I fled from Hessien, who was dead set on killing me.

Wait, could I tank it?! I was level 21 after all!

Instead of running away, I stopped abruptly and turned towards the spear-gun, my hand outstretched towards him.

“You can’t harm me—” I was cut off as a beam struck my head, leaving me screaming in agony.

It hurt! It burned so badly!

I collapsed to the ground, clutching my forehead. Liquid seeped onto my palms. Blood.

“How about that, huh?” Hessien taunted. “What if I turn you into precious experience points?”

“Bastard,” I screamed in response.

Vacinay raised her hand in worry. “Hey, you wouldn’t hurt me. You love m—”

“Die!” He didn’t hesitate to blast at her.

With a grunt, I managed to raise myself with one hand and formed a ball of flame before hurling it at him. As he was blasting, he saw the fireball and tried to evade it, but he wasn’t fast enough. The fool thought it had to hit something to expand!

I grinned as the ball expanded into flames mid-air. The flames washed over him, sending him into a fit of screams. Suddenly, his hand glowed and he touched the ground. He ceased screaming and stood up, seemingly unaffected by the flames.

That state exchange skill.

I removed my chest plate and ignited my upper body in flame. “My flames actually hurt, sucker. And I’m immune to the effects of fire.”

I wondered what his state exchange passive was. It probably hadn’t revealed itself yet. Randomly, I also bet that Ghomas was immune to being electrocuted.

He charged at me, but he seemed so slow. I planted my right foot forward, leaning my left foot back, with both of my arms drawn back.

I calmly spoke, “Ka…ma…ha…me!”

Intense fire blazed around half of my body in the shape of a fireball. Hessien closed in on me and a genius idea bloomed in my head.

Ghomas had asked me if I could make a fire barrier…

I smiled smugly as a HOLLOW ball of flame covered my entire body. Hessien saw it and was shocked.

“Ha! Sucker!” As soon as he touched it in an attempt to change its state, or whatever that really meant, I would quickly change the ball into a bullet and blast it into his shoulder.

He would probably try to use his state-changed flames to shield from my fireball barrier. When he came into contact with it, I would make my barrier also absorb the fire before turning the barrier into the bullet.

Yes… he would try to change the state as soon as the flames got absorbed with it and adapt to the barrier. But, I wouldn’t give him the time to adapt…

Wait… it was getting hard to breathe… Oh right, fire burns through oxygen!

Then, out of nowhere, a hand dove into the flames, burning from the intense heat.

He didn’t try to change its state?!

As soon as I was about to condense the fireball barrier version into the fireball bullet version, I realized… that was a fatal mistake.

His foot swung up and hit me square in the crutch.

WHA--

My face warped in pure agony as my flames dissipated and I fell back in pain, holding my crutch.

Why do they keep kicking me THERE?!

Why…. What about my goddamn eyes?! That’s another obvious weakness!

Hessien stood in front of me, looking down on me while most of his body was covered in non-burning flames except his roasting arm and leg.

“What the fuck?!” I shouted. “At this point, this shit is sexual harassment!”

Hessien touched the ground, changing the state of the flames on his arm and leg. “Don’t disgust me. I will use any weaknesses available. ”

Oh yeah…?

I pointed my finger at his head, using the little amount of EP I had remaining to form a fire ball, bullet version.

He jumped back and raised his hand to guard.

Ha, bitch.

I blasted it at him. He prepared for it to hit his head, but to his dismay, the fire bullet curved quickly and hit him right into his balls.

His face warped into fear and pain.

“Burn!” I screamed.

The fire expanded rapidly, losing its form but not generating any force.

Vacinay and Ghomas’ mouths dropped open at the sight. Had I gone too far? Perhaps, but his kick still hurt like hell. I am going to start wearing iron underpants from now on.

Hessien was fortunate. He slapped the ground repeatedly, but it seemed to have no effect.

Oh, he probably ran out of EP.

Meh.

I lazily lifted my hands in his direction, manipulating the fire into a ball and throwing it away.

Vacinay rushed to his aid.

How cute.

“The maiden has come to save ya balls and dick,” I smirked.

“Shut up…” He collapsed.

… He fainted, right?

Right?

I cautiously approached him, donning my chest armor first. Checking his vitals, I found him still breathing.

Ah... That's good.

Vacinay touched his chest, her voice laced with concern. “If it weren’t for leveling up, I doubt I’d have had enough EP to heal him so quickly after that last fight.”

I crossed my arms, sitting beside him to ensure he wouldn’t suddenly pass away. “He should’ve just accepted the law of the jungle and let us steal those precious kills he risked his life for.”

It would be incredibly frustrating if he died while I thought he was merely unconscious, especially if I couldn’t rewind time far enough. Since it was a passive skill, I wasn’t sure how I could adjust it, given that I couldn’t think clearly when I was dead.

After a few moments, Vacinay stood up. “He’s stable now. Healing him that quickly did consume a lot of EP.”

“Cool. I guess we’ll have to bring a lot of the next enemies near death for him to get the kills,” I said.

Ghomas joined the conversation. “I think I’m going to start getting involved in this kill stealing. You and Vacinay are currently the strongest, so it’s not fair.”

With a single hand on my waist, I grinned, “Don’t worry. We won’t let you get hurt.”

Vacinay turned her back towards him, still covered in blood and guts. “Pathetic… Weaklings like you deserve to be crushed under the feet of the strong.”

Wait… why was there a sudden glint in her eyes? Oh, she summoned the blue firefly for that effect.

Ghomas’s eyes twitched. “I beat your ass last time…”

Vacinay drew her broad sword, filled with scratches, and rested it on her shoulder as she turned towards him. “Wait, what? When?”

“Not you, Lumine!”

“Oh.” She turned her back towards him and did the cool eyes stuff.

Hmmm. He did. He did.

“Right, let’s do that again,” I said.

He got into a fighting pose. Unlike him, I was low on EP. However, due to the three-minute break, I acquired 15 more EP points. That was more than enough.

I dashed towards him. He pointed his finger at me, and I prepared to dodge the lightning.

Future vision.

Tapping into two seconds into the future, I saw my body flow with electricity. Eh?

Then there was a flash.

Wait, what?

I leaped to the side, still confused about what happen in that future. His eyes moved to me and then suddenly, I was in agony as electricity crackled on my skin.

What?!

I looked down and saw it. He used the blood of those half-men as a medium! He must have channeled a lightning bolt via his toes!

That jerk!

Fine… I can play tricks too…

As soon as he blinked, he felt my hand gripping his neck. It should have been obvious to him what had happened.

Before he could manifest a clone, I punched his chest, with almost all my force, which sent him crashing into the wall with a thud.

“I win,” I said confidently.

Ghomas wiped the blood at the edge of his lips as he grinned. Around him was a cracked rib… cage with muscles around it?

Did he… make a giant ribcage to tank the attack?

Ghomas discarded the ribcage, breaking it apart before saying, “Okay, I kind of admit defeat. Except one thing, I want you to try to kill me.”

“Why would I do that?” I asked.

“I just had an idea about what my clone variance passive skill may be.”

Hm…

Vacinay asked, “You sure you want her to burn you alive?”

“Of course not.”

Vacinay stepped forth, drawing her sword. “Let me do it, a quick beheading.”

“I feel you want to do this to try to gain levels…”

“Don’t be silly, of course not.”

“Okay,” he made a play-dead clone. The clone basically was unconscious.

She looked at him until he gave a nod. She took in a deep breath and muttered, “This is the strength of a level 18!”

Hm, I assume she got around three levels from the killings. I guess they killed more half-men before they met the crustacean guy outside of the mountain.

I guess that should have been common sense since she acquired like over 3 new skills. The rat one, firefly, and the combat/sword one.

It still felt weird that she had enough skill points to afford so many skills… Probably they were dirt cheap for her?

I don’t know.

Wait a second, I just realized, that snake she killed, she got levels from it… which meant that was also a half-man.

Crazy.

Vacinay hurled her sword at him. It sailed through the air flawlessly before piercing his head.

"Arg--"

His body convulsed before collapsing to the ground, blood pooling around him.

Um...

I turned to look at Vacinay, who was visibly panicked.

“Why… is he dead? He’s going to clone his head to survive, right?” she asked.

“Um… Probably.”

“So… I need to kill you to save him, right?”

“No.”

“But he’s dead!”

“I know… it’s sad, but—”

She was already removing the sword from his head and advancing towards me.

“I was just joking, damn it! I would just kill myself to save him. I’m not going to let you kill me again!” I shouted.

“Oh. Okay.”

Tch. So damn annoying. Damn it! I didn’t want to slice my neck…

As I grunted in frustration, I heard Ghomas. I turned to look at the source of the voice. It was the clone, standing up and looking at his original body’s corpse.

“Damn, Vacinay, you were brutal!” he said.

We all looked at him, partially confused.

“You can jump consciousness…? Or… does the clone become sentient when the original is dead?” I asked.

“It’s me.”

Vacinay inspected every bit of him. “How are we sure that it’s actually you? And not the clone thinking it’s you?”

“Yeah, yeah!” I said. “Show us proof!”

Ghomas was visibly frustrated but chose to answer, “Hessien was being groomed until you and Vacinay found out, burned the woman’s car, and threatened to light her house on fire. Hessien never found out why she suddenly stopped talking to him. Lumine, you once tried to coerce your crush into going on a date with you by threatening to beat up his sister when you were 14. But instead, you got beat up by her. You also tried to purchase some guy’s OnlyFans, but when your mom found out, she beat you to the point you were hospitalized. Vacinay hates when other women interact with Hessien, despite claiming to just be his best friend. Oh, and she once missed a week of school because her sister poured a bottle of pepper sauce on the dildo Vacinay had.”

Upon uttering the last words, Vacinay pinned him to the ground with a fury akin to that of Zeus. “Okay! It’s really you. Good good! I will just kill you so bad that you wouldn’t remember shit!”

“Kill him for good!” I moved to her side, ready to help in any way possible.

She held the blade above his head, repeatedly attempting to stab his neck, but he managed to evade each attempt with swift head movements while crying out for help.

No one is coming to help you...

Hessien also regained consciousness. He clutched his aching head before glaring at Vacinay and me with rage. “So… it was you two!”

Vacinay, still pinning Ghomas down with her knee, abandoned her attempt to end his life before responding, “Well, she was twice your age and waited for you to turn 18. Sounds somewhat illegal, wouldn’t you agree?”

“No!”

I pointed at him with fury. “We saved you from being a victim and this is how you thank us?!”

“What?! She wasn’t trying to do anything to me! She was my big brother’s overseas girlfriend who picked me up from school because she wanted to get close to the family!”

…

“Oh.”

I folded my arms behind me as I looked around, looking innocent and cute. “Vacinay coerced me to do it. She said she was going to kill my family if I said no.”

“You backstabber! You were the one who told me she was a pedophile!”

“Y-yes! But I only suggested threatening to torch the car. You were the one who decided to actually set it ablaze!”

After our heated exchange, we turned towards Hessien.

I cleared my throat and said, “At the end of the day… it’s the thought that counts.”

Vacinay nodded in agreement. “Indeed.”

He seethed with anger, turned away, and continued down the tunnel.