Chapter 359

“So we’re getting the A-ranked Kerberoses right off the bat, huh?”

I invoked my Appraisal Glasses and looked at Bruce as he fought on the front lines, waiting to see how many experience points he would get from each kill.

For reference, a normal Kerberos can be expected to give out 9,000 points. If the amount he gets is higher, then it would prove that there is value in coming to hunt monsters here.

“Ora! Whoa–!? Damn you little…!”

For a moment, one of the Kerberoses managed to catch Bruce’s attack between its fangs, but Bruce forced his way through, tearing its jaws apart.

Man, these monsters are strong. If one were to approach as if one of these was a normal A-ranked monster, it could very well take them off guard. The surfaces of their bodies are red, as one would expect from this region, and the way their flesh pulsates seems to show how they regulate the heat inside their bodies.

Now then, let’s see how much of a boost those differences give to the experience points– whoa!?

“How do things look, Master?”

“Amazing — Bruce just got 18,000 experience points from that! 17,000! 19,000! Looks like the monsters here give out about twice as many base experience points as the monsters elsewhere.”

“Ooh, that sounds good to me, sir!”

Bruce, seeing to have heard us, shouted out with his hoarse voice,

“But, man! These things are… tough as hell…! Whew…! Ora!”

I wonder if they’d be mad at me if I were to start casting All Up on the monsters… Well, not that I’d do it, though. Our trip today is more like a survey, after all.

After defeating all of the Kerberoses, we proceeded to fight some other stuff, including Ogres, Orcs, and Lizard-type monsters.

“Ugh, there’s no end to them!”

“What, you’re tired already!?”

Mana tried saying something to encourage Reid as the latter started sounding a little weaker.

“Hell nah! I mean, it’s gonna be even worse than this later on, right!?”

“Right.”

Lylia casually hit Reid with the hard, cold reality. Good Good, she’s scary. 

Well, she’s one of the few people who understands what it’s actually like, though, having already gone through the time leading up to the Devil King’s resurrection once.

“Now is a good time, Sir Asley!”

“Yes! Rise, Invisible Illusion: Count 10 & Remote Control!”

“”Invisible Illusion!””

I cast the spell on everyone, except Idéa and Midors who could cast it for themselves, and caused them to blend into the background.

I could’ve cast the spell for those two as well, but that would require drawing Spell Circles with my eyes… which I totally don’t want to do.

Anyway, thanks to the spell, the monsters won’t be able to see us. We proceeded to retreat, regrouping to regain our bearings at a safe point we had agreed upon earlier.

“All right, Pochi, you’re up first on guard duty.”

“Leave it to me, sir.”

“Rise, Storeroom. Here, Bruce, have some water.”

“Ooh, thanks a bunch, man!”

“Betty, you should take some extra daggers.”

“Thanks.”

“And Sir Ryan, I’d like to discuss our battle formations.”

“Yes, of course.”

After disengaging the Invisible Illusion, everyone got comfortable — without getting careless — and started preparing for the next fight.

I can really tell that they’ve been through a lot while I was away.

“From what I’ve seen, the monsters here have a tendency to come at us from certain directions, so I think narrowing that down even further would make things much easier for us.”

“Fair enough. Should we have Idéa and Midors use Water Wall to achieve that, then? There’s no shortage of water in this region, after all.”

Right, because we’re in the wetlands. The ground is muddy, and the vegetation is high in water content, meaning we’d never be limited in where and when we’re able to use water magic. Gotta thank Ryan for reminding me of that, since all I thought of was to use the Fire Wall spell… Man, I gotta learn to better see things that are right under my nose.

Thanks to the plan I had outlined from Ryan’s idea, the fights after that went much more smoothly, and then the day was over in the blink of an eye.

“Man, now that’s what I call a hunt! Beating all those strong enemies felt satisfying as hell!”

“Yeah! Way better than Hita’achi, since there weren’t even many things on my level there! Hahaha!”

Using the Teleportation spell, we returned to the mansion and had dinner, after which Bruce and Reid started having a drinking party. 

I feel sorry for Ryan and Lylia, what with them still being at the Scarlet Devil Wetlands, guarding the Teleportation Spell Circle. 

Well, at least Pochi and I are up on the next shift, I guess.

◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆

Returning to the Scarlet Devil Wetlands, I proceeded to explain the experience-boosting trick to Ryan and Lylia before taking over their guard duty.

“Oh-ho, so it involves casting enhancement spells on the monsters?”

“Yes. Doing so will make them stronger, but the increased amount of experience points we get will help us to get stronger even faster. It does come with its dangers, of course, so I’ll let you decide whether or not we’ll be doing it on a case-by-case basis, Sir Ryan.”

“I understand. I’ll let you know what I think of that the next time I’m back here. We might as well hear everyone’s opinions on this tomorrow, too.”

Saying that, Ryan bowed to us and teleported to the mansion.

“…? You’re not going, Lylia?”

“No, I’m going now. Still, it’s quite a shock — who would’ve thought things would work this way?”

“Oh, don’t be so quick to be surprised! My Master’s going to do a lot more awesome stuff than that!”

“Heh, I look forward to seeing that.”

“So do I!”

After finishing that exchange with Pochi, Lylia also teleported away. And so Pochi and I proceeded to keep watch on the area. This place is a Danger Zone, so we can’t just leave the Teleportation Spell Circle lying around unguarded, but it’s still quite convenient to have a way for everyone to easily return to the mansion.

Then there’s the thing I heard from Itsuki — that Lala had managed to start mass-producing the Pochibitan D. If she could then deliver the stuff to the Resistance’s hideout, we’d be having an easier time getting things done, too.

“Master, Master!”

“What is it, Pochi?”

“How many levels do you think everyone will gain from training here, sir?”

“With the experience-boosting method? Hmm… Bruce and the others around his level will probably go up to 180, I guess? And once the Fetal Stage kicks in, the leveling will go even faster. If Adolf and Natsu will become pretty strong if they can get to 150 soon, too. At any rate, Team Silver as a whole will probably become an indispensable fighting force going forward, whether it be against the Devil King or Gaspard.”

“That’s right, sir!”

Man, I never thought I’d have such a close relationship with Team Silver.

And come to think of it, the color silver is often associated with the eradication of malignant spirits. Heh, there’s gotta be some symbolism in there, considering that we’re fighting against the Devilkin.

“Hmm~~? What with that grin, sir?”

“Ah, well, I’m just thinking how long it’s been since I became friends with those guys, that’s all.”

“That’s true! If they hadn’t met you, they might not have made it this far, sir!”

“You’re praising me a lot more than usual today, you know that? Did you eat something weird or what?”

“We’ve got hours to go on this guard duty, Master, so I thought I’d put you in a good mood!”

She really just said all that while keeping up her ear-to-ear grin — that’s one thing about her that’s both a pro and a con. Why does she never act like this when someone else is around. Really, why?

I mean, she’s silly as hell everywhere, but she DOES make an effort to be more serious whenever she interacts with other people.

“So, what do you plan to do going forward, Master?”

“Hmm? Well, the magic classroom is opening around the end of this month, so I plan to learn all the stuff I can from there. I’ve got to be even stronger, and there’s still a lot of stuff we have left to do, you know.”

“That’s not what I want to know sir! What about the next project you’re working on?”

Oh, so THAT’s why she’s been buttering me up, huh?

I guess it wouldn’t hurt to tell her. I usually wouldn’t, because she’d just laugh at me, but I don’t think she’s in the mood to do that now.

“C’mon, it’s obviously gotta be the Instant Transmission spell! I’ll name give it a trendy name like InTel or something!”

“You’ve already worked on it to some extent, I assume? If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were just obsessed, sir.”

Okay, she’s not laughing — good. And to think she used to laugh her ass off at the idea all the time. Man, she’s so difficult to deal with.

“…? Is something the matter?”

“Ah, no, nothing. And yeah, I’ve already been working on it. Made some good progress, too, in fact.”

“So it’s somewhat related to the Levitation spell?”

“Yup. I’ve only recently figured that Boundary magecraft could be used to force connections between magic spells, you see. Not to mention how much faster I am now at drawing Spell Circles.”

“You’re capable enough both in terms of technical knowledge and physical prowesses… is what you’re saying? So how will the spell actually work, sir?”

“Ideally, it’d be a simplified form of the Teleportation spell, but that’s too difficult to implement — because it wouldn’t work unless it’s invoked through a fixed-position type of Spell Circle. That’s why I changed my point of focus…”

“To…?”

“To the Storeroom.”

The very moment I said that, Pochi pulled a sour face.