"Pervert?"
I turned around and made eye contact with the man standing behind me in line.
"What'd you do, bro?"
"I'm talking to you, pervert."
I turned around to see the angelic looking girl glaring at me with eyes of fire. Confused I pointed at myself.
"Me? What did I do??"
"Can you move the line up?"
I looked behind me and noticed everyone was looking at me annoyed.
"Sorry."
I walked up and whispered to the girl as I walked along with her.
"Why did you call me a pervert?"
She pushed me away.
"Stay back creep! You were at the bookstore, and now you're here? That can't be a coincidence!"
I looked at her with a look of pity.
'I didn't think there were people really this stupid.'
Noticing my gaze she looked at me confused before her eyes slowly opened wide.
"You-You weren't following us?"
"Why would I follow you two? I don't even know you."
"I-I-"
The first really rude girl walked up, and surprisingly she was the voice of reason.
"Jenna, let's go, people are looking. I just want to eat and leave. My mood is already ruined."
She looked at me as if I were a bug and walked over to a booth to wait for her food to be made. The girl named Jenna looked at me one more time before bowing lightly and walking away awkwardly. I looked at them for a moment and before stepping up to the register.
I ordered a simple burger meal and took a seat at one of the tables while I waited. That was when I overheard the two girls from earlier talking loudly.
Well, specifically one incredibly loud girl, Lily.
"How come you don't know any guys who want to be in a party with us? You're pretty and popular, what's the point of all that if there are no benefits?"
"Sigh... Lily, shut up okay? Those guys who have offered to join us are all only after one thing, and we can't trust those people with out lives."
Glancing over I looked at the two and noticed they had weapons on them. I didn't notice them before because I was...
Ahem.
'Distracted', but I clearly saw that Jenna had a bow on her back. Lily had a sword sheath next to her on the booth seat.
I thought about finding a party of my own. While I could fight just fine by myself, it would be faster to join a party. Unfortunately these two girls are not the prime candidates.
One is a rude loudmouth while the other is an pretty idiot. While I zoned out the two girls' order was called and the loudmouth went to get their food. On her way back to her booth she made eye contact with me, and I swear I felt a chill run down my spine.
Worse than when the Steel Wolf ambushed me, my instincts screamed at me to leave immediately but I didn't want to just leave without getting my food.
'I'll eat as fast as I can and quietly leave.'
A hand slammed down on my table.
Trembling I spoke without looking up.
"I-Is there something I can help you with m-ma'am?"
Like a horror movie her face slowly entered my vision even though I was staring intently at the table top. With wide eyes and a crazed look she brought her face closer to mine.
"You're an awakener aren't you. You're not doing anything are you? You don't have a party do you? We'll take you. Come with us. You're not busy. Come, sit with us while we talk."
"U-uh, b-but I uh... I us.. Just awakened! I'm too weak to help! Maybe you should find someone else?"
"No."
She roughly grabbed my collar and completely lifted me up from my chair.
'This fucking gorilla! Why is she so strong?!'
I was plopped down like a child in the booth and the gorilla girl shoved me against the wall to sit next to me.
I didn't fail to notice this was the same as trapping me in the booth.
Resigned to my fate I sighed and adjusted myself in my seat before looking up to find Jenna staring at me. She looked away in a panic and started talking to Lily.
"Why did you drag him over here?"
"Well, you're no help getting us a party member so I got us one."
"This is kidnap."
When I spoke however Lily turned and glared at me.
"Maybe we should go have a spirited debate in the alley about whether this is kidnap?"
"Sorry ma'am, I misspoke."
Nodding haughtily she turned back to Jenna.
"See, he's here on his own free will. I didn't drag him here."
Sighing, Jenna turned to me before saying.
"I'm sorry, she's a little aggressive."
Afraid to agree or say anything I simply nodded and changed the subject.
"I heard you guys were talking about forming a party? Can I ask what you need?"
The girls looked at me for a moment, then Lily leaned over the table and whispered something to Jenna. They went back and forth for a minute before turning to me.
"You're either a new awakener or you're somewhat weak right?"
I didn't say it outright but I nodded.
"That's okay. We figured as much since you're all alone. Most guilds snatch up prospects faster than you can blink... We're part of the Lapis Guild, but we're newbies. No one wants to join us in lower ranked dungeons, so we are trying to gather our own party."
I understood their situation now, and they must have decent Talents since they were confident in carrying an F-Rank like me. I didn't really have any problems with the arrangement though. Being able to go into an E-Rank Dungeon would be more profitable overall compared to an F-Rank dungeon.
However my worry was compounding costs. I didn't think either of them would have a healing skill, and I only had one because of the Talent I stole. This meant we would have to worry about taking damage along with splitting the money so we could pay for heals or we would have to wait for someone to naturally heal.
It wasn't ideal.
As if they knew what I was thinking, Jenna was the one who spoke.
"If you're worried about our efficiency, don't worry. I have [Lesser Heal] learned, and Lily here is actually a tank. Her talent increases her strength proportionate to her defense."
I looked at Lily with surprise. Her talent was incredible to say the least. Lily puffed out her chest in pride.
"Now you know how great I am. You can call me big sis from now o-"
"So what dungeon do you guys plan to enter? I am a bit of a support fighter."
I ignored Lily and talked the details with Jenna. Even after I had gotten my food, and we all finished eating, we continued talking.
The plan was to attack the other F-Rank dungeons. The first one we wanted to attack was the Kobold Forest. It was the first place we picked because it would be the best place to practice fighting as a team. We were unfamiliar with each other, and Kobolds typically travelled in groups of two to three.
Once we got used to each other we would move on to the Goblin Caves dungeon. An E-Rank dungeon. Goblins weren't as strong as Kobolds, but they moved in groups of five or more. They also used a larger ranger of weapons, and even had mages sometimes.
We decided to part ways for today, but meet at the Kobold Forest tomorrow morning. They were going to keep looking for more party members for the Goblin Caves, but for now we had more than enough strength to deal with the Kobolds.
We were about to exchange numbers when I remembered my phone was still broken. I gave them both my number, and told them to add my number to their phones to text tomorrow. I then went to a brand name phone store.
I walked inside where there were phones lined up all along the wall and spread around long tables around the store. It was busy but some workers still greeted me. I nodded to them before walking around to check out the different phones.
I didn't need anything brand new at all so I ignored more than 90% of the phones in the store. I ended up just grabbing a simple black phone that could text and call. It would probably end up breaking again, so I chose the phone just for the ease of replacement.
While I was checking out I could tell people were looking at me with judgmental looks, but I didn't care. Spending an excessive amount of money on a phone was ridiculous to me.
However as I walked along I didn't fail to recognize that my view on money had drastically changed.
I had made almost as much as I used to make in a month, working three jobs, in the past two days as an awakened. While I knew that I had almost died twice now as a result, it was almost worth it in my mind. The way I used to never be able to eat out or buy clothes, yet today I spent most of my morning doing just that.
There was no longer a worry of money just to survive day to day, and that allowed me to focus entirely on hunting. Stopping on a bridge on the way home I stared blankly at the thousands of cars driving along the road. These were the people who led normal lives. Those who were combatants were less than 20% of the population.
The rest lived normal lives working in the city, making up the infrastructure of this giant city and bringing life to the streets before me. I felt like an outsider at this moment. I looked around and saw people walking with their family or loved ones.
I had lost my family very suddenly, so much so that when I looked back on my life before it feels so surreal that I have a hard time relating to those emotions I should have about it.
I should feel melancholic about the memories of my parents but... I can't. It was as if I was looking at someone else's memories and couldn't relate.
I glanced at the time and saw it was almost 2 AM. I needed to head home and get some sleep. With one last look at the bright neon lights and the LED headlights of the passing cars I went home.
****
"Okay, you all know the plan right?"
Jenna, Lily and I were walking together through a forest.
"Yeah yeah Jenna, relax. It's just a bunch of Kobolds. They don't even have enough strength to break through my [Harden] skill."
"We let Lily engage first, drawing the attention of the monsters and you shoot from a distance. I'm here to fill in the gaps."
"Thank you. At least someone listened."
Lily suddenly stopped abruptly and held her hand up in warning. The two of us stopped and watched for her signal. She pointed ahead a little and that's when the two of us noticed two kobolds walking together. Jenna circled around for an angle on the two, while Lily stepped forwards confidently with my following ten feet back.
I thought there would be some sort of game plan, but Lily just ran out of the bushes at the kobolds.
I had my arm extended but the words I wanted to say didn't even come out of my mouth due to shock.
'Idiot! Let me enchant your weapon!'
We really had poor teamwork. I could also step up and take the role of a leader. I shook my head and focused back on the fight ahead of us. Lily had rushed out of the bushes and thrown a reckless sword swing.
One that completely missed.
Thankfully an arrow flew out from the trees!
It missed too.
Sighing I enchanted my dagger and ran forward. Their attention was diverted so I was able to close the distance easily. Using [Dash] I blew straight past the first kobold.
Annoyingly Lily's voice sounded out.
"YOU MISSED IDIOT!"
"SHUT UP!"
I shouted. One of my feet landed on the ground, and I made an instantaneous 90 degree turn blowing past the kobolds' backs. With their backs exposed to me I left a long slash across both their backs. Using [Dash] again to disappear into the trees.
They lost sight of me and I quickly made my way to Jenna. I found her standing behind a few trees a few meters away.
"Nice moves Desmond!"
"Thanks. It's just an F-Rank skill though. Anyways, I'm going to enchant your arrows, this way we can bleed them faster."
With a red glow now applied to her arrows I walked slowly back to the area where Lily was fighting off the kobolds. She was landing attacks every so often but her skills were really trash.
I quietly observed from the side while watching the the two try to work together. Luckily for Lily and Jenna, Lily's defense skill was able to block Jenna's arrows. So she wasn't getting hurt, but Jenna was developing bad habits. An archer really needed to be accurate and cognizant of their ally's movements.
'They must have been relying on Lily's Talent to bulldoze through fights until now. I don't know Jenna's Talent but her basics were terrible. This was my first time seeing that rank didn't determine everything.
For example my [Dash] skill. It was incredibly useful and versatile. The only limiting factor was that I could only go as far as my momentum would take me.
The value of a skill or talent was reliant on the way it was used. Eventually Lily gave up any attempt to adhere to form and tossed her phone to the side before grabbing a Kobold by the arm. She spun the kobold like a club, slamming the two together they both yelped loudly and flew a few several feet away.
'Why does she even have a sword? Why not just use that incredible strength and defense to be a wrecking ball?'
The Kobolds were dead within a matter of minutes and we regrouped. For some reason Lily had a bright smile on her face but Jenna seemed to have realized her faults.
"When was the last time you guys fought in a dungeon..."
"Uh, you know... It's been a few months... But that's why we really needed a party!"
"Sigh... We have a lot of work to do if we want to be a decent party. Jenna, you need to work on your archery if you're going to be an archer for us. If you rely on the fact that Lily has high defense, you'll be limited to how strong you can be while being unable to hurt Lily."
I then turned to Lily.
"And you!"
"What?"
I threw my head back.
"What the hell do you mean, 'what'? Why even both using a sword? You should use a weapon to make the most use of your incredible strength. If you try to collect skills that increase your speed or accuracy with a sword, it would be a a waste of your talent."
They both had their heads down.
"You're right... We were too eager to get back into the dungeons without practicing enough..."
I felt a bit bad at being so blunt, but I didn't regret it. Our lives were in each other's hands so it wasn't the place or time for us to sugar coat our words. However I couldn't just criticize without offering solutions.
"Let's try to focus on the basics. Lily, is there a reason you use the sword over your fists?"
"I thought it looked cool..."
I looked at her like she was an idiot.
"Use your fists from now on... We should continue hunting, but how about we spend an hour in the morning to train together?"
Embarrassed the two agreed and we started heading out to look for more enemies. I found at as we went that Jenna was incredibly perceptive. She was good at tracking down tracks and she had good eye sight.
These were great qualities for a ranger. Her only issue was her aim.
At least I thought.
It was during a fight with four kobolds that I noticed her shooting patterns were odd.
'She's afraid to hit them?'
We were having a much easier time killing the kobolds now that Lily began using her hands and feet to attack, so the fight was quickly ended. Before Jenna went ahead to look for enemies I stopped her.
"Jenna?"
"Hm? Yeah, Desmond?"
I walked up and spoke in a quiet voice.
"Have you ever... killed anything before?"
Her eyes went wide and she stiffened up like a board. She looked like a deer caught in headlights, and it took her almost a minute before she finally managed to spit out a response.
"I-I-What do you mean? W-what kind of awakener is afraid to ki-kill?!"
Lily overheard this and walked over.
"Jenna, just tell him the truth. He's surprisingly smarter than he looks."
I glanced at Lily but didn't even bother arguing with her. The headache wasn't worth it. Turning back to Jenna I tried my best to reassure her.
"I don't want to pry, if it's too much don't worry about it, but we have to figure something out. If you can't be a part of the attacking force, we can find a way for you to help support."
She looked at me with a pained expression before taking in a deep breath.
"No.. You're both out here doing your best. The least I can do is be upfront about it... My Talent is [Pain Amplification]. It's an A-Rank talent that makes my targets experience immense pain. The first time I used it I realized I just couldn't handle the screams..."
I nodded fully understanding. It wasn't easy for most to accept that they were torturing others. I thought it was an incredible talent to have in large scale combat, since it could really destroy the morale of the opposing force.
It took someone with tough skin to be able to use freely.
However I thought Jenna had a strong will, evident by her coming to the dungeons willingly and being willing to share her short comings with me. Since it wasn't something that could be solved overnight, I told her to just do her best to acclimate to the reality that she would eventually have to hurt others.
I checked my phone and saw it was a little past 1 PM. We agreed to hunt until 5 PM and split the rewards evenly between the three of us.
One thing Lily and I shared in common was our drive to make money. It was a little unnerving watching this skinny girl using kobolds like sacks of potatoes and slamming them into each other. There would always be an accompanying spray of viscera and the sound of crunching bones.
Jenna still hadn't managed to work up the courage to shoot a kobold yet, but she was constantly looking out for enemies. She was also shooting well timed arrows to scare the kobolds from attacking our backs at times.
We were fighting our last group of kobolds when I suddenly slipped while maneuvering around a kobold. The ground was wet from all the blood, and I slipped on a puddle I failed to take notice of.
As I fell the kobold I was fighting didn't fail to notice this. It swung it's club straight at my head as I was falling, and I stared with fear as it rapidly approached my face. Just as it was about to hit me, I closed my eyes to brace for the pain, when my thoughts were interrupted by an ear piercing shriek.
I opened my eyes and saw the kobold had an arrow embedded into it's arm. I looked to see Jenna with a pained expression before I snapped back to reality. I pushed myself onto my feet and dashed forward, slashing the kobold's throat to end it's life.
I didn't even care about checking the kobold before I ran up to Jenna, who was still standing in shock, with her arms still trembling I grabbed her by the shoulders.
"Jenna, it's okay, look I killed it. It's okay, just take a deep breath."
She began breathing rapidly and hyperventilating. I pointed at Lily to hurry over and comfort her friend. I stepped back and watched Lily slowly calm Jenna down.
Jenna had saved my life just now, and I felt pained that I couldn't comfort her. However that wasn't my place. It wasn't what Jenna needed either. She needed a friend.
I stepped away to let them talk in private and I began searching the kobolds. One of them dropped an F-Rank mana crystal, which made that the fifth one we found so far. With just hunting for seven hours I made more than I did yesterday by myself.
'That's even considering that Jenna didn't kill anything herself. If she got over her fear, and we got more used to each other, we could make some crazy money... We could go buy [Throw] and [Spear Hand] if I wanted to tomorrow if things stay this good.'
After a few more minutes Lily and Jenna both approached me. They were feeling overwhelmed so we decided to call it a day. I thought that was fine so we began to walk back to the entrance together. Along the way Jenna walked with me, talking about small things when she slipped on a fallen trunk.
Reacting first without thinking I used [Dash] to move ahead of her and turned around to catch her as I fell onto the ground hard. I closed my eyes and grit my teeth to prevent myself from biting my own tongue.
Groaning, I opened my eyes slowly, but when I went to move my hands I noticed that I was holding something.
'Soft? Squishy?'
Unconsciously I squeezed a couple times before I finally opened my eyes wide in realization.
Inches from my face was Jenna's blushing face. I slowly looked down and confirmed my fears.
'I just beat the pervert allegations and now....!'
"Do you like what you're touching?"
I slowly turned my head in fear and saw Lily glaring down at me.
"N-No, Lily I-I swear this was a-"
"Misunderstanding?"
"Yes! Yes! It's a misunderstanding let me expla-"
Lily reached down and grabbed me by the collar. Lifting me in the air she walked towards the exit portal while telling me what used to happen to perverts in 'the good old days'.
"You know, you should thank me for not chopping your hands off at the wrists, that's what they used to do to people like you."
Defeated I hung limply as Lily carried me to the portal.
"Yes... Thank you for your mercy..."
I happened to look up to catch a glimpse of Jenna smiling lightly as I disappeared into the portal.
'It's just a... misunderstanding... right?'