Originally I was planning to unstealth, but the look in her eyes changed my mind, and instead tail her from a distance, planning to find out what she's up to and if she'd headed to any of the others, if any are remaining.
The look in her eyes, it's one I know all too well. It's the look of someone who's just killed a person.
[Isabella POV]
"Where's that fucking replacement mage..." I say, making my way towards the known locations of the boss monster the Association Scouts noted.
As I'm walking, an eerie feeling overtakes my senses. Looking around, I don't find anything out of the ordinary, but I can't shake the feeling that I'm being tailed.
"You can come out." I say, taking a shot in the dark, but no response comes.
"I know you're there, come out or I'll cast an AoE spell and pull you out of your hiding spot." I take another shot in the dark.
Finally, the person reveals themselves, but not in the way I expected.
I feel a dagger pressed up against my neck, and extremely chilling words enter my ears, the person grabbing me from behind. One wrong move and my life ends.
'How? How did someone sneak up on me like this, I already killed that damned assassin, and the only other intelligent species should be the other human we brought with us into the gate, but he was a mage, so how?'
"Where are the others."
A robotic, emotionless voice enters my ears.
"We... We all got separated, I don't kno- AGH!!" My words were interrupted by a stabbing pain in my leg as my body was quickly turned around and pushed to the ground, the assailant straddling me, the dagger, now coated in my blood, still pressed against my neck, as if it never left that spot to stab my leg to begin with.
"Wrong answer." A chilling voice comes out, less emotionless than before, but the violence in his voice making it even more scary.
Finally getting a look at my assailant's face, I see the young mage Justin recruited, but his entire demeanor is entirely different.
Well, it's actually not different at all, it's still the same wolfish, predatory aura around him, but it's no longer directed at a common enemy, it's now directed entirely at me.
As he sees the look in my eyes, the look in his shifts entirely. Before, it was an interrogation by any means necessary, I could see, even if just barely, hesitation to kill. That look was no longer there.
"So." An even more chilling voice comes out, A flicker of the green in his eyes seeming to fight with him for just a moment before his eyes shift colors, becoming entirely black.
"You were planning to kill us as well." His next words drip out with rage and malice.
'Us?' I barely have time to think, before a punch lands squarely on my nose, the recoiled almost causing my neck to hit the dagger and cut itself open, but his precise control of his weapon prevents that.
"A petty grudge, or infighting, or hatred, or just plain insanity, I could have looked past. I'd have simply brought you out to the authorities and let them deal with you. But, planning to kill me? Planning to kill Buford? Planning to kill all of us? That crosses a line, I can't allow you to live anymore."
The boy's words sound calm this time, but beneath that calm is an anger like nothing I've ever heard, a rage that makes all my screaming at Justin look like a child's tantrum in comparison.
"Any last words?" The boy says, sinking in the realization that I'm not going to survive this encounter. My regret starts washing over me like a tidal wave, and the words start to come out like water bursting through a dam.
"I... I'm-" I begin, but my words are cut off.
"I actually don't care." He says, channeling Mana into his weapon and slicing forward, the sight of my headless body being the last thing I see amidst the pain before my consciousness fades.
I look at the headless corpse beneath me and sigh, adding another name to the list in my mind. Isabella.
The list has gotten longer and longer over the years, but it's a list I've kept to remind myself that I did what I had to. I eliminated the threats the Buford and the others wouldn't have.
Chanting 'I did what I had to.' in my mind over and over again, I manage to regain my bearings.
'Ford...' I hear in my mind.
Ignoring Buford, I store Isabella's corpse in my inventory, allocate some points into harvesting her, and trace her steps back where she was coming from.
Arriving at the source of the tracks, I see a scene of fiery carnage. I place the corpses in my inventory, planning to bring them out of the gate so their families can have some form of peace.
After collecting their remains, I decide to grind my ass off in this Gate to take my mind off things before clearing it and leaving after.
The monsters in Gates respawn after certain amounts of time, I so spend the next month running around, killing things, sending Pixel Ford back into the dungeon every time he died, and allocating my System resources into different parts of my status and abilities before deciding to finally kill the Gate Boss and head out.
The Boss was extremely weak, especially after my grinding, even Isabella, who's corpse was now a pile of Spell Books in my inventory, could have killed the monster by herself.
The results of my grinding were not disappointing though.
I learn the spells within B-Tier that I gained from Isabella, and check my new and improved status window.
"Status."
[Name: Ford]
[Race: Human] [-] [+]
[Level: 28] [-] [+]
[HP: 22400]
[XP: 1100/29000] [-] [+]
[Age: 15/121] [-] [+]
[Class: Gamer(B-Tier)] [-] [+]
[System: Idle Game System] [-] [+]
[Stamina: 70] [-] [+]
[Agility: 33] [-] [+]
[Strength: 42] [-] [+]
[Intelligence: 120] [-] [+]
[Wisdom: 120] [-] [+]
[Unallocated Stat Points: 0] [-] [+]
[Energy: 0/22400]
[Mana: 0/48000]
[Active Abilities]
[Sprint (B)] [-] [+], [Mana Imbuement(B)] [-] [+], [Meditate (B)] [-] [+], [Fireball(C)] [-] [+], [Fatigue(C)] [-] [+], [Mana Muscle(B)] [-] [+], [Stealth(C)] [-] [+], [Techno Camouflage(D)] [-] [+], [Mana Lance(B)] [-] [+], [Incinerate(B)] [-] [+], [Flame Shield(B)] [-] [+]
[Passive Abilities]
[Well Fed (B)] [-] [+], [Gamer's Constitution(???)], [Gamer's Cognition(B)] [-] [+], [Mana Vamp(C)] [-] [+], [Life Harvesting(C)] [-] [+], [Mana Efficiency(C)] [-] [+], [Fire Resistance(C)] [-] [+]