April 11, 2011

Lung stumbled into an ABB safehouse, one of the many he had set aside for his own use. The safehouse was as unassuming inside as it was outside, but despite its appearance it held everything necessary for him to hold out for a few days, food, water, and even a decent supply of medical supplies, on the off chance he ever needed them, now being one of those times.

If there was anyone in the safehouse, they would've quickly noticed Lung's poor condition, especially since it was rare for him to suffer injuries that didn't heal quickly after they were dealt. His skin was splotchy, most was pale, white as a sheet, while the rest were various shades of sickly yellow and green, some even black and falling off from necrosis.

Lung might be able to shrug off nearly anything, but poisons were a different story. Poisons didn't affect himtoomuch, a poison capable of killing a normal man would be dealt within a half hour with minimal effects beyond a slight stomach ache, longer than his usual rate of healing but still manageable at least, but this wasn't anormalcase of poisoning. ThatdamnBug Girl had infected him with more poisons than he could count, from something as mild as pain inducing melittin from bee stings, to as major as the venom from black widows, and it hadn't just been once, he had been stung and bitten hundreds, thousands, even ten thousands of times.

Lung quickly moved towards a nearby trashcan before releasing the contents of his stomach into it, said contents probably qualified as a biohazard on their own. He had never felt this terrible before, not when he took on entire teams of capes alone, not when he fought Leviathan head on, not even when he died.It felt like his insides were destroying themselves while his skin fell off so he could watch.

The gang leader was getting better though, that much was certain, he certainly felt worse when he first returned to his base state, though whether that was from his power processing it and healing or from him simply getting used to it he wasn't sure, what he was sure of though, was that he was angry.

The Dragon of Kyushu slumped onto a nearby couch, showing none of the dignity he was used to showing around his subordinates, not that he could have, he could barely keep himself upright, a fact that only served to make him angrier, his bloodshot eyes, only made worse from the poisoning, glaring at the floor.

The Bug Girl had attacked Lung on his hunt for the Undersiders, she attacked him!Just thinking about it fueled the not-so-metaphorical fires of his rage even further, and just when he thought he had dealt with the bitch, granting a much quicker death than she deserved, some other fool interfered and ran off, leaving him among his fallen subordinates as his power slowly wore off with no one to fight, eventually leaving him in his current state.

Lung slammed his fist into the first thing he could find, which happened to be the rest of the couch he had planted himself on, breaking a hole clean through it.

Taking a deep breath, Lung calmed himself, getting angry wouldn't do anything now. What he needed was rest to let his body recover from the poisons, then he would act, tear through this city and exact his revenge on the foolish wench who dared to cross him.

Despite his pain, Lung grinned, the Bug Girl may have gotten the drop on him before, but nothing would keep him from tearing her apart now. Really he should be thanking the other fool who helped her escape, it meant he could give her a much more painful death than simply falling off a building, he would make her suffer, then he would end her miserable little life. He would still kill the trench coat wearing fool, the man had crossed him, but he wasn't going to enjoy it nearly as much as he was going to enjoy killing the bitch.

Taylor sneezed, not getting even a simple 'bless you' from anyone wandering down the halls, only stares which, while not completely unusual, felt different today.

She hadn't wanted to come to school today, Taylor didn't want to come to school any day, but despite that fact she convinced herself to, if only out of curiosity about what happened to Sophia Hess. She tried not to get her hopes up, that never ended well, but she couldn't think of any other reason for the police to show up asking about Hess, especially if they were asking about the bullying, and specific events too.

As she tiredly trudged through the halls nothing had happened, no pranks, no psychological torture, nothing, which wasn't too unusual, classes hadn't even started and the Trio typically didn't act until lunch, but the lack of insults, or even seeing the most well known 'popular' kids was unusual.

Taylor tried listening in on some of the murmuring crowds to get an idea on what was happening, most were trying and failing to hide their glances at her, so something must have been up, staring was normal, despite how much they acted like she didn't exist, but murmuring wasn't.

"-ou hear about what happened?"

"Yeah, I heard those three finally got caught."

"'Bout time, they've been untouchable since last year."

"Good to know someone finally did something about them."

"I heard Hess got arrested too."

"Probably just rumors, they wouldn't arrest someone over simple pranks-"

Taylor couldn't listen anymore, if she did she'd probably explode, in what way was uncertain. But it was true though, the Trio had finally been caught, or maybe caught wasn't the right word, they had been 'caught' before, but they had never actually gotten punished, but things seemed to be different this time. They must have been suspended, maybe expelled if she was feeling hopeful, and just thinking about it filled her with an indescribable feeling.

The other feeling Taylor was filled with was much more describable, after all, it was a familiar feeling to Taylor, anger. Everyone was talking, relieved, that something had been done, when they never so much as lifted a finger to help her themselves, and 'simple pranks'?! There was nothing simple about the pranks they pulled.

Taylor quickly offloaded her emotions into her power, holding herself back, some insects had begun to grow aggravated but nothing too noticeable. It didn't matter, the students and teachers had always been like that, acting as if she was someone else's problem, but if the Trio was really gone, even if it might only be temporary, Taylor should be happy.

"Oh! It's you!" a vaguely familiar voice called out, pulling Taylor from her thoughts. She turned to find the familiar form of the girl who had helped her out during the Trio's most recent prank. "You ran off the other day so I wanted to make sure you were okay!"

The girl walked closer, close enough to make Taylor uncomfortable with the proximity, but not enough to justify backing up. The girl was pretty, enough to rival Emma, but mostly wore simple clothes that seemed to clash with her face and light brown hair. She also had thisatmosphereabout her that screamed extrovert, which was surprising considering Taylor had never seen her talk with anybody at Winslow.

"Um…" Taylor was at a loss for words, "yeah I-I'm fine."

"Good," the girl, I really need to figure out her name,nodded seriously, before shifting back into a more relaxed state. "I'd heard about bullying at Winslow but I hoped it wasn't true," she sighed, "Maybe I'm too much of an optimist."

What?

"Hold on," Taylor started.Is she messing with me? "You're telling me you've only heard about the bullying?"

A look of genuine confusion stared back at Taylor, "Yeah… why? Does it happen a lot?"

Taylor couldn't keep a dumbfounded look from making its way to her face.Is she stupid or just out of touch?

"How have you never seen it happen before?" Taylor asked incredulously.

"Well," the girl started, "aside from classes I usually just study in the library, I try to avoid the people at school, and it's worked out so far, so I'm a bit out of touch with what happens outside of class."

Huh.

As the girl scratched her head sheepishly, Taylor simply stared, completely dumbfounded. She could understand it to an extent, it's what Taylor wishes she could do most of the time, complete isolation from Winslow outside of classes, unfortunately she had never achieved it with the Trio constantly tracking her down. Taylor herself was also out of touch with the happenings of the school, but somehow this girl had taken it to the next level, it was almost impressive.

"Oh yeah!" the girl spoke up again, shifting the topic away from herself, "I noticed you seem lonely in class so I was wondering if you wanted to hang out sometime. I usually don't like any of the students here, but you seem alright."

Well that's a blunt way of putting it.

Despite her thoughts though, Taylor was considering it. The girl, despite being a bit overbearing, seemed nice enough, and if she's really as out of touch as she claimed that means she wasn't actively ignoring Taylor when the Trio did their pranks, but genuinely didn't realize they were happening, as unusual as that is, hell, she even interfered during the most recent 'prank'.

Taylor decided to put the decision on hold though, in favor of asking her own question.

"Wait," she said awkwardly, "what's your name again?"

I dodged a swing, my opponent's sword ringing harmlessly past my body before carving a trench into the floor. Setting my foot down on the sword, holding it in place, I stabbed my new spear into my enemy's chest, sending it to the ground in a bloodless death.

Alarm

[You Have Slain A Knight.]

Alarm

[You Leveled Up!]

I looked down at my now-dead opponent, if you could call it death with a body like that, a hollow set of armor made of steel so tough my normal weapons couldn't scratch it, luckily I had bought a weapon from the System Store just in case of such an enemy.

[Item- Armor Ravager]

Item Class B

Type- Spear

Price- 3 Million Gold Coins

Attack- 100

A Spear Designed To Fight Against Armored Enemies. It Deals An Extra 50% Damage Against Armored Opponents. ESIGNED TO

Taking a moment to catch my breath, I stared around the room, littered with the remains of Knights like the one I had just taken down. I wasn't in a dungeon, at least not exactly, this wasn't like the dungeons I usually would do, this one had a more definite purpose beyond simply helping me level up.

Alarm!

The Job Change Quest Has Begun!

Alarm!

[You Cannot Leave This Dungeon Until You Have Cleared It.]

Alarm!

[In This Area, Your Potions And Shop Ability is Restricted. And Upon Leveling Up, You Do Not Receive Status Healing.

The Job Change Quest, a quest designed to test me and my usage of my stats before giving me a Job, with the Knights to test my Strength, the Archers to test my Speed, and Assassins for my Sense, in a drawn out battle to draw my Vitality and mana to the limit. The enemies were the same as the ones in Solo Leveling, each one engineered to test my abilities in every area.

The enemies being the same didn't make them any easier to take down though. Sure I was able to get a weapon more suited to fight the armored opponents, something Sung Jinwoo didn't get to do until much later, but the System was making it more difficult in a different way.

Aparm!

[You Have Defeated All Enimies In This Room. Please Move To The Next Room Within 20 Seconds Or Face Punishment.]

The quest seemed to be organized in rooms, with each room more difficult than the last and little time to rest in between them, being thrown from one crowd of enemies into another in quick succession. I had originally tried leaving one enemy alive to see if I could gimmick the system and get more time to rest, but if I tried that more would just appear on their own.

As it was, I had cleared five rooms of enemies, and my fatigue was starting to hit me, not enough to slow me down, but enough to be noticeable.

The quest itself was oriented so that the more rooms I cleared, the more points I get to go towards my Job, and the second I'm satisfied with my progress I can use a Hearthstone to end the quest.

I'm not going to use the Hearthstone.

I began to make my way to the next room, I didn't want to find out the hard way what the 'penalty' would be.

The Job Change Quest has to have an end, the one in Solo Leveling did, and while this one might be different, the System has its own goal in giving me this quest, and that goal won't be accomplished until the quest is completed all the way. At least it wasn't harder, I had gotten some skills which certainly made things easier

Skills

[Active Skills.]

Spear Strike- Lv. 1

Cost- 100 MP

Type- Spear

You Have Learned To Attack Efficiently

Upon Activation, This Skill Will Deliver A Powerful Attack On Your Foe.

Upon using Spear Strike earlier I quickly realized that it was less of a strike and more of a canon, and range didn't seem to matter either as long as my spear made contact with whatever I wanted to attack since it seemed to rely more on mana.

When I entered the next room of the Job Change Quest I was met with a large force of hollow enemies, a little more organized and numerous than the last. It was a little overwhelming to look at, but I steeled myself nonetheless.

When I saw Lung, all I could do was run away. If I want to go head to head with an Endbringer and come out alive, let alone kill it, then this is necessary.

I adjusted my grip on my spear, and with a flare of mana, I attacked.