“Fuck’s sake! Just get over here already!” Agravain cried.
As though to get at him on purpose, Rania persisted in her endless harassing of the pig like a fly, coming in and out to poke holes in its flesh to the creature’s annoyance. Neither of them had betrayed the slightest sign of fatigue, and the chief of the pigmen only seemed to grow stronger as the fight dragged on.
Indeed its squeals came in no lessening haste as it struck the earth rapidly, having already rendered the packed dirt floor full of craters with the enormous club. So far the maid had yet to be caught again. If the first hit had caused some damage to her it was not immediately visible. Her retreating and dodging and rushing in were no less nimble, if taken with far more caution now.
Still, anyone could see it was a hopeless matchup. She would inevitably be hit again, if not now, then in an hour. And no matter how many times she poked the pig with her dagger the countless small wounds on its body would still fail to prove the slightest hindrance to its virile movement, let alone deciding the battle.
Jophiel clicked her tongue. “Fine, this is stupid. But we’re out of options, get ready, Agravain.”
“Confound your ready, I’m entering the fray!”
She kicked his shin. “I. Said. Get. Ready.”
Even then, the pages of the floating codex were flipping fast. Abruptly, the angel jammed her fingers between the pages, it stopped dead. Agravain could see the page of Rania’s information before the angel took it from his sight. She shoved it at Soraya’s face, her finger tracing a line on the page.
“You see this, princess?” she hastily pointed, “drag this from here to here, just do it.”
Though somewhat bewildered, the princess did as she was told.
The gauntlets Jophiel had tossed back into the box disappeared.
Shortly after, a surprised sound came from behind the barbarian.
Next he looked, Rania had stopped in her tracks, her eyes staring at her arms surrounded in a strange light. When the light was gone her hands had been wrapped in those gauntlets.
This absurd change took less than one second to happen. And yet that one second was more than enough.
For the pig.
Amazed by the unexplained phenomenon, Rania had come to a standstill--a deadly standstill in the middle of her enemy's flurry of attacks. By the time she came to, it was too late. It hit her this time, crashing hard against her side, this strike way worse than the last.
As before, she was sent flying, now she also hit her head against the hut’s side, and there lay unmoving.
With a loud curse, Agravain charged in. He hacked at the pig’s makeshift armor, staggering it. At once it wheeled about, sending the club sideways as it had done with the maid.
Caring not for such nonsense as dodging, he took the blow head-on. So it struck his flank. The terrible sound of ribs being broken echoed. Heedless of the sharp pain, the barbarian hooked a fist at the pig's jaws. Hard was the pig’s skull, yet harder was his fury, ejaculating a broken tusk from the beast’s snout.
As the pig staggered, the barbarian gripped his battle axe in both hands. But even as he raised his weapon for a downward swing, the creature retreated with fumbling feet, backing away.
“Coward!” cried he, “to my best mercy, give thyself, pig! Be slaughtered, or sausage!”
And thus enraged, he crouched down for a charge.
“No!” came a cry before he could.
“What now?” he grunted, glancing over his shoulder. There Rania stood on her wobbling feet.
“Move away! It’s my foe!” Her voice was almost desperate.
“There’s folly and there’s crazy. You can’t choke a chicken as you are, let alone a pig.”
“Are you deaf!”
He turned to look at the stubborn girl now. She was wobbling, true, and her face was dripping with blood from the gash on her temple, one of her lenses was broken. Yet the intensity in those eyes had not flagged in the slightest way, only doubled.
She barked a command that brooked no arguments, “Away! I say!”
And in that moment the amazed barbarian was sure of one thing: if he did not do as she said, the girl was fully intended to lunge at him also.
“Fine,” he shrugged, his rage deflated, “who am I to steal a girl’s prey, eh?”
Nor had the pig been waiting for their little conversation to play out. Already it was charging at the barbarian, slamming earthward its devastating club.
The barbarian leaped aside, raising his palm. Bewildered for a split second, the maid then struck his palm with her own.
Tagging in, Rania.
Once more into the fray.
The two split before the pig entered their range.
With a neat sidestep, Rania danced around the club that rocked the ground, an alacrity not of one having been battered for almost an hour.
She ducked under the pig arm, thrust her gauntleted hand at its chest. The simple, unfancy strike sent a tremor across the beast’s armor, rattling the loose bones attached to it. An understatement to say her attack this time was nothing like before. For the first time her opponent visibly reeled. The tremendous body that had been full of virility a second before now swayed with uncertainty. Blood frothed from the gurgling throat and out its slacked mouth,
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Still, life held on within the beast, it raised the club again. And again Rania dodged, in and out, only this time with far more effective attacking power.
Meanwhile, the barbarian had returned to the others. Rubbing his healing ribs, he remarked, “Never knew the girl could punch that well.”
“Well,” Jophiel pointed out, “not all her. Can’t you already guess it’s thanks to her shiny new equipment?”
“So may one conclude. I’m no expert when it comes to this gaming thing, but the stats don’t have anything to do with boosting her damage, do they? It’s all defensive bonuses.”
“Well, only to a noob,” the angel grinned, but then dropped it for a more neutral expression, “though it’s an often overlooked skill for most. You can even say that it is useless in most worthwhile cases.”
“That thing, Prevail?”
“What else? For traits with many levels of effects, nine is the maximum number. So the gauntlets gave her the maximum possible effect of that skill. As for the effect itself, it’s quite simple. It boosts your various stats and attributes, namely, all that contributes to attacking, defending and evading related skills, in proportion with the amount of life you lose in combat.”
“So the more she’s hurt, the stronger she gets?”
“To put simply, yes. But that’s not all there is to it. Look, the fight’s ending.”
By then the pigman chief had suffered no less than a dozen blows from Rania’s fists. It was in a miserable state, but the maid was not all that better. She too had taken another blow and was by then stumbling along, her fists moving more firmly than her feet.
For all the help the gauntlets had rendered her, it hadn’t changed the fact that she had taken too much damage. Even now, a lucky hit from the pig could decide the fight in its favor.
But as Jophiel said, it was time the fight was ending.
Rania’s finisher was a full-throttle blow that finally carved in the beast’s much-dented skull.
It toppled heavily, and she along with it.
The girl went on her knees, laboring her breaths and shaking from the tremendous exertion and the pains in her bruised body.
“That’s not all there is to it,” Jophiel repeated as she strove over along with the barbarian. “Heck, looks like the girl synergizes too well with this trait. I think I just changed my mind on how to build her. A bit. Still,” she added, “the purpose of this training session was to teach her how powerless she is against a real foe, then she just went and beat the boss mostly on her own. Talk about a plan derailed!”
They went over to check on the maid.
She wasn’t unscathed, of course, but she would live. And recover fast, Jophiel added, genies don’t have a particularly sturdy constitution compared to humans, but they recover faster from injuries, part of why intense training regimens work so well with them compared to normal humans who need more recovery time.
“Can you stand?” Agravain asked.
Making no effort to rise, the girl sat there. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“Are you all right, Rania?” asked Soraya, her face fraught with concerns and anxiety. Also partly crumbled because of the smell.
“Not well, I think,” Rania said, still casting her face dejectedly to the dirt floor. “You’re right, I’m weak and useless. In this state, I’m no help to you, Soraya.”
“Don’t say that now.” The princess struggled to lean her body forward, then she patted the maid’s head, whose hair was caked with blood and dirt. “Even if you are little help, which you aren’t, a crippled girl needs all the help she can get, you know.”
“You must not say that!” the handmaid lifted her head at last, on her face a pained expression. “Don’t talk about yourself like that!”
“Well, it’s true,” Soraya was unfazed, “What’s true is true, if you call yourself useless, then what the heck am I?”
Ah right, Agravain was thinking, that’s the kind of girl she was.
“Still,” Jophiel broke in, “the cute maid isn’t wrong. In her current state she is useless.”
“Very helpful, Jophiel,” the barbarian grunted.
“What’s true is true,” the angel echoed Soraya’s words. She crouched down to the maid’s eye level, grinning. “But I can help you become strong. See that dumb thing of a man over there? I can help you become as strong as he is now, but it will take a while. And you will have to listen to what I say, okay? And that means pulling out of a fight when I say so, and also fighting the way I want you to. So basically, follow my words just like that barbarian. I can’t guarantee you will ever become as strong as him, but I can guarantee that you will one day be looking at beasts like the one over there as small fry. How about it?”
She looked at the angel, and then Soraya. She nodded, “The princess trusts you, so what can I say?” Although she didn’t look as resigned as her words implied. Her eyes wandered to the gauntlets on her arms. She could guess the only reason they were there in the first place.
“Good girl!” Jophiel cheered, then touched the ring on the maid’s finger, “For your first taste of power. Don’t be alarmed, you hear?”
That familiar voice again rang in Agravain’s head just as she did.
Alert: Changes in an ally’s abilities!
Achievement unlocked: Boss Brutalizer
Trait developed: Pugilist
Reward from skill level milestones:
+2 points of magical and physical defense (Unarmed Weapon skill level 5)
Latent Trait Manifested: Tenacious Level 1
+10% bonus to the effects of the skill Prevail
+2% bonus to the effects of all defensive skills
+5% chance to nullify a lethal attack
As the maid’s expression changed, Agravain knew she was listening to the same thing in her head.
“There,” Jophiel said, “Better to have you understand the changes in your abilities, lest you get caught off guard again like back then. I will explain everything later, or try to, so don’t worry too much if you don’t get a thing.”
Then the angel stretched and yawned. “And I guess that was a day’s work done. Let's get out of this place, the smell is getting unbearable.”
The rest unanimously agreed.
Just once, however, on their way out, Agravain stopped next to the corpse of the pigman chief.
He picked up the enormous club. Far heavier it was than the battle-axe, yet not so heavy he could not swing it with some effort.
“Hey, Jophiel, how do I do that thingy?”
“What thingy? Say clearly. Are you stupid?”
“As if you ever said anything clearly. I mean that thing you do so that voice reads out the information of a thingy. That thingy.”
“You really have a way with words, don’t you?” With a sigh she flipped open the codex and gave it a few taps.
Item obtained:
Pigman’s Metal Club
Rarity: Uncommon
Quality: Awful
Enchanted item effects:
+8 melee damage
-5 mobility
“Even I know this thing is shitty,” he grumbled.
Next, he tried with the battle axe he had taken from the store of the cutthroats.
Steel Battle Axe
Rarity: Common
Quality: Mediocre
Effects:
+4 melee damage
-1 balance
“Like seriously, why only I get the terrible stuff? Even I want nice things, you know.”
“There, there,” Jophiel patted his back as she pushed Soraya’s chair by, for once appearing genuinely sympathetic. “I get how you feel. I totally do. But have patience, okay? Leave the good equipment to the cute maid for now, since even with the best gear you will still have to carry her for a long time.”
“Hm,” he grumbled, “I will just check all the weapons we brought along. One of them is bound to have some special qualities.”
“Eh? I seriously doubt that,” the angel shrugged, “You rarely find anything of better grades than Mediocre and Common in a generic store. But you do you. You’ll find out soon enough.”
But she was wrong. All of them were wrong.
There were no weapons to check.
For when they came out of the forest, there was something remarkably wrong.
The wagon and the horses were gone.
And with them, the bard.