Chapter 382: Chronicle of the Past

Chapter 382: Chronicle of the Past

“Hey,” Tess says, moving closer to me.

“What is it this time?”

She chuckles, amused by my reaction, “I wanted to confirm something. Lily seems disappointed with you over that thing with Tacita, but I can’t help but wonder if that’s all there is to it.”

“What do you mean? I’m an asshole. It's simple.”

“Really? Why then, was your first reaction to grab Lily and teleport to Tacita? I saw it, I have good eyes. I sensed you preparing to teleport.”

“You must have seen wrong.”

“Did I?”

“Yup, it was all Lily’s idea.”

“Are you worried about Tacita becoming attached to you?”

“Are you crazy, Tess? That girl is bonkers. She isn’t attaching herself to anyone.”

“You’re lying. But I wonder why. Would that really be so bad? Does the idea scare you? Having someone like her attached to you? Maybe you just like acting like an ass so people will leave you alone.”

“Totally. Anyway, did you see the last event? What do you think?”

Tess looks at me for a bit and then lets go of the previous subject, “I will be challenging The First One. Lily will probably go against The Fallen Hero. Sophie is also going to pick The First One for obvious reasons. The rest still isn’t that sure. Have you made a decision?”

“Yes, but I’ve got a few ideas about that. Could you get Channeler and a few people from Easy difficulty? I’ll give them some items if they use their challenge the way I want.”

“Sounds intriguing. I’ll give him a call. And don’t forget to set something aside for Channeler, he was helpful most of the time.”

Who does she think I am? I’m already preparing some nice stuff for my future PR guy. Enough to make him the most powerful Easy difficulty attendee.

I spend half a day training with Lily, trying to beat some sense into her and improve her efficiency. She tends to use too much mana and needs to invest more into her reserves, as the result of her duel with Tess demonstrates.

Using a lot of her stats for constitution is nice as it means better body parts to [Sacrifice], but even that consumes mana. She also spends a lot of mana regenerating her body, which now costs more because of her high constitution.

Her ideal strategy would be avoiding injury and taking advantage of her tough body through [Sacrifice], but Lily seems to like cosplaying a bulldozer during fights.

In the future, the power of constitution and some additional traits could make her investments more viable, but that’s going to take a while.

Then I spend a bit of time with Izzy, demonstrating a few better ways to use her flames. Sophie helped her a lot with that, and Izzy herself is pretty good, so it's just a nudge towards a different direction.

As always, I remind Maya to not be a scaredy-cat and level her [Focus] more.

So far, no one from Hell difficulty has chosen to issue their challenge for the 5th event. We have people monitoring the auditorium, once again set up in the common area, with multiple screens displaying each challenge.

Some of the people from Hard have chosen to challenge powerful monsters they met on previous floors and couldn’t defeat. Others challenge humans they want to learn something from, stretching fights out as long as possible.

Challenging to learn is the way to go, I think. Yes, some want to overcome their trauma and near-death experience, but that’s not for me. My challenge has already been decided, and I will wait for the end. Not like it is that far, just a few more hours.

When people from Hell difficulty start issuing their challenges, I teleport to the common area.

I think Biscuit was a 2-year-old corgi when he entered the tutorial with us. On the 1st floor, he “awakened” for lack of a better term. He still could be considered a kid, a child, even younger than my minion or Izzy.

However, I find his naivety extremely endearing. His attempt to pay for stolen meat with pieces of glass he thought were the same as the mana stones they used as currency. Packing up pieces of meat with candy wrappers, thinking it might make us happier because he saw how much we enjoyed them. And more.

His worldview is simple, and even most of his abilities were gained just to get more food. Tentacles to reach the places we had hidden food, telepathy so he could ask for more food.

“You are one cute little thing, aren’t you?” I whisper, making sure no one hears, and boop his nose a few times.

(Gone!)

“We will get you some later, don’t worry. And where did you see that deer? Did you face a monster like that on the 5th floor?”

(Food!) He confirms.

Receiving a Notice from Sophie, I look at the screen to see Min-Jae facing down a monster I haven’t seen yet. It's bipedal with human-like features and four arms. Its skin looks like it is made of metal. Maybe it’s something Min-Jae met on the 5th floor?

Soon the reason for this challenge becomes obvious as the monster seems to possess a skill similar to [Telekinesis].

Min-Jae, like people before him, uses this to observe the monster and try to learn as much as he can. There also seems to be a hint of fear and hatred directed at the monster. Maybe it caused him trouble before.

In the end, the boy wins. It's still not fully satisfying, but his fighting feels just a little bit less tense. At the end of his challenge, he even seems to enjoy it.

The twins go one after another, both of them summoning the same monster. A small blue one with a huge head and a thin body that keeps creating illusions. That monster seems to be much stronger than they are able to handle, and after a while, they both lose. Even so, I can see their excitement as they exchange their wordless conversation.

The next member of our group to fight is Maya, and she faces a female lynthari I don’t know. The warrior is wearing simple armor and wields a longsword.

“It’s Maya’s teacher from the 4th floor. One of the best sword masters of Virelia. The lynthari liked Maya and taught Maya when she asked for lessons. She agreed and In exchange, Maya had to accompany her when she went to the city and shout vulgar stuff at people who tried to talk to her teacher,” Tess explains with a giggle.

“Typical lynthari.”

“I know, right? Still, Maya was rather fond of her and learned a lot. She didn’t have time to say goodbye, and I think she wanted to see her one more time. Maybe even learn a thing or two or see how much stronger she has become.”

To watch the scene play out on screen, I can’t doubt what Tess said. Maya is getting pushed back by an extremely skilled lynthari. I recognize parts of her move set that Maya seems to have adopted into her own style. The lynthari also likes to quickly switch between a number of weapons created from mana. She uses a shield, then she switches to a spear, then a dagger, and finally back to a sword.

The style looks extremely confusing and very versatile. It requires a lot from its user, but the result seems to be worth it.

Maya holds back and focuses on her technique instead of exploiting her higher level. And because of that, she loses, but she doesn’t seem sad at all. Instead, she smiles proudly, satisfied with her growth.

“Can you connect me to Channeler?” I ask Dennis, and with a nod he does.

(You guys can do it, I will pay as promised if it works.) I say, sending it through the connection.

(Sure thing! The guys are excited!)

Then I watch the scene down below, as one man separates from his group and heads towards one of the screens. I’m too far off to hear what he said, but I know the words. They are the words I told them to say.

“I want to challenge the winner of the 1st round of Earth's tutorial's 1st tournament.”

The man then disappears, teleported inside the arena to face his challenge.

The event is called The Chronicle of the Past after all.