Karla frowned at the idiot swimming towards the spike crabs who were generously edging towards their helpful prey. Her meek companion beside her grimaced in silent concentration as ocean wave over wave battered the helpless idiot away from certain death. The idiot, ironically determined to die, violently kicked through the turbulence before triumphantly planting a foot on the crab's head. Her companion started to inhale, and …
"Mica, knock the damn idiot off."
Her companion forcefully exhaled with a hint of irritation, causing a surge of water to slam the moron off, but the crab kicked off and negated the force as the horn's mucus caught onto the target. Meanwhile, four more of the stupid crabs were desperately churning water edging closer to her prey, the ripples shaking their hunting canoe. The red crab reached the timid purple one and proceeded to flip over it in an easy motion. Despite the tussling, the canoe still held steady as all the waves dissipated in a circular radius around them. One current started pushing them towards …
"MICA, closer already – you REALLY should anticipate these sort of things better."
The current accelerated with the canoe shooting forward, and Karla posed dangerously on the lip, holding her weapon in a comfortable overhand grip. She aimed and catapulted the spear in the same motion, missing both of the wrestling crabs and catching her target through the heart like a malicious cupid. Mica remained stone-faced at the impressive throw, raising her hands in a rowing motion …
"MICAA, hurry up and get us out."
Mica's stone face shifted as if cracked for an indiscernible split moment by a genuine desire to strangle her companion, kick her in the middle of the crabs, and proceed to shoot wave after wave until Karla inevitably killed the crabs with her bare hands before hopefully drowning from exhaustion a kilometer off the coast. The canoe rocked angrily, but Karla glanced disinterestedly at her slow companion while holding onto a thick rope tied to the impaled spear.
"MICAAA, stop zoning out."
Her companion stiffened, and the canoe started dragging backward, hoisting Karla, who still held on to the rope. Karla glanced behind, noticing the two crabs hanging on and bloodying the idiot more. She focused and [Identified] the target.
Mark Picard [level 0, classless]
"Hey Mica, we caught pure gold today. No levels, no classes, nothing. Must be another generic Earther – oh boy, we can relax for at least three months by the time we get back!"
---
Mica tentatively glanced up. The delighted holy priest was widely smiling while leisurely holding onto barbed metallic wiring spanning several meters with the end intertwined with an ungodly heavy spear that alone would threaten to sink any small raft while dragging along the impaled body rapidly turning into a corpse followed by two crabs refusing to let go of their prey.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
The smile was the most terrifying part of the description.
"Priest, that man is about to die."
"Huh, the spear should be keeping it alive."
"Priest, one of the crabs has been sawing off his head regardless of the regenerative properties contained in your weapon."
"That would do it, yeah. Anyway, I'll resurrect it, but the party costs are lower. Don't worry, by the time we finish, it should be a living corpse at best, so we won't risk leaking out any information from the party."
Mika shuddered but nodded in affirmation. She didn't subscribe to the church's tenants, but almost no empathetic creature could even begin to internalize them. Karla was possibly the nicest priest of the local order, but that was only after intentionally seeking to improve the church's senseless violence image. Karla introduced very sensible violence.
The poor man would be killed repeatedly, and while resurrected, his experience consumed by the gods. Without a level or class, all that he would be forced to offer is his future potential. He would be permanently debuffed with around fifty resurrections, causing the system to view him as an impingent. With more revivals, the system would gradually downgrade the target lower and lower while adding more nasty effects until they could scarcely be considered human. The rarest specimens could almost negate their party's levels, causing a party of level 30s to be averaged down to level 1. After the initial permanent debuff, the only downside is that all other system effects would have to be countered, or the human would be killed off by the system. Ironically, this had led to priests turning into powerhouses with freely generating experience plentifully available.
Meanwhile, the powerhouse was yanking on the rope attempting to knock off one of the grabs from prematurely killing the Earther. She began grabbing the metallic rope and coiled it around her wrist before hoiking in a new section. Mika concentrated on magically pushing the canoe despite every yank by the priest nearly throwing her off. Most individuals never reached past level 20, with only the exceptional achieving level 50. While watching the priest, a class supposedly based around faith, outmuscle two determined and committed massive crabs in the water, Mika understood why most individuals never got past 50. Leveling was highly attributed to personal risk, but there was little consequence to anything at level 50.
"Damn, Mika, that crab took off its entire arm, but at least I got rid of one. Hope it doesn't bleed out before we invite it."
"Priest, would we not need him to be conscious for a party invitation to succeed?"
"Mika, you don't know? Body language is highly subjective."
Karla flashed a serene smile, which was not immensely helped at the moment that she got the spear close enough to kick the crab claws off the boy's legs. She somewhat succeeded, with the crab quickly retreating, while still holding a dinner of two finely pulverized legs. Karla hauled the spear aboard with the impaled figure and tossed both into the middle of the canoe. Some blood sprayed on Mika, but she chose to not voice her opinion.
In an angelic voice that would cause demons to consider a vocational switch, Karla whispered, "Would you please join our party, noble hero."
The boy, surprisingly young, with terrified brown eyes, looked up at Karla. Karla blushed and gestured downwards, and he followed her gesture before a notification appeared to the three.
"Mark has accepted the party invitation."