Chapter 134

After a spending a few more hours chatting and discussing things, we needed to move on. Although the closest I could get to the 19th floor was the 15th and it could still take a day to get there, so I wasn’t worried that a few hours would make a difference. We finally strapped up and armored up. The three of us went down together to battle the Shrieking Wraith.

It appeared again as expected and I helped the girls defeat it this time. Its weakness was spirit fire, and there were three of us. Using Miki’s power, this fight was considerably easier than the previous one. I wished I could bottle spirit fire. Miki said there were ways to do it, but the bottles were pricy and we certainly didn’t have any in this dungeon.

As for the boss, it took hours to defeat it last time. This one was knocked out in under fifteen minutes. I almost felt like crying. Lydia’s quick attack movements were amazing, and compared to Celeste’s lazy air dodges she truly seemed like an unstoppable feline. I was able to hit it with circles of spirit fire and my weapon and found that if Lydia used her combination skill to add spirit fire to a sword, she could hand it to me and the blade would remain enhanced. In that way, even I could do massive damage.

The only surprising thing was that after I found that the drop was two items. This turned out to be the wraithbane again. If my guess was right, bosses dropped an abnormally good item, like a magic item or a super rare ingredient, when they were defeated for the first time. After that, they resort to something more standard like an ingredient.

As for the second item, it was clearly food. I realized I had left cook equipped. I had been fighting without the basic swordsmanship skill. I hadn’t even noticed. When it comes to slashing a monster, the skill wasn’t difficult to pick up. This confirmed that at least for some skills, you could actually replicate a skill’s abilities without technically having the skill equipped. I suspected this with cooking, because you could cook really well without having the cook skill. The basic cook skill, filled in weaknesses. However, if you studied carefully, you could use the basic cook skill to learn basic cooking without the skill.

In other words, I got basic swordsmanship and thus had the knowledge of using a sword pushed into my head, but weeks of using that sword and depending on that knowledge had ingrained some of the forms into my head, and at least for fighting a basic monster, I could function at a level without the skill. On the other hand, if I was fighting another swordsman and had to parry, I hadn’t practiced that, and would likely loose without the skill equipped. It was that kind of thing.

I also realized something that caught me off guard. I had cook equipped, which means I didn’t have charm equipped. I can’t tell what job I have equipped. There is no clear inventory screen that tells me. I just switch skills and physically tell the difference. For example, I have more mana with white mage, and more stamina with hero. So, when the girls were eyeing, I had assumed I had charm up on me. I checked my notebook twice. There was no charm up for my cooking job. That means… the girls were checking me out despite not having increased charm.

Ah… that was right, I had slave affinity attached. It makes slaves like me more. Lydia started noticing me after I officially made her a slave. That explains everything. No, I’m not making excuses. I’m a pragmatist. Girls don’t check a guy like me out. Lydia and Miki may like me because I saved their lives, but I had no illusions I was handsome, even if I lost weight, both girls were way out of my league. Deep down, I knew that I didn’t really deserve their affection.

Anyway, with the collect skill equipped, a food seemed to always be left behind. This one was called a Light Tuna and it specifically improved endurance. I purified and preserved the food, took out a knife, cut it into long sashimi strips, and then handed half of them to the girls.

“Keep your endurance up and reach me as safely as possible.” I said, tossing back my hair which was getting a bit long now.

I should probably tie it in a pony tail, but I felt that looked a little girly. Well, I didn’t have a beard, but my face was a bit gristly now, so it’s possible I could rock the ponytail look. The girls looked at me with wide watery eyes. It was clear they didn’t want to part. Once I freed them, I hoped they’d still have feelings for me, but I shielded a part of my heart just in case they found me repulsive once they no longer were bound by slavery.

While having such thoughts, I shared my supplies with them and made sure they were ready to take on the dungeon now. This independence would be good for the pair. I kept the storage ring and gave them my backpack. They had enough food, water, and water of life to last for a few weeks.  

We said goodbye and hugged closely. This was not the same as last time. They were both my slaves and I accepted them in my party too. I could swap with one of them at any time and keep up the communications. I even demonstrated it to them before they were reassured. I promised to “swap” once a night with Miki so that I could report. Why Miki? Because Lydia was still uneasy around ghosts, and would freak out if left alone.

Like that, the girls went down to the 11th floor, and I went up to the 9th. As the door shut behind me, I touched the kiosk and teleported to the 15th floor. With my heart feeling refreshed and my course clear, I started the trek back to Celeste.