Chương 23: 022 Temptress
Seeing that James was unresponsive Mercury blew on his right ear.
James was quickly snapped out of his daze.
James felt his heart racing but it was not because he was scared. [What on earth have I gotten myself into?]
"I cannot go back on my word, even if I did you'd just kill me. Right?"
"Humph, naturally." pouted Mercury. She was displeased that he seemed to have calmed down after all her teasing.
*****************************
Several hundreds of feet away from the duo was someone peeping in on the show. He had his bow knocked with an arrow which was pointed at Mercury.
"Sigh". The man, without firing the arrow, released the draw of his bow.
"Looks like she is sharp as ever." He looked to his right. Two inches from his face was a small throwing dagger pierced into the tree behind him.
"I will take that as a signal to leave... To throw with that much accuracy mid-battle is difficult even for a rouge class."
During her fight with the twins Mercury noticed Talon watching the battle. She wanted to warn him that this fight was her's alone. The two were familiar due to having to work together in the past. The top guild's assault on them as grown to a point of no return. Those guilds want to prevent them from maintaining their positions on the leaderboards since they would not join them.
"Still, I cannot believe I got to witness the princess act in such a manner. She is typically unapproachable both in and out of game. To think she would take the initiative, even if it was to mess with him, to get that close to someone probably granted me a death warrants next time she sees me."
"I better leave before she gets too annoyed with me." Shrugged Talon.
He took one last glance as he left. "Blaise sure doesn't fail to entertain me. I wonder what fate he will suffer with that woman."
Talon was chuckling to himself as he jumped tree to tree on his way out of the forest.
*****************************
"Good, now then let's get moving!" exclaimed Reaper.
She flipped off of Blaise while pulling her polearm out of the tree. James fell to the ground and landed on his bottom.
He surrendered to his fate. "So where are we going?" James was curious. Since he had to follow her around today he might as well get an idea of what to expect.
Mercury, who was walking away from James, spun around with her hands holding her polearm behind her back. She quickly approached James and stopped just in front of him.
She stood on her tippy-toes and placed one hand on James's chest. Due to their height difference he was not able to bring herself to his eye level.
"Naturally we are going deeper into the forest. As for how deep, wwwwhhhooo knows." She lightly teased James.
She spun back around and started walking towards the next zone. [I didn't notice it before but he is quite taller than I thought.] She did not notice that she was blushing a little herself.
James started to follow behind Mercury as she went deeper into the forest. He caught her taking a peek over her shoulder to make sure he was following.
.
* Ding *
-------------------------------
Player Mercury as sent you a party invitation.
Accept?
[Yes] [No]
-------------------------------
[What a weird girl. First she tries to kill me and the twins and now she forces me to follow her around..] James accepted the party invite and continued along.
He sneaked a peak at the party interface.
.
-------------------------------
Party Members:
1. Mercury [Reaper] (Apostle of Apollo) - Level 16
2. Blaise (Spell Weaver) - level 13
-------------------------------
.
"You're already back up to level 16?" James exclaimed with surprise.
"Yes, but you are also level 13 already as well. An average player would have only gained a few levels in the time it took us to reach out levels."
She paused for a few seconds. "I assume you killed that wolf Elite since you caused the Violent to spawn. We both know the secret to power-leveling. I plan on getting back on the leaderboards with your help. Who knows you might even get to be on it as well."
James was slack-jawed. "You're telling me you want to get on the leaderboards today? You got to be kidding; the lowest level on the board is level 20. Elites and Violent mobs do not grow on trees you know!"
Mercury got a little annoyed; she hooked a wing of her polearm around James's neck and pulled him down so that she could look him in the eye.
"I don't like your negative attitude. Trust me; it is completely possible for us to pass the other players today."
James relaxed some; seeing his change in attitude Mercury released his head.
"Let's say I trust you, how do you plan on achieving your goal?" questioned James.
Mercury turned around and started walking further into the forest. "That is for me to know and you to find out. We have a stop to make first thought." She then stuck her tongue out and waved for him to follow.
[Sigh, I hope she doesn't work me to death. Although that might make my life easier at this point.]
"So... could you at least tell me about this stop you want to make?"
Mercury stopped in her tracks; she turned around with a strange smile. "We are going down to collect our loot. We killed a Violent mob after all." She was licking her lips in anticipation.
"Huh? How are we going to get down there? The cliff is easily a hundred meters high."
"There is a spot to get down further up ahead." She turned back around and continued walking. She wanted to see him be embarrassed so she teased him by swinging her hips a little more playfully.
Turning around, she waved for James to follow. "Come on now, don't stare for too long. You'll fall behind that way."
She took a small look behind her and saw that James did blush some. Happy at her accomplishment she continued swinging her hips like earlier. [Today is going to be fun!]
The duo made their way all the way to zone 25. As they went they killed everything that crossed their path along the way. They eventually made a hard right and came to the side of the cliff again.
"Say, Blaise. Those leach skills you have. Do they only work on foes or can you target allies with the debuffs?"
"I don't know, I never had the reason to."
Mercury quickly turned around and looked at James, "What do you mean no reason?" She made her way closer to James.
See that she was approaching him James got nervous. "Ahh, well... Why would I want to hinder my ally's abilities? Wouldn't it cause the whole party to preform worse?"
She was now standing directly in front of James. She wanted to keep teasing him so she brought her body close to him and started drawing circles on his chest while she talked.
"Technically you could say the party would perform worse if it was an average party. The both of us have two hidden classes. Not only that but they are SSS tier." She paused to let him catch up.
"You have unparalleled utility spells and can bridge the gap in stats between two sides of battle. While I have unparalleled character stats. My class only has a few class abilities because of my massive number of stat points that it allows me to have."
She now had a mischievous smile on her face. "Now, what would happen if we shared some of my stat points with you? With my calculations based on my overall stat points, without accounting for gear, I should be around level 110."
James would have stumbled backwards if she was not holding on to him. "What kind of stats do you have!? That is crazy!"
She was now leaning on James, "Hmm, well at level one my strength, dexterity, agility, and endurance all started at 20. I get a ton of extra attribute points when I level up due to my class's passive. Both my base strength and agility are 80. While my dexterity and endurance are 30.
James had an ugly expression, "That is disgusting. I thought my class is overpowered."
Mercury now had her back resting on James's body. While looking upward to see his face she gave her opinion. "It might seem like that but I only have three skills and will only get four more, two at levels 50 then 100. Most people would not be able to hand the class's difficulty."
James looked down into her ruby red eyes. "Doesn't that seem too harsh?"
"Some would say so. I manage it well though. I have almost exclusively created my own combat style in every game I play. Don't get me wrong, the skills the game provides are good and useful but they are often too linear for my liking. With enough control over your body you can accomplish so much more. An example is that I managed to interrupt your friends abilities during our fight without the use of an ability."
"You know there is only so much teasing I can handle. Could you get off of me?" James pleaded.
Mercury only giggled, "But it is so much fun! I don't plan on stopping any time soon."
James took a deep breath to calm himself down. "Fine. Continuing on, if you really want to accomplish what you say you do I will need some information. What skills do you have currently?"
Mercury turned around and wrapped her arms around James's neck which made him blush a little.
"How sweet you want to get to know me" said Mercury with a coquettish voice. "I have three skills. The first is [Maddening Strength] it increases my strength and attack power by a percentage. Second, [Maddening Speed] which like the first skill increases my agility and attack rate. Lastly is my only attack ability; it is [Crushing Assault]. It allows my weapon, regardless of its form, to gain greater momentum than I can personally create. The result is that it double my damage for that hit and has a chance to stun or knockdown its target. It can also interrupt monster's attacks. The downside it is has a long cooldown."
James felt a vain throbbing in his temple. "So two of your skills make your already crazy stats even higher. Then you have a ability that can finish a target without knowing what hit them."
She replied while shrugging her shoulders, "Pretty much." Since her arms were still wrapped around James's neck she pulled herself up higher so she could get a better look at James.
[He is so fun to tease.]
She put on a hot-and-bothered coquettish voice and breathed deeply between words, "Blaise... I... I... can't... wait... any... more... pl... please... do... it...", she paused to start a new sentence. "I... I... want... to... share... all... of... myself.. with... you.. huurrryyyy..."
This time James was beat red, [God I know she is just teasing me but help but feel exited...]
He didn't want to waste any more time, the sooner he tried to leach her stats the faster he can get out of her grasp.
Just before he cast his spells Mercury used [Maddening Speed].
Due to her having buffed stats the leaching spells gave a larger effect than usual.
"Wow! It does work on allies!"
Mercury finally got down from James, who in return, breathed a sigh of relief since he could finally calm himself down.
"This is excellent! Now you can survive!" Reaper was happy as the experiment was successful.
"It will make surviving monsters much easier, at least until something with higher stats than yourself comes around."
She turned to him with a confused look. "Huh? What do you mean? I wanted you to test this not for battles with monsters. In the higher zones it will always be better to leach stats off of them."
James was also confused, "They why did you want me to leach your stats right now?"
Mercury had a devilish smile on her face. James felt his hair stand on edge.
"For this of course!" She hugged James's side and jumped off the cliff.
"It was so you have a better chance at surviving the fall! The bonus defense and speed points you got might help you survive the fall!" Mercury was laughing her head off.
James was white as a ghost.
"You are suicidal!"
"Naahhhh, look below!" she teased.
James finally looked below; there was a lake below them. [Phew, thank god.]
* Splash *
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