[Blazing Spear] dealt 49 damage! [Blazing Spear] dealt 47 damage! [Blazing Spear] dealt 51 damage! Enemies defeated! Experience rewarded! Party Chat

[Jerome Smith]: 49, 47, 51.

[Aster K'lon]: You don't need to call it out if they're dead, Jerome.

[Jerome Smith]: Oh.

[Aster K'lon]: Also, you're targeting the wrong thing.

[Jerome Smith]: What?

[Aster K'lon]: Try [Assess]ing that anthill.

[Assess] activating! Integrated identified: Ant Summoner [Dungeon Summoner lv. 1] Nameless Party Chat

[Jerome Smith]: Ah.

[Aster K'lon]: See?

[Jerome Smith]: My System didn't say anything about that.

[Aster K'lon]: As much as your System is more powerful than most, it is also not going to be saving you in every situation.

[Jerome Smith]: Got it.

[Aster K'lon]: It is also still in the process of adapting to you and this world. You must not rely solely on the System, though you may put much of your faith in it.

[Inferno Spear] cast! [Inferno Spear] cast! Party Chat

[Aster K'lon]: The rest of them are dead. I killed the anthill as well.

[Jerome Smith]: I have eyes, y'know?

[Aster K'lon]: As do I, and yet you gave me the damage counts for [Giant Ants] that were little more than ash and dirt.

[Jerome Smith]: ...sorry. That's my bad.

[Aster K'lon]: Ha, worry not. Many reincarnators act like this.

P-System Log

Jerome, apologizing? No fucking way.

I wonder how long it'll take to say that to me...

Onto the next room it is, though. I'm kind of annoyed at Aster, to be honest. She--or her System, I guess--just stole so much W Inertia. Jerome had the opportunity to kill, what, three more ants? Plus however much that [Dungeon Summoner] would've given. All those juicy points, wasted...

Speaking of W Inertia, though, I gotta distribute the amount Jerome got. From all eight of those ants that he killed, I got around 240 W Inertia. Not a terribly large amount from each ant, but more than enough to put some XP into skills. I'm gonna keep half as per usual, and then distribute the others amongst his skills and general.

Actually, wait. What's his XP looking like?

Jerome Smith (abbreviated) Stat Value XP 661/900 Spell Stat Value Magic Missile Level 4 Magic Missile XP 1/180 Assess Level 2 Assess XP 6/200 Blazing Spear Level 4 Blazing Spear XP 0/320 Misty Strike

Level 1 Misty Strike XP 0/400 P-System Log

Hmm. I guess I could just invest them myself, but I also want Jerome to have at least some freedom in picking his build. If it were up to me, I would just go with focusing on leveling [Misty Strike] and one-tricking with it, but it sounds like Jerome wants to diversify. I don't know how I'm supposed to balance that. Yes, technically I could just ignore his wishes and do whatever I want with his skills and XP, but I don't like the idea of removing agency from the guy I'm attached to. He might be a dumbass, but he doesn't deserved to be constantly railroaded. I'm willing to manipulate him to do what I want, but the line stops at fucking with a man's progression. Also, consistency is pretty important if I want to keep passing myself off as a slightly intelligent computer program.

Okay, what do I need to do to maintain consistency? I started increasing the XP of skills when Jerome used them in combat after he started thinking he could train them. That's probably something that's good to keep running, even if it does mean expending that sweet sweet W Inertia. That's how most games run it, and there's no reason I should make it unnecessarily confusing.

Still, that's mostly still me behind the scenes. As much as I hate to admit it, I do enjoy playing fair. It feels wrong to take something for nothing, and I kind of want Jerome to have a role in determining what kind of attacker he wants to be. Maybe I can offer him a choice as to which skills to assign XP to when he levels up?

Yeah, that sounds fair.

Next order of business. I've been giving a quarter of the XP from every fight to go to general, and I think I'll keep with that as well. Now, I know one point of W Inertia is roughly equal to 10 XP, which means that Jerome can make it to level 3 if I just give him the 60 W Inertia that that entails, but I don't want that to happen just yet. After all, the dungeon isn't finished yet, and who's to say that Jerome is going to keep going after I give him a bunch of shiny toys to play with?

I think I'll hold off on the leveling until he finishes the dungeon. I know that's hypocritical of what I literally just said, but that's how I roll. I'll hold on to the extra, and I promise I'll give it all to him once he levels. I swear.

Maybe.

Party Chat

[Jerome Smith]: Okay, now that that room's clear. Onto the next?

[Aster K'lon]: A minor word of warning. The next room is the final one before the ending room. It contains a boss monster.

[Jerome Smith]: It's been alright so far. I can handle it. Besides, this is an easy dungeon, isn't it?

[Aster K'lon]: If you say so.

P-System Log

The passageway from this room to the last is a little longer. It's the same kind of boring, claustrophobic tunnel that the dungeon had earlier.

Kind of begs the question--why don't the Dungeon Cores just, I dunno, squeeze these tunnels? Maybe grow spikes out of the walls? Or even put monsters in the super-tight hallways so that they take super advantageous fights?

I guess it's an inherent flaw of a Dungeon Core. Maybe they can't actively manipulate their geometry while there's people in them? Assuming they can even manipulate their geometry at all--that's an assumption I'm making based off literature I've read before, but those rules don't necessarily apply to this world.

Whatever the case, the tunnel is tapering off and coming to an end. Final room!

...it's another really boring room. This whole dungeon has been pretty boring, honestly. I guess better this than facing down another bunch of powerful R Beasts, but there's nothing wrong with some excitement in life from time to time, right?

This last room is just a flat, empty circle of dirt. It's lit by torches, which I assume are kept on through dungeon skills, and at the center of it all lies a single enemy. It's another fucking ant.

[Assess] activating! Integrated identified: Giant Ant [Greater Giant Dire Ant lv. 1] DUNGEON_BOSS_NAME Party Chat

[Jerome Smith]: It's... just another ant. Bigger and stronger, I think, but it's just an ant. And it's low-level, too.

[Aster K'lon]: This is a low-level dungeon. It does not have the spare XP to invest in its minions.

[Jerome Smith]: Huh. Why don't we farm this type of dungeon?

[Aster K'lon]: Some do. However, these low-level dungeons often offer diminishing returns. Past level 5 or so, it becomes far more economical to find a higher-level dungeon. Consider also that the drops from this dungeon are zero or close to it.

[Jerome Smith]: Dungeons have drops?

[Aster K'lon]: The symbiotic relationship between humans and dungeons is a subject best expounded upon in a classroom, not shortly before the final fight.

[Jerome Smith]: Right. Okay, I'll take care of it.

[Misty Strike] activating! [Misty Strike] dealt 90 damage! Enemy defeated! Experience rewarded! Nameless Dungeon System Dungeon cleared! P-System Log

Wow, that was an anticlimactic fight. One single skill and that final boss turned to shreds. The power of an [Epic]-rarity skill backed by a [Legendary]-rarity class, I guess.

Anyway. W Inertia! I got around 60 from the final boss, which is a lot less than I hoped for--it's barely more than the amount I got from Jerome splitting the XP from a dead bandit--but I think the process of clearing the dungeon did something else. At Maplecrest, the Dungeon Core was affected by [Corruption], so it didn't manage to output this properly. I think. Either that, or the dungeon was just broken.

There's some trinkets appearing out of thin air and dropping to the ground, but none of them seem very useful. A couple rusty blades, a few coins of no denomination I've ever seen, and faded pieces of armor. They don't emit power of any kind, at the very least. Along with that, an exit just carved itself out of the cave.

Alright. This is happening a lot sooner than I thought it would, but I did promise.

Total gain from the last room and this one was around 360, so that's 90 for Jerome's general XP.

Damn. He's getting a lot. Maybe I'll tone it down in the future. Depends on how much the XP requirements increase per level and how much he gains.

For the meantime, though, he's gonna get a whole fuckload. With that, I'll invest some more to increase his Health. Thirty...two points. That should be a good number to increase it by. Ten points of W Inertia, roughly.

You're welcome, Jerome.

Level up! [Godkiller] Jerome Smith lv. 2 -> 3 P-System Message Health increased. Skill points available.