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Your level in "Divine Champion" has increased!
1 => 2
Ability Acquired:
Jack Of All Trades
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V pulled himself up from the dirt as L bowed her head, uttering her surrender. Although "according to plan" was not exactly the words he would have used to described the situation, it went about how he expected. He never expected them to be able to take O's head in a face-to-face fight. Even one that started in an ambush. It was lucky then, that L was willing to do anything to stop O. Even throwing her own life away. Well, most anything. He doubted she would have done anything she thought was dishonorable. The only part of the current situation that surprised V was he apparently increased his level? While certainly important, it was not really the time dwell on that.

As L surrendered, O grabbed her by the shoulders, as one would a comrade. "We will create seas of blood together!" A quick flash split the air between them. It was like lightning, a glint, and then gone. O's face turned to confusion. After a single moment, both of O's arms fell to the ground. Severed at the elbow. As O sat there, blood spurting out of her severed arms, she stammered "Wh..at? How did my arms?" L fell backwards, no longer able to remain kneeling. Between being thrown and O's headbutt, the damage to her abdomen was severe. In her hand she held the sword, that until now had remained sheathed at her side. As L's consciousness fluttered, she whispered "I did not surrender to you." 

With L down, and O bleeding out. V wanted to leave nothing to chance. He grabbed his weapon with his still working arm, and charged toward O, intending to finish her. Moments before he would have driven his sword into her broken chest, a sudden cracking noise, like a party popper, echoed through the alleys. A man appeared out of thin air, between O and V. Jumping backward, V halted his charge. The man looked in his late twenties, he had jet black hair that just barely reached his shoulders. His face was sharp and he had a calculating gaze. "I’ll be honest, I did not expect your rag tag group to be able to deal with her." he looked at O's wounds for a moment, "If she had used her blessing from the start, you guys would have had no chance, ah well. This is an interesting outcome as well." V was unsure of how to deal with this situation. They obviously could not deal with a second foe, especially if he could just teleport at will.

"Look, I don’t really care who wins between your little... disagreement, I’m not her father. What I do care about, is that woman's usefulness. I can’t allow her to die here. It would be inconvenient for me. As it stands, it will already be hard to keep her alive, I really do not have time to bicker with you." V looked around at the bodies surrounding him. It would be a waste to allow O to escape, they would not be able to replicate this battle. "I can’t let you just take her. She is a terror to this town. She has crimes to pay for, not to mention my arm. She has also been sort of an asshole in general, and I don’t normally let people who get in my way live to fight another day." The newcomer nodded "I can understand that, but I doubt you could do much to me in your state. However, if you let me retrieve O without hassle, I will give you some information in exchange. Ill also promise that O will not be bothering this town anytime soon. In-fact I doubt she will be doing anything any time soon." Tch, this was infuriating. The wasted time and money, not to mention the damage taken. But there was little V could do. The man's status was hidden, he could be a level fifty murder king or something. Not to mention, that teleportation he displayed in his arrival would make him basically untouchable anyway. He figured it would be best to at-least get something out of the situation. "Better make it something I can use. No "The sky is blue and the grass is green" type of information."

The man chuckled "No, of course not." the man bent down as he spoke, and held his hand over one of O's severed arms. "First, I’ll tell you. O is small time. She arrived here only a week or so ago. A few of the "champions," such as they are, have been here for months.  Second, be careful if you intend to train in the forest, it’s not the same as it used to be. Third, there is a champion that is out of reach of any of the others. Should you meet them, do not hold any illusions of victory. Even escaping would be a miracle of the highest order. The Champion of the Mad God." Flames leapt from his hand, searing O's arms. "Your plan here was fairly clever. Perhaps one day we will join forces against the Mad God's champion. To be honest, we might even need this one, if she recovers." He did the same to O's other arm. "Lastly, because I like you. And I think that you might come in handy someday, killing another Champion has some rather helpful benefits. If you can kill another champion, you should." He gestured at L "Well, not her. She will be more helpful to you alive now I suspect." The man examined O's chest wound with a concerned look. 

V watched as the man burned O's wounds. "Some form of magic, well that explains the teleporting," V sighed, another thing currently out of his reach. The man then picked up and examined the severed parts of O's arms with a sour look on his face. "This is such a mess." he threw the arms down before wiping his hands off on the dead mother’s clothes. "I’d love to stay and ask you questions about where you originally came from, it’s a topic I find most interesting." The man, after some struggle, managed to somehow lift O's body. "She came from some sort of industrial hellscape world. You should ask her about it if you ever get the chance, it sounds wild." The man took one more look around "Alright well. I'm leaving. You should get yourselves some medical attention sooner rather than later." He whispered something, and with a small cracking noise, disappeared with O's body.

With nothing left for him to face down, the adrenaline and frantic energy started to drain from V. His consciousness wavered as the pain of his arm, and numerous smaller cuts and bruises threatened to overwhelm him. He hoped that L's wounds would wait long enough for him to get a grip. It would be poor repayment for her to die now. Besides, the man had said that she would be helpful, he figured that if she survived, he could learn more about the rule the Gods created, the one about surrendering to another champion. Anyway, the first thing he needed to do was to get some help. He turned quickly to return to the center of town, and fell, face down into the dirt. The quick turn being all his mind needed to give out.

Jolting upward, he heard a voice. "Easy there! you’re going to ruin your arm. Again." V looked around, disoriented. Ah, he must have passed out. Based on the surroundings, he figured he was inside the church. An old lady stood nearby, holding bandages and what looked like iodine, or something close to it. He looked down at himself. His arm had been bandaged tightly, and then put in some form of semi-solid sling. Parts of his face and legs had also been bandaged. He must have hurt himself more than he thought. Between the chaos, debris, and his skid across the ground, he had accrued various wounds.  "You were really banged up. Your arm has been blessed by the head priest at the request of the Captain of the Guard, it will heal in a few days, provided you don’t move it around much." She looked toward the door of the small room they were in. "Look, the Captain was waiting to speak with you as soon as you awoke. If you want, I can tell him you're still unconscious, no one should have to get grilled by the town guards after just waking up from... whatever you have been through." V shook his head "Thank you, but I agree with the Captain. It is important I speak with him." V figured that the Captain would have either had someone spying on the scene, or at-least have sent someone to check up on it after enough time had passed that they could be sure the fight was over, one way or another. It’s probably how he ended up here.

The old lady ushered the Captain of the Guard inside the room as she left. "Don't bother him too much. He just woke up." The Captain nodded and closed the door behind him. "Thanks for getting me cleaned up." V figured it was best to express gratitude. He probably would not have died from his wounds, but if a monster or criminal wandered by, it would have been bad. The man nodded "We had a man hiding out in that part of town. Shortly after the noise stopped, he went to see what the outcome was. He said he found you and the rest of your companions all down. You, L, and, somehow, my guardsman survived. He did not however, find the she-devils body. I cannot imagine she just walked away and left you three alive after beating you. I need to know what happened; it’s been about an hour since we found you. No matter how cautious we were, carrying 6 bodies from the edge of town to the church in early morning is bound to be noticed by a few people, not to mention, I can order my guardsman to silence, but it’s hard to stop them from telling their wives or husbands what they were doing out before the sun was up, when they are not the night guard. I need to know what to tell the town. Are they free of O? Did she run off? Or did you get attacked by something entirely different altogether?" V sighed and recounted the battle to the Captain. He omitted any details involving information about Champions, such as his own class, or the advice the man who took O had given him. 

"I suggest that we maintain that the she-devil is dead. Based on your story, the man who took her did not have any aggression toward the town himself, and even if he did let her loose on the town again, it would not be any time soon, and that's assuming she even survived. By your account, even the man was unsure if she would live through her wounds." V nodded, "Then the story is that we slew her? What of the body, what do we say about the lack of body?" The Captain waved his hand dismissively "That is easy to explain, we will say that you burned her body right away, to make absolutely sure she was dead. She is almost a mythical terror of the town, no one is going to think it's weird of you to take a precaution like that." That seemed sensible enough, and to be fair, he might have actually done that. She was still fighting after having a knife in the eye, a crushed chest, and various other critical injuries. "It might be difficult to get L to agree to the story. If she thinks lying about the outcome is dishonorable. Although I’m not sure why she would, putting the town at peace with a convenient lie, but I cannot be sure." The Captain nodded. "Also, you and the others are bound to be local legends. I suspect the town head will wish to reward you and be seen standing alongside of you in triumph. Once you are healed enough, you should prepare yourself for that." Rubbing his head with his good hand, V sighed inwardly. He did not mind getting a reward. After returning L's leftover silver, he still only had nine coins. The fame and attention however, was not something he desired. It was dangerous for one, hard to lay low when people know your name, and secondly, frankly it was a hassle, luckily being a small moutain town, it should be self contained, he doubted the story would spread outward to other places.

"About L..." The Captain had a complex expression on his face, between confusion, concern, and suspicion. V wondered if he was going to say she was dead, but that is not what his face was expressing. "Well, you will have to talk with her when you’re both awake. When I saw the six of you, because we were unsure what had happened, I checked your statuses to see if anything was off. Sometimes curses or other abnormal effects will show up on your status. L's status had changed, I’m not sure what it meant, you will have to see for yourself. Maybe you will know what happened. "I’m not really sure what you’re getting at, but I guess I’ll look into it when we get the chance." The Captain nodded and opened the door to leave "I’ll let you rest for now, ill break the news of the she-devil's death in an hour or so." He took one more look at V before leaving.

V considered, the most likely situation is that L had lost her Divine Class, or something similar. After all, she had surrendered. He figured that perhaps you lost your special class if you lost the game. Regardless, it was L's choice to take the risk. When discussing their plan to deal with O, V had suggested that if her blessing only activated if she felt like she was doing something honorable, perhaps they could use her unyielding sense of honor to game the system. If she was willing to die to kill O, she should be willing to forfeit her position in the game. L at the time, had agreed that nearly any price was worth O's head. V then demanded that she surrender to him, giving up her chance to win the God's game, and work for him instead, swearing on her honor to fight in his name. V knew that at the time, she would never consider simply surrendering to him. However, he stated that she had forty-eight hours to consider his offer. V had anticipated that even if she knew he was setting this up as a way to "cheat the system," if she surrendered, her honor would demand she spoke truthfully, she would never fake-surrender. V pointed out to her that she may get her chance to get close to O in the battle, that the first two times her and O had fought, she had demanded that L surrender and join her. At that time, all she needs to is surrender, but not to O. In her heart, she would surrender to V, who had made the offer beforehand. At that time, should V still be in danger due to O, he reasoned that her ability would be able to activate, as her honor would demand she carry out the terms of her surrender, fighting in his name. He also pointed out that her ability "First Strike" worked on the bases of drawing her weapon. If after she bought her weapons, she never drew them or put them away, the ability would not activate, as it relied on her drawing her weapon. He had hoped that combining these two systems, activating her blessing to increase her attributes, and holding her first strike ability till then, would allow her to surprise O, and take her head. His plan had almost worked out, it took her arms, which should have been enough.

V laid back down, exhausted. Whatever the situation with L, it could be dealt with in a little while. His arm hurt, his body hurt, and he was tired.