Chapter 9. Willis
The twins started to narrate from my hit. It seems that though I missed is vital point, the damage I dealt was enough for Mr. Willis to take it down in two more hits.
Ms. Willis, who treated me and her brother during the fight, was also allotted contribution in the takedown of the abomination and the system granted her the HEAL skill.
Heal (minor):
You can cast a minor heal spell that will accelerate the regenerative and healing properties of your target.
Each attempt on the skill costs you 30 MP. {1 stat in mana = 10 MP}
Ms. Willis read out the contents of her skill upon my request, declaring that her performance was assessed as D-grade.
When I turned to Mr. Willis, he started to explain his skill, which he received along with the performance evaluation of B-grade. The initial hit seemed to have dealt a lot more damage than it showed.
Roar of the Valiant:
You can let out a mana-induced roar that sets out every enemy that hears it into a state of frenzy.
This is a skill used by the valiant warriors. Don't falter even under the aggro of all those affected by the skill.
For 5 seconds after the roar, the damage you receive will be reduced by 10%.
Each roar will consume 40 MP. {1 stat in mana = 10 MP}
On hearing the contents, I understood the relation between the MP and mana stat and also that the skills didn't have a cooldown period. You could spam them as long as you were capable of doing so.
Because we were going to continue as a team, I told them the effects of my skill as well and asked them to not divulge the skills and its effects to anyone else.
"Just give the basic outline of your skill in the future." I advised them and asked them to continue with the details while I sat there munching on the energy bar.
"Why?" Mr. Willis was more innocent than I assumed him to be.
"It's because we can't trust everyone, idiot. Start using your brain for a change!"
"Hey, don't call me an idiot. I was the one who saved the both of you back there. If you anger me, I will just leave you alone the next time."
"Don't claim the prize now, Liar. You know that Danny is the one who dealt almost all the damage to that thing. You just took advantage of it when it was incapacitated to give it a small hit in the end."
"Hey, it wasn't a small hit! Also, I was the one who got the first hit on it and smashed it into the wall. Didn't you see that? What were you doing then? Oh, I remember. You were hiding outside because you were scared of that thing." Mr. Willis stuck out his tongue to mock his sister.
Ms. Willis's face slowly started to convulse as an expression of her anger as she started her rebuttal.
"You dunderhead! If it wasn't for me, you would still be bleeding a river even if you were lucky enough to escape that thing. Who do you think healed your ass back there so that you could give it a pinch in the end. Did you forget how you flew across the class when you were thrown by that thing."
Their banter was slowly getting out of hand. The noise was getting louder and we were attracting attention that I didn't want to bother with at this moment. It wasn't going to help us when the students find that the three of us could fight those things, much less kill them.
"Shhh…. Stop it!" I said as I raised my voice a little. "Would you mind continuing where we left off, Ms. Willis?"
Ms. Willis nodded her head and raised her head to stare at the roof, trying to recollect where she stopped in her explanation to banter with her idiot of a brother.
"Your brother just explained the skill he got as a reward after the fight. If you don't mind me asking, how many levels did you gain from the fight?" I asked, trying to help them from getting out of the banter.
"2" Mr. Willis said.
"1" Ms. Willis said, as she started to glare at her brother, trying to send a laser beam to smoke him for gaining more levels than her.
"And, where did you invest the stat points into?" I asked with a little of hesitation, ignoring their battle of stares with her brother returning a similarly threatening stare.
"2 points into Strength and 2 points into Mana." Mr. Willis answered almost immediately without hesitation.
I was a little shocked, to be honest, as I assumed that Mana wasn't a stat that we could improve through the freely assignable points that we received on a level up.
I was under the assumption that there might either be a special point for that or that a person started out with the maximum possible value for Mana which could only be increased using special means.
"And it worked?" I asked him, trying to confirm whether I heard it correctly.
"Yes." He said, looking at me in confusion, as if that was the most obvious thing. I was taken aback for a second but thinking of it, it was really the most obvious thing. Getting an error on assignment of the stat was the irregular part.
"I wanted to increase my Mana stat because my skill needs mana for its usage." Or so he said, but we knew that the only reason he assigned a point to Mana was because his sister had 28 points in hers, which was 10 more than his, and he would have been more than happy to place all the points into strength if he didn't think about this before the assignment.
I turned towards Ms. Willis, who seemed hesitant in answering the question, trying to avoid my gaze. So, I took the initiative and said, "You know you don't have to answer it if you don't want to, right?"
She nodded slowly, admitting that she knew, and so, I continued, "But, if it's you, you would've placed both your points into Mana."
"!!!"
She suddenly jerked her head to face towards me and looked at me straight into the eye with an expression that showed clear disbelief of being ousted.
"How did you know?" she asked.
"Simple reasoning and deduction." I said as I shrugged my shoulders.
It was easy to guess actually. From the moment we compared our mana stat, Ms. Willis would have noticed that she was slightly gifted in that area while the other stats experienced a clear experimentation and their capability was proven even before the appearance of the system. She, being smart, would have assumed that the twins would stick together and upon inspecting her skill would have chosen the best way to assist him.
"So, what happened after the monster turned to ash?" I whispered. "Can I assume these guys don't know about our fight and the skills?" I asked, trying to confirm the situation.
"No. I stopped him from telling them. The situation was very chaotic and I didn't want people to send us to fight leaving you in that state." Ms. Willis confirmed it before her brother could argue.
Seeing me nod my head in approval, she continued to explain the events after the fight. "So, after the fight Ben carried you to the infirmary to place you on the bed and find a few medicines to assist me in healing but we didn't know that there were already a lot of people hiding in here even before we came. They were so scared that they didn't open the doors for a long time even when we were knocking on the door and affirming the absence of monsters in the proximity. They closed the door extremely quickly even while letting us in, so we didn't tell them about our fights and only told them that we were hiding and rushed to the infirmary because you fainted. I used the heal spell secretly on you when I was sure no one was watching."
'Hmmm… That seemed to be it. So, how long was I out?' was what I was thinking when I suddenly heard one of the students in the infirmary speak.
"Hey, how long are you guys gonna take up that bed? That guy over there is even munching on a chocolate in this situation. Do you think you can occupy the best spot by playing pity here?" He shouted.
'Where did this guy come from?' I thought.
"Yeah, you've been taking up the best spot in the infirmary for 2 hours now and you are even eating food alone? If we guys didn't risk our safety to let you guys in and even take pity on you for fainting, do you think you would have survived outside?" another one chimed in.
'Oh! He must have seen me eating this.' I thought looking at the bar. 'So, that's what this is about.'
"You three. Hand over everything that's in your bag or else we will kick you out of here." A tall, burly student demanded. Seeing the way everyone looked at him, he seemed to be either the leader or the bully of the group.
"Do you think you can make us?" Mr. Willis moved in front of us, shielding Ms. Willis while cracking his knuckles.
A display of strength. That's all these guys could do.
I sighed, shaking my head in disappointment.
"Even if you are strong, did you see how many of us are here?"
"We will definitely win against these three."
"Do you think you can fight us? One girl, her brother and a coward who was so scared that he fainted?"
All these people seemed to have gathered courage at the sudden reversal of the food chain order, thinking that they were the stronger party now.
"Why are you just talking then? Come at me." Shouted Mr. Willis, responding to the provocation.
It wasn't because I was afraid of the possibility of losing the fight. They never stood a chance against us. No, it was mostly because I was afraid we would take it too far.
The changes in stats provide a massive boost in our abilities and without any reference, it would be detrimental to use it on another human. More so, on someone who was on level 0.
I didn't want to leave them defenceless and injured under such circumstances. My conscience wouldn't allow that. Also, considering the psychological damage that the fight would cause if things escalated, it just wasn't worth it!
Having received multiple Heal spells from Ms. Willis and the energy bar, my depleted energy source was almost full. The food stock we possessed was no longer required and it wouldn't be bad to trade it with keeping our skills a secret for now.
But before I could say anything, a boy stepped forward from the corner he sat in. I was surprised to find him here because I didn't notice him when I scanned the infirmary just a while ago.
'Why is he here? Is he trying to stop the fight? He isn't going to make it worse, is he?' I thought, taking a glance at Mr. Willis whose expression suddenly turned grim as he stared at the boy who stepped forward.