ALL NOVEL Chapter 3: Despair
As Maria was plummeting to the ground, she frantically tried to move her wings while in the air.
"AHHHHH!!!"
Just as she was about to have a deep and passionate kiss with Mother Earth, Maria's body suddenly stopped falling when she was a meter away from the ground.
"H-huh?"
She looked up and saw that her wings were flapping!
"Ah! I'm saved! Thank you wi—"
Maria had the stupid idea of wanting to hug her wings, so when she flipped her body around to try and catch her wings...she immediately dropped down onto the ground.
"O-owwie..."
Maria rubbed her aching buttocks. She quickly stood up and looked behind her. She recalled the weird movements on her shoulder blades just earlier and when she tried doing it again, her wings began to actually move!
"W-woah!! They move! They actually move!"
With her wings a flapping, Maria's body immediately lifted itself off of the ground.
"I CAN FLY!!"
Maria was having the time of her life flying and gliding through the air. She didn't notice however that the yellow bar in her Heads Up Display or HUD, was rapidly depleting. She was pretty high up in the air when the bar zeroed out.
With the bar displaying the SP gauge had zeroed out, Maria lost her ability to fly and immediately plummeted towards the ground once again.
"W-WHY???!!!"
BANG BANG CRACK BOOOM
The trees and branches were able to break her bac—her fall, so she wasn't very injured. She escaped unharmed with only her back in pain.
"O-ouch..."
It was about time that she noticed, but indeed. The pain parameters in the game were obviously too realistic. Maria remembered that Lizzy had instructed her to quickly open up her main menu to adjust the parameters.
"Oh yeah...what was it again? [Status]?"
[Maria Lv. 0]
HP: 100/100
MP: 500/500
SP: 0/30
EXP: 0/1,000
Race: Angel
Class: Trainee
Titles: N/A
ATK : 50
DEF : 25
M.ATK : 5
M.DEF : 25
STR : 10
AGI : 10
VIT : 10
INT : 10
LCK : 10
"Everything's balanced~ I feel like I've aced the test with perfect 10s all across the board!"
After taking a quick look at her status screen, Maria finally noticed the Main tab that was just beside the Status tab. She quickly tapped on it and the screen changed from the status screen to the menu screen.
She quickly swiped down and found the settings and readjusted her pain parameter from 80 percent to only 20 percent. Lizzy had instructed her to set it to 20 or 25 percent instead of changing her pain parameter to zero like she initially wanted.
Her best friend told her that it was better for her since she had very little situational awareness, to which Maria strongly objected to. If say a person was attacking her with her pain parameter set to zero, then she'd have no clue about her situation until she was PKed out of the game!
Maria wanted to set it to zero at first and that's because she didn't like pain at all, but opted to listen to her friend instead because she was a gaming expert while she was but a newbie.
"Okay...now that that's finished...what do I do now?"
Maria had been too busy marveling at her ability to fly through the air that she didn't pay attention to her surroundings. If she had been paying attention, then she would have noticed that just before she took off flying, she was actually at a training square that was housing all the new players and NPCs who were trainee angels.
The Angel Instructor person had been calling out to her, but Maria's head was in the clouds, figuratively and literally, that she blatantly ignored the Instructor.
Now however, she was inside a forest, a lush green forest with multiple level 10 monsters surrounding her.
"...Eh?"
The monsters surrounding her were level 10 Forest Wolves. They were beginner class monsters that any newbie could take down once they've completed the Instructor's tutorial quest.
Unfortunately for Maria here, she had blindly flew into the forest without any proper preparations.
"NOOO!!!"
Her cry of despair signaled the wolves surrounding her to pounce out and attack. Maria's body was being bitten and ripped apart by the wolves. They bit her arms, wings, and legs. They pulled and ripped off a piece of her flesh and feathers.
"AHHH!! AHHH!! How, how come it huuurrttsss!!!" She had set the pain parameter to only 20 percent earlier, but she couldn't understand why the wolves' attacks were causing her so much pain.
She was wailing and crying in pain, but the wolves didn't let up on their assault. They tore her body apart and because of her high DEF stat, she was only taking 1 DMG from all the wolves biting her. With her HP being 100, this meant that she would need to be attacked a total of 100 times by the wolves before dying.
"Help! Mom!! MOMMY!!! WAAAHHH!!! HEELPP MEE!!!"
She curled herself up, but the wolves kept on ripping away at her torn up body. Her beautiful white wings were torn apart and tainted red with her blood. Her once pristine body sported many missing areas where her flesh was torn away.
In between the gaps of the wolves' teeth were the pieces of meat and feathers that were once a part of her body. Maria cried and cried, but the wolves still didn't stop.
'I hate this! I hate this!! It hurts...it hurts!!!'
Her HP had finally depleted until only 20 HP was left and it was then something happened.
[Unlocked Unique Skill: Angel's Rage]
A screen popped up in front of her that showed that she had acquired a new skill. She didn't know what it was, but she quickly tapped on the screen like mad.
[Angel's Rage activated, please specify targets]
Maria cried out immediately after she heard those words. "Everything!!! Everything that's hurting me!"
In the next instant, her tattered angel wings opened up and the feather's on it immediately separated from her wings and struck all the wolves around her.
"AAHH AAHHH!!! IT HURRTSS!!" She cried out once again. The feeling of her feather's being separated out of her wings caused her a great deal of pain. Instead of separation it was more like they were forcibly ripped out.
After the pain subsided, Maria laid there crying. She didn't have the courage or strength to even get up. The previous hell that she went through was still vivid in her mind that she had begun shivering.
"Over there! Is that the girl who was crying out earlier?!"
"AH! It's her, that angel trainee who ignored me!"
From afar, Maria could hear the sounds of a man and woman approaching her. The footsteps stopped right beside her and she immediately felt a warm arm embrace her.
"Little one, are you okay?" A warm female voice asked.
"Sniff...I-it hurts...it hurts..." Maria replied feebly.
Next to the female angel that had picked up Maria into her arms, the Angel Instructor Basille stared incredulously at the surroundings. The wolf pack that was previously assaulting Maria had all died with numerous feathers puncturing their bodies.
Basille could hardly believe that this young trainee had done all this. He felt a stronger presence from deep in the forest quickly rushing over to their location. Basille immediately tried to urge his companion to quickly bring back the girl with them.
"Amilia, we should quickly—oh my God! Her wings!!"
At Basille's horrified exclamation, Amilia, the female angel that was currently carrying Maria in her arms turned to look at the angel trainee's wings.
"AH!"
Amilia immediately let go and dropped Maria onto the ground.
"T-tainted! She's been tainted!"
"It's too late for her! We should hurry and leave! The forest king is coming this way!"
The two Angels quickly spread their wings to fly away. Maria who had thought that she was finally saved was left there dumbfounded.
"No! Please! Please don't leave me!!!"
She was too scared to even register that she was still inside of the game. The two people had been the light of hope for her, but they had suddenly abandoned her.
Maria was too scared to move remembering her latest experience. Was she going to go through that once again?
Behind her, the trees parted and a large, black wolf appeared in the area where she was at.
Maria could only tremble in despair at the sight of the large black wolf. Tears began to fall from her delicate face and she could only back away in horror.
"N-no...No...NO!!!"
The wolf didn't pay her any heed and charged right at her. It opened its mouth and quickly chomped down on the helpless girl.