It was best not to annoy this lioness. Unlike my Ayame who I knew would never lash out at me no matter how much I got on her nerves, Iris was a much wilder creature.
Ayame was all bark no bite, while Iris… Not so much.
Speaking of Ayame, I had to pause for a second to note just how similar these two women are. Both are short-statured but have a great physique – well, I never saw Iris without her armor, but I must assume that she has an athletic body as well. Both are swordswomen with black hair, and I receive great amounts of joy from annoying both of them. Both got betrayed by a family member and suffered greatly as a result, though Iris most certainly had Ayame beat in the suffering department.
“Are you sure Black Fang is hearing us?” She asked suddenly.
“No, I just have a feeling. There are too many artifacts surrounding us, I thought that if I were one of the circle members, I would want to give myself the best viewing experience possible.” It was like going to the cinema for them, though I didn’t say that out loud.
“I see. In the end, whether they hear us or not doesn’t matter. Let’s use this round to level up. You can hide behind me if you want to roleplay as an effeminate mage.”
I liked her attitude. Killing the monsters would not only give us points to rank high in this event but they were also killable in the first place. Humans were not, they would be teleported to safety with the unspecified artifacts before we could finish them. However, I couldn’t help but wonder if immediate one-shot-killing would also be prevented… “Nah, I’m done having fun, I won’t hold you back. Let’s go, partner.”
[Name: Quinlan Noir]
[Race: Primordial]
[Level: 23 -> 24. XP 20430/41754
[Primary Class: Primordial Villain 22 -> 24]
[Secondary Classes]
<Stormblade 25 -> 26>
<Elemental Sovereign 26 -> 27>
<Child of Agony 4 -> 8>
[Health Points: 1125 -> 1144]
[Mana Points: 1275 -> 1518]
[Vitality: 75 -> 76]
[Strength: 61 -> 65]
[Agility: 73 -> 78]
[Magic: 100 -> 101]
[Unused Skill Points: 3]
[Unused Attribute Points: 0]
This is what my status window shows me when I open it. In the past month, I’d earned more than 40k XP, yet only leveled up once, which just shows how brutal things were starting to become. Although I’ll be honest, I relaxed for a few days with my girls during the month that separated my invasion of the Wraithclaws from today.
However, it was also true that I spent some of my active days by honing my skills in duels or in my lonesome, I didn’t go killing monsters every day. While levels are important, skill is what truly separates people of similar levels. Kai was 2 levels above me, but if we were to account for my Primordial Villain’s broken stat-boosting nature, which gave my HP and MP 50% and all my other stats a 25% boost, I would likely be on his level or very slightly above him.
With that being said, even while I was busy battling Blackjack who was holding up very well, Kai seemed to be like a total amateur in comparison to the two of us. I killed him with no effort. That was because his skill was lacking. He took the easy route in life which was to slowly level up over numerous decades by tackling easy adventurer quests. There was nothing inherently wrong with his approach, but he messed up when he didn’t supplement his easy XP gathering with extra training sessions.
As for the free attribute points, I put 2 into Strength and 3 into Agility.
I was at 10k XP before today, but my [Bouncing Flames] and [Aqua Lance] secured me 10k XP. This was the beauty of these Consortium-organized events. They gathered so many XP packs for us to slay. Unlike how it was in the wilds, here I didn’t have to worry about some unkillable raid boss dropping in on me and ruining my day and possibly ending my life, I could go out in relative comfort.
I watched Iris rush ahead of me with overwhelming bloodlust oozing from every fiber of her being. I had to chuckle when I was faced with the fact that my bodyguard ignored my safety in order to farm some XP for herself. She was not a dumbass who would get lost in the heat of battle, though. Iris knew that it was very hard to take me down, I was not a real ‘flag’ that had to be protected like the other backliners.
Speaking of, it was time for me to join my fellow Child of Agony and continue where I left things off.
<Get away from me and Iris. Hunt on the other side of the arena. Use this chance to farm some XP but don’t you dare get yourselves kicked out of the competition by getting lost in the moment and receiving an attack to the back.> I instructed my fellow candidates before unleashing chaos.
“We have to kill him! Let’s join forces until he is eliminated!” Multiple people shouted together as they decided to gang up on me. They knew an Elemental Sovereign couldn’t be allowed into the next and probably final round of the event. This was their best chance to eliminate me.
I grinned at their palpable desperation. “I understand why you ganged up on me by throwing your honor as combatants away, but allow me to clarify one thing. Unless you can move faster than a level 25 Assassin or hit harder than a war troll, your best course of action was running to the other side of the arena, not attacking me. Come, my adorable minions. Fight by your summoner’s side.”