Ah… bliss. A book in my hands, Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons to be exact, an ironic book of choice, with some soft music playing in the background, my pet cat (kind of) on my lap, and a cup of tea in reach…

This, this is the best…

“Arthur, come on, let’s go!” and there’s the part that ruins it… sigh… well, no rest for the wicked, as they say… I sat up, absently noting Sidhe sitting inside the hood of the jacket I wore… well, it was a sleeveless jacket, and so in this new summer in January weather, it was acceptable. It annoyed my neck a bit, but with my enhanced strength it wasn’t really a problem anymore.

It’s been a week since my trip to the beach (24 January 2019), contracting Sidhe as my familiar, and learning the name of a phobia of mine… seriously, it’s sad that I, as the leader of my team, would have so many shortcomings…

Then again, that must be why lightning is my element… it’s the ‘Element of Self-loathing’ after all… makes sense in a depressing kind of way.

“Come on, we’re about to face the second Demon Lord, we need you on your best.” Michael reminded me as I nodded, messing with my clothes a bit.

I’m a smith now, so obviously I’ve been dealing with the matter of equipment for my team… I didn’t mention it the last time around, but we had arranged defensive equipment for ourselves now as well.

Matt was determined to end up in full plate armour but… well, we didn’t have enough materials for that, even if we saved up a bit… as for John, he didn’t need armour because if he got hit, something was going wrong.

What we did have, all of us, were gauntlets at the least, but not in the conventional sense. I based the gauntlets I made off of the Japanese ones worn by martial artists to defend against arrows and swords, ‘tekkai’ they called it I think.

With interlocking plates on the backside of the arm, and next to no defence on the inner part, they had to be used correctly at least.

For those who wanted it, I also designed some leg guards in a similar fashion, but only Michael, Alice and I ended up wearing them… the rest had complaints about them so they didn’t want any.

As far as weaponry went, I had increased my enchanting by a slight amount, which was good I guess… made my weaponry better.

I was glad for this week leading up to this situation though… I had levelled, along with Sidhe, quite a bit, and I had just gotten to level 49, just two levels off of a new rank (J) which would mean a rank up in all my Class skills, and only one level away from the fabled level 50, which would, for some reason, provide skills with new bonuses… or increase the amount I could have, or increase the ranks, it was kind of vague like that… I blame Chronos.

Personal Information

Name:

Arthur Clive

Level:

49

4820 EXP

Rank:

K

Class:

Smith

Familiar:

Cait Sith (Sidhe)

Kingdom:

Camelot

King

Anima:

Traveller’s Cloak

The Nameless Dagger

Stats:

Strength: 43 (49)

Dexterity: 60 (72)

Intelligence: 32

Wisdom: 60 (96)

Vitality: 43 (47)

Constitution: 32

Skills:

Shooting (K), Blade Wielding ©, Tactician (S), Recovery (B), Close Combat (E), Enchanting ©, Soul Reading

It was good for me; my stats were rising at a good pace, especially Dexterity and Wisdom, my most important stats. Wisdom, counting in the boost from Tactician, was sitting at a good 9.6% of my total magic regenerated per minute… it was excellent really, and from what I understand, no one else has magic regeneration as high as mine yet.

As for Sidhe, well, she levelled up faster since we carried her through, but she still hadn’t quite caught up to us. Everyone in my team was sitting on level 47, and Sidhe was now level 38.

I’m the one who decided on her stat distribution, but I kept it in line with her already present stats… besides, Sidhe was a spell-casting dodge master as her base setting, so obviously I’d work with that instead of trying to make a jack-of-all-trades kind of Familiar…

Familiar Information

Name:

Sidhe

Level:

38

501 EXP

Rank:

K

Race:

Cait Sith

Master:

Arthur Clive

Elements:

Darkness

Mind

Stats:

Strength: 24 (26)

Dexterity: 60 (63)

Intelligence: 60 (61)

Wisdom: 60 (63)

Vitality: 13 (15)

Constitution: 13 (14)

Besides, it would be a waste to ignore that high element… Darkness wasn’t really good with lightning, and lighting wasn’t that good with darkness either (whichever was stronger would erase the other… I think), but I had found a way to amplify her spells at the least, considering she had better control than Alice.

All I had to do was use lightning magic to create light (note that this is different from actually using light element magic) which, if positioned correctly, would create a darker shadow effect, giving Sidhe more of her element to control.

She was pretty good at illusions too… though she seems to have gotten into that by competing with John in the use of mind magic… she actually won more often than not, such as messing with John’s depth perception and having him walk into something he thinks he can dodge.

It was helpful for John, he was getting better at detecting mind magic and using it at a much faster pace than before after all… though Sidhe had a strange dislike of John…

“…Arthur, come on.” Oh yes, I’ve been so busy thinking about my progression… I walked out, Sidhe snuggling in my hood (she usually stayed there even during battle; it almost looked like I was using many spells from different elements at once.)

My fighting style hadn’t changed much, even with the training I had done with Dante (the second in command of the Agents) but it was a bit more refined now, though I apparently had the habit of leading with my grabs… couldn’t do that much now though…

See, my Dagger wasn’t as good as I wish it could be… with my higher Strength and my magic, I could still use it to kill things, but… well, a normal sword I make did more damage already. If it weren’t for the experience boost and the durability of the Nameless Dagger, I’d probably not use it at all.

Sidhe helped a lot though, it was as if I was carrying around an automatic defence system or something, and whenever something tried to attack me without my knowledge, Sidhe would defend me… I’m blessed with good assistants.

“Ah… Clive.” I looked over and nodded at the commander of the Agents, Shaun Fife… I still don’t like him… he doesn’t like dealing with me, and I don’t like dealing with him, but we are too similar to not deal with each other…

He even had a lightning element just like me… though unlike me, he had a secondary element as well, namely light… lucky, he has strong magic abilities apparently.

“I hear you are going to be fighting the second Demon Lord now… do you think you are all strong enough?” he asked as I contemplated that fact… then I nodded.

“Yeah. Blade was a strange existence but from what I understand, Demon Lords can be considered to be existences that aren’t meant to be fought alone… but they aren’t unbeatable.” I admitted, and he nodded at my evaluation… he didn’t even need to hear it likely, knowing the high-specs of this guy; he’s already understood that part.

“Very well… I wish you luck, Clive…” he said with a frown… wishing me luck seems to have given him a bit of annoyance… he then turned to the rest of my group and I frowned seeing him look more relaxed with them… he even smiled at Michael and Alice.

“Well, I don’t like your leader, but I’ve trained with you all for quite a while, I have no doubt you’ll survive. Watch out for each other and you should be fine.” He nodded, and walked away (I noted Dante outside getting his car ready) as Shaun walked away…

“The ‘Strongest’ huh… I wonder how I have that title when someone like that is around…” I wondered to myself as I felt Sidhe paw a bit at my face… thanks for the encouragement.

Still… I was right in my worries… he was level 47, just like the people in my team, but considering his training, he was better at using the strength he had against people when compared to anyone on my team…

“Ah. See that?” I heard Alice as we walked out of our new home and I turned and… oh… those… well, it happened.

“The Dungeons are evil, we should not be profiting off of them but instead waging war on the evil within, neglecting the false power bestowed upon us!” Naysayers, basically they were people who were against the Dungeon and Adventurers all at once. Most of the people like that actually didn’t have LEV’s… it made it awkward for most LEV users because we’d end up ignoring them due to not wanting to get angry enough to hurt them like in some countries (I heard that in certain countries anyone with a high enough level is considered above others. The strong make the law apparently…) though my opinion of them was that they might be suicidal to attack people who could kill Demons.

I made sure to hide Sidhe as we moved past… Demons weren’t accepted at all; obviously… we’re technically at war with them, even if things seemed casual on my side. In fact, demons coming out of Dungeons weren’t too rare, but they usually died soon after due to all the soldiers, adventurers, and guns on the other side… you know, guns can’t be brought into the dungeon, and they didn’t work right with magic either, but as a weapon they deal good damage to just about every demon that has so far appeared…

The problem was, we would probably be seeing an end to that eventually, as demons get progressively tougher and harder to kill, and we become strong enough to kill them… hey, perhaps at one point bullets won’t work on us? That would be nice… Matt has a Constitution stat of around 70 I think (that’s a huge number) so he’d be the closest of us.

Sigh… everyone else did a bit of min-maxing (leaving most stats low and focusing on certain stats) but I was apparently strange for having chosen Wisdom to be my ‘max’ stat.

That went a bit off topic, but demons did occasionally appear out of dungeons, but very rarely you could actually ‘tame’ a demon and make it a familiar… I think that’s what that one Japanese magic tool maker was planning on… perhaps he’ll even collect them and only use six at a time? That would be going overboard I think.

“Ah… another Demon Lord… we’ll do well, I think.” I felt confident today, unlike the time we fought Blade… we’ll be fine. None of us will die or get knocked out, and we’d come out alright…

…it activated…Soul Reader. It has to be, I never feel that confident so randomly. And apparently it thinks we will win against the Demon Lord as long as we get there within a certain amount of time… I’m not sure when exactly, but I do have a feeling of ‘I have enough time’…

“Hey guys. My Unique Skill activated. We’ll definitely win. And we’ll be fine.” I admitted, and my team smiled, though Emilia was quick to frown.

“Hey, we can’t get lazy just because we have a very high chance of winning… you have to work to win. It’s like being told ‘you can ace this test’ but that doesn’t mean ‘sleep through and you’ll still ace it’.” Emilia complained and I smiled at her explanation. Of course she’d complain… and I was glad she did.

My team was one where there would always be at least one person to voice reason and remind of what was going on and what we had to do… it kept us sane I guess.

“Well, that being said, let’s get going.” We really were taking our own time getting to the dungeon, but we were assured in our strength by now… Demon Lords will and always would be a challenge of sorts, but… they could be handled, eventually.

Within five minutes we were at the dungeon, living much closer than before, obviously this would happen, though I had to admit that this was also kind of saddening for me… I’m slowly but surely losing reasons to take a ride around on my motorbike.

Cars sometimes made me nauseous sometimes, so I wasn’t always okay with them, but bikes made me feel free… it was strange how I didn’t like being watched but I enjoy the method of transportation that leaves me in plain sight.

“Ah, Danielle, we’re heading in now.” I informed our liaison with the ‘Guild’ that we were heading in. She was a good worker, efficient, though she spoke with us often…

That time I first brought Sidhe into the Dungeon she looked at me as if I was insane for bringing a pet in there though… I had a feeling she was actually more snarky than she let on, but considering our work relationship, she didn’t seem to show it much…

“Oh, hello Arthur, good luck, and bring back some good stuff, okay? How’s my brother, by the way?” this had come as a surprise to me, but apparently Agent Dante that I usually sparred against was actually Danielle’s brother… who knew?

One time we came out of the Dungeon and they were talking to each other… Dante looked kind of annoyed though… he later told me that it was because Danielle liked making fun of him and having fun at his expense.

Now that I knew about that, I could see it happening. He just seemed even sadder when I told him that though.

“I saw him this morning, he’s still working, and he’s pretty strong you know. I’m sure he’s fine. He was driving around with his boss though.” I admitted the story while Danielle checked out our adventurer cards.

“Oh I know he’s strong, that doesn’t mean I can’t ask how he’s doing. He doesn’t tell me everything you know. Luckily his boss is pretty open.” Oh yeah, Danielle and… Shaun, also knew each other, though that was mostly because Dante and Shaun knew each other from somewhere, Military I think.

“Shaun’s pretty lazy but somehow also strict… he’s never going to get a girlfriend with that attitude.” I heard John joke as we got our cards back and Danielle looked at us like she was looking at three year olds or something.

“Uh… Shaun’s actually married you know? His wife’s pregnant too.” …what? I hadn’t known that… we were all surprised by that bit of information.

“That guy is married? With a child on the way? What the heck, he always seemed either lazy or strict, and with how he works, you wouldn’t think… what kind of woman is his wife anyway?” Michael asked in surprise as Danielle thought about it.

“Well, I don’t know where they met or how, but I do know that she’s the one who asked him out apparently… he apparently refused to ask her out until he had a stable job.”

That… okay, that actually did sound like Shaun. He seemed like the kind of guy who wouldn’t do anything until he had everything sorted out… I noticed most of my group staring at me while Alice was patting Emilia’s back… what?

“…So, Emilia, there’s an idea.” Huh? What? What is it?

“Ahem, anyway, let’s go, we might be running late if we stay here any longer. See you in a few hours Danielle.” I got us moving as we walked away (I faintly heard something about ‘dense main characters’ or something to that effect from somewhere… strange…)

We came to the Dungeon entrance, dodging a group exiting (I absently noted that all of them were level 30, still kind of low at this point, but they were in the upper half) and walking up to the small plate at the entrance.

With a few taps of illusionary buttons, a corridor opened to the eleventh floor. Teleporting between floors was impossible, but apparently skipping boss fights was allowed as long as you had defeated that boss before.

Of course, if you entered from the eleventh floor and turned around, the boss (the soulless husk of a Demon Lord) wouldn’t be there. It helped stop people from taking advantage of the large amount of experience points the boss would give out.

With that we were in the eleventh floor once more, as I held my Nameless Dagger in one hand, and in the other I held a sword enchanted with Blitzkrieg. I didn’t need to look at my map at this point, but just to make sure, I checked it and nodded. The fastest paths, the path where we were least likely to encounter enemies, the path where we would encounter the most enemies, I memorized those, and I knew them by heart by now.

I am the leader of my team. I had to make sure that my team operated as best as they could, with the best ‘power-stamina’ ratio and ensure we took the least possible injuries by following certain pathways. The others didn’t know this (though they might suspect it considering I occasionally asked for their thoughts) but I actually studied the Dungeon and the demons we encountered all the time, thinking up new paths, tactics and ideas, just so that eventually I would be able to lead my team even better than I did now.

“Alright guys, we’re taking the short path today until we get to floor nineteen, once there, if we haven’t all levelled up by then, we fight a bit to bridge that gap for that extra strength against the Demon Lord. We have roughly three to four hours, though let’s try for a quicker time.” I explained the plan, and we moved in accordance.

The Dungeon was a veritable maze, but once you understood the structure, and if you had the strength, you could move freely and easily between floors, and at this point, where my team was amongst the strongest, we were among the free.

Roughly two hours and forty minutes later, we had arrived on the nineteenth floor and I frowned a bit at how much experience I still needed (still a few hundred… the experience earned rushing through nine floors was extreme after all.) although the rest of my team had levelled up at least… and I really wanted to be level 50… the highest point possible for a K rank like myself.

In addition…skills… something about the level fifty were involved with skills, and I needed to know what that something was.

It felt necessary so I decided to head to the stairs for now. Even if we loitered around there, no one would meet us. We occasionally ran into other teams around floor eleven to thirteen, but after that it was much rarer to run into other people. And even then, you’d only run into people who entered the Dungeon from the same place as you.

“Okay, route B, the one that gets us to the stairs while fighting a few monsters. I’m close to levelling up… kind of… anyway; I want to reach level fifty before we fight that Demon Lord. It seems necessary.” It really did, though my friends did wonder if I was just saying things for my benefit sometimes… I didn’t, but I trust they would stop me if I was talking too much nonsense… or encourage me, could go either way honestly, what with friends like Matt and John who both play… okay, devil’s advocate doesn’t work anymore, what with Chronos around… should find something new.

“Alright, alright… we’re also wondering what happens when you reach level fifty though…” Michael admitted and I shrugged… I also didn’t understand…

I mean, what was the difference between level 49 and 50 when it came to skills? Why was that one level difference so important? I’ll realize why soon enough hopefully…

“Ah, enemy sighted… two Wisps and three Kobolds, Formation B, let’s go.” We shifted a bit in adjusting for our enemy this time around. We had our main formation (which was the original one that looks like two arrow heads overlapping) and two others. This was the one made for fighting enemies with magic as a focus.

Kobolds were strange in the sense that in stories and myth there are two kinds of Kobolds, the dog-like demons that we were fighting at this point, and Kobolds similar to dragons, like half-dragons or something. I couldn’t get rid of the idea that the dragon type one might exist…

But for now, we were essentially fighting people with dog heads and mediocre armour and weapons… they were just a bit shorter than Alice, and like Goblins it was weird hitting something that bled and screamed in pain…

But for some reason we didn’t care in the fight. Nah, there was a reason. The kind of fight we fought was one where either we died or they did, so we didn’t hesitate... well, that was my reason. I didn’t know what the others thought though.

As for the Wisps, they were tiny purple flames that floated around while spewing fire magic everywhere. They looked strangely adorable with the occasional face that looked like it came straight out of a cartoon actually. They couldn’t be hurt by weapons with no magic in them (even enchantments didn’t count apparently) so to kill them it required the use of magic in some form (including using magic to cover a sword and stab them) but Michael couldn’t kill them due to being the same element.

So instead, he focused on the Kobolds along with Matt whose magic did relatively little to the little Wisps. The Wisps also had a nasty habit of randomly moving either in front of or behind the Kobolds, so we set up two formations to deal with the same set up of enemies, one for when the Wisps were in front (Formation B) and another for when the Kobolds were in front (Formation C)

Getting all technical, but the formation was simple, with me hunting the Wisps down with the assistance of Emilia, John and Alice assisting where necessary and Matt and Michael going for the Kobolds, Formation B ended up with Emilia and I in front, John behind Matt at the right slightly behind us, with Alice and Michael mirroring their positions on the left side, both slightly behind Emilia and I.

Not that we were using it at current, but formation C put the others at the centre and Emilia and I on the sides of the formation so that we could circle around the Kobolds and hit the Wisps.

Both formations allowed us to kill the Wisps quickly before they used their magic or helped the Kobolds (watching a Kobold’s sword burst into flames as it slashed at you was a fright still for all of us except Matt who simply said ‘ooh fireworks’ and left it at that) and following the death of the Wisps, the Kobolds would be surrounded and killed.

Hm… thinking about it, both could be seen as some form of bull-like formation with the people on the sides as the horns…. John later told me that someone called Shaka from South African history made a battle formation similarly… then called me racist for expecting him to know it, when he was the one who told me.

Sometimes I wonder really…

With our formation easily completed, we engaged, as Emilia and I both activated our spells… mine was quite honestly brute forcing it, with Emilia having more finesse between the two of us, what with the fact that she made a thin layer of water (dragged from the very air, made it hard to breathe if she used too much though, so she was planning on dragging water around with her in a pouch or bottle) and as for me…

[Spell: Grasping Sparks (J)]

It was simple actually. It was the same as Spark Edge in theory, except I applied the lightning magic, instead of to my sword, but to my left hand palm.

Then I grabbed my enemy (a Wisp) and squeezed it to death.

Rough, violent, but oh so efficient when it got you a good twenty five experience points per grab per Wisp, and twenty per Kobold (though I’d have to grab the skull of a Kobold, and that was gross. You try sending voltage into someone’s skull and see how that looks, then decide to do it again. It’s creepy, weird, and disgusting.)

I checked, and the other Wisp was already dead, one Kobold had died from a flame arrow (as it reads on the tin) that Michael shot, another had Matt’s sword in its throat, and Alice’s Weapon Meister (which now gave her rank K with all weapon types) somehow considered a dead body as a weapon, and she had used one dead Kobold’s body to smash another into a ground before using a sword and cutting the live one’s head off.

…as you can guess, that went by quickly. But then again, of course it would. We were actually over-levelled for this area, especially me, but for the Demon Lord we were only slightly sufficient.

“…I can’t wait for floor twenty one.” I heard Emilia speak, and I couldn’t help but agree… I regenerated magic very quickly for someone of my level, but using magic was tiring mentally, not just for mana. Speaking of tiring, using magic a lot would eventually make that tired feeling appear less and less… basically, it was like magic itself was a muscle, and using it and training it would obviously making it better. The stats helped, but if you used an S rank spell as your very first spell, you’d pass out even if you had the level and stats.

Hm… if I were to give an idea, it’s like going to sleep, waking up with muscles like the Hulk and thinking that you can lift buildings. You aren’t used to the muscles and their usage, so they’ll likely tear and hurt as you get used to it. If you slowly built up the muscle and kept using it, it wouldn’t hurt as much doing strenuous activities.

…Thank you, mother, for being a Sports and Exercise Medicine specialist, and teaching me such basic theories…

“Hey, don’t look so gloomy, we have to level you up before the fight right?” Alice asked as I nodded with a raised brow at her words.

“So let’s go, we’re tired of this place.” Matt added in, and I chuckled at his words even as we all ignored John saying ‘sure, let’s go to the more dangerous things, bloody crazy white people’… hey, it sounded rude, but when John said it, it was just a joke, seeing as we could joke back (Matt did that the most, complaining that seeing John in the darkness of the Dungeon was difficult)

Within the next half an hour I had finally killed the last demon necessary for me to level up (and we were near the stairs luckily) and I smiled at the notification.

[Level up!]

Before I could check out my stats and such, another notification popped up… a confusing one.

[The vessel has grown. More power can be held. Will you pursue the many, or the few?]

I apparently had to answer this, and I was at a bit of a loss to the idea… unless, saying many would give new skills, and saying the few would rank up one or two skills?

…Do I rank up Tactician and a few other things, or do I get Dual Wielding finally? Hm… wait… I need to verify something before I make such a decision.

“If I make my decision, is the other impossible to gain?” I asked aloud as the others seemed confused (usually you didn’t need to talk to a level up notification or something) as I looked upon the next notification.

[The vessel can contain more power no matter the choice made.]

I guess the vessel would be referring to me, so it was hinting that if I picked one, the other was still achievable, but this was a straight out boost or skill gain, and the other would have to be trained for…

“I choose the few.” I explained, and I was surprised at the sudden feeling of… power… then it was gone and I frowned at that sensation… tease…

[The vessel has chosen. The skills: Recovery, Blade Wielding, Close Combat, Enchanting, and Tactician have all ranked up based on use.]

As I expected, and I was glad to have Tactician rank up (though I wondered why Shooting didn’t rank up, then I remembered that I don’t technically use shooting attacks…

False Lightning wasn’t used since that other day… I couldn’t use it without passing out now, since the ‘bug fix’ that Chronos did)

[Due to training, the skill Dual Wielding (H) has been created!] How nice, I got the Dual Wielding skill, just as I wanted, so aren’t I lucky? Maybe because I already had the training done?

[The vessel has the capacity for one more skill. Choose.]

I was then shown two options… either I took Path Finding… or… never mind that first skill. The second is the obvious choice.

[Skill Quick Reflexes (L) rank is created! Due to prior experiences connecting with the skill, the skill ranks up to ©!]

Of course I picked that skill. Path Finding was worthless to me who used Soul Reader or logic to find the stairs (it took longer, but because of this I levelled up reliably) and the map made it worthless unless you counted those who wanted to rush through floors without fighting on a floor… those people would die on the floors above due to not having the strength gained from fighting the enemies on the floors before.

To explain the Quick Reflexes Skill… it was the Dexterity version of Tactician.

[Quick Reflexes ©: Your reflexes border on superhuman, your flexibility and speed comparable to the greatest of predators in the world. Grants a passive boost to Dexterity and allows slightly faster reactions.]

“So, how’s the level fifty feeling?” Michael asked as I smirked, rolling my head around as I hummed in appreciation for how nicely my body moved at my will, and I called up my stats, placing the points.

“Oh… level fifty is nice.” I said simply, chuckling at the stats I had… having over one hundred effective stats in Wisdom was nice. Having over one hundred effective stats in Wisdom and Dexterity? Oh at this point it was brilliant.

…going by the pattern, there would be six skills like this… Tactician added 70% to my Wisdom at SS rank, and with my Cloak and this new skill, my Dexterity got a 75% boost… meaning, that for the first time, my Dexterity actually surpassed my Wisdom stat effectively. That was a weird feeling… I should fix it at some point..

Personal Information

Name:

Arthur Clive

Level:

50

7761 EXP

Rank:

K

Class:

Smith

Familiar:

Cait Sith (Sidhe)

Kingdom:

Camelot

King

Anima:

Traveller’s Cloak

The Nameless Dagger

Stats:

Strength: 44 (52)

Dexterity: 62 (108)

Intelligence: 32

Wisdom: 62 (105)

Vitality: 43 (49)

Constitution: 32

Skills:

Shooting (K), Blade Wielding (B), Tactician (SS), Recovery (A), Close Combat (D), Enchanting (B), Soul Reading, Dual Wielding (H), Quick Reflexes ©

Class Skills:

Blacksmith (K), Fire Resistance (K), Metallurgy (K), Armour Appraisal (K), Weapon Appraisal (K), Weight Reduction (K)

I then explained the choices I was given and the new skills I had gotten (getting new skills in this manner felt like remembering you have a third arm. Weird, strange, and yet useful) and the group agreed, getting to level 50 was important at this point.

Yes, those were some glorious skills and stats… it could be considered very strong for roughly a month and a half of fighting… the only limit to my strength at current was actually my equipment, namely (ironically) my Nameless Dagger.

If the Dagger would only get stronger, then it would be fine, but its damage doesn’t seem to scale with my level (though the extra experience is welcome) so I wasn’t sure what was happening with that thing…

As for my Cloak, I liked it much more than the Dagger honestly… because who doesn’t like teleportation?

“Whoa… you can teleport?” Michael asked as I nodded, then looked at the Cloak (it looked just as dusty and boring as before, though it looked as if the dust was, as I levelled, being removed to show patterns on the Cloak) as I vanished and reappeared five metres away in a tiny flash of light.

“Yeah, and it’s great. At level eighty it removes the light and increases the distance a bit. At current my limit is five metres with that light, and at level eighty it would be seven metres with no light to show my position… it has a cool-down of ten seconds.” I explained, and quite honestly it was amazing… except, that in a fight ten seconds could be the difference between life and death really… nonetheless, it was amazing.

“Well, we’re apparently approaching the deadline of our appointment, and I feel as if everything necessary for victory has been gained. Let’s go kill a Demon Lord.” Despite how alien the words coming out of my mouth sounded, I had to admit that I enjoyed that smooth feeling of surety in ones actions when Soul Reader activated.

It wasn’t to the point I felt overconfident, or anything to that effect… at least not really. Like I have stated before, it just showed me what had to be done to succeed. As long as I followed the guideline, the best possible outcome would occur. With the knowledge that such a sure path was before me, made me much more comfortable in my own skin.

“Ah, so our king says. Let’s go.” Matt answered, and I smiled as we moved towards the stairs which were two corners away from our current position… I must say, I like how easily Emilia or Michael take second-in-command and assist in my handling of the team (despite not needing it seeing as we were all friends) but once in a while Matt actually stepped into the position… it was subtle, but it just proved what I already knew, that Matt was much more attentive than he let on.

So we approached the stairs, and so we prepared for the fight…

“Hey, think we’ll see that weird writing we saw last time?” I asked the group with some curiosity as we started on the stairs… I felt that this was an important question… today seemed to be one of those lucky days that Soul Reader seemed to be active near constantly.

“…What weird writing?” I blinked a bit at the words of Michael, and I frowned at his reply… Michael was our archer, he had to be very attentive (we all were to an extent, but the best at noticing smaller details had to be Matt or Michael) so if he was saying something so weird…

“The writing before we fought Blade. That writing was weird…” I explained, the group looked at each other… hey, I might not be the recipient but I can read those glances that replaced conversation. Pretty much all of them were wondering what was wrong… this was bad.

“Uh… it was plain English, wasn’t it?” I frowned at his words, then grinned when I saw Emilia looked confused. “No, that was Russian, clearly.” And so I grinned a bit as they looked at each other in confusion as I nodded.

“See, it was weird writing. It seems to adapt to whatever language you think in… wait… Emilia… if you read Russian there, what language am I speaking right now?” I asked as Emilia blinked.

“Why, Russian, but wouldn’t you know that?” I nodded as we approached the exit. “Emilia… none of us here knows any Russian beyond badly enunciated phrases from games or movies. Didn’t you think that was strange that we’d speak Russian here, and English outside?” I asked as she widened her eyes… it seems they were all realizing something important, which my Soul Reading helped me figure out…

The Dungeon broke language barriers in a strange way… it seemed to make you understand anything spoken in a form most suitable for you… it made me wonder… what would happen if a deaf person was inside the Dungeon? And why had no one noticed this? It seemed to be… mentally messing with us, making us think certain things were normal when they were in fact strange. Indeed, this wasn’t a bad thing, but if this was used to mess with us in other ways…

Like making us handle killing better… why else would we be against driving over a cat but easily grab the head of a Kobold and smash it into fine paste?

The Dungeon messed with us… but in what way, I didn’t quite understand yet, but that should be found out eventually… otherwise…

“Huh, so this is the twentieth floor…” I heard John absently and I agreed in his vague words… basically, the twentieth floor was different from what we expected. We were honestly expecting a coliseum-like setup similar to the setting in which we fought Blade.

Instead of a coliseum, we were treated to the sight of a graveyard like setting, a great stone gate before us… and once more, upon the gate, sat the strange writing that seemed to pierce my skull yet make me so happy to read.

[Welcome Challengers, to the Ashes Graveyard, home to the Second Demon Lord Ignis, Ruler of the Dead Flames. As he who guides the souls of the dead to their next destination, Ignis will attempt to force you onto said path… force your way beyond his path.]

The words flickered and blurred before my vision, and I had a lot of guesses as to why it acted like that to me, but acted as normal lettering to the vision of the others… for example, the reason why Soul Reading and the Smith Class has a glitch might also be why I see it strangely. I didn’t know that reason though. Another could be the effect of Soul Reading itself, which lets me understand the soul, so maybe I understand this lettering better for some reason related to that?

“So… a fire based Demon Lord… a Wisp boss basically?” Alice noted and I agreed in her judgement… well, I wish I was level 51 now… because I mean, I’d rank up, and so would all my Smith skills, one of which was Flame Resistance which would have made this fight all the more easier…

“Yeah, it seems like it… oh man, magic is going to be the most important thing going into this fight… seems this fight is more suited to mental tiring than physical, if we ignore that heat saps stamina quickly, and using magic makes us more mentally tired.” I analysed the basic idea quickly, thinking about it…

Then I heard footsteps from the stairs, and I realized that this might be why Soul Reader made me feel like I had to be here now as I turned and looked at the stairs…

The group of six that stepped down into the room… looked unique, to say the least… all six seemed Asian in decent (and judging by the plain black school uniforms, I’d say Japanese) and all six were young and chatting amicably… then they saw us and tensed a bit. My own group tensed, and I noted one of them stop them much like I stopped my own from preparing to fight… he and I looked at each other and we both nodded, understanding what was about to occur…

Like I said, meeting another team in the Dungeon was possible, and while most ignored each other, sometimes they had to talk. The unspoken rule was that leaders and sub-leaders spoke, everyone else waited for any trickery.

Each of our groups stepped back a bit (I proudly noted that Matt gathered them with the gate to their back. While in modern combat, cornering yourself was a bad move, in a fight between swords, bows and such, it was smart) and I, along with Michael, stepped forward, the kid who was the leader, and a girl who was probably his second-in-command, stepped forward.

I extended a hand, and we fumbled a bit as he tried to extend his left hand… I noted his second-in-command narrowing her eyes at that, and I figured that, much like Michael did with me, she noted this guy’s mistakes and warned him off doing them. Due to the nature of this encounter, she wouldn’t be capable of doing that right away though.

“Hello, it’s nice to meet you. My name is Arthur Clive, Team Caliburn. And you are?” I asked, as the senior, I controlled the initial flow of the conversation, but I also allowed him an in, it was polite.

“Ah, it’s nice to meet you as well, Arthur. My name is Ichiro Kazuto, Leader of team Spicy Chicken.” …I heard Michael stifle a laugh as I once more noted the second-in-command having her eye twitch… this time in annoyance apparently… shame… I felt sorry for her actually.

“R…right… well, Ichiro… I’m surprised you got this far... I thought my team was the only one that reached this low.” I admitted, and he… grinned? He seemed oddly… open, for the leader of a Dungeon going team…

“Really, I had the same thought! Mr Miyamoto said that I was the strongest around, and the pride of our country, so I’m obviously surprised at seeing another group here… wait… how come I haven’t seen you around the Dungeon meetings?”

I blinked at some of the inconsistencies between his words and mine… then I widened my eyes.

“…You entered the Dungeon in Japan, didn’t you?” I asked and he nodded, looking as confused as I felt as he looked to his second-in-command.

“Yeah, we did… what, didn’t you?” he asked as I shook my head, pointing to my own group, noting that both groups were trying their best to listen into our conversation while paying attention to the others (though one member of team… Spicy Chicken, was fiddling with some sphere shaped things and Soul Gems… oddly familiar spheres… I know which guy made an Escape Rope now.)

“No… we’re from USA actually…” I admitted, before I turned to look at Michael… then he realized what I was trying to get him to understand when he widened his eyes. The conversation we had just before this meeting proved why this meeting was possible, and why it wasn’t an effort in translation…

“Wait, but you speak such fluent Japanese Mr Arthur…” I sighed at Ichiro’s words before I waved my hand in an ‘at ease’ motion, my group no longer preparing for a fight as I looked back at the young Japanese Team Leader.

“I’m not actually speaking Japanese, you’re just hearing Japanese. It seems the Dungeon translates conversations for us, and also makes us not notice that it’s happening.” I explained making the second-in-command of Ichiro’s team (I don’t think I’ll ever be able to deal with a name like Spicy Chicken) tapped his shoulder and whispered in his ear.

“Ah… I see… but wait, if we entered from different dungeons…” I could practically see the question forming, and as I was about to say my idea-

“Then how are we all meeting each other?” I froze at the words from an unfamiliar voice as Ichiro and I both turned to the stairs to see… another team coming down. The leader of this team has light brown hair, slicked back (so much so that you’d think it was gelled down but it didn’t have that sheen) and a stern glare as he walked forward, his own team following behind him as he stood equidistant from both Ichiro and I.

“I guess this confirmed my suspicions… Greetings. I am Albert Ivankov, former Spetsnaz Captain and KGB Agent, current leader of the Osobyy Unit.” The Dungeon was hard at work translating as I heard the term Spetsnaz but had it translated to special purpose forces, and Osobyy was translated into the word special… that was secondary to my weariness of this man though.

“Hello. I trust you have heard our names?” I asked, and the man looked at me with a glare… but he had a tiny smirk that gave away his pride in his actions.

“Of course, information gathering is something important in warfare, as I trust you understand, American.” I didn’t frown at how he spat the word, and I wouldn’t complain. Russia and America had a long rivalry, from the Space Race, the Berlin Wall, to the competition of who made better weapons (aka the Arms Race). For all I knew, this man had been affected by the war in some manner.

“Well, that makes things simple then. So, this Dungeon translates things… and we have all clearly entered from different regions in the world… meaning that, if our three teams got here, more might be on their way.” I admitted and Ichiro and Albert both nodded (though I was a bit surprised that Ichiro caught on so quickly with how childish he seemed… but that might be how he acted, but it didn’t mean he was stupid it seems)

“Indeed… and if more appear, this place will just become that much more important… and dangerous. As it is, we already have three teams, who wish to challenge the Demon Lord, and yet there might be more coming… I refuse to hand over the fight though.” This time I frowned, at the selfish words of Albert as Ichiro seemed annoyed at the words of the stern Russian agent.

“Hey, wait in line, Mr Arthur got here before me, and you got here after me! If anyone gets first crack at the Demon Lord between the two of us, it’ll be me!” Well… he could have worded it better, but at least Ichiro got straight to the point… the issue here, was that we all heard more footsteps…

And suddenly there were three staircases instead of one, and three teams all entered at the same time, all surprised by the current state of events.

One team seemed to be comprised of Middle Eastern people, judging by their loose clothing suited for desert wear, as the man I assumed was their leader frowned at everyone else.

Another team seemed… mismatched, to say the least. They had one older man who seemed to be the oldest in the room (and this teams leader), and judging by the clothing he wore and his skin colour, the man was African (not to be racist, but that was admittedly rare clothing) though there seemed to be a Caucasian as well, and a few who seemed to be in-between.

As for the last team, every one of them were Caucasian with British accents (from what whispering I heard) and their leader appeared to be a short woman with brown hair and what looked to be green eyes, their second-in-command a woman with Red hair and brown eyes.

I knew who the leaders were by the fact that they stepped forward easily, their second-in-commands following them as they approached the trio of Albert, Ichiro and I.

“Well… looks like there will be quite a few introductions.” I said dryly as Ichiro, Albert and I introduced ourselves as well as our ethnicities, and from where we entered the Dungeon (all the people who just entered the room seemed surprised at this point, though the people in the African team seemed to not care… I heard one of them complaining about wanting to play Forza actually..)

“Well, you all may address me as Sheikh, though know that this is not my real name. I am the leader of Team Salibi.” the Middle Eastern man warned and I didn’t question it, he had his reasons, though not giving your real name wouldn’t help us trust you… though I wondered at his naming sense when an Arabic person called themselves a Crusader, given their bad history involving crusades…

“Ahem, well, my name is Jade Ainsworth (I absently noted Ichiro snickering and muttering something about a thorn mage) and I’m the leader of Team United Cross.” Relatively normal name for a British group, and the girl herself seemed nice (albeit staring at me every few moments).

“It is nice to meet you all, my name is Loyiso Nanda, I am the leader of Team Ubuntu.”

I smiled a bit at the name of that team, as the Dungeon translated it to mean ‘Humanity to others’ or ‘I am what I am because of who we all are’… it was a beautiful meaning to a name.

“Well, we expected this but… how do we decide who fights the Demon Lord?” I asked, luckily capable of talking with such confidence with Michael nearby as they all frowned.

“Well… I think we can all agree we don’t want you to kill the Demon Lord.” I frowned at their words, because I didn’t think that being American would ostracize us that much…

“Well… that was saying it bluntly, but yes… we all already know what country houses the person who killed the first Demon Lord… and considering your team is from that same country…” Ah… I see… they think that because I killed the first Demon Lord, I’d pull ahead even more now.

“That’s kind of rude though, considering they arrived first...” Ichiro added in, and I thanked the fact that the young teen seemed to think I was a friendly guy, as he vouched for me.

“Huh… well, by unspoken rules, they should be allowed to try first…” Jade also added in and Sheikh frowned before he growled a bit.

“Well, I do not care much for who gets the first chance… but I know who I don’t want to fight the Demon. The three of you.” I was surprised as he motioned to Jade, Albert and I as he continued.

“Your countries keep interfering with mine, we do not want your presence, yet you keep appearing… I’d rather you just left.”

He was very blunt in his dislike, and I could see why… well, most countries actually hated America…

It wasn’t something most Americans liked to have rubbed in their faces, but it was the truth, Americans were, in general, assholes, to put it bluntly. Especially in other countries where we bragged about our own… the fact that Ichiro, Jade and Loyiso didn’t outright go against my team just because of our country was a blessing.

“Well… why can’t we all fight the Demon Lord?” asked Ichiro as I frowned at his idea… but I didn’t outright dislike it. “That would be a bit odd, because how would the experience be distributed? Would it be divided by thirty six? Or would only one team get it? But it’s worth a try.” Before I could even voice my opinion, Ichiro said exactly what I was about to say.

“Hm… and no matter who got the last hit, no one else could complain?” Albert asked, and I nodded at the direction he seemed to ask in… I didn’t like the man much, but he was professional.

“Of course no one can complain. And obviously no obstructing the others during this fight, it would be beyond dangerous. From what we understand, this Demon Lord is practically immune to plain physical attacks, and can only get damaged from attacks that have some amount of magic in there…” I explained the information I gleamed, though I expected most of the other team leaders to have the same amount of information I did at this point, considering they too, had gone through the nineteen floors to get here.

“Right, so that means that this Demon Lord is one which requires a lot of magic to defeat… which means magic users will be the stars of this fight.” Jade added in as Ichiro pointed at her.

“Yeah, but from what the wall says, and how Wisps fought, we can assume that this ‘boss’, I mean, Demon Lord, will be using lots of fire based attacks, which can be pretty damaging. The defenders will also have to move in good rotation.” At this point Sheikh sighed.

“Indeed, the defenders will be moving about a lot, and if this is a stronger Wisp, we might consider area of effect attacks as well. healers will also be necessary at this point.” He added in, Loyiso smiling as he nodded.

“Yes, healers will be needed to protect from the burn heals, but we can arrange that with each other. I’m certain that, if we mix and match teams in certain manners, we can bring out our best abilities.” I widened my eyes at his words as Albert clapped, drawing our attention to the man who nodded with a smirk.

“Right, so let’s all do some information distribution so that we may fight to the best of our capabilities.” I smiled. Despite the dislike some of us had for the others, we were all humans. When it was necessary, against a greater threat, we would band together, and we would win… now, we just needed to plan.

After showing each other our levels and talking about some basic information between all of us (some of it was very interesting, such as Albert using wood magic, or Ichiro having a Dexterity stat even higher than my modified one) we split ourselves once more.

The magic users had gathered into two teams, one led by Albert, and the other led by myself, we had the best magic based stats not counting the healers. In my team, I had one magic user from each of the other five teams, making a solid six, while Michael was with Albert (though Michael seemed disappointed that his Fire magic was near worthless against a ball of flames)

Jade and Ichiro both ended up taking the damage dealers (Jade seemed to be an archer like Michael) who didn’t have high magic stats, but at this point everyone was at least capable of using magic to some extent. Jade had Alice in her team, and Ichiro had Emilia in his.

Sheikh took the tank members of each group and planned out a rotation to defend against attacks, though their group’s main job was to defend the healers, and the others were secondary. Matt was obviously in this team.

As for the final team, Loyiso took charge of the healers, John having gone to join him (giving off a false cry of happiness at ‘meeting my people!’) and thus making the final group.

I was without a doubt the highest levelled in the entire group, at level 50, and my lightning magic was extremely suited for damage, but against fire it wasn’t as good as it could be.

As for the second highest levelled, Albert and Ichiro both sat at level 49, very close to my own level… considering I gained extra experience when I killed something, I could only assume that if I did not have that boost, I’d be either level 48 or 49, so their strength was serious. The other leaders were all level 48 though.

We all took charge of groups based off our own fighting styles actually, as I had begun to become a plain magic user lately with how much Wisps were fought on the way here, Loyiso was a healer, and so on.

“Alright, let’s go.” I voiced to my team and in response I got a grumble of acknowledgement from the Russian and Saudi Arabian two, and the South African guy was still grumbling about missing his Ferrari 458 Italia on that video game… I sighed in worry as the gates were opened.

The grave was simple, much like one would expect in some creepy movie, there was fog, it was kind of dark, tombstones sat interspaced nicely, and there was a tree or two with no leaves on them… it was a good atmosphere for a ‘guide to the afterlife’ Demon Lord.

Then it appeared, first a small blip of purple in the centre of the graveyard, before suddenly bursting outward in a blaze of heat and then shrinking slowly to the size of a normal Wisp.

Except that when it had shrunk to the size of a normal Wisp, some of the flame had not shrunk… the flames that hadn’t joined it in that tiny compression, were in the form of two gigantic hands, the flame writhing and moving as one would imagine water moving around in a glass.

“Welcome, to my home humans… I am Ignus, Demon Lord of the Dead Flames.” The voice wasn’t like Blade’s, or Chronos’… instead, this voice was melodic, as if the soft crackle of a twig as it snapped while being burnt, but also like tiny bells tolling.

“Hm… there are more of you then expected… no matter. If the Tower allows it, it must be true. You’ll join me either way… I’ve already prepared your graves after all.” I felt slightly disturbed as I noted that there were in fact exactly thirty six graves inside this smaller graveyard… at least, thirty six tombstones.

“Still… the master Chronos was quite right in his decision to repurpose the Tower into a bridge… it allows us to communicate to you all, and you to communicate to each other… Babel was an amazing invention, wasn’t it?” I widened my eyes in surprise at his words… wait, the Dungeon was in fact the Tower of Babel? The tower built to reach God before God forced us all to use different languages? And the Tower itself was what allowed us to speak and understand the same language… that made sense in some strange manner I guess…

“Yes… Ancient Babylonian is what you humans called it… we demons call it by another name. we call it Soul Speak… for that is all that it is. Our souls are communicating in the purest form at this moment… yes, in this one moment, where I can feel all of you so near… yes, you will all die.” It seems the ‘opening’ had finished, as it floated closer, though it wasn’t so fast that it could catch up to us straight away, as it swung its massive arm and a heat wave rushed to us, only for a wall of six people with giant shields to stop said wave.

Looks like the fight had begun, and with a bang, so to speak. I grinned as lightning crackled between my fingers, as I moved my arm, my temporary teammates noticing my movement.

“Into position, keep a tank between us and Ignus, the other team gets first attack, as their attack ends, we begin ours, if you can, prepare your magic as we move, let’s go.” My team seemed surprised by the rapid fire orders as we moved and I frowned… right, this isn’t my team, it’s just some people who have similar skills working together… they weren’t used to my order method after all.

Ignus attacked scarily quickly for having arms that massive, and they didn’t exactly stay ‘arms’ either, I noted as I saw one arm shift into the shape of a hammer, the arm itself thinning and the hand area getting bigger as it attempted to smash a defender into the ground, and said defender (one of the British) promptly moved out of the way, a wise choice, even if fire had no actual ‘weight’ to it, any attack from above typically has more weight than it should.

“Its attacks are annoying… duck.” I said absently as I moved into a crouch, a stray fireball sent in our direction as at least they followed that order quick enough to keep them alive… I absently noted that Emilia had shot a pressurized blade of water at Ignus (it was a powerful spell that didn’t have a rank because it was adjustable, though she couldn’t cut through steel with it yet, I had seen her cut through a piece of thin wood) which made the demon scream as its arm ‘fell off’ and suddenly snapped back together.

“Well, we already knew it was weak against water… alright, first volley is going.” I noted Albert holding a knife with a gem of some kind in the hilt as he pointed it towards the Demon Lord.

Albert and Michael were both unlucky with this fight, as both had a disadvantage in a fight against something that was practically permanently on fire, but Albert did have a plan… a simple one really.

Wet wood is really difficult to burn. As evidenced when what looked like a miniature sword made of thorns grew over Albert’s arm (originating from the gem, which should be a Petty Soul Gem elementally aligned to wood using his own magic. No one else would be able to use it as well as he could, a personal weapon I guess) and a water mage in the group doused the thorn sword with water before creating a whip made of water drawn from a pouch at his side.

It seems that group of magicians were more ‘physical’ magicians than my side. Their attacks blasted at the Demon Lord (I had warned them that Michael wouldn’t be that suited to attack said Demon Lord, but they worked around that by creating Ice tips for his arrows… literally, they were made of jagged ice)

The moment their volley ended, Albert looked to me and nodded as I waved my arm forward. “Now, attack!” I charged my own attack, and I frowned a bit even as I gathered the energy… using this attack was next to impossible most of the time, and if I used it I would be doing no magic for at least three minutes, but the amount of damage it did was worth it, everyone agreed after I had explained it… as for the spell… remember False Lightning? Well this was a slightly more complicated, but less exhausting version.

[Spell: Fake Bolt (F)]

My Nameless Dagger spun like a buzz-saw between my hands as five currents of electricity passed between my hands, speeding up the attack as the rest of the magic attacks were released, and I suddenly pushed my palms outward as if flicking something, and my Dagger flew off… luckily no one was on the other side, I had warned them about that. Even more lucky was that I hit Ignus straight through the centre, it was a very accurate spell. Ignus screamed as its arms convulsed, switching between massive and smaller, as the hole in its centre healed…

Then two more arms appeared facing the opposite direction, and all four smashed the ground around it, surprising us quite a bit as it suddenly had four avenues of attack as Ignus roared at us… there were no words to it, just the roar of the flame.

I panted at my dagger reappeared in my hand, and I hated how my magic reserves were now roughly only at fifteen per cent of their max, and using just about any spell would bring me way too low to the pass-out threshold, which for me was around ten per cent or five.

“Alright, I’m going to be out of magic for a while… dodge!” I advised my team as a fist tried to smash into the centre of our group and we scattered a bit… I also noted that the fist was smaller than it used to be… so it wasn’t actually getting more, it was just redistributing itself. A fine difference between the two existed.

My ‘team’ met up once more and we moved again, some of the stray fire hit us, and while I was better off than the others due to my heat resistance, some of us needed a bit of healing though, so we circled around slowly to the healing group…

The battle was going fairly quickly, due to the size of our group, as well as how we blocked and shot spells periodically… even the melee users who didn’t have high magic stats were fighting well, using magic clad weaponry showing that it was a common tactic… I was very impressed with Ichiro’s wind blade version that cut scarily well.

“Ah, this should be ending now… how much do you think your attack damaged it?” I absently noted John ask as he healed me, before focusing some healing on a tank who had some burns on his hands from holding his shield (a structural flaw there, it seems I’d have to study how to keep one part of metal at a stable temperature and the rest could heat up)

“Hm, judging by how Ignus is moving around… I’d say he’d die if I hit him with that once more… that attack must have taken a good thirty per cent or so. And considering my magic is almost full, I could-” before I could continue my words, I widened my eyes and shot up, running towards Emilia, who I noted had stumbled due to some of the dirt from the graveyards floor, and Ignus seemed to capitalize on it, aiming an arm which had converted itself into a scythe at her during her stumble…

“At least one! At least one will die!” I felt myself practically snarl at its words while I moved… I wouldn’t make it, she was too far, and I couldn’t-

We will.

And suddenly my sight blurred and I widened my eyes as my arm brought up my Nameless Dagger to block the giant scythe… It seems I had used both Flow Step and Blink (the recently gained skill from my Cloak) to teleport into the path of the blade… so that’s why I felt like I had to be level fifty…

Still didn’t detract from the fact that I was not a tank, and not suited for defending against an attack from something this big, to protect Emilia…

No, my body chose the right action… the only thing missing was-

“Aqua Blade!” I smirked even as the water melded onto my blade and somehow pressurized it a bit, parting the flames as they approached… Emilia’s gotten really good with that spell…

“No, no, you must die, you all die!” at this point the Demon Lord Ignus was erratically moving around and convulsing as I felt something click, and my smirk was well deserved as I popped up right next to its core, in the gap between the two sets of arms, and I absently noted what looked to be a screaming face within that core… well, no matter what it really was, it was an enemy.

So with the water slightly evaporated, but still coating my blade, I added a little something… namely, Spark Edge. Now think for a second, in this split second… metal conducts electricity very well. Water conducts it even better than some metals. What happens when you send electricity through both at once and use that to cut something using slightly pressurized water covering sharp (admittedly blunt compared to others, but still sharp) metal?

The answer was a spell I couldn’t even use yet as I didn’t have an affinity with water at all, but the idea of mixing elements was so inviting…

[Spell Created: Liquid Lightning (D)!]

Luckily I was only paying for half the spell, and through my Flow Step induced speed I noted Emilia seemed surprised at the notification that she likely noticed as well… then I quickly stabbed the Demon Lord that almost killed her in what might be its face… its screams were even louder up close.

“I won’t! I won’t die! I can’t die! I must guide them, guide them to the path!” I felt repulsed as I twisted the blade making its flames all evaporate except for a flame covered skull.

“No one needs your path.” I said quietly as I pushed my other hand against the back of the hand holding my Dagger, and ripped it out of the skull, killing the Demon Lord instantly.

[Level up!]

Of course I did. I did end up sighing when I noted that there were drop items… I still hadn’t used that weapon Blade left… mostly because while it was good, I couldn’t use it yet… until now. It required a J rank to even use after all…

“So… how are we going to split it?” yeah… this was going to be very annoying… hopefully someone else will know what to do about this international incident…

It wasn’t as important to me as the strange burning sensation in my heart that I felt as Ignus died… I had felt that sensation before, as I killed Blade… but what the feeling was, I did not know at this point…