Despite being the first boss of the first dungeon… Moriarty had long forgotten his name because it was simply too hard to remember.
To avoid wasting his teammates' time, Moriarty always skipped all cutscenes in these four-player dungeons.
He had no idea what Ademar looked like outside of combat. He only remembered him as a hunchbacked giant with purple spiderweb-like patterns all over his skin.
At the time, they called Ademar Da Zi.
This was because he was the first enemy on the Path of Transcendence. In the early stages, players rarely encountered other bosses and NPCs with purple light effects, so they simply named him that based on his appearance.
The reason he was called Da Zi was because there was another 'Big Zi' later in this dungeon. And in another dungeon, there were enemies called 'Old Zi' and 'Zi Sis'. After Version 2 was released and enemies on the Path of Transcendence became more common, they stopped using these names.
Along with his memory, the incredibly simple mechanics of the Evil Bartender also resurfaced
Ademar placed both hands on the counter, his arms visibly swelling at a speed perceptible to the naked eye, directly tearing through his sleeves.
He suddenly slammed his right hand down, moving extremely fast, as if wrapped in a gust of wind.
"[Steadfast Demeanor]."
And Moriarty, even before Ademar swung his palm, preemptively commanded from behind, as if predicting it.
The moment she heard the command,
Haina's body moved on its own before her mind could react. The light rings in her eyes suddenly spun, and she rotated her sword horizontally, placing her left hand against the front half of the blade. Her center of gravity lowered, and she pushed off the ground with her right leg. In the blink of an eye, she adopted a stance to resist the impact.
Clang!
It was the contact between a palm and a rapier, yet it produced the sound of a giant hammer striking an anvil.
The sword, enhanced by the Law Tactics of The Path of Authority, firmly blocked the blow!
Haina could clearly feel a surge of immense power rushing through the sword.
If she hadn't instinctively obeyed Moriarty's command and used "Steadfast Demeanor," she would have probably flown backward and crashed into Moriarty, who was in the wheelchair behind her!
But at this moment, her body was like a poured foundation, completely channeling that power into the earth!
After one strike, she instinctively aimed for the opponent's opening in their attack and launched a sharp counterattack!
She backhanded her sword, slashing along the underside of his recoiling right arm, all the way to his left shoulder.
Blood spurted out, and the Evil Bartender stumbled backward in pain, colliding with the wine cabinet behind him.
Some wine bottles fell due to the collision, hitting the ground with a crisp shattering sound.
She remembered her instructor's teaching: "Do not be rash," and instinctively wanted to return to her initial standard stance.
However, Moriarty issued a command at just the right moment.
"[Mighty Strike]."
Can I really?
A hesitant thought flashed through her mind.
Mighty Strike requires charging, preventing movement or parrying before the slash; and after the slash, it cannot be changed, making it easy for agile enemies to dodge and counterattack.
According to her instructor's teaching, this move should be used when confirming that the opponent is unable to counter or evade, forcing them to choose defense and then breaking their defense.
After gaining an advantage in the first engagement, one should use [Sharpen Blade] to temporarily increase the blade's sharpness, or use [Roar] to intimidate the opponent further using their losing momentum, making them even weaker. One must control the distance between the opponent and oneself, not too close, not too far. The opponent must always be within the range of [Charge Slash], while also ensuring enough clear space behind oneself for retreat, dodge, and parry.
...Oh, wait, Mr. Moriarty seems to be behind me. So, should I move to the side first?
But if I do that, won't I expose him...?
As her brain rapidly performed complex calculations, in the instant Haina's mind wandered, her body, honed by countless hours of training, had already moved on its own.
Upon receiving Moriarty's command, she took a deep breath, gripped the short sword with both hands, and hunched her back slightly like a cat before hunting.
After about half a second of charging, her figure shot out like lightning.
A sharp, cold white light, like a crescent moon, flashed in the air, and the counter in front of the Evil Bartender was directly cut in half by her single strike.
The immense impact instantly froze the Bartender's body in place.
Along with the Bartender's unconscious parry, the left arm he used to block himself was also severed!
The bones of his forearm had a stark, broken edge. His purple, severely swollen-looking left hand fell to the ground, and the Bartender let out a shrill scream, the purple patterns on his body rapidly receding along their original Paths.
The scream was so shrill it startled Haina.
And his appearance when he disengaged from combat made Haina unsure whether she should continue fighting him.
At that moment, Moriarty's serious voice came again.
"Haina, move aside."
She shifted her feet, lightly hopping half a step to the side.
Only the sound of a gunshot was heard.
The Bartender's left eye was pierced by a bullet, and blood splattered from the back of his head. Blood bloomed like a flower on the wine cabinet behind him.
His body slowly slid down weakly, dragging a deep red bloodstain.
She hadn't even seen where Moriarty had hidden the gun. He still sat in his wheelchair, quietly unmoving. A faint wisp of white smoke still rose from his black cloak, and the corner of his mouth under the hood was slightly upturned.
From Moriarty's perspective, tiny white specks of light gradually emerged from the corpse, flowing into his body.
[Killed a Second Circle Otherworlders, gained 14 free experience points]
Moriarty grinned with satisfaction.
Let me steal a kill, thanks.
Although direct monster kill experience in "ring of ouroboros" was quite low, leveling mainly relied on quests, crafting, purchasing and reading books, and daily dungeon rewards... but even mosquito legs are meat.
Not to mention, his current level was low. The benefit of using free experience to raise his level was still quite high.
These 14 free experience points, plus the 24 points from counter-killing that Demon Scholar earlier, distributed evenly among the Demon Scholar's three skills, would roughly allow him to level up four times.
He could also allocate some experience to the Priest class, reaching level two to unlock a Path. Then he would raise the Demon Scholar by three levels; this was the plan with the greatest short-term benefit.
Alternatively, he could save some experience and wait until he learned other skills on the Devotion Path such as "Sacrificial Fire," "Illumination," and "Blessing," which were more useful and harder to level up than "Prayer" before spending the experience. These experience points could at least directly raise the Priest level to five. This was the most cost-effective way to improve in the long run.
After all, "Demon Scholar" could reliably increase in level just by reading mysterious books on Demon Scholar; "Basic Prayer" could gain stable improvement by praying at least twice a day for three minutes each time; and "Demon Contract" could slowly gain power from the Shadow Demon even if he did nothing.
Only "Basic Ritual" was a bit troublesome. The main trouble lay in the word "Basic."
Its rank was too low; the ritual Moriarty used to create the "Shadow Blade" earlier was too high a level, and it couldn't even gain experience. Moriarty simply couldn't remember such low-level rituals the rituals he'd bother to memorize formulas for would at least be those he used frequently, or those that could be used to slaughter pigs.
From this perspective, the Demon Scholar could level up even if left alone. However, leveling up the Priest class was much more difficult, basically only achievable through slow grinding.
If he could quickly raise the Priest to the Second Circle, it would prove that he was a "person who is willing to dedicate."
If not, how could he walk so smoothly on the Devotion Path?
Is your Devotion Path level higher than mine? If not, what right do you have to say I'm not a good person?
That would be an invincible life-saving card! He could also logically become a priority student and receive resource allocation from the Seminary... This way, he wouldn't be a "bad student who took three months leave at the start of school," but rather a "pious and kind genius with a weak and sickly body."
But in that case, these 38 experience points are a bit too little...
Moriarty's thoughts raced, and in an instant, a new mischievous idea came to mind.
Haina stared at the corpse, completely stunned. Clearly, she wasn't as composed as she claimed to be, despite having "killed someone before," and able to deliver a fatal blow without hesitation.
Before she could react and question why Moriarty had suddenly killed the man,
Moriarty, playing the victim, preemptively retorted, "Why didn't you just decapitate him just now? He couldn't have blocked it."
"...Huh?"
Haina's mind crashed for a moment, then she quietly explained, "Because he was much weaker than me. I saw that he had lost the ability to resist, and I thought we could capture him alive..."
That was indeed true. This person's combat intuition was quite accurate.
Moriarty secretly agreed with Haina's statement.
If things ended here, and they simply took the captured Evil Bartender away, the case could already be closed.
However, Moriarty couldn't really let the Surveillance Bureau interrogate him what if he confessed about me?
Although the Moriarty Family had some influence, he couldn't say for sure whether his adopted son would be convicted if there was clear evidence.
So Moriarty changed the subject from before, sternly saying, "Then did you notice? When he saw you display your Path, his first reaction was to resist, and even attack you.
"What does this mean? It means he had no intention of admitting guilt and submitting to the law!"
Nonsense, a desperate bandit with blood on his hands and a weapon, who would be sentenced to death if caught, suddenly runs into a lone Inspector. How could he just give up? Even if he doesn't fight back, he'd at least try to escape.
Moriarty muttered to himself.
But there was no wavering on his face.
He just said, word by word, "If you could tell he was much weaker than you the moment you engaged, or even before, would he not know? Since he knew, yet still actively resonated with his Path and attacked you what does that mean?"
It means he knew he couldn't outrun you, and in desperation, he could only fight for his life.
Moriarty thought to himself.
"...What does it mean?"
Haina was a little hesitant.
She felt her mind blank if she saw this kind of question on a test, she believed she could give a perfect answer after careful thought. But now the fresh corpse was emitting a bloody smell, and she felt her heart was in a mess.
"You see," Moriarty suddenly changed the subject, "at first, he said the dishes here were expensive, just to deter us. This shows he didn't want a direct confrontation with the Surveillance Bureau..."
"Hmm, I understand."
"But later, I just told you to draw your sword, and didn't even tell you to strike in this situation, he dared to actively attack you instead of running away or making excuses. Why did he dare to do that?"
"...So, he must have an ability that comes with a high cost, thus preventing constant use... but is also very powerful?"
Haina tentatively replied.
Moriarty nodded with satisfaction: "Precisely."
Don't tell me, there really is.
This deduction was not wrong either. This was also one of the reasons why the Evil Bartender chose to fight desperately, because he was indeed not without a chance of winning.
The Evil Bartender's profession was the "Demonic Human" on the Path of Transcendence. When he entered a severely injured state, he could instantly recover half of his maximum HP, and then enter a demonic state with rapid HP decay and enhanced all attributes.
It's just that your damage was too high; two strikes caused him to skip phases.
Using correct information and a wrong line of reasoning to derive an equally correct answer. No one would realize there was a problem here even after she took the corpse back, she would only get the result that "Moriarty's judgment was correct."
"...So that's how it is!"
Haina was convinced: "Thank you, Moriarty! You saved me!"
Moriarty nodded steadily: "So when facing heinous criminals, you must not hesitate. You want to keep them alive, but they don't think that way."
See, she even has to thank us.
"What do we do now?" She was now accustomed to asking Moriarty questions and obeying his commands. "Should we package the body and take it back?"
"No rush."
Moriarty tugged at his cloak and said calmly, "It's not his turn to be the mastermind behind this.
"The real culprit is in the basement of this bar. She has been listening here for a long time.
"No need for a direct confrontation with her pour the strong liquor through the door crack, then set the place on fire."
"...Won't that be a bit too cruel? What if she comes out?"
"Then let you take care of her."
After repeatedly verifying Moriarty's correctness, Haina's mind finally no longer instinctively had the urge to argue.
She just looked at the basement expectantly, gripping her unsheathed short sword, eager to act.
"...How unexpected."
As expected, a woman's voice then came from the direction Haina was looking.
She slowly pushed open the basement door.
It was a bald woman in a brightly colored red robe, with a sturdy build and skin as pale as a corpse. She was at least one meter seventy tall, her left arm, which pushed open the door, was full of muscles, her chest was high and prominent, and a faint purple glow shimmered in her eyes.
Haina gripped the short sword in her hand, lowered her center of gravity, and was about to charge forward.
But then her pupils suddenly contracted, and she stopped in place.
Several purple runes appeared on the woman's right arm, her five fingers forming a loose grip as if holding a sphere.
Ethereal spirits, as fleeting as vengeful ghosts, coiled around her fingertips, and a slightly bluish pale gray mist gathered. It formed an irregular sphere about the size of a baby's head. Visibly chilling energy pulsed like a heartbeat, causing a deep, cold gray wind, almost visible to the naked eye, to sweep towards them in waves along the floor.
Haina didn't recognize this spell. But she clearly felt the threat.
And the woman, gripping this long-charged magic orb, did not launch an attack.
This was correct.
If she were to throw the magic orb, Haina might be able to dodge at this distance; if she used it to attack Moriarty, Haina's charge would inevitably be unstoppable for her.
But Haina also didn't dare to charge forward. Because she wasn't sure what the specific effect of this spell was.
Taking this magic orb at close range could lead to an immediate defeat.
So she subtly stood slightly in front and to the side of Moriarty, but not blocking Moriarty's line of fire. The three fell into a brief stalemate.
"...How did you know I was in the basement?"
The bald woman stared at Moriarty expressionlessly, and retorted, "Did I leave any evidence anywhere?
"...How did you do it?"
"It's experience."
Moriarty replied simply. Because this dungeon had more than one boss.
Indeed, another deduction!
How on earth did he guess that?!
Haina, standing beside him, felt invigorated and restlessly excited.