Whoosh.
Her arrow cut through the air, and I knew there was no way to block it. It was too fast, and she'd infused it with mana on top of that.
"AHHHHHH!"
But I hadn't been hit. The scream came out because I'd forced my affinity to activate, and that wasn't exactly a painless experience.
Darkness.
A veil of it spread out in front of me, and the arrow struck it and clattered harmlessly to the floor.
"What...?" she muttered, visibly thrown off.
"Hah... hah... hah..." I bent forward, panting hard. I hadn't actually expected that to work, but somehow, at the very last second, it had. I pushed through the exhaustion, got to my feet, and charged toward her.
That was a mistake.
"FUCK!"
She nocked five arrows at once and let them fly, and that alone wasn't the problem. The problem was that every single one of them lit up on release.
Light affinity. Of course it was.
Out of every student in this building, I had to run into the one whose affinity directly countered mine. I threw myself sideways, knocking over a shelf as the arrows zipped past and exploded somewhere behind me.
I scrambled up and ran, trying to put as much distance between us as possible.
Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud.
Arrows kept coming, striking the shelves on either side of me, and I dodged each one by a margin I wasn't comfortable with. I couldn't beat her, she was too skilled and her affinity shut down everything I had, so I needed a different approach.
Then it hit me.
The mission.
[Mission in progress.
Let the game begin.
Objective: Get 200 points on the first day. [00:19:58:42]
Progress: 75%
Reward: A shadow skill.
Failure: All stats set to negative.]
A shadow skill. If I could take down one more student and hit a hundred percent, I'd have something new to work with, and maybe that would change things against her.
I squeezed through a narrow gap between two shelves and started shoving everything I passed, sending them toppling into each other in a chain reaction. It wouldn't stop her for long, but it would buy me a little time. I sprinted ahead and rounded the next corner.
Someone else came around it from the other side at the same moment.
"Fredlin."
"Oh, seems you already know me," he said, raising his sword as fireballs began forming in the air around him. "Now die!"
Pum.
They all launched forward at once.
"Heh."
The sneer came out before I could stop it, and whatever expression crossed my face was enough to make Fredlin take a few steps back. The fireballs hit the veil of darkness surrounding me and went out, every single one of them, like they'd never existed.
Fredlin was one of the protagonist's future allies and one of the ones who'd end up on the wrong side of a very unfortunate situation later down the line, but that was a problem for another time.
"What affinity is that?!" he stammered.
[Mana: 123/200]
I clicked my tongue. I couldn't keep this up much longer.
I closed the distance fast, digger already in hand.
"ARCK! Stop! ARCK! ARCK!"
Well. He was dead.
[Mission in progress.
Mission complete.
Let the game begin.
Objective: Get 200 points on the first day. [00:19:58:42]
Progress: 100%
Reward: A shadow skill.
Failure: All stats set to negative.]