'Did Juliana just hug her?'
Nick blinked twice, making sure his eyes didn't deceive him. After the second blink, they were already apart, but he still felt what he first saw was true. Juls hugged Alia?
'Maybe they're just happy they both ranked up?'
They were getting quite a few power-ups in a short amount of ti. Maybe that was a way to get even Juliana to stop being a bich.
Nick jotted that down in his ntal notebook before finishing his journey to the girls.
Juls quickly stepped aside, hiding Alia's armor transformation. Up until now, that was her only spell–switching between two armors.
But Juls had just gotten a new spell herself when she ranked up, so Nick figured Alia would too.
'Hey, system. Bring up Alia's new skill.'
[Alia is not ready for a new skill. In the anti, she has unlocked access to another armor. However, simply ranking up is not enough for her. A progenitor sharing their power with their soldiers will not necessarily grant them the other skills they need to progress.]
'What does that an? Other skills?'
[Yes. There are many factors to take into consideration when choosing a soldier. So far, you have selected a perfectionist that tends to cause more harm than good, and a coward who cannot do anything properly in battle.]
Nick cast aside these admonishing remarks of the system with little more than an internal glare. To even suggest that they were sothing like a burden...
"Hey, Nick. Y- you're not mad at ?"
Alia's whisper cut through his thoughts like a blunt knife.
What was she even saying? Mad?
Casting aside the cloud that is the system's assertions, Nick turned to his Valkyries. Alia was currently hiding her face in her hands, her face dry yet filled with tears at the sa ti. Like she was so scared she wanted to cry, but was also too scared to actually cry.
Right next to her, Juliana was nudging her and doing a million other micro-movents in an attempt to end this 'imperfection' Alia was showing. With every one of these helpful actions, Alia only grew more flustered.
Within seconds, she fell to her knees and exclaid, "F-forgive N-nick! I-I don't want to fight! I-I just want to tend to your kingdom! Yes! I'll be good in that way!"
Juliana shook her head in disappointnt, muttering, "I could just do both."
At the sa ti, she was rubbing Alia's shoulder though. Consoling her.
Overwheld himself, Nick squatted as he internally scread 'Girls are FUCKING CONFUSING!!!'
Alia gasped as he reached to take her hand. His touch was so gentle–even after all the calluses his sword created tried to make him rough. It was like a barbarian having a puppy's touch.
"Alia, I won't force you to fight if you can't. But... well..." Nick's voice trailed off for a second, unsure how to put reality into words.
He didn't want to upset her, but still. This was important, and she had to know why they had to grow stronger. All of them, together.
Still, how the hell was he supposed to tell her he ca from Earth, and how he knew this ga world to so extent even if it felt more like a fan fiction than the real thing and that in the background there were entire demon armies forming and in the ga, the gods were still alive and fighting back but now they were all dead and it was just Nick left and then there's this Progenitor nonsense he never heard of and–
"Well, I don't know how to say most of what I know, but I can say this. Alia." As the foreign thoughts used his voice, Nick reached with his free hand to cup her lower jaw, forcing her gaze off the ground and into his eyes.
"I won't force you to fight. I can't. But the incoming army... the demons that exterminate everything... they will. Whether you grow strong and beco an SSS-Rank Valkyrie, or you stop right now. Nothing is going to stop them from coming, and there's only so much I can do. I'll protect you as long as I can but at a certain point..."
"I need to be able to protect myself," Alia whispered, her eyes never wavering from Nick's. Even with her great fear, his eyes were srizing and comforting.
All of her worries were destroyed.
...
Nick and Juls destroyed 20 more goblin strongholds, 10 each. Despite their best efforts, Alia remained on the sideline during each one, remaining just a C-Rank Valkyrie.
They both lanted this in their rights, Nick wishing she would protect herself and Juliana wishing she could protect their king. To her credit, Alia did try to join a few raids. It was just that shortly after, she was overco with fear.
Up until this current raid, they both had reaped multiple great rewards. Juls ranked up again to A-Rank, revealing that in order to rank up again she would need 10,000,000 XP. She currently only had 414,000.
She didn't get any skills this ti. Instead, she got a boon that was almost as good with her stats quadrupling. Nick knew that if she seriously fought the version of him that fought Ethos, he'd have much more to worry about than his balls getting punched.
Luckily, He leveled up quite a bit as well. He had reached level 10, just 2,000 XP away from his second transcendental level. This ti he spread out his stats more evenly, putting 4 into strength, 4 into intelligence, and 4 into dexterity.
In terms of gear, he was able to upgrade all of his current stuff to rare but otherwise didn't get much new. He figured that he had pretty much maxed out the loot part of this area.
Well, he did get sothing cool, which did solidify that belief. After killing the 5th and 8th strongholds, he got the last 2 insignia for the Goblin Slayer's morabilia.
--(Insignia Set: Goblin Slayer's morabilia)--
-- Set Boosts
1/3 – Str 3
2/3 – Str 5
3/3 – For every goblin killed, Str increases by .0001%
[Goblins killed so far: 611]
[Strength boost: 0.61]
[Current Strength: 68( 8)( 0.61)[76.61]
Nick could only admire these boosts for a second before his system began flashing though.
[The First Seal of Annihilation is ready]
[Quest: Kill a mber of your raid party]
[Note: The person you kill must be a mber of the raid party when this quest was first initiated and must be killed during a raid]
[Applicable people: Alia, Juliana, Yck]
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