Chapter 47: The Cunning Claire

The Hall of Happiness was located in the red zone, which meant killing was legal in this area.

Raven and Reyna walked cautiously through the hall.

"R-Raven, how are we going to defeat her?"

Reyna’s gaze never left the Flower Queen monster. Her rose-like form looked absolutely beautiful, but Reyna wasn’t impressed in the slightest.

If anything, she was terrified and didn’t want to get too close.

"Don’t worry. I’ve already thought it through."

Raven rubbed his chin as he carefully examined the monster from head to toe.

"The Flower Queen has two main abilities. First, she can use her long roots to cover the entire hall. Second, she can spray flower pollen at her targets. So..."

A smile appeared on his face.

"The best way to defeat her is to attack quickly."

"Attack quickly?"

Raven nodded casually.

"In short, I’ll attack her head-on. When she’s caught off guard, I’ll give you the signal to kill her. What do you think?"

Reyna furrowed her brow. Raven’s plan sounded incredibly simple—a far cry from what she had imagined.

Still, she trusted Raven completely, so she didn’t question it.

"All right."

She composed herself and swung her spear to the side.

"Let’s get started!"

...

"Mhmmm..."

Claire walked down the dimly lit hallway, humming happily.

She opened the leaderboard and saw that "Raven’s Group" was in first place with an incredibly high score of 35,000 points.

Of that total, 5,000 points came from extorting those bad guys.

Although it was insignificant compared to what Raven and Rose had accomplished, she was still happy.

After all, it had already been seven days since the third mission began, and she hadn’t contributed anything until now.

"Hmmm... I’m a little confused. How did Raven and Rose manage to get so many points?"

Thirty thousand points in just seven days was an insane number. Even the team in second place had only managed to accumulate 20,000 points.

Third place had 18,000 points, and so on.

And according to the men she had beaten earlier, many groups were working together and protecting one another.

They would take turns hunting monsters and let another group kill the hall’s boss. Then, in the next hall, it would be their turn, and so on.

In other words, all these groups were doing their best to keep their rankings. Strangely enough, Raven and Rose had still managed to beat them all.

"If only we had smartphones, I could contact them right away," she muttered.

She was walking through the hallway when she suddenly heard some noise up ahead.

Curious, she went to check it out and found a fierce battle going on in a nearby hall.

Claire peeked inside and saw twelve people fighting a three-meter-tall giant monster shaped like a black bear.

She then opened the monster’s status panel.

[STATUS!]

Name: ?

Kind: Black Armored Bear

Level: 10

Description: A powerful Level 10 monster. It usually takes several people to take one down. However, it is very weak against magic, so a Wizard would have a big advantage against it.

Claire’s eyes lit up.

"Isn’t this my chance?"

Her heart raced as she looked at the HP bar above the bear’s head. It had already been reduced by half.

Claire wasn’t a shy person, let alone a coward. This was especially true after arriving in this unknown world, where the law of the jungle prevailed.

"I have to land the final blow," she muttered, her eyes flashing with determination.

Meanwhile, the twelve players inside the hall were fighting fiercely against the bear monster.

Their leader was Tristan, the same man whose prey had previously been stolen by Reyna.

"Troy, attack the vital spot at the back of its head! Mona, distract it!" he ordered.

"Got it!" they both replied in unison.

They leaped off in different directions.

While the two carried out their tasks, the other nine didn’t just stand around.

They unleashed a barrage of attacks on the bear monster.

Finally, an opening appeared, and Tristan thrust his greatsword into its throat.

"Hey, don’t kill it!"

The bald man beside him hurriedly shouted.

Tristan’s expression darkened, but he quickly regained his smile.

"What are you talking about, Ken? Kill it? How could I?" Tristan chuckled. "I’m just making sure the monster is weakened so it won’t sneak attack you while you finish it off."

Ken frowned but quickly pushed his suspicions aside and snorted.

"Then get out of the way. I have to kill it and earn points for my group."

He pulled Tristan aside and stared at the monster with pure greed in his eyes.

Tristan glared back at him coldly. He desperately wanted to kill Ken, but unfortunately, he couldn’t.

Aside from the fact that killing him would only hurt his own group, they were currently in the green zone, where killing other players was prohibited.

Ken raised his weapon—a scythe—and was about to swing it when a fireball suddenly streaked toward him at breakneck speed.

"Watch out!"

His teammate shoved him aside.

Boom!

The fireball struck a giant pillar behind the bear-like monster.

Ken and his teammate coughed as they inhaled the dust from the explosion.

"Damn it! Who did that!?" Ken shouted angrily.

He turned around and saw a beautiful woman with long pink hair holding up her magic staff.

"Y-You..."

Ken’s eyes widened as anger filled his eyes.

"How dare you interfere!? I’ll kill you!"

The pink-haired woman—none other than Claire—smiled coldly.

She closed her eyes and whispered, "Lightning Cage!"

Buzz!

A purple magic circle appeared above Ken’s head.

"This isn’t good! Fall back!" Tristan shouted.

Everyone immediately retreated, but some of them were too slow.

Dozens of purple lightning bolts shot out from the magic circle.

"Argh!"

A woman wearing a black veil screamed in pain as one of the lightning bolts severed her right hand.

The others didn’t fare any better.

Some had their skin torn open, while others suffered severe injuries to their knees and legs.

Tristan’s eyes burned with hatred as he glared at Claire in the distance.

"Bastard!"

He was about to charge at her, but Claire moved first.

A red magic circle appeared above the bear monster’s head.

Boom!

A three-meter-wide fireball shot out of the circle and blew the monster to pieces.

[120 points have been added!]

A notification sounded in Claire’s mind.

"Hehehe..."

Claire grinned smugly when she heard it.

She made a taunting gesture toward Tristan and his group before turning around and leaving.

"I won’t let her get away with this!"

Mona was about to chase after her, but Tristan quickly stopped her.

"Don’t go!"

Mona stopped in her tracks and glared at Tristan in frustration.

"She just stole our prey! Are you seriously going to let her get away with it?"

Tristan ignored her glare and looked at Ken and the others, who were injured.

"That’s not more important than their safety. Hurry, we need to get out of here and recover."

What Mona didn’t know was that Tristan was secretly laughing his head off.

Earlier, he had been outsmarted by a mysterious woman. And now, Ken and his group had suffered the same fate.

At least he wasn’t the only one having such terrible luck.

Following Tristan’s command, the surviving players immediately carried the seriously injured members out of the hall.