Maria was just about to turn her Calamity onto the people who had tried to steal her prey, but she immediately stopped when they recognized her and began acting friendly. They didn't seem to be acting and were genuine when they talked to her, so she didn't attack them.
She looked down at herself and noticed that her Nightmare form had been dispelled after she had completely lost all of her Mana. This was the first time since she started the game that she had completely used up all of her mana. She had kept her Nightmare form up and with each second using a small percentage of her MP to maintain itself, it was bound to have happened sometime since she hadn’t rested after the 60-minute duration had ended and immediately reapplied the skill.
Not only that, but she had jumped to the location of the mutated Sky Drake using her skill's [Shadow Phase] effect, so an additional 25% of her MP was shaven away. Of course, since she had 8,652 INT, her natural MP regen was 4% per 5 seconds and battle MP regen was 2% per 5 seconds. Her mana regen was incredible, but the amount of MP she used up every time she used her skills was similarly incredulous.
Her mana regeneration just wasn’t able to keep up with her mana output, so it was only natural that it would bottom out after she had recklessly used all of her high MP-cost skills and spells in a single sitting. Her 0% MP bar began to fill up slowly again after she had reverted to her normal form, but despite the people in front of her having recognized her, she still remained cautious and began charging up a [Fire] spell just in case this was all a trick to get revenge on her once she let her guard down.
‘Are they perhaps one of my stream’s members?’ Maria thought after racking her brain and not being able to recall where she had met these people and why they were being so friendly with her.
Yuno was quick to notice that Maria was secretly charging up a magic spell in her hand that was behind her back, so she quickly moved in front of everyone while raising her hands trying to calm Maria down, “Wait, wait, wait! Y-You’re Maria, aren’t you?!”
“Who are you people?” Maria asked, still not dispelling her [Fire] spell. She wasn't going to let her guard down even though these people seemed to have recognized her. For all she knew, they could just be pretending to know about her. After all, her achievements in the game and her popular streams would make her quite recognizable to the regular player base even if they haven't watched any of her streams.
“You don’t remember us?” Curio asked.
“Should I know you people?”
“We’re part of Lilith’s party! We met way back inside the Magic Tower of Enoch City!”
“You’re Lilith’s friends?”
Maria had made regular contact with Lilith via chatting and voice calls while playing Unitale. She immediately lowered her Calamity when she heard that these 3 and the party they were with were acquainted with her good friend and fellow magic enthusiast, Lilith.
“I know Lilith is in a party, but she said it was only a small adventurer party! There's almost 20 of you guys here!"
Seeing that Maria was still completely on guard with them, Yuno quickly tried to dissipate her worries.
“I-I'm Yuno! I'm sure Lilith has mentioned me in one of your voice calls and I even greeted you before! Also, our party has expanded a lot since we last met! These guys behind me have also met you before in Eur's Dark Magic Tower! This is─”
“I’m Curio.”
“Exel.”
Maria frowned and tried recalling when she had heard Yuno's voice before. Also, the names of the people that had just introduced themselves were familiar and she did feel like she had met these people. Only a friend of Lilith's would know about the voice calls they had, so she decided to trust the girl in front of her and dispelled her [Fire] spell.
"You may just have forgotten about us! After all, our meeting was brief because right after, you were whisked away by the Archmage!"
Only Lilith should know about this since she was there when it happened. Maria thought back to that moment and finally recalled who Curio, Exel, and Yuno were and exclaimed, "Ah! Now I remember! You guys were the people who greeted me after Lilith did! I'm sorry, I completely forgot since its been a long time since we've greeted each other!
"Ahaha, that's fine! I'm glad that you finally remember us."
Yuno then turned to the rest of her party and told everyone to stand down since Maria was a friend. She ordered them to go out to the field and start hunting while she, Curio, and Exel stayed with Maria.
"Lili's on her way here as we speak. She was busy sorting out our hunting teams earlier!"
"O-Oh! Okay!"
"I guess you two can meet up now!"
"Yeah..."
Curio looked like he had something to say and finally spoke up after Yuno finished, "Hey, can I ask you something?"
"Yes?"
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"About earlier, why did you kill-steal from us? I'm not holding a grudge or anything. I'm just curious."
Maria scratched her head and started explaining. These guys were her friend's friends, so she owed it to them. If they were anyone else, she wouldn't have bothered explaining herself at all.
“A Quest target?”
“Wait, so this boss monster is your quest target?”
“Yeah, so if you guys took it, I would've likely failed my quest! So I'm sorry about earlier, I just had no choice!"
Yuno put two and two together and finally understood why so many people were enraged at her in the World Chat and calling her out for kill-stealing their bosses even though they didn't actually know her real identity.
"So this means that the monsters you’ve been kill-stealing were all your quest objectives?”
“Kill-stealing? Do you mean the nonsense those idiots in the World Chat are spouting?"
"Huh? Y-Yeah, that─"
"They should be grateful that I was on the clock because if not, I’d crush them for trying to steal my quest targets! I would have done the same to you guys if you weren’t Lilith’s friends. After all, this was the last boss monster I had to kill and the stress of moving around quickly to get to my targets before they were killed was pissing me off!”
“O-Oh...No wonder you went around doing that...you weren’t kill-stealing but just trying to complete your quest…”
“Yeah...so don’t blame me about earlier. I really had no choice!”
‘But you guys can blame the poor goddess who couldn’t give me a proper quest that didn't pit me against other players! She's the one who put me up to this~’
Yuno and the other 2 understood where Maria was coming from now. Since it was a quest, it couldn't be helped that she had to steal the boss away from them though it was a pity that they couldn't capture and tame this tame-able boss monster. It was extremely hard to find a monster that was on the boss-level to tame as not every boss monster was tame-able.
“We understand. Let's just put this completely past us, but it’s a shame though. We thought we could capture this boss monster and tame it for our party. We were missing a flying monster and this unique Sky Drake could have been it,” Curio said with a sad sigh as he stared at the corpse of the drake.
Maria felt a little bad now that she had to kill-steal from these people since they were Lilith’s friends and she had somewhat deprived them of a rare opportunity though it wasn’t her fault.
“Well, even if you did capture it, I’d still try and kill it to complete my quest. I don’t really care about the drops or anything since my true objective is this thing,” Maria said this as she lifted the drake’s body and flipped it over before flying on top of it and plunging her arm into its chest. She dug around for a moment before finding the crystal fragment embedded inside of the drake’s heart and pulled it out.
“That...it’s a crystal?”
“Yup, this is my objective. I have to kill the monster since this crystal is embedded in their hearts and what's causing their mutations. As compensation, you guys can take all the monster drops. I don’t need them, but I do want the monster's corpse though.”
“R-Really? Are you sure?” Exel asked in surprise. Among the pile of rewards, he did see a unique-looking chest plate that was glowing with a golden light. It was undoubtedly a piece of knight-class equipment and he wanted to see its stats. It was bound to be better than the one he currently had and wondered if he could somehow negotiate a trade with Maria, but now that she was offering to give them all of the drops, he was a bit hopeful and in disbelief.
“I can’t use any of it and I do feel a bit bad for taking away your opportunity. I wouldn't care if it was anyone else, but since you guys are Lili's friends, then that makes you my friends!"
She said this and sent the 3 of them a friend request which they immediately accepted before she continued, "Just take the items as a form of my apology since it’s also not your fault for finding this monster and trying to tame it.”
“Th-Thanks…”
“Don’t mention it! Anyway, it’s nice meeting you three again. I should go now and turn in my quest. I'll see you guys again!”
"Ah, but what about meeting up with Lili?" Yuno quickly asked.
Maria scratched her head and replied, "Uhm, I'm really on the clock here, so I have to go. When she gets here, please tell her that I'm sorry and that we can meet up later after I've turned in my quest!"
"Okay, that's a promise then. Where's the meeting place?"
"How about at that pavilion place where everyone goes to in the city?"
"Dawn Pavilion?"
"Yes, that place!"
"Okay, I'll tell her that."
"Thanks!" Maria said with a smile. “Anyway, I should get going now. I'll hand in my quest quickly, so Lili and I can meet up much sooner!”
“Okay.”
"I'll be taking the monster with me."
Maria stretched her arm out to the drake’s corpse and her shadow began to expand as she used [Shadow Storage]. Yuno and the other two thought that it was a little creepy to see a large monster corpse slowly be 'eaten' by her shadow, but Maria thought that it was actually pretty cool to look at. Once her shadow ‘ate’ the corpse, Maria turned to the 3 and said, “I’ll be going now. Take care on your way back! Also, there are more flying-type monsters out there so don't give up! Set up a time later and maybe I can help you guys look for a unique-rated one!”
“Really? That’d be awesome!” Curio exclaimed in surprise.
“Lili and I can plan the date later! I can see that your a Beast Tamer, so look forward to it!”
"Thanks a lot!"
Maria left behind those words before taking off into the air and shooting far into the distance. In her normal form, she was only able to move at close to subsonic speeds but even then, this was already pretty fast. Curio, Exel, and Yuno watched as she quickly disappeared into the sky and became a tiny dot in the far distance.
“She’s headed back to Discordia city. I wonder which faction she joined and which NPC she got this monster hunting quest from?” Exel asked.
“Well, we didn’t see a red name above her so she’s likely to have joined our faction, right?” Yuno answered.
Curio shook his head and said, “I don’t know about that. If it was a player in our faction, shouldn’t their names be in green? Maria’s name was highlighted in white which could only mean that she─”
“─hasn’t picked a side yet?”
“Probably...but it doesn’t matter as long as we aren't enemies. Anyway, when is Lili arriving? I have to tell her about the appointment."
The three quickly packed up the monster drops that Maria left behind for them and regrouped with the rest of their party members. They stayed and hunted in the area, intending to wait for Lilith to arrive before going back to the city together with her. Although they failed to tame the mutated Sky Drake, they didn't feel too regretful about it because the item drops that Maria left for them were actually pretty incredible. The drake had dropped the full armor and weapon set that could be obtained from hunting them along with plenty of other unique and heroic grade items. They couldn't believe that they had gained so many items altogether from just hunting one boss monster.
Usually, it was never this abundant, but since Maria had [Gaia's Blessing], she had a 100% increase in item drops. This made Curio, Exel, and Yuno's harvest surprisingly abundant. Now, they'd be able to upgrade their adventurer party's equipment and weapons. This made losing the Sky Drake to Maria completely worth it. Curio even gained Maria's promise to hunt for a flying monster later with their party leader, so in all honesty, they hadn't lost out on anything at all.
Remembering how powerful Maria was, the three now held the hope that they'd be able to capture and tame an even stronger flying monster for their adventurer party. Today was really a fortunate and surprising day for them.
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Name: Maria Level: 101 Race: Fallen Ophanim - Awakened Variant Class: Dark Priestess
Subclass 1: Magus
Subclass 2: Queen Titles: Fallen Angel of Sin, Angel of the Apocalypse, The Unlucky One, Fallen Priestess, Fallen Saintess, Harbinger of the World’s End, Queen of the Dire, Species Eradicator A, ... HP: 69,760/69,760
MP: 438,600/438,600
BE: 219,300/219,300
SP: 14,112/14,112
NE: 242/242 EXP: 0/10,100,000 REP: 110,000 ATK: 15,785 (+1800~2000)
DEF: 6,930 (+115~215)
M.ATK: 5653 (+1800~2000)
M.DEF: 23,793 (+15) STR: 1260 (+10)
AGI: 1680
VIT: 2520 (+8)
INT: 8,652 (+26)
LCK: 12 (+10)
SIN: 24 Free Stat Points: 500