Chapter 93: Welcome to the Outlaws: Spectating

Chapter 93: Welcome to the Outlaws: Spectating

Erani was woken up by Arlan in the middle of the night. For a moment, she was confused, but then she remembered she was supposed to take over watch for the next shift here. And then she remembered he was also planning on going out to kill some Mountain Troll to test out his abilities. It was certainly a... choice.

Well, really, it was technically completely riskless for him to fight the thing, since he had another use of Time Loop that’d be wasted at midnight if he didn’t use it. So, she supposed it made sense. Still, it felt absolutely insane for her to just sit back and watch him march off to fight something stronger than him for absolutely no reason. Again, it technically made sense for him to practice fighting on his own while he had an opportunity to see combat while facing no real consequences for his mistakes, but she couldn’t help wanting to yell at him to come back here and go to sleep, just out of instinct.

Instead, she just settled on sleepily muttering, “Good luck. Don’t die.”

“Yeah. Well, really, I’m fine if I only die once. It’s if I die twice that I get in trouble.”

“Oh, right. Well in that case, be sure to only die after you’ve killed it and gotten the XP. Then feel free to die and come back, I guess.”

“Yeah,” he laughed. “I’ll do my best.”

And with that, he walked off. In the dark night, the main thing allowing Erani to see was the glow of Arlan’s Light Plate, but now that he was walking away, the camp was cast in darkness, with him taking her source of sight along with him.

She’d mentioned it to him before, but the Dark Plate really did make him look pretty scary. He didn’t realize it, since he was the one always wearing it, but the way it was decorated, with the deep black coloring that literally sucked the light from the sky and the sharp edges, it just made him look like something that walked out of the deepest hell.

Sure, the intimidating edges and small spikes lining armor wouldn’t do anything themselves – the only person able to touch or use either Light Plate or Dark Plate seemed to be Arlan – but that didn’t mean they didn’t still make him look freaky. Add in the fact that Dark Plate had a full face covering, and he barely even looked Human when he had it on. Secretly, Erani hoped that whatever Rank 10 Upgrade the Spell got would only make the Light Plate portion stronger, and not the Dark Plate. She really just didn’t like looking at it.Ñøv€l--ß1n hosted the premiere release of this chapter.

But for now, she wouldn’t have to worry about it. With the almost half-off discount Light Plate offered, it was the obviously correct choice. Sure, when up against something insane like a Dragon that could kill someone at their Levels in a single hit, donning the Dark Plate would be useful, but in the closer matches like the one he was about to find himself in, Light Plate was just better.

So she watched as her literal knight in shining armor departed, off to slay the evil beast. Of course, this was an ‘evil’ beast only in the way that it was just some wild monster minding its own business, and he wasn’t really a ‘knight’ if he was literally being hunted down by the entire kingdom he lived in, but she still felt like the armor made him seem heroic, at least.

The brightness of the Light Plate let Erani see Arlan even from far away, so she spectated as he walked off a few hundred paces, stopping near a cave that housed one of those Mountain Trolls. Erani hadn’t seen one before, but from Arlan’s description, they were apparently pretty scary. And with that super-speed ability, she would hate to find herself up against one of them. She was pretty much only effective when fighting at a range, so for something to be able to so easily close that gap, its build would pretty much hard-counter hers. Luckily, Arlan had clearly built his own set of abilities to be able to handle close combat quite well.

She watched as he seemed to take a moment to set himself, preparing for the fight as he stared into the glowing red eyes of the cave. A man standing in glowing armor against a red-eyed beast lurking in the dark, the gentle wind blowing dust and ash around them – the scene looked like something she’d see in a storybook. But here she was, watching in person.

Then, in a flash, the beast attacked. It leapt out of its cave, lunging straight at Arlan. But he moved quickly – probably boosted with Expedite – and stepped back and to the side, completely dodging the monster’s attack. At the same time, he lifted his hand with pinpoint accuracy to shoot off a multitude of Rays of Frost at the monster. It was still just a silhouette in the dark night to Erani, but she could still see the bright blue rays impact it, causing the Troll to roar in rage and charge again.

This time, Arlan let it get to him and take a swing without him dodging, and it was only then that Erani could actually see the monster’s features in the bright light of his armor. It was big – that much she could tell by its silhouette – and misshapen. Lumps covered its body, and she couldn’t tell if they were asymmetric muscles, some sort of massive tumors, or just the way its body was naturally shaped. And, of course, its face, twisted in anger, was just ugly. Its eyeballs were somehow too big while its actual irises and pupils were too small, its nose was wide and long, and its cheeks sagged and flapped in the wind like there was too much skin on its face.

“Did you see that?!” He laughed once he got back to the camp and plopped down next to her. “That shit was awesome! I totally fucked it up! Only took a few scratches, and it’s fuckin’ dead!”

“Yep, very impressive,” she smiled. She couldn’t help but grin alongside him after seeing his enthusiasm.

“Got a bit over 700 XP, too,” he said.

“Wait, 700?” she asked. That was way more than she was expecting.

“Yeah, yeah, it was lower-Level than the last one we fought, so not quite as much.”

“No, 700 sounds like way too much!”

“Well, I killed it twice. Time Loop.”

“Oh, right.” She normally knew that he’d activated it recently because she’d be standing right next to him, but he must’ve gone back to when he was already away from her and out ready to face the monster. Or maybe it was when she was still asleep, or something. “Well still, that’s amazing!”

“All in a day’s work,” he sighed and laid back down with a sarcastic smile.

“Dumbass,” Erani rolled her eyes.

“If I’m so dumb, how did I kill a Mountain Troll single-handedly?”

“Time travel,” she laughed. “Now go to bed. I don’t want to have to delay because you’re tired and wanna sleep for five more minutes.”

“Fine, fine,” he said and closed his eyes. “Let me know if anything goes wrong while you’re on watch.”

“Mhm,” Erani nodded and scanned the area, looking for Ghouls. She’d try to keep them from picking apart the Mountain Troll corpse too much, too, so that they could eat it in the morning. She’d become surprisingly accustomed to eating raw monster meat over the days, so it took a while for her to remember that the prospect of eating it would probably be considered completely disgusting to the average person. Or, really, it’d be disgusting to her back before the invasion. Maybe Arlan’s mannerisms had rubbed off on her more than she’d realized.

But they needed the nutrition and energy. With the mountain range ahead and the ambush that likely lay in wait for them in it, tomorrow would likely be a big day for them.