- Rose -
She defended against an attack and used a skill to push back the enemy.
While the assassins had lower strength than Warriors, she was currently lower level than them which made the difference in level become negligible.
They will have to think of something else or the T5 can take them down with one speak attack.
Rose thought of an idea and spoke. "I have a plan."
"Can it work?"
"Yes. But I will need time." She replied.
"Won't be easy." The other girl replied as she parried an attack and Rose took his chance to try and attack only to barely defend against another attack from the side.
The only reason they were able to hold the three was due to the narrow room which made it hard for them to get behind… but it was also something which restricted her spear, not giving her enough room to swing and reducing her to just thrust.
There was also the fact that the T5 man was powering whatever item he was using and not taking any initiative to attack.
The bad thing however was the fact that the other girl was even lower leveled than her.
Quickly thinking of something, Rose used the Stored Power Skill and started biding for time.
The Stored Power Skill increased the attack power the longer the user was in battle by up to 500%. This Skill could allow the user to launch an attack which would look normal but have much stronger power behind it, taking the enemy off balance. The best part of this skill was that although it took time to charge, it could also be used with other Skills.
She waited for the time to charge the Skill and then used another Skill, Intimidating Roar, the Skill of the tiger boss they had killed.
As expected the assassins were slowed momentarily.
She took the opportunity to use Heavy Thrust, one of her strongest hitting Skills with the Stored Power combined but instead of targeting the enemy, she turned around and thrust at the wall behind them, blasting the wall to smithereens…
Everyone there was shocked at her action but the other girl understood what she had done and quickly followed behind her, jumping out of the building.
They had confined them inside the building but was there a rule against destroying buildings anywhere?
Not that Rose cared with her life on the line.
When the three assassins came to their senses, the T5 Assassin crushed the item in his hand and growled before drawing his knife and jumping towards them.
His speed was extremely fast, the difference in levels too vast for them to make up with just skills there, he swung his dagger towards her… before his body was blown away by a blast of light, crashing into a nearby wall and getting embedded into it.
She took a look at the person who had arrived and he looked like a Knight with a mask who had swung the Sword. The man almost disappeared from his place and appeared before the other two assassins, subduing them with two slashes… too fast.
That was too fast.
He was faster than even Arthas… a T6.
It was a T6.
The other two assassins also understood this and tried to run away but to no avail. He almost disappeared from his place and appeared before the two assassins, knocking them out.
…at this point, Rose had only one thought… was this a cinematic part of the game?
Very soon several other knights also came there while the man in the mask came towards her.
"You have a method of contacting your Guild Members, right?" He asked.
Rose nodded with some hesitation.
"Tell Arthas that you are safe." He ordered.
It took her a moment to understand what was going on and she quickly checked the guild chats in their private group and sure enough, there were so many messages.
Not delaying for another second, she quickly sent the message.
"Arthas, I am safe now."
With that done, she finally breathed a sigh of relief and looked at the girl who had helped her.
"Thank you for helping me. I don't know what I would do without your help today." She bowed deeply and thanked the girl.
"It's no problem. I was actually shocked to see an npc do such a thing…"
Rose winced at the words. "Trust me, the npcs of this game can do far… far worse things. You would do well to treat this place as the real world."
"Oh… I sense a story there."
"It's an unpleasant memory. Anyways, I didn't catch your name. What is your name?" She asked.
"My name is… Kurumi. It's nice to meet you." She bowed.
"Thank you, Kurumi. Would you like to come with me? You can meet my friends if you are alone. I am sure they would love to meet you." In fact, from what Rose had seen, the girl had decent skills as she was keeping up with enemies far above her level with just her fighting ability.
"It's… I would love to but I am with my younger brother and I have been gone for a while now. He must be worried. Actually you know what, we are staying at this Blacksmith's place in the outer city. You can come and meet us there." The girl gave her a piece of paper with the instructions to reach the place.
"Thank you. I will make sure to visit you tomorrow." Rose said with a determined expression on her face.
- Veena -
The VIP room was silent, the tension not having dissipated yet, no one was actually relaxed though.
No, to say no one was relaxed would be a lie.
At least, the two Paladins sitting beside her were quite relaxed.
Time passed and Arthas was slowly falling more and more on the backfoot due to the continuous attacks from the opponent, his HP slowly dropping and reaching the yellow zone already.
The first third of the bar was green, the second third was yellow and the last was red. Matches were decided when someone's HP fell in the red.
"Do you believe he can still win? He is twenty one levels lower than the other party, half the age, has half his health down… with all this, do you still believe that he has a chance to win?" Uther asked as Arthas' health fell below half.
"As long as Rose is found in time, Arthas will win." She replied politely. After all, she knew the Skills Arthas truly possessed. In the whole tournament, all he had done was train his selected skills. This also meant, he hasn't used any of his usual skills in this fight.
"Hahahaha, that's confidence. I have seen all of his matches and only he has truly understood the goal of these competitions. These competitions were started to encourage the youth of our Kingdom to push themselves beyond to hone their skills… yet, all it has turned into today… is this race to win." He sighed. "I am not saying this is wrong. After all, a competition is nothing without the spirit of competition. But Arthas… this young man has been honing his skills even now. In the middle of a battle, with so much name and fame at stake, he is single mindedly pursuing perfection in his skills… such a talent is admirable. The Knight's Academy has truly unearthed a gem. Do you know him?" He asked, turning towards the previous Marquis.
"He is from Llyne, a Knight under Arnold Straight. He and his team fought and repelled an army of several thousand Goblins with barely twenty Knights and Mages and even killed one of their Chieftains. Conrad rewarded him with the Rank of a Baron and a territory in Greenfrost."
"...several thousand goblins with twenty?" The man was taken aback and looked at her with an astonished look.
"Conrad verified the news several times because he doubted the information too. It was all true." The Old Marquis replied, not removing his eyes from the match.
"We had a day to prepare." She added.
…
"Hahahaha how interesting. Now, I really want the girl to be found soon." He laughed. "After all, I don't think many people would have such talent and still have enough moral integrity to give up a Logia Devil Fruit for the sake of a friend. Seeing such a man lose… due to such vile ploys… would be disheartening." He added as he threw a look around the room, his eyes however had a sharp look, very contrary to his words.
Just at that moment, Veena saw a message on the guild chat.
"Arthas, I am safe now."
It was from Rose.
She got up from her seat as the two old Paladins looked at her.
"Rose has been found."
And sure enough, the scene on the stage changed as well.
In the next second, Arthas parried another punch from the Mad Brawler and pushed him back, sending him stumbling back several steps from the force of the blow.
He then raised his sword and a ray of light fell down from the skies lighting him up and his HP went back to the green zone again.
The entire stadium was silenced. It was so silent that they could even hear his words…
"Playtime's Over."
"But that's…" Even Uther who was sitting calmly beside her was stunned into silence. "That's Holy Ray… a Paladin's Skill."
"Yes, yes it is."
"Isn't he a member of the Knight's Academy?"
"He learned it himself from a Skill Book." She replied.
They watched as the match continued.
His sword took on a blackish colour and then electricity crackled on it. Last but not the least, a whitish hue covered his whole body.
A new Skill?
The next moment, his figure flashed, reaching the Mad Brawler in an instant and slashing upwards. Tyrone defended using his Gauntlets but his defense was broken almost instantly as a slash appeared on his chest.
The rest of the match was Arthas utterly dominating the opponent. In between the guy had even been paralysed and used his 'Injured Beast' Skill, yet it wasn't enough to make up for the gap.
"Hmm, is that the Ki Skill of the Monks?" The former Marquis asked.
She looked closer and it did look similar to the Touki used by Youkai.
That would also explain the extra boost in his stats this time.
In less than a minute, the Mad Brawler had his health in the red.
The referee stopped the match quickly.
"Winner Arthas!"
The crowd erupted into cheers.
Arthas walked off of the stage and only then the silence in the room was broken.
"Wonderful. It was a truly wonderful fight. Arthas is one of the most talented Knights I have seen in my life. He is already at the Level of a Holy Knight and Grand Knight right now. I have no doubt that he would absolutely reach the Ranks of a Paladin or Imperial Knight if he kept this progress of his." Uther praised.
"Indeed. Turning a match from that point… and like that… I don't think I could do the same at his level. He is worth investing in." The former Marquis nodded too.
The third person to speak was the most surprising one. It was the same man who had questioned her claims.
He got up from his seat and looked at her.
"It seems that you were truly speaking the truth. This time it was my mistake. I apologise." He looked at the person behind him. "Send one million gold coins to Knight Arthas as a token of apology from the Marquis' mansion." He ordered and then bowed towards the two Paladins before leaving the room.
She gave a polite bow as thanks for the reward.
The door to the room opened after a few more minutes and Sir Ralph entered with some more people, one of them being Rose.
Veena quickly checked on her but thankfully Rose was fine.
The Knights explained the situation to the two Paladins.
"We questioned the other girl too. She is a new resident of Greenfrost and saw the man knocking down Rose and followed her, getting a chance to interrupt them."
She looked at Rose who nodded. "She was a player too."
Oh… there were other players in the town.
"Where is she? I need to thank her."
"Umm, she said that she had a little brother whom she had left alone. She left to meet him or he would be worried. She did tell me where she was staying so I can meet her tomorrow and thank her."
"Hmm, that sounds good." She nodded.
Rose had very good luck to survive these kinds of situations though… first Sabaody and now this… or did she have bad luck getting caught in these situations in the first place? It was very confusing.
She finally hugged the girl.
This whole fiasco was completely unexpected. Thankfully, Rose was made of sterner stuff. One didn't get to be the bodyguard of Odin with mediocre qualifications.
"I am glad that you are fine."