"Masks?"
"Oh, I forgot you're not a native. The masks are basically a species that gain more powers the more faces they consume, eventually evolving once that number becomes more than a hundred. Then the Masks create a greater face from those faces and gain an elemental affinity and some sort of ability."
I nod and take in the information.
"So…" I begin, "The one pointers are the ones that have less than a hundred faces and the two pointers are the ones that have created a greater face, then what are the three pointers? Do they take on more faces and create two greater faces?"
I look at the woman in front of me, the question causing her to nod as she smiles at my analysis.
"Close, the three pointers have three greater faces that give it much more power. It would be too difficult if they actually evolved to their next stage."
"Oh… I forgot to ask but what's your name?"
She stops her walking and lets go of my hand, a huge grin on her face.
"Estell en Hall, of the white fox tribe."
I shake her outstretched hand and give my own name.
"Mihr Masamune, a descendant of a famous swordsmith."
Her ears perk up as she hears the last part of my introduction, an inhalation that showed her excitement as she brings her face closer to me.
"Really! Is that sword made by you? I had thought it was just a tutorial reward with how nice it was."
I take a step back before responding.
"Yeah, I made it myself from some scrap metal that I found on my second trial in the tutorial."
"Second…" She mutters under her breath, just barely audible.
I take note of it but don't ask any further.
…
I crouched as mana filled my body before exploding into motion.
A slash to the neck nicked the creature down before I slashed out all of the faced in it.
A knife was thrown to the side, two more appearing beside it as the creature beside the one I had felled falls to the ground.
My companion walks up and stabs the rest of the faces all the while ignoring the psychic screams that pounded at both of our heads.
As I sat down I ask another question, one that had been burning in my mind since I had fought this creature.
"How do you ignore those screams? I mean they must make you at least flinch.
"Screams?" She seemed confused, her ears peeking up as she tilted her head.
"Yeah, you know the psychic screams that the Masks scream when they get hurt."
"What are you talking about, they don't scream."
"Bu-" I caught myself. "Ah never mind, it must be my imagination."
"Nn…" she grunts out as she recovers the lost daggers from the Mask on the ground.
I had a feeling that she had noted down what I said, it was a bit too specific for me to just say that it was my imagination.
But if she didn't bring it up then I wouldn't elaborate and even then I would probably lie even more.
"How much times left?" I ask, I hadn't brought a watch or anything to tell the time and the system was useless.
It told of nothing but the duration of the test, not how much time as remaining.
"Hmm…" she hummed while checking the watch she brought with her, "about fifteen minutes."
I nodded as I walked off, looking back as Estell followed me.
I could hear the telltale signs of battle somewhere nearby.
I had already had a staggering thirty points, enough that when I had checked I was in first place, but it never hurt to gather anymore.
It was why I was sticking my nose into business that wasn't mine.
Eventually I crossed the corner and came face to face with a Mask of three points.
It looked the same as a two pointer except that it's head could swivel and had three distinct faces.
It growled as it crunched in something.
I looked to see and almost immediately regretted it.
I knew that they feasted on living beings for their faces but to see that in front of me.
It was haunting.
In all three of its mouths were bodies, half digested and swallowed.
"Estell give me covering fire and I'll draw its attention." As soon as I gathered myself I thought up a plan on how to profit from this situation.
Rather than run and count down the clock it would be a better use of our time to try and fight and gain those last few points.
With both of us hunting the points were shared between us but even then we had a good score of about thirty each. Well Estell was on the higher end of twenty, having 28 points while I had 33 points.
I didn't know if that was good as Estell had to use some powder to lure them and the other contestants weren't even able to get half of our points. It had seemed like the early lead they had was either a fluke or they just didn't want to risk gathering more points.
Either way I shook my head of those thoughts as I jumped above a wave of dirt flying past me. Using it as a foothold I found myself face to face with the first of three faces.
A quick slash found it being blinded. Yet that wasn't a problem for it as the other faces picked up the slack.
A wave of fire burning my side as it wooshed past me. It would have done more if it hadn't been disrupted by a dagger piercing its leg and causing it to cry out in pain.
It was a opportunity that I wasn't going to waste. However something was wrong. I tried to lift my sword yet instead of the brisk one and a half pounds it felt like it weighed almost twenty.
It slowed me down tremendously, enough for me to be punted from my place and back next to Estell.