Dungeons Online

Chapter 125: Claudia's performance

"Hahaha, first!" Claudia shouted as she threw herself to the ground before snatching the glove from the ground. By the time she was gathering herself from the floor, Tom barely managed to twitch. 

'She could be that fast?' Tom thought, baffled by what just happened. 

"What do you think you are doing?!" The scrawny man's eyes opened wide, proving that he failed to understand what just transpired. 

"No coming back now; I picked the glove, so we are going to fight to the death, right?" Claudia said, happily waving the piece of clothing around as if it was some kind of trophy. 

"Were you that itchy for a fight?" Tom asked, rubbing his forehead with his hand. 

"Isn't it boring to fight monsters only?" Claudia looked at Tom as if trying to teach a lesson to some naive kid. "What's the use of our power if we can't smash the faces of arrogant pricks like this one?" she asked, pointing her hand ostentatiously at the scrawny man. 

"Are you really sure this is what you wish for, little girl?" the man asked, clearly annoyed by having Claudia's finger shoved right in his face. 

"Shush, dog, no one is talking to you," Claudia replied, waving her hand at the man. 

"That does it," the man muttered as his face darkened. He then took two steps to the back, taking his bow from his back. "I hope you are ready for it," he said, drawing the string of his weapon. 

The man never put an arrow on the string. It was a puzzling sight at first, something that would make any archer back in Tom's homeworld scream in agony. Yet, as soon as the string reached its full draw, mana converged right where the man's fingers held it, summoning an arrow right where it should be. 

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'Isn't it quite similar to my magical spear?' Tom thought, instantly drawn by the similarity. Yet, after a second look, this arrow wasn't anything like his magical spears. 

Instead of taking a fully physical form like his magical weapons, the arrow was stuck in a state where it wasn't fully physical, nor was it a fully magical object. Some parts of it managed to properly form, but the greater part of it remained as a condensed, blue light, proving that the man was too weak to turn his mana into a physical object. 

'Or is that all there is to it?' Tom questioned himself, unwilling to simply assume the weakness of the other party. 'Maybe he is doing that intentionally,' he suggested himself, trying to see the situation in a different light. But there was something else that he had to do before he could fully focus on the curious situation at hand. 

"Aren't you going to stop them?" Tom asked the guild master with a puzzled expression on his face. 

"Huh?" The woman shook in surprise. "Why should I?" she asked, clearly missing the point of the young man's question. 

"I mean," Tom took a moment to find the right words, "if that idiot were to duel with me, I would likely be able to hold myself back. But in Claudia's case..." Tom said, turning his normal voice into a mutter so silent that even he himself couldn't fully hear it. 

"In her case, what?" the guild master asked as the first signs of anxiety started to appear in her eyes. 

"Well, this pretty building is as good as gone," Tom explained, shaking his arms as if to prove how little he personally cared. 

"Wait, what?" The guild master's eyes widened as she shook her head. "Could you say that again? I don't think I heard you properly the first..." 

Her words failed to arrive in time. 

"Here... I..." Claudia spoke slowly, one word per single step she took forward. "GO!" She shouted. Her body exploded with momentum as she struck forward.

'Huh?' Tom leaned his head to the side, surprised. Her attack was powerful, yet it landed directly against the unsuspecting opponent. 'She isn't using her skill yet?' he thought as his expectations were broken. 

"You bitch!" the bow-wielding man jumped away, failing to shoot the arrow he already had nocked on the string. What followed was a flurry of Claudia's strikes, forcing the man to back down every time he would draw the string of his bow for even an inch. 

"Are you seriously that weak?" Claudia asked when she suddenly stopped her attack, allowing the man to get as much distance as he wanted... Or rather, as little of it he could gain before his back hit against the wall. 

"Don't get ahead of yourself!" the man shouted, using the momentary window of opportunity to properly draw his bow again. The arrow appeared nocked on the string of his weapon just like before. The gentle shine of its mana-made parts was alluring, but to Tom, it didn't seem powerful at all. 

'No, I was wrong earlier,' he thought, lowering his head in disappointment. 

What he earlier predicted to be some kind of special technique turned out to be just a failure and waste of his attention. While the arrow remained as before, partially magical and partially physical entity, after a closer look, the purely magical parts were actually barely strong enough for Tom to even notice them in the first place!

"EAT THIS!" The man shouted, releasing the string of his bow. In an instant, the arrow rocketed forward, pushed by the momentum of the string pulled by the springing wood of the bow. 

"WEAK!" Claudia shouted, fisting the projectile away. 

'What a show-off,' Tom thought, fully relaxing. At this point, the simple truth was clear to him. 'Even if that hit you, it wouldn't even puncture your skin,' he thought. Yet, as surprised by Claudia's behavior as he was, he couldn't help but get curious about her reasons behind this peculiar act of hers. 

"Shut up!" the archer shouted, pulling his bow again. 

Claudia simply stood in place. She even went as far as to rest her knuckles against her sides, awaiting the attack with her head leaned to the side. All the while, her lips turned into a small, mocking smile. 

This time, the man didn't limit himself to shooting just a single arrow. As soon as the first projectile was sent flying, he had already drawn the string of his bow again. In short succession, three more projectiles went Claudia's way before even the first of them would have a chance to strike the girl. 

"Pathetic," Claudia said, shaking her head in disappointment. This time, she didn't even bother to swat the arrows away. "Well, it was fun, but it's time to end this," she said, shaking her head again. 

Then, she took a step forward. And then, she took another one. 

With each moment, the girl was getting closer and closer to the man, forcing his back against the wall. 

"No," the man muttered when he realized he no longer had any way to run away from her attacks. "Stop," he whispered in a silent plea, likely realizing by now how stupid it was to challenge the people that even the guild master treated with respect. 

"As if I would do that," Claudia's lips formed a wide smile. The whites of her teeth showed up when she took a battle-ready stance. 

With her knees slightly bent, she lowered her center of mass before spreading her arms apart. Her left hand moved forward, only for her entire arm to end up stretched all the way. Yet, it was her right hand, currently brought close to her chest, that drew everyone's attention. 

"Please, I apologize..." the archer continued to plead, yet it brought no effect whatsoever. 

'I wonder if she can kill him,' Tom thought, curious about what the girl would do. 

Even though he never took a human life with his hands or directly with his actions, he saw no problem with doing that. With all the hunting he has done with his childhood friends, and all the hellish training he went through as a kid, taking a life was no different for him than cooking a meal or taking a bath. Just another part of one's daily life. 

But Claudia was different. Although she belonged to the generation that suffered through the last few years of the great war, she didn't have to participate in it herself. What's more, Tom could tell that she never went through the process of hardening of any sorts, which was the freakishly incorrect term that Tom's family used when referring to their traditional training regime. 

In other words, when compared to Tom, she was just a mere civilian. 

"Die," Claudia said in a calm tone as her body sprung up. Already tense while she held her stance, she allowed her muscles to finally follow the path she ingrained in them over the course of their journey through the dungeon. As her right arm straightened in a fist, her fist appeared to strike some barrier in the air rather than the archer's body. 

'Finally,' Tom thought, already knowing what would happen. 

And when Claudia's fist stopped, so did the breathing of everyone in the room. 

She was still quite a bit away from her opponent, yet she remained motionless after executing her failed attack. 

After all, with how her attack never connected, it couldn't be called anything else but a failure, was what most of the spectators likely thought. 

Yet, before the people could start asking questions about what happened, a small thump attracted everyone's attention. 

Only for them to see the lifeless body of the arrogant archer slumping down to the ground, with a big hole where his stomach should be.