106 106 - Ace

So far they were 4 Rank E players and one Rank D. That Rank D player was a well-known assassin among the city's Blessed Rank D, since because of his Blessing, it was possible to deal with monsters more easily than if were a normal assassin with a slightly generic Blessing in a Fortress.

He was the person they had the most confidence in the team, so much so that he had been named the captain because of his superior combat experience. This was in addition to the possible combat tactics he needed to learn to deal with Rank D Fortresses, since the greater the rank of a fortress, the greater the complexity of that.

But instead of suggesting a very complicated strategy, the killer had suggested a simpler strategy this time, since they had used the most complicated strategies in other matches and it was a lot of unnecessary effort to achieve the same result as a simpler strategy, when having to deal with a weaker team.

The strategy was basically for the assassin to use his Blessing to stay hidden while taking advantage of the element of surprise to try to kill the wizard from the enemy team as quickly as possible. And then taking advantage of their enemies' astonishment to discover an assassin attacking them at that moment, the rest of the team would work to get rid of another member of the backline, be it the healer or the archer depending on the formation of the other team.

This was a good tactic they had used it once in the past match, and it had worked before perfectly. So much so that they were very confident in the tactic, and especially, confident in their assassin who had never before been discovered by the enemy team during an ambush.

But this time, something different happened. The group was hiding inside one of the empty houses as they watched the enemy team approach from a distance. From their number, they believed that the other team also had an assassin, but that didn't worry them at all since they had a Blessed Rank D as their team's assassin. Not even another Blessed Rank D would find their own team's assassin easily since he had already camouflaged himself with the shadows.

- Steve Pov -

With each game we played, my belief that we would get a good place in the championship grew more and more.

This time has been different. We have been hiding while watching Ryan hiding himself in the shadows. It was only a matter of time before Ryan jumped up from where he was hiding and killed that wizard in the back of their formation.

But strangely... Ryan didn't leave from where he was hiding. We clearly saw the enemy team pass by where he was hiding, but he never left. This made us face each other in confusion, not knowing what to do; this had never happened before in any ambush.

Looking for answers, I saw the match log window, and there I saw something that made me freeze.

[First Blood]

The first blood of the match had already happened, and Ryan was not answering us. It could only mean one thing: he was the one who died.

"Damn, their assassin is more powerful than Ryan. Be careful," I said quickly as I turned around to warn my team. But what I saw was just the slightest trace of flame disappearing into the air as Billy's body fell to the ground before falling apart into particles.

Shit, what the fuck was that?! Did their assassin get in and out of here without us seeing? Or was that flame a spell from the wizard on their team?

I quickly looked out the window and saw that their team was still walking down the road, apparently looking for our team with a cautious look about them, but that didn't show that they knew where we were. It could only mean that their team's assassin did it.

I can't remember any assassin who could do something like that. Maybe he is an assassin wizard?

With that thought in mind, I looked around, just to end up seeing another explosion of flames next to Ben, but this explosion of flames that apparently came out of nowhere, this time didn't disappear into the air like last time. Actually, the flames of this explosion came together and turned into a small fireball which flew at Ben at a great speed, but still in a somewhat harmless way because of the small size of it. But I wouldn't be deceived anymore...

When that little ball of flame hit Ben, who seemed a little curious what damage it could do to him, the moment the flame touched him, he started screaming in pain... It was common knowledge that the attacks on Valorwatch had a pain rate of 20% the pain they would cause in real life to give a little reality to the players, and so that the Blessed Ones would not forget the feeling of pain for the next time they were going to invade a Fortress; the designers did not want them to do any kind of stupid movement and cause careless death. But Ben was screaming in pain as if he were actually being burned alive by a real flame, as if that flame had the pain limit at least five times the standard pain limit, reaching 100%... or maybe even more.

Strangely, that little flame that had a harmless appearance started to grow by burning Ben, as if he were a highly flammable fuel, making that in an instant, the small flame that previously only was burning his thigh, was now burning all over his lower body, making Ben scream in pain even more.

Ben was never a Blessed One; he had no Blessing, so he never had the feeling of being bitten, burned, or poisoned by a real monster just like me and the other members of our team. So he was probably even more desperate when feeling a pain on a level that he never felt before.

Because of the glow that the flames around Ben were producing, I couldn't notice another explosion happening behind him, an explosion that caused a familiar looking red-skinned devil to fly out at an absurd speed, flying towards John, who was holding his sword in an alert stance, but it was obviously contradicted by the slightly shaky legs he had, probably afraid of feeling as much pain as Ben was feeling too because of the low tolerance he always had.

Unfortunately, the red devil either didn't know, or maybe he didn't even care about it, given the strange evil smile he had on his face, as he used his strange black dagger to make a big cut through John's shoulder and teleport again, deflecting the clumsy slash that John tried to make with his sword while grunting in pain. Fortunately, apparently his sword didn't cause as much pain as the flames since John didn't cry out in pain out loud, but that didn't mean it was okay.

At that point, there were only John, Ben, and myself left. If the two of them had already been injured, the chance that I would be next was very high, and for some reason, I would even be grateful if I died from that dagger, just so I wouldn't have to face that strange flame that seemed to hurt so much.

Ben had already knelt on the floor in pain while his body began to fall apart in particles, indicating that he was almost dead.

It was then that I saw another light coming towards me. At first I thought it might be a flame like Ben's, but when I saw it was a strange shiny ball, rolling on the floor, I became less concerned.

… Until the ball exploded.

* Boom!! *

[Ace!]

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Please read the author's notes down here! he he :3 ↓↓↓