XVI

Exploits

『Emperor's Office』

“An airplane?” asked the emperor as he looked at the person who suggested the word.

“It's a machine that allows a person to fly in the sky. We already know that flying magic isn't a thing since someone, Riley, tried and failed.” replied Isaac.

The emperor thought for a moment, “We have eagle riders, which are our elite scouts and soldiers. Are airplanes superior to them?”

“Well,” begun Vincent, “we can start with early version aircraft which used wood and cloth for its body. Engines will be a problem, but we can miniaturize this steam engine and refine it to use a different power source. Probably.

“As for superiority. In our world, we have, like, 100,000 aircraft. Most are light aircraft and cargo and transport. They don't have weapons. But the military aircraft have guns, cannons, missiles and bombs. In World War II, there were hundreds of thousands of bombs dropped that destroyed cities.”

“Basically,” interrupted Riley, “if we can make gunpowder, guns and bombs, we can stick them onto the planes, teach your people how to fly them and win wars like nobody's business.”

“Gunpowder? Guns? Bombs? What exactly do these words mean?” asked the emperor, overwhelmed by the new information he has received.

“Oh right, um… not-magic that goes 'boom'.” Vincent pantomimed with his hands as he explained what each item does.

“Do you know how to make it?” the emperor excitedly asked.

“Um, charcoal, sulfur and something something. I can't remember the last one.” replied Vincent.

“Saltpeter. No idea where to get it though.” added Chad, who had been listening.

“Right right, that. So we figure out where to get it and we can make gunpowder. Easy peasy.” Isaac replied.

The group discussed more inventions which could be created. From telescopes to paper, from cars to radio. The emperor became even more overwhelmed as he listened to their descriptions of these groundbreaking technologies. He was satisfied that he was able to learn of these and no longer rely on the 「Proficiomancer」despite his warning of not being able to give enough detail. He smiled inwardly as he realized the ossian threat will be stamped out soon enough.

☘ ☘ ☘

『S-Day +100』

『Imperial Villa – Vaticano』

“Sorry about last night. I was pretty knocked out.” I apologized to Alicia while we were sitting on a carriage taking us to the villa.

“Hm? Oh right, no worries. We still had sex last night.” she rebutted.

“While I was sleeping?” my eyebrow raised in suspicion.

“Yup, 'free use' goes both ways and I managed to cum 3 times. So thanks for a good ride onii-chan.” she smiled, glowingly.

“Uh-huh.”

We arrived at the villa and was greeted by both Saya and Illyria. Saya approached me first and gave me a kiss while wrapping her arms around my neck. The taste of fruits and honey lingered on her lips and tongue. When Saya and I separated, I pulled Illyria to me. She also seems to enjoy eating fruits and honey.

“Master, the bath is already prepared.” Saya said to me.

At least this time I'll be awake to enjoy it.

☘ ☘ ☘

Even though it was only a day, it was nice being able to feel them again. Waking up this morning without either Saya or Illyria made me feel lonely.

After our bath, Alicia and I took the magic chest Mk I and secluded ourselves away from Saya, Illyria and the servants. We checked and double-checked the room to make sure there was no recording device or hidden spyholes. Satisfied that the room was clean, we got to work.

I reached into the opened magic chest and pulled out a single bag from the stack of magic stones. It was large and heavy as it was filled with more bags of magic stones. Each smallish bag was filled with 100 identical magic stones of each type. 100「Mana Stones」, 100 「Distortion Stones」, 100 「Wind Stones」, etc.

With this, we managed to fill up an entire x250 stack slot.

There were also 8 slots of mixed magic stones bags. More magic stone bags were spread out in the other magic chests that were still with the caravan. Those were magic stones I had not fully sorted out.

From the 8 slots, I took out 10 bags of grain-sized 「Mana Stones」. Each bag was small and held exactly 1,000 「Mana Stones」. It was super fun counting those out.

Now with 250 slots of 100 「Mana Stones」, that made it 25,000 stones. This was just a small amount of 「Mana Stones」 that I had brought with me in case I wanted to do some enchanting. Including the now named 「Mana Grain」, I have a little over 25,250,000 points worth of stored mana. I still need to figure out how much of the other magic stones are worth.

〈Converted:

Magic Stone

「Water Stone」

+200 stored Mana〉

〈Converted:

Magic Stone

「Frost Stone」

+200 stored Mana〉

〈Converted:

Magic Stone

「Heat Stone」

+200 stored Mana〉

〈Converted:

Magic Stone

「Glow Stone」

+200 stored Mana〉

〈Converted:

Magic Stone

「Bright Stone」

+200 stored Mana〉

〈Converted:

Magic Stone

「Sun Stone」

+200 stored Mana〉

〈Converted:

Magic Stone

「Dye Stone」

+200 stored Mana〉

〈Converted:

Magic Stone

「Wind Stone」

+200 stored Mana〉

〈Converted:

Magic Stone

「Charge Stone」

+200 stored Mana〉

〈Converted:

Magic Stone

「Silent Stone」

+200 stored Mana〉

〈Converted:

Magic Stone

「Distortion Stone」

+200 stored Mana〉

〈Converted:

Magic Stone

「Float Stone」

+200 stored Mana〉

〈Converted:

Magic Stone

「Anchor Stone」

+200 stored Mana〉

Appraisal, celerity, amplifier and rage stones are rare and I could not justify converting it since all the other stones I had converted gave the same amount of mana. Converting 2 at a time only gave the equivalent stored mana of 1 item. Converting 2 items will also give the highest value item worth as far as I could tell. We would need to convert everything 1 at a time.

Being that it was a small item, it would convert in an instant. However, doing it 1 at a time will be extremely tedious. I know exactly what I want to purchase right now so I would not need to spend all my time converting. Just 600,000 stored mana and our dungeon crawl will be a breeze.

After I converted and queued up all my purchases, I realized it was already late. Our stomachs growled with thunderous fury with the madness of hunger.

“I can watch over our Grimoires, go ahead and be with your girls,” Alicia suggested, “I'll be fine. I know you miss them, but before you go… how about a quickie?” she smiled as she removed her shorts and positioned herself on all 4's.

Hungry or horny? Hungry and horny. I moved behind Alicia and removed my shorts as well. Food can wait.

☘ ☘ ☘

『S-Day +101』

『Imperial Villa – Vaticano』

I woke up to Alicia laying atop my now-awake body. Her back was bare and covered with sweat as I swept my arms around to hold her.

“Have… fun?” I asked her.

“God, yes. So good~.” she lifted herself up and handed me my medication and potions. “Go do your morning routine in the bath. I'll have the house servants prepare breakfast. I bought a bag rice.”

“Huzzah.” I smiled at the thought of having rice to eat again.

After the very relaxing and stamina draining bath, I joined Alicia in the office that we used in our seclusion. She had 2 bowls full of food. Rice, which she had purchased from the Grimoire shop, which had the scent of goodness, which had the texture of deliciousness, bacon and eggs. Even if I could not taste it, I still enjoyed the breakfast. She also had a pot of coffee ready. I had left the coffee and french press with Veronica and needed to repurchase another set.

“I organized everything before I went to bed.” she pointed to the neatly arranged items I had purchased. “I added more 「Mana Stones」 and changed the number of bullets so you have extra.”

x1 – semi-automatic sniper system with sling, stock and grip included. 150,000 mana.

x2 – 20-round capacity rifle magazines. 10,000 mana.

x1 – 15-round capacity pistol magazine. 5,000 mana.

x10 – 10 round boxes of 7.62x51 FMJ rounds. 500,000 mana.

x1 – 8x optical scope. 150,000 mana.

x1 – iron sights. 1,000 mana.

x1 – bi-pod. 8,000 mana.

x1 – suppressor. 2,000 mana.

x10 – high-intensity chem lights, x5 red color and x5 white color. 10,000 mana.

All in all, this cost me a total of 836,000 stored mana and 1000 skill points. The pricing still made little sense, pretty much no sense at all, but what sense I could make of it was that weight and complexity may or may not factor in pricing. A 1 gram pill costs 100 mana while a 1 kilogram bag of coffee costs 10,000 mana. However, a bi-pod that was less than half a kilogram costs 8,000 mana and the rifle that was around 7 kilograms only cost 150,000 mana. When I checked the prices of an ingot of copper, iron, mithril and orichalcum, the prices were vastly different.

The pricing scheme was fucking stupid.

Alicia purchased batteries for our flashlights and a few other things from her Grimoire. All that was needed now was to return to grinding in the dungeon. I would need to set up my optics inside the dungeon where no one would see. Also, before I start pouring skill points into my attributes, I want to level it up as much as I can without it.

☘ ☘ ☘

『Labyrinth II』

The number of vigilance warnings I received while we rode the imperial carriage caused me to look up various explosives in the Grimoire Shop. Dynamite and C4 was nice and cheap at 2,000 mana each, but the detonator and remote trigger for the C4 exceeded many millions of mana.

“Un, yes, I will just need a few tonnes of these and we can wipe this fucking city off the map.” I said determinedly to Alicia.

“And let people know about explosives? It's better to wait until we reach our new home before you start blowing things up.” she said, wet blanketly.

There was also the issue of carrying around the dynamite. Even though it uses clay or some other material to stabilize it, I was wary of how it would be affected by the hot weather of the area. Also, whether or not the electrical contact of the distortion field could detonate it. I put the though aside.

When we arrived at the 「Dungeon Guild」 lobby, we were able to get labyrinth II without any issues. The receptionist said that orkoss had spawned. No idea what that was, orcs? But I wanted to see if we could just breeze through each level in sequence. To do this, I would need to quickly fix up my rifle optics. Obviously, a carbine, shotgun or even an SMG would have been a better choice of weapon for the fairly 'narrow' quarters of the dungeon, but I liked my rifle.

I should have bought holsters.

Once we passed the guarded doors of the labyrinth, we proceeded to secure the area so I would have a place to work. I placed a few 「Mana Stones」 with a 「Bright Stone」 on top around me to illuminate the area. If I were to activate the 「Bright Stone」, it would give off light for about 1 minute before deactivating. Having the 「Mana Stone」 would let it continuously function.

Alicia did the same downrange to help me set up my sights. It did not take long to get the rifle adjusted to my preference. I chose not to fire a test shot so as not to alert the orc things. After collecting the magic stones, we proceeded into the labyrinth.

I must have looked ridiculous with my rifle, sidearm, sword, backpack, rucksack and side bags being worn over my armor. Not to mention I was still wearing sneakers. Steel-toed work boots would be a good idea.

We managed to make our way toward the end of the labyrinth without a finding anything, save for slimes. This was good as I needed to kill more for the quest and I wanted to collect more slime liquid. The slimes were simply picked up, stabbed with a dagger and placed into a leather bag that had been waterproofed with slime liquid… or slime lacquer? About 2 dozen were collected.

As we neared the treasure chest chamber, we found 8 silhouettes around the treasure chest. 2 were holding torches and we were able to partially see their appearance. We were careful to keep our distance and observe them.

Through my scope, I noticed they had greenish skin like the goblins. Almost twice as tall as a goblin and had large muscles with a wide jaw. Each 1 had different weapons. I could confirm a club of unknown material and a medium length sword. Another wore metal armor that I could see glinting off the torch light.

It looked like they were arguing around the chest as 1 managed to open it and retrieve something. The body obscured my view of what it was, unfortunately. Another silhouette tried to open the chest, but was unsuccessful. In its anger it started to hit the chest with a hammer of some sort.

It continued to bash the treasure chest until it screamed in pain and fell over. This alerted the others which terrified them. They began to back away from the chest toward our direction, but it seemed they have not noticed us.

I took a kneeling position and made my preparations. Safety was flipped off and a round was chambered. The moment the click sound was made, creatures took noticed and roared.

“Waaagh!” screamed the armored one.

Ah, that kind of ork. Holy shit we are going to be sued.

The scope was set at 4x magnification. I took aim and fired.

*bang*

I missed and hit 1 of the torch bearers on the left. The sight was off by a few millimeters. I readjusted my aim at fired once more.

*bang*

The armored ork was struck in the head even though I was aiming for the chest. The optic is really fucked. I fired once more hitting 1 on the arm. They were now close enough to make the scope useless.

Alicia used her flashlight to illuminate the creatures. They looked so gross.

I stood up and tilted the rifle, aiming through the iron sights. With my target lined up, I began firing.

*bang* *bang* *bang*

2 more were hit and fell forward. Alicia used a magic dagger, but it was repelled. This angered her enough to spawn 10 swords, all of which were able to stab into the creatures. Just as before, 1 was still alive and pinned to the ground by the daggers. Before I approached it, I picked up my 6 spent casings.

I could not understand the words it spoke so I simply killed it. Its skin was tougher than a goblin's and its muscles were larger. It and the others had varying heights between shorter than me or slightly taller. Very human-like.

With my Grimoire summoned and a 「Bright Stone」 shining, I checked the updates.

Achievements:

Slime Slayer:

Killed 10 Slimes +10 Skill Points.

Orkoss Slayer:

Killed 1 Orkoss +50 Skill Points (First of its kind).

Killed 2 Orkoss +10 Skill Points.

「Quest Complete:【Subjugation I】 | Information: Kill 10 of the same creature. [10/10] |

Slime: [10/10]

Rewards: 5,000 stored Mana, 100 Skill Points」

With the completion of this quest, 4 new quests appeared.

「Quest:【Subjugation II】 | Information: Kill 50 dungeon creatures. [7/50] |

Rewards: 10,000 stored Mana, 200 Skill Points」

「Quest:【Goblin Subjugation I】 | Information: Kill 10 of the same creature. [0/10] |

Rewards: 5,000 stored Mana, 100 Skill Points」

「Quest:【Orkoss Subjugation I】 | Information: Kill 10 of the same creature. [3/10] |

Rewards: 5,000 stored Mana, 100 Skill Points」

「Quest:【Slime Subjugation I】 | Information: Kill 10 of the same creature. [4/10] |

Rewards: 5,000 stored Mana, 100 Skill Points」

Too bad I could not clear the 「Animancer」 quest so I could have a freed up quest slot.

Instead of orcs or orks, they were called orkoss. Their gear and bodies were also copied or converted. The converted amount of mana was pretty low.

Stored Mana:

14,208

Skill Points:

1,832

Our Grimoires were despawned and we headed to the treasure chest. As we approached the chest, I was careful not to do anything that would upset it. Seeing firsthand how its security features work worked wonders to cure me of my curiosity of its hidden functions.

I received a shitty iron short sword while Alicia got a 「Heat Stone」. No 2 blues and a green, no dungeon tokens that can be traded to an NPC for dungeon armor or weapons, only a single item.

Ah, I didn't use my 「Mantra of Luck」.

Oh well, next time.

Last thing I did was touch the pad once more. Thankfully, and unfortunately, nothing happened. Whatever makes this thing work seems to have set it to a single use. But was it per session? If we left and reentered, would we be able to use it immediately or would it be on a cooldown?

We left the labyrinth and headed to the lobby hoping to nab a spot for labyrinth III.

☘ ☘ ☘

『Labyrinth III』

Lucky lucky. I made sure to cast 「Mantra of Luck」 before we entered the lobby. We lined up and waited patiently for our turn and, by sheer happenstance, labyrinth III became available. The receptionist said the ossians that had spawned were anuross.

As we walked down the corridor to return to the dungeon area, Alicia asked me a question. “If this labyrinth is also a cakewalk, do you think you can handle the next one solo?”

“Yeah, probably. Plans?” I asked.

“I want to explore the city and find a magic stone shop. I also want to find a new wife for you.” she said as if it was the most natural thing in the world to say.

“I have you and Minervina, I don't need a new wife.” I said, looking at her attempting to read her face.

She turned her head to face me as we continued walking, “Pfft, right, sure okay.” she laughed, “You're banging Saya and Illyria and you have Veronica, my best friend, on your list. She will most likely give you Cassia just to protect her virginity. Plus…”

“Plus?” I raised my eyebrow suspiciously.

“I wonder...”

“Alicia.”

“We're almost there. I want to finish this off and get something to eat.” she giggled as she started to walk ahead faster, almost skipping. “Don't forget your potions.”

Once we passed the guards, I removed my pistol. This time I wanted to use my pistol and magic instead of my rifle. The pistol was fitted with the suppressor and light. After drinking my potions, I boosted the both of us. I decided we would just rush in.

We positioned ourselves to the right wall of the labyrinth and moved at a light jog. Each time we passed a slime, we would pick it up and shove it in a spare bag. I would kill it later on.

This labyrinth felt longer than the previous ones. There were at least 30 curves and turns that we had passed. Along the way, we found more slimes covering rotting bodies. We ignored those. No idea if my sword would react to whatever chemical it composed of. We finally met our 1st opponents.

2 frog-looking ossians wielding spears appeared to be on patrol. 1 of the 2 was holding a torch. I signaled to Alicia to take the left 1 as I would take the right. She would use her standard daggers while I would use wind magic. It was the best for an ambush attack.

We synchronized our attack.

A blade of wind speed toward the chest of the frog-person with a dagger flying toward its friend. The 《Wind Cutter》 was a successful hit as it opened a large wound on the frog's chest. The dagger, however, skidded across the neck and pinged off the wall.

*CROAK!*

The frog's throat expanded and gave off a loud, very loud, warning scream. Alicia sent more daggers as well as swords against it. I sent another 《Wind Cutter》 to my target to finish it off. Their skin seemed to be stab-resistant, but weak against slashing attacks.

*CROAK!*

The faint echoing sound of a croak reached us a few seconds later. From the sounds of it, they were still a good distance away from us. I took my leather bag, flipped it inside out and forced both bodies and their items into it.

With our sneak attack having been foiled, I trained my pistol in front of me and prepared for reinforcements. We moved forward carefully to meet with the rest of the enemy. We found a suitably defensive spot where I could build an 《Earth Wall》. The material of the wall, however, seemed to resist magic and so I spent extra mana in order to create the wall. I built it just tall enough to reach our waist.

Footsteps could now be heard in the distance. I took a handful of 「Bright Stones」 and threw it as far out in front of us as I could. Our firing line was now lit.

We attacked as soon as they appeared. I took aim at the 1st one to appear and opened fire.

*bang* *bang* *bang*

1 down. At this range accuracy would be lowered, but the targets had fairly wide bodies.

*bang* *bang*

Another down. Alicia, as well, sent blade after blade to repel the monsters. In an attempt to flank us at our undefended left flank, they began to hop in an erratic pattern making it difficult to deliver a critical hit.

I switched my pistol light to strobe in order to disorient them. In between gunshots, I would launch 《Wind Blades》, 《Wind Cutters》 and 《Fireballs》.

“Reloading!” My kill count hit 5 before I needed to reload. Because the 2nd magazine was brand new, the spring's tension was still high and it could only hold 14 rounds.

Alicia was able to hold them back with multiple shields. She attacked with everything she could. Spears, swords and daggers flew and stabbed into each frog. I followed up with more gunfire and spells and the bodies began to pile up. Seeing this, a few began to retreat.

《!》

Before we could finish them off, a warning came from above. 8 frogs were clinging to the walls as 1 jumped down and collided with Alicia. Another collided with me.

A 《Gust》 was able to push it away which was followed up with multiple 《Wind Cutters》. Alicia used her shields to force hers away. We were able to recover and retaliate. My last 2 rounds hit 2 frogs as they jumped toward us. The remaining 4 followed the others and retreated.

The 「Bright Stones」 had long lost its power as the darkness covered their retreat. Numbers unknown.

We took refuge behind the wall I had made and recovered. Potions were taken to recover. I could hear the flopping of slimes as they gathered for the bodies. There were at least 20 that littered the ground.

“You okay?” I asked Alicia who was taking deep breaths.

“Fine. Chest hurts from their bullshit dropkick.” she replied between breaths while clutching her chest. “What's that shit on your arm?”

Looking down, I noticed 5 toothpick sized darts in my right arm. I checked the rest of my body and found another dart on my neck. The darts attached to where I was not wearing armor. Poison darts?

Whatever, I’m fine.

“Were you hit by darts?” I asked, knowing she did not have my resistance to poisons.

“Nope, I had the shields covering me.”

Confirming that she was okay, we got ready. We could not waste time as the frogs would dig themselves in and make attacking them difficult. Alicia gathered the weapons while I gathered their bodies with my small magic bag. They took up multiple slots as they had different armors, body sizes or skin colors. I also gathered some of the slimes that showed up.

18 dead frogs were collected.

With my pistol empty, I would use my rifle since it still had a fresh magazine. I would also use magic and my sword as backup. Last thing I picked up were my spent casings using 「Electromagnetism」 and the 「Bright Stones」 I had thrown.

We moved forward with Alicia's flashlight leading the way.

Arriving at the treasure chamber, Alicia swept left while I swept right. Captured torches and 「Bright Stones」 were thrown out to light up the area.

The left and right side of the room was clear. All of the remaining frogs were gathered around the treasure chest desperately trying to get it to open. We attacked.

The clang of metal, gunfire and croaking noises filled the room. 11 frogs were now dead.

I collected their bodies and gear as well as cleaning 3 more fucking darts from my neck and arm. Now that this was finally over, we went over to the treasure chest to collect our loot.

The items I received were a scepter, about as long as my forearm, and a small round metal plate with some inscriptions etched in the center. This was a 1st time getting more than 1 item. Alicia received 5 rolled up papyrus scrolls and 1 rolled up parchment scroll.

☘ ☘ ☘

『Dungeon Guild – Taberna』

The room we had used last time was already taken, but we were able to rent a different room. Same quality. I was already tired and wanted to get some sleep so I would have to do the copies and conversions tomorrow, but I killed the slimes that were in the bag. While Alicia was in the bath, I ate while checking my stats.

Achievement:

Anuross Slayer:

Killed 1 Anuross +80 Skill Points (First of its kind).

Killed 16 Anuross +128 Skill Points.

Health:

338↑/1000

Stamina:

164↑/1000

Mana:

215↑/1000

Life Force:

732↓/1000

Strength:

29 → 30

Intelligence:

36

Precision:

38 → 39

Wisdom:

37 → 38

Dexterity:

31 → 32

Willpower:

28 → 29

Endurance:

36 → 37

Perception:

44 → 45

Toughness:

31 → 32

Charisma:

33

Resistance:

30 → 33

Luck:

69

Health Recovery:

11

Stamina Recovery:

11

Mana Recovery:

35

Life Force Recovery:

11

Skill Points:

1,584

Stored Mana:

1,287

Status Effects:

Poisoned (Resisted)

So it was poisoned darts. I should see if there are any antidotes available.

Hurray natural resistance.

And lastly, my updated quests.

「Quest:【Subjugation II】 | Information: Kill 50 dungeon creatures. [45/50] |

Rewards: 10,000 stored Mana, 200 Skill Points」

「Quest Complete:【Slime Subjugation I】 | Information: Kill 10 of the same creature. [10/10] |

Rewards: 5,000 stored Mana, 100 Skill Points」

「Quest:【Slime Subjugation II】 | Information: Kill 25 of the same creature. [15/25] |

Rewards: 10,000 stored Mana, 150 Skill Points」

☘ ☘ ☘

Alicia was taking a long time and I had nothing much else to do. I took out my pistol and rifle and began reloading the magazines. While doing this I was also browsing gun holsters and boots. As my attention was on the Grimoire, added to this my drowsiness, I dropped a few 9mm bullets attempting to load them into the magazine.

3 bullets fell, 1 falling on the floor and 2 falling on the Grimoire page. Since I had already copied the 9mm bullet, I figured nothing would happen.

〈Copied: x2 9mm Full Metal Jacket Round +5 Skill Points〉

Okay, yeah, let's exploit the fuck out of this.