Gary had been sure that his mind had been made up to get out of the hall as fast as his legs would allow him. Heck, he had even seriously considered using Charging Heart to get out faster and he had been convinced that nothing would be able to change that, yet two things had just made a match against Xin extremely tempting.
For one, there was the Quest that he had just received. As silly as the Quest description was, the reward was clear enough. If he could beat her, he would benefit from an instant Level Up.
'This system is full of surprises. The fight against that Steven guy had already granted me far more Exp than any other, but it had still been a flat amount, so why is it different now? The system seems to function similar to a game and they usually reward you based on the difficulty of a task, so is it saying that fighting against Xin would really be that much harder?
But what about Steven, he was weaker than those other guys?'
In all honesty, Gary didn't know if the system really worked like a game, so he could only look at the facts that he had in front of him. Beating Xin would result in him instantly reaching Level 4, meaning he would get yet another free stat point to use as he wished.
However, the second reason, which if he was being honest, was far more enticing, was that beating her meant she would go out with him. That possibility alone, resulted in his mind going haywire once more.
'A date… shit, I've never been on an actual date before! Where would we go? To the movies? Mini-golf? A restaurant? … but all those things cost money… Maybe I can just take her for a walk in the park.
Yeah, that sounds good. There's a river there as well! If someone attacks us, like when I was with Blake, and she gets pushed into the river… and maybe she can't swim … then maybe I could, jump in and…and…'
"So, are we doing this or not?" Xin asked after Gary had stopped walking. He remained standing there, which she took as a good sign. She was sure he just needed a little more push.
Soon, the hall echoed with a chuckle, and it was coming from none other than Gary.
"I say, I'm gonna save your life." Gary turned around, madness in his eyes as he pointed towards her. "Let's fight."
With so many strange things happening one after the other, the students didn't even question Gary's strange response. They were just pleased that they were about to witness another spectacle instead of doing their boring, repetitive drills.
——
Once again, the only who couldn't share their enthusiasm was Tom, who was on the sideline biting his fingernails.
'Calm down, Tom and check where the exits are. You'll need to grab Gary in case he shows any signs of turning?' Now that he thought about it, he had never seen Gary do anything werewolf-like? Apart from his wild anger. Thinking about this calmed his heart a little.
'He might be just an angry wolf on the inside?'
Mr Fang was ready, Steven was back to his usual self, and both fighters were in their positions.
"Ready, go!"
The fight had started, and Gary's heart hadn't settled yet. His active skill Charging Heart had worn off, but he was wondering with his heart the way it was now. Maybe he wouldn't need to activate the skill.
It was then that he strangely saw that Xin was the one that had charged first. She ran in and suddenly jumped in the air, spinning her body. He saw her back and soon after her whole leg. Seeing this at the last second, Gary tilted his head back.
His movements were twice as slow without the skill charging heart, allowing him to narrowly miss her foot, and he soon repositioned himself by moving to one of the corners of the mat.
'How fast was that kick and a spinning kick? If she had hit me with that, I have a feeling my head would have gone flying off. Is she trying to kill me!' Gary wondered as he felt something tickling from his nose.
He tried to sniff it up, but it didn't work, and when looking down, he could see blood on the floor. The back of her heel had lightly grazed the tip of his nose.
"Looks like you're a little slower, and I guess if you don't get the first hit, you're useless." Xin shrugged her shoulders. "I expected more from you for some reason."
"Haha, did you see him running away!"
"Don't go in the corner. Come on, why don't you just use your brute strength like before?"
"Because he knows he's going to get knocked out."
The students mocked and laughed, wanting one of their own to win.
'Shit! Was I going easy on her because I didn't want to hurt her, but it looks like I can't hold back.' Gary thought.
[Skill activated Charging heart]
[All stats have temporarily been doubled]
[-10 energy points]
Placing his hand on his chest, Gary could once again feel his heart thumping so loud it felt like it was going to jump from his throat. Although nothing seemed to change from the outside, Xin, who was in the fight, quickly got into a fighting stance again, feeling a change.
"This is what I wanted," Xin mumbled.
Now it was Gary's turn, and he decided to charge in just as he did against Steven.
'I'll just take the hit. I took a hit from that large blob guy and was still standing, so taking a hit from someone like this is no problem at all!' Gary thought as he gritted onto his teeth, expecting what was to come.
Xin stayed firm, her leg ready and judged the distance. Then when Gary was within her zone, she spun her body once again and let out a kick with the heel of her foot aiming towards the head.
Gary knew that he was still too slow, even with a charging heart, to react to the kick after seeing the first one, but he was confident in his recovery skills. He could see the kick and attempted to lift his hands up, but even they were too slow, and eventually, the heel had hit him right in the head, underneath the ear.
An immense pain was felt, and his head flung to the side. The others even looked away. The kick had landed so solid, but Gary gritted his teeth, carried on moving, pushing through, and moved forward again.
'I just have to grab her!...Huh? Why is she moving away?' Gary thought as the image of Xin started to spin as if one was dizzy. The next thing Gary knew, he was falling to his side and was running straight forward into the crowd of people who were sitting down.
Gary had crashed into the other students and had fallen off the mats.
'It was a perfect strike behind the ear.' Tom noticed. 'His whole head must be spinning at that moment. That's why he fell over.'
Years of watching Altered fights, Tom knew quite a bit about fighting.
As for Xin, the one who had delivered the blow, she was shocked herself.
'I didn't think he would take the kick head on like that. I thought he had a better plan. I didn't hold back either. How did he do it? Why is he still standing?'
She was amazed that Gary was even still able to walk forward and looked his way. She could see him getting up, but soon falling back over. Eventually, after getting up the third time, Gary was up on his feet all okay again.
It was the quickest she had seen someone recover.
"Reset!" Mr Fang said, with a big grin on his face. He knew as a teacher he shouldn't be smiling at something like this, but he just couldn't help himself.
Gary was ready for round 2, to reset the match and fight again. However, he had received a message from the system at that point.
[Quest failed]
[You are no longer able to complete this Quest]
Since becoming a Werewolf and obtaining the system, it was Gary's first loss and first quest failure.
*****
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