Chapter 48: Expansion (03)

The deeper you go inside a floor, the fewer people you'll find; in exchange, you'll find stronger monsters. And though this makes it all the more challenging, it's also more rewarding, as you get more experience, allowing faster level-ups.

You can only get experience when a monster dies, and you don't need to be the one to kill it, as long as you contribute, you'll get a share. The more you contribute, the bigger your share will be.

This usually tempts people into diving solo, as you can get stronger pretty fast.

Among high rankers there are not a ton of examples of people who succeed alone though, the difficulty is just too high.

But if you could somehow bring an entire party and make everyone in it get experience as if they were by themselves... well, the result is pretty absurd as far as I can tell.

Miwen: "The day is not even over yet.... and we also got here later than usual..."

Licia: "It's certainly impressive..."

I don't think impressive is enough to describe it, we might just have a record in our hands for the fastest level-up...

Since my Gift has a strange interaction with the dungeon where everyone is counted as a single being for the purposes of experience distribution, it was to be expected that the newcomers in our party wouldn't have a hard time getting to higher levels.

But right now every one of them is already at level 4.

Claire, Licia, and I can handle almost everything in this dungeon, so with that alone, it wouldn't be much of a problem to go to the deepest parts where the stronger monsters reside. And even though her level is capped, with Mia here, it's almost a walk in the park.

We had three level 1s to look out for, but it didn't take long for them to be able to handle themselves on this floor.

But therein lies the key to this fast advancement.

The floor we are on right now is only accessible to those who defeated the boss on the first floor.

It's such common sense that no one questions it. First, you defeat a floor boss, and then you get access to the next floor. You are even able to start from your highest floor or previous floors when you enter through the dungeon gate. Very simple really.

The only problem with that logic is that the majority of the girls in our party have not cleared the first level of this dungeon.

They all teleported from the [Kingdom] to the second floor.

Miwen: "It's the second interaction between the dungeon and my Gift..."

Licia: "It is strange... it's almost like the rules of your Gift overpower those of the dungeon..."

I couldn't have put it in a better way. It's a strange sensation where it feels like the dungeon is bending its own rules to accommodate my Gift's rules. It's as if it's being mindful of a higher being or a stronger authority, trying to not disrespect it while also maintaining appearances.

The more I think about it...

Claire: "Hey! Can we take a break? I need to catch my breath a sec..."

Miwen: "...hm? Oh, sure. Licia and I will keep watch for you guys, so feel free to rest."

Even though Licia and I are also at a high level for this floor, Mia and Claire have been doing most of the work. It's not that Licia and I are being lazy though, we are going at our usual pace, maybe a little bit slower to look after the others who have just now joined. Both for their safety and in case they try anything funny.

The problem is Mia and Claire, who seem to have gotten quite competitive for whatever reason. Well, anything that makes Claire give her all works for me.

Licia: "It's going pretty well... Ellie's Gift already helps a lot."

We discussed everyone's Gifts back at the [Kingdom]. I wanted to know exactly what each one could do so that we wouldn't be surprised.

Ellie's is quite interesting. It's a simple boost to all her attacks in the form of an effect. When attacking an enemy, she can select from a list of [Effects] to apply, like [Paralysis], [Mana Burn], [Quiet], [Burn], [Freeze]... and so on. The effect is subject to her [Dexterity], which influences the duration and strength. Her [Luck] influences the chances of it applying.

Another thing about her Gift is that, if she doesn't select any effect, one will be chosen at random, and if her [Luck] is high enough when compared to her enemy, not only the best effect for that opponent will be applied, but it will also be stronger than normal.

With her being an archer, this means she can spam attacks that each inflict something different. For example, she can combo two arrows and not only slow down an enemy but also poison it. She can also apply the same effect multiple times for extra overkill.

I usually hate stall strategies in games, where someone kills you with damage over time while also debuffing you so that you can't fight back. But seeing something similar being done to enemies is quite fun. She is a great addition, so I'm hoping we can win her over to our side indefinitely.

Miwen: "The [Bow of Gallia] also suits her very well... I don't get why she looked so disappointed when I gave it to her."

Licia: "It's shocking how you gave a bow filled with darkness and maliciousness to an elf of all things while wearing a smile on your face... You can be quite terrifying sometimes..."

Miwen: "She looks great with it though? There's a lot of...contrast..."

Admittedly it isn't the best thing I ever did, but it's the only bow I had left over. I'll get her something more to her taste whenever I can.

Licia: "Your questionable stylistic senses aside, do you really think it was a good idea to arm her? Amongst everyone, her Gift is the most dangerous from the get-go."

Miwen: "I didn't have much of a choice though. It would be hard to sell the idea of entering the dungeon unarmed while accompanied by strangers stronger than you. We could force them to, but it doesn't make for great relations."

Licia: "While it's fine right now, as they are getting stronger, their overall capabilities get closer to ours, if they decide to turn on us it could get dicey."

Miwen: "We can just run to the [Kingdom] and leave them to their fates if that's the case. And we would win anyway. For better or worse, I didn't have a wand or staff, so Beatrice is currently unarmed.

I'm keeping an eye on her status and she's keeping her promise of putting her [Level-up Points] into [Inteligence], as long as she doesn't acquire any type of magic, she can't really do much against anyone."

Licia: "But you plan on giving her magic soon right?"

Miwen: "Yeah... a mage that can learn all attributes compliments my Gift's ability to [Share] very well."

Not to mention that, alongside being capable of learning any type of magic, her Gift also strengthens them and makes it faster and easier for her to learn/train her magic and magic-related skills.

She also gets a discount on buying levels or new magic with her level-up points, using these aspects, I can have her strengthen all types of skills related to magic and then harvest the results for myself or the other [Citizens].

Miwen: "It worked! Let's go!"

The moment the Lord got shot, the other monsters, following nothing but instinct rushed towards us. This was actually quite beneficial to what we had planned.

Combining our magic, Mia, Licia, and I made the ice barrier between the Lord and the Superior Hobgoblins, and the thickness was such that I had no doubts the monster wasn't able to break through any time soon. This way, we effectively prevented him from interfering.

Anna stood in front of us, to try and block the attackers so that we had openings to deal with them, but it was unnecessary.

Seeing the monsters come towards us, Licia decided to do the evil ice thing.

She froze the ground under one of the hobgoblins carrying a spear and using an ice sculpture that looked like a hand, grabbed his feet.

Ellie surprisingly didn't miss that and shot it twice through the skull. I wasn't using [Appraisal] since the menus distract too much when fighting, so I couldn't know what effects the monster had received, if any.

All I know is that the poor bastard didn't last much longer, a blast of fire came from Claire's hands, and after the fire subdued, an ice stake run through its body.

I thought it was really overkill, it almost looked like they had something against this specific monster, but it happened so fast that they probably just got into each other's way.

The two other hobgoblins didn't bother to even look at their fallen comrade and approached fast, such that in no time, Anna had to engage the one with a spear in combat. I took her left flank and engaged the one with [Earth Magic].

His status where below mine, but his [Earth Magic] was a problem as I don't have much experience fighting against that.

I decided to not take any risk and went full-on offensive. First I erected an ice stake behind him, and the moment he dodged, I went for a slash.

My timing was a bit off though. Licia makes it seem pretty easy, but maintaining concentration for the magic while also attacking physically is very hard.

Due to that, the goblin managed to block me with an earth wall, as for the stake coming from his back, it's safe to assume he dodged it.

From the wall he erected, a bunch of spikes erupted, which made me jump back, not noticing the ground behind me had become muddy.

I think Licia might have established a new school for annoying magic.

When I lost balance, I noticed the spikes from his earth wall coming towards me.

I didn't have much time to think, so in a hurry, I just did the first thing that came to my mind.

And while looking at a wall, to defend myself, I didn't think very creatively and just copied him.

The problem is that these spikes came as a never stopping onslaught, so I found myself having to repair the ice wall and wasting more mana than I was comfortable with.

This had become a battle of attrition in which the winner would be the one with the most mana. And though I hate to admit it, I could've easily lost this one.

Thankfully, his attacks suddenly stopped.

And the sound of someone knocking could be heard on my ice wall.

Then, from the top, fluffy ears appeared, and a second later, a face with a smug smile.

Mia: "You can come out now. Big sister took care of the bad monster outside."

Miwen: "Do you promise?"

Mia: "Yeah, yeah, come out now."

It seems like I was demoted from fiance to little brother at some point.

Miwen: "I can't believe he had me."

Mia: "He was shooting everywhere from behind his wall so he couldn't see you. You should've made a pillar and thrown yourself behind his wall when you had the chance. You'd destroy him in close combat."

Miwen: "Didn't even think of that. All my head was filled with were walls."

Mia: "It happens, you got swayed in the motions of the fight as it went on. You had more time to think and react than you thought. It won't happen so much as you get more experienced."

Miwen: "If you say so. But man was it annoying to have the ground turn on me. How do you deal with that?"

Mia: "The enemy can't mess with the ground around you if you are already messing with it. If you had earth magic you could've maintained the ground in its original state through the fight. You can also... just be mindful of your surroundings."

I thought I was doing that already. But I guess she's right, should've been more careful.

It seems like she managed to take down the other Hobgoblin as well... with the same tactic she told me to use no less.

Though I didn't see it, judging by the pillar of ice behind me, I'm guessing she took the opportunity to attack the monster from above while Anna kept it occupied.

Now there was only one monster left for us to face.

And I prepared myself for the fight that would come as soon as Claire finished melting the wall.

But what transpired there was straight up a massacre.

That Hobgoblin was strong, that's for sure.

But I can only tell that because of how many hits it took before dying.

Between paralyzing arrows, fire blasts, ice stakes, sword stabs, strikes, punches, and bites... I even felt sorry for the guy.

It dropped a very valuable [Wind Orb] though, so in the end, it was well worth it.

Having absolutely destroyed a challenging foe, I felt pretty confident about our current strength and looked forward to how much we could still grow.