He was contemplating what to do when he received a notification from his mark. It was for the 10,000 merit points he had just received.
He hadn't done anything to warrant such a notification, so he opened his mark to check it.
While he was doing so, he said to Wrath, "This is not over."
He tapped his mark and went through the options on the screen to find the latest merit point notification.
- Contribution for acting as bait in the operation to ambush the Purple Moon Elven King.
- Merit Point Received: 10,000
- Total Merit Points: 212,000
- Current Performance Evaluation: 2 Stars
- Current Merit Ranking: 147,329
He looked at the first line and frowned. He said, "What does it mean I was bait?"
His question made Wrath laugh.
He turned to her and asked, "What's so funny?"
She asked in return, "Haven't you caught on by now?"
He was still confused. So he asked, "Caught on to what?"
Wrath laughed again. "So clueless. How funny."
He frowned. "Are you going to tell me or not?"
Someone began to approach him. He sensed them when they appeared within the range of his Extraordinary Perception ability.
From what he could see, they were not hostile to him. He also recognized them. It was the ice giant that intercepted the elven king and was nearly killed by her in a single move.
She noticed that she was naked. She used to wear an armor, but it had turned to dust after the demigod struck her. It is probably why she was still alive.
She waved to him and called out in a gruff voice, "Crazy Diamond man."
Wrath chuckled and said, "That makes your second nickname. I don't know which is better between it and Diamond Dollar."
He ignored her and asked the giantess, "Do you know about me being bait?"
She clapped and said, "Yes, I do."
"Good job, by the way. I didn't bet on you attracting her, so I didn't earn money on that. But I bet that if you attracted her, you would survive."
"I have noticed that your intuitive perception of danger is remarkable. In my opinion, only that can make any mortal survive an ambush from a demigod."
"It turned out that I was right. You foiled her ambush and made her reveal herself. Your odds were the highest since you were the weakest bait. So I earned ten times my money. Isn't that great?"
Kelvin didn't think it was great. He tried not to frown as he asked, "Am I the only one that didn't know I was bait?"
He didn't want to show anger because this was a matter that was apparently initiated by Command. Also, this giantess is much stronger than him.
Even though they are soldiers, it wouldn't do to make her angry. It would be better if he could exploit her food mood to get some answers from her.
She nodded and replied, "A lot of people knew. It was to be that way so that you wouldn't tip her off. We gave you a bigger squad so as to draw her attention to you, and you did well in drawing that attention. If you had known that you were performing as bait, your performance would be unnatural, and you would have sabotaged the operation."
By the time she had finished, she had gotten within a few meters of him. He was able to see that she was still injured.
She looked whole, but half of her body was transparent. She was constantly creating ice from the air to heal herself.
The ice was added to her body to regenerate her missing flesh. So she was becoming more opaque every second.
He said, "I'm guessing your job was to delay her so you had to know what you were up against. Even then, you were almost killed by her."
She bent her knee so that her face could reach his level. When that didn't work, she decided to sit on the ground.
Only then did he manage to be able to look at her face to face.
She said, "Aye. She is one nasty and tough bitch. I admire her. I want her strength."
Then she spat to the side. "She has been one tough son of a bitch, though. She has made our job difficult with her constantly ambushing mortals and assassinating them. It was about time we gave her the same dish. Let's see her try to stomach it."
She laughed at her joke. The joke being that the elven king clearly couldn't stomach being ambushed.
Kelvin didn't find it funny, so he didn't laugh. She didn't like that. She patted him and said, "Aye, cheer up."
He tried to dodge the pat, but her massive hand still struck his shoulder. His shoulder cracked, and his arm fell to the ground.
The two of them stood there in shock, looking at his dropped diamond arm on the ground. Then she burst out laughing.
She said, "I forgot how weak you were. How did you even survive her?"
Kelvin would have been okay if the giantess was the only one laughing. But he couldn't accept it when Wrath began to laugh too.
He picked up his arm and reattached it to his shoulder. Then he began healing the injury.
He didn't make a fuss about the whole thing because the giantess was X-rank. It meant that she had a power rating that is at least one trillion as opposed to his ten million.
She had a power rating that is 100,000 times more than his. She was a true champion the likes of which are seen in the Champions League.
She and many others are why his ranking is almost 150,000 in the army despite working so hard. 147,329 is a good rank among 10 million soldiers, but it is not remarkable.
The next step for her is to become a demigod. That's why she was able to take a direct hit from a demigod and survive.
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A/N: Bonus chapter for 50 golden tickets.