Their target was the disguised goblin even now backpedaling through a crowd of townspeople. How fucking unbelievable was that? They’d been sent here because this was supposed to be some highly dangerous monster that easily disposed of a level ninety something prodigy. It was expected to be around their level and still potentially dangerous to them.
They get here and it’s a level eighty-four goblin. Insult of insults, they were sent after a fucking mid leveled goblin chef.
Heelia wasn’t stupid enough to think that cooking classes weren’t powerful in their own right. Most who learned them initially pivoted into apothecary and potion making classes which were more than lucrative. Hell, she wouldn’t be where she was today without the elixirs some of them had made for her, even if they were outrageously expensive. Surely, any one of them would reach their maximum stats given enough time.
But that was just it. There was a maximum to each of their stats, and it was dictated by level. This thing was level eighty-fucking-four, meaning it couldn’t have more than eighty-four in any of those stats aside from health, stamina, and mana.
That meant that Heelia was guaranteed to have completely eclipsed it in every combat. In fact, she only had three stats that even could be lower than its were.
Are you fucking kidding me?! I was looking forward to a challenge!
Mukael drew his sword as he rushed alongside her for a moment. It was short lived, her enhanced movement taking her past him with barely any effort. Behind them, Perelos was sure to be raising his staff while chanting some superfluous bullshit about god and unclean heathens. Fucking lunatic.
Meanwhile, A small clay rugby ball flew towards them at incredible speeds. She’d only been able to see once it was within a few meters of her despite her incredible senses, but it was still trivial to dodge at her speed.
As soon as it passed her, it exploded into a cloud a thick purple smoke.
A smokescreen? No. It’s poison.
Mukael began to cast his healing spells to counteract the poison, and Perry was probably doing the same thing back in the cloud. She just held her breath and sprinted through, trying to find her target.
How fucking boring. So what, it got this strong just by getting the jump on people and poisoning them? And here I thought I’d finally get to stress test my new class. What a piece of shit, getting a girl’s hopes up like that.
She continued to rapidly close the distance as the goblin began to run towards the other town entrance, throwing another ball at her. It detonated only a few meters after it tossed it, blocking her vision. She’d be forced to waste time wading through the narrow and uneven street or to go all the way around the cloud.
For her the choice was never a hard one.
She barreled through the cloud, once more holding her breath as she went. Whenever her foot got caught on something, she used overwhelming strength to push it apart and away. Wood and brick shattered and flew as she tore through the cloudy part of this town. They’d be mad about it, that was for sure, but Heelia was too pissed to care right now. Her vacation had been ruined.
On the other side of the cloud, she looked around for the little shit, but it was nowhere to be seen. It was hiding…
Clever bitch.
Her senses were keen enough to quickly pick up the trail which was how she knew it had doubled back into the cloud shortly after creating it. The goblin was gambling with its life. It seemed to think it could outlast Heelia in the poison fog.
My maxed Poison Resistance would like a word with you, little gobo.
She followed the tracks back into the fog, giving up on holding her breath now. She’d never be able to hold it long enough, and she had no intentions of being slowed down right now. It didn’t take her long to find it.
“I found it! Follow my voice!”
She shouted out for her companions’ benefit since their tracking skills were far inferior to her own. They’d led a coddled life after all and had never needed to hunt for their own dinner. She’d had one of those too once, but a shockingly aggressive truck driver seemed to think she’d had it too good for too long, putting an end to that.
The goblin wearing a animal parts turned around, shocked at how quickly it had been found. That’s what she assumed at least. It was hard to tell through a massive boar head.
Her spear thrust was aimed perfectly at the creature’s torso as a knife flashed from its hands. A slight turn of her upper body caused it to slash through her robe but avoid the armor underneath. Probably an unnecessary precaution, but Heelia wasn’t taking any chances. Not like she’d need her full strength to skewer this thing anyway.
The iron spear struck bronze. Iron won. A shattering sound filled the air as her opponent was flung away from her, notably unskewered.
The goblin has armor under there? Where the fuck did it get that? And in its size?
Slight amusement was the most it got out of her on that one as she quickly followed its trajectory out of the fog. It lay there on the ground, trying to get up but obviously injured. Looking over and further back, she saw Mukael knocked out right past where the first fog had ended.
The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
What? But he was healing…
That was the first moment she allowed herself to take in her physical state. Heelia had reached incredible heights for a human and attained a class few ever got to claim. Part of that was thanks to her being reincarnated, part was thanks to the organization she joined, but it was undoubtedly the remarkable effort she put in that allowed her to come this far.
After hundreds of battles to the death with monsters, she was accustomed to overcoming her opponents’ defenses in sheer offensive power. She had trained her body against foes that were far more dangerous than she should have been facing. It had always been enough.
Why are my hands shaking?
Everyone understood on some level that there was always something else out there. Even if you hit level five hundred, there was sure to be some level one thousand monster that could devour you easily. That was the guarantee the system gave to them. If you go out to kill and eat enough things, you can get stronger. But so can everything else.
Poison Resistance V was an impressive feat for a human to reach, especially considering how young Heelia was. Her offensive power also left little to be desired. But if her defenses were overwhelmed before her opponents, she’d still lose.
The fluttering of her torn robes began to look like a psychedelic nightmare, courtesy of the poison. One quick motion fixed that as the tatters fell behind her. She never cared for the robes, always wearing her armor underneath anyway. The hoods and consistent color scheme just drilled into her that she was part of a cult whenever she looked at them.
It was a relief to have them off and to be fighting in her armor again. At least it was initially. The metal quickly caught the light in a way that brought strange fever visions.
She tried to ignore them, moving on the downed goblin before her. It leapt backward quickly as her spear thrust downwards, allowing it to escape back onto its feet.
This little fuck was just playing hurt.
Her eyes narrowed as she took in her prey once more. It was dangerous far beyond its level, that much could no longer be denied. Still, she wouldn’t let it win.
She chased it quickly, barely giving it a moment to breathe. An activation of Enhanced Movement and Empowered Strike ensured that she’d land a hit before it could respond. The thrust was aimed at its head this time as it whipped to the side far too slowly. The boar skull gave way, tearing open to reveal green skin underneath.
She had missed. It had barely moved at all, and she still missed.
God damn piece of shit poison! How fucking stupid is this?! Fighting for my life against a goblin again after gaining a hundred levels!
She didn’t let up, turning her jabbing thrust into a slash that forced it to once again retreat. It kept pointing at her while mumbling something under its breath, but Heelia couldn’t speak goblin. Even if she could, she wouldn’t have paid it any attention. Perhaps if she’d paid more attention, she would have thought differently.
Her next approach was short lived, a thrust abandoned halfway as her instincts took over, forcing her to drop the spear. Hundreds of battles and she hadn’t made that mistake once. It was enough to shock her still for a full second.
As soon as she looked down, the full horror of her situation struck her. The iron armor she always wore was red hot, easily a thousand degrees Celsius if her schooling back home would tell her, not that she was thinking about that right now. The only reason the heat hadn’t hit her immediately was thanks to the leather she wore underneath the metal.
It didn’t last long, erupting into smoking flames.
Heat unlike anything she’d ever felt consumed Heelia as all rational thought left her. She tried desperately to take the armor off, but the high-quality gear wasn’t so easily removed. The temperature of the metal continued to rise to impossible degrees, causing her metal armor to sag from the heat. Her hair ignited first. Her skin followed soon after. Flames filled her vision as screams surrounded her. Nobody came to her rescue; nobody could.
Her armor cooked her alive as the goblin simply stood there, watching. She took a single rage filled step towards it before collapsing onto the ground.
----------------------------------------
*Ping*
Congratulations! You have killed someone!
Congratulations! You have killed someone!
Congratulations! You have killed someone!
…
Congratulations! You have killed someone!
Congratulations! You have become Sous Chef/Pastry[25]!
…
Congratulations! You have become Sous Chef/Pastry[30]!
Congratulations! You have gained access to Class Evolution!
You must select your next class for experience to be calculated.
Congratulations! You have acquired enough experience to reach level 100! This is a major milestone for all living things!
Chef did his best to ignore all of the notifications he received during the fight, but he finally had a moment to calm down. He’d managed to kill the dangerous person with a maneuver he didn’t know would work. Lucky for him that he’d thought of it.
The idea came from when he’d tried to put his armor on the first time and burnt his clothes. It would be more accurate to say they burst into flames, but the point still stood. By using Set Temperature, he could impose that fashion disaster on others. Sadly for them, they didn’t have high enough levels of heat resistance to get out unscathed.
Looking around, Chef found the second nearest corpse right past where his first bomb went off. Walking up to and kicking it, Chef heard a groan.
He paused for a moment. The gears began turning in his head as the truth dawned on him.
Wait. If this one survived, then why did I get so many notifications? No. No!
He turned around, running into the fog. The townspeople had been all around him when the fight broke out, and the spear person had been too fast for him to hide further away. But the poison wasn’t that strong. Well it was, but it wasn’t made to kill people! It was just supposed to knock them out and go a little crazy! That’s it!
The fog was thick and dangerous, even with Chef’s Poison Mastery, but he didn’t care. His powerful senses led him to the people he was looking for, unmoving on the ground.
He dragged them out one by one, unable to see them clearly in the fog. One by one he confirmed that they were dead. That he had killed them by accident.
No, please no. PLEASE!
His throat hurt, his eyes watered, but he returned once more to the mist to retrieve the last of them. He didn’t stop until he saw it with his own two eyes.
His hands clenched around thick cloth as he fell to his knees. Chef didn’t want to believe it, but the truth was staring right into his face.
The father was dead. He had killed him.
Chef would never admit what happened next, no matter who asked. But as grief overwhelmed him, he cried. The goblin shed tears of grief for the first time in his life.
And he cried for a human.