Black Online-Chapter 113: One Chance

"I’ll leave you to it."

Rock said, and with his dog, he walked away to get some blood flowing into his legs, as he had been sitting most of the day.

It was getting quite cold.

He also wanted to give Fang Raon some space, as he had quite important decisions to make regarding attributes.

With a silent, "thank you," Fang Raon sat down on the rock and opened the system interface in front of him.

’The first stat—Stamina—I definitely need some, so let me add some there.’

Fang Raon pressed the "+" button next to the Stamina attribute and increased it till he was satisfied with it.

[Stamina: 36 → 50]

’And next... Attack. I’d definitely want more attack power. It has been severely lacking, as I’ve noticed.’

Fang Ran tapped on the "+" button and increased it drastically.

[Attack: 31 → 56]

’Defense is next... Hmm, I’ll just put some into Vitality first, as I don’t want to spend all points on other attributes and have nothing left for Vitality.’

Fang Raon rubbed his chin and quickly came to a decision.

[Vitality: 41 → 65]

’And now... Defense and Speed.’

Fang Raon thought to himself as he had 37 stat points left to use, which was a decent amount for the two of them.

’Alright... Let’s do this.’

[Defense: 22 → 37]

[Speed: 25 → 47]

’And lastly, there is the Mana stat, but I don’t really need it at all so far, and I am not sure whether I will ever need it.

’If I one day get a mana-based skill that is good, sure, I’ll just level up and spend some points to increase the mana attribute, but until then, I won’t waste any points on it.’

Fang Raon thought to himself.

He noticed that his heart was beating quite loudly as he checked how many points he put on Vitality.

All he could wonder was whether that was enough or whether it would even do anything. Whether he was even correct in his assumption.

Maybe he only had an extremely rare health increase, and it had nothing to do with the Black Online.

He would find out if he logged out now.

’I’ll log out soon... I think we’re done training either way.’

He thought to himself.

With that, he took one last glance at his new system interface that was showing quite a big increase.

***

[Name: Fang Raon]

[Class: Dancing Blademan]

[Level: 3]

[Next Level: 0%]

[Coins: 18,021]

[Health: 700/700]

[Stamina: 50]

[Attack: 56 + 2]

[Defense: 37 + 5]

[Speed: 47]

[Vitality: 65 + 5]

[Mana: 0]

[=SKILLS=]

[Basic Slash Lv. 3 - Mastery: 0%]

[Basic Parry Lv. 3 - Mastery: 0%]

[Sword Stab Lv. 2 - Mastery: 0%]

[Hard Slash Lv. 2 - Mastery: 59%]

[Dodge Roll Lv. 2 - Mastery: 32%]

[Aurel’s Blade Dance Lv. 1 - Mastery: 0%]

[Throwing Sword Lv. 2 - Mastery: 0%]

[Duelist Instinct - Innate Skill]

[Closing Sequence - Innate Skill]

***

’It is looking very good.’

Fang Raon thought with a smile on his face.

"Are you done?"

In that moment, Rock walked over after seeing Fang Raon grin like a fool when staring at something invisible in front of him.

Since he couldn’t see Fang Raon’s system interface, it looked like he was just some nutjob acting crazy.

"Yep, I am done."

Fang Raon said.

"Let’s head back then. I also received a message that Machary became level 3 as well, and with that, you’re the last one of the Fourth-Liners that reached level 3."

Rock said.

"...Oh."

Fang Raon sounded disappointed.

He thought that he reached level 3 quite quickly, but of course, while he was training hard, so was everyone else.

"If you’re curious, Machary’s new class is "Blade Hunter," which is very combat-focused. He’ll be one of the strongest members of Rose Records one day.

"You need to work hard so you don’t get left behind."

Rock said.

"..."

Fang Raon’s eyes turned serious, and he nodded and clenched his fists hard as he didn’t want to get left behind.

While the sun was going down, they arrived back at the mansion, and they took a visit to the training room.

Everyone was about to wrap up the training.

’I guess we will start heading to raids soon, so I’ll need to clear the air with them all so that we can work well together.’

Fang Raon thought as he looked at the Fourth-Liners and then at Machary, who was just minding his own business while training swordsmanship.

Since he lost the competition for the team leader position, he’d been training harder and longer than anybody else.

It was obvious that Machary wanted to graduate to the third line so he could become its team leader.

It was now common knowledge that the Third-Liners team leader was about to become a member of the Second Line.

There were many people aiming for that team leader position, and Machary was one of them.

"Alright, we’re done training here. See you all tomorrow, bright and early at 9 am sharp. Is that understood?"

Rock asked.

"Yes, teacher!"

Everyone shouted, and as everyone prepared to leave, Fang Raon stepped forward.

"Ahem, everyone, may I have a word?"

Fang Raon asked.

When they heard him, they looked over to him with frowns and nodded and gathered in front of him.

They had to listen to their team leader even if they didn’t want to.

"...?"

Machary joined the line and wondered what the hell Fang Raon wanted.

"I think we need to clear some air. Don’t you all think so?"

Fang Raon asked with a smile.

"???"

Everyone looked confused about what he meant, and Machary’s face turned a shade paler.

’Could it be that he is finally going to expose me? He must’ve noticed the awkward looks that everyone gave him because of the lies I spread.’

"I am not stupid, and I know that one of my former party members... Must’ve said something about our past experiences.

"Yes, I stole from them. And yes, I pressured some members into staying in the party. I regret all of that deeply."

Fang Raon said with a serious look on his face.

’What the hell is he saying?!’

Machary’s eyes widened in surprise.

Everyone was silent while listening to him, as they didn’t actually expect Fang Raon to address the elephant in the room.

"I’ve already apologized to others that I did that and made it right by giving the stuff I stole back. Machary can confirm it."

Fang Raon said and looked at the brown-haired young man.

Everyone looked at him, and Machary nodded, trying to keep up his composure, but it was really hard.

’He actually doesn’t plan to expose me, but he is acting like those lies are true? Why is he doing that? Does he not care what they think about him?

’...He doesn’t want discord in the group, so if he exposes me, none of them will ever trust me again.’

Machary thought and started to feel emotional.

"I know it will be hard to trust me at first, but I will do everything in my power to be as good of a leader as possible.

"If you give me a chance, I won’t let you guys down, but if even after all this, you don’t trust me, I am willing to step down as team leader.

"I am just asking for one chance."

Fang Raon said, and bowed deeply.

"..."

The Fourth-Liners didn’t know how to react, and they could tell that Fang Raon was really being sincere.

He really didn’t seem like the horrible person that Machary made him out to be, and they had already seen his impressive capabilities in the test raid.

’...Maybe he will actually be a great leader...’

They started to think and began to slowly warm up to Fang Raon.