Chapter 46: Proof of Growth II
Kim sat on the large conference table with his legs crossed. He sucked on a long cinnamon sugarcane while the fake windows in the background showed a sun set on a tropical beach. The only other light came from the large screen on the wall where Marcus just smashed Charles down to the ground for the nth time. The video went back to the beginning and started again. “So, this is the real identity of the Fighter.” Jura said and turned to the rest of the group. “I don’t know, you hyped him up so much, but it does not look that impressive. Sure the attack has a lot of oomph for his low level but it is slow and short reach.” Jack said and gave Kim a look.
“What do you think Amy?” Kim looked at the other woman in the room instead of answering Jack. “I’m more concerned with that defense ability he has. Anchor, was it? It looks like it does more than just preventing him from being pushed over. I got a bad feeling about this and if it scales…. We have also not seen anything about his toughness and his super healing ability. Is it really that fast?” The blond Blood Knight looked at Kim who just now finished his sugarcane.
“It is actually insane. If I had not seen it with my own eyes I would not believe it. The details are not clear yet, limits and costs etc., but it makes an already tough class a nightmare to handle. I did not get a chance to look at his second ability a lot. But I agree it is most likely more potent than it appears. Marcus told me it also does somehow reduce falling damage.” Kim said and Amy looked surprised “That is big.”.
“And about his attack, yes it is slow but it works on contact. He does not need to throw a punch, he just needs to touch you and he can use it with strikes, kicks, knees, elbows. If you are confident that he will never touch you, you don’t have to worry but I’m telling you from experience it hurts. He gave me a full hit and I had to toughen it out, not to talk about the fact that it more or less ignores armor. Any low vitality class is going to suffer.” Kim ended his analyses and changed the video.
The next video showed a young Asian woman completely dismantling another fighter by striking and vanishing every few seconds. Amy’s forehead showed wrinkles. “What am I looking at? Is that a Catsith?” and Kim nodded. “Achara Nam a member of Marcus’ new clan Colors of the Wild.” The video restarted and they watched it in silence again. “Why has nobody tried this before? It seems obvious.” Jura said and Jack nodded. “It always does with hindsight. But going against expectations and trying something completely different than the rest of the world is damn hard.” the rest agreed and watched it another time.
“Her fighting technique is unrefined and her ability use still very rough. But if she can improve and combine it with Phase Walk, then this is getting scary. I’m feeling my class just got a hell of a lot more competition.” Amy looked unhappy and Kim nodded “The scariest part comes last.”, he changed to the third video.
It was Janette standing in something like a fake building for combat simulations. The structure was several levels high and had openings for doors and windows but was basically empty. She stood in the middle of a room with several windows and a door. Seconds moved by and suddenly her arm shot up and aimed at a window behind her, where her opponent appeared in a flash. The Windwalker was about to shoot her but a burst of paint balls hit his head and neck and the fight ended. “Wait, what? What class is she?” Jack looked like he just lost his mind. “Janette Long, Hawkeye” Kim said with a calm voice.
The video restarted and they watched it again. “Look at her eyes, she knows where her opponent is. How does she do that?” Amy pointed out and was as worried as Jack. “I have no idea but given that she is very close to Marcus I would bet that this is connected to the second ability of her class.” Kim said and also had a bad feeling in his stomach. “But I thought Hawkeye’s second ability has not been found yet… ohhh.” Jura said and finally realized what was going on. “How do we feel about a near 100% hit chance sniper with a wall hack?” Kim said and smirked. Marcus you monster, you did not only reinvent your own class, you are infecting the people around you too. I fucking love it, Kim thought.
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“Jack, we are certain that these are the only copies of the videos?” Kim said and turned to his right hand man. “Yes, I used our usual contacts and also put pressure on the company to keep their mouths shut. If something should pop up in the web we will smother it.” Jack said and Kim gave him a thumb up. “This needs to stay out of the public eye as long as possible. For their sake and ours. Jura, prepare the hiring of 5 Catsith and Hawkeye class holders, young and low level. The less spent crests the better and make sure to space the hiring and the region you pull them from. I do not want anybody to get suspicious. If question come up we will say we are looking into a new raid formation, let the people dream up their own answers.” Kim’s orders came fast and precise.
“No Fighter?” Jura asked but Kim shook his head and moved from the table. “We have enough tanks.” he said but there was another reason, he did not want to reveal.
“I will work on improving our relationship with Colors of the Wild.” Kim walked towards the door but Amy stopped him. “Are you not going a bit overboard with this? They are a four man clan, with low levels too.”
Kim thought for a moment about his answer “If you had the chance to become allied with me when I was still level 20, knowing what you know now, would you not have taken the chance? Right now a strong bond with them is as cheap and simple as possible. If I’m wrong we do not lose a lot but if I’m right we will win big over a long time.” Kim left and Amy got her back padded by Jura, who smiled. “His instincts are rarely wrong and I have not seen him this fired up in years.”
At the same time the team around Marcus was busy packing bags and getting ready to go on a hunting mission. “Make sure to pack light clothing, it is a hot world, but not too light because we have to first move through an ice world to get there.” Kou’s voice came from his room and various grunts and okays answered him. They had to get ready, their flight to the starting portal in the Middle East was in the dead of the night. Once all their bags were ready and gathered up in the hallway they had a last meal together in the kitchen. “I still think the try outs were a bit too simple.” Janette said eating her Japanese style soup and kept on slurping her noodles like a pro.
“I agree, I just had to answer some basic tactical question and show my abilities a bit. The minimum level for acceptance seemed a bit low.” Kou said and shook his head. “Of course you did not break somebodies arm or beat somebody until they begged for mercy.” Janette said with a mean smile. “Nobody begged, he surrendered and that was the goal of the fight.” Achara answered but her ears turned red. Marcus continued to eat his noodles and glared at Janette. Right after the incident he thought he got disqualified but that was not the case. He had misjudged his own strength and caused a problem, he needed to learn to gauge the strength of his enemies better.
“Here are the information I promised.” Kou handed out a few pieces of paper. “Our main target in the area is the so called “Death Stinger Scorpion”.” he explained and Janette moaned “Another bug, again?”. But Kou shook his head. “If you look at the picture you can easily tell it is not. The name is misleading. It is much closer to a salamander than an actual scorpion. It has no pincers but it has some thick armor plates and a flexible tail with a long stinger. No poison but that stinger can punch through several centimeter of steel.”
Marcus looked at the picture and the sharply angled head together with black armor plates gave off a scorpion feeling. Kou opened up a vanilla yogurt and said “We do not get any base salary and have to pay for the equipment, food and stuff. Every DSS we take down and recover is worth 300k dollar, depending on the quality of the corpse. There are other targets too but this is the one I think we can handle and also find in enough numbers to be worth it.”
They continued their meal and discussed potential weak points and tactics. Marcus looked through the other targets and found a few smaller, hard to find critter but also some very scary, larger ones. “That Terror Stomper looks like an unholy amalgamation between a dinosaur and a gorilla, it is huge.” Marcus said and pointed at the picture. “Yeah, we are going to stay away from that guy. They are rare and show up the mountain region, we are going to stay in the low lands. But that is a good point. Remember this is a category three infested world. Stay vigilant.” Kou said and gave Achara a side look.
The previous planet, with the nasty bugs, was category 2, Marcus remembered. The categories were a rough estimate on the amount and strength of monsters sighted. It was not a perfect score and even cat. 2 can have deadly surprises. A category 5 was the highest, for now, and only top level clans like Cerberus even dared to step on them. Cherry was hunting on one of those right now. Because of the scheduling, Janette would miss her coming back and had to wait for a big reunion until they finished their own job. Marcus honestly was not sure if a category three was not yet too much for them but they were risking it for the money. That never goes wrong, right?
