"Stand back, Juli! Let me deal with it."
Eli swung the sword with everything he had.
He missed by a hair's breadth.
The frostfang sailed past his blade and slammed into his chest, knocking him flat on his back. An ugly gasp escaped from his mouth, and the frost-covered ground wasn't as smooth as it looked.
Adrenaline surged through him like a drug, making him forget every trouble weighing on his mind.
'Wait, okay. This is kinda fun!'
Eli hadn't even realized that… years of idling in a hospital bed made him yearn for movement beyond the restraint of his sickly body.
The freedom of absolute control, the ability to be hurt without slipping into a week-long coma, the satisfying sensation of pain…
'That sounded awfully wrong… I'm not a masochist by any means!'
The frostfang scrambled off him and circled back, growling as it kept distance. Eli rolled to his feet, dirt and particles of snow clinging to his clothes.
"Elise!"
Julianna had her sword drawn in an instant, already stepping forward.
"I said stand back!"
"You just got bodied by a dog!"
"I wasn't ready!"
As they shouted back and forth, the frostfang lunged again, but this time was different. Elise's instincts kicked in, and [Maid's Intuition] lit up in the back of his mind like a second pair of eyes. Eli could clearly read the trajectory of the wolf.
He swiftly sidestepped. The frostfang's jaw snapped shut where his arm had been half a second ago.
'Holy SHIT, that was close.'
After the scare, his hands instinctively tightened on the sword. [Maid's Dexterity] fed corrections into his muscles, fixing his awkward grip on the hilt and smoothing it into a real swordsman's stance.
The frostfang came around for a third round, and Eli was readier than he had ever been.
He planted his feet the way Elise's training had drilled in, brought the sword up, and swung in a clean arc.
And the blade connected!
'I HIT IT! I ACTUALLY HIT IT!
It bit into the frostfang's flank and sent it tumbling sideways with a pained yelp. The beast staggered to its feet; its icy fur cracked where steel had landed.
It bared its fangs one more time and lunged — same boring move, but much slower now.
Eli didn't miss twice.
He stepped into the charge, brought the blade low, and drove it through the frostfang's neck. The impact jolted his shoulder, but the creature crumpled mid-leap and hit the ground in a heap of frost and blue blood.
[Frostfang slain.]
[Ice Fang (Common) obtained.]
[+5 EXP]
[You have received a new quest.]
Eli stood over the corpse, panting as he tugged the blade free.
'This is… so much fun.'
He immediately checked the status window.
╭────-·ˋˏ-༻𖤓༺-ˎˊ·-────╮
[────HERO STATUS────]
Name: Elise Moreau
Title: [Hero Successor], [Lady's Maid]
Class: None · Rank: I · Level: 1/20
EXP: 5/100
[────STATS────]
…
╰────-·ˋˏ-༻𖤓༺-ˎˊ·-────╯
'Ninety-five more to go!'
"…Elise."
Eli turned, adrenaline still running amok. Julianna stared at him in profound confusion.
"What?"
"Since when could you move that well?" Julianna screamed.
To demonstrate her perplexity, she even mimicked Eli's movements.
"Sure, you can swing the sword, but what was that fluidity!?"
He shrugged.
"Instinct, I guess. Maybe I do better in real fights."
Julianna sheathed her sword and approached him.
"Elise…"
"Yeah?"
She grabbed onto Eli's shoulders and shook them.
"Let's spar."
'Huh!?'
Eli instinctively stepped back.
"Yeah, no."
He recalled Elise's sparring sessions with Julianna, and… it didn't bode well. The last time they sparred, Elise tripped over her own leg and surrendered after ten seconds.
'And she's a Two-Song Knight! I'm a Level 1 maid with E-rank stats. The math isn't mathing!'
"Come on, it'll be quick!"
Julianna bounced on her heels, fingers already twitching toward her hilt.
"One round. I'll even use my off-hand."
Eli held the sword between them like a barrier.
"Juli. I just fought a wolf and nearly died. I am not fighting you."
"Oh, please. You only got knocked down once."
"My ribs disagree!"
Julianna crossed her arms and pouted. A grown woman who graduated First Sword gave him a full, unashamed pout.
Eli softly chuckled.
"…Later. When we reach Florentine. I promise."
Eli turned deeper into the forest.
"Right now, I want more ice wolves."
Julianna shouted from behind.
"Moreeee? Didn't you say you nearly died? Liar! Spar with me!"
Eli finally let his laughter loose, and it rang through the trees. Elise's laughter was charming and demure like a bright, rosy bell, with just a touch of rasp born from the grimy streets.
'Elise is so different around Julianna.'
Born from the same background, Elise connected with Julianna in a different way than she did with Irene. She felt freer, closer to her commoner roots. Around Julianna, she was more animated and less serious, like Eli.
'No wonder the system didn't assimilate me into her this time.'
But it wasn't like Elise disliked being proper, either. The composure, the etiquette, the "my Lady" — she chose that life because she loved the Marchioness and Irene. It was devotion to her second family.
Elise just happened to have two sides.
'Which is good for me!'
In any case, Eli entered deeper into the woods and summoned the blue panel. There, he found a notification mark under [Quest], the one he had received after the frostfang kill.
'Let's see what you got for me, crappy system!'
╭────-·ˋˏ-༻𖤓༺-ˎˊ·-────╮
[Hunt Quest: Frostfangs]
Shed your mortal shell and become a Hero. But first, trash mobs are essential for early growth.
[Objective]: Eliminate 20 frostfangs. (1/20)
[Reward]:
[EXP x2] for 10 minutes
A random [Skill Book]
╰────-·ˋˏ-༻𖤓༺-ˎˊ·-────╯
'Not bad, not bad.'
In the game, quest rewards didn't expire and could be claimed whenever the player wanted. Eli had strategically abused this system plenty of times, saving EXP buffs for harder zones to maximize efficiency. It was all part of the HOTA experience: if players didn't min-max, they shouldn't have bothered playing in the first place.
'Ten minutes of double EXP on trash mobs? Waste! I'll pop that when I find something like a boss den.'
As for the Skill Book, he wasn't in a rush either. He hadn't even used [Rapid Step] because these frostfangs were slow and predictable. A new skill would be nice, but right now, the basics were enough. Besides, with Julianna by his side, what could possibly go wrong?
'Damn, wait! I retract my statement! That's an ominous phrase…'
Eli shook his head, hoping he hadn't just incurred the wrath of the gods.
'Alright, nineteen more. Let's go.'
After walking for a while, they finally came across another frostfang.
The second one was messier than the first.
It came at him from the right, and Eli once again swung too early, catching nothing but air. Even the frostfang paused to look at him awkwardly before clamping down on his forearm.
Eli had to bash its skull with the pommel three times before it let go.
'OW OW OW OW—'
[END 19 → 20]
"You good?" Julianna called from behind a tree, making zero effort to help.
"Me? Feel like a million bucks!"
"Huh? A million what? What the hell does that mean?"
By the fifth kill, Eli stopped thinking. His body moved where [Maid's Intuition] told them to, and the sword started feeling like an extension of his arm.
[STR 28 → 29]
By the eighth, Julianna stopped leaning against the tree and started watching properly.
[AGI 34 → 35]
By the twelfth, she was quiet.
[AUR 5 → 6]
Eli fought two at once on number thirteen and fourteen. One lunged high, the other lunged low.
'Petty tricks!'
Eli's confidence was that of a cultivation master. He sidestepped the first, kicked the second in the jaw, which hurt his foot more than the wolf, and cut them down in two beautiful swings.
'DOUBLE KILL! Do I get bonus EXP for that!?'
[+5 EXP]
[+5 EXP]
He did not.
'Tch. Stingy. Killjoy. Party pooper of a system.'
Kills sixteen through nineteen blurred together. Frostfangs were predictable creatures. All they could do was lunge, then bite or claw.
Moreover, Eli was cutting them down in two exchanges now instead of three! The difference between kill number one and kill number nineteen was noticeable — his swings were faster, and his footwork was less awkward.
And then, number twenty. Eli quickly checked his experience bar.
╭────-·ˋˏ-༻𖤓༺-ˎˊ·-────╮
[────HERO STATUS────]
…
EXP: 95/100
…
╰────-·ˋˏ-༻𖤓༺-ˎˊ·-────╯
"Phew."
'One more to go.'
Of course, number twenty had to be bigger than the rest.
'Isn't this a bit too cliché?'
It possessed a darker shade of blue ice; the ridge of frost crystals ran down its spine.
It didn't lunge right away. Instead, it circled, growling low and watching Eli's every move.
'…This might be a tough one.'