As the round continued, both Shiro and Lisandra killed beasts at an impressive pace.
By the time it hit the 15 minute mark, Shiro had already acc.u.mulated an astounding 655 points while Lisandra claimed 592 points, setting them both solidly within the top 5.
As for the one in the first spot, they had a ridiculous 1,000 points and it was the other slayer that Shiro was cautious about.
She had observed him a little but every time she looked longer than needed, the slayer would turn his head towards her position. While he could not see where she was exactly, he could tell he was being observed.
With this, Shiro knew that his senses were quite high. In addition to this, his style of fighting reminded her a little about someone that she had met already but she was confused as to why he would be here.
Ignoring this, Shiro glanced over at the leaderboards. Looking at how many points the party got, she couldn’t help but furrow her brows as they were teetering around the 15th place. There were times where they’ll fall below 20 but claim the spot once more.
‘Could it be because they have more people? It’s less efficient to hunt as a group since you’re not killing as many beasts as you could. Not only that, since Silvia’s a healer, she wouldn’t have enough power to kill the larger beasts alone.’ Shiro thought to herself.
{Perhaps you want to give them some assistance?} Nimue asked.
‘Mn. This stage isn’t exactly fair for someone like Silvia so I think I’ll do just that.’ Shiro nodded.
Pulling out a piece of paper, she brought out a pen before sketching a detailed layout of the entire area. Switching to a red pen, she then circled where the beasts are around them along with their grades. She then used a blue pen to mark down any nearby adventurers that might take their prey.
Double checking the map to make sure it’s accurate, Shiro then tied it to a normal arrow she created with nanotech and knocked the arrow on the string.
Pulling back the string, she fired towards their location.
###
“Lyrica, this isn’t going too well. While we can kill the beasts easily, the points that we’re getting are quite low.” Aarim furrowed her brows.
“I know, I want us to split up but stay within a certain distance with one another so that we can help each other. After all, there’s no rule stating that participants can’t eliminate each other in this so we don’t want to split up if possible. There might be some people that ignore the points and go after participants instead.” Lyrica replied.
“Hmm… that’s indeed a worry. There’s also Silvia’s lack of offence should we split up.” Aarim nodded.
As they continued to talk, an arrow thunked against the tree and embedded itself deeply.
Instantly standing on guard, they got into a formation and readied their swords. Looking around cautiously, they saw that there were no more arrows but decided to stand on guard.
Looking at the first arrow that was sunk into a tree, Lyrica noticed a rolled up piece of paper attached to the body.
“Girls, protect me for a moment, there’s a letter.” Lyrica called out as they nodded.
Unravelling the piece of paper, Lyrica widened her eyes when she saw a heavily detailed map of sorts.
On the bottom, a few sentences were written.
[Seems like you lot are struggling a little. Since you’re quite interesting, I’ll give you a little help. You can also thank your healer for standing up to me when the other cowards backed away. She’s got some backbone to her.
Good luck~ ♡
Kazumi.]
Raising her eyebrows at the letter, Lyrica passed it to Silvia.
“Ah, that archer woman.” Silvia muttered and looked towards the leaderboards. Realising that she and her partner were in 4th and 5th place with a solid lead, it now made a little sense as to why she could spare them some help.
As the party discussed the possibility of any hidden meanings, Lyrica was thinking about something else.
‘That’s definitely Shiro isn’t it.’
{Indeed. As you have stated previously, there are some habits that are still present in her disguise and the fact that she’s helping you is probably her way of trying to give you lot an extra push without you realising.} Yuan Tian chuckled.
‘But when did she become an archer? I know she has a few guns as proven way back in the fight against Blood Monarch where Silvia lost two of her ‘friends’ along with the fact that there’s a large chance for her to be the ‘Rogue Assassin’. But she’s mostly used swords or magic most of the time.’
{Perhaps her accuracy with the gun translated into the bow. After all, the two are not so different.}
‘Mn, oh well. We’ll probably find out the truth after the event. Say, why do you think she’s disguised herself though?’
{Maybe she wants to fight against you girls without disclosing her identity. That way, she can find out what you’re capable of without holding back. Should you know who she is, there is a subconscious limiter after all.}
‘Hmm, true… Since she wants us to go serious, I’ll have to endure the thought of hurting her then.’ Lyrica sighed.
“Why did you sigh just now Lyrica?” Silvia asked curiously.
“Oh nothing, I was just wondering if we should try to get an archer in our group. If we do, we can scout out an area much easier.” Lyrica replied.
###
Looking at the party from afar, Shiro smiled when she saw their points start to increase at a faster pace after receiving her help.
Just as she was about to turn her attention elsewhere, she felt danger behind her and rolled to the side.
“Sharp instincts.” A voice muttered.
Looking around, Shiro realised that they must be invisible.
“Say boy, do you think that invisibility can save your ass after you tried to eliminate me?” Shiro raised her eyebrows and gave him a taunting smile.
Activating Analysis, she could faintly make out a slight leakage of mana from his skill and saw where he was.
Nocking an arrow on her bow, she jumped up into the air and fired towards his general direction.
The arrow missed his body by a small margin but that was part of her plan.
Flexing her fingers slightly, the arrow stopped in mid air before slowly turning around.
Seeing that Shiro had missed her shot, the assassin smiled since this meant that she could only tell his general direction and not where he was exactly.
But as he was planning out his next moves, the arrow struck against his back.
“Gah! You knew!?” He widened his eyes.
“Of course I knew dumbass.” Shiro chuckled before kicking him straight in the chin.
The force of the kick flung his body up into the air as she was sure she heard a crack during that kick.
Flying through the air for a moment, his body teleported away as he was eliminated.
{Yikes…. That was a fierce kick. Say, I can’t help but notice you like to use kicks a lot when you fight. Why’s that?} Nimue asked.
“Well kicks are easy to generate force with while hands can redirect force easier than legs. For me, hands are for defence while kicks are for offence.” Shiro replied with a shrug.
{If that’s the case, maybe you should learn a martial art that has something to do with the legs?} Nimue suggested.
‘Maybe, but it’s not too high up on my to do list. I’ve already got a bunch of martial arts I want to master first. Plus, there are also skills I haven’t explored fully so I shouldn’t bite off more than I can chew.’ Shiro shrugged before firing an arrow at a distant beast.
As the round continued, Shiro and Lisandra continued to claim points while occasionally giving the party an updated map to help them some more.
For the instances where the 5th grade beast would appear, Shiro would charge up a rather powerful shot before stealing it from the people that were trying to kill it. Of course, this made them want to attack her but she would eliminate them before they were able to.
In the end, both she and Lisandra placed second and third while the party claimed 12th, 11th, 10th, 9th and 8th with her help.
