I flee from Hessien, who is dead set on killing me.

Wait, can I tank it?! I'm level 21 after all!

Instead of running away, I stop abruptly and turn towards the spear-gun, my hand outstretched towards him.

“You can’t harm me—” I'm cut off as a beam strikes my head, leaving me screaming in agony.

It hurts! It burns so badly!

I collapse to the ground, clutching my forehead. Liquid seeps into my palms. Blood.

“How about that, huh?” Hessien taunts. “What if I turn you into precious experience points?”

“Bastard,” I scream in response.

Vacinay raises her hand in worry. “Hey, you wouldn’t hurt me. You love m—”

“Die!” He doesn’t hesitate to blast at her.

With a grunt, I manage to raise myself with one hand and form a ball of flame before hurling it at him. As he blasts, he sees the fireball and tries to evade it, but he isn’t fast enough. The fool thinks it has to hit something to expand!

I grin as the ball expands into flames mid-air. The flames wash over him, sending him into a fit of screams. Suddenly, his hand glows and he touches the ground. He ceases screaming and stands up, seemingly unaffected by the flames.

That state exchange skill.

I remove my armor and ignite my upper body in flame. “My flames actually hurt, sucker. And I’m immune to the effects of fire.”

I wonder what his state exchange passive is. It probably hasn’t revealed itself yet. Randomly, I also bet that Ghomas is immune to being electrocuted.

He charges at me, but he seems so slow. I plant my right foot forward, leaning my left foot back, with both of my arms drawn back.

I calmly speak, “Ka…ma…ha…me!”

Intense fire blazes around half of my body in the shape of a fireball. Hessien closes in on me and a genius idea blooms in my head.

Ghomas asked me if I could make a fire barrier…

I smile smugly as a HOLLOW ball of flame covers my entire body. Hessien sees it and is shocked.

“Ha! Sucker!” As soon as he touches it in an attempt to change its state, or whatever that really means, I will quickly change the ball into a bullet and blast it into his shoulder.

He would probably try to use his state-changed flames to shield from my fireball barrier. When he comes in contact with it, I will make my barrier also absorb the fire before turning the barrier into the bullet.

Yes… he would try to change try to adapt to the barrier. But, I won’t give him the time to do that…

Wait… it is getting hard to breathe… Oh right, fire burns through oxygen!

Then, out of nowhere, a hand dives into the flames, burning from the intense heat.

He doesn’t try to change its state?!

As soon as I am about to condense the fireball barrier version into the fireball bullet version, I realize… that was a fatal mistake.

His foot swings up and hits me square in the crutch.

WHA--

My face warps in pure agony as my flames dissipate and I fall back in pain, holding my crutch.

Why do they keep kicking me THERE?!

Why…. What about my goddamn eyes?! That’s another obvious weakness!

Hessien stands in front of me, looking down on me while most of his body is covered in non-burning flames except his roasting arm and leg.

“What the fuck?!” I shout. “At this point, this shit is sexual harassment!”

Hessien touches the ground, changing the state of the flames on his arm and leg. “Don’t disgust me. I will use any weaknesses available. ”

Oh yeah…?

I point my finger at his head, using the little amount of EP I have remaining to form a fire ball, bullet version.

He jumps back and raises his hand to guard.

Ha, bitch.

I blast it at him. He prepares for it to hit his head, but to his dismay, the fire bullet curves quickly and hits him right into his balls.

His face warps into fear and pain.

“Burn!” I scream.

The fire expands rapidly, losing its form but not generating any force.

Vacinay and Ghomas’ mouths drop open at the sight. Had I gone too far? Perhaps, but his kick still hurt like hell. I am going to start wearing iron underpants from now on.

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Hessien is fortunate. He slaps the ground repeatedly, but it seems to have no effect.

Oh, he probably ran out of EP.

Meh.

I lazily lift my hands in his direction, manipulating the fire into a ball and throwing it away.

Vacinay rushes to his aid.

How cute.

“The maiden has come to save ya balls and dick,” I smirk.

“Shut up…” He collapses.

… He faints, right?

Right?

I cautiously approach him, donning my armor armor first. Checking his vitals, I find him still breathing.

Ah... That's good.

Vacinay touches his chest, her voice laced with concern. “If it weren’t for leveling up, I doubt I’d have had enough EP to heal him so quickly after that last fight.”

I cross my arms and sit beside him. “He should’ve just accepted the law of the jungle and let us steal those precious kills he risked his life for.”

It would be incredibly frustrating if he died while I thought he was merely unconscious, especially if I couldn’t rewind time far enough. Since it is a passive skill, I’m not sure how I could adjust it, given that I can’t think when I’m dead.

After a few moments, Vacinay stands up. “He’s stable now. Healing him that quickly did consume a lot of EP.”

“Cool. I guess we’ll have to bring a lot of the next enemies near death for him to get the kills,” I say.

Ghomas joins the conversation. “I think I’m going to start getting involved in this kill stealing. You and Vacinay are currently the strongest, so it’s not fair.”

With a single hand on my waist, I grin, “Don’t worry. We won’t let you get hurt.”

Vacinay turns her back towards him, still covered in blood and guts. “Pathetic… Weaklings like you deserve to be crushed under the feet of the strong.”

Wait… why is there a sudden glint in her eyes? Oh, she summoned the blue firefly for that effect.

Ghomas’s eyes twitch. “I beat your ass last time…”

Vacinay draws her broad sword, filled with scratches, and rests it on her shoulder as she turns towards him. “Wait, what? When?”

“Not you, Lumine!”

“Oh.” She turns her back to him, doing the cool eye thing.

Hmmm. He did. He did.

“Right, let’s do that again,” I say.

He gets into a fighting pose. Unlike him, I’m low on EP. However, due to the three-minute break, I acquire 15 more EP points. That’s more than enough.

I dash towards him. He points his finger at me, and I prepare to dodge the lightning.

Future vision.

Tapping into two seconds into the future, I see myself being electrocuted.

Eh?

Then there is a flash.

Wait, what?

I leap to the side, still confused about what happened in that future. His eyes move to me and then suddenly, I am in agony as electricity crackles on my skin.

What?!

I look down and see it. He uses the blood of those half-men as a medium! He must have channeled a lightning bolt via his toes!

That jerk!

Fine… I could play tricks too…

As soon as he blinks, he feels my hand gripping his neck. It should have been obvious to him what had happened.

Before he can manifest a clone, I punch his chest with almost all my force, which sends him crashing into the wall with a thud.

“I win,” I say confidently.

Ghomas wipes the blood at the edge of his lips as he grins. Around him is a cracked rib cage... with muscles around it?

Did he… make a giant ribcage to tank the attack?

Ghomas discards the ribcage, breaking it apart before saying, “Okay, I kind of admit defeat. Except for one thing, I want you to try to kill me.”

“Why would I do that?” I ask.

“I just had an idea about what my clone variance passive skill may be.”

"Hm…"

Vacinay asks, “You sure you want her to burn you alive?”

“Of course not.”

Vacinay steps forth, drawing her sword. “Let me do it, a quick beheading.”

“I feel you want to do this to try to gain levels…”

“Don’t be silly, of course not.”

“Okay,” he makes a play-dead clone. The clone basically is unconscious.

She looks at him until he gives a nod. She takes in a deep breath and mutters, “This is the strength of a level 18!”

I guess they killed more half-men before they met the crustacean guy outside of the mountain.

I guess that should be common sense since she has like over 3 new skills. The rat one, firefly, and the combat/sword one.

It still feels weird that she has enough skill points to afford so many skills… Probably they are dirt cheap for her?

I don’t know.

Wait a second, I just realize, that snake she killed, she got levels from it… which means that was also a half-man.

Crazy.

Vacinay hurls her sword at him. It sails through the air flawlessly before piercing his head.

"Arg--"

His body convulses before collapsing to the ground, blood pooling around him.

Um...

I turn to look at Vacinay, who is visibly panicked.

“Why… is he dead? He’s going to clone his head to survive, right?” she asks.

“Um… Probably.”

“So… I need to kill you to save him, right?”

“No.”

“But he’s dead!”

“I know… it’s sad, but—”

She is already removing the sword from his head and advancing towards me.

“I was just joking, damn it! I would just kill myself to save him. I’m not going to let you kill me again!” I shout.

“Oh. Okay.”

Tch. So damn annoying. Damn it! I don’t want to slice my neck…

As I grunt in frustration, I hear Ghomas. I turn to look at the source of the voice. It’s the clone, standing up and looking at his original body’s corpse.

“Damn, Vacinay, you were brutal!” he says.

We all look at him, partially confused.

“You can jump consciousness…? Or… does the clone become sentient when the original is dead?” I ask.

“It’s me.”

Vacinay inspects every bit of him. “How are we sure that it’s actually you? And not the clone thinking it’s you?”

“Yeah, yeah!” I say. “Show us proof!”

Ghomas is visibly frustrated but chooses to answer, “Hessien was being groomed until you and Vacinay found out, burned the woman’s car, and threatened to light her house on fire. Hessien never found out why she suddenly stopped talking to him. Lumine, you once tried to coerce your crush into going on a date with you by threatening to beat up his sister when you were 14. But instead, you got beat up by her. You also tried to purchase some guy’s OnlyFans, but when your mom found out, she beat you to the point you were hospitalized. Vacinay hates when other women interact with Hessien, despite claiming to just be his best friend. Oh, and she once missed a week of school because her sister poured a bottle of pepper sauce on the dildo Vacinay had.”

Upon uttering the last words, Vacinay pins him to the ground with a fury akin to that of Zeus. “Okay! It’s really you. Good good! I will just kill you so bad that you won’t remember shit!”

“Kill him for good!” I move to her side, ready to help in any way possible.

She holds the blade above his head, repeatedly attempting to stab his neck, but he manages to evade each attempt with swift head movements while crying out for help.

No one is coming to help you...

Hessien also regains consciousness. He clutches his aching head before glaring at Vacinay and me with rage. “So… it was you two!”

Vacinay, still pinning Ghomas down with her knee, abandons her attempt to end his life before responding, “Well, she was twice your age and waited for you to turn 18. Sounds somewhat illegal, wouldn’t you agree?”

“No!”

I point at him with fury. “We saved you from being a victim and this is how you thank us?!”

“What?! She wasn’t trying to do anything to me! She was my big brother’s overseas girlfriend who picked me up from school because she wanted to get close to the family!”

…

“Oh.”

I fold my arms behind me as I look around, looking innocent and cute. “Vacinay coerced me to do it. She said she was going to kill my family if I said no.”

“You backstabber! You were the one who told me she was a pedophile!”

“Y-yes! But I only suggested threatening to torch the car. You were the one who decided to actually set it ablaze!”

After our heated exchange, we turn towards Hessien.

I clear my throat and say, “At the end of the day… it’s the thought that counts.”

Vacinay nods in agreement. “Indeed.”

He seethes with anger, turns away, and continues down the tunnel.