Dungeons and Dalliances

4.05 – Rankings

Natalie’s first fight of the day ended up being a two on two. She received Ernest, an axe-based and somewhat competent all-around fighter, against two opponents from a different class: a fighter and a mage. Only the more diligent students had earned their level up this weekend, and it didn’t seem like their opponents were in that group—so Natalie was at a huge advantage.

The spar turned out to be as satisfying as she had hoped it would be.

This new aggressive style of hers played far more to her strengths. [Juggernaut] was aptly named: though it didn’t provide her defensive boosts, she was a moving whirlwind as she carried her momentum forward, swinging a giant hunk of metal with terrifying speed, her recently boosted strength meaning she could overpower nearly anyone. Her opponent made the mistake of trying to eat the impact with his shield only once. Warhammer met reinforced wood, and his defenses crumpled immediately—he went tumbling across the arena, shield dented, and while not out of the fight entirely, it left his supporting mage wide and open.

Which meant, of course, that the fight didn’t last long after that.

Turning and seeing Sofia’s raised eyebrows, and Jordan’s smile, was even more liberating than the win itself.

She would need to learn how to work the aggressiveness into a proper tanking style, though. Thrilling as barreling forward and being an unstoppable tornado of heavy metal would be, their team already had offense in spades; she would have to focus on keeping attention through being an unstoppable nuisance, rather than trying to disable her opponent with her newfound strength. Though, the two were somewhat intertwined. She would certainly be seeing a higher kill-participation in the following dungeon run than she had with shield-and-hammer.

Hopefully, future levels would come with a taunt ability, or something similar. She intended to work on her [Illusions] to somehow help, too. If nothing else, she could leverage the ability to peel for her teammates—to provide distractions should she somehow lose her target’s focus.

The rest of the class went just as well. By the end, the fifteen classmates she’d spent two weeks with were all looking at her in an appreciative new light. That also held for Natalie and some of them—she hadn’t been the only one to level and receive powerful new abilities.

But of the class, Natalie’s jump upward in unofficial rankings was the most noticeable. As much because her new skills were strong, it was that they actually fit her this time—and her weapon choice, too. She’d seen several upgrades to her personal strength at once, both direct and indirect.

The only damper to her good mood was that, unfortunately, Sofia had also gotten much stronger. Natalie was itching for the day she could lay that woman flat on her back and dominate her—she wanted it more than just about anything, so bad her skin got hot thinking about it—but it might be some time yet. The white-haired girl flowed between her opponents with newfound grace, and her offensive power had also taken a sharp leap upward. One of her immediately noticeable skills was a movement ability. She seemed to be able to step through attacks, now.

Infuriatingly, that would be doubly effective against Natalie, with her slow-but-powerful style. So long as Sofia saw the attack coming, she had a mitigating ability. There was still the option to feint and catch Sofia off guard, but Natalie begrudgingly admitted that would be a herculean task. Sofia had always had a natural talent for reading her opponents—it was a foundational skill to her style. Natalie would have to pay attention to the ability’s limitation. Such a potent dodge skill had to have them. At first appraisal, Natalie suspected a long cooldown, and perhaps a charge-up time—she had to predict the attack, rather than simply react. Still, those weren’t easy limitations to exploit for Natalie herself.

At the end of class, Instructor Robin gathered them for a short announcement. She was sharp and punctual as usual, not wasting breath.

“As a reminder, with the start of the third week, student rankings have been posted. I suggest you peruse them at your leisure, either now or sometime during your lunch break. It’s important to know your competition, and where you stand. They’re posted at most student bulletins.” Cool eyes surveyed the collected students, and Instructor Robin nodded. “That will be all, class. Keep up the good work.” With a sharp turn, she exited the sparring room, leaving them to also disperse.

Natalie found herself surprised by the announcement; she had known student rankings existed, but that they would be coming out today had slipped her mind. She shared a look with Jordan, then Sofia. They hardly needed to discuss it; as soon as Instructor Robin dismissed them, they beelined for the nearest bulletin board.

Then, at seeing the absolute crowd packed around it, conceded defeat—they took a detour and found a less populated one on the way to the cafeteria.

Natalie wasn’t surprised to see Liz in the top twenty. Though not flashy, being a healer, her skill was obvious as day—as expected from a member of the literal royal family.

At space twenty-four, a tragedy lay in wait. Sofia. Sofia had made the first-page of rankings, and Natalie and Jordan had not. Natalie groaned, and Jordan patted her on the back. Sofia just stared at the listing, lips pursed.

“What? Expected to be first?” Natalie asked, more sourly than she intended. It was hard not to have her pride bruised with Sofia on top of her, obvious as the result was. She hated being topped by Sofia.

“I said no such thing,” Sofia said.

“You aren’t hard to read, princess.”

“Hm.”

They flipped through the pages, seeking out their names. Tenet was a big academy, so ending up on the second page—in the top fifty—wasn’t a mark against Natalie in the slightest; it still put her in the top ten percent of her year. Honestly, that was better than she’d expected; she really didn’t think she’d put up a good showing, considering everything that was going on with her class, and how it seem poised to be relatively weak early, but strong late. She would be shooting up the rankings as time passed. With her level-up, the current rankings were already inaccurate.

Jordan was also on the second page, though lower down, at space forty nine. Nobody in the group seemed especially happy with their placements, but they were all intensely competitive, hence how they’d ended up in Tenet in the first place.

Ana was a few spots above Natalie. That also made sense; she was no slouch.

“We’re just getting started,” Natalie declared. “I expect all of us to be in positions one to five by the end of the year. Anything less and we’re not trying hard enough.”

Sofia nodded, and Jordan seemed mildly amused at the statement, but didn’t disagree.

The looked through the other rankings. Combat wasn’t the only category Tenet graded their students in. Natalie obviously wasn’t that invested in the academic list, but she did wince at how she was near the bottom—it took some flipping through of pages to find her name. Also unsurprisingly, Jordan and Ana were both near the top, and in fact, were in the top ten, the highest among them of any individual list. To be fair, it wasn’t like Natalie was really trying in that regard. Who went to Tenet for the academics?

For the dungeon rankings—which Tenet appraised through the quality of loot and amount of monster cores teams brought back up—Natalie and her teammates were all on the second page. Again, that put them in the upper echelons of Tenet’s freshmen, and considering how they had literally been beaten and robbed during their most important dungeon run, that was quite good.

Elida and her team, unfortunately, were all on the first page for both combat-related rankings.

Even more annoyingly, Elida was the number one—for both. Even Johanna, the other major player, hadn’t claimed the spot for personal combat strength; she was number two. Otto was twelfth, Natalie noted.

Natalie recognized most of the other names, though not all of them. Tenet’s freshmen class had a lot of students.

Not ecstatic about their rankings, but also not devastated, the three of them finished looking through the pages, then headed off for lunch.