DD 201 Ch 28 (Patreon)

Chapter 28

The Prince gave Neldra a sneer. “You don’t want to touch me.”

“I would have to spend a year washing my hands to feel clean again.” Neldra agreed. “So please don’t bother the next Elven Empress and her husband. Our people are quite fond of them. They are like a romance story come to life.”

The Prince turned to me. “So, will you take my offer?”

“No.” I smiled. “I will not. Rather, I look forward to crippling whoever was stupid enough to rank me so low on the betting. There’s going to be endless satisfaction as I spend that money.”

“I’m done here then.” Prince Albar turned around stiffly and left his followers on the ground.

A few of them had passed out, foaming at the mouth all over the ground.

“He’s got some balls to walk away from that.” Neldra frowned. “Is he the favorite in the betting?”

“Yup. Also, I think he doesn’t really even understand that he could be in danger. Apparently it is such a foreign concept that it doesn’t get through to him. Or he’s just that stupid.” I shrugged.

“I don’t think he’s stupid. Blinded by arrogance? Perhaps.” Elysara said with a smile. “Going to open a bottle of the good stuff when you come back victorious.” She kissed me on the head and glanced up at the scoreboard.

Number three had finished and fell far below Des.

The fourth person was already inside and Ely nodded firmly, heading that direction.

Neldra trailed after here. I doubted the overprotective Censor would let Ely go in the cave on her own.

“So. Do you think she’s going to put a collar on you?” I teased Des as soon as Ely went in.

She snorted into her wine, spraying red droplets over her face. “No. I’m going to have her licking me while you ram into her. She’s going to be sweet between us.” Des sighed and wiped at her face before taking another drink.

“She really wants her turn fucking a princess with her demon tail. Des talked about it all night when you were with Ely.” Fayeth said.

“No I didn’t.” Des pouted.

“You were really drunk. Something about Ken leaving you out and how you were going to get back at him and the princess.” Charlotte tapped her chin as she looked up and tried to recall what had been said.

“Bun-bun. I give you permission to silence her.” Des glared at the rabbit.

The rabbit glared back and then angrily chittered at her while slapping Charlotte’s forehead.

“Stop.” Charlotte used her forearm to protect her head. “You are hitting me, not her.”

“He’s too cowardly to hit me.” Des leaned back and crossed her legs with a smirk.

At that, Bun-bun launched himself from Charlotte’s head and tackled Des, knocking the chair back with both of them in it.

Des held onto the wine glass, but all of the red wine shot straight up into the air before crashing back down.

Bun-bun squealed like a dying pig as the red wine stained his white fur.

“That’s what you get.” Des pried the squirming rabbit away half stained.

“You realize Charlotte’s going to have to wash that out.” I said.

“No I’m not. He’s going to have to do it himself.” Charlotte crossed her arms.

Bun-bun meekly gave a few squeaks.

“I don’t care if your arms are short. Maybe we can just let it shed out.” She offered.

The way Bun-bun’s jaw dropped and hung low at her counter made me feel bad for him. “It’s alright, lil guy.”

He threw me a scandalized gasp and chittered.

“He’s self conscious about his size.” Charlotte rolled her eyes.

“Look, the board flickered.” Fayeth was paying more attention to it than the rest of us.

“I wonder who’ll win.” I played out a drum roll on my thighs.

Des stared at it with an uncomfortable intensity.

Elysara’s name flashed up under Des with 523 DPS. It was not really that much lower.

The Demonic Mage threw her hands in the air as Elysara walked out and shouted at her. “I win!”

The princess just shook her head and checked the scoreboard before walking back to us. “You win.”

“Don’t concede like that. It takes away the fun.” Des pulled out a glass and poured her some wine.

***

I continued to sit around and talk about the scores with the others as I waited for my turn.

Des was feeling pretty proud that she stood at the top of the charts, but her confidence wavered when Machen headed into the assessment.

He was the first of the favored bets.

“I’ll bet he doubles you.” Elysara offered Des. “We’ll cancel out my debt if I win.”

Des and her had polished off two bottles at this point. “Deal. He won’t double me.”

Machen emerged and waved to the crowd of Pendulum students. The ladies gushed over him and a small swarm of women went and congratulated him while the men all stared daggers at him.

Machen Smith - 1271

Des let out a cry of disbelief. “That’s just not fair. How does he do that much damage?”

“Probably let him tank the monster and the healer kept him alive.” I knew berserkers were famously powerful, but it was still impressive to see the numbers. “His group likely has a different composition too. He’s probably got an extra healer and no tank so that he can soak up the damage and increase his power.”

“Might not be able to hit near that number in an actual boss fight. He’s tanky, but can he handle a boss?” Fayeth pushed.

“Some can.” Neldra chipped in. “They get the entire raid built around them though. They need support to help reduce damage and increase their own. If the strategy is maximizing a berserker, might as well go all the way.”

“No wonder all those guys look upset with him.” Des swirled her wine. “Bet those girls don’t mind though.”

I chuckled at how my highschool friend had changed. “Good for him. But we are only just starting. Prince Albar is still the favorite, with Marin a close second.”

Many of the students were finishing up with the test and moving onto the next part of the day, which appeared to be drinking.

***

Crimson sat on the bleachers bored out of her mind. The berserker had been passable, yet Barret wouldn’t shut up even now.

“You saw that, right? He clobbered that monster. Too bad he didn’t have his whole support team. The class has really built around him. Well, half the class has.”

“I can’t imagine which half.” Crimson rolled her eyes. “Still, we have some other impressive students coming up.”

“Yes, I want to see the Prince.” Trusk’s professor nodded. “Rumor is he has the perfect class for his situation.”

Crimson frowned at that situation. She hadn’t really bothered to look up the other students’ classes. Ken was going to obliterate them regardless.

A blonde student in mostly white with a Trusk patch on her sleeve waltzed in. She had an effortless grace and beauty.

Damn her.

“You’ll see now.” Her professor bragged to the rest of them.

“See what? She doesn’t look like much.” The Royal Academy professor crossed his arms, bitter about nearly everything that had happened so far.

“Do I start now?” Marin glanced up at the professors.

“Go head, honey.” The Trusk professor said as the tank and healer moved off to the side.

Marin clasped her hands before her and started casting a long spell.

Crimson could feel the mana coming off of the student.

Three large, complex magical diagrams appeared around her. One was above her and the other two were on each side.

Pressure oozed out of each one.

Then at the same time, draconic heads poked out of the diagrams and slowly started to push through.

The heads were big enough to snap a person in two. But their bodies continued to push out of the portals. The white one took flight from the portal above Marin. Its torso the size of a car while its neck and tail about doubled its length and a pair of massive webbed wings spanned out on either side.

“Ha!” Trusk’s professor shouted. “Even bigger than I remember. They grow with her magic stat.”

“Fly!” Marin shouted and the other two dragons took off. Soon there was a white dragon, a black one and a gold one circling her in the air. “Attack!” She pointed toward the bug as soon as it came into view.

All three dragons shot down from the sky, torching the bug with their breath attacks.

Crimson couldn’t help but nod at the ability. It was potent. More to the point, Trusk had trained the girl right. All of her focus was on raising her magic stat, with some slight bleed over into her mana.

Each of those dragons was probably slightly weaker than a damage dealer at her level.

The beetle lit up like a bonfire and the dragons swooped in to tear at its shell.

“Not bad.” Barret admitted.

“The power of a summoner is that they add onto their existing strength.” The Trusk Professor preened at Marin’s performance.

Marin kept going, not done yet. She waved her hand, summoning pink bubbles with tufts of hair on the top of their heads that bounced with them as they hopped along the ground.

“Fuzzy soap bubbles?” Crimson wasn’t familiar with the spell.

“Eh. She’s made it her own.”

A trail of pink bouncing bubbles reached the beetle and the first one slammed into the monster, popping just like would be expected, only for the fire from the dragons to ignite a gas in the air with explosive results.

The explosion shook the dust off the walls around them.

“They are filled with gas?” Crimson asked.

“Yes.” The professor pushed up her glasses. “It’s a cheap spell with a paralytic gas that appears to be quite flammable.” The noise didn’t stop as the trail of bouncing bubbles continued to detonate one after the other for the next five minutes.

The area of attack potential of this combination was quite high. Really, it wasn’t shining in this context.

The timer finished and Crimson obliterated the bug with a wave of her hand. “Well done.”

“Thanks!” Marin jumped up and pumped a fist in the air. “Alright, going to go get out there for the number.” She rushed out.

“Excitable, that one.” Barret laughed good naturedly before looking over at the UG tech. “What are we looking at?”

“Err… 1718 DPS sir.” The tech answered.

Barret clicked his tongue. “Seems that my student lost after all.”

“Don’t fret. Her strategy was just superior.” Trusk’s professor laughed.

“It doesn’t matter. Prince Albar will crush them all.” The Royal Academy professor laughed. “You’ll find yourself just fighting over 2nd place.”

“More like third. That is, assuming he can beat those dragons.” Crimson added. “None of these fights so far have held a candle to Ken. He had an assessment by Director Amato almost two months ago. I have a solid idea of what sort of output he can produce.”

“Sure.” The Royal Academy professor snorted. “You have no clue how badly Prince Albar is going to crush this whole competition.”

“That’s why you keep having to say it, right?” Crimson was really tired of the other professors. It was like they had failed on their own and were now shoving their pride onto their students.

That was nothing like what Crimson was doing.

She was pushing Ken until he became her equal. The thought made her smile. One day purple and red lightning would tear through the depths of the dungeon together.

“You will see.” She sat back and pulled out a bag of chips.

The talk between the professors continued. Barret slowed down how much he was praising Machen and the Trusk professors was on top of the world after Marin’s performance.

Truth be told, Crimson was curious what the Prince would be able to do. She knew the family and they were generally useless louts. 

If The Prince had zero ability, then this was going to be an embarrassment.

“Alright, alright. Keep the line moving.” Barret motioned for the next to get out and Crimson watched as Prince Albar strutted in with the kind of swagger that only an ass of a man could pull off.

“Prince, a large beetle monster will be brought for you to show how much damage you can deal. The test does not start until you deal any damage. Use that to your advantage.” His professor hurried to explain more than they had been to most students.

“Thank you professor.” Prince Albar bowed slightly. “All of you, thank you for witnessing my test. I’m afraid that if you weren’t all here people would doubt the veracity of my numbers.” He puffed his head out and drew the large saber at his side. “Please get me my monster so that I might show my future bride my prowess.”

Crimson rolled her eyes. If it wouldn’t cause an international incident that would take her away from Ken, she’d absolutely turn this boy into a stain on the floor.

Sadly, attacking another school’s student would then get Headmistress Marlow and the UG president up her ass for months. And it would probably be an annoyingly tedious amount of paperwork.

The beetle came into view and Prince Albar took up a fighting stance as his equipment all started to give off a magic glow.

“Hmm?” Barret held his chin and tapped his foot. “What’s his class?”

“He looks like Christmas decorations.” Crimson laughed.

“No. He’s an artificer.” The professor told them with a giant grin. “He can equip more gear than your average adventurer and he can increase the stats that they give him. For someone who can deck himself out in the highest quality gear, it is the perfect class.”

By the time an adventurer was in the 40’s, almost half of their total stats came from gear.

He really would have a massive advantage stat wise if he could bear more stats without burning out his mana channels. To then amplify them again would be powerful.

Crimson had to hold her chin and reappraise him. He actually could beat Marin given that combination.

Prince Albar, glowing like a neon sign, flashed forward with an ability before fighting. Each swing of his weapon was another ability.

He rotated through multiple debuffs before throwing just about every element there was at the monster.

Crimson grimaced as Prince Albar started using a series of abilities that she was famous for using. This fucking punk wanted to be her.

But his ability was nothing compared to [Limit Break].

However, as Crimson watched, she realized that if Prince Albar ever used all of his buffs out of the gate against Ken, before Ken could get his stacks up, the prince actually stood a high chance of winning.

“Impressed?” The Royal Academy professor gloated. “He has over 1000 stats worth of gear on and can temporarily pull out another thirty percent from them. Add on his base stats, and he’s on par with an actual level 40! Your student has no chance.”

“All I see is a giant pile of gold that just got washed out of the sewers.” Crimson smiled at the professor. “When my student comes, you’ll see what hard work really looks like.”

The Prince barely knew to use the abilities beyond just hurling them all at the monster. There was a particular lack of finesse as he fought with the brute force of stats and more skills than he had time to master.

***

I waited outside. Machen and Marin had really surprised me, and now Prince Albar was inside fighting.

“He’s gonna blow it.” Des tried to comfort me.

“That would be a shame. My hope is that he makes me push myself.” I said as casually as I could. There was a little pressure riding on my shoulders, but I wasn’t going to focus on that. I needed to keep my head in the game.

The task at hand was always what required your full focus.

“Uh huh. Want me to take the edge off?” Des’ finger crept up my thigh.

I swatted her hand away. “Not now. I need to focus. As soon as I see his score, I’m going to meditate until my turn.”

Des pouted and drank more of her wine before turning to Elysara. “You wanna give it a go?”

“I think he needs to stay focused on his turn. However… after, he’s free game.”

“Perfect.” Des purred into her wine glass and locked eyes with me over the rim.

I sighed and waited for the score to come up.

The scoreboard flickered like prior updates.

Prince Albar - 2198 DPS

His name flashed into first place knocking Marin and Machen down a spot. He’d blown Marin away.

The crowd of students burst into cheers and curses. There was a lot of money riding on his score, and people had either just won or lost.

A few of Trusk’s students were wailing about their queen and how he must have cheated.

Meanwhile, Royal Academy students as well as a few pockets of others were cheering as Prince Albar strode out with a smile on his face.

The prince walked into the area, scanning the crowd until we locked eyes. ‘Too late to back out now.’ He mouthed to me as he was swarmed by other students.

I rolled my eyes and didn’t respond, instead crossing my legs and focusing inward. I steadied my breathing, entering into a meditative state my grandparents had taught me time and time again. I wanted to make sure that I was at my peak before it was time for my turn.