Extra's Supremacy: Rise of the Forgotten Background Character

"Bearlo… come quickly."

I muttered it under my breath, not even bothering to look back because I didn't need to.

If there was one person I could trust to have my back, one person who wouldn't screw me over when it actually mattered, it was him.

Well… okay.

Maybe he had disappointed me once or twice.

But never fatally and that's what counts, right?

He had to be healed by now, right?

I had bought him enough time.

So why…

Why the fuck was that bastard not moving yet?

The elven-human hybrid freak roared, "Give me your body!" His voice was menacing.

"Bearlo?" I finally turned, half-expecting him to already be mid-swing.

Instead, my words died in my throat.

"You fucking bastard…"

He was lying on the ground unmoving. Beside him, Cedric and Seraphina lay sprawled out like broken dolls.

What the,

That wave from earlier…

Was it some kind of sleep spell? Or a curse?

Whatever it was, it hit them all.

Unlike me, who just got tossed across the cave like a ragdoll, those bastards had the nerve to fall asleep.

I clicked my tongue.

Of course. It made sense the moment I thought about it.

My Myth—The One Who Scammed Hel—granted me immunity to soul-based contracts, oaths and curses.

Which meant that curse wave or whatever the hell that was, probably bounced right off me.

Tsk. Figures.

I turned my gaze back to the abomination.

The bastard had changed. Gone was the twisted, melting form he had been struggling to hold together a few moments ago.

Now he looked human again, at least on the surface. But shadows clung to him like a second skin, shaping themselves into a jagged, shifting armor that pulsed with dark veins of mana.

In his hand, he held a pitch-black spear that seemed to drink in the light around it.

His grin widened.

"Now then," he said, his voice layered with another tone, dripping with malice. "How about you hand over your body nicely… and it won't have to be painful?"

The sheer confidence in that tone made something inside me twitch.

Who the fuck did this guy think he was?

How arrogant.

I really couldn't imagine how someone could be so arrogant, aside from myself, of course.

I raised an eyebrow as a smirk tugged at my lips.

"Go drink your mama's milk," I muttered, my voice dripping with contempt, "instead of sucking juices from an elven fucker."

That did it.

His face twisted instantly.

Still, he didn't move, probably thinking he was gracing me with the first move.

I didn't need to know what had happened.

I could already smell the stupidity in the air.

That maybe-transmigrator guy, whatever the hell he was, had clearly struck some kind of deal with that pointy-eared bastard.

Probably the moment he realized his little curses weren't working on me.

When in doubt, sell your soul to the nearest glittery freak with "ancient power" and zero impulse control.

And honestly, I could almost see his logic.

He probably thought that the elf would give him a power-up, something flashy or maybe impressive. After all, I never really showed the ugly parts of their kind in the game, did I?

Poor guy, he really thought he was about to level up but instead, he is about to get impregnated with the "power of gratitude" from that elf even if he somehow defeats me.

I summoned all three cards of mine.

Honestly, I wanted to start spamming spells too, you know, really show off, rain some magical hellfire or whatever, but unfortunately for me, I hadn't engraved a single damn spell yet.

Sure, I could brute-force it with raw affinity, like when I melted that rubble earlier… but let's be real, that was dumb luck, not strategy.

It's inefficient, wasteful and would probably drain my mana faster than Bearlo drains my patience.

So yeah… all I had were a few toys.

My cards.

My skills.

My over zealous cloak.

My unreliable bastard of an assistant.

My fancy cloak, worth mentioning twice.

And, of course, my devastatingly charming face.

Not much, I know.

But it would be more than enough to deal with one ugly, pointy-eared bastard clinging to a second-rate freak show.

I snapped my fingers.

One of my cards shot forward, slicing through the air toward that bastard like a streak of light.

I tugged on the thread connecting us, that faint, invisible link, and poured more mana through it, compressing it until the card hummed with power.

I had used the [Emperor] effect to increase the density of the card.

The freak grinned.

And then, vanished.

It was a cheap trick.

My instincts screamed, muscles tensing but instead of panic, a smile curved across my face.

So easy to fool.

I whispered the command, using the [Magician] effect of my card.

In an instant, I was gone, swapped places with the card I had flicked a moment earlier.

Behind me, the remaining two cards floated in the space I had just left, glowing faintly with unstable mana.

"Boom," I murmured.

And I ordered them to explode using the [Tower] effect.

The blast echoed through the cave, sending smoke and dust spiraling like a sandstorm on crack.

Naturally, I didn't expect it to actually kill that bastard.

I could still feel his presence through the haze.

Figures.

I narrowed my eyes, focusing through the dust cloud.

There, a faint silhouette was shifting.

Of course he was.

Honestly, currently I am at quite the disadvantage.

My mana was running awfully low with all those fancy teleportation and blasts.

My ever-so-reliable assistant was still out cold, proving once again that "reliable" was just false advertising.

And my cloak? Yeah. It fluttered.

Dramatically, sure, I'll give it that, but that was about the extent of its contribution.

Should I just use [Dragonic Resilience]?

…Yeah, probably.

But honestly, most of my skills were so new I barely knew which end was up. I didn't even have a clue how to use half of them efficiently.

At this point, I was just gambling even with my cards.

Throwing dice with my life on the table and hoping I didn't crap out.

I mean, hell, I had just awakened my new powers and immediately got thrown into this circus of a fight.

I had teleportation charms too, sure. They could've pulled me out of here if the world made any sense.

But considering that my oh-so-"reliable" assistant, who also had a few, was still snoring peacefully right next to the danger zone… yeah.

Safe to assume they didn't work here.

Figures.

Nothing ever works when I actually need it to.

The idea of using [Dragonic Resilience] was… tempting. But the side effects were the kind of "fun surprises" I didn't exactly trust.

Sure, the skill granted me a surge of power and mana for a while and then, it would wring me dry like a used-up mana crystal for the next thirty minutes.

Now, on paper, that sounded manageable.

But those three cursed little words, "for a while" didn't come with a manual. It could be ten minutes or even one.

Because unlike most idiots who unlock shiny new powers in the middle of a fight and somehow win through "the power of friendship" or divine plot armor, I actually value not dying.

And with my luck? Yeah… I should definitely not try that. At least not until I'm desperate enough to start making poor life choices.

Just then, the dust settled and that bastard… was nowhere.

My stomach dropped.

"Fuck."

I had been keeping an eye on him the whole damn time. I knew where he was or at least, I thought I did.

But he was gone completely.

The air felt heavier.

I raised my guard, every nerve screaming at once.

Something was coming.

Just then, my instinct screamed as I felt an attack from my back.

How original.

"Obvious attack pattern, huh?" I muttered, already twisting around.

A card floated in front of me, snapping into position, my makeshift shield and last-minute savior.

Honestly, teleporting would've been the smarter move. But considering my mana was gasping for air, I could maybe pull off one or two jumps at best.

So yeah.

Cards it was.

The bastard lunged, its spear cutting through the air toward me but something was off.

The shadows… they were fading like smoke.

That wasn't right.

A cold chill crawled down my spine as realization clicked into place.

I reached through the tether of mana, searching for my other card to teleport.

This was a decoy.

"Ah, you sneaky bastard…" I cursed under my breath, already turning.

But my reaction was a second late before I could focus on my connection with the card to activate the [Magician] effect, another spear tore through the air from behind, its tip just inches from my back.

Fuck, I can't dodge.

Still, I twisted in a desperate and instinctive motion.

I knew I couldn't avoid it completely, so I made a choice: better to lose a piece of me than the whole damn life.

But before the spear could pierce through, something else slammed into the scene.

A blur and then, a kick.

The bastard was thrown sideways, crashing into the rock wall like a rag doll.

I turned toward the newcomer with a spark of hope.

Finally, my ever-reliable, crimson-furred assistant had arrived to save my almost-glorious ass.

Or so I thought.

But instead of Bearlo, a girl stood there with wild golden eyes, messy hair and a grin that screamed "crazy."

"Hehe…" she giggled, resting a hand on her hip. "Pretty boy, stay back and let this big sis handle tough things."

—

[A/N: Guess who is the big sis?]