This Class is Bonkers! (This Trilogy is Broken (A Comedy Litrpg Adventure) Book 2)

by J. P. Valentine

  Eve turned up her palms. “It’s the palace. Who’s gonna break into the palace to rob some dignitary?” She shook her head. “I think you’re worrying about the wrong thing.”

  “Oh really?” Preston raised an eyebrow. “What should I be worrying about?”

  “The same thing I’m worrying about,” Eve said. “We just sailed across half the kingdom, killed a leviathan, and traipsed up and down the capital for hours.”

  “So?”

  “So”— Eve’s smile stretched yet further up her cheeks— “I want a gods-damned ale.”

  * * *

  The following day found Eve trudging alone through the streets of Pyrindel, her head throbbing with faint echoes of pain. It wasn’t last night’s ale that so plagued her; both Preston’s healing and her own Ethereal Metabolism had seen to that. Rather, her head hurt with the anticipation of the far more real headache she was about to face.

  It started the moment she swung open the door.

  “Back so soon? Finished with your bootlicking and come to pretend at being an adventurer some more?”

  Eve grit her teeth, biting back a snarky reply as she waded through the haphazardly scattered chairs, tables, and still-sleeping adventurers who’d passed out on the floor. The guild hall in the early hours wasn’t a tidy place.

  “I’m not pretending anything,” she eventually said as she reached the administration desk. “I’m a member of the guild just like anyone else.”

  “That remains to be seen.” The receptionist flashed her customary smirk. “I’ve never actually seen a guild member lose their combat class. I guess your buddies could only carry you so far.”

  Eve forced herself not to groan audibly. At least she’d given up on tauntingly calling Wes Eve’s boyfriend, but that wasn’t much of a win. Anyone who saw him and Preston together knew that jab wouldn’t hit hard.

  Choosing to be the bigger person and not let herself get dragged into a snark-off she knew she couldn’t win, Eve went straight to business. “I’m here to sign up for the Proving Grounds.”

  “Oh, so now you don’t want to be a member of the guild. Why didn’t you say so?” With a saccharine smile that stank from across the desk, she conjured a sheet of paper and a quill, sliding both over to Eve. “Sign here.”

  After a quick scan of the document revealed nothing too troubling—besides, of course, the guild waiving liability should the tournament kill her—Eve did as instructed.

  “Excellent.” The clerk filed the paperwork away. “You see, normally I’d have to go through a lengthy interview to make sure you’re capable of holding your own in the arena. Cheat Death doesn’t work over too big a power difference, and we wouldn’t want any unsuspecting adventurers to get themselves killed.”

  Eve raised an eyebrow, wondering where exactly the rude woman was going with this, but didn’t speak.

  The receptionist continued, “But you aren’t an adventurer, and I’ve warned you enough times already that it’s no skin off my back if you get burnt to a crisp. In fact, I think I might even come spectate.”

  Eve couldn’t help herself. “Why are you like this?”

  The woman scoffed. “Why am I like what?”

  “A massive bitch.” The words fell from Eve’s mouth before she could have a chance to think better of them. She was finished with the adventurer’s guild, anyway. “You don’t know the first thing about me or my team, yet you constantly treat me like I’m some clueless peasant out for a joyride when people are getting killed. Why?”

  “Because it’s fun.”

  “Bullshit.” Eve balled her hand into a fist. “You’ve been on my back since I stepped foot in Lynthia, and it’s just me. I know you can be professional if you want to be, hells I’ve seen it when you’re dealing with Wes.”

  “Perhaps it’s because your friend is an actual adventurer and not a Messenger Girl in a costume.”

  Anger welled in Eve’s chest. Who was this level fifty Receptionist to criticize her? Clenching her jaw, she channeled Mana through her eyes to intensify their glow. “I’m more capable than I look.”

  “Oh, are you now?” The clerk crossed her arms. “Prove it.”

  Eve took a swing.

  Reinforced with her natural Mana, accelerated with Jet, and empowered with Mana Rush, Eve’s fist flashed across the desk, faster and more powerful than any human twice her level could’ve accomplished.

  Until it stopped.

  Only the stability of her Defiant Body kept her from falling forward as her punch struck what felt like a wall.

  The receptionist had caught it.

  At once, the world around them disappeared, the desk and common room and hungover adventurers all fading away until just Eve and the clerk stood alone in a black abyss. The woman’s grip on Eve’s fist tightened.

  “Silly girl.” The unfamiliar voice that escaped the clerk’s mouth was all too gravely and all too masculine to match her feminine body. “Did you think you’re the only one who can fool Appraise?”

  “How did you—where—what are you?”

  “I’m Rel,” she responded, “though it’s usually considered polite to ask someone’s name when you first meet them, not several months later.”

  “But how are—”

  Eve didn’t have a chance to finish her question before Rel released her fist and shoved her back. The moment she lost contact, the guild hall returned, and Eve found herself tripping over a wooden chair as she stumbled backwards.

  The receptionist sat back down at her desk, her voice returning to normal. “Thank you for registering for the Proving Grounds. Preliminary bouts begin in three days. Best of luck.”

  Eve’s heart pounded as she righted herself, never once pulling her eyes away from the woman behind the desk. What in Ayla’s left tit was that? The clerk, however, offered nothing more in terms of instructions, sass, or otherwise interesting behavior, simply filling out paperwork as if nothing had happened.

  Eventually Eve’s heart slowed and her breathing calmed, and she turned to depart the adventurer’s guild hall for what she hoped would be the final time. If, as she made her exit, the Defiant had had the wherewithal to look back, she might’ve glimpsed the strange woman’s wince or the way she shook her hand as if to rid it of a sharp ache.

  Instead, all she caught were a few muttered words thanks to the torrent of Mana enhancing her ears.

  “Shit,” Rel cursed under her breath. “She’s growing faster than we thought.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Don't Get Hit

  “A HOUSE COSTS what?!” Crumbs of strawberry scone flew through the air as Eve exclaimed through a full mouth.

  “You heard me,” Wes replied in a flat tone. “Your Steward friend gave me a whole list of potential residences, and the cheapest one was well over a hundred gold.”

  “It makes sense,” Preston said. “He thinks you have an entire kingdom backing you. Why wouldn’t you have hundreds of gold to drop on the right manor house?”

  “No, no, you’re underselling Charles.” Wes pulled a folded parchment from the folds of his robe. “According to him, the right manor house is upwards of a thousand gold. The hundred-gold option is the cheapest he could find that could even be called an Emissary’s residence. He even warned me that choosing it would reflect poorly on New Burendia’s worth as an ally.”

  “Okay, so no house for now,” Eve said. “That’s fine. We can stay at the palace through the tournament, and once we’ve found a mercenary company that’ll take us, we can do a job or two to earn the money we need.”

  Preston nodded. “And in the meantime, we should spend the gold we do have on gear and supplies. No point saving up for a house just to wind up dead in a dungeon somewhere.”

  “I second that,” Eve agreed, giving Wes a sharp look. “Some of us didn’t get re-outfitted for free.”

  “Just like some of us don’t have Stewards and Pages jumping to fulfill our every whim,” the mage snapped back.

  Eve simply
replied by taking a deliberately slow and overacted bite of her scone, making sure to exaggerate the moan of joy at its deliciousness.

  Wes rolled his eyes. “In other news, the mage’s college has asked me to participate in the Proving Grounds, ‘because I’m already here.’”

  Preston furrowed his brow. “That’s bullshit. They brought you here. If they wanted you to compete, they should’ve told you back in Ilvia.”

  Wes shrugged. “Sure, but they aren’t the only org I’m talking to. If I do well in the tournament, I get more negotiating power with all of them.”

  “And if you fuck up, you’ll lose all your negotiating power,” Eve added. “Not to mention showing off what you can do in front of a crowd removes a lot of the mystery surrounding your class.”

  “I doubt that’ll be a problem,” the Disciple argued. “All that anyone will see—my opponents included—will be fire.”

  “Unless they land a hit on you first,” Eve pushed. “All it’ll take is a smart competitor reading your class on the pairings and buying some fire-resist enchantments. Sure, you can burn through them, but that’s a lot of free time for them to attack you.”

  “I’m not that squishy. With the upgrades to Forged in Flames and Gift of the Devouring Flame I got in the Dead Fields, I can take a few hits and heal myself while doing it.”

  Eve turned up her palms. “Well, it’s your choice. Give ‘em hell. One of the burning ones.”

  Preston let out a sigh. “I guess that makes three of us, then.”

  Eve raised an eyebrow. “Three? Don’t tell me you’re competing. What do they want you to do, sic Reginald on your opponents?”

  “Nothing like that,” the Caretaker explained. “The church wants me on the healing squad.”

  “The what now?” Wes asked. “I thought we’re gonna have Cheat Death.”

  Preston rubbed his temples. “The Archbishop has agreed to keep Cheat Death up on all the competitors while they’re fighting, but all that’ll do is keep you alive. Most of the time. You’ll still be beaten to a pulp, and there’s no way the Archbishop can afford to heal you after a Cheat Death. She doesn’t have infinite Mana.”

  “Good.” Eve flashed a thin smile. “You’ll be there to peel Wes off the sand when he gets paired against some tier four.”

  “Or you,” Preston said, “when you fall on your face again.”

  “Hey, it’s been… at least a few months since that’s happened!”

  Wes snorted. “Yeah, you’ll be fine if you don’t get hit. Remember, you’re no more of a tank than I am.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Eve waved him off. “I’m not worried.” Quickly scarfing down the last of her scone, the Defiant pushed herself to her feet. “On that note,” she said, crossing the luxurious suite to make her way to the door, “I’m going to get some practice in. You’re right, though. There’s only a few days until round one, and I want to be damn sure that I don’t get hit.”

  * * *

  Eve paced the palace’s training yard, keeping her distance from the gaggle of royal guards who sparred amongst themselves to one side of the wide space. She was happy to find the ground was the same packed-earth below a thin layer of coarse sand she’d seen in practice yards all over Leshk, a terrain Eve was certain would match that of the arena.

  Picking a corner in which to start, Eve pulled up the description for her most promising—and most dangerous—skill.

  Active Ability - Jet

  X Mana

  Momentum is a tool just like any other, and you’ve learned to wield it. Massively increase or decrease your personal momentum or that of an individual body part.

  She had, of course, already played with low-cost Jets for the sake of small positional adjustments in combat, and while the lower cooldown of weaker Jets was certainly nice, she’d be remiss if she didn’t experiment further.

  Her first test involved dumping a full five hundred Mana—the cost when she’d first unlocked the skill—to see if she could handle it.

  Surprisingly enough, she could. Even though her Jet sent her rocketing forward at twice the speed as it had when she’d first tried the ability—thanks to an old cost-reduction upgrade that hadn’t changed the power—the vast improvements she’d seen in both practice and the Mana Density scaling of Haste and Defiant Charge meant she hit the ground running on her first attempt.

  For a moment, the Defiant breathed a silent prayer of thanks that Jet didn’t similarly scale with her most important stat. Having to relearn her hard-won reflexes with every level she earned would be an absolute nightmare.

  Eve grinned, taking a sharp left turn to avoid slamming into the far wall. It felt good to run again.

  She had, of course, no way to gauge how fast she actually traveled, other than a bit of quick math telling her that with Defiant Charge active, she capped out at just over six hundred and fifty percent of her normal run speed. That said, ‘normal run speed’ made for a rather vague basis for calculation. With all the running Eve had done since leaving Nowherested, maybe she’d gotten faster.

  An hour’s worth of testing revealed nine hundred to be the biggest Jet she could handle, though even that sent her falling to the dirt more often than not. More than once did Eve mutter a quiet thanks that she’d had the wherewithal to wear her armor, as the hardened leather cushioned many a tumble.

  When her Mana pool grew low, she flagged down a nearby Page to ask for a meal, a task the teenager was all too happy to do for the strange Emissary. He was somewhat less enthusiastic when Eve asked a second time two hours later, and a third an hour after that.

  While her culinary habits sparked more than a few whispers in the palace kitchens, nobody dared attempt to limit her food intake, nor even ask how she managed to devour three full lunches in a single afternoon. Not a member of the staff hadn’t been trained in the basics of etiquette, and if it was rude to comment on a dwarf’s drinking, it must’ve been similarly rude to say a word about a manaheart’s eating.

  For her part, Eve was happy for the seemingly bottomless supply of free Mana. Much as the constant pauses to eat and digest before she could continue her training irked at her desire for quick progress, she regularly dumped more than a tenth of her entire reserves into a single Jet, leaving her little choice but to take frequent breaks.

  And so the hours passed. Some time into the evening, the Page swapped out for a different one, while the sparring guards who’d cycled through over the course of the day eventually all retired to their beds or nighttime duties.

  Eve was certain that tales of her behavior had already spread to every corner of the palace as she worked through the night, if only because she spotted a few noblemen and courtly ladies stopping by to see the oddity for themselves. The onlookers never lasted long, most growing bored within minutes of their arrival.

  None of what Eve took to be the court gossips ever approached her, though her enhanced hearing did catch a few mentions of ‘New Burendia’ and the ensuing disbelief at the thought of a previously unknown resurgence of the lost civilization sending an Emissary of all things.

  Eve ignored them for the most part.

  More interesting, to her at least, were the far more honest reactions of the guards who walked in the next morning to find her still at work. She didn’t even need Mana running through her ears to hear one man blurt out, “She hasn’t even left to piss?!” Eve smiled at that one, then again as his friends all berated him for his volume. It felt good to remember even those surrounded by royalty and nobility were still people.

  As the days marched inexorably onward, Eve received less and less attention from those around her as the manaheart became less a novelty and more a permanent fixture of the practice yard.

  It wasn’t until the very night before the tournament was set to begin that Eve finally left the place behind to wash up and get some sleep before her first round. She found herself both pleased and disappointed with the progress she’d made.

  She’d improved immensely in terms of comfo
rt with her mobility and in the repertoire of specific maneuvers she’d drilled again and again. Though she had little in the way of tools for measuring speed or distance, trial and error had allowed her to narrow down a few specific Mana costs that would allow Jet’s cooldown to end just as she needed to use it again for a two or three-pointed turn or feint.

  One of her favorite new moves, and simultaneously her most disappointing, was a great leap that involved Jetting at an upwards angle at specific speed so as to have another Jet ready to catch her fall seconds later. It wasn’t true flight, but it was something.

  Her dream of soaring through the air, as Eve discovered, was a bit more complicated. The trouble came with the realization that one’s falling speed was not constant. Until she had a more reliable way to determine exactly how fast she was falling, Eve could only guess at how much Mana she’d need to spend on her next Jet. For now, rehearsed sequences of jumps at particular angles and speeds were her best approximation.

  Disappointment at her continuing inability to overcome gravity itself aside, Eve lay in her gargantuan bed that night with a smile on her face.

  She was ready.

  Whatever the tournament threw at her, whatever veteran tier fours or high-rarity tier threes stood in her way for their own chance to prove themselves, Evelia Greene was going to run circles around them. She slept like a baby that night.

  No fear sent her tossing and turning. No anxiety kept her awake. Let the other competitors worry about unfavorable matchups or the attention of the healers or the strength of Cheat Death. Those were none of her concern.

  She had no intention of ever getting hit.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Enter the Arena

  “WELCOME, ONE AND all, to the one-hundred-ninety-seventh annual Proving Grounds! As our queen’s Minister of Public Affairs, I am incredibly proud to present my sixth year organizing this prestigious event. This tournament goes back…”