Stalking Huntsman
The Huntsman was happy. Very very happy. The Great One had promised him a Strong-Thing to devour later but now it was here early. The Great One was always so considerate of the Huntsman. The Great One was truly the only being the Huntsman accepted was better than him. The Strong-Thing had appeared and instantly landed in range for the Huntsman's favourite skill. The [Madness] Had already been used so soon enough the Strong-Thing would be raving mad and an easy morsel. The metal looked tough to chew but the Huntsman was certain it would be worth it after just a brief look through [Mana Eyes]. It grinned and used [Whisper] to talk into the Strong-Thing's mind.
"Welcome to... the darkness Strong-Thing..."
It grinned as the Strong-Thing stepped back and said something. Unfortunately for the Strong-Thing whatever language it was speaking was completely irrelevant. The Huntsman's so called 'speech' is the System's crude portrayal of its more obvious thoughts. It had no concept of language and the Great One had always used images to communicate telepathically. The Huntsman stalked to to wall to the left of the Strong-Thing, awaiting the usual noises that made its heart warm. Those high pitched, often times long and desperate, noises were the cause of the nice feeling the Huntsman got all over itself.
The Strong-Thing however, didn't make that sweet, sweet melody. It made short and loud sounds in a burst before sucking in a breath and doing it again. It must've been a skill since the temperature around the Huntsman dropped without seeming to drop. The Huntsman's hairs were standing on end, its hair follicles rising slightly along with it. It had an unknown feeling in its stomach that it had never felt before. It would have to ask the Great One after it has snacked on this morsel. It stalked closer to the Strong-Thing and prepared to strike at the softest bit it could see, just under the Strong-Thing's shoulder and above the metal bits on the torso all the way around.
The Strong-Thing turned. The Strong-Thing wasn't hurried, not at all. The Strong-Thing lazily raised its shield and managed to block its attack.
That wasn't right.
That was one of the quickest attacks in the Huntsman's arsenal. The Strong-Thing had been calm and yet so fast that the Huntsman hadn't even registered that it was doing something until after the fact by using [Hunter's Memory]. The Huntsman growled and leapt back before dashing to the right and lunging.
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Feyre
She scowled at the beast. It was messing with her. Why was it deliberately slowing itself down so much? It's going at a snails pace so she is trying to match it as best she can. She even disabled her weird sword play ability to deal with it hoping it'd be a challenge but again the System lied to her. It seems to think she's some child or whatever because everything it sent at her thusfar hasn't really been up to standard. She'd enjoyed the Antape fight while it lasted but the Antape gave up after a few attacks so she barely got anything from it. She sighed and raised her sword slowly to face the beast.
She shook her head. It was disgusting to look at; matted fur with all manner of disgusting things staining it in places, and horrible to smell as well; the lingering smell of wet dog and excrement followed it like a plague. Feyre wondered if it even knew it smelled so bad and whether its whole sneak thing ever actually worked because her nose felt molested by the stench. It went in for another attack, and went almost miserably slow again. Feyre raised her shield and held her breath as it drew close. She almost felt bad for it.
She raised her sword and slashed. The thing attacking her managed to barely dodge even though it moved stupidly slow. Feyre was getting fed up but even a cursory glance around the place revealed at least 40 magical looking insignia on the stone floor. She wasn't keen to find out what these things did and so didn't move at all except to block the sloppy attacks of the thing attacking her.
When she'd entered the arena through the system teleport thing she'd been excited to fight it. It had looked ferocious and dangerous. Instead it was... slow. Slow and sloppy. Its attacks were lack lustre and while she could feel intent behind them they were weak. She sighed and casually swiped her sword at it.
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Stalking Huntsman
The Huntsman was becoming desperate. It was going as fast as the [Dash Attack] skill could take it and yet the Strong-Thing was easily predicting and blocking what it used to think were impossible to dodge attacks. It would have words with the Great One later. So many things were weird about this Strong=Thing and it was no longer 100% sure that fighting the Strong-Thing was worth the effort, The vast amounts of mana it held wasn't much more than the Huntsman had used on skills trying to defeat it. It rushed in and attacked with all its might.
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That proved almost fatal.
A sliver of steel flashed before the Huntsman and then its arm exploded in pain. the screech it let out was one it didn't know it had in its repertoire. It was a screech of such agonising pain that the Strong-Thing stepped back. The Strong-Thing looked down at the Huntsman and it saw the Strong-Thing's eyes beneath the metal carapace it seemed to have. Those eyes were cruel. Those eyes were not one of a prey, they were eyes of something like the Huntsman.
One who fights
One who kills.
One who enjoys.
The Huntsman stepped back and the Strong-Thing stepped forwards.
The Strong-Thing raised its arm.
The Huntsman cursed the Great One for its lies. Why hadn't it warned the Huntsman of the danger?
The Strong-Thing made a couple noises from its mouth.
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Feyre
"I am sorry it ended like this for you... pitiful thing..."
She wrenched her arm down and the thing cowering in front of her fell back. Feyre was annoyed at how easy these supposedly hard trials were. She then had an epiphony as she felt her movements restrict slghtly as the bow got in the way. She looked at her unstrung bow at her waist and shook her head. She realised all too late that she was meant to use that to kill the thing or something.
[System: Congratulations! You not only found the hidden skip option but won against a foe almost 30 levels above you without using the weapon meant to be used against it!]
[System: Tutorial Ended. 3/3 trials completed. Since you completed the Hidden Quest 'Kill the Stalking Huntsman without your bow' 1/1 you will be rewarded.]
[System: P.S: What was that? How were you so much faster than the thing? You're not a [Hacker] are you? No... the system wouldn't be nice to a [Hacker]...]
Feyre looked at the messages and laughed for the second time since she had died. The ridiculousness of it all was certainly unexpected. First of all, she was painfully aware these fights should have been a lot longer than they were, taking almost 12 hours in terms of the Antape and Antapelings quest. Secondly, she was thoroughly bemused by whoever or whatever was behind the system. Their incompetence truly knew no bounds and she almost felt bad for anyone who had to clean up their mistakes. If he was an admin or something he was definitely an intern or extremely new to the field.
"I assure you no 'hacking' went on as far as I'm aware System."
She tried appeasing it by talking but when no reply came she sighed. She was left in the arena just standing there for a while before a System Message finally popped up in front of her again.
[System: Levels being applied in one fell swoop. You level too efficiently so I had to edit the entire system, lots of work but at least you haven't abused the mistakes. Also I reworked your status screen because it obviously hit a [Glitch] or [Error]. Please bare in mind this isn't actually your stats or skills and just my rough estimation since your whole being is just a walking [Error] if the System Logs are to be believed. Thank you for your understanding Miss Feyre. Administrator #138]
Feyre recoiled slightly at this obviously different person behind the system. She wanted to say voice but she didn't necessarily hear the, now 2, people so she just stuck with people. She was glad that Incompetent Voice at least had a partner to work with when it came to their mistakes. She was wondering how her new status screen would appear when she was barraged with a few sperate screens which she admittedly preferred now.
[System: You have leveled up to Level 42! Congratulations.]
[System: Status Screen]
[User Preferred Name: Feyre]
[User Level: 41
[User Health Points: ~1.5k/~1.5k]
[User Mana Points: ~10k/~10k]
Feyre smiled at the estimates. She didn't know the global average but she bet it wasn't as high as hers. Especially if this was Eurani as the Neon Cat had said
[System: Stats Screen]
[Strength: ~40]
[Speed: ~20 ]
[Intuition: ~40]
[Charisma: ~35]
[System: Abilities + Skills]
[Abilities]
[Sword Instinct: Lvl 5 (Max)]
[Acting: Lvl 12]
[Mana Manipulation (Through Writing): Lvl 5]
[Archery: Lvl 1]
[Skills]
[Strong-armed Throw]
[Devastating Slash]
[Impenetrable Defense]
[System: Achievements]
[Titan Slayer: Unknown Effect]
[OtherWorld Hero: Unknown Effect]
[Completer Of Quests - 1: 20% increase to Quest related level progress]
[Shooting Star: Unknown Effect]
[System: Current Quests]
[N/A]
[System: Completed Quests]
[Defeat Demon King]
[Survive Tutorial]
All of this was obviously very valuable to Feyre. She now had numbers to go by and might be able to track rough estimates of progress. She was still a bit sad that the tutorial wasn't as cliched as she had hoped, taking her a very long time to complete. None of her battles had been very long in the end and she felt bad for the Administrators who she now knew had to rework the entire system just because of her. Then the feeling bad went away as it dawned on her that the Neon Cat might be one, in which case she hoped it was as difficult as possible.