Chapter 619 (1/2)

Coughing, Randidly excited the Dungeon. He raised his hand and shaded the sun from his eyes. There was a brief moment of vertigo, but it quickly passed. A second later, Helen and Azriel came out behind him. Things had gone extremely well in the brief few weeks they had in the dungeon due to the time dilation.

After taking a couple steps forward, Randidly turned around and smiled at them with an easy grin. Then he focused his gaze on Helen.

“Thanks. Without you, I wouldn’t have progressed so quickly.”

She gave him a disgusted look and walked right past him without saying anything. Randidly chuckled. He supposed it made sense that she was somewhat miffed after losing, but he didn’t expect her to be such a bad sport about it.

He opened his mouth to say something, but Azriel prodded him in his back with her spear and shook his head. He frowned at her.

“...I supposed this is goodbye, for now.” Helen said abruptly, pulling Randidly’s attention back forward to her. “Ah… good luck. There is much danger on the front lines, but there are few as capable as you, Randidly. You’ll fuck em up- err, you will fight valiantly and such.”

Scratching his head, Randidly considered Helen’s back. She seemed to be… vibrating slightly for some reason. Was she alright? And all the while, she stared forward, refusing to look at him-

Ah, was it that?

Some of Randidly’s good cheer faded away. After scratching his neck, he said, “Hey, Helen… When we finish the tournament... Would you like to grab dinner?”

She spun around like touched with the end of a live wire and just stared at him.

Although Randidly felt extremely awkward, he pushed forward. “We… ah… shared a night of passion-”

“What the fuck does that mean?” Helen muttered. But it seemed like it was more to herself than to him, so he proceeded forward.

“...and I don’t know what that really means. But… I liked it. And I admire you. So… I think we should try seeing each other… ah… more formally?”

For exactly 13 seconds, Helen just stared at him. Then, abruptly, she nodded. Without saying anything, she then turned and walked sharply away.

Randidly felt a small warm feeling of elation in his chest before his instincts forced him to spin to the side to avoid a thrust from Azriel. Without pause, she continued to attack him several more times. He weaved his torso back and forth, avoiding the attacks. They were certainly sharp, but there was no image associated with them, so they lacked any real bite.

“What are you doing?” Randidly asked with a frown. The people standing around the Dungeon portal were watching them with something akin to amusement. Apparently, boredom was a real problem here in the Central Domain, far from the front lines.

“If you were going to ask her that, you shouldn’t have made her wait until the last moment to do it. So that… was something like feminine kinship…? Hum, how strange.”

Randidly looked at Azriel in exasperation. “Why shouldn’t I wait? Is there any need to say it earlier?”

“What if you had forgotten to do it?” Azriel said with a blithe expression on her face. Randidly threw up his hands, but honestly, he couldn’t really think of anything to say. Oftentimes, he did become overly focused on training and forget basic things. Was it really that far outside the realm of possibility that he would forget this…?

But after her brief attack, Azriel fell into step beside him and they walked towards the spot where they would meet the rest of the team. With the downtime, Randidly counted up the PP that he had gained from his travels from Niergem and the two weeks in the Dungeon. Mostly, he had gained 13 PP in Scarlet Burst and 19 in Visualization, but he had also gained large amounts in his Crown of Yggdrasil and the Kata of the Ashen Spear Skills. Beyond that, with gaining between two and three in all of his varied combat Skills…

Randidly very quickly reached the point of having just over 100 PP.

This latest boost put him over halfway through the Growth of Yggdrasil II Path, which he was very excited to finish. In addition, Randidly had sharpened his actual combat Skills backup to proper form in that period of time. Now, he had confidence facing any opponent of his Level in a one on one duel. As for opponents like the Witch King…

Now at least, Randidly knew how to fight.

When he and Azriel arrived at the meeting spot, Skarch was already there, but Silo was not. Undoubtedly he was wasting someone else's time in front of the gate, Randidly thought with a shake of the head. And he could tell from the look that Silo had given him and Azriel that he was somewhat pissed to recognize them.