Hessien gently patted Vacinay’s shoulders. “Your first murder,” he said, his voice a low murmur, “how does that feel?”
She rubbed her chin, lost in thought. “It feels… like leveling up!” She pumped her fist in the air, a triumphant smile on her face. “I’ve reached level 8 now. Gained four points from it.”
She attempted to lift the sword and, unlike before, managed it with moderate ease.
A grin spread across her face at the sight of her newfound strength. “Okay, I’m ready to kill some more."
I glanced at the corpse, noticing that it was leaking regular blood from its head.
I turned to Yamanda, curiosity piqued. “So, that guy wished for extra hands?”
“He was most likely an amputee,” she replied, her voice matter-of-fact. “Probably wished to get his hand back, then paid the price by becoming like this after a while.”
That seemed strange. It was like a mutation…
“Have you met a mutant before?” I asked.
She nodded. “Yeah, but mutants aren’t capable of thinking and are like wild beasts, unlike these half-men.”
I hoped that was the case. The last thing I wanted was to get touched by one of them and suddenly transform into a freak.
I almost felt a pang of guilt for how I was thinking about them. Well, I would have if that freak hadn’t acted so disgustingly. I had no idea what that bastard thought was going to happen. I wanted to revive him just to kill him myself. The audacity.
Vacinay pointed into the distance. “I spotted another one. Time to level up!” She dashed forward.
Hessien looked at us and said, “I’ll stick with her just so she doesn’t get hurt or do something stupid.”
“Try to gain levels too, dude,” I said as he ran off.
I turned to Ghomas. “Just you and me now, eh? Stick close and you won’t get hurt, dear boy.”
He stared at me, opening his mouth to form words but then gave up.
Yamanda was grinning from ear to ear, while I was holding back my laughter with all my effort.
Suddenly, Yamnanda pointed at a tall tree. “Catch.”
A snake man appeared out of nowhere. He looked around frantically. “F-fine! I will finally become level 13!”
Interesting, indeed. The anxiety to level up must be on another level when you live in a dangerous area
He raised his arms to the sky, where electricity danced from his fingertips. “Die!” he shouted, directing the energy towards us.
From his perspective, it played out like this:
Before the electricity could leave his hand, a sudden pain shot through his neck, and his head began sliding off.
Confused and baffled, his mind spiraled into chaos before his head fell to the ground and rolled to a stop. I came into his vision, standing there with a bloody knife in my hand.
“You wanted to kill me to gain levels, I wanted to do the same,” I said as his eyes closed.
Yamanda, fascinated, asked, “Your time freeze is so amazing. I have a question, can you interact with those frozen in time? I know you stole that food, so I assumed you could change the positions of things that were locked in time. But, can you change the state of those locked in time?”
Wouldn’t it be somewhat of an oxymoron if I could change the state of those locked in time?
I shook my head. “No, I can’t. Not yet at least.”
“Interesting. I am heavily interested in your potential,” she said.
“Oh. Thanks…”
I acted cocky about my time powers, but it was always to be playful or childish. It wasn’t like I didn’t know the potential of my powers, but hearing it from someone so amazing felt… really nice.
Yamanda then turned to Ghomas, “You see that? They are all currently around looking to kill people to gain levels. So don’t feel bad about killing them; you all desire the same thing. The stronger one will simply get it.”
He nodded. “Yeah… I know. I am not doubting that. It’s just a scary position to be in, you know?”
He looked sincere as he talked about morality and the impact of taking another life, even if it may be self-defense or justifiable homicide.
I listened intently as I ignored the man with the super long neck and hands behind him.
I nodded in wonder.
“That’s very interesting,” Yamanda said.
Suddenly, she teleported him to face the half-man towering over him from behind. The creature had a blank expression, as if it had been stripped from a horror movie.
Ghomas mouth dropped as he screamed, “What the hell is that?!”
He immediately tried to run away, but Yamanda didn’t allow it. As soon as he took a step away, she would teleport him back.
I wondered how much energy points she had since she used her powerful skills as if they were nothing.
With a pointed hand, I tried to motivate him. “Stop being a little bitch and fight! You are over 6 foot for show or something, pussy?! Fight fight fight!”
Tears welled up in his eyes as he hurled slurs at me. That was new. I didn’t even know what they meant.
Yamanda covered her mouth in surprise. “He is very… interesting in his choice of words.”
I turned towards her with my arms folded, ignoring the half-man trying to break Hessien’s back with its massive arms, which were instead destroying trees. He was successfully evading as if his life depended on it, so it was all good.
I asked her, “How do you know what they mean?”
“It’s common here. Mefard. I think he heard it on our way to the restaurant.”
Hmm. I didn’t hear that, but then again, I basically ignored everything the translator couldn’t handle.
I noticed another half-man in the distance. It formed a bow and arrow out of grass and aimed at me. Without thinking much, I took the last spear gun and took off its head.
I continued the conversation with her. “What does it mean?” (I AM SO COOL OMG OMG OMG)
“Um… That you are incestuous. Daughter and father. Femard means you are a product of incest from immediate family members.”
My eyes twitched as a tiny bit of rage boiled in my soul. How would he have even known what it meant?!
I then facepalmed myself and laughed. “Ah. Why am I getting worked up by the words of weaklings?” I shook my head and then walked off. “Ta ta, Ghomas. Do survive.”
"Don't leave me behind!" he begged, but his words fell on deaf ears.
To my surprise, Yamanda followed me.
I asked, “Don’t you have to check to see if he’s going to get killed or not?”
“I’ve already marked a custom teleportation on him. If he bleeds a certain amount, he’ll be teleported near me without me even thinking about it.”
“Holy shit. That’s amazing!” I exclaimed.
She smiled and brushed her hair. “It’s nothing that crazy… Just a smart skill.”
“How many skills do you have?” I asked, curiosity piqued.
“You’re super nosey, aren’t you? If someone asks you that question, you never tell them. That goes along with what the theme of your skills is, or what each skill does.”
I realized I had been rude without even noticing.
But her skill theme was obvious, as was Hessien’s. What would it matter if he told someone?
“So… if I asked if the theme of your skills is teleportation, you wouldn’t answer?” I asked.
“Pretty much.”
“But, isn’t it obvious?”
“Not necessarily. Is the theme of my skill, or rather, my originator skill card, teleportation or is it spatial manipulation? Or is it position exchange? What do I exchange positions with? Could be air. The point is, the less a person knows, the fewer strengths they would know you have. Along with weaknesses.”
That made sense.
I hopped over a corpse that was still warm. Well, it wasn’t just a corpse. It was like a damn genocide had occurred here!
A red monkey with four arms and a 2-meter-long tail fell off a branch and slammed in front of us. Then the monkey form began to rapidly change.
“Vacinay?!” I shouted.
Vacinay’s form was soon revealed… and she wasn’t naked. Although, she nearly was because of how badly cut her body and armor were. Hell, she was covered in various hues of blood.
“They are pretty weak,” Vacinay said as she used the sword to stand up while panting heavily.
“Let me pee in peace!” Hessien ran as he tried to fix his pants, while a person with the shape of a ball, covered in flame, was rolling after him.
“Let me kill you!” it screamed.
They seemed quite desperate for levels.
Once Hessien had adjusted his pants properly, he smiled instantly and aimed his finger, which shot a white, misty marble. Upon contact, it exploded into a dense mist. Even if I had wanted to, I couldn’t see much through it.
A massive improvement!
Hessien then took aim with his spear gun and fired. There was a bang, and the sounds of the half-man faded.
Had he seen through the mist?
Hessien noticed me and waved over. “Do you remember passive skills and all that stuff?” he asked.
“Yeah…?” I responded.
Hessien grinned, “So it turns out, I actually had my passive skill unlocked before… but I thought it was fake since it seemed so damn lame compared to yours.”
I raised an eyebrow before figuring it out. “You can see through your mist?”
“Not just mist. It seems to apply to cloudy stuff in general,” he explained.
“Awesome! Your mist ability is turning out to be cool as hell, cozo!” I exclaimed.
He grinned and pumped his fist into the sky. “Hell yeah!”
I turned back to Vacinay to ask, “I assume your passive skill allows you to keep your clothes on when you destransform?” I remembered the sword she had retrieved as soon as she returned to normal.
“Something like that. Since the monkey form would have torn part of the clothing, I immediately got the passive skill to preserve the destruction of my property. So… whatever I have on somewhat merges with me and gets stored there,” she explained.
Yamanda, incredibly curious, asked, “That’s what you did with the sword, right?!”
She nodded.
“Holy! You would make the perfect smuggler!” Yamanda exclaimed.
Vacinay faintly laughed at that. “Ah yes, I want to follow in my mother’s footsteps and go to jail.”
That wasn't a joke.
She then stood up. “Anyway, I am at level 12. Some jerk touched my shoulder and caused my skin to erupt in cuts. The little monster chased me down, calling me his living levels.”
After rotating her shoulder a bit, she declared, “I am so getting my revenge. He is my living levels, not the other way around!”
With that, her cuts began to wiggle like magnets, closing one by one until they started to vanish.
Holy shit...
“How much did that cost?” I asked her.
“About 5 skill points. The monkey form was 2. I only took the monkey form to escape from that guy, to be honest. He nearly touched my damn throat! Imagined if my head went flying.”
I will be able to easily deal with him.
Yamanda nodded, impressed. “Man, I am so excited! You all seem to have such potent skills. Something like body repair for shape-shifting is something I expected to be very late-stage or not this powerful.”
It probably had to do with the fact they were legendary.
Suddenly, Ghomas came rushing after us, panting heavily. “Damn it!” he exclaimed.
I turned to look at Yamanda. “Isn’t your thing automatic?”
She bit her lips. “Ah, you see… it’s a work in progress.”
“You okay?” I asked Ghomas, who was heaving with his hands on his knees.
He glared at me. “What do you think?”
“You are very good. So, what’s the level up?” I asked.
Ghomas grumbled. “Damn it, not even asking me about my wellbeing…?”
As he spoke, Yamanda walked over and injected him with a healing shot. “By the way, both of you are betraying bastards. Anyway… after I killed it by using Lumine’s secret technique, the pussy cracker kick, I managed to kill it with my war hammer. I just kept hitting and hitting… Then another bat-like creature appeared and tried to bite my neck off. The armor saved me. I killed it by strangling it. Then there was the worm-man who had just finished another half-man. I fought and barely managed to kill it. It had low defense, fortunately. So, there I was, standing in the blood of three individuals that used to be just like me and you. I was huffing and noticed many others were coming from all over, smiling, calling me an easy prey.”
Ghomas spat on the ground and took a seat. “I created a clone variance; the variantion being that it’s very fast. Then I noticed I was level 11, so I used my secondary card.”
His white card shone, but it had an image. It looked like… electricity.
Ghomas flicked his finger, causing a bolt of lightning to shoot forward. He then said with a cool demeanor, “But… they were mistaken. For I wasn’t the prey, I was the predator.”
Vacinay, Hessien, and I exchanged glances.
"Corny ass," Vacinay chucked.
"Don't disrespect mister alpha male!" I raised my voice to the sky. "Alphaaaa maleee."
Thanks for the chapter.