Max’s eyes darted back and forth between the two messages that appeared upon killing the players. It was too horrible! He felt his eyes burn just from looking at the text.
[ You have killed player: ‘GGeorge’, Charm has been reduced by 1 ]
[ You have killed player: ‘Tristan Avaricius’, Charm has been reduced by 1 ]
*Sob*
“Max? We won, so why is your face in the wrong shape?” Rone was utterly confused by his reaction, “Wait, don’t tell me we broke the law by killing people and we’re actually fugitives now?!”
“Worse.”
“Huhh? What’s worse than being fugitives?” Rone walked up to Max and looked at the notification in front of him, “...Dude.”
“Don’t patronise me!” Max whined pre-emptively, “This is all your fault.”
“My fault? It’s your hat they wanted; should I have just let them stab me and died?”
“Yes.”
Rone watched as Max removed his hat self-consciously and placed it back in his inventory.
“You know there’s a 24-hour death ban, right?”
“Huh? A death ban?”
There was no such thing in Hero of Liberation. Aside from a brief, overly dramatic ‘YOU DIED’ message, any death in that game would result in an instant respawn.
“Y-you mean those players are locked out of the game for an entire day?”
“Yup. In fact, they’re probably seething right now.”
Max flinched slightly. Hopefully they weren’t the type to hold grudges...
“Anyways, it’s excessive to have the death penalty that long.” Rone continued, “They’ll probably change it in the next update. More importantly...”
Rone suddenly yanked Max’s bow out of his arms and analysed it while flipping it around. “What the hell is that damage? You killed those guys in a single shot.”
“I’m not sure actually, but bows seem really good in this game.” Max shrugged and opened his stat panel. Rone should be able to see it too, since they were in a party and Max had configured his settings that way.
STATUS
Name: Gun
Class: Deadshot
Level: 2
EXP: 63%
Health: 220/220
Mana: 220/220
Abnormal State: None
Condition: Healthy
ATTRIBUTES
Vitality: 22
Strength: 23
Dexterity: 24
Agility: 23
Intelligence: 22
Wisdom: 22
Charm: -2
Luck: 0
DETAILS
Subclasses: Rapid Fire, Kinematics Mastery, Marksmanship, Sharpshooting
Titles: None
Active Skills: None
Passive Skills: None
“It’s in the negatives!” Max cried out in despair. “Why is my charm NEGATIVE?! That shouldn’t even be possible! Does this mean I’ll repel people now?!”
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Rone didn’t respond, because his eyes were focused on another part of the status screen. ‘WTF??? How does he have three subclasses already?? And why is his class called Deadshot??’
“This is BS! I am charming! Look at me; charm oozes out of my pores! This is a bug of some kind!”
“You’re not funny. Also what is all this stuff? How did you get subclasses?”
“Eh? Subclasses?” Max looked back over the panel properly. “Uh, dunno!”
“What do you mean ‘dunno’?” Rone responded angrily. “Subclasses don’t just fall out of the sky. And why haven’t you even equipped your titles? Do it now!”
“Sheesh, fine. Nagging much” Max treated Rone like an overbearing parent as he opened his titles screen.
Equipped Titles: None
Available Titles:
* Unique – Acquire a unique class, Effects: +100 Charm
* Dropper – Kill an enemy while they are midair, Effects: +5% damage against enemies who are midair. Only applies to enemies who are not capable of flight
* Bulletin Board – Pin an enemy to another object, Effects: +2% penetration power
* Cruel: Inflict lethal damage 100 times, Effects: +10% lethal and weak-point damage
* Collateral – kill two enemies with one hit, Effect: +10% damage on arrows which pierce multiple enemies
* Headshot Harry – Hit 100 headshots, Effects: +10% headshot damage
* One Shot One Kill – kill an enemy with a single ranged attack 100 times, Effects: +10% first ranged attack damage
* I Am The Boss – Defeat a boss monster, Effects: +1 STR, +1 VIT
* Sneaky - Kill 100 enemies without being detected, Effects: +10% surprise attack damage
* Aye That Hurt – Hit enemies in the eye 100 times, Effects: +50% eye damage
* Player Killer – Kill another player, Effects: +5% damage against players
*cough*, *cough*. Max choked on air as he stared at the unexpectedly long list of titles.
Rone’s eyes looked as though they would explode out of his head as he read through the list. He himself only had three of these.
‘How the f*ck did he hit 100 shots in the eyes?’
“This-I heard the pings while I was fighting, but I didn’t know there would be this much.” Max tried to explain himself. “I didn’t think they would give these out so easily, titles were pretty rare in Hero of Li- Whu? A hundred charm?!”
Max quickly equipped all of his titles, worried they might disappear if he took too long.
‘I have 98 Charm!!!’ Max screamed and rejoiced in his head. He didn’t dare celebrate out loud, because Rone was wearing an ugly face like he’d just eaten a can of spoiled tuna.
Rone appeared to think for a short while, before he finally spoke, “Bring up your class description.”
Max swallowed dryly and complied. A holographic window appeared in front of them.
Class: Deadshot
Grade: Unique
Effects: When using a bow, all final base damage is increased by 100%. Additionally, all final weak-point and lethal damage is increased by a further 50%.
Description: ‘Masterful’ is not sufficient to describe the owner of this class. To the player incapable of missing: Your actions will be watched closely by the powers of this world. Good luck.
Now it was Max’s turn for his eyeballs to explode.
‘WHAAAATTTTTTT????!!!! Holy sh*t! I’m OP!!’
“Max.” Rone spoke calmly with a serenity that made Max’s bones chill.
“Ah, I didn’t know! I thought it was just the name they had for the archer class! All I did was shoot the targets and I got the class!”
“All of the targets?”
“Well yeah.”
“...”
After a moment of silence, Max suddenly had a strong premonition of violence and dodged to the side, narrowly avoiding Rone’s pounce.
“I-I’m sorry!”
“I DON’T CARE; DIE!!!!”
...
...
After a protracted chase, of which Max triumphed due to his 2-agility advantage, the grown men eventually regained civility and resumed their discourse.
“Just how much damage do you do, anyways?” Rone was curious
“I have no idea. It should be quite high though.”
“Well what about a bodyshot? How much damage do you do when you hit the legs or torso?”
“I haven’t tried that yet.”
“What do you mean you haven’t tried it yet. Then, have you only hit headshots so far?”
“...” Max stayed quiet in order to not aggravate this irritable man.
“...How about a test. First, turn on your damage indicators.”
“How do I do that?”
“There’s an option in settings for it under ‘video’. Turn tags and accolade notifications on as well if you haven’t already.”
Max flicked the holographic switches on his interface and turned around to look at Rone again, “Oh!”
[ Player: ‘Cyclone_Rone’, Level: 1 ]
“That’s cool, I can see your details now.” The information floated above Rone’s head in a blue box with low opacity.
“Alright, now let’s test your output. Shoot me in the leg, and we’ll see how much damage it does.”
“...That feels like a really terrible idea, actually.” Max refused it outright.
“Don’t worry, it won’t be enough to kill me instantly. Let me explain.”
Rone cleared his throat, “I forgot to tell you this yesterday, but there are three categories of damage in the game: normal or base damage, weak-point damage and lethal damage. Hitting an enemy somewhere non-vital, like in the leg or an arm, or just somewhere else that causes a flesh wound, will do normal damage, whereas hitting them somewhere more serious like a non-vital organ will do weak-point damage. Finally, landing a hit on a vital organ like the head or the heart will do lethal damage, which is the most harmful type.”
“The damage indicators give you a numerical value of the damage you inflict and are colour-coded to indicate the damage type. White is normal damage, yellow is weak-point damage, orange is lethal damage and black is mixed in if it causes death.”
“That actually sounds really handy. Does the damage increase by a set amount for weak-point and lethal damage or does it vary?”
“There’s a flat 50% damage increase for weak-point damage, 100% for lethal damage. So the damage calculation works out your base damage and then applies a multiplier to that to get your final damage.”
“Alright. Is there damage reduction for party members and allies?”
“Nope. Not that I know of.”
“...Then I probably shouldn’t shoot you, right?”
“Dude, your class is good but I’m not going to die from a shot in the foot. You’re not THAT overpowered.”
“All right, all right, fine.” Max took aim at the innocent foot. “Do you have a health potion?”
“Just shoot it!”
Pew!
[ 920 ] A dark red number sprung out as the arrow nicked the side of Rone’s ankle.
‘Red? That wasn’t any of the colours he mentioned though?’ Max was confused.
“Sh*t.” Rone swore.
“What do you mean sh*-UH?”
Rone exploded into blue particles.
“...”
“...”
“...”
After some time passed, Max received a call request through the system. He pressed accept.
“So, I may have forgotten a damage type.”