Scarlet

As I run straight across the continent in my bipedal beast form, having shifted into it at one point along the way, I can’t help but wonder just how stupid the person who sent those attackers after me must’ve been. I mean, I know that I’m still just a little over level 850… actually, what level am I?

I let my System Messages flow.

{Level 901 Contracted Human defeated. A significant EXP bonus is awarded for killing a creature over fifty levels above your level.}

{Level 902 Contracted Human defeated. A significant EXP bonus is awarded for killing a creature over fifty levels above your level.}

{Level 909 Contracted Human defeated. A significant EXP bonus is awarded for killing a creature over fifty levels above your level.}

{Level 952 Contracted Human defeated. A significant EXP bonus is awarded for killing a creature over fifty levels above your level.}

{Level 971 Contracted Human defeated. A massive EXP bonus is awarded for killing a creature over a hundred levels above your level.}

{Level 931 Contracted Human defeated. A significant EXP bonus is awarded for killing a creature over fifty levels above your level.}

{Level 925 Contracted Human defeated. A significant EXP bonus is awarded for killing a creature over fifty levels above your level.}

{Level 931 Contracted Human defeated. A significant EXP bonus is awarded for killing a creature over fifty levels above your level.}

{Level 940 Contracted Human defeated. A significant EXP bonus is awarded for killing a creature over fifty levels above your level.}

{Level 912 Contracted Human defeated. A significant EXP bonus is awarded for killing a creature over fifty levels above your level.}

{Level 914 Contracted Human defeated. A significant EXP bonus is awarded for killing a creature over fifty levels above your level.}

{Level 913 Contracted Human defeated. A significant EXP bonus is awarded for killing a creature over fifty levels above your level.}

{One Skill Point is awarded for killing a human.} x12

{Congrats, you have leveled up to level 851. Five Free Points have been awarded to you and your stats have been updated.}

…

{Congrats, you have leveled up to level 870. Five Free Points have been awarded to you and your stats have been updated.}

Oh, nice. Those stalkers actually helped me out in speeding up my leveling.

“We’re not luring more out to kill them,” Tar says, sounding like he’s putting his foot down.

I doubt there are any more of them anyways. Their leader is going to most likely see what happened through time magic and back off after that point. Unless they have a Class V they can send my way, but I doubt that for the same reasons I mentioned earlier.

And they don’t have any evidence they can manipulate to make it look like I killed them unprovoked, because it’s impossible to record or edit a vision of the past. It just doesn’t show up on recordings.

They obviously can’t put it in an artificial reality either because that would just get them arrested for trying to slander me, since anything in an artificial reality can be mimicked and created. It’s called artificial for a reason.

I let out a sigh as I run.

Well, won’t really matter anyways. I’ll be mentioning this to Amelia, assuming she hasn’t already heard about it. And after that…

“There won’t be anyone left to attack you from that group…” Tar mutters, making me nod mid-run.

Yep.

I continue running for a couple hours, occasionally passing by cities faster than the people on the walls can blink until I eventually make it to the capital. Then I jump straight up to the Guardian entrance on the wall – a special place where Guardians can skip any lines to enter a city. And all of the people there look surprised by my appearance, with some seemingly preparing to fight, only to blink and start smiling or even cheering when they see me transforming back to my lycan form.

But I just ignore everyone, including the few people who are actually kneeling or bowing to me and calling me Princess as I walk through the line, waving my GID over the terminal in the process to prove my identity. Not that that’s really all that needed, all things considered.

After some more annoyance caused by the people at the gate, I make it into the city and immediately jump up to a roof where I begin jumping across more roofs until I eventually arrive at the Silver Association’s base. Then I just walk right up and open the door.

“It’s rather… impressive to know that you just ran all the way across a continent in just a few hours and are already back at the base,” Tar mutters, reminding me that his previous partner never actually reached my current level of power. I think. “He didn’t. And he wasn’t a physical focused Guardian either. He focused on magic.”

Ah, so even if he was at my level, his physical capabilities would still be far lower than mine.

Gotcha.

I stretch a little from my long run as I walk through the halls of the base, occasionally nodding my head at people I pass by. And when I reach Allen’s office, I knock on it, finding the thing opening soon after to reveal Allen sitting behind his desk using his magic to open the door without even lifting his head to look at me.

“What’s up Scarlet?” he asks, still not raising his head and instead frowning at the documents.

Out of curiosity, I walk over to his desk and sit down on the end of it while peeking over to see what it’s about as I answer, “Oh, nothing much. Just had a teleportation interrupted by some stalkers, dealt with them, and came here to ask for transportation back to the frontlines.” The documents he’s looking overlook to be about the supplies to the frontlines. Something about them becoming a little thin recently. So I ask, “What’s that?”

But he doesn’t seem to care about the documents anymore as he raises his head and blinks at me before eventually asking, “Did you say stalkers?”

“Nevermind that,” I tell him with a wave before pointing at the document, “What’s going on?”

He blinks again, the man seemingly tired from stress and probably overwork. Then he narrows his eyes slightly and answers, “It looks like we have some changelings going after our supplies.” He lowers his head to focus on the documents again. “The things keep managing to sneak their way into the supply management even after we’ve tried exterminating them with magical sense Guardians. But there are several of them that seem to be immune to their senses, just like the ones in the government were. So they’re stumped on how to deal with them.”

Changelings… Interesting.

“Well, if it won’t take long I can always head over there and sniff them out for you,” I tell him with a light shrug of one of my shoulders. “Wouldn’t likely take long, and I’d get some free EXP from killing them.”

His head snaps upwards before he slaps himself in the forehead and mutters, “I forgot you could sniff them out…”

“Pretty important thing to remember,” I comment with a raised brow and an amused smirk.

“Yeah…” he mutters, only to lower his gaze back onto me with his eyes narrowed again as he asks, “What was this about stalkers again?”

Damn. Thought I distracted him.

He clearly won’t be mad at me, but I still don’t want to be in here when he hears about them and gets angry at them. Especially when the problem is probably gonna be gone within a day or two anyways.

“Good luck with him,” Tar says before abandoning me to the Farshore.

Traitor.