The Rise of the Winter Wolf - Book 2 - Chapter 19 - Sharing A Meal (Patreon)

Arcadian Live

“It looks like The Winter Wolf is still managing to keep his lead, if only barely,” Mikaela says as the main screen shows Sapphire slowly killing off all of the frozen monsters.

Applause runs through the stadium to celebrate Wolf’s victory over the mini boss.

Katherine taps her chin with her index finger in thought before asking, “Do you really think the rumors about The Winter Wolf and Deadshot planning to work together against the event boss have any truth in them?”

The audience continues applauding as Mikaela answers her question, “It’s possible. They do seem to have a friendly relationship with each other at the very least, and neither of them are stupid. Plus, now that Sapphire has been added to the mix, The Winter Wolf won’t have as big of a lead over her so they should be able to work together against the event boss without him having to wait for her.”

Katherine looks at Sapphire for a second before muttering, “That’s true.”

A few dozen seconds pass by before the audience finally begins to calm down. Meanwhile, Wolf looks through his screens as Sapphire continues killing off the monsters left frozen for it.

“Who do you think will find the mini boss first?” Katherine suddenly asks Mikaela while crossing her arms.

Mikaela glances at her as several answers are shouted out from the audience before he raises his hand to quiet them down and says, “It really depends on luck at this point. It’s likely that all three of them, The Winter Wolf, Deadshot, and Vulcan will arrive at the 22nd floor at around the same time, so it just depends on how close they are to the event boss when they get to the floor.”

He then turns back to the screen and adds, “But knowing The Winter Wolf’s luck, he will likely either spawn really close to it, or extremely far away from it.”

Light laughter runs through the audience at his answer. Even Katherine fails to hold back a snicker before she says, “That’s true.”

“But seriously,” Mikaela says, failing to hold the straight face that he was stoically maintaining, “I don’t think I have ever seen someone with such strange luck before! His luck is always either rock bottom, or sky high!”

This only serves to increase the laughter in the audience as agreements run throughout the stadium.

Katherine full-on laughs this time before she says, “He has definitely been a unique Competitor. Not like any I have ever seen at least.”

Mikaela nods his head with a smile as Wolf looks up from his screens to see Sapphire approaching him after having finished off all of the spiders.

Wolf
One week later, on the nineteenth floor

“Well, this is unexpected,” Crystal mutters as I look at her from the entrance to the web infested nest.

_-| Crystal Leblanc – Human – Level 207 |-_

She is only one level below me…

There goes my lead.

I nod my head in agreement as Sapphire begins hissing from beside me.

Crystal’s eyes shift to Sapphire before smiling at her. “And this must be the famous Sapphire that I have heard so much about!”

Sapphire just hisses again while stepping in front of me as if trying to protect me.

I hide a smile at her display of affection. Okay, Sapphire was worth losing my lead.

“Don’t worry, Sapphire. This one isn’t an enemy,” I tell her without showing any emotion on my face.

My statement confuses Sapphire as she looks from Crystal to me and back again before tilting her head.

This sight almost makes me laugh, but I barely hold back as I repeat myself to her.

Crystal chuckles at the sight before putting her bow into her inventory. She then turns serious as she asks, “So do you want to work together from here till the event boss? Or do you want to meet at the event boss?”

I glance at Sapphire one last time before focusing on Crystal as I answer, “Let’s meet at the event boss.”

Sharing my EXP with just Sapphire is already slowing me down a lot, but sharing it with another person? That would be too much.

Even with me not trying to max out Sapphire’s EXP, she is still getting around 30% of the EXP from every kill.

Not to mention that Sapphire doesn’t seem to like her much. Considering that Sapphire is still standing in between us as if separating us.

Now that I think about it, I feel as if I remember reading about how soul-bound companions tend to get possessive over their master.

I guess this is just an instance of that happening.

“I thought that would be your answer,” Crystal says before she looks at Sapphire again and smiles. “Don’t worry, I won’t take him away from you.”

Surprisingly, this seems to placate Sapphire a little bit as she finally backs down and hides into my shadow.

Possessive little fella indeed.

Although she isn’t really all that little anymore.

Crystal looks surprised for a moment at the sight of her just falling into my shadow before she says, “I am going to make a stop at a nearby store for dinner. Would you like to join me? It’s been a long time since I last ate with someone.”

Without even waiting for my answer, she takes her bow back out and begins walking out of the clearing.

I look at her retreating back for a moment before shrugging and saying, “Sure. I might as well.”

It has been a long time since I last ate a meal with anyone. Other than Sapphire of course.

“Wait, you actually competed in the Olympics in archery before the Initialization?” I ask Crystal with both of my brows raised in surprise as I sit across from her on the dining table with a plate of spaghetti in front of me.

Crystal nods as she eats a salad in front of me.

That’s both surprising, and not surprising at the same time. Considering how far she has gotten in the dungeon; it makes sense that she would have good skills from before the Initialization. It’s just that I wasn’t expecting someone so young to have competed in the Olympics!

“What about you?” Crystal asks me, distracting me from my thoughts, “you obviously have some skill with a sword, and from what I could gather, a knife too.”

I stare at her for several seconds as I contemplate whether I should answer her or not before she suddenly chuckles at something.

“What?” I ask.

“Oh, it’s nothing,” she says in between chuckles before calming down and continuing, “I was just remembering how I had heard that you entered the dungeon with two kitchen knives!”

My mouth opens to resemble an o in surprise before I close it again.

I guess it is a little funny.

“They were the closest weapons I could find when the warning for the Initialization appeared,” I mutter before taking a bite of my spaghetti.

Crystal laughs again at this before shaking her head.

“The fact that you went to grab a weapon when it showed up says a lot about you, but I won’t ask any questions,” Crystal says with a smile before taking another bite of her salad.

I nod my head and say, “Thank you.”

I’m not entirely sure about telling her about my family’s history, but I am entirely sure that letting the viewers that are watching us right now know about it would be a bad idea. Not only does it give them intel about my family in case any of them – the Ruler of the Abyss for example – could use to find them, but it’s just not really something I feel like sharing with everyone.

Especially because of how things were right after both mom and dad almost died in their last job.

I shake my head to dislodge the thought before taking another bite of my spaghetti.

“So, I’ll see you on the 22nd floor?” Crystal says half in question while stretching her arm out towards me as we stand outside of the store.

I nod my head while accepting her offered hand before saying, “Yeah.”

She then immediately pulls her bow back out of her inventory before starting off towards the west.

Not even five seconds later, Sapphire comes back out of my shadow and begins rubbing up against my leg. I unconsciously reach down to pet her as I watch Crystal sprint through the jungle for a second before I turn to the east while checking both mine and Sapphire’s levels on the corner of my interface.

My Info:

Level: 208

EXP: 11403/20800

System Points: 59.41

Viewing Room Profits: 3859

Sapphire’s Info:

Level: 78

EXP: 6785/7800

I have saved up quite a bit of profits over the past slightly over a week, so I should have enough to buy a Tier 8 skill or item off the auction soon enough.

Although I did lose 200 SP from upgrading unarmed combat to Tier 3 after it reached Tier 2 level 10.

Apparently, a skill costs 100 SP times the Tier of the skill to upgrade it to the next Tier. Which is pretty damn expensive just to upgrade a skill.

As for Sapphire’s levels? I am going to have to go back to giving her most of the EXP at some point, since if I level faster than her, then it will just make the time it takes to sync our levels be even longer.

That said, I should wait till after the event boss to do that.

I turn to Sapphire for a second before starting towards the east, in the direction of the closest mini boss.