Cordelia

First slash, check!

From the corner of her gridded vision, she spotted the ant-- trying to, at least-- sneakily readying up one of its swords.

“Nice try!” She said with a laugh, ducking before the sword slashed at her. 

Shwing!

The sword passed by her head in almost a slow-mo fashion.

She smirked to herself as she spun around, slicing the ant right in half. 

The three-legged creature shrieked for a split second before falling victim to the odd death sequence. 

Cordelia’s chest heaved forward and back for a few seconds as she caught her breath before she stood up to her full height. 

“Well, that was interesting,” she pointed out to nobody in particular, a small smile spreading across her face as she sheathed her katana. 

“Well, that’s that, I should probably get back to the town. An ant with six swords kind of pooped me out, not to mention-”

ID: 125218

BD: 10, [+2 ACC]

Cordelia: HP: 390/460 | EN: 26/46 | 10 DMG | 3 EVA | 1 SAVVY | 2 KEEN | 2 ACC | 2 BLD

Giant Bullet Ant #1: HP: 0/230 | 69 DMG

LOOT:

Cordelia felt the wind leave her as the force of impact hit her. Her back fell to the ground with a really, really, really loud thud, and she was pretty sure if she had bones, they would definitely be broken.

Her grip on her katana loosened just enough for it to fall out of her grasp, landing at least a meter or more away from her. 

Her head twitched as she looked at the ant with a fire in her steel-gray eyes. The ant, again, raised all six of it swords above it, preparing to pummel to her ground once again. Her brows scrunched up as she rolled to her side just before the ant slammed all of its weapons to the ground, creating a noticeable crack. 

Yeah, that would’ve hurt.

Cordelia hopped to her feet and made a dash for her katana. She smirked as she rounded back to the ant, who was still trying to pull all of its swords out of the ground. 

“Payback is a [female dog].”

ID: 125218

BD: 4+2=6, Success [+2 ACC]

10x8=80 DMG

MD: 4-3=1, Miss [+1 ACC]

Cordelia: HP: 390/460 | EN: 31/46 | 10 DMG | 3 EVA | 1 SAVVY | 2 KEEN | 2 ACC | 2 BLD

Giant Bullet Ant #1: HP: 70/230 | 69 DMG

Cordelia hissed through her clenched teeth as the sword got closer and closer to her hands. 

I’m going to get hit if this continues for any longer, she thought, narrowing her eyes at the ant before using a quick spurt of energy to deflect the sword away from her. 

The ant squeaked and took a few steps back. 

“W-wait,” she muttered, her brows furrowing as she took a good long look at the ant. “Don’t ants have . . . six legs-” As if on cue, the ant revealed its other four legs-- er, arms? 

With. Four. Swords. Also, when did it get that second sword!?

Why was she fighting something with six swords!? 

This wasn’t fair. Not fair at all.

She called blasphemy! 

Cordelia growled as she lunged at the ant, her katana high above her head as she swung it down on the ant’s abdomen. She smirked in victory but it quickly fell when it raised all six of its swords art. 

“Well, fu-”

ID: 125210

BD: 3+2+1=6, Success [+2 ACC]

10x8=80 DMG

MD: 9, Critical Attack

Cordelia: HP: 390/460 | EN: 38/46 | 10 DMG | 3 EVA | 1 SAVVY | 2 KEEN | 2 ACC | 2 BLD

Giant Bullet Ant #1: HP: 150/230 | 69 DMG

Cordelia almost shrieked when the ground erupted in front of her. 

“Holy smokes-” She yelped, falling back just slightly, her free hand outstretching behind her to prop her up before she hit the ground. 

“Oh my,” she muttered, using her hand to launch herself into the air, doing a small somersault before landing on her two feet, both hands gripped tightly un her unsheathed katana.

An ant.

She should’ve expected this.

Well, she did expect it, but it was unexpected. Did that make sense? It made sense. It made sense to her at least.

Right in front of her-- was . . . 

A giant ant.

Holding a sword.

On two legs.

What was this world coming to?

The art let out . . . an ant sound, and charged after her-- with its sword. That was an odd thought to think about. 

The girl squeaked and held up her katana in defense. The sound of metal against metal screeched through the air the sword dragged down her katana.

ID: 125210

BD: 3+2=5, Fail

MD: 6-3=3, Fail [+1 ACC]

Cordelia: HP: 460/460 | EN: 45/46 | 10 DMG | 3 EVA | 1 SAVVY | 2 KEEN | 2 ACC | 2 BLD

Giant Bullet Ant #1: HP: 230/230 | 69 DMG

[FLOOR ELEVEN]

Cordelia mumbled under her breath as she got low to the ground.

Floor eleven. Wonderful.

She never really liked this floor, and she would question you if you did. 

Ah, floor eleven. The floor of giant ants and ant people. What kind of sick monster developed this floor and where could she find them?

“Alright, Pacco,” she muttered, just barely audible. “Sight and then get out of here. I don’t know the patterns on these kinds of mobs so I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

Pacco gave-- a nod?-- and fluttered off without a sound. 

Well, today was going to be interesting. Her AoE isn’t the sharpest tool in her shed at the moment, so she was going to try to refrain from attracting a large crowd of . . . ants.

A shudder went down her spine as she thought about it. She was going to have to fight literal ants. Ants! Of all things this floor could be based on, it’s ants! Why!?

[All Energy is Regained]

HP: 460/460

ENEMY: 

Giant Bullet Ant #1: HP: 230/230 | 69 DMG

Cordelia sighed as she rested her head against the hard jungle trunk of some random tree. She wanted to completely heal for a bit before she started to grind for some loot.

Maybe she should go to a different floor, too.

Floor six was great and all, but she needed better loot, especially since she was going to rank up in a tier very, very, very soon. Any day now and she would have a huge power spike. That was good. More damage is dealt, though she was fairly certain that she wouldn’t need to change anything in her gear but her weapon. Oscar’s weapon was great and all . . . but she felt awkward using the weapon of someone . . . y’know, she rejected. Plus, it was really her style. He might be going for more a critical hit DPS or something like that but she needed straight damage on her weapon since she had Pacco already.

HP: 460/460 [+15 HP]

Cordelia’s chest heaved up and down as she leaned her arm against the handle of her katana. “Well, that was something,” she mumbled, a short and dry laugh following after. 

She hadn’t realized that her vision had already started to revert back to normal, but when she did, she gave a small sigh before calling out for her familiar. “Pacco! The battle is over, buddy. Come down now!” 

As if literally-- on cue, her raven swooped down from the diminishing canopy and landed on her shoulder almost silently. 

“That was . . .  an interesting battle. I don’t think I’ve ever gone against anything that has a specialty in fire,” she muttered, her hand instinctively moving to hover over her already healed stomach. 

“Miracles of video games,” she mumbled with a light chuckle. 

She dropped her head and averted her eyes to the sky. 

Odd. 

Usually, she wouldn’t be able to see the sky, but now that that thing had burned up the majority of the space around it, she could see the blue sky clearly. 

“Alright. We’ll rest up a little bit back at town and then we’ll go hunting for a bit. The day is still relatively young, anyway.”

HP: 445/460 [+15 HP]

Flames sprang to life around her once again as Byakko let out another valiant roar. “Tch,” she bit out, watching her vision slowly start to cloud. “Bring it up, Pacco!” She hollered, knowing that Pacco was watching from a safe distance somewhere around her. 

Another wave of keenness washed over her. Her eyes adjusted to the bright and glowing object charging in front of her. “Stars!” She squeaked, lunging to her right just in time. 

Byakko smashed into the tree behind her, sending splintering wood into the air. 

A grin crept on to Cordelia’s face as she rushed in after the recovering tiger.

“Goodbye!” She giggled, bring her katana down on to its spine rather harshly. It couldn’t feel anything anyways. 

She had no mercy for just of ones and zeroes.

A wave of content flowed through her body as she watched Byakko screech in ‘pain’ before disappearing, leaving shards of red in its place.

ID: 125196

BD: 3+5 ACC [lmfao], Hit | 10x8=80-40=40 DMG [+2 ACC]

MD: 2, Fail [+1 ACC]

Cordelia: HP: 430/460 | EN: 17/46 | 8 DMG | 3 EVA | 1 SAVVY | 2 KEEN | 2 ACC | 2 BLD 

Byakko: HP: 0/150 | 40 MIT | 60 DMG

Man, she really needed to tie her hair up. She really keeps forgetting to do that before a battle. Perhaps having long hair isn’t such a great idea when the only sword art she uses involves making a literal whirlwind.

Cordelia groaned as she spat out strands of her long blonde hair out of her mouth. “Gross,” she muttered, swiping her hair over her shoulders as her hands gripped her katana's handle even more tightly. 

“Alright, come at me, you giant fire furball!” She shouted, her heels digging into the dirt before she dashed forward at the creature with unimaginable speeds.

She unleashed another round of <<Haku Senpu>> which sent Byakko back, again-- and also riling her hair up quite a bit at the same time. 

Cordelia breathed out heavily. Yeah, she was not used to this at all. Such a heavy weapon didn’t feel all that right to her. Can you blame her? She’s been using a weapon that was meant to be light and quick for two years.

ID: 125195

BD: 4+5 ACC [lmfao], Hit | 10x8=80-40=40 DMG [+2 ACC]

MD: 2, Fail [+1 ACC]

Cordelia: HP: 430/460 | EN: 25/46 | 8 DMG | 3 EVA | 1 SAVVY | 2 KEEN | 2 ACC | 2 BLD 

Byakko: HP: 30/150 | 40 MIT | 60 DMG

The girl wheezed as she was sent back into a burning tree. She slowly slid down to the forest floor as she felt her chest start to burn. Cordelia looked down and growled as large three burning claw marks raked across her stomach. 

It left an . . .  unpleasant burning. Yeah, that wasn’t very nice of it. 

Well, at least this wasn’t a complete bust. It just added to the thrill! Something too easy wasn’t fun, after all! 

Cordelia smirked to herself as she saw her health bar compared to Byakko’s. At least she managed to hit the thing before it hit her. Well, is this exciting! It looks like she actually might have to try, after all. 

The player charged up another of her sword arts and charged in back to the battle. Bloody Howl soared through the air as a violent whirlwind came about, diminishing all of the burning wood and grass around them. Byakko roared as the whirlwind send him back, although sadly, not enough to fully knock him to the ground.

Oh well.

ID: 125194

BD: 8, Hit | 10x8=80-40=40 DMG [+2 ACC]

MD: 6-3=3, Fail [+1 ACC]

Cordelia: HP: 430/460 | EN: 32/46 | 8 DMG | 3 EVA | 1 SAVVY | 2 KEEN | 2 ACC | 2 BLD 

Byakko: HP: 70/150 | 40 MIT | 60 DMG

Cordelia hummed as she stepped in to the shop. Well, it was awfully quiet. Suspicious, but not really. She almost forgot who even owned this shop. Her eye twitched as she gave a side glance to Kityuisa from the corner of her eye. Ah, yes.

Her.

Maybe the two of them didn't get off on the best foot, but she didn't hold that much of a grudge.

"Hello there," she said with a forced smile, giving the girl a small wave. "I'm just here to buy something that could boost my damage just a bit," Cordelia bit out, spotting exactly what she was looking for. "Oh, there it is. Well, thanks, I guess," she mumbled, sending her the Col before bolting.

x1 Damage Potion: +2 DMG for an entire thread

-300 Col

“Pacco, I can’t see this smoke,” she wheezed as she entered a-- okay, hear me out-- Literal. Burning. Clearing. Who knows? Maybe it is a clearing because that stupid mob burned the stupid trees down to the ground! 

Her familiar squawked at her before she felt a particular sense sharpen. Sweet! Her bird eye vision was back! 

Literally. 

Though the smoke was still practically in her face, it was much, much, much easier to see through it now-- thank the stars.

“Alright, spread out, you’ve done enough for now, Pacco,” she whispered as she crouched to the ground, her hands reaching to her katana sheath. Wow, that was an odd feeling. Usually, she didn’t need two hands just to unsheathe a weapon. Well, she’s going to have to get used to it at one point.

Her familiar looked at her with its now black eyes blankly before hopping off her shoulder and flying to who knows where. 

“Now it’s time for the real fun to begin,” Cordelia hummed, grinning to herself as a bright red object entered her gridded vision. 

There! 

Cordelia charged into the battlefield of fire, both hands firmly placed on the handle of <<Bloody Howl>> as he raced alongside her.

ID: 125193

BD: 7, Hit | 10x8=80-40=40 DMG [+2 ACC]

MD: 9, Critical Attack [-30 BURN DMG]

Cordelia: HP: 430/460 | EN: 39/46 | 8 DMG | 3 EVA | 1 SAVVY | 2 KEEN | 2 ACC | 2 BLD 

Byakko: HP: 110/150 | 40 MIT | 60 DMG

Cordelia hummed to herself as she watched smoke rise from the really tall trees. Like, really, really tall, but she guessed that that was expected. Since she was . . .  y’know, on a floor that was literally a rainforest. Shame that it was being burned down by what, a tiger on fire? 

Real. Shame. 

She yawned as she watched the almost black smoke rise into the clouds above her. Well, it smelled bad. Really bad. 

Would you want to just smell burning trees all day? No? Yeah, she didn’t think so.

“Alright, Pacco. Let’s go get this cat or whatever,” she sighed, hopping off the freakishly big tree root. Like, these things were huge. What kind of normal tree has these big of roots? Virtual trees, that’s what! 

Oh, gosh, the smell was getting even more unbearable now. Why did they have to be a literal flaming tiger on this floor? Where literally everything was just wood? 

Bad. Game. Design.

-Damage Potion: +2 DMG

"Oh, it's really not a problem," she hummed casually, crossing her arms over another as she cast him a bright smile. "I wasn't really doing much of anything anyway, so you interrupted nothing."

"Me?" She repeated, scratching the back of her head with a perplexed expression before shrugging. "I don't know, really. I sort of lose thought whenever I do nothing for a period of time," she sighed in defeat. "Sometimes it's a blessing and a curse, but I'm pretty sure I was going to go gathering for some stuff. I don't particularly know why since I don't even own a shop-- but why the heck not?"

"Noot?" She mused, watching as the penguin waddled quickly back to him. "That's a cute name," she remarked, smiling softly at the penguin familiar before averting her eyes back to who she was talking to. "I didn't know familiars could get that adorable. It's really quite interesting," she snickered lightly.

ID: 125130

LD: 1

Total Materials: 1

Cordelia sighed under her breath as she followed after Oscar. 

"Awkward my butt," she muttered inaudibly, "this is worse than awkward."

Zero talking throughout the whole trip. Zero. None. It was . . . weird. 

Well, what do you expect? The person she probably trusted the most so far is just straight up not talking to her! Well so-rry that she doesn't reciprocate some feelings of love. It indeed is a weird stage in her life at the moment. Why couldn't she go back to the simpler days-- or were all of her days this complicated. 

She rolled her eyes at that-- which makes sense, right? Right? Right?

Yeah, it makes sense. Pft, why wouldn't it make sense? She always makes sense! When has she ever not make sense? 

Cordelia mumbled small 'curses' under her breath as they neared the spawn point. Well, it was kind of bad that he chose specifically this quest with her. Both of them can literally one-shot the mob, which will probably make things even more awkward. 

Well, if you could call whatever this is awkward. 

ID: 124659

BD: 7, Hit

dark elf thing: 0/12 its frkein ded THATS ALL THAT MATTERS

She wasn't sure how she could explain the look on Oscar's face. She wasn't even sure if there was a word that could explain it. 

"N-no!" She said abruptly, holding her hands in front of her with her lips pursed into a thin line.

"It's not you at all, I promise! It's just..." she mumbled, toying with her fingers together as she looked down at the ground. "My thoughts are conflicted about romantic relationships," she explained, fumbling with her words a bit. 

This was going great. That wasn't sarcasm! She honestly expected it to be a whole lot worse! Well, she really didn't expect this at all, but she was? It was hard to explain, okay? All she was saying as this was okay. Well, it really wasn't good at all, but it could be worse. A lot, lot, lot worse. 

"Anyway," she exclaimed abruptly, nodding her head to the town exit. "Let's get going."

"I'm not sure," she huffed, massaging the bridge of her nose with a small sigh. "Something along the lines of that, I guess. I could care less about my 'parents'," Cordelia mumbled, making quotes with her hands. "They could die in a dirty ditch off the side of the road for all I care," the girl scoffed, rolling her eyes with a grimace. 

Yeah, you could probably tell that she simply disliked her parents. Not hate! Just disliked. 

"Thanks," she murmured, giving him a small smile as she rubbed her arm uncomfortably. 

"Well," she paused, giving him a small bow of appreciation. "Thank you for helping me with this. Apologies if I wasted your time or anything like that," she said, nodding to him.

"I think I'm going to head back to my room. See you again later," she mumbled awkwardly, giving Oscar a small wave and grin before walking away.

Prying people weren't her most favorite kind of people, but it seemed different when it came to Oscar. Maybe it was-- used to be his job to be asking these type of questions? She wasn't stupid like some angsty teenager, she knew that she was going to have to spill to someone at one point. It was just always the problem of finding who she could trust. Who knows, maybe Oscar was that person?

"Well," she mumbled almost inaudibly. "I didn't..." She paused. scratching her arm, unsure of really how to explain whatever this was. 

"I was rich-" she cut herself as she put her hands in front of her to actually emphasize how this actually was. "My parents were loaded. Let's just say that," she paused again, holding a fist in front of her mouth as she coughed awkwardly. 

"Actually, that probably wasn't the best part to start at."

"A-ah," she sputtered, "I see," she coughed awkwardly. 

Well.

She wasn't expecting that. Relationships felt so... useless to her. What her parents had wasn't what she wanted. Though, if it was with Oscar, she think it would be... different. 

She felt so confused, now. What was even love, anymore? It was such a childish question, but she didn't understand! Was what her parents had love? She felt like some cliche character in a romantic book. Someone who didn't know what love was. She scoffed, what a stupid concept. 

"I've seen better days," she mumbled, kicking her feet childishly at the ground. "Just a bunch of reliving memories and all of that. Not exactly the most pleasant thing to be doing for me," she sniffed, scratching the side of her neck. Sure, training with Pacco was fun, but she was pretty sure more than half of the day was spent being emotional and having not-so-good memories.

She nodded slightly and put the sword in her inventory. 

"I might need a new one soon since I'm going to be hitting tier two any day now, but thank you, anyway," she beamed giving him a small bow of appreciation. "Thanks for helping me on this. I didn't really know who else to call to help me," she said bashfully, chuckling to herself as she averted her eyes to the ground.

"Not that many people use katanas, anymore. Probably because it's such a hassle to actually get the skill, but I think it's pretty cool!" She chirped, crossing her arms with a jolly grin. "Makes me feel like I earned it. You don't get to feel that too often in Aincrad. Well, for me at least."

She remained silent for a few seconds. Well, what could she really say? There wasn't that much to really say to a person she had just rejected just a few days ago.

"So, uhm," she mumbled hotly, rubbing her elbows. "How have things been for you lately?"

Cordelia bit her lip as she whirled to his side. Finally, a chance to hit him. She's been waiting for this for what felt like hours!

With Bloody Howl swinging beside her, she swung at Oscar's side.

Shwing!

"Aha!" She exclaimed, a victorious grin on her face as she looked up at Oscar. Though, the katana had barely left a scratch in his armor, it was still a hit! "I did it!" She chirped, removing the sword from Oscar. 

"It's still a lot heavier than I would like, but I think I can get used to it soon," she added, swing the katana in front of her multiple times with a small smile. Just wait. She'll be on top one day. One day.  

"I'll even be as good as you one day, though!" She stopped swinging the sword and looked at Oscar with an excited grin. "Maybe I'll even be able to beat you soon!"

"This fight isn't fair-" She got cut off when she was launched back on to the wall by an attack with... wind? What was this?! Some kind of of action movie? 

She wheezed as she impacted with the wall. "Holy-" She choked out just before she fell back to the ground. It didn't hurt, but dang, it was enough to make the air leave her lungs. "My stars," she murmured lowly, wiping her mouth with her sleeve. 

She frowned at him and his hand before letting out a grudging sigh. She grabbed his hand and pulled herself up with a sheepish expression. Well, this was embarrassing. 

She gulped and gripped her katana tighter. "Alright, let's carry on," she muttered, going after another attack-- and she missed, again. She wasn't fond of cursing but holy [doo doo], this was making her frustrated.

Maybe he was mad. Well, it wouldn't be completely unreasonable if he was. 

Cordelia's eyes widened as she was launched into the air. Wasn't this a little too harsh for just training for the first time?

"Frick," she muttered right before she had landed. "Well, that wasn't fair," she mumbled hotly, feeling herself lose all the control she had in her body. "Did you have to use a stun sword art?" She muttered, narrowing her eyes at him for a brief second. How was she going to use her katana if he stunned her? Plus, how was she even going to hit him in general? No accuracy, and his evasiveness matched hers! 

Well, this sucked. You know, being immobilized. 

Ah, she could literally hear her pride being flushed down the toilet.

Cordelia caught the weapon and she almost went down with it. It was heavier than she had expected. Way heavier than her rapier was.

"I see," she mumbled, examining Bloody Howl with an unsure look. She stared blankly at the duel request. She still didn't have any accuracy enhancements, yet. 

"Alright," she sniffed, accepting the request with a small frown.

Yeah, her pride was going to be ruined today. 

Once the duel had started, she charged after him. She felt utterly useless, though. No sword arts. No accuracy. How the heck was she going to do this? 

With Bloody Howl trailing next to her, she aimed for a basic attack-- and missed. Lovely! She was not used to this at all. Was she ever going to get used to all of this extra weight in her hands? With both of her hands? She was so used to being able to just slash with one hand!

SUMMARY:

-2 SP

-400 Col

-Accuracy Familiar Mastery