"This is getting exhausting," I muttered to myself.

Yesterday, I had so much resolve build up from getting the Artifact, but it didn't make dying to The Murders any more fun.

I didn't use my bow in the match as I didn't want my Reputation to drop before I knew how to deal with The Murders.

After all, the lower my Reputation, the stronger they would be.

Although I didn't use the Artifact, I did look at it.

It was a little disappointing as it looked exactly like the regular bow but red compared to the wood brown that it is typically.

On another note, my HP had increased once again.

As I was lost in thought a sudden voice brought me back to reality.

{That does sound rough}

At first, I thought it was Paul as he was my only visitor, but to my surprise, it was Samantha.

"Why are you here? I didn't ask for the System Advisor"? I asked.

{Didn't you read the new stuff you got with your system level up? I can now communicate with you at any time!}

Is that what that meant?

{Yes, it did! Now let's brainstorm some ways to deal with The Murders.}

I still was not a fan of the mind-reading thing, and if this was permanent-

{Don't worry! We can't talk inside a match, and when you shower, I promise to look away!}

"Do minions even shower?" I asked.

{Nope!}

"I don't mean to be rude, but can you leave me alone for a minute? I think better by myself. Do you maybe have another client or something that you can bother?"

{You're my only client! But if being alone is what you want, then *Blomp*}

....

....

....

....

It seemed like she was gone for real.

I took a sigh of relief.

I wasn't sure if I could handle having someone constantly reading my thoughts and talking in my head.

Back to the topic at hand. How do I deal with The Murders?

There was no way I could deal with them head-on, as they always had the numbers advantage.

My first thought was to increase my agility and try to outrun them while sniping at them with my bow, but that would require me to have a lot more agility and wouldn't solve the problem of magic, which would still hit me no matter what.

My other thought was to increase my defence, which didn't sound terrible, as I could switch to Melee Minion for a bit and block their attacks until my defence improved.

That, again, however would require a lot of stat training. I would have to increase my defence over two hundred times to block magic damage, let alone bows and swords. Plus, if they levelled up even a single time with their magic, they would still deal damage to me.

It felt like an endless grind and not something I could implement soon.

I would keep that idea as a last resort but prefer something faster.

Grinding Stats was off the table, as it would take a long time before the trained stat would be helpful enough to stop them. I kept thinking for a while longer, but nothing came to me.

I considered looking up some ideas but needed to figure out where to begin my search.

{Are you done thinking?}

"Ah!" I yelled, surprised at Samantha's sudden voice.

{Sorry! I didn't mean to scare you!}

"I thought you went away! You even made a Blomp noise!"

{Oh, that was just a noise I made with my mouth. I'm glad it managed to convince you.}

"Why are you still here!"

{Well.... the funny thing is that I can't leave!}

"What?"

{So remember when I slipped the beans that I was 'created' for you?}

"Yeah"

{That means the System created me specifically for you and only you. So, after our first conversation, I disappeared as in I was no longer alive. But when you got that system level up, it revived me and permanently put me inside your head. The thing is that I don't exactly have a way to leave! The only way is if you go into the System shop and request me too! If you do that, it would essentially be the same as killing me!}

....

{......}

......

{......}

"Fine, you can stay."

{Yay!}

"But! Please only respond when I'm talking to you out loud! I would rather forget that you can hear my thoughts."

{Will do Sir!}

I couldn't help but sigh. I should make the most of this.

Can I ask you for advice like I did before?

{Kinda! You can ask me for advice but not the System.}

"What do you mean?"

{Before, when I gave you advice, I was telling you information that the System had given me access to. Unfortunately, I no longer have access to it. Think of it like when you became a Minion. You still remember some of the stuff from the real world, but you can't ever remember interacting with any of it. Stairs are a good example. I'm sure you remember their existence, but you probably can't think of a single time you used them.}

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She was right. I tried as hard as possible, but no memories came up, no matter how long I thought.

"Okay then, do you have any ideas for how to deal with The Murders?"

{Hmmm... I'm unsure if it would work, but maybe something in a Pro-Match could help.}

"Pro Match?"

{Yeah, it's players who are amazing at Heros of Eternity who get paid to play the game in front of an audience. The first match of the year is happening right now!}

"Interesting, sure, let's look."

Even if there wasn't anything useful to gain from it, getting my mind off The Murders wouldn't hurt.

{Bringing the match up right now!}

"Wait, you can do that?"

{Yeah, I have access to everything. I can pull up Minion Media, Stats, and Promotion! I can even force you to sleep! Not that I would, of course. Anyway, here's the match.}

I tried to ignore that terrifying remark as a giant screen appeared before me.

"Woah, can anyone see this screen?"

{Nope! Just you and me.}

On the screen that had just appeared was a match between Heroes.

Of course, there were minions, but they weren't the focus.

There was a scoreboard at the bottom of the match, and from the looks of it, both teams were pretty even.

At the top of the screen was the name of the teams, with the red team being Team Raiders and the blue being Team Pyrotech.

They were about halfway through the match and were preparing for a big team fight in the river for boss monsters.

There was a large opening in the river with a giant dragon right in the middle. It was the biggest thing I had ever seen.

Its body was made of red bone-like skin and had black tattoos that started at the eyes and went through its entire body. Two bony wings bigger than the rest of its body rested on its back. With each breath it took from its mouth, sparks flew out.

There were also people talking over the match; Samantha told me they were called casters, and their job was to explain what was happening in the match.

My focus, however, turned to one specific hero on Team Raiders.

He had long black hair that looked similar to a lion's mane. He wore ragged leather clothing and had beige skin covered in dirt. I recognized him because he was one of the Hunters I couldn't steal a monster from due to his high damage. It was Ullr. His username was 'Fiinkia.'

He stood in the forest, slightly away from the fight itself, patiently waiting for an opportunity to snipe at someone.

The other nine heroes all stood around the dragon, waiting for somebody to make a move.

That was until the Team Raiders Freya slammed her hammer down, a ripple of pink hearts shot out, hitting the dragon along with the enemy team's frontline, Fenrir and Beowulf.

After being hit, the dragon roared out before spreading its wings, casting a shadow on everything around it.

The dragon then flew into the air and blasted fire straight underneath it. The flames flew out at both teams, with the front liners on each team getting caught in the flames and over a third of their health bars being removed.

The moment the flames were gone, the dragon started flying back down, but before it could, each team's backline started firing off spells and attacks.

Team Pyrotechs Cinderella shot a powerful blast of flames that hit Freya.

The moment it did, Ullr finally took his time to strike.

He released a powerful arrow from his bow that hit Cinderellla on the forehead.

It didn't kill her, but she fell over, stunned. He then continued his onslaught, firing three rapid arrows that hit Fenrir and Beowulf.

Ullr continued to bombard the enemy team with arrows as his team switched their focus to attacking the dragon.

"Why are they focusing on the dragon?"

{It's because the team that kills the dragon gets a strong buff that will turn the tides heavily in their favour.}

I then turned my focus back onto the match. So far, it looked like this was going to be an easy Team Raiders victory, as no one seemed to be able to deal with Ullr's deadly fire. That was when I noticed someone on Team Pyroteach was missing. I looked around and couldn't find them anywhere.

That was when, all of a sudden, they appeared right behind Ullr. He slashed Ullr rapidly, not giving him any time to retaliate. Ullr tried to resist, but the sneaky hero soon killed him.

"I didn't even see him sneak up on him."

{That's because that Hero is Perseus. He has the ability called the Helm of Darkness that grants him invisibility.}

I took a good look at him.

He had curly blond hair and freckles on his olive skin. He wore chainmail armour and had a longsword that he used to cut down Ullr. He also had the username 'AlotingOfWordsInLife.'

After Ullr's death, Team Pyrotech pushed forward against Team Raiders, who had gotten caught up in their fight against the dragon.

Team Raiders was quickly wiped, and Team Pyrotech got the dragon, giving a powerful buff, although I was unaware of what the buff was.

I tried to ask Samantha, but she was too focused on the match to notice.

From there, Team Pyrotech slowly managed to push back Team Raiders until eventually they won.

{That was awesome}

I hated that I agreed.

As terrible as it was when I was a minion in the match just waiting for a hero to decide to kill me, watching for the sidelines was much much more enjoyable.

{Maybe you could become a minion in a pro-match}

"No, thank you. Plus, I don't know how, and I wonder if they would even let me with my low Reputation."

{I guess you're right.}

I tried to think if there was anything that I could have taken from that match. My first thought was Ullr. His arrow shots were beautiful and swift, but I couldn't shoot that fast with my current attack speed, and The Murders didn't give me enough time to get to the forest and try to shoot at them from it like he did. I thought for a moment until a thought slipped out of my mind.

"If only I could go invisible," I muttered, possibly hoping that Samantha knew how.

If I could do that, then I would have enough time to aim my shots from far away and protect myself from the initial onslaught.

{Aren't all Minions invisible?}

"I'm sorry, what?"

{Well, you're wearing clothing, right? But from what I can tell, there's nothing underneath.}

My mind instantly jumped back to when Paul had shown me what was under the mast, and Samantha was right. There wasn't anything.

"So, can I just take everything off?"

{I don't know. Do you want me to look away?}

"Can you even see in the first place?"

{Yes! I can see whatever you're seeing.}

"So, can you look away?"

{No.}

I tried to ignore her and just went for it. At first, I tried removing my mask, but I quickly learned that my vision was connected to my mask. It was disorienting when it was off, so I decided to remove it last. From there, I removed my stone chest and the blue cloth that covered my entire body. Then came the moment of truth. I removed my mask and turned it around to see what I looked like.

I was invisible.

"I can't believe that worked."

{I can't either.}

I made sure not to drop my mask, as trying to find my invisible body sounded hard when my vision wasn't connected to it.

Worried, I quickly put my mask back on, not wanting to risk it. I then put my clothing back on.

This seemed promising, but I hada few questions that I needed answered.

The first was how I dealt with my mask. If it were still on my face, that defeated the whole purpose of being invisible, but if I took it off, I would need to aim my bow from an odd perspective, which seemed very difficult.

This also leads to my second question. Can I do this before a match, or will my clothing be put back on?

On top of that, will the weapon in my hand still be visible, and if so, how do I deal with that? The only question I could answer right now was if a weapon still appeared in my hand when I was invisible. I steeled my resolve and removed my clothing again; this time, I found a counter to set my maks on that pointed towards me or where I thought I was.

From there, I focused my mind on a blue elephant.

'Artifacts'

----------------------

[Artifacts]

[Bow of Notoriety]

----------------------

'Bow of Notoriety'

Right in front of me, I saw a red bow floating in the air, but I could feel it in my hand. It was strange, to say the least. From there, I removed my Artifact with the thought-

'Remove Artifact'

As soon as it had appeared, it disappeared.

I then put my mask back on. Before I fired it, I needed a target.

I looked around the house until I found a broken piece of glass. I then set it up, leaning on a wall.

From there, I took off my mask again before calling my bow back. Then, I aimed my bow toward the piece of glass, which was more complicated than I thought. Once I thought I was aiming the correct way, I pulled the bow back.

A dark red arrow appears on the bow. I had yet to use the bow, so I didn't realize it used different arrows. I had to admit that the arrow was beautiful. However, there was a better time for admiration, as I had a target to hit.

I aimed my bow towards what I thought was the correct angle and shot.

[Reputation -1]

I missed it horribly.

Not only did I miss, but it had taken me over twenty seconds to shoot a single arrow.

If I wanted to use this method, I would have to figure out a better way to do it.

For the moment, however, I thought I would practice; losing the Reputation was going to suck, but if I only shot ten or so arrows, it shouldn't be that bad.

However, before I could prepare my next shot, my bow disappeared.

"That's strange," I muttered to myself.

{Uh oh}

"What do you mean, uh oh?"

{...}

I tried to call my bow back, but it didn't work. Did I somehow lose my Artifact? No, that couldn't be possible. That was when a terrible realization hit me.

"S-Samantha, what time is it?"

{P-P-P-P-Past midnight Sir.}

"S-S-S-S-S-S-So does that mean?"

{Y-Y-Y-Y-Yes, your body has left for a match without you}

This was bad. Very, very, very bad.