The sighs of heavy breathing puffed under a slouched posture near a tree as suddenly the leaves ruffled and Aria sat on the trunk clearly out of breath and exhausted.
They fought exhaustingly throughout the day, incurring some injuries, the members decided to prepare camp early for the third night they went onto this camping trip.
Today they fought a group of wandering wolves and a hoard of lesser tiered Three Stripe Boars then its counterpart of the Four Stripe Boars.
She took a deep breath as she tried to reserve energy for tonight's watch duty.
She sang throughout the fights understanding the limit she preserved herself only knowing that she was only able to set a maximum of her current level two attributes to a song.
She felt her superpower hit a wall to the next level.
No matter how much she pushed, she felt the stagnant pressure that the original owner had felt for the last past year being stuck at E-tier.
Aria wasn't worried as with a mission to undermine, she was mostly thinking about how to take advantage of others without them realizing or making it seem all that abnormal.
However because of that, she wasn't as out of breath as she should've been because of her successful attempts of stealing her party's attributes the past couple of days.
She was able to steal each person twice, not including the day they met and other than Druin, of course. It was because of the rule that was set up by the system to help her steel her will for self discipline and make it harder for her to succumb to evil to a person that she didn't want to be.
Villains have standards too!
Well, 'some' do... like her.
Ignoring how she still wasn't able to get Druin's attribute, she was only able to steal twice because of the agreement she had with Gatsby and that two days have past.
Through her renewing and discovering moral lines, she understood that she would've hated herself if she knew that she purposely injured somebody else's, stole basically their year's worth of hard work, just so she can go further in life when there is like a hundred million other humans to steal from.
She can stomach the fact that she was clearly fine with stealing other people's attributes for herself as long as it didn't cross the line.
And to not actually stop her from continuing that villain path if she chooses to because of the rule that was helped made from her suggestion.
Gatsby kindly made the restriction that if she wanted to be able to steal someone's attribute's even during cool-down, she would need to pay 5 system points.
Dammit— those were 5 system points!
Effectively using her mild stingy personality!
'Gatsby! Why is Druin keeping a distance from me?'
Aria muttered as she glared at Druin, preoccupied with building his own tent.
If she just started running right now and she just accidentally tripped on a rock or something maybe she'll accidentally trip on him while all consequently grabbing onto his hands for support.
His fingers were out, a pair of tanned but rich olive hands were threading the poles through his tent, they were so vulnerable and exposed.
It was so close in reach, just within meters, yet so far.
"Give up, you can't even seem to touch the ream of his cloak. Quit dreaming rawrr~"
Gatsby taunted her by sticking out his tongue while simultaneously putting his paw on Druin. He didn't even notice a system was touching him… The audacity!
Brooke who came over broke a smile and tried clinging onto her.
What a change of scenery.
Because for the past couple of days, she tried to hug everyone to get their attributes, they now thought of her as a sticky girl who likes to hug but it was all because it would've been weird if she kept shaking hands with them.
Therefore, the viable option was to make herself get used to hugging people because she didn't want to creepily poke and hold somebody while they slept for even a minute.
So she just grumpily pouted as she let Brooke hug her.
It was only because it was Brooke that she allowed her to hug her for so many times.
If it wasn't because Aria thought of her as a potential friend that went beyond an acquaintance because of how well they worked together.
She would not have let her hug her because she was no push-over!
She muttered in a pout and annoyance, "Brooke, you scared me for a second. I would've nun-chucked you onto the floor if it wasn't you, Brooke."
"Well, I'm glad I'm still alive from you, princess," Brooke pulled away from her embrace.
"Well, were you tired from today's excursion? You know thanks for the help you gave me, I almost got scared if it wasn't for your songs. I didn't know how effective a singer would be. We are so lucky to have you."
Aria blushed in embarrassment as a corner of her mouth couldn't help but raise up in joy.
With her opinion of Brooke rising from the days she had hung out with her because she made it a lot easier to get her attribute points and the help she received in return like the past couple of days, Brooke had helped make her tent.
It was all so flattering.
"Aw— stop flattering me, it was all you guys, I only did what I could do and you know? Thank you so much for the tent, but you don't have to make my tent for me. I could totally do it by myself."
That was a lie, the original owner did not have any tent building skills because of how other people ended up making it for her without a word.
She had less knowledge of this than the original owner. She was hopeless.
She smiled at Brooke briefly looking down bashfully because of her white lie that made her feel embarrassed.
But then she caught a glimpse of scorn that flickered across her face briefly when she tried peeking at Brooke's expression due to her guilty consciousness.
She blinked her eyes twice to then see a scrunched up worried face as she heard Brooke plead.
"Oh dear, how could you take away my privilege to make your tent? It is such an honor for me to help you like if it wasn't for me, you would be hopeless."
A toothy grin appeared from Brooke's face.
She thought she must've mistaken it for something else.
After all, Brooke has been generous and nice to her all this time.
She reberated herself mentally with a slap before continuing on with their banter until everybody else finished setting up their tents and equipment and was ready to go eat.
They headed towards Liu Bei sitting down near a pot of warm delicious goods fresh out of a steel pot he must've brought along with him.
She was surprised when she first found out Liu Bei could cook and had general knowledge of alchemy to discern what was edible or not.
The first taste of his cooking was a god-sent gift made from heaven.
She immediately wanted to steal him away so he could cook for her everyday but looking how Liu Bei could knock her out with a blast of his ice magic.
She did not want to be stabbed with an icicle so she reluctantly put that thought away.
She hopped towards him, eager to know what today's meal was.
With not a firm supply of goods, a great wilderness tip was to obviously stay by Liu Bei's side!
When they were scouting for monsters, they also looked for different plants and some edible monster meat.
Liu Bei was able to create dinner the same quality made in restaurants using those random yet edible ingredients.
It was not like they were camping but on a vacation trip with how good the meals were.
However, through all those good points, Liu Bei might actually be connected to the Liu family.
Famous for their alchemy skills and the reputable family head that was part of the old rankings of the A-tier list of SuperHeroes before he regretfully retired away from the public.
That was not good news because she, or well the original owner kind of ruined a member of the Liu family and her pride from her topping the auxiliary youth tournament and discovering her cheating methods of wanting to ruin the original owner and a couple other's chance of winning.
Wow, this original owner was really giving trouble to herself even soldiering this burden to another dimension of a parallel her.
But Liu Bei seemed harmless.
Except she pouted again when she saw that Liu Bei and Braven gave each other love eyes.
The chemistry they both had was off the chart.
At least get a room or something?
Luckily, in this interstellar setting, homosexuality was more acceptable and with the babies out of the equation because now they were able to breed one through technology.
Her fudanshi heart was pounding for such love… inside her books. This was just regular PDA that was sprinkled across her face.
QAQ
After gobbling her meal in seconds because of the need for energy that was consumed from her singing today.
She giggled when she saw that Min Xiu let out of his elfin dolphin to make some special water to go with the occasion of Liu Bei's god-tier cooking skills!
Great food must also at least be measured up with other good stuff.
Like the elfin dolphin's ability to conjure healing water that tastes pretty fantastic.
Though a bit wasteful, it was all in the name of a great meal and it didn't affect Min Xiu much.
He was very willing to share his healing water to pair it with the meal like it was a normal occurrence.
"Woh, Min Xiu, are you sure this much healing water doesn't affect your elfin dolphin?"
Aria pondered her face towards Min Xiu who was next to her on a log by the campfire.
"Uh, nope haha, I suppose it's one of the great benefits of being a summoner. After all, if I can't keep up with the consumption of dear Aria here, I would bring shame to the summoner's reputation," Min Xiu smiled comfortably, even cracking a joke.
How humorous. She rolled her eyes at him with a "I see" face.
Min Xiu, noticing her reaction, laughed even harder at her face with his hands covering his stomach. The tears were almost forming from the corners of his eyes.
Aria pouting, took a sip of her healing water in resignation that it was all true. She had been drinking twice as much as the others but she tried to excuse it as a growing girl!
Even though they were all similar in age, she excused it by saying that she was both a growing girl and an auxiliary super user of the rare super power of singing.
It was definitely not because she liked drinking the cooling aroma of healing water and abusing her new found ability to drink a large capacity inside her stomach like ahem, the healing water.
While others were at a limit from the gaining vitality the healing water gave them, Aria had a bottomless pit for such drinks.
Who knew a hidden constitution was to be uncovered here.
However their fun was to be stopped, as a clearing throat noise was heard. They turned to Braven who was sitting next to Liu Bei opening his mouth to make an announcement.
"Thank you guys for today's hard work. We are here to divide today's loot."
He looked at the party sitting by the campfire and announced who was getting what.
There was no objection as with the headstrong and hero-like qualities of being honest and having moral integrity shown through the past days having said rescued teammates out of danger's way.
He gained everybody's recognition to be the party's leader and decision on who gets what.
He smiled as with a moment's notice, everybody got their loot and the chatter soon began again. Aria marveled next to Brooke and Min Xiu's earnings for tonight.
There in Brooke's hand was a clear pristine wolf fang of an E-tier ranking one of the best items to get as a loot for its high alchemy demand of a top quality good amongst the low ranked tier items.
Min Xiu also got one but he gave it to Liu Bei most likely because he knew Liu Bei was an alchemy apprentice she inferred.
Aria excitedly looked at their wolf fangs with it's clear charismatic aura of once being a part of a ferocious E-tier Gray Wolf pact leader because items like the wolf fang was even distributively through the rules of who fought it would be the one to deserve it.
She remembered while Min Xiu was battling against a Grey Wolf Leader with his Helderas inflicting numerous poisonous attacks like the injection of a dark murky squirt of water.
Brooke also helped near the end as her arrows inflicted some damage to the wolf's vulnerable spots.
The wolf fell quickly through the team work of both at the unsuspected consequences of being unguarded at its home turf.
Today they purged a gray wolf's turf annihilating a fair amount and gaining lots of loot. They also incurred injuries but luckily with Min Xiu's elfin dolphin Mysom, everything was alright.
After her fascination with the wolf fang faded, she stretched out tiredly knowing that she would soon have to look out and guard the later portion of tonight because she was on the second watch duty after Brooke.
She went inside her tent to get some good rest cuddling Gatsby by her side.
What an eventful day already, she hoped nothing went wrong tonight when she would guard.
She closed her eyes yawningly.