Her ears twitched.
SWISH!
Hilda quickly stepped to the side and narrowly dodged a swift strike from a Scoundrel behind her. Unfortunately, it managed to graze her coat.
’Finally, decided to show yourself.’
After putting a slight distance between them, she watched as it lunged at her again, jaws open, with startling speed. Hilda sneered at this.
In response to the pounce, she rapidly spun on the spot with her arms still wrapped behind her back.
Then, when the Predicament drew close enough, she whipped her leg out and delivered a devastating kick to the monster’s bat-like face, which resulted in a small explosion of greyish winds at the point of contact.
BAM!
’{Force}.’
Riiiip~!
The Scoundrel shot back at high velocity with a caved-in, bloody face — unable to regenerate due to the explosion of Vitality it had just hit with.
It soon crashed into a wall of Predicaments, which caused Hilda to widen her eyes.
She glanced around and realised that the wall of Predicaments spanned wider than her peripheral vision.
When she finished scanning her surroundings, she discovered that she was surrounded by Predicaments — numerous enough to block off all cardinal directions and wrap around the entire perimeter of Place d’Armes, effectively sectioning her off from the outside.
There were at least 20 Predicaments surrounding her.
At this, Hilda chuckled self-deprecatingly. ’I must be going deaf, if I couldn’t hear all of them sneaking up on me.’
That was when she noticed that the ruins around her looked unturned. At that, Hilda couldn’t help but hold the side of her head in realisation. ’So, that’s how they were able to remain undetected all this time...’
These Predicaments must’ve been hiding under the rubble, waiting for a time to strike.
Whilst looking up at the dark sky, Hilda scowled again, watching as the faint outline of the moon began to appear from behind the clouds.
This was the sort of time when Predicaments were at their strongest...
’What hateful things...’
After thinking that, she quickly summoned her System. Earlier, it had made a loud alert right before she was about to be attacked. In most cases, the System had kept quiet. The only cases where the System had ever spoken to her or alerted her were: their first meeting, when she asked it something, or...
When an important Quest was assigned to her, like Ben’s case.
[Quest: Assist Nadia Crane and Others against the Predicaments]
[Importance: Extremely High]
[Reward: 500 SC]
[Status: Incomplete]
’They’ve already begun to attack? Since when?’ Hilda widened her eyes before almost salivating at the reward. ’100 SC is enough for one pull. So, if the reward is 500 SC...’
This Quest alone was enough to provide her with 5 whole pulls!
Hilda grinned wickedly, but also warily. ’This Quest’s reward is five times the reward for rescuing Mr Affleck...’
For it to be so high, despite being such a simple Quest...
It was likely either because she needed to assist people other than Nadia, or because there were stronger Predicaments at play here. However, it was most likely both. But that didn’t matter...
’I’ll be done here soon, anyway.’
She then reached for her Talismans, planning to eradicate them as fast as she could. But when she tried to rummage through her bag for Talismans, she discovered something odd.
They weren’t there.
In fact, nothing was there. No rations, her knife, even the hammer she had stowed away inside her bag... nothing, including her Talismans.
Hilda calmly looked down at her bag and noticed a massive tear at the bottom. When she discovered this, she widened her eyes and quickly looked at the ground, finding the Talismans she was looking for to be completely destroyed by the inch-tall sea of blood.
Confusion and shock flashed through her eyes when she saw this. "I see..."
She then glanced over at the Predicament she had kicked away and found its caved-in face to have already healed — with the help of the night’s boosted effect on its regeneration.
’I did hear a ripping sound earlier... it must’ve ripped my bag when it lunged at me earlier.’
But for it to have the intelligence to do that...
Hilda glanced towards the roof of a nearby building, having sensed a gaze on her, and discovered a Predicament standing on top of it. She was vaguely able to make out its broad shoulders, thick limbs, armoured plates, and glowing brown eyes.
’A Soldier...’ Hilda stared in awe, already knowing what it was.
She then watched as it turned away after making eye contact with her, and took a group of Predicaments with it before leaving.
"Pfft, haha..."
Within the few seconds it took for her to analyse her surroundings, her quest, the condition of her Talisman, and the cause of its destruction, she laughed darkly. And after she finished laughing...
She muttered sinisterly:
"Fine, I’ll do it the old-fashioned way."
She then discarded her useless satchel, which hit the ground with a wet thud, and stored away her hat. These two actions of hers seemed to serve as a signal for the Scoundrels to charge at her.
A Scoundrel that was running on all fours leapt at her fiercely, but was soon met with the end of a long, narrow metal rod.
’{Force}!’
BANG!
Having pulled one of the many metal rods from her Inventory, she began using it as a bowstaff to unleash devastating swings and blunt stabs.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
The wave of Predicaments that first approached her was swiftly repelled, flying away with caved-in faces or broken limbs. But Hilda wasn’t going to sit back and stay passive.
She lunged forward and went on the offensive.
Under normal circumstances, the metal rod would’ve snapped or bent under what Hilda was putting it through. But such cases were different in the hands of a Vitalist.
BANG!
With a swing, Hilda pulverised through the skull of a Scoundrel. Bits of its skin, muscles, skull, and brain matter sprayed out.
Reinforced by Hilda’s Vitality, not only was it displaying an immense amount of durability, but also an immense amount of power due to her {Force}. Because of that, with each strike Hilda landed, a resounding BANG would occur.
Hilda spun her metal staff to build up momentum before swiping it against the sea of blood.
As a result, she caused a wave of blood to rise forth, spraying into the faces of the Scoundrels and disrupting their sense of smell.
She then followed that up by vaulting into the air and falling towards them before unleashing a barrage of stabs in their direction.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Each stab that landed against their forehead resulted in a small explosion of Vitality, which caused their head to shoot back and hit the ground.
As they were about to get up, Hilda quickly ended them by stabbing her metal staff through their caved-in faces — killing them nearly instantly.
"Haa... haa..." Her breathing was heavy.
Hilda was dyed head to toe in blood and gore. Her coat and uniform were wet with crimson. Her once-luscious brown hair was stained with the blood of Predicaments that confined her. But all of that only seemed to improve her charms, rather than impede her movements.
The blood in her hair took on the form of crimson highlights, glistening beneath the moonlight. Together with her devilish red eyes and the ominous black-red aura that surrounded her, she looked less like a youthful adolescent and more like the Devil himself.
Or more specifically...
BANG!
The Devil’s Child.
Crushing through another skull with a wicked grin, Hilda let out a sharp exhale before spinning her staff. Once she built up enough momentum, she leapt back in and swung her staff.
She continued fighting.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Although it was a fact that imbuing equipment enhanced its durability and even sharpness, depending on the object, there was obviously a limit.
While dodging back, she raised her staff horizontally in defence and watched as it was sliced diagonally down the middle.
Scratch.
The tip of the claw scratched at her forehead, but was inevitably stopped in the face of her {Barrier}. While the claw was trying to force its way through her {Barrier}, she was suddenly slammed in the side by another Predicament and sent flying towards the hill of corpses.
Thud!
The back of her head hit the hard bodies of the hill, leaving her mind swirling and in a partial daze. But despite the nausea, she quickly got back up without complaint.
After taking a glance at her staff, split into two parts, she adjusted her grip on them before leaping back in, reusing the broken staff as two sharp daggers instead.
No matter how many times she was knocked back down, or how many times the Predicaments destroyed her weapons, she got back up and fought fiercer.
In the first 15 minutes of this struggle, she had already conquered a quarter of the Predicaments that surrounded her. 10 minutes later, she had conquered half. And in the last 5 minutes that just passed...
"Huu..."
She was now sitting atop a hill of corpses, consisting of exactly 30 Scoundrels, separate from the already existing one, with a black metal clock hand stabbed into a corpse beside her — equally dripping in blood as she was.
[ALERT! QUEST DESCRIPTION HAS CHANGED!]
[Quest: Rescue Nadia Crane and Others from Predicaments]
[Importance: Extremely High]
[Reward: 1000 SC]
[Status: Incomplete]
’The reward has doubled...’
Hilda stared coldly at the screen.
’It takes close to a quarter of an hour to an hour to get from the port to here. But with the speed of Predicaments, that’s most likely cut down by half.’ She thought back to the Soldier she saw. ’Even more than half for that guy...’
Whilst looking up at the silver moon with a bloody face, she stood up and uprooted the dripping clock hand. Afterwards, she rested it on her shoulder before combing her hand through her hair, using the blood sticking to her as gel.
She then grinned wickedly as her eyes flashed with bloodthirsty elation.
"Well, then... I better start making my way over," She muttered in a coarse and excited tone.
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