[1% LIFESTEAL] Chapter 174 - Strategy and Politics

As the introductions continued, Freddy couldn’t shake the feeling that something was strange. A game was being played, he could sense it, but for the life of him, he couldn’t tell what it was. 

Until a stray thought suddenly struck. 

These people, other than Matt perhaps, spent a lot of time fighting alongside others. Such was the life of the average elite. If they wanted to fight in tournaments, they couldn’t hide what they could do. A good part of their skills would inevitably leak into the public. Even Freddy was a victim of this. He had fought the six three-stars in front of all of Valhalla, and during the fight, he had revealed two spirit abilities and damn near all his regular abilities. 

And, on top of that, he had showcased his talent.

But that didn’t mean that people knew what he could do. Not exactly. 

For starters, while people now knew he had two spirit abilities, nobody was going to suspect he had a third. After all, in the eyes of almost everyone, that would be completely insane. 

While 1% Lifesteal was showcased, he’d only displayed the dynamic aspect of it, and not the supreme-quality healing. 

And, perhaps most importantly, he was obviously undead, given the kinds of attacks he lived through. People most definitely believed he had the death affinity.

Once he had this realization, the way these people were describing what they could do suddenly sounded quite different. 

Matt basically admitted he was weak during daytime. It made sense, too. But was that really the case? Or was that just something he wanted them to think? What stopped him from deliberately slowing himself down in well-lit spaces so people would think that was a weakness?

And the girl, Peri Ostervald, she basically led them to believe that her soulfire was practically useless unless she was fighting multiple opponents. But was that really the case? Nothing stopped her soulfire from just being a lot more dangerous than regular fire on top of its soul-branding effect. 

And her “spirit ability” of physical enhancements across the board in exchange for being rooted in place was also a little suspect. 

What if it was just a third function of her staff, or a function of her robes? What if it was a second talent, and she only pretended that she needed to stay in place so that people would fall into the trap of believing she was weaker if she had to keep moving? And what if her “Elemental Soul” talent wasn’t actually a talent at all, but instead a function of her gear, while her real talent was physical enhancement across the board?

It was impossible to tell. And that could very well be the point. 

With this in mind, he carefully thought through what he was going to say while listening to the rest of them introduce themselves. 

Next was the tall purple-haired violet-eyed hippie with the living tree shirt. 

His name was Reginald Price. 

He apparently had the Biosphere talent, which conjured a vast internal space in his body where he kept and bred bugs he used for combat. 

“Freak alert!” the shadow lady shouted. “Someone call the freak police! Or a cockroach exterminator.” She grinned at him and then mockingly gagged as if she was going to vomit.

The man shot her a withering glare before ignoring her and continuing his introduction. 

For the most part, this man fought using bugs he cultivated in his body, but he was also competent with plants which he used to fight at range. He claimed to have no spirit abilities, but he did have a set of unique cursed items—his wooden cube earrings, which were a rare example of a cursed item that existed as two separate parts, the living wood jacket, and the moss shirt. 

He didn’t go into detail about what they did, but he eluded that they gave him a variety of bonuses to his nature affinity casting. 

Freddy theorized that his “Biosphere” talent was potentially a set bonus from the three items and his true talent was something completely different. And also, he didn’t buy that the man had no spirit abilities. Plus, given how much the man emphasized his proficiency with bugs, it was likely that his plants were even more lethal.

After him was the scarred girl with the pixie cut.

Her introduction was curt and her voice was placid, with barely any emotion to it. 

Her name was Georgie League and her talent was Super Regeneration. What made her talent quite interesting was that it had a non-standard quality that didn’t belong on the usual scale.

Rather than healing, strictly speaking, her talent was more of an “injury reversal.” Basically, it wasn’t true regeneration, it was closer to winding back time. The faint scars were the only flaw to her healing, and they weren’t actually scars, it was just a lack of pigmentation compared to the rest of her skin. 

While this non-standard quality allowed her healing to be extremely powerful, nearly rivaling supreme-quality healing, it came with a number of weaknesses. First, it struggled with poisons. Also, it couldn’t undo muscle strain and other self-inflicted injuries, so she couldn’t use it to train like Freddy. 

In a rather startling reveal, the woman confessed to having the lightning, metal, and water affinities. She had somehow advanced two of her affinities and discarded the originals, leaving her with a strange yet undoubtedly powerful combination.

She used a number of different weapons and didn’t elaborate on any cursed items or spirit abilities. 

Then, it was time for the shadow girl to start. 

She grinned broadly at them as she started her introduction. “My name is Emily Umbra and my talent is Shadow Queen.”

Her surname didn’t escape Freddy’s notice, and his brief look of shock didn’t escape her notice either. 

She smiled at him pleasantly as she put her hands together. “By the way, I should thank you for purging that dropout who used our family name like he owned it. We’d have taken care of him a long time ago, had we been allowed to”—she punctuated her statement with a venomous glance at the adjudicator—”but alas. In the name of the real Umbra Clan, I thank you.

“Now, back to me. As my talent’s name suggests, I’m the queen of everything shadow. My abilities cost less and hit harder. I have a powerful resistance against dark essence and perfect vision even in absolute darkness. My manipulation is way above the average dark-affinity user. On top of all that, my hair”—she lovingly caressed the billowing waterfall of shadow—”is pretty much a fifth limb I can use to fight.  

“I would say I specialize in medium range combat, but that would be a lie, since I’m good at almost everything. My physique is exceptional. I can use practically any weapon to fight. My cursed items are my leggings, my sweater, and”—she fished a necklace out of her shirt—”this necklace. All of my equipment goes towards reducing the cost of my abilities, which means I can fight almost indefinitely without breaking a sweat.”

She let the weight of her words settle before pointing at the other three youths. “These three losers already know who I am, so if you want to know anything else, feel free to consult them.” Emily blew them all a mocking kiss as she turned her black eyes to Freddy. 

He had to be honest with himself. While Freddy generally despised elitism from the bottom of his heart, this woman was waking up something inside of him. As much as it pained him to admit it, he was a bit too into being looked down on by the arrogant goth girl, and he was extremely uncomfortable at the sudden discovery about himself. 

Putting that aside, if even half the stuff this woman said was true, then she was a complete monster. It made him wonder for what reason she was even here? Was it just gratitude for taking care of the people masquerading as people of her clan? Surely that wouldn’t warrant sending someone like her over. 

And then the adjudicators words hit him. 

Two of the three women present were here to likely try to marry him. 

For some reason, he got a bad feeling about this. 

She gave him a pleasant look that made his heart tense and then gestured. “How about it? Is the man of honor going to speak?”

“Oh. Right.” Freddy coughed. For now, he put that aside and focused on remembering the bullshit he cooked up for his introduction. 

He looked around the room as he bought himself a few seconds to collect his thoughts. “My name is Freddy St—” He coughed violently and grabbed a glass of whiskey to take a sip. “Sorry about that. I think I inhaled something. Anyway, my name is Freddy Cliff. My talent is 1% Lifesteal.” 

Everyone in the room, other than Matt Canstone, reacted by raising an eyebrow at him. Even the adjudicator seemed surprised. 

“Now, I know what you’re thinking,” he said as he raised his hands. “Seems a bit underwhelming, right? But while the amount of healing might be small, the quality makes up for it. It is of a dynamic quality that adapts from minimum to supernatural quality to target wounds of higher priority.” He hid the fact that it could go all the way to supreme quality for obvious reasons. “And while it’s great during combat, it’s even better outside combat, since it works on anything living, including plants.”

That got a few nods of appreciation. These people knew what kind of benefit that would grant him for physical training without needing to have it explained to them. Even at “only” supernatural quality, he could recover from training in the blink of an eye, and he could afford to push his tempering a lot harder than most others. 

Most of these people likely had access to something similar, probably in the form of a very expensive group of holy-affinity healers, so they could definitely appreciate the power of having access to something like that basically for free.

Since supernatural healing didn’t allow him to do what he was doing with his organ farming, he wasn’t afraid to reveal it, since he would likely showcase it in fights anyway. That being said, he got strange looks from the adjudicator. Hopefully the man wasn’t connecting the dots quite yet. And if he was, Freddy desperately hoped he would keep his mouth shut. 

The same thing went for Matt, who definitely already knew Freddy’s secret.

Freddy continued, “My affinities are blood, water, and death. Though I have to admit, I got the death affinity rather late, so I only managed to fit Spark of Undeath into my ability roster for now.”

That made Emily snicker as she facepalmed. For one reason or another, she considered him an idiot. That was good. He would rather be an idiot than someone who held the secret to being undead without the death affinity. 

He ignored her and kept going. “I am primarily a martial artist. I follow the Crimson Mercury school of the blood affinity, so I conjure weapons in combat. I have three cursed items: this ring”—he lifted his hand and then pulled his necklaces out of his storage ring—”and these two necklaces.” He also made sure not to mention the two unique items. “The ring makes things bleed harder when I hit them, and for the necklaces, one empowers weapons and the other one discounts water abilities. They are not a part of a set.”

“Obviously,” Emily said with a sarcastic snort. “Their functions couldn’t possibly be further apart.” 

“Right,” Freddy said amicably and moved on. “I also have two spirit abilities.” He had shown both of them during his fight with the local leaders, so the people present definitely already knew about them. “The first one allows me to move faster through time while the other makes my bones grow into a head-shaped mass of spikes that bites whatever I point it at.”

The mention of the two spirit abilities earned him some pitying looks from the people there. From what they knew about spirit abilities, having two was damn-near crippling for one’s growth. If they knew he had three, they’d likely conclude that he was a lost cause and then lose all interest in him. 

For his part, he had to resist the smug feeling of knowing something not even these golden spoons were privy to. It felt damn good. 

“That would be about it,” he said as he finally sat back down.

Emily immediately started clapping as if he’d just held an inspiring speech. “Bravo, Mr. Cliff. So brave of you to admit something so embarrassing. I mean really, you have the death affinity and you didn’t make space for even one miasma attack?”

He smiled pleasantly at her. “My abilities are a bit too advanced to part with them so easily.”

She gave a throaty laugh at his response and then pointed at him with her thumb while giving everyone else a “look at this guy” kind of glance. 

Suddenly, a voice barely above a whisper came from Peri. “I am sure Mr. Cliff has his reasons.”

“Oh, what’s that?” Emily cupped her ear. “I think I almost heard someone say something.”

Peri released a displeased nose sigh and shook her head. 

“Well then!” The adjudicator clapped to diffuse the tension. “We are finished with the introductions. Now, I believe we should talk about strategy.”

For the next two hours, the adjudicator proceeded to explain in great detail how they would deal with the coming horde of monsters. 

Their defenses would come in three layers. 

The first layer was the wall. It was armed with a vast number of ballistas and had a number of ranged fighters stationed atop it. Should monsters ever reach the wall itself, there was a vast number of combatants who would meet them before they could make it through. 

The second layer was the towers. There was a number of towers scattered at numerous choke points throughout the mountains North of Repentawa. The towers would use the same setup as the wall, but with higher focus on quality fighters over sheer numbers. These would be the hit teams that would intercept bigger threats before they got anywhere near the walls. 

And the third layer were the people in that room, sans the adjudicator. 

They were all given highly advanced watches with all sorts of fancy ethertech attached to them. Freddy turned his on, only for a map of the area North of the wall to appear as a hologram, with a red arrow pointing at his location at the edge of the map, right in the middle of the wall.

Freddy was a sucker for technology, so it took everything he had not to squeal like a schoolgirl at the absolutely badass gadget.

The watch had numerous other functions. He could press a button to ping his current location to everyone else, and it could also be used as a communication device.

They would be given a list of people they could take with them, with the final say resting in their hands. Freddy fully planned on inviting Sophia with him, but he understood that she might not be powerful enough to handle such a role. Still, he would offer her a spot on his team. There was no better healer in a thousand mile radius. The only problem would be hiding her full capabilities from anyone else he takes with him. 

On top of that, a medium-sized team of professional scouts would help them gather information on the monsters’ movement, with live updates being sent to their watches around the clock. 

For the most part, their job would be clearing as many monsters as possible before they get to the second layer of defense. But their primary role was to tackle or distract extreme threats, should they appear. 

There were some really nasty creatures living deep in the Frozen Wastes. The walls protecting Repentawa might as well be tissue paper to some of these behemoths. While these creatures were undoubtedly among the greatest threats to their success, surprisingly, they weren’t the greatest danger. And it wasn’t Nahar himself, either.

No, the actual biggest threat was just… numbers. 

If there were too many monsters, they would be exhausted and eventually overrun. It didn’t matter how powerful they were or how many layers of defense they had if they were literally drowned in a tsunami of creatures rushing for Repentawa. 

They weren’t necessarily in personal danger should this happen, but that didn’t really matter. If enough monsters slipped past all three layers, the civilians would be eaten alive and the city would be screwed. 

There would be nothing left to defend.

The meeting ended, and they were told to rest for the next few days. The adjudicator claimed that the monsters were lagging behind the predicted time of arrival, giving them a few extra days to prepare. 

Once finished, Freddy practically leaped to his feet out the chair and rushed out of the room. However, before he could make his valiant escape, the adjudicator called out, “Mr. Cliff. I need to speak to you for a moment.”

He could only sigh as he turned around. 

The man handed him a small keycard. “You will be taken to your room. I highly advise you to stay here for the next few days.” He paused for a moment to flick his eyes in the direction of the others who were leaving the room. 

Freddy got the message. They were going to contact him in private. 

Sighing again, he took the keycard. 

With the prospect of a few extra days until the monsters arrived, he had been hoping to buy himself a day or two to emotionally prepare for what was coming. But sadly, that had been wishful thinking on his part. “Thank you, Judge,” he said as he pocketed the keycard. “I will see you tomorrow, then.”

A moment later, the last of the guests left the room, leaving Freddy and the adjudicator alone. The adjudicator looked Freddy in the eye. “Please be careful. But don’t let yourself be bullied. You own a whole city, which is an asset anyone would covet. Most of them will likely try to lay claim to some portion of Repentawa given the help they’re providing. Don’t fall for it. They have no right to take anything from you. 

“Even if they threaten to retract their assistance, the most they could do is take their people and leave, and they’re unlikely to do even that, since they’re here for experience to begin with and their reputation would suffer should they do that. You hold all the cards in this negotiation. I can always step in to protect you should they throw their weight around and threaten you with their background. 

“However, it wouldn’t be unwise of you to not at least consider their offers, should they be fair and reasonable. This is an opportunity to make connections. Don’t squander it. And please, for the love of god, try not to make any of them your enemy. You will regret doing that.”

Freddy took a deep breath and nodded. “Thanks for the advice.” He shook the man’s hand and smiled at him. “I really appreciate the help.”

“And also, whatever you do, don’t think with your penis. If you make a child, you’re absolutely screwed.”

Freddy reeled at the suddenness of the man’s advice. “Oh… okay. I had no plans to—”

“You might not have plans, but people like these always do. And while crude, seduction is a powerful tool in politics. And it works on people like you like a charm. So don’t be an idiot. Also, should any of them force themselves on you, cutting your penis off is a surefire way to protect yourself.”

“Okay! Wow! Lord almighty!” he shouted with a distressed laugh. “That took a damn dark turn.” He scowled, leaning in to whisper, “Would they really do that?”

The adjudicator shrugged. “It’s highly unlikely, but you have to be prepared for anything.”

“Well… thanks for that… I guess…”

“Good luck, Mr. Cliff. And remember, they’re here because of what you can offer them, not the other way around. So don’t be a pushover.”

“Got it,” he said with a lot more confidence than he felt. “Well then. I guess I’ll be on my way.”

He was escorted to his room by one of the servants. The room was huge, ostentatious as hell, and filled with lots of luxury. Freddy sighed at the sight. Instead of wasting money on a luxury liquor cabinet, it would have been better to build another wall or hire a few extra hands. 

But since they went through the trouble of putting liquor there, he wouldn’t let it go to waste. 

He popped open the most expensive-looking bottle of whiskey he could find and drank straight from the bottle, large gulps. It was strong stuff, and it made his essence churn, slightly speeding up his recovery. It was also damn delicious. He had to stop himself from downing the whole bottle. 

Moving to one of the chairs, he took a seat and got to thinking. His heart was hammering in his chest, and while it made him feel like a coward, he couldn’t deny the fear he felt. 

It was at that moment that it finally dawned on him just how absurd his life had become. For a few moments, he felt like he wanted to be back in the Century of Solitude, where all he had to deal with were horrors trying to break his mind and make him kill himself. 

At least Insanity had been straightforward in its motivation.

Before long, the dreaded moment arrived. 

Someone knocked on the door. 

Sighing, he got off the chair. He caught sight of himself in the mirror. While taking a moment to correct his hair and fix his collar, the knocking came again, and he realized he was stalling. 

With a throaty gulp, he extended a shaky hand to open the door, wondering who would be on the other side.