The Lone Healer-Chapter 117: Knives in the Dark, Part Six

Neve encountered a few more enemies after that talk she had with Lia. Those fights, along with the prolonged skirmish she had leading up to the earlier conversation, led to Neve having the following status:

Level 58

MP: 1100/1100 (+300)

EXP: 10/580

AP: 3690

IP: 30

WST: 15916

---

Endurance: 40

Speed: 30

Precision: 24

Strength: 5

Arcane: 80

Just now, she was finishing up assigning her points as Erin said something beside her.

"It doesn’t seem like we’re encountering as many enemies as one would expect in such a sprawling, massive town as this appears to be. Though, it could just be the case that they’re all lying in wait like they were earlier."

Neve did not respond.

Instead, she stared at her status.

[Level 58, huh? It already feels like I might be over-leveled again. Since Lia’s the boss of this Floor, her level is going to be mine plus 10. So, it might be good for me to sell some more levels before I fight her.]

"Quite gross, these opponents of ours," Erin commented as she poked at a werewolf’s corpse. "Not that our enemies have been pleasant at all, but not many have smelled quite as awful as these things do."

Again, Neve did not give any sort of response to that casual statement she made.

[30 Inlfuence Points. 20 from the Second Floor, and 10 from the Third. I wonder what this floor’s quest is and where I can find the place to trigger it. I thought Lia would prompt the quest to begin, but... I dunno.]

"Do we have a specific path we are following, by the way? Or, are we just wandering aimlessly once more?"

[Hm... I’m still a little hesitant when enemies jump in front of me. I should look for more stuff to fight with my sword. I don’t want to freeze up at a bad time.]

"Neve?"

[Lia hasn’t tried to kill me outside of that boss arena yet, but what if-]

"Neve."

A pair of firm hands held Neve by her shoulders. Sapphire eyes connected with crimson and Erin raised a brow, concerned.

"Are you alright?"

"..." Neve turned away. "Yeah. I’m just thinking about stuff, is all."

"Not something I would normally discourage, but you do look rather distracted. Would you like to talk about it?" The lamia took her hands off and put them over her hips, right above the spot where her body turned from being human to snake-like. "Would this *stuff* you’re thinking about happen to have anything to do with that murderous woman I fought earlier."

["I" fought. Not "we"? Lia kinda hit the nail on the head when she guessed that I was planning on relying on Erin to do most of the work when the boss fight comes around. If she was right about that, what if she’s right about-]

"UWAH!?"

Neve pulled away, brought back to the present moment by Erin, who had leaned in, stuck her tongue out, and dragged up the side of her face.

The lamia laughed as Neve wiped her cheek clean.

"I will take that as a ’yes’," Erin said. "What did I miss while I wasn’t around? Or, was that first impression she made just that captivating?"

Sighing, Neve hung her head low.

"It’s nothing. She just... she said some weird stuff."

"Stuff like?"

"That, uhm..." Neve chuckled with disbelief. "That I remind her of herself. I don’t know how the fuck she got that impression, but whatever."

"..."

"What?"

"Well, correct me if I am wrong, but isn’t the entire point of this journey I am accompanying you on to go kill some people? 5, if I remember correctly? Not to say that you’re some crazed murderer, but you cannot deny that there is a certain bloodlust to your quest, you know?"

"It’s different," Neve replied quietly. "The people I’m going after are the murderers. What I’m doing is justice."

"You won’t catch me disagreeing, given what you told me they did. All I’m saying is... you certainly are a very tenacious person, Neve. That’s all."

"Whatever."

Walking away, Neve pulled up her map.

"Anyway, where are we headed now?" Erin asked. "More wandering?"

"Yeah. We have time."

"Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure of that."

Tamira suddenly spoke up in Neve’s thoughts.

The healer stopped.

[... What?] She looked around, as though she’d find Tamira there, grinning somewhere. [What do you mean?]

"Hehehehe..."

[Tamira!] Neve gritted her teeth, turning away from Erin. She didn’t want the lamia to see her make this kind of expression after what she’d said. [What are you talking about?]

Finally, after letting some tension build around Neve’s heart for a few seconds, she said:

[Thomas and his group are about to finish the 7th Floor.]

"Neve?" Erin asked.

The healer remained perfectly still, completely silent.

"Did the voices in your head say something you did not like?" She asked somewhat light-heartedly.

... Not knowing just how correct she was.

---

{Charlotte}

Walking through the brightly lit streets of Starlight City, wearing a black hoodie, some running shoes, and sweatpants, Charlotte may as well have been a blazing star cutting a line through the earth.

She moved with a head full of steam, her eyes narrowed as she kept them focused on the football stadium up ahead.

She was moving in such a hurry in part because of the fury simmering beneath her skin, but also in part because, like the train station, these streets were known for their frequent monster outbreaks. 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖

It made sense to her, then, how this group of murderers was managing to remain hidden. If this event and the train station were not merely coincidences, they were going out of their way to operate specifically in monster-ridden areas.

She spotted a couple of goblins up ahead, just as she’d been thinking that the streets were a little too quiet.

Level 15

MP: 20/20

Level 8

MP: 10/10

As per usual, monster outbreaks featured no sense of scaling, and so one monster could be seen traveling with another that was twice as powerful as it.

The two creatures roamed the streets casually, sniffing the air and stumbling their way across. Even though Charlotte was currently only level 10, it wasn’t fighting these two enemies that she was afraid of, but rather the possibility that doing so might alert nearby opponents to her presence and turn this into something larger.

Honestly though, with the mood she was in, she welcomed the opportunity to get a little bit athletic.

She ventured into an alley and decided to get around this problem by going over them.

First, she hopped on top of a massive garbage bin. Then, she grabbed onto a metal pipe next to it and crawled up, little by little, before jumping to the right and making it atop a set of stairs leading up to the roof. A little bit of sweat rolled down the sides of her face but she ignored it.

Now, hopping across rooftops on her way to the stadium, she could see several monsters roaming just as the goblins were, along with other players sneaking past them, all slowly making their way to the same destination as her, all having received some sort of clue that led them here just like she had.

Eventually, Charlotte descended back onto the street, following behind them as she made her way into the stadium.

They all eyed each other with distrust. No one said a word and the sounds of their footsteps echoing in the halls were left to fill the air alone. Charlotte took stock of everyone around her, knowing that although some of them may have been undercover cops or reporters like she was, some of them were probably actual murderers looking to find like-minded people.

[Level 10, level 4, level 12, level 20... People of all shapes, sizes, skills, and levels are showing up tonight.]

It was cold. Terribly cold. Or, maybe she was just a little bit frightened.

As Charlotte and the others arrived at the stadium’s seats, she found that hundreds of others were already there.

Players surrounded the field, all waiting for one person to speak up.

At the field’s center, there was a stage. On that stage was a woman in a black and white dress with a big hat that concealed her face and a microphone in front of her.

Charlotte checked the time in her HUD.

[11:58 pm...]

She sat down at the far back, trying to take a position in which she couldn’t be attacked from behind too easily. Her leg bounced as she waited. Inhaling slowly, she tried to calm herself down. To get into her unfeeling, uncaring "journalist mode" that she usually implemented in times like these.

Try as she might, though, she couldn’t shake off the discomfort she felt. Being surrounded by monsters was one thing. It was something she’d experienced many times by now, whether it was through taking on dungeons recently or reporting live at the scene of monster outbreaks before that.

Being surrounded by monsters who were, to some extent, intelligent, was not quite the same.

The seconds ticked by, though. The time gradually grew closer to the 12:00 am the note had mentioned.

And the instant that the clock struck midnight, the microphone turned on.