Chapter 130: Growth

“Pochi, good boy!”

“Woof! Woof!”

A dog was wagging its tail in front of me. It was F-rank Beast, Pochi.

Originally, it would have been as big as a wolf, but then it was a small dog that looked like a Chihuahua.

A cat was staring at this scene from the top of the cabinet with a look that said, “Is that fun?”. That cat is the E-rank summon Sabertooth Tiger, but it was as docile as a small cat. It occupied the top shelf of the cabinet, where nothing was placed, and groomed itself.

These two summons changed because of their <Awakening> skills.

F-rank Beast, Pochi

Awakening skill: Loyal Dog

E-rank Beast, Sabertooth Tiger

Awakening skill: Borrowed Cat

Loyal Dog causes Pochi to become a small dog that misses you. And Borrowed Cat causes Sabertooth Tiger to become like a house cat and relax. Once the <Awakening> skill is used, it lasts for one month.

Many people would think it is worthless, but I don’t think so.

Beast species summon in general are offense based which means higher their [Attack] the better they are. A higher rank will always be stronger than a lower rank and I will also always use the higher ranked Beast summon.

This is where the mimicry of dog and house cat comes in. This way, I can camouflage and keep them as guards inside the house. They will catch any intruder off guard. In addition, I have used <Strengthening> on them and their [Attack] and [Strength] is more than 500.

Nina, Kiel’s sister, loves Maria, so Pochi and Tiger have become our pets.

I am still checking the <Awakening> skills, but I feel that they are quite thoughtfully designed with varying durations of effects.

“Now, let’s go.”

“Oh!”

Dogora’s spirits are high, and now that he can finally use the skill he’s been dreading for almost three months, he’s very eager to participate in the dungeon raid. I’m glad to see him enjoying his growth.

Today is a day off from the Academy.

It’s already July, so three months have already passed. It feels like a blink of an eye when we will go to the battlefield in 2 years and 9 months.

Today we are going to conquer our first B-class dungeon. We reached the bottom floor last time but didn’t fight the boss because of time.

As usual, we were teleported from the building to the bottom floor of the B-class dungeon. In other floors, we would be teleported into a corridor, but in the bottom floor, we were teleported right in front of a large door, like usual.

When we opened the door with the materialistic pattern, we found ourselves in a round hall, with the boss in the center.

“What huge Boars?”

“Yeah, I think they’re called Great Boars.”

In the center of the hall on the bottom floor, there are about ten Great Boars, C-rank magical beasts that we hunted in the Kurena village. Sitting in the middle of them was a huge Boar that was at least five meters tall.

I think it’s appropriate for the bottom floor boss of a Beast-type dungeon.

(I thought that only I had blessings but I was wrong. Kurena, Cecile and Kiel have also got them.)  

Once one enters the bottom floor boss room, he/she can’t leave until they defeat it.

We can’t run away or stop because it looks too strong.

[Name] Kurena

[Age] 12

[Talent] Master Swordsman

[Level] 37

[Strength] 1520+900

[Mana] 586

[Attack] 1520 + 900

[Endurance] 1068 + 900

[Agility] 1027 + 900

[Intelligence] 606

[Luck] 735

Skills: Master Swordsmanship <3>, Slash <3>, Flying Slash <3>, Bold (1), Swordsmanship (5)

[Extra] Limit Break

[Experience] 46,630/100,000

Skill Level

[Master Swordsmanship] 3

[Slash] 3

[Flying Slash] 3

Skill Experience

[Slash] 252/1,000

[Flying Slash] 285/1,000

[Name] Cecile Granvelle

[Age] 12

[Talent] Mage

[Level] 37

[Strength] 637

[Mana] 1069 + 600

[Attack] 406

[Endurance] 664

[Agility] 628 + 600

[Intelligence] 1470+600

[Luck] 592

Skills: Magic <3>, Fire Magic <3>, Earth Magic <3>, Wisdom (1), Kumite (2)

[Extra] Small Meteorite

[Experience] 57,430/100,000

Skill Level

[Magic] 3

[Fire Magic] 3

[Earth Magic] 3

Skill Experience

[Fire Magic] 690/1,000

[Earth Magic] 690/1,000

[Name] Kiel

[Age] 13

[Talent] Priest

[Level] 37

[Body strength] 475

[Mana] 899 + 300

[Attack] 358

[Endurance] 505

[Agility] 575

[Intelligence] 793 + 300

[Luck] 723

Skills: Priest <3>, Heal <3>, Resolute <3>, Faith <1>, Swordsmanship <3>

[Extra] God drop

[Experience] 12,350/100,000

Skill Level

[Priest] 3

[Heal] 3

[Resolute] 3

Skill Experience

[Heal] 380/1000

[Resolute] 310/1,000

Kiel turned 13 the other day. He was the first of us to turn 13. We had a big birthday party at the base. I think Kiel has recently started to accept us. Or maybe he’s just stopped thinking about it.

With the increased frequency of using skills in B-class dungeons, everyone’s Talent based skills have reached Level 3.

The newly acquired skills were <Bold> for Kurena, <Wisdom> for Cecile, and <Faith> for Kiel.

<Bold> increases four stats by 900

<Wisdom> increases three stats by 600.

<Faith> increases two stats by 300.

I thought that the 8-Star rare Talent was special, so it came with blessings.

However, other professions also had skills that increased their status similar to blessings.

I don’t know how far Normal Mode will grow, but everyone is growing at a rate 100 times faster than me.

(No, seriously, my prediction was right. Normal mode is not weak. If Normal Mode, which is so strong, keeps losing, then the Demon King’s army is probably too strong.)

The Knight Commander and the assassin Dagraha were both ridiculously strong. It was hard to believe that they were so powerful just because of leveling up as usual.

There are battlefields where half of those well-trained Normal Modes won’t survive three years.

“<Firm>”

As I was thinking about it, Kiel used his skill <Firm>. <Firm> Level 3 increases the [Endurance] of everyone in the party by 10 percent. Kurena’s durability increases by almost 200 with this alone. This is a very useful skill since it also adds to the increased status from her <Bold> and my summon’s blessings.

“Let’s go, then!”

“Yes!”

“Oh!”

At Kurena’s signal, we headed off in formation.

Kurena and Dogora were at the front of the line, and C-rank Beats who looked like Boars were running alongside them and rushed in while using their special skill [Charge].

This is to prevent C-rank magical beasts from ignoring Kurena and Dogora and going after Kiel and Cecile. Magical beasts give priority to those who are weak or behind them. I’ve seen this tendency more and more, especially from the C-rank magical beasts.

When moving around, I am usually the rear guard, but in the case of the bottom floor boss battle, I was behind Kurena and Dogora and giving instructions to my summons. At the rear were Kiel and Cecile.

“Flame Arrow!”

The C-rank magical beast was burned to a crisp and disappeared. Cecile was attacking from here in order to reduce the number of magical beasts to some extent before Kurena and Dogora came into contact with them.

The plan was for me and Cecile to take out the miscellaneous C-rank magical beasts, and leave Kurena and Dogora in charge of the bottom floor boss, Great Boar.

Then a few minutes.

“Buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh!”

With Level 3 <Slash> Kurena struck a blow that was enough to sink into the Great Boar’s head. It had taken several hits before that, and this was the final straw.

“Oh! We just defeated a B-rank magical beast! All Heal!”

Kiel cast a general recovery spell to restore everyone’s strength.

(After all, it’s great to be able to cast recovery spells on everyone at once.)

“Good job, we’ve conquered one B-class dungeon. Oh!”

The reward treasure chest was a Silver chest.

“Oh! It’s Silver! I got a Silver chest!”

Kiel looked very happy. He was the first to spot the treasure chest. Inside the treasure chest was a pair of knuckles made of Heliocane. The vermilion glow of the knuckles looked very expensive. Weapons made from Heliocane can be sold for over 100 Gold coins. They are a kind of luxury item.

(There was a time in my life when I thought Kiel cared about money for the sake of his family.)

My guesses were:

First, he had debts and needed money to pay them off.

Second, he had a family to support and needed money.

Third, he just loved money.

After meeting his family, I thought it was the second but after working together for a while, I often found him saying and doing things that suggested it was the third.

Kiel loved money.

“… Golden Goose, or in Kiel’s case, a Golden Saint.”

{TLN: I searched for this so much, but couldn’t come up with anything. Here’s the Kanji, …、いやキールの場合は、金の聖者かしら. If you have any suggestion please let me know.}

Cecile spoke about what I was thinking in a dumbfounded voice. This may be the moment when the mysterious term “Golden Saint” was born in this world.

This was how Allen and his party finished conquering their first B-class dungeon.