As Brance chased Selene around the Dorm with a broom in hand, Benny stood outside nervously playing with the hem of his shirt. Although he had spent time alone with Melody before, and she had even spent time with the group for lunch, this was the first time he invited her to join in on one of their daily training sessions.
Benny’s mind raced at lightspeed as anxiety turned into full-blown panic, worried that the typical workload Brance and Cynrik expected of them would be too much for the girl. It wasn’t too much of a stretch to make that conclusion either, considering how quickly the pace of the workouts increased as the main thing the brothers had them work on was endurance, something that Cynrik felt everyone, including himself, lacked after their first Egress dive.
“Sigh, I hope Melly doesn’t get scared off….” Benny said as he turned back to look in the front window only to spot Gabby on the floor laughing and Selene and Brance flitting around, jumping over furniture in a dangerous game of cat and mouse.
“Scared off by what?” A sweet and lark-like singsong voice full of curiosity and kindness asked.
“AH, Melly! You’re already here?” Jumping due to fright, Benny wheeled around and found a petite, silver-haired girl who barely came up to his shoulder standing less than a meter away, peering into the window beside him. The smell of freshly baked bread emanated from her body, and her bright green eyes filled with humor upon seeing the antics going on inside the Dorm before turning those emerald eyes up at Benny, whose face had practically drained of color.
“Fufu, did I spook you, Benny? I’m sorry, I saw you standing over here looking into the Dorm and figured I’d check out what was so interesting.” Melody said playfully, but Benny was too stunned to reply.
As Selene predicted earlier, Melody had shown up in bright green workout clothes. Feeling the saliva catching in his throat as he tried not to let the girl notice he was checking her out, from her thin arms to the petite waist up to her perky B-cups and pale-skinned collarbones, Benny tried to control his blood from rushing to certain places consciously.
With his eyes shooting to meet Melody’s, Benny finally took in her cute lips, button nose, and perfectly sculpted western cheekbones. One word came to mind when he looked at her like this, “beautiful.” Even if she wasn’t wearing any makeup and her hair was tied up in a messy ponytail.
“Hm? What’s up? Is there something on my face?” Worried, Melody whipped out a compact mirror and gave herself a once-over.
“Cough, no, sorry, I just was surprised you made it here already; it’s only been a couple of minutes since we got off the call, so I thought you would be a while; you look pretty today, Melly.” Stumbling through the first half of the sentence, Benny quickly began chanting “what would Cyn and Brancie do?” over and over until he finally blurted out that the 16-year-old 2nd-year girl standing beside him was pretty, making her blush brightly.
“Me? Pretty, but I don’t even have any makeup on and look like a mess.” Melody whispered to herself as her eyes traced out the muscular biceps of Benny, who was shuffling back and forth nervously.
BOOOOMMM
Just as Melody was about to say something, the Dorm’s front door violently swung open, and a lithe shadow blazed by, followed by Brance, who was hot on the shadow’s heels, wielding a broom like a sword.
“GET BACK HERE, SELENE! HOW DARE YOU…oh, hi, Melly. When did you get here?” Skittering to a stop, Brance smiled at Melody before glaring in the direction that Selene had run off.
“Hehe, Morning Björn. I just got here.” Melody giggled at how quickly Brance’s emotions seemed to change, but it was something she had seen several times from most of the party. She saw it as a group of close friends constantly teasing each other, but it was the first time she had seen Brance go after Selene, as his older brother usually did.
“Hey-oh, Melly!” Appearing in the doorway holding a mop, Gabby smiled brightly at the girl her brother had a crush on before bouncing over to Brance’s side.
“Jörnie I gots the Mop, lets go bop Selly on the noggin.” Gabby said with fierce eyes, betraying her usually cute attitude, as she too gripped the household cleaning tool like a weapon.
“The warm-ups begin now; the first objective, catch the demon girl Selene. The first couple to tag her is exempt from cardio exercises.” Putting on an adventurous grin, Brance looked back at Benny, Gabby, and Melody.
“Couple?” Hearing Brance calling him and Melody a couple, Benny shuffled uneasily and looked over at the girl beside him, who was blushing and looking at her feet.
“MUAHAHAHA! YOU THINK YOU CAN CATCH THIS DEMON LORD, THINK AGAIN, FOOLISH MORTALS! I SHALL DEFEAT YOU BOYS AND KIDNAP YOUR GIRLFRIENDS FOR MY REVERSE HAREM!” Moving around like a ghost, Selene cackled like a witch causing the other four people to narrow their eyes.
[[Seriously, Selene, tone down the evil talk a little, it fits so well that it freaks me out. One Cynrik is bad enough; I don’t need two.]] Activating [Mana Sight] and tracking her movements perfectly, Brance scolded one-half of the party’s Dark Affinity users.
Jumping into the air, Selene responded by sticking out her tongue and middle fingers at Brance before turning into a black cloud and vanishing from everyone but his sight.
“Let’s go, Gabby; she just activated her movement skill.” Tapping the ground lightly, Brance flashed forward in pursuit of Selene.
“Right!” Gabby shouted, following suit and keeping pace with Brance, leaving Benny and Melody behind…alone.
“Uh, Benny, I know it’s my first time joining you guys for training and all, but…is it usually like this?” Pulling the hair tie out from her ponytail and quickly tying her hair up in a messy bun, Melody asked in confusion.
“Only when Big Bro Ivar isn’t here. Björn likes to start the morning with light warm-ups in the form of games to help us all wake up first; meanwhile, Big Bro Ivar is very military-ish with his. Push-ups, burpees, jumping jacks, that kind of thing.” Tilting his head to the side and popping his neck as the brothers do, Benny explained the differences between their warm-up sessions.
“Wow, Ivar seems…hard to deal with; I’m glad I got invited over when Björn is running things. So what’s the plan? I’m not a physical fighter like you guys.” Melody said calmly while rolling her hands around to loosen them up and looking up at Benny, who seemed to be thinking something.
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out,” Benny said as he tapped his left foot, toe first on the ground, digging into the dirt slightly.
“Are there any rules I should be aware of?” Melody asked and took a deep breath to fight back the butterflies in her tummy due to being called Benny’s girlfriend.
“Not particularly, other than no heavy attacks that could seriously injure a person. Although your classes do present some challenges, we won’t necessarily be at a disadvantage. Don’t count yourself down and out just because you are a Mage/Summoner. Both of your classes may lack high Stamina and Agility, but your Magic power is high enough to compensate for that. Ok, here’s the plan.” Benny began whispering his victory strategy to her, leaning over and cupping his hands around Melody’s delicate and small ear.
Meanwhile, while Benny and Melody were plotting their next move, Gabby and Benny ran at full speed, juking around trees and through alleyways, chasing after Selene. She was using her movement skill called [Void Shift], which allowed her to turn into an incorporeal gaseous formed purely of Dark Mana particles.
“What’s the plan here, Jörnie? We can’t just keep chasing her like this, even if we do somehow catch up, which is unlikely because of how high her AGI stat is; it’s not like we can hit her when she’s in that state.” Gabby said as she pulled up alongside Brance.
“I know, things would be easier if I could just blast her with one of my Light skills, but since it would actually hurt her, it falls into the category of breaking the rules. Give me your hand.” Tossing the broom he was carrying from his right hand to his left, Brance reached out towards Gabby, who readily wrapped her thin fingers around his.
“Let’s give Selene a little scare hehe, [Vanish],” Chanting out the name of his light bending stealth skill, Brance enveloped himself and Gabby under a curtain of Light Mana particles, making them disappear from sight.
Pulling a play directly from Cynrik’s Playbook, Brance kicked off the wall of the nearest Dorm and launched himself and Gabby into the air before silently landing on a rooftop and sprinting after the black mist floating several dozen meters ahead.
Since Selene was limited to moving around the Core Area only, they didn’t have to worry about anyone seeing them. With the size of each Dorm and abundant forestry of trees and open yards, Brance could stay off the ground by jumping from one roof to another or from tree to tree. Even though the gap between trees was relatively far, Gabby quickly dealt with it by using her Chloro Affinity to stretch out the branches, forming them into stable footholds. At the same time, Brance disguised their movement by using his Wind Affinity to make it look like it was simply a wind gust moving the treetops.
Working in tandem, Brance and Gabby quickly gained ground on the swarm of black mist and soon were running not far behind it, as Selene zipped around in strange patterns looking for any sign of followers.
Even though she couldn’t see anyone following her, she could still sense that the others weren’t far behind. As a member of MyrkLys, Selene had full access to everyone’s stat profiles, so she was aware that Brance had his own Light-based stealth skill, and even though it wasn’t as good as the one she or Cynrik had, it couldn’t be discounted, since bending light to mess with someone’s perceptions wasn’t all that different from hiding in the shadows.
One of the benefits of using [Void Shift] was that her perspective became a full 360 degrees, allowing her a wide range of vision as she stayed on the move. If she had to explain how it worked, Selene would say it was like having eyes all around her head, making it so that as long as she was in this gaseous state, she didn’t have any blind spots. However, the only downside of using this skill was that as long as she stayed in this form, she wouldn’t be able to attack in any way since her body would instantly resolidify.
When Cynrik learned of her skill, he categorized it as a movement and escaping ability. Since not only did it make her impossible to hit physically, but it also increased her speed by three-fold while allowing her to phase through solid objects like a ghost.
‘Cmon, where are you guys.’ Selene thought as her gaseous body churned like a storm.
Just as Selene was about to turn the corner, she sensed danger and jumped up into the air; however, a wide net made of Water appeared all around her body, causing her to tremble as she realized that she had fallen into Benny’s trap.
“Gotcha, DO IT NOW, MELLY!” Benny shouted as he slid around a dorm and appeared several meters to the left of Selene.
“Mayatom Vesila TURNAS!” Melody shouted as she chanted a spell in an ancient language, something that was considered a class-specific skill only Mages could use. In response to her chant, a tornado of dust ripped up the lawn around the water net and covered Selene, trapping her.
“OH, HO HO! SILLY MAGE GIRL AND FOOLISH BEEFCAKE! YOU THINK YOUR PETTY AFFINITY AND MAGIC CAN STOP ME! THINK AGAIN! [SHADOW LANCE]!” After forcing her [Void Shift] to be deactivated, Selene resolidified within the confines of the two attacks. Next, she used a Tier-2 Dark Affinity skill to produce a pitch-black spear of Dark Mana which easily penetrated through the Water. Lastly, holding her hands as if she was wielding a spear, Selene slashed out, causing the lance to follow her moves and making the tornado break apart before stomping the ground and escaping to freedom.
-This series is exclusively published on WebNovel if you are reading it anywhere else…You Wrong, Fam. PS Check out the discord, https://discord.gg/dcxKNJEMwg