20: A Peek Into the Healer's Life

A Peek Into the Healer's Life

{Charlotte}

The journalist got up early the next morning.

She did so because this was the time she'd coordinated the previous day. The time she would meet that one classmate who knew Neve Stephens.

"La beauté qui parcourt ces salles, l'ange qui tombe dans le désespoir, ce sont les mêmes!"

Charlotte sang a bouncy tune as she walked across her apartment wearing nothing but an oversized white t-shirt. Preparing a cup of coffee for herself, she checked the news online.

[... More outbreaks?] She asked herself as she took a sip. Displayed on her phone was an article featuring several images of sudden monster attacks that had occurred overnight. [I guess we're in the middle of another activity spike.]

It wasn't terribly uncommon for monsters to appear out in the streets, climbing out from the sewers or pouring out from abandoned buildings, more frequently all of a sudden. So, like everyone else who looked at this article, Charlotte just shrugged and kept reading other pieces of news.

Most of what she saw was uninteresting but there were a couple of things that caught her eye. One was the discovery of a Black Dungeon, one where the recommended level was 50+. It was found at the center of Linden Park, one of the biggest parks in the world found in the northern part of Starlight City.

Dungeons were classified by colors in the following ways:

White, levels 1 to 10, Green, levels 11 to 20, Blue, levels 21 to 30, Yellow, levels 31 to 40, Red, levels 41 to 50, and then every dungeon with a higher recommended level than that was Black.

The classifications were arbitrary, of course. The System only cared to highlight the recommended levels. They were classified this way for the sake of convenient human categorization. As such, there could come a time when the classifications change, and maybe more colors will be added.

Black Dungeons were exceedingly rare, with only a few having appeared since the beginning of the Unity Trials. Some speculated the lack of Black Dungeons was caused by humanity's overall level, and they guessed that, maybe, as humanity got stronger, Black Dungeons would become more common.

And here, another one had appeared.

[Maybe I should interview some guild members to see if they have any plans on clearing it.]

Finally, speaking of guild interviews, the only other bit of news that caught Charlotte's attention was an interview with a high-ranking member of the Valkyries.

A woman by the name of Danielle Storms, who was good friends with Stella Bellanova, the Valkyries' representative who took on the Final Challenge.

Sitting on her living room couch, Charlotte kicked her feet up on a table as she heard the woman deliver a statement.

"... in truth, we have full confidence in Stella's abilities and we trust that she will prove to be one of the most valuable parts of that group."

[Hm... not bad for a pre-written response,] Charlotte thought. [Could have drawn this out a little more, though. Maybe spent a little bit of time emphasizing how strong she is if what you want is to calm down concerned viewers.]

She added "or was" to that thought a couple of seconds later. It had only been a day since the 100 went inside the Final Challenge's portal and there was a chance that they had all died already.

Or not. No one knew what went on in that place, after all. They wouldn't know the fates of those who entered the Final Challenge until the portal reopened and everyone who went in came out or humanity was greeted with yet another "0/100 players required" message.

"But, understandably, many are worried that the Valkyries have thrown away one of their best players for a suicide mission. What would you say to our worried listeners?"

She turned toward the camera, putting on a confident expression.

"We know that this may seem like a huge risk, but I ask that you place your trust not only in the Valkyries but in all the guilds. We would not have sent her there if we did not think she had the strength and capabilities to succeed."

Charlotte rolled her eyes.

[That's true for pretty much every high-level player that's gone into the Final Challenge. And look where we are now.]

Setting that aside, Stella wasn't the player who Charlotte was interested in at the moment. No, the person she wanted to know more about was a certain level 20 healer.

So, Charlotte finished her coffee, got clothed, and walked out toward Starlight City Hall, where she'd agreed to meet the girl who'd known that healer.

---

She stood across from a young, chubby girl whose glasses were just a centimeter away from falling off her face. The girl, wearing a set of bulky iron armor, pushed her glasses up as Charlotte stood in front of her. Behind her were her party members, all of which were waiting for this brief talk to be over so they could go into the Green Dungeon atop the stairs behind them.

"So, uh, Neve, right? Yeah, I've known her since elementary school. What do you want to know about her?" The girl asked.

Clearing her throat, Charlotte replied:

"I just wanted to learn a little about her background. What her life was like before the Unity Trials. Was she popular, was she a nerd, was she dating anyone, that sort of thing."

"Oh," the girl replied, "um, well, she was kind of a loner," she began to say. Charlotte took note of her words, nodding so that the kid would go on. "I don't think she had any friends. At least, I never saw her talking to anyone. Hell, anytime people got close to her she'd kinda frown."

[Ohhh! An anti-social healer-class player!? Sounds like something out of a manhwa!]

"Did you ever get to talk to her?" Charlotte asked. "What was she like?"

"Awkward as shit," the girl replied with a giggle. "She was hot, though, so nobody really cared."

"Hot? In what way?" Charlotte asked.

"She had nice boobs."

The girl groped the air, as though to illustrate that point.

"I see, I see!" Charlotte scribbled this information down quickly. "Anything else?"

"I knew a few guys who wanted to ask her out but they were afraid of getting rejected. That was kinda how most people felt, though," she elaborated. "She's always looked a little bitchy, you know? Like the kind of girl who'd scoff and say you're too ugly to even say 'hi' to her."

"Interesting... Did she ever get into any fights?"

"Um, nah... Well," she paused, "there was this one time that I saw a big crowd gathered around her, but I couldn't tell what was happening. That was back in middle school, by the way."

[Hidden lore!? Ahh... Well, that's fine. This is painting a decent picture of what went on in that girl's life.]

"So, you know she's a healer, right? Any idea why she'd choose that path?"

"No clue," the girl quickly responded. "I feel like with her personality, she'd be better off as an assassin or something."

[Ah, dammit! That would have been the cherry on top of the profile I'm building on her. I really want to know the answer to that question.]

"Um, is this all?" The girl asked. "We wanna get started on the dungeon."

"Go ahead, go ahead. Thank you for your time, ma'am. Good luck in there."

With the short interview out of the way, Charlotte began walking back home.

Glancing down at her phone, she looked at a screenshot she'd taken of that video where Neve was motivating the tank player to push through and keep fighting. Looking into the girl's sapphire eyes, Charlotte smiled.

[If only I could speak to this girl just once... There's a great article here, I swear. I just need a little more.]

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, where are *you* going?" A voice called out to her as she made it halfway back to her apartment.

Charlotte raised a brow, turning toward it.

[Hm? Oh, great.]

Three players off to the left came out from an alley. It seemed like they'd been bored and waiting for some fun to fall on their laps. And, they decided that this fun had come in the form of a pink-haired journalist walking down the sidewalk.

"Hey, come over here, let's talk for a bit," one of them, a man with a bow on his back and a pair of knives at his belt, said, walking up to her.

"Damn, you've got a fine ass, back that up for me," another said while a third guy whistled at her.

Level 13

MP: 80/800

Level 12

MP: 10/10

Level 14

MP: 40/40

Charlotte sighed.

[Of course.]

There were many aspects of Starlight City that had gotten worse since the Unity Trials. The strong picking on the weak was one of them and, as these guys saw a hot, level 5 woman with no weapon walking by, they decided this would be a good use of their time.

Unfortunately for them, they'd been wrong about something.

Charlotte was armed.

As one of them reached down to give her butt a squeeze, Charlotte pulled some pepper spray out of her purse and sprayed it directly into the man's eyes.

Before the other two could react, she did the same to them.

"AGH! FUCK!" One of them cried out and Charlotte broke into a sprint.

Running in her heels, she ran around the corner and kept moving until she was sure that those three weren't chasing her. Once she was sure of that, she slowed down and exhaled sharply. Just like that, she resumed her casual walk, with just a single strand of her pink hair being out of place serving as a sign of what just happened.

This was nothing new, after all.

[Guess I won't be visiting this part of the city again anytime soon.]

There was one aspect of the Final Challenge that a lot of people didn't talk about. And that was, did humanity even deserve the break that it promised? The 10-year-long reprieve that all 100 players had gone inside to fight for.

Moments like these made Charlotte feel like the answer to that was "no". And yet, she hoped the current group of 100 players succeeded.

If anything, just so she could get to know that healer, one of these days.

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