Year 7442, Month 8, Day 15
"I'm Zenom Firefree."
Ralpha and Zenom introduced each other in succession. Next is Zulu.
"I'm Dadino.Zulu. I serve master the same as you. Call me Zulu. Also, all the people other than me aren't slaves."
Yeah, it seems that greetings are done. Then, let's eat.
After calling the waiter and everyone started ordering the things they want to eat. Oh~ I forgot to tell Angela about it.
"Angela, don't restrain yourself. It's the job of a slave to eat and create a healthy body. Ask for as much of whatever you want to eat. Ah, I want the pork saute and boiled fish. If you have any Keiswago then make it that. Also, beer."
"Al. You never eat vegetables. Eat some vegetables as well. Bring a head of cabbage. Cut it into four parts. Then put mayonnaise on difference small plates to dip it in."
Be quiet~ Did you think the one saying that was Ralpha? That's exactly right, I don't know why but this ex-high school girl always tries to get everyone to eat raw vegetables. It seems that even Zulu is starting to fed up with it but recently Bel has started to align with Ralpha. Since you're a rabbit it's fine. Furthermore, since it's something she's done for quite a while Zenom is completely used to it.
"..Umm, is it really okay?"
Angela asked Zulu in a whisper to confirm.
"Yeah, it's fine. Feel free to eat whatever you like. I was surprised at first as well though."
It seems Zulu is asking for fried meat. However, this guy won't drink alcohol. Since he's physically older than me, he should just drink. Even after confirming Angela still wasn't sure what to order and in the end she chose the fried meat the same as Zulu. Today is Wednesday so it's a day off. After the food came out Zulu paid for his own portion. Seeing that Angela's eyes went wide. Of course, it's not a large amount. The fried meat is just 350 Z and the bread is 20 Z. I smiled at Angela as she was worrying and paid for her food before saying.
"In my party I pay the slaves all at once at the end of the month the wages for that month. For this month I'll pay for everything that you need. And the days we enter the dungeon are Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. We take Wednesday and Saturday off to rest our bodies. Just, on Saturday only in the morning we do training to practice our ability to cooperate with each other. From here on out I'll be giving you wages but after that starts you'll pay for your own lunch on Wednesday and Saturday. The meal and lodging other than that I'll continue paying for though."
Even looking from normal common sense in this world it doesn't appear like I'm treating my slaves special. Well, the amount I'm paying I think is decently high for a slave though. Normally you either pay them wages and leave their daily necessities up to themselves or in return for looking after everything for them you only pay them a tiny amount of wages, it's commonly one of those. If you were to ask which one is more common then in town areas it's the former but there is a decent number of the latter as well. In farm villages it's the reverse and the majority take the latter option.
"Putting that aside, today I have a bit of business to take care of after this. After we finish eating I'll go and buy some equipment for Angela but after that just make sure you check on how to cooperate."
After saying that I crunched away at some cabbage with mayonnaise. I really want some spicy miso for raw cabbage. The one like which came with fried chicken in Japan. It seems that Zulu isn't good with cabbage and it's easy to tell he's trying to hold back from it but Ralpha is mercilessly telling him to eat it too. Since he's a Lion-people race, go easy on him.
After we finished eating, we went off to prepare Angela's equipment. Since it seems her weapon is the sword I figured I would let her choose. I'm sure there's balance, length, and differences in peoples tastes like that. After that is..I'm sure leather armor is necessary as well. After purchasing a broadsword for 1,000,000 Z we ordered some leather armor at the store which made Zulu's armor. It was 520,000 Z.
After that I told Zulu to tell everyone to properly teach her about coordinating movements in the party and decided to leave the rest to them.
Right now I'm entering the dungeon alone. There was a bit of something that I wanted to confirm. Recently in going to the dungeon we've gotten a good grasp on the combat ability of our party and how to properly coordinate our movements, and I've somewhat understood about the rules of experience gain. Next is level up. What sort of rules do ability values increase during level up, I wanted to know that. I've created somewhat of a hypothesis but I want to confirm if that's correct.
【Alan.Greed/5/3/7429 】
【Status： Normal】
【Level： 11】
【Strength： 17】
【Dexterity： 16】
【Unique Ability：Identify(MAX)】
【Special Ability：Earth Magic(Lv.8)】
【Special Ability：Fire Magic(Lv.7)】
【Special Ability: Void Magic(Lv.8)】
- I use magic to fight as much as possible. In any case, I keep in mind not to take any injuries.
- I try my best to decrease the enemies and then enter close combat in one-on-one situations.
I'm going to try experimenting like this. If a good number of Orks or Hobgoblins appear then I should be able to level up within a few days. For a while my days off will disappear but either way the only thing I'm going other than running is walking or resting. Since I haven't stood at the front during combat much lately and since we rotate the order of who stands at the lead when exploring the dungeon my mental and physical fatigue aren't as bad as when we first started. If it's no good then it's fine if I run away with my tail between my legs.
After I teleported into the dungeon I confirmed my surroundings. It's in the middle of a cave that we always teleport in to. I guess I'll try going this way. Even if I confirm the map, in this tasteless cave that goes straight in both directions I can't even tell where I am until I get to a curve or split path, so it doesn't matter which direction I go.
I face one direction, brace my legs, raise my left hand forward, and use wind magic. I'm using void magic to send a large amount of air created with mana forward. Unlike outside since this is inside a cave with walls and ceiling the air that's created is limited on where it can disperse but since I'm using void magic to push the suddenly generated air in front of me I don't get blown backwards. The reason I'm bracing my legs is just because I somehow felt that would be a good idea.
The reason why I'm doing something like this is in order to blow away the dirt that's covering pitfalls. In the 1st floor I'm on the majority of the traps are pitfalls and rarely there's a different trap that just lets out a loud noise. Although, the noise it makes can lure monsters over so without a doubt it's a dangerous trap, other parties of adventurers who try to avoid combat as much as possible hate them.
As far as I can there doesn't seem to be any traps. Even then I can't completely relax so I carefully move forward. After advancing a bit this time I use the spell {Audible Clamor} several times in succession as far as I can see about 40 m ahead and cause a large rupturing sound a number of times. With this if there's any monsters nearby then even if they don't notice the wind they'll come over here wondering what it is. I use Identify look ahead.
In any case I need to decrease their numbers as much as possible before they get close to here and think about the methods that it would be possible to wipe them out with. It's fine to bury them with dirt or ice but if I do that then I might end up burying the cave. If I ended up sealing off the only path the 2nd floor by mistake then things would be bad so I should avoid that. Otherwise only as a last resort. If I really felt like I needed to use it then it would be troublesome but I can erase it later after all.
Also, I'm sure a large number of monsters will attack me. Since I'm alone here I need to pay attention to the speed they charge at me as well. Though, if they can move faster than my eyes can see them it would be different but I doubt there's any that can go at a speed like a jet engine. As far as I know the fastest on Orth is the falcon. Though I think they can go at a super speed of 300 Km per hour during descent but I really doubt there's a living creature that can go that speed inside of a cave so I doubt anything will be able to reach me before I can use some kind of magic. And even if it comes to a dangerous situation it's just a matter of using magic with all my power 50 m ahead and then immediately retreating to the teleport crystal and running out of the dungeon.
After a few minutes a group of monsters appeared. Che...Goblins, I'm out of luck. I used {Wind Cutter} while putting a bit of extra mana into it and wiped them out in a few seconds. I haven't bothered counting them, I think there were over 10 of them but I only gained roughly 1,000 experience points. I guess I'll leave once. I quickly grab the teleport crystal and teleport to one of the small rooms on the side of the small room where you teleport. I go to the teleport room once again. As long as you don't leave the building where the entrance to the dungeon is then you can enter and leave the dungeon as many times as you want.
There's people who make use of this re-entering the dungeon countless times until they get to an easy to recognize terrain. I use the teleport crystal to re-enter the dungeon the same as them. Just the same I lure over monsters and use magic to wipe them all out except for a few weak monsters. If think I repeat this a number of times then I doubt I'll take any injuries and can earn some experience points.
I wonder how many times I've repeated it? I think I've already done it 5-6 times. The only monsters that appeared every time were goblins. Since the value of their magic stones is low I just left the corpses as is but I've probably already killed 70-80 of them. Oh~ come to think of it, while goblins are weak, they give low experience points, and their magic stones aren't worth much but I can earn experience points towards the Gift of Natural Talent. If I keep putting some effort into it like this then after a few more days of just killing goblins I should be able to get the level of my Gift of Natural Talent to MAX. This was an unexpected byproduct. Then I guess even if the opponent is just goblins it should be fine as long as I make up for in numbers so I'll put some effort into it like this.
The experience points in my Gift of Natural Talent right now is 1524 (2560). Putting it simply the number of monsters I've killed until now is a total of 1,524. Sorry, I lied. Since I occasionally got about 10 experience points from practice matches so I think it's a lot less. I guess about 500 monsters would be right? As expected 1,500 is saying I've defeated too many. The majority of those are Goblins and Leeches. Since there was almost never large monsters like Hobgoblins. Since I was living a lifestyle where I only went hunting 1-2 times a month, so that sounds about right.
In any case, if I kill another 1,000 monsters or so then the level of my Gift of Natural Talent should increase and it'll be even easier for me to gain experience points. Even gnolls would be fine so once I fight something other than goblins I'll stop for today. Thinking that I teleported into the dungeon again. Gnolls finally appeared. Thinking it would be the last I used {Chain Lightning} in continuously and wiped all of them out but one. The last remaining gnoll was seriously injured as well so I easily stabbed it to death. The experience from 12 gnolls was just above 3,000. It's annoying but I can't overlook the magic stones from gnolls. They have a value of 2,000 each. In terms of money that's 20,000 Z. If I sell them it should be about 14,000 Z each. I can pay the tax to enter the dungeon with just 1 and still have some leftover. I quickly gathered the magic stones and went home for today.
Just as I expected the magic stones came out to a total of 162,000 Z. I earned around 9,000 experience points in today as well. If I crush another 2-3 weeks of days off then I should know the results of my experiment.
Welcome to the world of RPGs, Al, you are now officially hooked.