Liam was someone who had already faced years of terrifying grueling combat in his life. So how could he not respond instantaneously to this small soft fist?
He only moved an inch to the right and dodged the attack like it was nothing which in turn made the attacker stumble and fall forward. Liam sighed and caught the person, lest he might make the situation worse.
"Motherfucker! Greedy scoundrel! Did you seriously take us for fools?" Alex cursed loudly, strands of her long red hair coming undone. She quickly steadied herself and huffed angrily, her chests heaving up and down.
Woah! This girl really put a lot of power into that punch! Liam scratched his head. It was not too difficult for him to guess what was happening.
Seeing his calm smile only made Alex even more furious. "You! How dare you?"
"Sister, calm down, please." Rey tried his best to hold Alex back, but as always he failed miserably.
"We called you to party together with us, but you ditched us at the last minute and took everything for yourself??? Are you serious?"
"What do you mean?" Liam calmly replied. "Wouldn't you have just died if you stayed back? You would not have gotten any rewards either way."
"Oh! So now you are back to being Mister know it all? Don't make me laugh. What a jerk!"
"You could have warned us back there also and we could have finished the dungeon together, but instead, you dragged us along for the ride and then left us hanging."
"At worst we would have died? So what? You didn't have to kick us out of the dungeon!"
Liam saw that the woman was ready to murder him. He wanted to point out that they had left the dungeon out of their own accord, but he decided to swallow his words.
He had a lot of things to do and standing here and bickering with two women was not on his list. And the woman in front of him didn't look like she was going to stop any time soon.
"And we" Liam stopped her and did not let her finish her sentence. "I will compensate you guys."
"Aha. You don't have to, senior." Rey awkwardly chuckled, but he obviously looked very excited.
"Shut up, idiot." Alex scolded him. "What compensation are we talking about?"
"How about I tell you guys the secret to getting more skills?" Liam chuckled.
The three in front of him, even the silent Mia immediately became shocked.
"So senior, you were really not buying them from some shop? Ha ha ha" Rey was the first to mutter something even though he was just blabbering.
Liam shook his head helplessly. "No. It's not that easy. I only managed to find this by chance. Listen to me carefully and it is best you keep it to yourself."
"If you repeat any action enough times, with a significant insight into what exactly you are doing, you can automatically learn that skill without needing the specific skill books."
"For example, Miss tank, how about you use your shield and slam into that tree there?"
Alex narrowed her eyes and looked suspiciously at the greedy scoundrel and then went to test out the theory he had mentioned. "If this is not true… Hmph. I swear I will take care of you!"
Liam chuckled. "Focus on the way you are hitting the tree. Think about its weak points and slam it with all your strength and power."
He knew that she would probably take some time so he decided to give some pointers to Rey. He didn't bother saying anything to Mia as he didn't want to disturb her natural growth.
"Why are you playing a 'no class' character?" Liam dragged Rey to the side and asked.
"Ah? Is that not the best?" Rey looked confused because Liam himself was playing the same style.
"Do you have any special affinities like your cousin there?"
Rey shook his head. "No?"
"What did the system recommend for you?"
"Ah… that… hunter ha ha ha."
Liam sighed at the carefree guy. This was definitely a person who hadn't worked hard even for a second in his life. "Then you should go with the hunter class in my opinion."
"Let me add you as a friend and I will bring you guys to another dungeon later to compensate for this one."
While these two were talking, a loud sound echoed from the direction Alex was training. Everyone turned to look at her and saw that the tree in front of her had split into two halves.
Alex on the other hand was busy staring at the new notification that had popped up in front of her.
[Ding. You have learned a new skill Shield Slam]
"What the hell? You were not lying!"
Liam smiled. "So that settles things? I will be leaving now."
"Thank you," Alex muttered silently while looking away. She felt that she had been a bit hasty in judging this person's character.
The mechanic he had revealed to them wouldn't probably have remained a secret forever. Nevertheless, this was a huge boost for them so early on in the game.
So she stopped being difficult and swallowed her pride. Since she was the one who had accused him unfairly, she decided to extend an olive branch.
"Do you want to run the dungeon with us a few more times? We can grind our levels faster."
"No, that's alright." Liam was actually planning in his mind about his next few steps but of course, the three in front of him mistook his actions as him trying to be friendly.
This made Alex feel even worse and she tried to lighten the mood. "Come on, expert. Give us some more pointers." She flashed a weird smile which she had actually meant to be flirtatious but somehow came out as awkward.
Liam, however, did not pay any attention to it. "More pointers? Hmmm. Make sure not to die. There are huge penalties for death." He blankly replied.
Alex widened her eyes as she suddenly realized if this was why he had asked them to get out of the dungeon. Now she felt even worse for having completely misjudged him.
"By the way, you helped both me and Rey, but you forgot to give Mia any pointers! Ha Ha Ha." She squeezed out another sentence just to keep making conversation.
She didn't actually expect the rigid guy to respond, but to her surprise, Liam who was preparing to leave loudly exclaimed. "Oh, you are right! I almost forgot!"
Unexpectedly, he paused in front of Mia and whispered something in her ears.
Huh? The other two were confused and looked at him, but he didn't bother explaining anything to them.. He jumped down from the cliff and bolted away.