Chapter 272: Other Weapons
———Histon———
<3: 09 PM>
*Bash* *Crash*
“Guagh!” How much punishment is she gonna keep dishing out!
“You’re a tough one. I must admit.” She said with a smirk before taking a few steps back and I clumsily got myself out of the crack in the ice mountain.
“Haaa…” I let out a large sigh before readying myself.
“...Alright. I think that’s enough fooling around. I’ll be going ahead.” Instead of continuing to fight, she turned around and looked to leave?
“Hey! What the hell do you think you’re doing!?” I screamed out at her.
“Leaving, obviously.” She said before walking away.
*Flap* *Fly*
She then took off as if we don’t have unfinished business over here. Who the hell does she think she is!
Damnit! I don’t know if I should feel lucky that she didn’t finish me off or not. She didn’t even give me time to breathe just because I slipped up for a second.
If I remember correctly she was in the top thirty on that battle leaderboard. It’s hard to forget about someone with those big wings, not to mention being a shield user. Those are both pretty rare.
Why the hell did she let me go after all of that? We were fighting for a while and if she wasn’t going to kill me then why did we even fight in the first place? Just wasting both of our time!?
“Haaa…” It’s so damn cold in this ice region. At least it distracted from all the bruises I got on me. I’m pretty confident in my own ability to resist the elements, but who knows if it’ll get even colder during the night. “Ugh! Ough!”
My back hurts a lot, and my limbs feel numb. It’s weird how all the pain and damages seem to only appear after the fight is done with. I can move, at least. It’s not the end of the world.
Now where the hell do I hide? I don’t think I can fight anyone for a while in this state. I think I can naturally recover without needing any pills, so I want to keep it that way and just rest. I’m already in the safe area anyway, I can opt to slack off for a while.
I need to at least keep moving for a while until I find a cave or something. A place I could hide myself for an entire day.
———Luik———
<3: 21 PM>
“...Do you want to talk about it?” I asked the doggirl who leaned against the rock and was completely covered in blood.
“Hey. The better question here is why haven’t you killed me yet?” She said with a grin.
“You’re still useful, for one. You’re probably durable enough to tank at least two attacks from her if you’re in peak condition.” Otherwise I wouldn’t even come over and kill the guy before he finishes her off. It looked like he was the last one standing. “Why were you getting jumped anyway? You’re far from the biggest threat in this game, as both of us know very well.”
“I might have been a bit too eager to fight, or something like that.” She said with a grin. Her appearance is certainly quite disarming with such a face and the floppy dog ears, but the fact of the matter is that she’s a valuable asset to the endgame plan that is shared with more than a few people.
“...You have some pills, right? Please take those quickly. I’m not convinced that there isn't any of your blood mixed in.” She’s being way too casual about this.
“I’ll be fine. Not something a bit of healing magic can’t fix.” She said before slowly standing back up. “I do need to clean up my clothes though. Hopefully there’s a place to wash it up.”
“You’re incorrigible…” I can’t help but say that while shaking my head.
“So, what are you gonna do? You’re clearly not finishing me off.” She said with the same calm smile.
“I was moving on my own until now. Since you’re not showing any hostility towards me as well… Perhaps you’ll be willing to tag along?” She doesn’t look like she has any plans anyway.
“That’ll work. You mentioned her a few times. I guess you’re saving your strength for that?” She asked.
“Naturally. After that, we can kill each other for all I care.” At least after she’s dealt with, I'll have more than a zero percent chance of winning. I don’t believe my chance will be high after that, since I’m sure most people with the same plan as me would want to be the one staying in the background.
This is also assuming it even works. I don’t actually know what the full extent of her ability is yet. For all I know she might be over ten times stronger than the next strongest person, or have a trump card ability that I don’t know about. From the little I’ve seen of her in action, she’s not the type to pull out her strongest attack right off the bat, mainly because she doesn’t need it.
Last time I fought her, I didn’t even last three scythe swings. It was a long while ago, but I doubt she hasn’t made some improvement since then.
She had always been a physical anomaly even before the Eclipse. The only reason she doesn’t share the spotlight when it comes to sports was because of her general disinterest in them.
No. She is just an anomaly flat-out. No one even knows where she came from or where she lives or any of that.
It’s hard to tell if that’s just due to her enigmatic nature making it so no one wants to dig into her history, or if something more nefarious is at play.
“Alright then… Sounds fun. Guess it’ll be a raid then?” She said while looking at the number in the sky. “I did think the numbers were going down a bit too slow for this to be normal. That also explains the teaming.”
“Considering the whole teaming aspect was mentioned when she talked about the rules, it’s pretty clear that she expected it and planned on letting it happen anyway.” Thinking about it, it’s actually more fair this way with how lopsided the power dynamic is. “But yeah, it seems like a lot of people realize that their odds are slim to none if they don’t team up. I don’t really care one way or another as long as enough of us know who the biggest threat in this game is.”
“Speaking of her. I haven’t been paying attention for a while. How does she stack up against the second best?” She asked.
“At least double that. It’s not really close from my own understanding.” If the gap was smaller than that I might’ve been less worried about needing to conserve my strength and gimp myself out of points so we have more manpower to deal with her during the endgame. “It’s unfortunate that there’s no way to communicate with other players who have the same idea as us. Perhaps that’d make things a bit too easy.”
“Heeeh… That strong? Wasn’t the second strongest the one that-
“Blow up half a city without even aiming at it, yes.” It doesn’t take a genius to understand what that means. “You can tank that, right?”
“Probably. Don’t expect me to be able to contribute beyond that though.” She said without sounding particularly worried. Certainly far from the most careful individual.
“Even a distraction is good, though…” I said before eyeing up her red spear. “That thing looks quite special. Anything that it can do?”
“I’m trying to figure that out, to be honest. Right now I can shoot the tip of the spear like a grappling hook, without the wire.” She said while twirling it around. I’m not sure if she should be moving so energetically while still looking like that.
“Let’s go find somewhere to rest up. There doesn’t seem to be any points of interest listed, but I would imagine there being some secret area for us to hole in, at least.” Either that or leave this area entirely. It’s a tropical-looking biome that is both hot and humid. I can’t say I like it. “Should we leave this area first, or are you still not in a good condition for travel.”
“Oh! I’m plenty fine, thank you very much.” Curin said before putting the spear away and rubbing her shoulder. “...What’s your name again? I can’t say I remember you.”
“It’s Luik.” I answered, feeling a bit annoyed.
“...Ah! Right, I remember now. Your hair and ears kinda throw me off.” She said as we got moving. “When was the last time we talked face-to-face like this anyway?”
“During a sports event, I believe.” I wasn’t exactly the type to interact with other people often.
“...That was almost two years ago at this point. Why haven’t they tried doing sports stuff again? We don’t have that many months left, right?” She pointed out.
“Probably to focus on combat training. I can’t say I miss it personally.” And it’s not like we don’t have a dedicated playing field for those things anymore. It’s just not something they officially held events for anymore. “Besides, it probably helped us with that in the long run. Remember when Rico barged in as a player during a basketball event?"
“...I do.” She said with a slightly shaken up tone. “Man. She really wasn’t subtle about any of that from the start, did she? It makes us look like a bunch of idiots for never figuring that out.”
“Hindsight is everything, as they say. I wouldn’t be too worried about it.” I said in response.
“...By the way, how did you recognize me but not the other way around?” She asked as we kept moving. “Unless I got hit really hard in the head, I’m completely certain I didn't have this dark blue hair and dog ears before.”
“I was keeping track of the strongest students in the school, and you were one of them.” There isn’t any deeper meaning to that.
“Quite diligent… Can’t say I have been focusing on that leaderboard.” She said while shrugging her shoulders. “I don’t think I even remember where I was on the leaderboard.”
“Last I checked, you were below Galed at… twenty-two.” I think that’s correct.
“That shield bastard? I guess I’m not doing too bad considering I don’t have wings to fly around endlessly.” Seems like there is a bit of competition there. “The first eighteen spots were hogged by that class, I bet.”
“Indeed. There has been some shifting between the few places below that. I believe Evalyn is the one holding the nineteenth spot with Lynda below that.” Not that the spot of the Perfect Class students aren’t moving as well, but it’s way less chaotic than those below them.
“...Thinking about it, it’s kinda crazy the top eighteen are them. Not one of them is at least averse to fighting?” She asked.
“It’s not necessarily that they are all fighting junkies, but they are simply so strong that they got bonus points for ending the fights early, since that’s a thing. Even the more peaceful of the bunch can end most matches in a few seconds, if they’re feeling particularly merciful.” I lasted a minute last time, and it feels like the time might be shortened in the future instead of extending if I didn’t get some sort of breakthrough.
“Really? I guess most people maybe just aren’t built for it instead of another way around.” She remarked. I’m not sure if saying that about a school where even a weaker student could level a building is appropriate. “But speaking of the others, you think those guys can even do any damage to her?”
“Very unlikely, borderline delusional to think that.” Discounting any specialized techniques any of them may come up with, in terms of raw strength it’s like trying to kill someone with a knife made of cardboard. “I’m not even confident in my own ability to do so.”
“Well. It can’t hurt to try either way.” She said with a grin. Quite a positive attitude on her.