"So… let me get this straight. You are finally free from the works given by Albert, but still have to do some works that you initiate yourself? And that's why we're here." Victoria said.
It has been a week since I fought Veronica. After that, Albert choose to stay in Melk for a while longer, while the others and I returns to Cassau. And we brought a new friend as well. Kron is coming with us.
As for Hill and Oleg, they didn't follow us. Oleg stays in Melk while Hill will return back to Mellian. They will protect their own cities, and cooperate with the nobles who are in charge of their cities.
Albert has talked with the nobles in Mellian, and he said that they can be trusted to fight against the cult and protect the city and the citizen. As for Melk, he's the one choosing the city's new leader. Of course the person he chooses is someone he can trust. And that's why he's still in Melk at the moment.
Although the stampede gave us a lot of casualties, we gained several trusted allies as well. And we even got a spy working in the cult. Though I don't think she will stay there for long since she wanted to leave.
I don't get why she wanted to leave and destroy the cult at the same time. Why can't she destroy the cult from within? Is she afraid of dying? If so, then I can understand since if I were in her place, I would do the same. My life is more important than world peace.
But since she's still with the cult, we'll get her to learn everything she could from within. And we learned that the cult doesn't have any big plan in the next ten years. But there's still a chance that it won't take ten years until they make another move. That's what I experienced in my previous life.
Although I don't remember much, I still learned a lot from hearsay. I think it was five years from now when Albert found out about the cult and spread the news to all over the continent. And after that, many heroes come and go, fighting the cult. And one of them is Angela who still alive until the day that I died.
But now, things have changed. Albert has found out about the cult way earlier, and we have gotten a lot of allies to help us. Albert also will meet other countries' leader and inform them of what happened. So, I think it will be less than five years when the cult will make another big move. That's why I needed to get stronger.
And now, after returning to Cassau, playing with Daniel and the kids, I received good news and bad news from Sam.
Good news: All our merchandise has been sold out.
Bad news: same.
Which means I needed to stock up on more treasures. And that's how Victoria ended up complaining.
I'm fine with working though. I'm just not fine having to do everything someone else asked. Treasure hunting is something that I wanted to do in the first place, so I'm fine with doing it.
"Yeah. I'm fine with diving. I enjoy swimming. And it's also good as well since no one bothers to fight the monsters from the sea so we can hunt them as much as we want. For now, I will go diving and hunting treasures a lot, until I breakthrough to intermediate level in my summoning. Maybe I'll get there in a few days. Then once I get home, I will cultivate my air element using the magic stones that I make. Doing those two will make me reach intermediate level in those two elements, and hopefully, within these two years, I can reach advanced level in both elements."
Two years is a long time, but it's also short as well. Some people can reach advanced level in two years, while some were stuck in beginner level their whole lives no matter how hard they cultivate.
And more importantly, I want to improve my uses of my Aura as well. There are too many things I want to do in these two years, but I don't know if two years is enough to do all of that.
Though it would be boring to just training in two years. I hope there will be something like 'Two years passes just like that' happened. But I don't think it will.
"So now you will skip class because you have finished your exams?" Victoria asked.
"I hope that will be the case. Ms. Wendy still chooses to stay as a teacher there. We will hear more about the result from her. Will the school really give us graduation degree after what happened? If they will, I won't return there."
Ms. Wendy said that she will take care of our graduation. The school told her that the students needed to pass another exam because of the stampede, but Ms. Wendy tried to prevent that. Especially when two of their students make achievements during the stampede. So she supported us who have passed the exam so we can freely improve our strength to fight against the cult.
Most of the teacher agree with her since it will be easier for them to teach fewer students. But the final result will depend on the school itself since I heard that there are several students killed during the stampede. And they thought that by attending classes, the students will be better prepared for battle. How stupid are they? They have never had to teach lesson about fighting monsters before. Even if the students stay there for a while longer, they won't improve since even some of the teachers never really fight against monsters.
Since Albert is still there, I think he will make sure that we don't have to attend any more. We are his trump cards after all. He needed us to get stronger than anyone.
Finally, we reached the shore. And this time, we're in a different shore than we previously did our treasure hunt. I wanted to see if there are more monsters here since although we needed to get more supplies, my main goal is to improve my summoning level.
If Victoria went hunting alone, she won't be able to win against powerful monster. Even if she could, it would take her some time before she can finish them.
"Alright. Let's go!"
I said after I stripped my clothes until I only wear shorts, and dive into the sea.
"So you made those armguards just to remove it from your body?"
I ignore Victoria's sarcasm and dive into the sea anyway.
I never thought that our first battle will be underwater, okay!?
The first thing I search is an empty island where I can store my loot is. The previous island is too far from here, and I don't want to go there unless there are no other islands nearby.
Luckily, I found one rather quickly. I memorized that place and went diving near that island.
Under the water, I found that this location has more fishes than the previous spot. But why is there no fisherman boat here? This place is good for fishing, right?
When I looked to the bottom of the sea with my Divine Vision, I understood the reason why. There are too many fishing boats sunken in this area. Maybe that's the reason no one dared to go fishing here. There are too many victims in this area.
What could be the reason those boats sunk? Is it monster? If so, I think I found a good area to improve my summoning level. I hope they will give me a lot of experience.
Experience is a name that Victoria come up with for the method of improving summoning level. It came from her world, which is as expected.
Basically, every time a summoned monster defeated monster, or to be exact, living being, since human is a target as well, the summoner will get some experience. And when the summoner gather experience enough, they will increase their level.
Back in school, what we learned about summoning is that our summoned monster gained magic from the dead monsters they defeated, and that magic is taken by the summoner to improve their level. But I think I like Victoria's explanation more. So I started calling it as gaining experience.
Other than the fishes here, there are a lot of sea monsters. Most of them should be delicious. I killed them all, and put them on the empty island so I can have Lina cooked them for me.
Then after I had enough of hunting monsters, I started my treasures hunt.
Most of the boat here are fishing boats, so I don't expect to get anything nice. But at the bottom of the sea, there are a lot of huge seashells, with a lot of pearls inside of them. So I brought those seashells to the island and decided to give them to Sam to sell. She should be able to get some noble ladies to be interested in these pearls. Of course I will ask her to leave some for the girls.
Today I didn't get as much as I usually do, but it's okay. I have a lot of free time right now.
As I returned home, I began thinking of the series of events that happened until today.
I still feel excited over the fact that I managed to stop the stampede, but there are still a lot of casualties that can be avoided if we just choose to stop the stampede before it happens.
And there's also someone who I never get to meet in this lifetime. The nodding guy.
Is he okay? Is he still alive? Or is he dead during the stampede? I rarely go to school so I never met him, but he's the only guy I knew in my past life in Melk.
Well, I don't know his name, but he's the only one who would greet me every day. I'm just feeling lonely not meeting him in this lifetime.
Oh, nodding guy… I hope you're okay and keep nodding and greeting other people.