“No, seriously, what are you doing here, Kelly?” I asked, stunned as I saw Kelly standing before me. “I thought that you left for the frontlines against the demons?”
Kelly smirked, rolling her eyes slightly. “I did. And then the frontlines moved. Now that all these portals are opening up everywhere, the big guys up top decided to divide us up. Any portal can lead to the demon realm, after all, so they all count as the frontlines now.”
“And I noticed the tree-huggers from Evergreen were up to no good with how they were moving around before the patch hit. When I did some digging, I learned you got involved, and that some players were talking about you setting up your own kingdom near this portal. Thanks to that, I requested my transfer to this area. I can get to the portal at a moment’s notice from your kingdom, so figured I could make myself at home there.”
After saying all of that, she gave a broad grin. “What’s the matter, am I not welcome?”
My brow twitched, seeing her smug demeanor. Truth be told, she would be an extremely welcome addition to Fallcry. With her present, a lot of the defensive concerns I had before disappeared. Admittedly, I wasn’t sure exactly what her level was. However, it had taken her no more than five minutes to get from Fallcry to this dungeon, and that was without knowing the dungeon’s exact location.
“I wouldn’t be against it…” I said with a shake of my head. “Did you read through the benefits in joining a kingdom in the new patch?”
“Yup! Already registered with your friend back in the city. Don’t worry about burning one of your nobility slots on me, though. I’m fine with the basic level buff.” That said, she gestured for us to leave the cave. “So, wanna fill me in on what’s going on here?”
As we walked back towards the entrance, I explained the situation with Nora’s village to Kelly. I told her about how we found them under attack from high level fire spirits, and how we found the raid dungeon. Kelly nodded her head in understanding. “So, you were here trying to farm for the key? Not a bad idea, at least until these chimerae folk are able to raid the dungeon themselves safely.”
“As long as I have this working, that’ll be a piece of cake!” Nora said proudly, holding up the gun that she had gotten from the raid boss chest.
“Ohhh, that’s one of those new gun weapons that are popular with players.” Kelly said, eyes wide. “They drop here? Just a second.” Her body abruptly vanished, returning a few seconds later with her own identical pistol. “Pretty good drop rates, too… No skills, though?”
I blinked, assuming that she must have quickly returned to the chest to loot it herself before coming back to us. “No… aside from the boss chest, we all looted another one on the way, but we haven’t gotten any skill drops.”
“This dungeon might focus on equipment, then.” Kelly said, studying the gun in her hands for a few moments. She twirled it, getting a feel for the weight and balance, before it seemed to faintly glow. Afterwards, seeing how Nora was staring intently at the pistol, Kelly grinned and tossed it to her. “You can have it. It’s a bit too low level for me. I just wanted it for one of my skills.”
Nora scrambled to catch the pistol. “Another of those strange skills?” She asked, and Kelly nodded.
“Armament King.” She explained, holding out a hand. There was a soft flash, and a golden pistol appeared in Kelly’s hand. “It’s the final evolution of All Weapons Proficiency. The special effect is that I can manifest any type of weapon I’m familiar with. I’d never held a pistol before, so I needed to study it for a little bit.”
Nora’s eyes widened again, jaw almost hanging open. “Can you teach that to me?” She asked, looking intently at Kelly, who simply laughed.
“Sure thing. You’ll need to go to Fallcry for the training, though. I can’t just stick around in your village after this is over.” When she said that, Nora pursed her lips, seeming to have an internal struggle.
“How long would it take?” She asked, and Kelly thought it over.
“Let’s see… if we’re going to do it right, it’d take about a month. All Weapon Proficiency isn’t your typical skill. You’ll have to spend multiple days training each weapon type for the quest. Of course, I can give you the quest to let you do it in your own village. But, if I’m there to watch, I can help you correct your form if you mess anything up.”
Listening to Kelly’s explanation, I found myself nodding my head slightly. Although Kelly certainly had a lot of high level skills, she was focused more on the technique behind the skills than the skills themselves. It was similar to how Jana made me practice Shallow Palm. Speaking of which… “By the way, Kelly. Have you ever met an elven warrior named Jana? She has a similar teaching method as you, and is the one that tried to chase us in Evergreen.”
Kelly scowled slightly. “Yeah, I know Jana. We had the same teacher, back before we were Fallen. Jana was never really one for the frontlines, though, so she always stayed behind to guard the bases. Been a while since the last time we sparred.”
“If… and I mean this purely hypothetically, if she did come to Fallcry looking for trouble, would you be able to hold her off?” I didn’t accurately know either Jana or Kelly’s levels, so I had no idea who between the two was stronger.
Kelly simply chuckled. “Holding her off is easy enough. She’s about a hundred levels above me, but last I heard she’s only got one Grandmaster skill. Like I said, she never went to the frontlines, especially after we fell. That said, if we did get into a serious fight, there would be a lot of damage to your city. I could tell when I saw the place that you haven’t gotten a proper City Planner. That’s one of the higher forms of Architect, by the way. They can make city-scale blueprints with special effects like increased durability to withstand high-level fights.”
My eyes widened slightly. However, I knew that hiring a grandmaster architect would be far beyond my budget. “I’ll try to get that taken care of later. For now, I’m just trying to take care of what I can.”
Kelly nodded her head knowingly. “Totally understandable. The world of kings is a new area for you. Though, speaking of which. By my timing…”
As she said that, there was a pulse of heat at our backs. Turning around, I could see the raid boss reforming. Nora scrambled to grab her gun, but Kelly stopped her. “It’s fine, I’ll take care of this.” She said, taking a deep breath. She brought her hand up to the sky, palm facing downwards.
We were quite a long ways away from the boss, having almost walked back to the first area. Thus, I wasn’t sure what she was planning. Then, I saw her palm glowing, and a shadow formed within the flaming clouds above. As Kelly lowered her hand, the clouds scattered around a giant, disembodied palm, seeming as large as the mountain itself. My blood ran cold as I watched the palm crushing the giant raid boss.
There was no way that could be anything other than a grandmaster skill. Now I knew what Kelly meant when she said that Jana had ‘only’ one. Just how many of those skills did Kelly herself have? As I was thinking that, the shockwave of the attack hit us, the wind blasting against our clothes.
Nora looked at Kelly with a newfound admiration. Kelly, meanwhile, simply grinned. “Be right back.” She said, disappearing. In the distance, I could see the crushed body of the giant disappear. A moment later, Kelly returned, clicking her tongue. “Got a bunch of armor pieces, and this weird long gun thing, but still no skill or keys.”
“Long gun?” Bella asked, and Kelly pulled an elongated gun out of her inventory. It had the same molten aesthetic as the pistols that dropped, but I had never seen one like this.
“It’s a rifle.” Diane said in surprise. “I guess even those are here, too?”
Kelly shrugged her shoulders, studying the weapon as she had the pistol. “From the design, this looks like it’s made for a heavier impact at long range?” She asked, to which Diane nodded her head.
Kelly glanced at Nora when she was done studying, but saw that the chimerae woman didn’t seem as interested in the rifle as she was the pistols. Bella, on the other hand, stared at the rifle intently. With a chuckle, Bella tossed the rifle casually towards Bella. “Here. Consider it a greeting present.” She said, grinning as Bella scrambled to catch the rifle. “So, what are you guys going to do? I don’t mind staying here long enough to get the key. No point leaving a threat this close to another village that can’t handle it normally yet.”
“That’d be appreciated.” I nodded my head. Given how easily Kelly defeated the boss, I knew that I could leave the dungeon to her. “For us, we were going to head back to Fallcry for a few days. Bella wants to transition from using bows to guns, so we’re going to look into helping her with that. Do you have any advice on that subject?”
Kelly hummed thoughtfully. “From what I know, guns use ammunition that’s really hard to make. There are those ‘wand’ guns that are popular too, but they have their own problems that I’ve seen. Arrows are a lot easier to make than bullets, so I would suggest getting your Empty Gun Proficiency or whatever they’re calling this one. You should be able to give her the quest to get her started, Drake.”
“Eh? I should?” I asked in surprise, pointing at myself.
Kelly nodded her head. “Don’t tell me you haven’t trained up to Martial Intent yet? If you haven’t, we are going to have some serious lessons when I get back to Fallcry.” She said, her grin practically bloodthirsty.
I quickly shook my head. “No, I’ve gotten it. I just don’t see how that would let me give her the skills through a quest.” Honestly, I had been planning to give her the skills with enchantment skill books, as I had already discussed with Diane.
However, Kelly chuckled. “If it’s something that can be done through a basic application of one of your skills, you can teach it as a sort of sub-skill. If you’d have to properly channel it to modify the effects, then it won’t work in a quest. I’ll show you how to create the quest when I get back to the city.” She said with a shrug, gesturing to have us leave first.
Kelly followed behind us, and I took on my dragon king form, the other two girls hopping on my back with a more practiced motion now. Kelly, meanwhile, blinked. “Huh, looks like you learned some new tricks while I was gone. Really trying to live up to your name.”
I gave a deep, rumbling chuckle as I took flight. Since this was our first time really traveling after I got this form, I couldn’t deny Diane the chance to fulfill her dragon riding request. Even if it wasn’t as fast as the car at full speed, Diane seemed to be greatly enjoying herself on my back.
So… Kelly arrived. I messaged Nuoda as I flew, my claws clicking at the air.
Did she already get there? Nuoda questioned, and I could feel the surprise in her message.
A while ago, actually. We’re on our way back now. She’s handling the problem we had here.
It was a few moments after I sent that message before Nuoda responded. Back already? I thought you’d spend at least a week traveling.
Things came up. I’ll explain after we’re back. Oh, and tell everyone that there’s a dragon coming, and not to be alarmed. It’s one of my new skills. Don’t want to stir up a panic.
