Gods bless his heart. How someone could be so capable and dependable at such a low level was beyond Penny. Alex had continually proven that he was more than the sum of his levels. She remembered meeting him for the first time back in the guild. He came in with the physical appearance of one of the regal elves, but none of the demeanor of one. Made for a poor impression of seeing the first one in her life.
She remembered overhearing his conversation and being confused, she hadn’t checked his level at that point. After all, when dealing with citizens of the immortal persuasion identifying their level was hardly an accurate measure of their strength. In his case that turned out to still be true, but not in the same way one would normally expect.
Normally it’s in the vein of, their level that isn’t what they scan as. So they might be in the sixth tier but they scan as being in the fourth, that sort of thing. Alex didn’t hide his level. Yet somehow, he had managed to use that to his benefit several times.
She was watching from a distance when he had given those guardsmen the slip, she was extremely impressed by his quick thinking during that time. They were also extremely lucky that he had killed them before she got a hold of one of them. She would not have made their passing nearly as painless as how they had treated him.
…
What? Okay! Maybe she was a little biased in her feelings towards him, but that was hardly her fault. She had an excuse, a very good and justifiable excuse. In fact, it would be more strange if she didn’t feel anything towards him after yesterday.
Momma had always told her she’d find a guy one day who’d sweep her off her feet. She hadn’t thought it would be literally, although momma probably wasn’t expecting to die at the tender age of 31 when her village had been raided by bandits. Either way he had quite literally picked her up off her feet right before she was sacrificed in some strange demonic ritual.
He had lost his arm in his rush to save her, an arm he was apparently unable to grow back. As strong as his healing was, it apparently didn’t extend to regenerating or taking the ashes that were left and fixing it up as good as new. How many years would he have to fight in order to get to a high enough tier that he could fix what she had cost him?
Guilt welled up in the pit of her stomach, tears built up in her eyes as she watched him run off to go do what he did best. Due to her own ineptitude, she had caused him to be disfigured, making his life even more difficult than it was.
She couldn’t even begin to imagine what it must be like to one day wake up in a world that doesn’t even remotely resemble what your own looked like. From what he had said, there was no magic, there were only humans, no other races, no system and levels, no fantastical creatures, and this world was apparently several hundred years behind in terms of technology that made his life comfortable. There were ways that magic had made up for it apparently, but there were still tons of basic things he said he’d taken for granted that he no longer had access to.
All of that changed overnight with no chance to prepare himself, from the moment he’d woken up he had nearly died, had a chance to recover, nearly died again, had a chance to recover, nearly died again, and the cycle continues.
When all of this is over she definitely planned to make it up to him.
She smiled
And she wasn’t taking no for an answer.
She turned to face the largest conflict she had taken part in yet. She had a lot of pent-up frustrations toward demons right now, the little scuffle in the village hadn’t done nearly enough to assuage her anger.
Her affectionate smile turned malicious.
She was definitely gonna get her levels worth here. Tons of demons were pouring out of the giant portal in the center. With her heightened visual acuity, thanks to her classes, she was able to get a wide view of the battlefield at once. She saw casters firing different spells and enchantments against the portal in an effort to get it closed.
She wouldn’t be much help there, on the other hand, she quickly nocked an arrow and loosed it with pinpoint precision, taking out a demon that had been sneaking up on a caster on the other side of the field. She had long-ranged lethality and battlefield control that anyone short of a caster would be hard-pressed to match.
Most people would assume that an archer would prefer to sit further back, away from the center of the fighting, and take potshots getting easy kills and thus easy experience.
Penny was not that kind of person.
Each of her classes was honed to allow her to fight in close quarters and still manage to make the most of her abilities. Oh sure, she could hit something from practically a mile away while barely even looking at it, but it was just so much more enjoyable to be right in the thick of it.
The thrill of the fight was definitely something she reveled in a little more than the rest of the party. For Garrus it was no different from eating, something that could be amazing if prepared by someone with the right classes. More often than not it was just normal, another part of the day. George handled it as a necessary task although not one that was enjoyable, like cleaning up garbage or digging a well. Necessary, but not likable.
Karif detested armed conflicts all around. Sure, he understood that it was necessary and that it was one of the best ways to grow levels, but he still wished for a world where it wasn’t the case. When Alex had initially mentioned his world with no system, magic, or levels Karif had latched on to that thinking that he must’ve lived in a borderline utopia.
Alex’s laugh at that was completely humorless and almost scathing. He explained that while there hadn’t been any true wars fought in his lifetime, there were two wars of the past century that had casualties listed in the tens of millions. Tens of millions! Penny could barely comprehend the number. Vinwood was a pretty big city and yet it didn’t even have one million people living in it. Crazy. The more recent of the two had seen deployed weapons so devastating they erased entire cities along with a majority of their population not even given a chance to fight back.
There was also something he described as akin to poison, what was it? Radiation? The very air and ground were poisoned after the attack making the areas uninhabitable for months after the attacks.
Alex had made it very clear that if anything, his world had mastered conflict on a scale we would be hard-pressed to represent. High enough level people could more than likely single-handedly destroy a country if given enough time, but if you had a country to defend yourself it would only guarantee you mutually assured destruction in his world. And that mutually assured destruction would not be limited to just the two countries fighting.
Which he explained was half the reason there were no real wars fought in his life, because if it escalated too far, everyone died and civilization as they knew it would end.
It was an interesting history lesson. Needless to say, Karif had been properly chastised by Alex’s remarks. This leads to her current situation, out of all of them, Penny was the only one who really enjoyed fighting like this. The thrill of putting herself against an opponent with her life on the line.
“Die you ugly piece of shit!” Penny yelled as she launched an arrow through the face of a demon causing it to sprout out of the neck of the one behind it.
She laughed maniacally as she twirled around the battlefield carving a path of death through the hordes that stood before her.
Arrow after the arrow was shot from her bow, each shot killing another of the demons surrounding her. At this rate, she’d run out of arrows and have to move to her daggers. She didn’t like having to use those but being limited in the amount of ammo she could carry made them a necessity.
Such is the life of an archer.
Penny continued fighting with wild abandon. Her arrows punched through the skulls of the demons closest to her. Every moment when she had a brief window she would quickly take aim and blast a shot out into the distance where it would bury itself deep into the neck of a demon, moments before it struck someone from behind.
She spared a quick glance around her, she could see Karif crushing as many demons as he could with his wind spells. On the other end of the field, she could see Garrus and George working together in a beautiful tandem of flashing steel carving, quite literally, a bloody path through the demons in front of them.
Penny smiled to herself, even if her friends didn’t enjoy fighting as much as she did they were still just as good as her at it. It was half the reason she even stuck around this group. If they weren’t this capable she would’ve left practically instantly. She needed a group that knew how to handle itself and actually made efforts to engage in combat.
Most people would think that meant taking Penny’s approach to fighting, but the Earth Raiders proved that wasn’t true. Taking to battle without being afraid wasn’t about having a screw loose or being a battle junkie. Hell, as Alex has proved, it wasn’t even about having high levels or being strong. Although Penny was willing to admit that she was a little touched in the head about things like this.
It was about confidence and intuition. As long as you played your cards right and fought smart you could come out of ninety percent of your engagements victorious.
The other ten percent was fights like the one of Alex fighting Miltaen. It was the kind of fight where no matter what you did, or how you fought, even if you could out-strategize the enemy and catch them unawares over and over, it just didn’t matter. They were that much stronger than you that it didn’t matter what you did, you would lose.
Thankfully that loss for him didn’t end up in trading his life for hers.
Thinking about that made her rage flare back up.
With a vicious scream, she threw her borrowed bow at the nearest demon. She’d need to replace it after losing her last one because of these FUCKING DEMONS!
She ripped out the matching knives held in place at her thighs with practiced ease and tore into the nearest demons with a vengeance. She was a blender of steel and blood as she vented her frustrations on the monstrous beings before her.
“I’M GOING TO KILL YOU ALL YOU ROTTEN BASTARDS!” Penny screamed at the top of her lungs as she executed a decapitating strike on the one nearest to her, cutting through the next few as if they were made of butter. Maybe not quite warm butter, but maybe a cold block, still kind of hard but not too difficult to get through…
Maybe the analogy got away from her, but that wasn’t the point. It was still easy.
There was a squadron of guardsmen standing next to her looking at her with a mixture of fear and trepidation.
Penny didn’t spare them a glance and was definitely not offended when she heard a few of them muttering about how all adventurers had a screw loose. That didn’t piss her off one bit.
Not even a little.
Gods bless his heart. How someone could be so capable and dependable at such a low level was beyond Penny. Alex had continually proven that he was more than the sum of his levels. She remembered meeting him for the first time back in the guild. He came in with the physical appearance of one of the regal elves, but none of the demeanor of one. Made for a poor impression of seeing the first one in her life.
She remembered overhearing his conversation and being confused, she hadn’t checked his level at that point. After all, when dealing with citizens of the immortal persuasion identifying their level was hardly an accurate measure of their strength. In his case that turned out to still be true, but not in the same way one would normally expect.
Normally it’s in the vein of, their level that isn’t what they scan as. So they might be in the sixth tier but they scan as being in the fourth, that sort of thing. Alex didn’t hide his level. Yet somehow, he had managed to use that to his benefit several times.
She was watching from a distance when he had given those guardsmen the slip, she was extremely impressed by his quick thinking during that time. They were also extremely lucky that he had killed them before she got a hold of one of them. She would not have made their passing nearly as painless as how they had treated him.
…
What? Okay! Maybe she was a little biased in her feelings towards him, but that was hardly her fault. She had an excuse, a very good and justifiable excuse. In fact, it would be more strange if she didn’t feel anything towards him after yesterday.
Momma had always told her she’d find a guy one day who’d sweep her off her feet. She hadn’t thought it would be literally, although momma probably wasn’t expecting to die at the tender age of 31 when her village had been raided by bandits. Either way he had quite literally picked her up off her feet right before she was sacrificed in some strange demonic ritual.
He had lost his arm in his rush to save her, an arm he was apparently unable to grow back. As strong as his healing was, it apparently didn’t extend to regenerating or taking the ashes that were left and fixing it up as good as new. How many years would he have to fight in order to get to a high enough tier that he could fix what she had cost him?
Guilt welled up in the pit of her stomach, tears built up in her eyes as she watched him run off to go do what he did best. Due to her own ineptitude, she had caused him to be disfigured, making his life even more difficult than it was.
She couldn’t even begin to imagine what it must be like to one day wake up in a world that doesn’t even remotely resemble what your own looked like. From what he had said, there was no magic, there were only humans, no other races, no system and levels, no fantastical creatures, and this world was apparently several hundred years behind in terms of technology that made his life comfortable. There were ways that magic had made up for it apparently, but there were still tons of basic things he said he’d taken for granted that he no longer had access to.
All of that changed overnight with no chance to prepare himself, from the moment he’d woken up he had nearly died, had a chance to recover, nearly died again, had a chance to recover, nearly died again, and the cycle continues.
When all of this is over she definitely planned to make it up to him.
She smiled
And she wasn’t taking no for an answer.
She turned to face the largest conflict she had taken part in yet. She had a lot of pent-up frustrations toward demons right now, the little scuffle in the village hadn’t done nearly enough to assuage her anger.
Her affectionate smile turned malicious.
She was definitely gonna get her levels worth here. Tons of demons were pouring out of the giant portal in the center. With her heightened visual acuity, thanks to her classes, she was able to get a wide view of the battlefield at once. She saw casters firing different spells and enchantments against the portal in an effort to get it closed.
She wouldn’t be much help there, on the other hand, she quickly nocked an arrow and loosed it with pinpoint precision, taking out a demon that had been sneaking up on a caster on the other side of the field. She had long-ranged lethality and battlefield control that anyone short of a caster would be hard-pressed to match.
Most people would assume that an archer would prefer to sit further back, away from the center of the fighting, and take potshots getting easy kills and thus easy experience.
Penny was not that kind of person.
Each of her classes was honed to allow her to fight in close quarters and still manage to make the most of her abilities. Oh sure, she could hit something from practically a mile away while barely even looking at it, but it was just so much more enjoyable to be right in the thick of it.
The thrill of the fight was definitely something she reveled in a little more than the rest of the party. For Garrus it was no different from eating, something that could be amazing if prepared by someone with the right classes. More often than not it was just normal, another part of the day. George handled it as a necessary task although not one that was enjoyable, like cleaning up garbage or digging a well. Necessary, but not likable.
Karif detested armed conflicts all around. Sure, he understood that it was necessary and that it was one of the best ways to grow levels, but he still wished for a world where it wasn’t the case. When Alex had initially mentioned his world with no system, magic, or levels Karif had latched on to that thinking that he must’ve lived in a borderline utopia.
Alex’s laugh at that was completely humorless and almost scathing. He explained that while there hadn’t been any true wars fought in his lifetime, there were two wars of the past century that had casualties listed in the tens of millions. Tens of millions! Penny could barely comprehend the number. Vinwood was a pretty big city and yet it didn’t even have one million people living in it. Crazy. The more recent of the two had seen deployed weapons so devastating they erased entire cities along with a majority of their population not even given a chance to fight back.
There was also something he described as akin to poison, what was it? Radiation? The very air and ground were poisoned after the attack making the areas uninhabitable for months after the attacks.
Alex had made it very clear that if anything, his world had mastered conflict on a scale we would be hard-pressed to represent. High enough level people could more than likely single-handedly destroy a country if given enough time, but if you had a country to defend yourself it would only guarantee you mutually assured destruction in his world. And that mutually assured destruction would not be limited to just the two countries fighting.
Which he explained was half the reason there were no real wars fought in his life, because if it escalated too far, everyone died and civilization as they knew it would end.
It was an interesting history lesson. Needless to say, Karif had been properly chastised by Alex’s remarks. This leads to her current situation, out of all of them, Penny was the only one who really enjoyed fighting like this. The thrill of putting herself against an opponent with her life on the line.
“Die you ugly piece of shit!” Penny yelled as she launched an arrow through the face of a demon causing it to sprout out of the neck of the one behind it.
She laughed maniacally as she twirled around the battlefield carving a path of death through the hordes that stood before her.
Arrow after the arrow was shot from her bow, each shot killing another of the demons surrounding her. At this rate, she’d run out of arrows and have to move to her daggers. She didn’t like having to use those but being limited in the amount of ammo she could carry made them a necessity.
Such is the life of an archer.
Penny continued fighting with wild abandon. Her arrows punched through the skulls of the demons closest to her. Every moment when she had a brief window she would quickly take aim and blast a shot out into the distance where it would bury itself deep into the neck of a demon, moments before it struck someone from behind.
She spared a quick glance around her, she could see Karif crushing as many demons as he could with his wind spells. On the other end of the field, she could see Garrus and George working together in a beautiful tandem of flashing steel carving, quite literally, a bloody path through the demons in front of them.
Penny smiled to herself, even if her friends didn’t enjoy fighting as much as she did they were still just as good as her at it. It was half the reason she even stuck around this group. If they weren’t this capable she would’ve left practically instantly. She needed a group that knew how to handle itself and actually made efforts to engage in combat.
Most people would think that meant taking Penny’s approach to fighting, but the Earth Raiders proved that wasn’t true. Taking to battle without being afraid wasn’t about having a screw loose or being a battle junkie. Hell, as Alex has proved, it wasn’t even about having high levels or being strong. Although Penny was willing to admit that she was a little touched in the head about things like this.
It was about confidence and intuition. As long as you played your cards right and fought smart you could come out of ninety percent of your engagements victorious.
The other ten percent was fights like the one of Alex fighting Miltaen. It was the kind of fight where no matter what you did, or how you fought, even if you could out-strategize the enemy and catch them unawares over and over, it just didn’t matter. They were that much stronger than you that it didn’t matter what you did, you would lose.
Thankfully that loss for him didn’t end up in trading his life for hers.
Thinking about that made her rage flare back up.
With a vicious scream, she threw her borrowed bow at the nearest demon. She’d need to replace it after losing her last one because of these FUCKING DEMONS!
She ripped out the matching knives held in place at her thighs with practiced ease and tore into the nearest demons with a vengeance. She was a blender of steel and blood as she vented her frustrations on the monstrous beings before her.
“I’M GOING TO KILL YOU ALL YOU ROTTEN BASTARDS!” Penny screamed at the top of her lungs as she executed a decapitating strike on the one nearest to her, cutting through the next few as if they were made of butter. Maybe not quite warm butter, but maybe a cold block, still kind of hard but not too difficult to get through…
Maybe the analogy got away from her, but that wasn’t the point. It was still easy.
There was a squadron of guardsmen standing next to her looking at her with a mixture of fear and trepidation.
Penny didn’t spare them a glance and was definitely not offended when she heard a few of them muttering about how all adventurers had a screw loose. That didn’t piss her off one bit.
Not even a little.
