The Start of a Long Process

After we left the library, we returned to our base. Joining up with the others, I quickly explained the current circumstances to Hina and Cielle.

Their reactions varied slightly. Hina, showing a slight interest when the President’s name was mentioned, but otherwise gave a weak reaction to the rest of my report. Cielle was much the same, maintaining an impassive expression as if none of it really mattered to her.

Afterwards, we sat down and decided what to do next. Talking briefly, we came to the unanimous decision that getting stronger was the most important thing we needed to focus on. After all, with mobs being close to 30, and probably stronger, the boss itself would be considerably stronger. Surprisingly, the one who was most adamant about this was Cher. Maybe it was due to a growing inferiority complex, or maybe she had some trauma about being regarded as “weak”, but she showed more eagerness in leveling herself up than the others.

Out of curiosity though, she asked, “What level are all of you guys? I-I know Hide is pretty strong, plus Hina and Mistress both have skills so….”

In response, the three of us exchanged glances. While there wasn’t any reason to hide something like my level to Cher, after all, we’re practically team mates at this point, I never really had the chance to properly explain it either.

After some brief consideration, I answered, “I’m level 24.”

“2-24?!” Her eyes bulged out in obvious shock as she realed back from my unexpected answer. “T-that’s so…”

Cher bulged out while a look of both awe and jealousy was plainly written on her pitiful face.

Not one to lose, Hina quickly followed, stating, “I’m level 19… although I think I’m close to reaching 20…”

“19!? While it isn’t as much as Hide’s own level, in the end, isn’t that too high?!”

Quietly observing Cher’s outlandish reactions, Cielle expression was slightly souring. As Cher turned around, and asked Cielle about her level, with a pout on her face, she muttered, “...17…”

Understandably, Miss Pitiful’s reaction this time around wasn’t as over exaggerated, only confirming with a soft, yet awed, “Oh…”. This type of response seemingly irritated Cielle, as her pout quickly turned into a scowl, and a sharp, “tsk!” escaped her throat.

Seeing Cielle’s worsening mood, Cher’s face cramped into an awkward smile, as she tried comforting her, “Ah, it’s okay Mistress… while your level isn’t as high as both Hide’s or Hina’s, it’s still pretty amazing!”

Despite such sweet flattery, Cielle’s mood did not improve, rather she lashed out in a more… indirect way. In a quiet, but obviously irritated voice, she asked, “Level… what level are you?”

Hearing this, Cher’s face froze. Averting her eyes slightly, in a timid voice she forced out, “4-4….”

Cielle puffed up her chest, and retorted, “...44?”

“Uuuu...4-4…”

“..14?” Cielle asked again, a smug expression plastered on her face.

“Agh, I said 4! 4, 4, 4, damn it…. uuu…” Cher huffed out, while dejectedly sighing . A smile that conveyed absolute victory flashed across Cielle’s expression.

“Damn it… if I were as strong as the rest of you, I wouldn’t be bullied so much…” She stated such a ridiculous thing like that. Obviously, that assumption was wrong. Whether 4 or 400, Miss Pitiful will always be Pitiful.

“A-anyways…” Cher continued, “How did all of you get so strong in the first place?”

Hearing this, for some odd reason, Cielle and Hina both exchanged glances. After a silent conversation done only through the eyes, Cielle chirped up. While slightly tilting her head, she said, “...Hell?”

“Hell?” Cher repeated in a somewhat confused voice. “W-what does that mean?”

“No, rather than hell…” This time, Hina followed, “Hide’s training was pretty… brutal? Would Hell even be enough to describe what happened…”

“Training? Brutal?” Cher’s eyes squinted slightly as her stare landed on me. In response, I simply shrugged.

Hina though, wasn’t quite done elaborating. “Well, you know… things like nonstop grinding against monsters 10 levels higher than us…”

“10 levels?!”

“Yeah, rather it wasn’t all that bad until Hide did quite a nasty trick on us…”

Hina squinted at me while maintaining a somewhat hostile look, while I only responded with an indifferent expression. After her deathly stare persisted for a while, she continued, “Well… Hide would purposely let a couple monsters slip past him, subjecting the two of us to hell, and almost practically killing us on numerous occasions. After a while, he’d suddenly come back, saving us at the very brink of death…”

-Ah, they noticed that? Seriously….

Hearing her vocalisation, I briefly recalled our initial training days. Truly, I do recall using that sort of tactic… but to think they remembered, or rather, noticing something like that in the heat of battle…

As Cher heard this, her eyes slightly bulged. She turned towards me with a slightly fear filled expression, one which did not match the growing redness on her face. “I-is that true Hide?”

Feigning ignorance, I briefly replied, “No, of course not.”

My response only caused Hina’s eyes to squint further. “Hu… still playing innocent…”

Cielle, also commented, “Hide… sneaky…” Although truthfully, she didn’t seem all that angry in the first place.

“Agh, enough about this,” I finally interjected. “Although you guys keep complaining, it’s not like it didn’t all work out in the end, right?”

I mean they survived, and got stronger, what else could you ask for?

“Well, true but…” Hina agreed, but had a somewhat troubled expression.

“Besides, there’s no use complaining now,” I went on. “It’s not like we won’t be doing that sort of training again.”

Hearing my rather ominous words, Hina’s eyes slightly scrunched up as she asked, “What do you mean?”

“Well, since our goal is to get stronger, going monster hunting is a given.” I replied. “Actually, in fact, with Cher being so weak, the timing’s just right…”

“Eh?” A short response escaped from Miss Pitiful’s parted lips.

In one “In short, let’s go dungeon grinding once more.”

****

We were currently traveling through the air ducts. I was situated in the front, leading the way, while Hina was the one behind me. She would occasionally help direct me, since she had a blueprint of the school’s interior, a useful tool we procured within the archive room of the library. Following her, Cher came next, followed by Cielle, who was tasked with guarding our rear, in case anything unexpected happened.

Our goal was to bypass the sea of tusk boars and find an alternative route to the 2nd floor of the east building. Normally, a sky way would connect all three floors with the main building, but for some inexplicable reason, both the 2nd and 1st floor skyways were destroyed. We confirmed it a while ago, but the skyway was charred and flamed, as if a huge fire or a considerable explosion took place there.

The only other way to get to the east building became the 3rd floor skyway, but unfortunately any further travel downwards towards the east building was impossible. This was primarily due to the tusk boars who hoarded around the closest staircase. It was impossible to go through their herd using shear force alone due to their overwhelming numbers, so finding a way around that became our only option.

In fact, I was reminded of this fact right now, what with the countless snorting I heard coming from below me.

Right now, finding a way to the 2nd floor was our goal. With the intention of exploration as well as training on the side, I wanted to hunt around the east building, actively avoiding the main building for the time being. With the introduction of cooked meat, it won’t take long for conflict to arise, mainly because of Satou. When that happens, I’d like to not be anywhere near such a troublesome matter.

While I said that, there was also one other reason why I wanted to explore the 2nd floor and the rest of the east building. That was confirmation. With much of the main building explored, the location of the Boss’s final lair became narrower. There was a huge chance he was in the East building, so I wanted to confirm it. At least, getting all the way to the sub floor of the building was my current goal.

Our progress was slow. Surprisingly the air ducts were pretty long winding and complex. Coupled with its narrowness and the effect of the summer heat on industrial metal, travel using this method was extremely taxing. Our stamina was constantly decreasing at a faster rate than usual. This unexpected difficulty might be the reason why the President and his group didn’t travel like this.

The only reason why we were able to keep going was thanks to Hina’s magic. Using air magic to keep the stagnant air circulating, as well as water magic to occasionally refresh us, we further made our way down. We occasionally had to move back due to a wrong turn, which caused us a whole new set of difficulties. In the end, we’d take constant breaks in abandoned classrooms.

Hina, who practically became our navigator, used this opportunity to fix the map, cross referencing the room we were in with what she had scribbled down onto that flimsy piece of blue paper. Eventually, with tired reluctance, we would crawl back into the vents, and continue our travels. Passing numerous rooms, and moving above close to 300+ tusk boars, this sort of pattern continued for about 2 hours.

Fortunately, the herd quickly thinned down as we almost reached the easternmost portion of the building. We passed the 2 sets of stairs which led down to the 2nd floor a while ago, but unfortunately, that type pathway was left unavailable for us. The congregating horde of boars was simply too numerous, or rather, it felt like there were more boars besides the stairs than anywhere else.

Despite that though, an unexpected miracle came in the form of a giant hole in the floor. We were lucky enough to find it, as it led directly down to the 2nd floor.

Exiting the air ducts through an opening in an a partially destroyed classroom, we moved out into the hallway to more closely observe the scene of destruction.

As we arrived, an involuntary gasp escaped from Cher’s throat. It was understandable, I was quite shocked too.

In plainer terms, the floor had been blasted through.

I noticed that the marks left behind resembled the same type of destruction which blockaded the 1st and 2nd skyways. A scene filled with numerous burn marks, and charred concrete. Like a mini napalm had gone off in this particular scene. In fact, it had enough power to completely destroy the surrounding walls and floor.

Looking over this scene, I was instantly reminded of a small memory.

It was during the first day of the apocalypse, after I defeated the Goblin Commander. At the time, I looked out the window over towards the Eastern building, and noticed a fire had erupted. At the time, black smoke had risen to the sky, while the fire had raged on. Although strangely, the fire had been rather… contained.

That sort of scene… when looking at the current damage, I couldn’t help but connect the two incidents together.

While maintaining a cautious atmosphere, I approached the hole in the floor with the girls behind me. I peered underneath the hole and into the 2nd floor, looking for anything potentially dangerous to pop up.

What I saw was an empty hallway with nothing around. Like with this hole, much of the surroundings were scarred with burn marks and charred like the remains of a small time village hit by napalm. Although with my vision alone, I could not find anything hostile, focusing in on my hearing revealed noise coming from further down the floor.

Confirming that there wasn’t anything dangerous near by, I dropped down onto the 2nd floor, landing nimbly with a soft, almost silent, thud.

Since the girls themselves weren’t properly specced for physical activity, I signaled for them to jump down as I prepared to catch them. As Cielle and Hina each successively came down, I instructed Cher to tie a rope beforehand, so that we would have a method of escape for when we decided to return.

Soon, we were all joined together within the 2nd floor. Coincidentally, the noises I previously heard grew louder. Whether it was due to the noise we made, or our very presence simply alerted them, it was plain to see that they were approaching.

I signaled to the girls that something was approaching.

We all prepared for battle. My grip on my black long sword tightened, while Cielle unzipped her backpack, letting fly a whole slew of [Dark Gemini]. Like wise, Hina entered a semi fighting stance, her arms raised at the ready and pointed at towards the direction I aimed at.

While we were all understandably tense, the only one who showed obvious fear was Cher. She was shaking almost uncontrollably while a pale face showcased an expression of pure fear. She struggled to maintain the make shift shield aloft as she peered tersely at the approaching foot steps.

The shield itself was something fashioned from things we had lying around at the base. Using the surface of a wooden desk for the base of it, I poked a few holes and wound two sections of rope as the handle. The rope themselves were interwoven, to create a stronger material that, hopefully, wouldn't fly off at the moment of impact.

I had hoped from creating something like a makeshift shield, I’d gain a sort of crafting skill, but so far, nothing like that happened. It could just be crafting skills don’t exist, or maybe I had to craft more in quantity and quality in order to trigger the skill requirements, but there was nothing I could do about it right now.

Anyways, despite her fear, I positioned Cher upfront. Although she had opposed, stating things like “I’m specialised for speed” or something, I planned to mold her into something akin to a tank. At the very least, that was what our party lacked. While maybe an attack-defense type character might be too much to ask for, at the very least, with her original agility in play, she could hope to become a mobile fighter.

The problem here was, that originally, “players” or in this context, survivors, didn’t start off with any good defense based stats. While stamina and hp might have been an option, unfortunately, we couldn’t distribute any stats there, as they grew naturally the higher level one became.

Although from first hand experience, I knew there was a method to acquire different stats. Defense based stats, like “defense” (the one I gained through an item) existed, but currently, the method to gaining them was unknown. Like wise, she couldn’t use the same method I did to acquire my “defense” stat since it fundamentally needed the [Equip] skill.

While it may have been a troubling problem at first glance, I had a… method I thought up that might help Cher gain, not skills, but stats. For this method, it was necessary for her to stand up front, despite her weak level and annoyingly high amount of fear.

As I pondered these things over, the first visage of the monster came to view. The noise had originally came from a bend in the corner, so as it turned towards us, we were able to view the monstrosity in all its glory.

Lesser Cyclops - Level 20

HP: 300/300

A hunched back, humanoid figure came into view. With a portly belly, and veiny, muscular arms, the sight of it was grotesque. It wore a severely torn loincloth, which looked ill fitting on its body. True to its name, it had one, blood shot eye, which glared menacingly towards us. Fortunately, it wasn’t as large as the minotaur we fought, rather, it was looked to be about the size of a tall, overweight man.

In actuality, there were two of them that rounded the corner. One was empty handed, while the other held a makeshift club that matched the monster’s large body in size.

The appearance of the pair sent a round of cold sweat throughout the group. While Cher shivered in fear, Hina and Cielle simply watched, their eyes tensed to the point of glaring. I simply, stared. While I wasn’t to concerned, mostly since they were under my current level, I still kept cautious.

One mistake could end my life.

Lately, that had became my mantra.

As their beady eye(s) focused in on us, we likewise glared back. With a sudden stomp, the club wielding monster rushed forward, signaling the start of our battle, and likewise, the start of this round’s grinding session.

***

Author's Note: If you liked this chapter, or this story in general, please rate or review. I always appreciate the feedback.