(Oct 16)

Alisha told me to get into combat with Mona and stall her while Alisha did her plan (that she didn’t tell me about), but it was worth a try for me to attempt to sneak up to Mona and steal her badge.

If I was able to steal her badge, I would be able to get her out of the game without having to fight!

With that in mind, I concealed my magic and stealthily approached Mona’s position.

Mona was walking through the forest casually, as if she was just taking an ordinary afternoon stroll in the part or something.

It was suspicious, she was too careless and exposed.

She didn’t even have a weapon in hand…

Did she know I was here?

Was she overconfident because most of the players were weak soldiers?

I wasn’t sure, but I had to act with extreme caution.

Mona’s badge was attached to her chest area of her sweater and stealing her badge would be a lot more difficult than stealing a badge from the other soldiers from before.

Since the badge was on her front side, stealing it unnoticed is impossible and I would have to create a distraction, but if I cause a distraction than it would probably alert her that someone is nearby, so I only had one chance.

It doesn’t really matter either way though since Alisha only wanted me to stall Mona and not steal her badge.

However, I also had to be sure Mona doesn’t steal my badge as well or else I’d be out of the game.

No need to rush, I decided to keep waiting and observing Mona. Maybe I’ll be able to figure out some sort of plan or find a good moment to snatch her badge.

Thankfully, it didn’t take too long for a moment to occur.

A group of 6 soldiers on my team appeared and they confronted Mona.

This was pretty stupid of them, as 6 mere soldiers would never be able to take down an A ranker like Mona, but it was a perfect distraction that I needed to try and snatch Mona’s badge.

The 6 soldiers surrounded Mona as she raised her fist and prepared for combat.

Strange… she wasn’t using a weapon…

During the tournament when I first saw her, she was using a weird weapon but now she’s fighting with her bare heads?

Well, she’s probably handicapping herself to make sure she doesn’t accidently kill any soldiers.

Although the 6 soldiers were surrounding Mona, it was clear from their faces that they were nervous. It seems even they knew that they couldn’t defeat Mona…

At that moment, a soldier threw some sort of dust or smoke bomb onto the ground which exploded, covering the area in a fog.

I was able to see through the smoke due to my enhanced dragon eyes and the fact I was able to sense magic, but the soldiers definitely wouldn’t be able see through this.

Mona leapt forward and tackled the soldier that threw the smoke bomb onto the ground and stole his badge before getting up to chase the other soldiers.

This caused the other 5 soldiers to scatter and flee from Mona in different directions.

Mona pursued one of the soldiers for a couple seconds before catching up to him and stealing his badge as well.

Mona quickly changed directions and started chasing another soldier, hunting them down one by one.

I was following this entire thing, waiting for a perfect moment when her guard was down to jump in… but I couldn’t find a single instant where I would be able to steal her badge.

The 6 soldiers were being taken down one by one until finally there was only one soldier left which would only take a couple seconds for Mona to reach.

Should I just confront her? I thought to myself.

But that’s when it happened.

As Mona was chasing the last of the six soldiers, the ground beneath her exploded and she fell into a hole.

3 more soldiers appeared out of the bushes and shot flaming arrows at Mona, who was falling into the hole that blew up.

This was a trap, the soldiers probably grouped together to dig a deep hole and set up a small trap so Mona would get caught up in an explosion and fall into the hole.

Not only that, the smoke dust bomb thingy from earlier that one of the soldiers used contained a flammable powder, which caused the flaming arrows to ignite the powder that was covering Mona and cause an even bigger explosion of fire resulting in more damage.

Although this plan was very risky, requiring the sacrifices of several soldiers and was flawed in many ways, it’s very surprising that soldiers managed to come up with a decent idea and execute it.

This plan of theirs might’ve worked on a strong and dumb monster like an ogre but unfortunately, their target was Mona.

As Mona was falling into the hole, she quickly took off her sweater and swung it around to knock away the flaming arrows that was shot at her.

She then quickly dived headfirst towards the bottom of hole (which had wooden spikes at the bottom) and used her hands to grab the wooden spikes to stabilize herself.

After doing a flip in the air after jumping off the wooden spikes with her hand, she landed on the side of the hole back on her feet again and jumped out of the hole with a single leap.

This was when my moment arrived, she was focused on the soldiers, facing away from me and she was in mid-air, making it harder for her to move.

I quickly summoned two mobile dragon claws in the air, and then sent forward as quickly and as quietly as possible.

My dragon claws flew through the forest and swerved around any obstacles in its way towards Mona’s badge.

Just a little further!

But inches before my dragon claw could reach Mona’s badge, I heard a sharp snapping sound and my dragon claw was destroyed.

I wasn’t sure what happened but when I realized something had hit my dragon claw and it was about to be destroyed, I detonated it from where I was hiding causing it to explode next to Mona.

Despite the explosion, Mona dodged out of the way and landed on the ground and was now fully alert.

She knew I was here somewhere.

Shit! What happened? I couldn’t even tell what happened!

Something fast and sharp had attacked my dragon claw the moment it got near Mona…

Was there an archer someone nearby defending Mona? Did Mona have a weapon on her?

My sneak attacked had failed so I just decided to give up on stealing her badge.

I quickly created three mobile dragon missiles behind me and then jumped out from the tree I was hiding in towards Mona.

She instantly detected me when I launched my 3 dragon missiles at her, but the dragon missiles were distractions as I also charged at her myself with my sword in hand.

That was when a gleam of light made me notice something shiny hidden within Mona’s shirt sleave.

She has a blade hidden on her!

Mona instantly took a step forward and swung her arms forward, revealing two daggers in her hands that was hidden in her sleave and sliced my incoming dragon missiles.

The dragon missiles exploded, but Mona was quick and weaved her way around it while charging straight at me.

I had no choice but to confront her head on!

From what I saw, she was using daggers and I was using a sword; therefore my range was longer.

I focused and the world around me slowed down due to my dragon’s mind ability and after twisting my entire torso, I swung my fire imbued sword horizontally when I thought that Mona was within range.

However my sword didn’t connect and Mona appeared in front of my face by jumping into the air and dodging my attack.

With time slowed down for me, Mona’s dagger flashed in the air as it accelerated towards me.

I couldn’t react fast enough even with dragon’s mind accelerating my brain’s processing power!

Even so, I felt nothing but admiration at Mona’s incredible speed and precision despite having a dagger so close to my face.

Mona’s dagger was about to reach me until suddenly…

KA-ZANGGG!!!!

A loud thunderous clapping sound resonated and echoed throughout the entire forest as a lightning arrow whizzed by my face.

Mona was knocked back by the sudden attack and glared at me.

Three more lightning arrows shot out from the distance, all from separate directions, towards Mona but she deflected them with her daggers and knocked them to the ground.

Finally…

I cracked my knuckles and tightened my grip on my sword as my dragon essence flared up inside of me. What can I say, but I was in a competitive mood?

Although I’m weaker than Mona, Alisha was supporting me from afar with her thunder/ lightning arrows.

Unlike what Alisha said to me before, I felt like I had a chance of winning.

I pointed my sword at Mona as 3 dragon missiles materialized into existence behind me.

“Let’s rumble.”