Time passed, and following the Dewdrop of Heaven, other players began to find out where the remaining two items were through exploration.
Information had gone out, and so it was not difficult to discover the item locations and what kind of enemies were there.
There were no rules that it had to be done solo, however, the difficulty was very high, and the reality was that the players who were able to clear the areas were in the minority.
“Hmm…I don’t have to go now. We can all go some other time. Yes.”
Sally had gathered all the information and decided that it would be too dangerous for her to go alone.
She was surrounded by reliable friends, so it would be stupid to not rely on their help.
“Now, I should concentrate on raising the level to my permit.”
Just as Sally was about to leave the guild, the doors opened.
The person who came in was someone who Sally knew very well.
“Ah, were you just about to leave?”
It was Frederica.
She would often come here to challenge Sally on a duel, lose, and come back again at another time.
Sally had yet to be defeated, but Frederica was slowly getting closer to almost being able to land a hit.
“Yeah. I’m going to kill some mob monsters to raise my permit level.”
“I see… Since there’s no point in me waiting, so I’ll just help you. We’ll finish it up quickly so we can fight!”
“Okay. Then let’s go hunting.”
“I’ve been thinking of all kinds of tactics myself.”
“Don’t you say that every time?”
“Well, you demolish my new tactics every time, so what am I supposed to do? I just need to land one hit.”
Frederica knew that Sally would fall by one hit.
And so Sally could not let her guard down.
Frederica concentrated on trying to think of ways to beat Sally, as they went out into the field together.
“Magic really is pretty great too.”
As Sally shredded each monster one at a time, Frederica was using her usual barrage of ammunition to deal damage.
Watching her, she started to feel that she was missing out by not using any magic.
Currently, Sally only used magic to create walls to block attacks.
She didn’t have much MP and steered more towards AGI and STR.
Sally was also putting in more effort into raising her level compared to Maple, and the gap between them was decreasing.
Sally was currently level 34.
“Oh! This is the last one!”
Sally’s attack absorbed into the monster and pushed its HP to 0.
Sally’s level went up at the same time.
Now she was at 34.
“Hmm…mmm…hehe.”
“Did something interesting happen?”
“Mm, well, I guess? We’re finished here now, so you want to fight?”
Sally changed the subject, and Frederica readily agreed.
They had experienced the sensation of teleporting many times now. And they were now in a space that was shut off from the rest of the world.
They set the time for the fight to begin. There was always an atmosphere of excitement and nervousness around them whenever they fought against each other.
As soon as the fight started, Sally rushed straight towards Frederica.
“Oh?”
Sally stopped.
It would have been easy for her to deal with Frederica’s usual attack of bullets, but Frederica’s first move this time was to build several layers of walls.
Walls of water and sand came up and surrounded her.
“‘Leap’!”
Nothing was actually coming towards her, but Sally leaped forward to the left.
She had had a bad feeling, as if it were dangerous to stay.
And so she moved.
With her quick movements, she slipped out the side of the walls.
And so Frederica’s attack of wind blades that crashed through the walls ended in a failure.
As Sally had very low defense and HP, such an outrageous attack would have killed her had she been hit.
“You predicted it again!”
“No, I didn’t!”
Sally dashed straight towards Frederica. Frederica quickly moved to her next plan.
“Ah!”
“Ah!”
It happened suddenly.
Their voices rose in unison by coincidence.
Frederica had built more walls, and the walls had come out right at Sally’s toes, and she had gotten momentarily stuck on it.
And while she changed her route, Sally had lost her balance.
“‘Multi-flame Bullets’!”
She did not want to miss this opportunity, and the familiar attack was unleashed before she even had time to think.
Sally dodged it by rolling out of the way.
The scene after that looked terribly slow to Frederica.
The last flame bullet seemed to be getting sucked towards Sally’s shoulder, then it bounced off.
Her body was there, so it wasn’t ‘Mirage.’
Frederica recognized this and then realized that this meant that she had won.
“Yess!”
She made a fist and shook with joy.
Frederica was so overjoyed, that she was not being attentive.
And before she knew it, Sally’s dagger was deep inside of her body.
“Oh, what?”
“Unfortunately, your joy is short-lived.”
Frederica’s HP turned to 0 before she could take a defensive position.
The last thing that Frederica saw before they teleported back to the field was Sally’s HP bar. It had not gone down even 1 millimeter.
“Huh? Huh!? How?”
“I’m not going to tell you my important secrets. We are enemies after all.”
“Oh, that’s right. But, I’ll beat you next time. Remember that.”
Frederica waved bye-bye to Sally and left.
“…That was close, too close. I really can’t let my guard down.”
Sally said as she looked at a certain part of her status.
‘Empty Shell.’
Nullifies one-shot damage once a day.
Raises AGI 50% for 1 minute.
This was a skill that required that you reach level 35 without taking damage in order to attain it.
Sally’s concentration had been lower than usual because of it.
Until now, she could not allow the bullets to hit her, and that had raised her concentration.
“I should practice dodging again, yes. The first damage…is something I want to save for ‘that time.’”
Sally said to herself and promptly left to go attack some monsters.