Yen ran through the woodlands with the speed of an olympic sprinter but such standards were meager now. She was beginning to regret not investing into her physical attributes. Her lungs burned but still she pushed herself onwards. Those goons wouldn’t be held up for long and she stood no chance by herself. A town was her only hope.
“Found her!”
Yen’s heart sunk into her stomach. She had seconds now, not minutes. She thought about turning around but knew that would do her no good, but neither would taking a few extra steps. Stuck in quickly spiraling desperation, a long haired girl appeared in her sights. Her mind raced for only a moment before she made her decision.
“Faye!” She reached out her hand as if she knew the girl, and he raised his bow. Two arrows flew struck passed into the heads of the players chasing her. A third claimed the life of another who stalled and turned to leave too late.
Yen found her head having turned to look at the Greater Peasant rare players killed like common vermin, and snapped back to reality, turning again to the cause of it, but the girl had vanished. Her head darted around in a panic before finding the archer behind her again, casually looting the corpses. She found herself staring in disbelief as the archer shifted through their bags before tossing them away like garbage, paying her no mind at all. A byproduct of her stunned state was that staring at his build through a tight silk shirt she realized he was actually a boy, and that his status was unidentifiable.
Shin rose to his feet and glanced at the Evoker. Blue eyes and long silky orange hair, bangs down to her eyes and two thick stands split off by her shoulder over her leather vest, adorned in an assortment of what he recognized to be uncommon and common cloth and leather. “Bye.”
“Wait!”
Shin paused his leave and turned back to her. Yen froze. She had called out to him on reflex, not sure herself why she didn’t just let the terrifying kid leave. A million thoughts raced through her mind until nerves and habit took the reins. Her panic and uncertainty melted away to a smile of radiant confidence, and a hand found her hip as her posture gained the poise of a queen unrivaled.
“Do you need a mage?” Charismatic and sure, her voice came out more perfectly than she expected.
“No thanks.” Her expression twitched. “You’ll slow me down.”
“Wait a minute!” The boldness remained but her poise and grace had slipped away. “I finished a top 100 ranker, you won’t find a better mage than me.”
“Really?” Shin showed a bit of interest.
Yen took notice and perked up a bit. “That’s ri-”
“Even though you’re still Peasant?”
Her poise fell again, but as she opened her mouth, she closed it shut in deliberation, staring at Shin for a moment. “...What are you?”
“Lesser Lord.”
“How?” She asked with interest and urgency.
“Thousand points.” Shin answered and moved on to his interest. “What did you get for top 100?”
“Epic tier skill, epic tier item, skill slot, spatial bag, and 100 silver. Believe me now?”
“Yeah.” It was a downgraded version of what he got, and he didn’t feel like she was lying.
“So?” Her question interrupted Shin wondering what abilities Sereth and Yuna chose. “Change your mind?”
“No.” A silence followed. “Okay, bye.”
“Wait, wait!” Yen seemed to have given up on her appeal. “Guard me for a bit. Just to the town, okay?”
Shin thought. “For the item.”
“It only boosts fire skills… You don’t have any, do you?” Yen asked a bit desperately.
“Then a rare.”
“I have one… Has a skill called Condense that lets you-”
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
“Don’t need it.” Shin lost interest. “Silver?”
“...I lost my bag…”
She fell silent and Shin was about to leave, but a thought crossed his mind. “Do you have the Mana Ball skill?”
“It’s Greater Mana Bolt now. Rare tier.”
“Level and Force?”
“1… 216.”
“Okay, I’ll take you.”
“Really?”
“Help me train when we get there.”
“Sure?” Yen had barely finished her response before Shin picked her up and sped off. Her Force was a little high but with a simple raw mana attack, he could work around that. He hadn’t had much luck with spirits or party members, so he could spare some time to level his shield.
---
Shin rushed through the gates of the town and finally came to a stop in an open patch of land between the buildings and the wall. Dusk still an hour from turning to night, but dark clouds blotted half of what little light remained. He let the wizard to her feet, who wobbled over and fell to her knees, thoroughly motion sick.
“Okay let’s train.”
Yen shot him a look but she was too busy holding back her stomach and getting her vision straight to respond. Eventually she set herself right enough to stand and hold a steady aim. Shin hopped about 20 yards away and drew a black shield, his strength enough to hold it up with both hands. A shining purple stretch of mana appeared in front.
“Make sure you hit the skill.”
“Mana Bolt, right?” Yen asked rhetorically, somewhat invested in casting a bludgeoning force at the boy.
A dense ball of mana swirled into form and shot out at great speed, shattering the mystic shield like glass and slamming into the goblin shield with raw explosive force that knocked Shin away. He hopped back in place the instant he landed and put up another wall, this one condensed smaller and stronger. Yenny raised her hand and mana swirled again.
[Mystic Wall has reached lvl. 3.]
[Condense has reached lvl. 4.]
A sixth bolt raised his Condense skill along with another into Mystic Wall. Shin hopped back into place but Yen relaxed her posture, with some fatigue.
“I’m out.” She told Shin, who didn’t seem to get it.
“Already?”
“Those things cost 20 Spirit, what did you expect?”
Shin honestly expected a little more.
“You’re not a good training partner either.”
“Why are you even wasting time like this anyway, just pay a bunch of scrubs around town some copper and train all you want! Unranked don’t even get money, you can pay them scraps.”
“Oh.” Acknowledging how good of an idea that was, He reevaluated the mage a little.
“How much mana do you have anyway? You condensed five of those walls.”
“605.”
“Wha… How?! But you sprinted that fast for hours, what’s your Agility?”
“461.”
“You need strength too…”
“Third is efficient.”
Yenny stood in silence. Those three attributes alone already eclipsed her total. His Force was clearly abysmal but he’d need a good chunk in the others to do what he does. When he said the next rank’s threshold was 1,000, she didn’t think he had passed it by that much.
“What’s your total?” Shin asked, before she could.
“871…”
“You ranked with that? Did you kill the boss?”
“Yeah… I guess you did too.”
“Yeah.”
“Where’d you rank…?” She asked with some reluctance.
“One.”
“...Shin?”
“Yeah.”
Yen fell silent for a few moments. “I helped you train so we’re even, right?”
“Sure.”
“Then, I’m going. Later.” The orange haired mage walked off, her mood distant.
“I stay at the Inscription store. We can train again tomorrow?”
“Yeah, sure…” She replied with no effort to be convincing as she rounded past a building.
Shin lingered in her direction, then glanced up to the rumbling dark sky and sped off, knocking on the side door before entering to the cluttered store and the sitting old gnome, both unchanged.
“You raised Control?”
“No.”
“...it’s your money.” Grenada glanced out as rain began to fall and start to close up shop. She placed the sealing talismans and headed upstairs. “You can pay me in the morning, I know you’re good for it.”
Shin walked over to his desk in the back of the room but incessant knocking on the stall shutters and a familiar voice interrupted him. The knocking stopped then started up in a few moments at the door. Shin walked over and inspected the talisman. He tried to peel it off but it wouldn’t budge even slightly and it rejected his mana. Just as he was about to condense a ripple in his hand, the talisman shone and flew over to Grenda at the bottom of the stairway.
“All this racket…”
Shin opened the door and standing out in the rain was the mage, completely drenched with a meek dour expression on her face, avoiding his eyes. “I don’t have money for the inn…”
Shin looked over to Grenda.
“You pay for her time too.”
Shin turned back to Yen who got the message and walked in out of the rain. Shin closed the door and a talisman returned to seal it shut, the storekeep heading back up the second floor without a word.
“...thanks…” Yen said, still not meeting his eyes.
Shin took out a talisman and triggered it, enveloping her in a warm swirl of air that dried away the rain. With that problem solved, she glanced around the small store.
“No beds?”
Shin handed her a large fur cloak from his inventory. She paused for a moment as he returned to the desk, then took it to the back of the store on the opposite side, rolling the fur with her to her side. Shin placed a slip of paper down and raised his brush, unbothered by the awkward silence.
“Hey…” Shin’s hand stopped, looking over to the mage who was still facing away. A few more seconds of silence followed before she managed to find her words again. “Sorry… About earlier.”
A hazy image of a red haired woman sitting by a fence in a quiet alleyway entered his mind. He lingered on the memory, lost in thought, his expression unusually blank, his eyes unusually vulnerable, just a bit.
“You can join my party.”
“Huh?” Yen said on reflex, then turned around, half realizing what he said. “What?”
“Shin.”
Yen opened her mouth to say something but the words stuck in her throat among all the conflicting things running through her mind.
“Yen.”