Author's Note: Although I took a while to post this chapter, at least this one's considerably longer than the others...

A Meticulous Hunt

A week passed since the three of us started our grinding.

The double experience bonus ended yesterday, and as expected, leveling up has become much slower.

Although, relatively speaking, even with the double experience in effect, I’d say leveling up was relatively slow to begin with.

In the end, I could only rise up 7 levels, while Cielle and Hina are both respectively level 16 and 15.

This was all due to the meticulous hunting and effort we all poured into those valuable 7 days….

*****

For the majority of the time that the double experience was in effect, I pushed and strained hard in order to get the two girls’ levels up.

At first it was a very trying task.

We had decided before hand to stay within the confines of the west wing, 2nd floor. Everything beyond that was unknown, and the girls weren’t quite comfortable with venturing any further into territory we knew nothing about.

Of course, in the future, we planned on exploring the school, or at the very least, venturing downstairs or to the main building. After all, it would do no good to stay confined to this area.

A condition that we had to defeat the Dungeon boss in order to leave was in place, and it was readily obvious that such an existence wasn’t here. We would leave, but not after getting stronger. That’s why it was necessary to grind.

Grinding makes you stronger.

Early on, we implemented a system which prioritized safety over efficiency. This worked well for the girls, seeing as they had no experience with actual combat.

The method was simple; Lure a wandering minotaur into a secluded room, where the girls were waiting, and ambush the beast with our combined strength. I would aggro the beast while I whittled down its hp until either Cielle or Hina could deliver the final blow.

This method was much safer than spawn camping, considering it was exceedingly difficult to kill a minotaur within the span of 1 minute and 30 seconds. Plus, even if we could manage the feet, things like stamina need to be put into consideration…

Also, this plan was the only possible one for us since the minotaurs now freely wandered the halls of the western building. Apparently, I disrupted their movement pattern when I killed the first minotaur and attracted the subsequent ones attention. Now they guard the halls, wandering, as their numbers only continue to swell. If we hunted out in the open, considering the two girls; level and experience, getting jumped or attacked by multitudes of monsters would guarantee all but death.

So in the end, the luring and baiting of the minotaur system was implemented. Of course, this method was repetitive and… tiresome. The constant hesitation of the two girls, particularly Hina, over killing the monsters was a bit annoying (although I completely understood why), and the actual growth speed of the two girls were less than satisfactory.

This was mostly accredited to the fact that the “setting up a trap” method was extremely slow, plus the girls only received exp every other minotaur, mostly since they faithfully switched turns attacking. Actually, rather than blaming the girls, I’d much rather blame the specific dungeon rule that didn’t allow for parties.

While right now, I may not know what benefit parties get, I can at least assume that they have a sort of exp share feature, much like in other rpgs. This was a huge disadvantage for us, since I had to whittle down every minotaurs hp up to an amount where Cielle’s Gemini dark, or Hina’s Basic fire spell, could finish it off.

Anyways, this task was tedious and very detail specific. All in all, this method took about 20 minutes for each kill. A very slow leveling up speed, which resulted in them reaching only level 8 in as much as 4 days. By then, I had decided to forgo hunting so carefully, and instead instilled a system of systematic genocide on the minotaurs.

While now that the two girls levels were barely acceptable, at the very least each of their attacks could shave off 5-15 % of a minotaur’s hp, it would be a perfect opportunity to start “actual” combat training. Plus, it would be good to start thinning out the horde of minotaurs that the hallways were currently swamped in.

Since the Minotaurs stopped leaving off into the eastern hallway, they congregated here. This not only made general movement harder, but also blocked the spawn point with several “guards” Actually, a [minotaur guard] is an actual monster here, whose levels is 2 more than a regular minotaur.

In the end, I want to reach the spawn point and do some grinding there, mostly because at our current level we could handle something like that.

Anyways, while I did say that the area was swamped with minotaurs, that’s not to say I didn’t do anything about them. In fact, while I was out luring monsters, I’d slash and kill as much minotaurs as I possible. This was mostly to limit their population from swelling up too greatly (a gesture that failed), but was also because I needed to level up as well. I couldn't just let those two grow while I remained stagnant.

So I strived to slay as much as I could while helping out the girls simultaneously. In the end, I reached level 18 through this method, and also gained a level in dissection (mostly since every opportunity I got, I’d dissect the minotaur corpse). Dissection now gave off a vague glow towards areas purported to be weak, although this might as well had not been there, seeing as how I already figured out most of a minotaur’s weak points through constant dissection and… um, experimentation.

While I did enjoy my own leveling up speed, I still held a deep dissatisfaction for the girls, who were compartively much slower than me. This troubled me, because in all sense of the word, the girls were “investments.” To be exact, they were short term investments.

While part humanistic emotion led me to give away a mana potion and a health potion to Hina and Cielle, the most important reason was for my own benefit. While of course, I could have hogged all the potions, especially the mana potion, since it held a high chance of giving me a unique magic skill, albeit one I probably couldn’t use, but a skill nonetheless, I choose not to, simply because at my current state, I was worried about my own safety far more than the missed opportunity I gave away.

If it wasn’t obvious enough, there was no way I could live through this dungeon alone. I needed allies. No, I didn’t need just allies, I needed strong allies. In the near future, fire power and manpower would be needed in order to take down the school boss. I doubted my own ability to handle such a feat, so, let me reiterate, I needed strong allies.

And since there was no one around that fit my criteria, I decided to create them myself.

That’s the primary reason why I gave Hina the mana potion.

So she could gain a strong enough skill to back me up. Although the slight tinge of greed crept into my heart upon the idea of monopolizing unique skills, I came to a rational conclusion that, this in fact, was a stupid idea and a notion that would have gotten me killed.

While I could have always monopolized the mana potion and received the skill for myself, it would have most likely been a magic based skill, and I couldn't use magic based skills. Of course, there was always the possibility that I could somehow use magic in the future, there also lied my problem, “future.”

If I died here because I was greedy and didn’t have any allies, what good would a future skill be to the dead me.

That’s why this current event was what I called a short term over a long term investment. Hina, and to a larger extent, Cielle, where my investments as “comrades”. Although to cash in on those investments, first I needed to make them stronger, both mentally and physically, to properly support me.

So with that sort of motivation, I entered into the next phase of our grinding; Systematic Genocide.

On the 5th day, I brought the girls out from their usual hiding spot (the room where they waited) and explained today’s plan.

Thanks to my rigorous “training” they readily answered me with as much bravado as they could muster.

Speaking of my training….

For the majority of the four days they spent waiting and hunting in that cramped room, I tried helping them in other ways than just leveling up.

One of these ways was resilient training.

I wanted to give them a crash course study session on what they needed in order to survive.

I detailed and explained all the various game mechanics I had discovered, from item drops to levels, all the way up to individual stats.

Actually, during this brief intermittent of learning, I also learned a few things myself. For one, when Hina distributed her stats to wisdom and intelligence, I achieved a rough idea as to what those particular stats pertained. After plenty of prodding on my part, I discovered that intelligence improved actual reaction time, computational skill and increases magic attack speed, while wisdom increased memorization skills and increased magical attack power.

Like I had already assumed the stat distributions had no effect to usual stat derived stats like mana capacity or health. In most games, rise in wis would subsequently rise the max mana of a player. This same logic applied to increasing vitality in order to increase health or stamina.

In this system, it seems like that wasn’t the case. Rather, the individual stats of health, stamina, and max mana weren’t directly connected with the other stats. I had first assumed this when I raised my vitality and neither my health or stamina rose. This theory was confirmed by the new information I gathered from Hina.

As for the stats themselves… I determined that intelligence was like magical agility while wisdom was like magical strength.

Seeing as how intelligence increased perception and reaction time, I decided to prioritize this over wisdom, although I did still have plans on looking into wisdom myself, if not just to sate my own curiosity.

Anyways, once I taught the two the basics, it was time for actual combat and real experience. Well, although I say combat, during those four days, they never really “fought” per say. I always aggroed the minotaurs while the girls merely exp stealed with the final blow. Basically, they were like experience babies.

What they did learn, was mental fortitude… Well, at least that was the plan.

During combat, is when I shined the most, and apparently, its where my rather “severe” training also showed its prowess.

In order to teach them the rules of this world, and in a looser sense, get them more comfortable with killing (seeing as how some of these monsters were vaguely human like), I relied heavily on old military training tactics, a topic I faintly recalled learning about during a late night binge watch of the discovery channel.

The result of this haphazard training I implemented was actually somewhat successful.

Boot camp like tactics, such as deliberately letting a monster come close to attacking the girls, only to momentarily save them later. This helped instill both the concept that I was a friendly and trustworthy figure in their hearts, while also embedding the reality that the monsters were dangerous and were more than willing to kill you.

In some cases, when the girls got strong enough to actually tank a hit or two, I’d deliberately let the minotaur knock them around a bit, in order to connect actual pain with the creature’s existence. Of course this was a cruel tactic, even by my standards and it embittered my heart implementing it, but this was as much good for the girls as it was for me.

They needed to throw away silly notions such as “killing is wrong” or “what I’m doing is bad”. They needed to be taught that the only thing this new world revolved around was the age old concept of “survival of the fittest”, and right now, I was in the process of making them, by extension of the word, the “fittest”.

I also implemented scare, guilt and anger tactics. Words like, “THIS IS THE MONSTER THAT ALMOST KILLED YOU!” or “You’ve already killed one, what’s one more?!” were yelled out by me in the heat of battle, when endorphins are the highest and when the mind is the most susceptible. Kind of like reverse ptsd.

For Hina, this worked wonders, seeing as how she already developed her own mental trauma about almost dying, I merely had to siphon of that in order to teach her. This was especially callous of me to do, but once I firmly rooted the mind set that this was actually helping them, I threw away my petty qualms.

As for Cielle… my actions didn;t seem to show any profound effects. Her mindset… didn’t seem to change much over the course of 4 days. Rather, she stayed pretty stable… I guess, in a sense, she might have been the strongest one amongst us all...

Anyways, by the end of the crash course training, they had risen up in level and their mental toughness grew. They now showed little apprehension to killing... well at least killing minotaurs. I’m sure that against humanoid monsters, or even actual people, they would show the same reservations they showed in the beginning.

This was a good thing actually. While I did attempt to train their mental fortitude, I didn’t aim to completely destroy their humanity. I’m not that cruel, after all.

****

And this brings us back to the situation three days prior, when we had at most, 2 days of double experience left, involving me, Cielle, Hina, and a hallway full of brawny minotaurs.

“Hina, Cielle, get ready…” I spoke quietly, as the hooving clops and raging roars got louder.

The girls who stood behind me, nodded in affirmation.

Hina, who wore the same clothes I had found her in, had tied back her hair in a messy ponytail and readied her hands in front of her. While after some experimentation, we discovered that hand movement was not necessary to incite a spell, it helped Hina with her attacks, so it had grown into quite a habit for her.

At her current level (8), I could pretty much rely on her now. While I didn’t want her to waste too much of her mana, her attacks were indeed invaluable. Now she was capable of taking off 15 to 20 % of a minotaur’s hp with a single [Basic Fire Spell]. This was probably attributed to her uneven distribution in wisdom. She had basically spammed that slot, increasing her attack power exponentially, although I did encourage her to invest in other stats, primarily vitality, if only to preserve her own life.

While she was indeed reliable, especially after the 4 days in what the girls quickly labeled “Hell’s Classroom”, I did have some qualms about her fighting. Of course, this wasn’t due to any petty feelings like, “I can’t believe I’m making such a fragile girl fight.” But rather, questions on efficiency. I worried she would run out of mana with all her demanding spells. Luckily though, this worry was squashed a day ago, when she unexpectedly told me she acquired a new title.

“Grand Magus”, was what she called it. Apparently it was a tier above the “magus” title, and gave her some pretty amazing boosts. It had the effect of doubling her current mana pool, while halving her mana consumption... also, it had the added effects of increasing her wisdom and mana by double her current level (so basically she received a +16 at level 8)....

…. It was truly an OP title… compared to “Grand Magus”, my “Pioneer” ability seems a bit lacking…. I wonder if it can get stronger…?

I brushed aside my thoughts, and briefly glanced back at the other person standing besides Hina.

Cielle on the other hand, had wheeled in a tray cart she had found crashed along a classroom cabinet. On top of the cart, and below it, were two containers filled to the brim with black, vicious, globs of darkened blue. Of course, this was gemini dark and was Cielle’s primary method of attack.

Cielle’s face was as always, covered in a thick of matted hair while her clothes drooped down on her, showing off how illfit the size of her sweater was.

She began undoing the lids, and prepared, for the rush of minotaurs to come.

In the end, Cielle didn’t have a title like “Grand Magus”, rather she had what I came to consider, a very ordinary title of “Healer”. It was an obvious outcome, considering she was our primary go to in case of injuries, since we didn’t want to lose any of the valuable hp potions we had. In fact, we only found 3 hp potions throughout the prior 4 days, and no mana potions.

Anyways, from both “Grand Magus” and “Healer”, I assumed that titles that vaguely resembled classes, were a common thing in this system.

In the end, I subdivided the concept of titles into two. One was what I considered ordinary titles, like [Pioneer] or [Psychotic]. The other, this new type introduced by [Grand Magus] and [Healer]’s existences, were what I labeled, “Class titles”. Instead of an ordinary class system, it seems like in this new world, classes might not be available. Instead, something like class titles were granted. They were things that gave slight boosts towards a specific build. In Cielle’s case her [Healer] title upped her recovery and lowered mana consumption.

The added effects weren’t as great as actual classes used in some rpgs, rather, they were tools used to emphasize that to survive in this world, one had to be smart. You couldn’t just haphazardly collect skills and hope for the best.

Also, it seems like in order to gain a new class title, one had to either do repetitive action or trigger certain requisites. For Cielle and Hina, this was probably due to their constant usage of their skills.

Of course, with this new revelation it brought up numerous more questions. For one, was it possible to stack class titles? Could someone like Hina, who has both a magic and a healing skill, possible acquire [Healer] along side her [Grand Magus]? In the first place, why was Hina given such an op title? What type of conditions did she trigger???

And while I was a little bit peeved because of that, it also brought to question why I hadn’t recieved my own class title. Going by my current actions, something like a rogue title or assassin would fit, yet I didn’t receive such a thing. Maybe I’ve already triggered a few other conditions that are leading up to a specific class title, one I wasn’t yet aware of?

Anyways, I can’t be bogged down too much by such distracting thoughts.

Brushing aside my mental pondering, I refocused on the situation.

We were situated in a dead end facing the window, so we only had to worry about attacks from one direction. This was an ideal spot. As the fighting continued, and the inevitable noise attracted more monsters, it would be significantly easier to deal with them when they came from one direction, instead of surrounding us and overwhelming us with their forces.

Squinting, of in the distance, I could see three figures looming closer. Their hooved feet dashed forward as there horns seemingly pointed directly towards us.

Hina and Cielle looked nervously at the beasts before I could feel their needy gazes fall upon me.

In the span of time I spent with the two, Hina and Cielle had developed a sort of unconscious reliance towards me. While this brought a slight smile to my face, this dependency would be quite hindering in the future, although for my purposes today, it was actually a good thing. Their dependency made them more recipient to my commands, thus making battle with these two inexperienced people slightly easier.

Of course, I knew I needed to develop their own individual battle sense, but that can wait till later…

I stared calmly down at the first monster before me.

My eyes briefly glanced over their feet as I was quickly reminded of one of the minotaur’s primary weakness; their lower body.

Not only was a minotaur’s knee cap unusually soft and spoingant, its hooved feet were a cause for unbalance, especially on smooth surfaces like tiled floors, since they lacked any traction that common hooved animals relied on.

At this instant, I could have monopolized [Full Element]’s versatility by asking Hina to use some earth magic in conjunction with water magic in hopes of causing the beasts to lose their already unstable balance, but in the end, I decided against that. After all, I was pretty much capable of doing such an easy task myself.

With this mindset, I rushed out, readily meeting the creatures running start. The girls followed but kept their distance as I began to deal with the one before me. This particular minotaur was ahead of the others, so for a span of 3 seconds or so, it was 1v1.

Meeting the creature, I immediately tilted my body lower, pulling out efhermet as I continued running towards him. My eyes were steadily locked onto its right kneecap.

The minotaur let out a bellowing roar as it swung its axe downward mid sprint. Twisting my body drastically to the right, I narrowly avoided the swing, as I sent out my own. My slash was directly aimed at the creature’s patella (knee cap).

Through [dissection], I learned that a minotaur’s patella, the gap between its knees, was exceptionally larger than normal, making it quite an easy target for early amputation.

With my single swing, I dislodged its lower right leg away from its main body.

The creature readily lost 30% of its health, as I followed through. After my attack, I ended up behind the minotaur, and with a bit of a slide, abruptly stopped my forward momentum, as I leapt forward. My blade zoomed upwards, as the familiar “swish” of metal to flesh penetrated my ears.

The blow was aimed towards the small space between the back of its neck and its head.

This attack, as well as the earlier [dissect] happened within the span of 2.5 seconds, and were both classified as [critical hits], leaving the beast with 50 % of its health remaining.

“Hina, Cielle!”

I called back as I continued forward, facing the other two monsters that made up the bulk of its companions.

“Got it! F-fire!” With a yell, a I felt a wave of heat embrace my back, as the residue temperature affected even me. The minotaur, who was the full brunt of this blast was severely burned and as a result readily lost 20% hp.

“Gemini…” Cielle called out next, as a torrent of black flames directly impacted on the newly created burn mark.

The minotaurs screamed an even louder scream as its remaining 30% hp slowly dwindled down.

In short, I left the 50% hp minotaur to the two girls while I aggroed the remaining beasts. They were experienced enough for this, plus, not to mention the fact that the minotaur was hardly capable of moving thanks to my earlier [amputate]. For long ranged fighters like them, an enemy at this state was mere child’s play for them.

I aggroed the other two, while the girls finished of the half dead minotaur.

“Hide!”

About a minute later, an affirmative call from behind me confirmed that the girls had suceeded.

I immediately jumped back before letting out a last slice towards one of the creature’s. In that span of a minute, I managed to reduce their hp to less than 50%, while giving an [amputate] affect on a minotaur missing an arm and a [lacerate] on the other.

“I leisurely retreated back towards the girls, as the beasts looked threateningly towards us.

“So, who managed to kill the first one.” I asked nonchalantly as my eyes remained fixated on the monsters ahead.

“I did. I killed it with a critical hit towards its head.” Hina answered with an almost impassive tone.

The past her would have been shocked to hear those same words coming from herself.

I nodded at this, while I motioned towards Cielle.

“Then, Cielle, you handle these two.”

Upon hearing this, she rolled forward her tray cart while nodding shyly.

The minotaurs dashed forward as the liquid black shot out towards the them.

Looking at the imposing scene before me, I briefly noted how much better she was at controlling her skill. Unlike Hina, who was granted the [Grand Mags] title, Ciele compensated her lack of damage output, with her fantastic control.

The blobs of liquid immediately spread and split into numerous orbs of black.

They shot forward, each aiming at a prior injury.

While dark gemini caused no outward physical injury, but merely pain, through experimentation and practice, Cielle found that directly attacking an area with an open wound caused dark gemini’s effects to double, sometimes triple, depending on the prior injury.

This knowledge, forged with constant practice, was amazing, and its usefulness fully showed themselves in this battle…. well, its more accurate to call this scene a slaughter.

The subsequent orbs crawled and seeped their way into the wounds I created, causing roars of pure agony, one I would be hard pressed replicating.

From my position, I quietly watched as their hp bars steadily decreased.

The pain was so great that it caused them to jerk to a standstill as their legs crumpled to the floor due to the massive amounts of pain running through their nervous system.

In no time, the remaining Minotaurs were dead, and Cielle had used up about a fourth of one container to do the job.

Both Hina and I let out our collective sighs as Cielle turned back around to face us.

Hina smiled innocently enough while saying, “Congratulations Sis! You killed two of them so fast, how amazing…”

Hina sighed once more as she lamented over her own abilities.

Cielle nodded in appreciation as she softly replied with a, “T-thanks…”

“Still, Sis, your ability sure is convenient. Healing and Damage…”

Hina praised.

“N-no, its Hina’s that’s amazing. Fire, water, earth, and wind… it’s like you're the avatar…”.

Cielle replied back, which warranted a round of laughter from her sister.

“Well, although, I guess [Full Element] is a bit cool, it really can’t be compared with your ability… I can’t kill monsters nearly as fast as you.”

“Even I… have trouble killing several monsters at once.”

They continued exchanging light hearted conversation like this, all the while I watched with a somewhat awkward, yet refreshed smile.

It was weird, seeing something so ordinary as this conversation (well, mind the topics), in such a scenario.

Eventually, I noticed, through her thicket of hair, Cielle was looking on at me with somewhat awkward eyes. Seeing this, I sighed. I instantly guessed what she wanted.

Without saying a word, I stepped up and rubbed her head. Contrary to its appearance, Cielle’s hair was rather soft and luscious, like its been well maintained, even with the 5 days of apocalypse she was going through.

Cielle said nothing in return, but merely bent her head down as her body slowly gravitated towards me.

I sighed again.

This had all started 3 days ago.

I didn’t mean to do it, it was merely a subconscious reflex, but after Cielle had done a somewhat good job with finishing off a minotaur back then, since she was so close to me, I instinctively patted her head in a congratulatory gesture.

I didn’t mean to do it, and I had no intention of continuing the action, but somehow or another, it became a habit, both for her and me.

As I continued to rub her head, I lamented. While this was a pretty weird thing to be doing to a girl you met 5 days ago, I did have to admit it was a somehow useful habit.

For Cielle, who didn’t quite respond as effectively as Hina to my “training”, I guess a vague rewards system like this was a good way to motivate her.

“Good job.” I said simply, while continuing to pat her head with jerky motion.

Hina who saw all this wore a bemused smile, while her sister in question, remained downcast.

I really couldn’t tell what type of expression she was making through that veil of hair of hers, despite my own curiosity.

This rather flowery scene was quickly broken by thunderous vibration and subsequent roars, which affirmed that the next set of “prey” had successfully followed the noise produced from earlier.

I hid my inward smirk with a passive face as I turned to face the open hallway.

I lifted my hand off from Cielle’s hair, which caused a small “ah…” to escape her mouth, as I turned around towards the noise.

“You guys ready?”

I asked nonchalantly as I brandished Efhermet once more.

It was time to thin out the pack.

*****

The meticulous hunting which began on that day, and lasted for two whole days, persisted until the West wing building’s 2nd floor hallways became as clear and empty once more.

By this point, we lacked prey, and our levels had risen. It was good timing too, since the dungeon bonus of double experience just so happened to end today.

At the end of the double experience week, I was now level 22, Cielle was level 16 and Hina was level 15.

The repetitive grinding process had payed off.

****

Author's Note.

Let me just say, sorry for any grammar mistakes during this chapter. I kind of did a haphazard proof read before I posted...

I didn't want to do what I did during the goblin grind chapters, that took too long, so I decided to condense it all down into one chapter. Next chap will be about exploring the school. Hide finally visits his old classroom, maybe picks up a few interesting items along the way...

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