Chapter 100: Lynnette (Patreon)

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_KIvrHc-Bg6zWAqwyAp0GS5QRlsFjMuGIWCG7Q9q2V4/edit?usp=sharing

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Lynnette nervously brushed her hair behind her ears as her team followed behind her through the tunnels of the arena. It was simply bad luck that they’d been chosen to compete first, but maybe it wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been. While they were disadvantaged compared to those teams that would compete later, their opponents would be just as unprepared as they were.

And as she thought more about it, Lynnette started to think she was happy to be chosen early – it meant she could simply get her test over with rather than spend hours agonizing over the upcoming trial in the stands with the rest of the students. And it wasn’t like they had a shot for any of the rewards for the top teams, anyway.

She was a dutiful daughter, so of course she was attending the academy for the mandatory year to avoid shaming her family. But, unlike those combat fanatics who’d continue at the academy beyond that, she would be there only for a year. She had no intention of setting foot in a dungeon again after finishing her mandatory attendance, a conviction that was reinforced after hearing rumors of what transpired during the previous test.

Lynnette was distracted from her musings as they turned from the tunnel into a small, apparently empty room. But before she had the chance to look at her teammates in confusion, Cassius, the small, goat-footed healer, stepped dramatically from the shadows.

A few of her teammates flinched back in shock, but Lynnette had better control of her reactions. “Mr. Cassius! Good to see you!” she called, giving the older man a demure smile. “I was talking about you with my parents, the count and countess of Molshire – they were concerned for my safety, but I assured them there would be no danger as long as you were around. Of course, hearing you would be here reassured them completely.”

Cassius looked faintly disappointed before he went around the circle of two teams, starting with her opponents, touching them on the shoulder and activating his skill before moving on to the next in line, but Lynnette was not deterred – neither by his lack of reaction, nor by the glares the other students were shooting her. “They had already heard your reputation, but haven’t had the opportunity to see your work in person. I, of course, assured them that you are even more impressive than the tales tell, and they were…” Lynnette allowed her mouth to keep moving without her thoughts, simply letting her [Debutaunte] skills take the lead as she considered her teammates and opponents.

They were all in a similar situation to her, nobles who were unlikely to continue at the academy beyond the first year, and Lynnette felt a flash of superiority. She wasn’t sure if they were foolish enough to restructure their entire builds with combat skills, but her social skills were obviously superior to theirs from the way they were rendered silent as she continued her conversation with Cassius. The satyr wouldn’t be her first choice – compared to her, he was positively ancient, and she was forced to conceal her disgust at the thought of his hideous goat legs poorly concealed under his pants – but his skill was considered one of the most valuable in the kingdom. Noble or not, a marriage alliance with Cassius would boost her family’s star far beyond any of their competitors.

“...and then they had the gall to question me! But don’t worry, I put them in their place,” Lynnette continued as Cassius finished his round of skill-casting on her, touching her on the shoulder. She reached up and brushed her own carefully-moisturized fingers against his, widening her already wide brown eyes even further as she smiled earnestly at him.

Cassius seemed unmoved by her words or actions and retreated to the shadows of the room without a word, but Lynnette didn’t allow her smile to diminish.

“Students, are you prepared?” Instructor Blyre’s voice echoed from behind them, and only [Composed] kept Lynnette from jumping. Her teammates and opponents were not so fortunate, and as one they whirled to face the instructor, Lynnette turning more sedately a moment later.

No one had any objections, so after a moment Instructor Blyre gestured for each of the teams to follow a different instructor, and Lynnette refocused on the upcoming challenge. While her success or failure here was unlikely to have a large impact on her future, she didn’t want to lose. Her parents – along with the rest of the nobles – would receive generalized reports on each student’s achievements at the academy, and doing better could only be a good thing.

Not to mention, Natalie was on the opposing team. She refused to be disgraced by that wench.

Luckily, she was optimistic about their chances in this match. Through a few of her contacts at the academy’s clerks’ office, she had learned ahead of time the nature of this test, and her team had prepared an appropriate plan.

Henry, their team’s designated rogue, had some of the worst social skills that Lynnette had ever encountered from a fellow noble. Luckily, he had some of the best stealth skills to make up for it. They would simply give him their team’s ‘lover’ to hold while the rest of them would attempt to recover the opponents’ ‘lover’. In the worst case, the rest of them would be eliminated while Henry hid with their own ‘lover’, making it a draw – and as far as worst-case scenarios went, that wasn’t too bad.

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This…this was bad.

Lynnette and her team gathered around their ‘lover,’ staring in silence as they attempted to come up with a plan.

“...maybe we can just stick the top into the ground? Would that keep it hidden?”

Henry shrugged before flipping the long pole over in his hands – only to reveal that the bright beam of light which extended from the top of the ‘lover’ actually extended from both ends. Impossible to hide, at least with Henry’s skills.

Unlike some other stealth skills, Henry’s skills revolved around camouflage rather than darkness or mind manipulation. He’d perfected the art of hiding in plain sight, which was especially useful in situations where there weren’t any dark shadows within which to hide. With a ten-foot-long pole in a forest of trees, his skills seemed ideal for this test.

But if that pole happened to shoot two extremely bright beams of light off into the distance, suddenly his skills were much less useful.

Lynnette wished they had more time to come up with a new strategy, but unfortunately the instructors wouldn’t be giving them that time.

“Students in position…” a magically-amplified voice echoed over the arena. “Begin!”

Lynnette wanted to run off through the woods. She felt the urgency to move, to do something that could get them the win, but she fought that instinct. Their old plan would no longer work; they needed a new plan.

“Turn it sideways,” Thomas called suddenly, and Lynnette and her two teammates looked at their nominal team leader. He gestured to the sky through a gap in the foliage overhead where they could see the beam of light from their opponents’ lover shooting off into the distance.

It took a moment for them to understand, but a moment later Henry turned the lover sideways – a slight struggle with the trees and overgrowth around them. It would be much easier to move freely with the lover pointed vertically, since the majority of the lowest-hanging branches of the trees were above ten feet, but the light emitting from the lover was extremely bright. With it pointing upwards, it would act as a beacon of their lover’s exact location, a beacon that their opponents would be able to see anywhere in the arena.

The light was bright enough that, even with it sideways, Lynnette figured the others would be able to see it through the trees. But while that would tell them which direction to move to find the lover, that was better than the exact location that they’d have with the lover oriented vertically.

“No time to waste,” Thomas continued. “There’s no hiding anymore – there’s no point in splitting up, not when we don’t have to search for the enemy’s lover. Henry, stay with our lover. Do your best to hide it, if you can. If you can’t, move to the back of the arena. The rest of us will try to retrieve the other lover. Sound good?”

Normally, Thomas annoyed Lynnette. He was about as subtle as a brick in everything he did and had poor etiquette on top of that. But in that moment, she appreciated his bluntness, so she nodded her agreement to his plan with the rest of her teammates.

“Okay, let’s move out – without being able to hide, this is a race, so let’s move fast.”

Without further ado, the team broke into a run through the forest.

Like many of the nobility, Lynnette was an elf, which meant agility wasn’t one of her primary stats. But neither was it a primary stat for either of her teammates, which meant she was able to keep up with Thomas and Evelynn without issue. Her higher dexterity gave her an advantage when navigating around bushes and other obstacles, but it was slight enough that she barely had to slow down to ensure Evelynn could keep up. And Thomas’ ability to simply bull through any undergrowth with his boosted strength meant he was even faster than she was.

It took a minute longer than they had taken, but eventually the other team copied their strategy of turning their lover onto its side to obfuscate its location. But by then, it was already too late – the three of them had lept the narrow stream that divided their two territories and were closing in on its last location before the beacon disappeared from the sky.

But as they approached it, Thomas held up a hand.

“Let’s wait up a bit. We don’t want to find them if they’re all still grouped up. Let’s give them a few more seconds to give them time to split up.”

Begrudgingly, Lynnette listened to her teammate. She doubted it would’ve taken them this long to come up with a plan, but they’d taken surprisingly long to hide their lover’s beacon, so it was possible their opponents were simply that stupid. There was no need to give them an advantage due to their idiocy.

Normally, this would have been the moment when Henry’s skills would’ve shown their usefulness. He wasn’t as stealthy when moving as he was when stationary, but he still made a competent scout, and would’ve been able to check what their opponents were up to. As it was, they simply waited a minute in the dim drizzle in silence, hoping their opponents would leave their lover unattended.

Not entirely unattended, of course. As much as Lynnette disliked combat, they were here to display their worth to the instructors, which would be impossible if the other team simply left their lover stuck in the dirt. But, for some reason, the light from the lover was once again shining directly up into the sky, moving erratically in circles and giving away their exact position, so it couldn’t be entirely alone.

“Let’s go,” Thomas said a minute later, and Lynnette sighed in relief. Even under the trees, the light rain was uncomfortable, and she longed to be back in the stands where some of her fellow students had skills to shield them from the sky.

They stalked toward the beacon, Thomas in the lead. Under her coat, Lynnette fingered her own weapon, kept dry for the moment but ready to pull it out the instant it was needed.

They stepped around a small copse of trees to reveal a clearing. In the middle of the clearing was the opposing lover. And surrounding it – was the entirety of the opposing team.

“Ah, I told you they would come. Too stupid to think of any alternate strategy.”

Lynnette sneered upon hearing the words of her occasional friend-slash-rival, the daughter of Count Belmoore, Natalie.

“You’ve just been waiting here this whole time?” Lynnette responded before her teammates could speak, her voice containing the perfect amount of condescension. “How…idiotically predictable.”

“Says the one who finds themselves in a four-versus-three disadvantage. Seems like you’re the one with the idiotic plan.”

“Says the one who’s just been sitting around their lover congratulating yourself – bit much calling that a ‘plan’,” Lynnette laughed.

“We’ll see who’s laughing once we win.”

“Instructor Blyre said so herself – there’s more to the grades than just winning and losing,” Lynnette sniffed. “I doubt they’ll be impressed with your ‘strategy’.”

Natalie’s face morphed into a sneer. “I’m going to enjoy this.”

And then, without any overt signal on either side, combat began.

Lynnette had been assigned to the ‘support’ class at Delver’s Academy, which she considered extremely fortunate. The most dedicated of adventuring students would focus their entire build on combat while at the academy, and then be forced to restart much of their build after they returned to normal life as a noble. Those less dedicated could get away with keeping their noble classes and simply using their general and racial skills for combat.

Lynnette managed to transition almost her entire build from her life as a noble into the academy.

She whipped out her flute, and then with a deep breath, pushed her mana out through her lungs to activate her skills.

[Invigorating Tune] and [Bewildering Tune] activated simultaneously as she stayed at the edge of the battle, [Directed Sound] making [Invigorating Tune] target her allies and [Bewildering Tune] target her enemies. But while her teammates perked up upon hearing the simple tune, their opponents were barely inconvenienced. [Bewildering Tune] was much less effective on strong-willed opponents than it was on mindless monsters, and the rain likely wasn’t helping. She was still hitting the correct notes, but the finer nuances of the song were absent as a drip of water was blown from her upper lip, her skills weakening as her music faltered.

And her music faltered even further as Petre, the opposing team’s rogue and the son of a baron, dodged past Evelynn’s fireballs to engage with her in close quarters. She was nowhere near as fast as him, but her high dexterity, coupled with [Dancing], enabled her to spin out of the way of his first few stabs of the dagger, dodging behind a tree as she continued to play.

This close to her enemy, she could finally see [Bewildering Tune] taking effect, and Petre blinked in confusion as she hid behind the tree.

It…wasn’t looking very good. With her song supporting them, Thomas and Evelynn might have been able to match their three opponents, but that left her alone against Petre. She could survive for a little while, but she was in the support class – she had no way of defeating him by herself. Aside from her flute, she wasn’t even carrying a weapon.

She would have to delay, and hope for the best from her teammates. Thomas seemed pretty heavily affected by her [Bewildering Tune] in the last glance she’d had of him, so maybe she could last long enough for her teammates to win their own battle.

She looked around the tree, still playing her flute, to check up on the state of the battle.

Oh.

…that strategy only worked if their opponents kept the same matchups as the start of the battle. But perhaps realizing that it was the only possible chance for her team, Natalie had abandoned the three versus two to join the fight against Lynnette with Petre…who was now missing.

Petre, freed from [Bewildering Tune] with Natalie’s cleansing skill, appeared in the shadows of her tree and plunged his dagger into her stomach. For an instant, pain flared like a bonfire, and her flute fell from her trembling hands. And then darkness enveloped her, and a moment later she opened her eyes to the room where Cassius had first applied his skill.

They had lost.

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Woo! 100 Chapters!

Normally, I'm not the biggest fan of stories with multiple POVs. But at the same time, I do think an occasional alternate POV can be helpful to explain the story/world in a way that the MC wouldn't see/experience on their own. But let me know if this chapter feels weird or out of place compared to normal!