Surprised, Vincent jerked his head up, eyes wide at Theo's grinning face. Then, he laughed freely, somehow finding the weight on his shoulders had lightened, even though Theo's words meant his burdens had increased.
It was the party's turn to be shocked. They had never seen Vincent laugh this much. He had smiled, sometimes he would snicker, but never this heartily.
They were reminded of how young he was, feeling somewhat surreal about the situation.
Angel almost burned the food staring at his face, but her vision was suddenly filled with Daniel grinning like a psycho.
She clicked her tongue and saved the food.
A smile lingered on Vincent's face as he scanned everyone's expressions.
"Alright. I'll make you stronger. But first things first, you all need to get used to doing ten push-ups every morning."
"Geh—"
"Hiss!"
"Surely the life skill players don't… have to… Yes, boss."
One look at Vincent's face and all their questions were answered. Since Theo was the cause of this, they threw all their complaints at him, crying exaggeratedly on his shoulders.
Theo was between tears and laughter, accepting their grievances while patting their backs.
"Hey, Cents. Come here," Daniel called after the meal.
When Vincent sat next to him, Daniel pulled out a measuring tape and started writing down numbers. A sketch of a prosthetic arm was drawn in his notebook.
"Is this necessary? I'll be choosing 'Rejuvenation' for my next level up."
"Yeah? And when is that, buddy? Just let me do my magic! I am the party's tinkerer, of course!"
Though Vincent wasn't convinced, he showed no resistance.
Angel sat across from them, bringing Palya with her. "Might as well make one for all his limbs. Pretty sure this won't be a one-time thing. Hmph—"
Daniel paused, and Vincent looked attacked. He was exasperated as he attempted to defend himself.
"How can it be easy to lose a limb? I'll have enough HP to tank multiple hits from a level 2 Frost Rabbit soon."
Angel rolled her eyes. "That's exactly the mindset I'm talking about." She turned to her brother, arching a brow. "You're thinking the same."
Daniel turned to his friend, placing a hand on his shoulder in half-hearted comfort. "Sorry, Cents. She's right."
Vincent was speechless. "Whatever. Let's talk about the monster's name tag instead. It looks like red means there is a very high possibility of death."
His attempt at changing the subject was acknowledged, and Palya laid down her notebook, excitedly pointing at her notes.
So far, they had encountered green, yellow, orange, red, and purple.
The Numb Rats had been green, and though there was nothing easy about them when they were in a pack, alone they were easy pickings.
The Frost Troll was purple, and everyone agreed that there was no fighting that thing. Avoidance was a must.
"B-Big Brother, t-the Numb Rats were yellow f-for me."
That was a crucial clue.
"In other words, it's based on our level."
"Hey! That means once the Frost Troll has a yellow or green name tag, we can fight him!" Daniel slapped his thigh in excitement but froze when he saw Angel's deadpan face. "W-What?!"
"I can't believe you were once a guild leader. Do you understand how many geese we would have to kill to roughly be on the same level??"
"Well, I'm sorry for not doing math. I'm not Vincent." Shrugging his shoulders, Daniel turned to Vincent, waiting for him to spout numbers.
Without looking at him, Vincent flicked his forehead. "Judging from how I leveled up and the percentage of XP we are all getting without taking the last hit… the party would need to kill 160 geese for me to reach level 5."
"Damn! Weren't we getting 30 XP from them?"
"That was when it was just the three of us in the party," Angel reminded him. "Now there are eleven of us."
"And we are assuming two things: that the green name tag geese will stay green when I level up and that level 5 will be enough to fight the Troll."
Vincent turned to the page about skill mutations, and a thought occurred to him.
"The Frost Troll had a star next to its name. You don't think..." He frowned.
Sharp breaths were taken simultaneously. The possibility of the Troll mutating like their skills was high, bringing into question what would have happened if they had left the spider alone.
"I'm not saying Rusty's death was necessary. But I'm glad it wasn't in vain," Vincent quietly sighed, and the siblings silently agreed.
Finishing off their discussions and calculating everyone's current XP, Palya happily brought the notebook to her sleeping area and read it twice before sleeping.
By midnight, Angel and Vincent were the only ones awake.
"They've reached the edge of the campfire's range," Angel whispered. Her face betrayed nothing as she stoked the flames.
"Go sleep. I'll wake Dan later for the second watch."
"I can't sleep. You are three-fourths of a person right now. I'm not sleeping."
Vincent looked up at the ceiling, finding no words to help him.
When he looked back at the campfire, his mind was already occupied with something else.
"What do you want for your birthday?"
Angel paused, her lips pursed. She had thought that with the end of the world, he would have forgotten. "I promised I would livestream Elden Ring that day."
"Daniel brought his Steam Deck. He has it downloaded."
"Yes, but no internet."
Vincent turned to her, locking gazes. "Is one viewer enough?"
"..." Angel blinked. Her heart skipped. "…Enough."
"Then, it's not a problem."
Their first rest outside was nerve-wracking. But despite unwanted spectators, they managed to find sleep and gain a full rest.
Vincent: [21/21(28) Hp]
Vincent had to close his eyes for a few seconds before opening them, and only then did he believe what he saw.
Angel's comment about how he was only 3/4 clung to his mind, and his theory that the system was listening grew stronger.
His health was cut down exactly 3/4!
Internally, he was cursing at the system. Outside, he was briefing the group to prepare for the next leg of their journey.
But right as they neared the entrance, Vincent made the party stop. He wasn't comfortable with their stalkers. He needed to shake them off somehow.
When Vincent decided to save them, he hadn't thought of receiving anything. But seeing their strange behavior, as if they were scrutinizing their strength, he was forced to question their character.
The fact that they didn't say a word of "thanks" should have already been a flag.
Vincent met Angel's eyes and nodded.
For confrontations, Angel had always been their spokesperson.
Although eight times out of ten resulted in violence, with how biased society was toward the female gender, nobody would think twice that the girl crying on the floor was actually the one who gave the other party the black eye.
Angel wordlessly checked her revolver, confirming that it was fully loaded (six Hellfire Rounds), before strutting toward the group a few meters away.
Their shoulders jolted, turning to each other in surprise as they hadn't expected her, of all people, to come.
"Hey, losers. Can you not stalk me? Your ugly faces make me uncomfortable." Angel shivered as if dreading the fact.
Shocked, nobody spoke for a few seconds.
Then the bald guy exploded.
"Bitch! You're too full of yourself! Why would we stalk your ugly ass?!" Troy, the bald man, was buff, clearly a bodybuilder, as a slight puff of his chest made his clothes appear like they were about to burst.
But Angel looked uninterested, checking her nails.
"Um, I'm not into degrading. That shit is nasty. If you're trying to leave an impression, try again. But then again—" Angel's eyes glanced at his head. "Sorry, not my type."
Troy's neck and face were completely red. He took a step forward, but a woman next to him stopped him with one hand.
"Sorry, girl~ He may look bad at first, but he's really a gentle giant. We're not following you guys out of bad intentions. We just wanted to be closer to a strong team."
The woman, Rissa, was an Asian beauty. Though it was difficult to pinpoint her ethnicity, she would no doubt turn heads in Korea.
"First of all, I'm not 'girl.' And second, that doesn't change the fact that you're stalking. Third, what kind of gentle giant calls an underaged girl a 'bitch'?"
Rissa was stumped, her amicable smile cracking as she hadn't taken into account the person's age.
"I see. This means you aren't paying us the proper respects. Did your parents not teach you respect?" Her smile deepened, confident that she had caught onto a weakness.
Angel looked startled. "Oh, I'm sorry. How OLD are you?"
Everyone could almost hear the sound of Rissa's mask cracking, but she surprisingly held on. Her eyes narrowed dangerously as her smile turned dark.
"What are you getting at? What can you do if we really are stalking you? Are you going to kill us?"
Rissa was confident that they wouldn't. After all, what kind of psycho would save someone at the cost of their teammate's life only to kill them later?
But Rissa underestimated Angel.
In one second, Angel twirled her revolver, raised it, and shot past Rissa, grazing her left ear.
"Death is not the only option."