"So you practiced your archery? That sounds interesting," Damien spoke to Zen as they ate the lunch provided, "We had a different class, we spent all our time earning EXP and practicing a single skill."
Zen quietly took a bite out of her meal as she listened to the rogue, after swallowing her good she chimed in, "Well Admin told us that the basis for being a good archer is accuracy and precision, so we spent all our time practicing our shots on moving targets."
Listening in to what Zen had to say about her training, he couldn't help but feel that the rangers were getting less useful training. After all the rogues had received a live enemy to fight, and tomorrow they would be fighting multitudes of goblins, to show them why they should be wary of fighting multiple foes. From what he heard from Zen, the ranger class just seemed lacking.
Wanting to share his thoughts he questioned the blonde-haired elf, "And is your training too easy? Or am I missing something?"
He did not fail to notice the tense grip her hand developed at his query, something was bothering her.
"I don't know if I just have a bad affinity for archery, but outside of skills, I have a hard time using the Fighting Style I have," she confessed with embarrassment, weakness was a sore subject for everyone, "Admin told me that Fighting Styles are facilitated by the System, it lets the System know what type of fighting knowledge you should know. That's how people can pick up a blade for the first time and know what to do with it, but knowledge on how to do something and actually doing something are two distinct things. I may have a poor aptitude for this…"
Maybe… But.
"I don't think that's true, you scored in sixth place, that's the second highest for a ranger, right?" he attempted to lift her spirits, "That didn't happen out of nowhere."
His words fell on deaf ears, her expression didn't lift, "I don't know, I spoke to some of the other rangers, and they said that they had a hard time finding monsters," she said with a low tone, "I just got lucky to find that Orc, otherwise I might have even failed the first Phase."
Damien looked at the downtrodden Zen, the mood of the conversation had gone sour within a matter of seconds. If he was better at dealing with people, this might not have happened. Still cheering Zen up was extremely important for Damien at the current moment.
This might be the difference between earning those 50 Points or not.
Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted Jane trying to talk to the group of mages. Judging by their nervous looks and tense body language, they wouldn't be allowing her access to any of their rooms any time soon. Her brutish behavior when the Monster Hunter event was over had stayed in everyone's mind. Their first impression of her had been of one that resorted to violence quickly, it would be unwise to let someone like that into a place you were most vulnerable.
Feeling better knowing that even if he failed here, his competition was not likely to succeed either, he pressed on with a last effort.
"Hey I heard that some people worship the System as a God," he interjected into the conversation.
"Huh?", the comment that came out of nowhere confused Zen, "Yeah I know about them, they concentrate at the higher Levels and hold some of the strongest Nex Primers. What about them?"
Damien looked away from her and spoke to the air as if in deep thought, "They can worship the System because it's such an amazing thing, it gives people the power to live forever, to make people into Gods, it can quantify the worth of your existence in a mere page of numbers and words. It's amazing."
Not following what Damien was trying to convey, Zen voiced her confusion, "What are you getting at?"
Looking back at Zen, his piercing gray eyes looked directly into her, "I'm just saying, this almighty System didn't bother putting luck as a quantifiable stat, it didn't matter to it. If this godly System doesn't believe in luck, then neither do I. You didn't get lucky, you tried your best and this is the result you ended up with. I think that you're going to make a great ranger if you keep trying your best, don't you think?"
Damien's argument was flawed, of course. At the very least it was easily argued. One could say that even if the System didn't consider luck as an individual stat, that the uncertainty of the real world played a major factor in the outcome of one's actions; luck. If this is taken into account then the success of an individual in perspective to the failure of another in the same field could be chucked up to the phenomenon known as luck. Even if Zen performed better than other rangers, it didn't necessarily mean that she was better, she was right in saying that real-world uncertainty had played a role in success.
But arguing against Damien was not what Zen wanted, she wanted some validation of her efforts. Rather than seek out those arguments, her mind was happier to settle into the comfort that his words brought.
"Well when you put it like that I can't find where to disagree," her voice had gained a faint joy, "I guess you're right, I just have to focus on doing better."
Happy with his small success, he smiled to further lighten the mood. He needed her disposition to be the best possible if he wanted a chance to get those points. It was one thing to become friends with someone in a day, it was another matter for that friend to trust you with their life.
Truthfully, without the pressure of the test and the lack of support from other sources, Damien would have been hard-pressed to get this far. Fortunately Zen was responding well to his attempts to grow closer, but ultimately it was impossible to make this into a guarantee. It would be up to fate to decide if he would triumph.
A soft ring signaled a System Prompt,
The Dining Hall will now be closing, dinner will be delivered to your individual room. The Hall will open its doors again tomorrow morning, have a good night.
The once noisy room was now filled with people staring at the new information. The prompt came off as a surprise, they had not been warned that the Hall had a closing time, and it only made sense for them to have dinner here if the room was called the Dining Hall. Still, the prompt’s eligibility was not in question, if the System said so, it was the truth.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
The reason the atmosphere in the room had died was rather down mainly due to the thought that everybody had at this point. People had to spend their time somewhere, if not in the Dining Hall then there was only one other place, their rooms.
It would become a difficult matter to continue their conversations in the comfort of their private rooms for obvious reasons, so one by one they each began to slowly excuse themselves from the tables. Still, warm lunches were left behind as people went to their rooms, aside from the lack of company, it wasn’t much of an inconvenience.
He kept an eye on Jane as she desperately tried to make conversation with the others who were practically fleeing from her. Her frenzy was detrimental to her cause, people were able to easily smell her rashness and steered off course from it, he almost felt bad for her. But in the end, she was his competition so the feeling subsided. The window to make his own move was rapidly closing.
"I guess it's time to get going," he spoke without a particular target, Zen, still caught up in the prompt, only nodded her head.
"Are you also headed to your room?", he carefully prodded.
He couldn't be too forward with his words, or she would become skittish. She needed to be the one to propose the idea or she would never agree to it.
"Oh? Oh right, yes! We should get back to our rooms now I suppose," she said as she stood up from her seat like everyone else was.
The window of opportunity narrowed.
"It's a shame," his dejected voice spoke, "We still didn't get to talk about Elves, I really want to learn more about your culture."
It was a risky move, if considered carefully, it might be perceived as an overextension on his part. Although his face smiled and his expression was calm, inside the stress was building up to colossal heights. He had made great strides in befriending Zen today, too aggressive of a push could ruin all his work.
Zen froze in place at his words, thankfully she stopped to think about what he said. It was a good sign, the alternative would have landed him a quick refusal. She rubbed her chin in thought as she pondered for a few seconds before she spoke, "Right I almost forgot you wanted to hear about that, well we can always talk tomorrow, right?"
Shit.
The conversation was barreling down to a failure, he needed to do something and he needed to do it quick. The question was now whether the 50 Points were worth risking the progress he had made so far with Zen.
On one hand, if he dropped the subject, he would be in good standing with Zen. If tomorrow's task was something similar to today's then he would already have groundwork and would be more likely to succeed. Not to mention that Jane had failed at earning the points from what he saw, even if he didn't get these points, she wouldn't hold an advantage over him.
Alternatively, he could make a headstrong last-ditch effort and try to get those points. If he succeeded he would have 50 extra points that his opponent would not, he would have an easier time building his team for the final Phase. But failure would result in Zen becoming wary of him, ruining his efforts. If the next tasks were like this one, he would have to find a different Climber and start from zero. A worst-case scenario.
The smart choice would be to hold on and try again tomorrow, but Damien knew that doing so would be admitting to a small self-defeat. A personal slight to himself, he would have failed in something he had set out to do. The thought burned in his mind, he hated it.
Throwing caution to the wind, he made his move.
Just as Zen was beginning to turn away, he reached out and grabbed her hand. The sudden physical contact startled Zen, who began to instinctively make a move to free her hand from his grasp. Before she could, however, she was stopped by Damien's voice.
"Actually… I want to know more about you."
Damien's bold declaration coupled with his stone-cold serious face made Zen lose her words. Her brain ceased to work for a second as she mouthed out nothings, this was one of the better outcomes that he could have hoped for.
Zen's dumbfounded expression continued for a couple of seconds more before she managed to regain her bearings.
She hadn't tried to pull away, another sign of fortune. The slight red at the tips of her pointy ears was also a good indicator that his gamble was closer to a payoff rather than a bust.
Zen looked at him with confused eyes, "You want to know more about me and Elves that badly?"
It was too late to pull back now, he answered with as much genuine as possible, "I really want to know more about you personally… The thing is that I don't know much about what's going on in this world. You're the only person who was bothered to listen to me so far, I'd really just like to talk to you a little more. Maybe just a few more minutes?"
Several factors came into play at this moment. All of the little things that Damien had done snowballed into a feeling of closeness for Zen: reaching out to her in the morning when she was alone, inviting her to eat with him when she clearly knew nobody else in the room, making an effort to comfort her when she was feeling down due to her class. Lastly his seemingly heart to heart confession, he had targeted the points he had deduced she felt strongly about.
He knew that she was feeling alone, despite knowing more about this world than him, she was even more alone than he was. It was likely the uncertainty of her pre-made team was also weighing in her mind; had they survived the Monster Hunting event?
Making sure to iterate all the points she felt strongly at this point. It was all calculated in order to condense all these little things into a form of agreement.
"Well I don't remember anything specific, but if you don't mind I guess I can tell you what I remember," she spoke shyly, people were beginning to stare at the spectacle that was two people holding hands, "Ah! But just for a bit!"
Damien's all or nothing high stakes gamble had paid off.
"Oh, that's great! It means a lot!" his face broke into rare sight of true happiness, the stress levels he had, which were on the precipice of bursting, were brought down to nothing. His smile and eyes reflected this internal change with a glint of charm, Zen was only able to look away with no small amount of embarrassment.
Finally growing too flustered from having her hand held by Damien, she managed to voice out a squeak, "Damien, my hand…"
"Hmm? Oh right," he answered to her small voice as he let go of her hand, he truly had forgotten about that, "Sorry about that."
She shook her head, "No, it's okay," she beckoned for him to follow after her, as they walked she spoke, "You know, I've actually been feeling exactly like you have. I'm glad you're here, otherwise, I'd probably be having a harder time."
Zen's actual heartfelt confession sprouted a seed of guilt in Damien's heart, although in his mind he had not done anything truthfully harmful, he knew that he was in some ways using Zen and taking advantage of her current situation to advance himself.
Promising to make it up to her, he followed her into her room.
Although she showed a bit of discomfort as he physically walked into her private room, she relaxed when his attitude didn't suddenly change.
Congratulations, you have completed your daily task! +50 Points
Success
Zen and Damien's short talk about Elves turned into a lengthy discussion mainly led by the curious Zen, although the positions had been shifted Zen had a happy time talking about Elves anyway.