In a desolate land with red soil under a red cloudless sky, two people were fighting against a score of enemies. One was a woman in armor. Her armor glistened with energy from time to time, healing its wearer at an interval. The other was a man in a cloak. The cloak shrouded its wearer with a black shield when his HP dropped below half. Aside from reducing the received damage, the black shield also made the man much harder to be targeted by ranged attacks or spells.
The woman was using a long mace. When her mace struck an enemy, it also discharged a short shockwave that dealt chaos damage to nearby foes. When enemies surrounded her, she broke her long mace into two shorter maces and fought with two weapons.
The man fought using two large daggers. The daggers were set weapons and had the life-leech ability. Whenever he wounded an opponent, a portion of the inflicted damage was transferred to heal his HP.
The score they fought slowly reduced. Within that score were originally nine rare elites of the same level as the woman. After much difficulty, they finally beat them all. But in the distance, they saw another score of enemies approaching.
"We should leave," The man said to the woman.
"No, this is the highest wave he had fought. I want to try this wave as well," The woman replied.
"That man is a freak. You can't seriously try to replicate what he did, can you? There will be twelve rare elites in that horde!"
The woman didn't reply, she just showed a determined expression.
Seeing the woman's face, the man didn't try to persuade her anymore. He steeled himself to fight the incoming horde.
*
Inside an underground cave hall at an unknown location, the woman and the man came out of a portal under a huge tree. Around them were many other trees. Some of these trees possessed the same portals in their trunks.
"Splendid!" A young shirtless man, who was leaning on a nearby tree, spoke to the woman. "Although you failed to decimate that last wave, you have reached the same wave as that punk before you."
"I almost die, though," The woman, who was Grace, said.
"No shit! If you still insist on fighting, both of us would have died already," The man beside her, Oswald, said.
"Well, I can see that you are trying to beat that multi-class punk, but that is a wrong motivation," the shirtless man, the God of Greed, said to Grace.
"Listen to God Greed," Oswald agreed and nodded.
"You should do it for yourself! Be greedy! Want everything for yourself, not for others! That is the right motivation! Aim for an even higher wave that no one else can possibly reach. Be selfish and take everything for yourself. Leave none to others, hahaha…!"
Oswald didn't know how to respond to that.
Grace just smiled politely and said, "I can beat so many waves all thanks to God Greed's gifts. These unique-grade mace and set armors are truly amazing."
"Of course! As my emissary, I can't let you go around wearing trash equipment," Greed said.
"Yes, I'm also very grateful for the special class you bestowed on me," Grace said.
Her class had now changed to Emissary of Avarice, a first-class special class. This class boosted Strength, Intelligence, Endurance, and Wisdom stats. It also increased the exp points received and increased the chance of getting good-quality loots. All healing effects received or cast was increased by 50%.
The first skill she got from this special class was Greed's Will. This skill dealt light damage to all enemies in an area, then heal all allies around the caster equally with a total healing amount equivalent to the total damage inflicted.
"The equipment that I gave you are not simply unique-grade, you know," Greed said.
"Oh? Are there more to them?" Grace asked while looking at the mace and armor she wore.
"Yeah. They are actually suppressed equipment."
"Suppressed?" Grace didn't understand what that meant.
"They are originally equipment of different grades. I put seals on them because they are too powerful for your level. Once you reached level 80, the seals will be undone and their grades will return to legendary grades."
"Le–legendary…?" Oswald stammered after hearing Greed's word.
"Yeah. As my representative, you have to of course use the best equipment!" Greed said proudly but then added, "But your level is still too low. It will be a long time before my seals are lifted."
Grace was level 59 now. Though he had the advantage of using Greed's unending waves portal and spent more time on it than Jack, her improvement couldn't be compared to when Jack was using the portal. The rate by which Jack decimated the waves was inhuman. For her who had fewer available skills, she spent a longer time defeating each wave. In a day, she could only clear the portal two times at most.
However, her improvement was still faster than the average players. Even when she didn't join the invasion war, her level surpassed those who had performed well in the war. Aside from Jack, of course.
"Um… What about my daggers and cloak here?" Oswald asked. The daggers in his hands and the cloak he wore were also gifts from Greed.
"They are real unique equipment. There is no seal," Greed answered.
When Oswald showed a disappointed expression, Greed said, "Hey! Are you dissatisfied? You are just a supporting character. I am already extremely generous to let you come here and give you those equipment as well as raise your grade."
"I'm not dissatisfied! I'm not dissatisfied!" Oswald hurriedly said. "I'm extremely grateful for God Greed's generosity!"
"As you should be," Greed said.
Oswald heaved a relieved sigh. Greed could blast him to dust easily. He had heard stories about this God's brutality in the past. The last thing he wanted was to draw Greed's ire. However, the way this God acted around Grace was nothing like what he had heard. He was surprisingly bewildered by this. He even wondered if the Greed here was the same one from those stories? Or was this the successor?
Grace originally couldn't summon Oswald here. Only after Greed's permission that she could call her companion. Oswald stayed here after that. Greed granted him a set of dagger weapons and a cloak to help him fare better in assisting Grace.
Greed even gave Oswald another pill of growth, allowing Oswald's grade to increase again. He was now a rare elite.
"God Greed, am I not yet permitted to go outside?" Grace asked, which drew Greed's displeased expression.
"How many times have we talked about this? You are too weak! Unless you have reached level 80, stay here and be safe!"
"But… It will take a very long time for me to reach that level..."
"Why so keen to go outside? Are you not enjoying my company?" Greed asked.
"Of course, I do. But I also have friends outside. They might need my help…"
"There is nothing you can do to help them if you are that weak. No, you will stay here until you are strong enough!" Greed declared.
Grace didn't say anything further. She could see that Greed refused to be persuaded. She could only nod weakly.
Seeing Grace's sad expression, Greed felt slightly awful. He didn't know why, but he enjoyed the company of this outworlder woman. She was polite and told him many interesting tales about the so-called real world. She also told him many stories which she called dramas. She said his old world liked to enact these make-believe stories for entertainment purposes. He always looked forward to hearing her stories after she was done with the endless-wave portals.
At the start, he demanded Grace took different portals daily just like Jack. But after listening to these dramas from Grace, he released her from the daily portal obligation. In exchange, she had to tell him these dramas daily. The current tale was about two young lovers from feuding families. Yesterday, she had ended the story when the lead lady was planning to take a potion that would put her into a death-like coma. This was to fool her family which was forcing her to marry someone she didn't love. Greed was very keen to find out the continuation of that story today.
But if Grace was sad, she wouldn't be able to tell a good story in such a mood. Hence, Greed said, "Tell you what. If you managed to beat the wave with fifteen rare elites, I will let you out."
"Really?" Grace asked. Her face lit up.
"What do you take me for? Do you think I'm someone who goes back on my word?" Greed replied.
"Then it's a deal!" Grace uttered.
"Good. Now let's go. I want to know what happens to that Juleiha girl."
"It's Juliet," Grace corrected.
"Sure, sure. I will reward you with a good bloodline if I'm impressed with the ending of your tale. And hey, about you leaving. Even if you do leave, I still demand that you come back here once a month. And I want you to tell me an exciting drama every time you visit."
"That will be my pleasure," Grace replied.
Oswald, who was following behind, shook his head. He thought to himself, 'Defeating fifteen rare elites of the same level? Probably we will reach level 80 first before we can achieve that…'
