Gifts Are Always Great (3): Freeloading Is Best
They say you should seek out hardship while you're young.
What complete and utter bullshit. Why take the hard road when an easy path is sitting right there?
And Zion, struck by a bolt from the blue out of nowhere, had finally grasped this fundamental truth of life…
Easy mode really is the best.
Sitting on a dusty old chapel pew, Zion finally let the rigid mask of her expression fall away. With Ifrit gone to fetch materials, there was no longer any reason to keep up the act. Instead, savoring the lingering sweetness of white bread in her mouth, she began sorting through the information Ifrit had given her.
The people here with status windows. In web novel terms, they'd be the awakened ones — but they call them Adventurers…
Adventurers.
Those chosen by the Tower, granted a portion of its power. What made them so terrifying was their absolute growth rate. Unlike the people commonly called NPCs, Adventurers could grow at a blistering pace until they hit their limits.
So getting chosen by the Tower means you awaken a status window. And in the process, you pick up some knowledge too.
If that was the case, things lined up reasonably well. One of the biggest advantages of a status window was that overwhelming growth speed. There was a reason status windows were a staple of novels. But so what? It was a pie in the sky for her.
Zion muttered a complaint and stretched out on the pew. Through the nun's habit, the beautiful curves of her body were plainly visible.
Ifrit must have been desperate to clear the quest as fast as possible. The image of her vanishing like the wind was still vivid. Of course, Zion still had plenty of questions — inventory functions, whether max level existed, how skills actually worked, and so on. With Ifrit gone, those questions were nothing more than echoes bouncing back at her… but that was fine. She could ask later.
Lucky I found a sucker — at least I put out the immediate fire. The problem is what to do from here…
Zion did have a conscience. She'd taken advantage of Ifrit, sure, but she wasn't so rotten as to keep exploiting someone's goodwill forever. Affection goes both ways. A one-sided relationship where only one person gives never lasts long.
Creeeak!!
A sudden vibration shook dust free from the old ceiling. Not an earthquake — the sound of a door opening.
Back already? She said it'd take about an hour…
Just how badly did she want that book? But the moment Zion turned her head… her movement stopped cold. Instead of flame-colored hair of red and orange, heavily armed uninvited guests had barged in.
Looking at the short black-haired man with a greatsword and the green long-haired woman holding a bow, Zion tilted her head.
What? People Ifrit sent?
But she reconsidered. What kind of errand-runner shows up carrying weapons that vicious? She briefly considered running, then discarded the idea. Turning her back clumsily would just get her shot full of arrows. She had no intention of poking a hornet's nest… but if things went south, she'd have no choice but to fight.
"Lost little lambs are always welcome. Is there anything I can help you with?"
"Whoa… her face is seriously pretty."
"Focus. We don't have much time. With Wild Flame gone, this is our only chance."
"I know."
Zion maintained the most virtuous NPC persona she could manage, careful not to provoke them, while quietly assessing the situation. Just as expected, once she stayed put and behaved, the intruders didn't come any closer. Instead, they pulled something out.
The round, glass-like object was what people commonly called a crystal orb. The man looked into it and spoke.
"Yes, we found her. Someone inside? There's one person, but… no, not anyone I've seen on the first floor."
"What's he saying?"
"He wants us to bring her in. Politely."
"Nice and simple. I like it."
So basically, kidnapping.
People holding vicious weapons in each hand, talking about escorting her politely. Zion clicked her tongue. She didn't know what their goal was… but anyone who casually ordered a kidnapping was unlikely to have wholesome intentions.
Still, instead of running, Zion chose to fight. Clank. From beneath the sleeve of her nun's habit, a steel prosthetic arm was revealed.
I've used Recovery before. Which means… I should be able to use other skills too.
For reference, Zion's class was Battle Priest…
She had taken Priest as a sub-class and learned support skills like Recovery, but her main class was firmly a damage dealer — Infighter.
Dungeon & Soul had, surprisingly, featured a multi-class system that let you mix several classes together. The idea was to combine them and create a build uniquely your own… but the practical value hadn't been particularly high.
Taking multi-class meant distributing your levels across each class, which effectively made hitting max level impossible. Say the level cap was 90 and you'd invested 30 levels into Priest — then Infighter could only go up to 60. And that also meant you could never learn the ultimate skills that required max level to unlock.
The developers had recognized the problem and tried to compensate with class synergies and other adjustments…
In the end, all of it failed.
Even so, Zion had mixed Infighter and Priest for one reason: it was the strongest build in PvP, bar none. Infighter was already the top PvP class — so dominant that people called it matchup-proof as long as the player's control kept up. Layering on solid basic skills like Recovery, Cure, and Revival massively boosted her survivability.
By covering Infighter's almost only weakness — survivability and safety — I managed to hit rank one.
In PvE, where damage uptime was guaranteed, maybe a slow ultimate skill made sense. In PvP, standing still to eat a sluggish finisher was just plain stupid.
Meanwhile, even though Zion had openly shifted into a combat stance, the two of them didn't register her as a threat at all. Her slender appearance — steel prosthetic aside — played a part… but the biggest factor was simply that this was the first floor.
"Subdue her without a single scratch."
"Isn't that a bit much? She could be a Hero NPC for all we know."
"Anywhere else, maybe. On the first floor? Be serious."
"Harsh. I was hoping to have a little fun."
At the green-haired woman's complaint, the short black-haired man let out a sigh. Looking purely at her appearance, she was extraordinary — silver-white hair cascading to her waist, beautiful curves that even a pitch-black nun's habit couldn't fully hide…
But that was as far as it went. On the Starting Floor, whether monster or NPC, there was a hard ceiling on how high stats could go.
He told us to use an Appraisal Scroll first and check her stats… but there's no need for that.
Adventurers who had learned an appraisal skill were rare, which had driven Appraisal Scrolls to absurd prices. So the man chose to save his rather than use it. This was the Starting Floor, after all.
But the very moment the green-haired woman reached toward Zion, Zion's upper body dropped low.
Whoosh!
Zion vanished from the woman's field of vision — sliding across the ground like wind, driving straight in. By the time the woman realized something was wrong, it was already too late. The steel prosthetic was already locked onto her jaw.
Crunch.
At the sound of bone shattering, the man jerked his head up in alarm. That crazy bitch finally did it, he thought.
But the moment he turned, he saw it clearly — a familiar face soaring through the air, trailing blood…
"…What?"
What the hell was that.
For a second he thought he was dreaming. He may have had the nasty hobby of carving up pretty women… but he had been a Ranker once. Her skill, at least, was beyond question. And she got hit? In that split second?
"Hah."
A short breath. At the same time, a sonic boom cracked through the air. The man's instincts screamed a warning. Block it. Or you die.
CRACK! BOOOOM!!
Instinct overrode thought. He hastily raised his greatsword like a shield and barely managed to catch the follow-up strike.
"Ghk?!"
But the price was catastrophic. The custom greatsword he'd commissioned from a workshop at enormous expense shattered into pieces. Fragments of the broken blade clattered across the wooden floor. But the man couldn't look away.
A predator. The slender woman was gone in an instant… and in her place, an absolute apex predator stood before his eyes.
…Impossible. A Hero NPC appearing on the first floor…?!
Everything he had believed to be immutable common sense was being overturned. But there was only one kind of being that could trample former Rankers like this.
Unlike ordinary NPCs, who were weaker than Adventurers — NPCs who possessed power on par with Rankers.
Hero NPCs.
And right now, for the first time in the long history of the Tower, a Hero NPC had appeared on the Starting Floor.