Chapter 76: Cleaning Up

As promised, when morning came I talked with everyone about the recent developments regarding monsters spawning inside the kingdom.

While every girl had their own reaction to the news, the discussion quickly shifted to focus on what we would do going forward.

Even if the rabbits are low-tier monsters, it's important to prevent them from overpopulation or getting too strong.

To handle that, we'd need at least someone familiar with hunting.

Luckily, there were quite a few options to choose from.

Mia was a given since she used to do it from a young age. Ellie also lived in a forest for a good portion of her life and so hunting comes as second nature to her.

Anna and Claire both have a military background, while Claire participated in expeditions, Anna defended a city close to some woods, and as a result, they should do fine.

Out of the bunch, Licia and Beatrice are the least fit for the job it seems. Licia knows how to fight, but her tracking skills aren't really on point. Beatrice is not really agile and she relies on magic too much, which usually causes a commotion, making it hard for her to hunt a bunch at a time...

When the topic of using magic to hunt was brought up. I remembered to ban Claire from coming close to the forest, so in the end, she's also not an option.

For now, we've decided on a rotation between Anna, Ellie, and Mia, they aren't allowed to go deep alone, and following Licia's request, they may also take someone else with them who's not on rotation. Namely, Beatrice and Licia herself since Claire is prohibited from approaching the forest.

I do admire Licia's desire to help out even when it comes to things she's not that capable though, as she immediately struck a deal with Ellie it seems.

Mia also made a deal with Claire so that she could bully/train me in her place whenever she was on a hunt.

With this, the matter should be settled as long as I don't expand the kingdom, but it's pretty much impossible to guarantee that, so I tried to look for a way to deal with this situation.

No matter how much I searched though, I couldn't find any option, item, or menu that would let me interact with spawn rates, but it's possible that a feature for that may unlock in the future, at this point, I'm not taking anything for granted.

More urgently though, the situation with the fourth floor remained the same as I predicted it would.

The enemies we failed to kill that day continue to roam very close to the gate and no one seems interested or capable of leading a party to deal with them.

It's just a matter of time before enough people reach the fourth floor and find themselves facing an impossible challenge out of the gate... In the worst case, there'll be some casualties, but eventually, enough people will get mad at the situation to form an extermination team, either that or a hefty reward might pop up for cleaning up the floor.

We don't have the luxury of waiting and letting the situation resolve itself though.

The time the Merchant bought us is pretty limited, and I'd hate to waste it like this.

Moreover, Licia and Claire seemed eager to continue where they left off their battles.

Thus we entered the dungeon again, prepared to face the enemies awaiting us on the fourth floor.

Aside from yesterday's preparations, I also claimed today's [Kingdom Points] to get Claire's fire magic and also share it with Beatrice since she managed to hit level 10 with it, making it absurdly high level when compared to ours.

Just that alone ended up costing me around half the points I collected today.

I used a few more to share [Better Mana Regeneration] with everyone since it's overall a genuinely good boost all around. I also kept enough points to share [Mana Transfer] in case Beatrice's mana runs out, this way, I can select anyone who still has a reserve of mana when the situation calls for it.

When it came to the actual fight, Anna, Beatrice, and Ellie were tasked with holding back the horde as much as they could so that the rest of us didn't get overwhelmed by multiple opponents while fighting the remaining black skeletons.

The entire room was occupied by monsters, so to start with, Beatrice and Claire took care of cleaning up as much as possible so that we could make our way to the main targets.

Even though they managed to wipe out most enemies in our sight, the black skeletons were protected by the black mage.

Defeating him was a priority since if he died, they would lose their means of defending against magic attacks.

Since Claire and Licia could hold their ground against the other two, Mia and I went full throttle ahead against him.

The biggest challenge for us was getting close enough to hit him since we had to avoid every single attack of his.

A normal monster on this floor is already a headache to deal with, so getting hit by this guy probably spells even more trouble.

Using magic also proved to be fruitless as he was very capable of holding his ground in this department.

It was clear that pursuing this route would lead to a battle of attrition, in which case, Mia and I would probably win thanks to having two separate mana pools to draw from, but considering he wasn't the only one we had to deal with today, this wouldn't be the best scenario.

In these conditions, reaching him was an arduous task. From beneath us, bones would sprawl in multiple directions, making it so that we'd need to retreat a few steps.

He was also using the ceiling in conjunction to rain his magic on us, so we couldn't stay put and had to keep moving to avoid getting hit.

Coordinating with Mia was becoming harder and harder and it was clear that the monster held the momentum over us, leading us to whichever direction he so chose by using a barrage of attacks.

It genuinely surprised me how capable of a mage this skeleton was, the only other in our party capable of firing magic attacks at this rate for so long was Beatrice, and even then, they'd be toe-on-toe.

Thankfully, I saw that Claire and Licia were managing their fights, and the other girls seemed to be holding their ground against the onslaught of monsters coming their way, so if we kept this up for a while, he was bound to run out of mana.

As I evaluated the situation, for a single moment I distracted myself from the opponent in front of me, and if not for Mia who pushed me away, I'd have gotten hit for sure.

She should've been able to crush his bones with ease, but once the blade seemed to touch him, it stopped and Licia drew it back.

The monster tried to reach for his weapon, but I froze it to the ground, and as soon as he grabbed the handle, I spread the ice to his hand, effectively locking him in place.

Miwen: "Alright now. Any ideas?"

Licia: "..I'll hit his hand... can you reinforce the ice so that it doesn't break? Also, freeze his feet too."

Miwen: "Sure."

I followed her instructions, and her idea ended up working pretty well. With a kick, she sent the skeleton's hand, encapsulated by ice, flying.

Once it hit a wall, the ice broke and the bones from the hand also broke down.

Licia: "Left leg."

Miwen: "On it."

Hitting the ice covering a body part seemed to circumvent the barrier and make Licia capable of detaching it from the rest of the body.

Once it was separated from the body, the barrier seemed to lose its effect and the bones would break down.

Using this strategy, we broke down its entire body until only the skull remained.

We didn't even need to destroy it though, as it broke down on its own.

With this, two of the main targets were down. Mia and Claire were still occupied with theirs but they would certainly be able to deal with it given enough time.

For now, the situation that seemed to demand more attention was the zombie swarm.

Once we reached Beatrice, we saw Anna pushing back dozens of zombies with her help while Ellie was fighting... a black mage skeleton.

Miwen: "... What? I'm sure this one wasn't black before."

Beatrice: ". He changed as soon as you guys defeated the other one. He wasn't much of a threat before, but his attacks became stronger and faster. Ellie took on herself to hold him until you guys dealt with everything on your end."

... Very strange... perhaps this is the black skeletons Gift?

Whatever it was, this suddenly became a bigger problem as the skeleton mage seemed to notice me, and had a bunch of zombies protect him as he used a chant to make some zombies change.

Their skin started to become purple, and their size increased, they also started to become bulkier.

Miwen: "That's... they are [Lords] now..."

About five of them manifested these changes, and once the skeleton in question finished his chanting, he used two of these as a wall to escape.

Licia didn't allow that and blocked his escape route, Beatrice also erected huge walls around the monsters, creating a new corridor.

From the ice wall behind him, a huge spike came, trying to skew all the monsters in the corridor at once.

While Licia's idea was pretty good, the skeleton mage managed to block it using his bone magic.

Miwen: "... Beatrice, I'll have Ellie retreat to help you with support. You two make sure he doesn't get away. Licia, we'll join Anna and advance through the zombie wave."

We used this formation to keep the skeleton mage occupied while we slowly grind down his forces.

On a one-on-one in a small closed space, the monsters didn't have a chance against Anna's overwhelming strength. When there wasn't any room for techniques or fancy swordplay, she really shone brightly.

Even though she kept facing multiple enemies this entire time, there wasn't a hint of fatigue in her, and she even mowed down some of the [Lord] Zombies.

Licia and I covered her flanks and took down a few monsters coming her way too, eventually, the black skeleton found himself alone as we managed to kill every monster standing in our way.

Once it was five-on-one he didn't really stand a chance. We kept cautious to not get hit in the last stretch, but even though he did what he could to attack us, with Beatrice, Ellie, and Licia in his way, there was no way his magic was ever going to hit someone.

Seeing as Mia and Claire had finished their opponents, whatever his ability was, there was no monster left for him to transfer to.

When we finally crushed his body, as if to guarantee that this time the battle was truly over, his core and a mana orb dropped.

Miwen: "...Haah, I'm spent..."

Ellie: "I wanna take a shower..."

Licia: "That would be nice...."

Be it mana or energy, this battle was very demanding... I can only imagine what would have happened if we had failed to defeat the winged one back then...

For now though, since we hit the level cap and got some valuable loot, I think this was a complete success. It's time for us to go home and enjoy some well-deserved rest.