In front of him, he spotted Victoria leisurely flying around, bumping into the furniture he had blind-proofed and bouncing off it like some kind of bouncy toy. She kept colliding with everything in her path, and she only stopped when she collided with Arthur.
That was because he caught her. He stared at her dazed face in his arms and let out a sigh.
"What are you even doing?"
"..."
"Bleghhh..."
***
A few hours had passed since the ’incident.’ Arthur was chilling in bed, looking over today’s events.
There’s something I understand even less now than I did earlier. Why did I get attacked by those weak assassins?
In the heat of the moment, Arthur had pointed fingers at the various powers trying to capture Victoria, but after taking a step back and thinking about it, he realized that those guys had only one intention.
To kill Arthur.
I was the target, and I’m guessing tomorrow, I’m going to encounter them again.
"..."
He didn’t want this kind of life. He just wanted to relax and do whatever he wanted. Fighting and having people try to take his life...
He’d had enough of that in the army.
I’ll talk with Nico tomorrow, and I’ll probably establish a shop in some district inside the slums. But for that, I’ll still need money. What’s a quick way to get money?
Gambling?
No.
Though...
What if he won?
Arthur shook his head. He didn’t want to fall into that rabbit hole. Instead of going to sleep, he went into the living room and used the laptop there to look for some job offers. Something that didn’t involve fighting but still paid a fair amount of money.
It took a little while to find something decent. The only issue was that the thing he had found was something he was trying to avoid completely.
[Job description:]
[Looking for healers to raid the Scarlet Factory. Your level doesn’t matter, since your only job will be to deal with minor injuries. Need 4 healers in total. Edited: Need only one more.]
[Compensation: 15,000 Pora]
Pora was the currency in this world. Furthermore, 15,000 was by no means a small amount. The average salary was 2,500 Pora per month, so this was several times more. And judging by what he had seen of the raid, it should only take a couple of hours.
The hardest part of the raid was surviving the attacks. If they could do that, then they could kill more monsters and get through everything faster.
If there’s a nepo-baby behind this raid, then that’d explain the compensation. Sigh... I didn’t want to do anything that involved getting close to death again, but I’d take this over working a 9-to-5 for half a year.
With that in mind, he hit apply and submitted his information. Since only government facilities had level detectors, he simply lied and told them he was Level 5. Once he was done, he hit submit and decided to go to bed.
Yet not even a few seconds after hitting submit, he heard a ding from the laptop. He checked it, confused, and found an email addressed to him.
[Title: Your submission has been accepted.]
[Congratulations, you’ve been accepted as the final healer for the raid. We now have 25 members, and if possible, we’d like to be able to start the raid this Friday, exactly at 9 P.M. Let me know if you can’t make it. If you’re able, then don’t reply to the message and be here at the time mentioned. (Attached Location)]
Friday. So, in three days. That gives me plenty of time to get stronger just in case, and I’ll also need to talk to Victoria about this, Arthur thought before deciding to clock out for the night.
***
It was now morning.
He felt a bit sore, but seeing how much his stats, especially his Mana, had increased after yesterday’s healing, he had no regrets.
Name: Arthur Vegas
Age: 22
Race: Human
Mystic Healer (Lv.3 → Lv.4) [Experience: 25 / 4,000]
Level: 1 [0 / 100 Experience]
Mana Core: None
Mana Core Affinity: None
—HP & MP
[HP: 620 / 620 → 630 / 630]
[MP: 580 / 580 → 810 / 810]
—Attributes:
[Strength: 60 → 61]
[Stamina: 62 → 63]
[Agility: 49 → 50]
[Perception: 24 → 27]
[Mana: 59 → 81]
—Skills
[Healing Touch (Lv.3 → Lv.4)]
—Heal 100 HP → 200 HP when making contact with someone.
Cost: 50 MP → 100 MP
By the raid, these stats should easily triple. Can’t wait to see how much of a superhuman I’ll be by then, pfft.
Arthur got out of bed and washed up. He slipped into some fresh clothes and stepped into the living room where, coincidentally, Victoria was. She was walking around and slowly getting used to her blindness.
"For someone who got drunk and puked all over me yesterday, you seem pretty lively today."
She turned to him and shrugged. "So? I said I was sorry. How would you feel if you suddenly lost your sight? Cut me some slack."
"Right. Well, have you tried using your Laws to, like, sense your surroundings at all?" he asked.
"Obviously I have. It’s just that it drains an extreme amount of Mana, so I can’t keep it up for long." She paused for a moment. "I noticed you were being chased yesterday by some unruly people. How are you?"
He raised a brow and walked into the kitchen. Since she could pretty much sense everything he did, he knew she already had an answer to that question. He began cooking breakfast for the two of them.
She smelled the food and subconsciously began walking toward it. However, she soon bumped into the counter. She recoiled as if expecting pain, but when she ran her hand along the edge of the counter, she realized just how smooth it was.
"Are you intolerant to anything?" he asked.
She snapped out of it and blurted out, "Badly placed furniture."
"...?"
"...Lactose."
He gave her the side-eye and put aside the gallon of milk. He prepared breakfast for them, and once he was done, he set it down on the table. He sat her down, gave her a fork, and watched as she began chomping down on the food.
Since he was just as hungry, Arthur did the same. For the next couple of minutes, the two ate like pigs, not caring about etiquette in the slightest. Victoria, for one, had a noodle in her nose from how fast she was eating.
He let out a chuckle, accidentally spitting some of his food onto her plate. Even though she was blind, she knew what he had done. Without a glimmer of mercy, she tossed a handful of spaghetti right at his face, knocking him over and stomping away.
Yet right as she was about to enter her room, a meatball flew from across the house, hitting her straight in the back of the head.
"Heh..."
Arthur wiped the spaghetti from his face.
"I can do this all day."
"..."
Victoria turned around and flashed an innocent smile. Though, when thunder began gathering around her fingertips, Arthur got the feeling that the smile wasn’t that innocent.
CRACKLE...
BOOOOOM!
Arthur stared at the smoking wall. Had this been made out of wood, their house would have been kaput by now.
"Most couples just argue, you know? Also, congrats. You just fucked up the microwave. What are we going to do now?"
Victoria’s smile widened.
"Fix. It."
"Do I look like an electrician to you?" Arthur shot back.
It was unfair!
But before she could reply, he suddenly remembered something.
"Oh, right! I’m going to be going on a raid in a few days."
Arthur quickly gave her the rundown about the raid, and as expected, she shook her head.
"It’s a trap."
Arthur raised a brow. "How do you know that?"
"Think about it. A raid that doesn’t require a bare minimum level for a healer? I may not have played a lot of games in the past, but I know that raids are places where you entrust your life to someone else. You’re not the right fit. Ah, if that’s not enough, who the hell would get accepted into a raid requiring a healer within seconds of applying?"
Her smile softened.
"And Arthur? Are you forgetting who you’re in a room with?"
She puffed out her chest slightly and, with a proud gaze, pointed right at an empty corner of the living room.
"Get me that laptop and find me the location of a gold mine. We’re going to kickstart our wealth."