Chapter 2: Fluorescence Fighter
Alert! You have slain [Nine Claws - LVL 89]
Alert! You have slain [Dark Dweller - LVL 74]
... ... ...
Alert! You have slain [Shadow Stalker - LVL83]
Alert! You have slain [Tigerilla The Prime - LVL 111]
[Fluorescence Fighter] has leveled up to 87!
[Fluorescence Fighter] has leveled up to 88!
... ... ...
[Fluorescence Fighter] has leveled up to 93!
Level one hundred... I almost there. Najma clenched her hands. Maybe one or two more dungeon raid, then I will be able to evolve my [class] and unlocked the second phase of my (skill).
She willed to close the interface, and an eyeblink later it was gone. She picked up the feather pen on the table and continued to write her report. She outlined what had happened in the dungeon raid today, and gave the detailed narration about how the entire assault team was trapped, ambushed, and killed. She read over her report and judged it adequate, then she put down the feather pen and stood up.
She walked to the door and exited the room, then took a moment to glance around the guild hall and found the adventurers within were avoiding eye contact with her. She ignored them, it wasn't her first time being casted out. She walked to the counter and handed down her report to one of receptionist, she was a young woman with blonde hair and had a little bit of freckles on the bridge of her nose.
"Thank you, Ms. Najma. This is the promised reward from the city, bonus included. We probably still need to call you for interview, but until then, I wish you a good rest." The receptionist put her report in a drawer and handed her a little sack of cotton.
Najma received the sack and peeked inside, Four golds. She confirmed. Two gold coins for volunteering to raid the dungeon and two more gold as bonus for successfully conquering it. She closed the sack and put it into her breast pocket, then turned around and proceeded to exit the guild.
"Hold it there you bitch!" Someone shouted.
Instinctively felt being called, Najma turned around and saw a man staring dagger at her.
"You did it again, didn't you?! You killed your entire party!" He pointed at her accusingly.
Najma went silent, she crossed her arms and looked at the man who bothered her. She glanced around the hall and found that all adventurers within were looking at her. She also spotted some adventurers who acted as interceptor team that she had met outside the dungeon this noon. The time she took to write the report was definitely longer than what she expected if that team was back already.
"After all this time I thought it was just a rumor!" The man continued on by his own even though Najma had never said anything. "... and even though I distanced myself from you, I still tried to think positive of you. What a mistake. My name is Morgan, you killed my sister, prepare to die!" He entered his fighting stance and set his fists alight in red, then he charged towards her with haste.
Najma kept standing, unmoving. She stoically looked at the man's entire assault and did nothing. Just when the man's fist was an inch apart form her face, a hand grabbed the man's wrist and stopped his punch. A wind was blown on the sudden halted motion, revealing the strong force in the man's fist. Najma took the blowing wind head on, unflinching. She looked at the figure who intercepted the man, and found that person to be the receptionist lady she had just interacted with.
"Mr. Morgan, I'll have to remind you that you are on the guild's premises. Any act that violate the rule will be punished, and you are standing on the edge of the cliff of your career." The reception lady said. She stared at Morgan and let go of his wrist when she saw no more rage in his eyes.
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
"But beating up a criminal is not violating the guild's rule." another adventurer interjected. She stepped forward and approached them. Najma turned and found the adventurer was the rogue woman who bickered with her outside the dungeon this noon.
"Leia!" The rogue woman's companion hushed her and tried to prevent her from joining the heat. But she violently shrugged her companion's hand and kept walking forward.
"She is a killer. A blight that annihilate us adventurers little by little. She does her deeds inside dungeon, and cover it with the well-known death risk of raid quest. Long has us been confronting her about this, asking her about her side of story in hope to restore our faith in her entirely. But she never deny it! Even now she spoke no words of rebuttal! Express no emotion of denial! Her silence is a clear confirmation of her crimes!" Leia shouted.
Many adventurers within the hall nodded at her words.
"Ms. Leia--" The lady receptionist was about to diffuse the rogue's anger, but then Najma held her hand out in front of her. She looked at Najma and was perplexed, but obliged to her demand to fall back.
Najma took three stepped forward, the man and the rogue woman instinctively took the same amount of step to fall back.
All adventurers looked at her. Grim was her face, rage was her eyes, she looked as menacing as monsters they came across in the forest.
"My silence, is not confirmation to whatever accusation you made up within your mind. My silence, is your savior." She said so with a low, threatening voice.
"It was the thing that kept me away from destroying you. It was the thing that stopped me from slaughtering you." She stared around the hall, piercing the soul of every adventurers within.
"But now you demand me to break my silence, and as you have asked for it, now I will give it. But before I cut your limbs, before I empty every drop of blood you contain within, let me give you my rebuttal, as you repeatedly demand it."
"I am not the one who snatched your friends fragile life, and I am not the one who bisected your brothers and sisters, and I am not the one who crushed your lovers' heads. But of course, you will not believe it." She took one step forward, Morgan and Leia fall back one step on reflex.
"You all knew that raiding dungeons always bring you wealth and death, long before I come to this city. You knew that strong and legendary beast is never required to annihilate the raid team, because fighting monsters inside dark and cramped space is hard enough as it is. You knew that this quest is always about the trade-off between gold and life, and those who volunteer to participate in it are the fools and the desperate."
"But still, you blame me, and still, you accuse me. Do you know why?" Najma stared at everyone in the hall.
"Because you are jealous of me. Because you envy the me that always come back alive and pocketing gold money from every single raid. You resent my survival and hope that your friends who participated in the raid had it instead. YOU WISH THAT OUR PLACES HAD BEEN EXCHANGED, THAT I HAD DIED AND YOUR BELOVED ONES HAD LIVED!" Najma struck them with thundering voice.
"You are blinded by greed, and forget about the raid's well-known risk, and your brothers and sisters' path of choices. You knew I am not the only adventurer who came back while the rest of the raiding party were killed. How about the old man Jenkins? Three out of five raiding parties he was in were killed, he then retired from dungeon related quest and tell the tale about how terrible it is to us, even to this day! How about the little Tim? He was so full of himself he raided the dungeon as his first quest, and immediately quit because his team was slaughtered, and the memory of it made him haunted!"
"How about that red haired guy Alfonso. He had done ten raiding quest in the past, and half of the time he was the only one who came back alive. But you sing a hearty song about him! You hypocrite, son piece of shit! You frame me as cold-hearted killer, you think of me as despicable schemer, all because I raided more than twenty dungeons and haven't quit like others!"
"I am done putting up with you. I swear on whatever demon you made contract with, if any of you cross me again, I will kill you right there and then. But enough talk, you want a piece of me, right? COME. GET. SOME." Najma shouted, and glared a dagger glare at Morgan and Leia. She was ready to fight.
Silence befell upon the entire guild. They were struck by Najma's defense. Her rebuttal made a lot of senses to most. Those who understood nodding their heads on her words. But words were still words, it seldomly reached ones heart, and some adventurers felt their hatred towards the woman were just set alight.
"I'll take your offer on that." said one adventurer, and he immediately charged with his spear pointed forward.
"Ms. Najma! Watch O---!" The receptionist lady tried to intercept the attack, but it was too late. The adventurer's spear stabbed Najma's heart, and blood burst out as he pulled his spear out.
The entire guild gasped, even Morgan and Leia who were so eager to beat Najma. They all understood their fellow adventurer had gone too far.
"Why are you stopping?" said someone.
Everyone turned to the one who spoke, and found the person was Najma herself.
They were all bewildered.
There, In the middle of the hall, stood a woman with a large, bleeding, gaping hole in her chest, looking annoyedly at the man who hurt her because he stopped his attack.
"You need more than that if you want me dead." She nonchalantly said.
"Hmm!" a swordsman suddenly appeared behind her and swung his sword diagonally, striking her neck. His sword cut her flesh halfway through and visibly stopped after hitting her bone. Blood sprout out her neck, raining the receptionist lady red.
"More." Najma said, and an arrow struck her forehead.
"That is for my brother you demon." The archer at the corner of the hall said. Tears fell from her eyes.
"MORE!" Najma shouted, unaffected.
"DIE YOU WITCH!" a magician jumped forward and pointed her staff at her. "FIREFALL" she chanted, then her staff shot out a large beam of fire.
Najma was hit at blank point, and her entire figure lost in the red bright fire beam.
The spell was devastating, it destroyed the wall behind her, and the beam still went on to outside, damaging the building in front of the guild.
After few seconds of the embodiment of annihilation, the spell died out, and Najma's figure was visible again.
The right-half of her head was gone, and her entire clothes were burnt. But the deadly glare she gave the adventurers persisted, and from her mouth came the words: "My turn."