Unfortunately, putting the collar on Ian did nothing. Since he owed no debt, he immediately tore it off. He did throw a punch at me, but my stats were so high I was able to avoid it and punch him in the diaphragm. If he had used a skill from the Brawler class I might not have been able to do anything, but since he didn’t he lost to my AGI and STR. He fell to his knees, gasping for air.

Since I couldn’t free them by becoming their owner, I called out my time vault and took everything out. Before I could gift my leet to the girls, however, an unarmed, hachigane wearing Lola had already traded enough to the two-armed Reena to pay off her debt and both pulled their collars off.

“Oh Kyuu… your time wizard powers are SUPER cool. Reena even got her arm back!”

“Lola… what are you talking about? Where did you get all that money?!”

“Haven’t figured it out Reena? I went back in time!”

“How do you know our names?” Reena asked seriously.

“Eh!?”

“Did your magic not affect the whole party? I thought it was strange I had to give her money to pay off the debt.”

“Ah… Lola… Reena wasn’t with me when I transferred. Come to think of it… what were you doing? How do you remember?”

“Dunno. After I evolved my class, I was crazy sleepy so I went back to the inn. The cottage door was still there, so I slept in the big bed. When I came out of the door, the next thing I knew I was standing here watching this scene play out.”

Maybe the cottage is in a separate time-space?

I handed the Imp’s Revenge back to Lola. I also handed Reena her equipment, which she took with a look of shock on her face. Finally, I appraised the greatsword the boss dropped.

[Great Prismblade (+25 Piercing/Slashing/Blocking, Imbue: Elementary Magics)

Oh! That’s great! I guess that’s the difference between the second floor drops and the eleventh. Still though, my best haul was on the first floor boss for some reason.

“Oi! Kyuu! What the heck happened here?!” Lola called out to me in a panic from the edge of the summoning arena. I walked to her and took a look at the cityscape before me. Her confusion was completely warranted. After all, the entire city had changed to become beautiful. Every building had something unique about it, there was a variety of decorations instead of the same rehashed potted plant over and over, and even the layout of the city changed. I don’t know how I didn’t notice it while falling from the sky, but the castle sat at the top of a huge hill, with a cliff over a huge lake behind it. Going doing the hill there were huge, beautiful mansions with large front yards or gardens in front of them. Then there were the regular houses and inns, which had different color roofs and even shapes. Their gardens were much smaller, but still unique to each house.

After that was where we were currently standing. There was the summoning colosseum, shops, restaurants, and the Gateway. Down the hill further was a variety of warehouse sized complexes with sometimes buildings, sometimes fields before a small house, or even just rows of beehive shaped smelters and forges.

Finally, the biggest change? There were people. Thousands upon thousands of them. Some of the guilds had over a thousand disciples in rows practicing their forms or slinging spells about. The bazaar was no longer a drab expanse with the same fifty people standing perfectly still waiting for you to buy their wares or kebabs. It was bright, colorful, and overwhelmingly busy. At the Gateway, there was a line to enter the labyrinth with various groups yelling out ‘one more damage dealer!’ or ‘we need a healer!’.

I guess Enigma took my recommendations to heart… though how did he do that so quickly? He only had like… five seconds after we stopped talking. Well, this is the power of a god we’re talking about.

“Lola, Reena, I’d like to go test out my new class, so I’m going to go into the labyrinth by myself. Want to meet back here in three hours? You could try to powerlevel Reena while I’m gone?”

“Ah… no point. We might only encounter five or six enemies in that time period, and we’ll certainly get too lost to come back in only three hours. We’ll wait until you’re finished here. With your mapping we’ll level way faster.”

“You’re really going to need to explain what is going on, Lola.”

“Ah! That should take a couple hours. For starters… I’m a level 17 Galaxy Mage now…”

I walked towards the Gateway as Reena about pooped herself hearing level ‘17’.

The line seemed like it wasn’t moving at all from afar, but as soon as I got in it, it seemed to start back up. I was half expecting a quest notification to pop up and tell me I had to do something to use the Gateway.

Ah! Quests! I’ll have to tell Enigma we need those next time. Or a bounty board, or missions, or an adventurer’s guild or something. There is no point to this game right now other than exp, leet, and loot.

When it was my turn to enter the Gateway, I called out for the eleventh floor.

The orcs were the last enemies I had encountered, so they were freshest in my memory. Besides, they give 21 exp a kill. I only need 10 right now to level. 1050 exp was needed for level 7, and I can get exactly that amount after clearing the floor. Though I did complain about the difficulty, I wonder if Enigma tweaked that as well?

When I entered the dungeon floor, I immediately opened my map.

So far, the place looks the exact same. The beautification was only for the outerworld?

There was a red dot somewhat nearby, so I ran to it, pulling out my shiny new greatsword.

Oh! Did I get any new skills with the class?

[Name: Kyuu

Class: Level 1 Hexblade

EXP : 1/10

Age: 15 (30)

HP: 95 MP: 300 STR: 28 AGI: 31 VIT: 27 INT: 66 MND: 66

Spells: Anchor Moment (10 MP), Recall Moment (3000 MP), Time Vault (20 MP/Minute), Time Cottage (1000 MP), Summon Slime (Level 1 Guppy, 15 MP + 3 MP/Minute), Elemental Cleave (10 MP)

Equipment: Great Prismblade (+25 Piercing/Slashing/Blocking, Imbue: Elementary Magics), Slime Battery (800/5000 MP)]

Elemental Cleave? I’ll just have to try that out on the first enemy. I’ll also need to experiment and figure out what the elementary magics are. Hopefully at least a fireball and a heal. Eh, I’m sure Lola knows what they are.

The orc was quite a bit meaner looking than what I remembered they looked like from an hour ago in the previous timeline. It was armed with a wicked looking hatchet and a buckler, with various bits of metal attached around its shins and chest. I summoned Guppy for backup and charged at the monster with glee in my heart. Despite what others might say, melee combat is a man’s romance. That, and apparently having a harem in an alternate world... Or so I’ve been told.

The orc roared with spittle flying out towards me. I definitely don’t remember them doing anything like this before… maybe Reena just took them out too quickly for me to ever notice…?

There is something important to note about this coming sword fight. Despite years of playing video games that have swordsman in them, I am not also a swordsman. Who would have thought, right? But, I was hoping with my high stats and my Guppy backup, the monster would fall to me without me getting injured. I was… slightly mistaken.

As it turns out, a level 1 swordsman is no match at all for an orc from the eleventh floor. I might have the stats of a level 17 spell caster, but I wasn’t trying to win by casting spells. Melee combat is a man’s romance, remember?

Charging forward, I slashed heavily over my head at the orc. It raised the buckler above its head and tilted its arm so that the greatsword glanced off at an angle. My nonexistent stance already broken, the orc buried its ax into my thigh. Screaming in pain, I had Guppy blast the orc with four ice lances and then follow up with an imp-pale. As it turns out, an orc from the eleventh floor is no match at all for a level 1 Slime powered up with a level 17 spellcaster’s stats.

You’ve gotta be frickin kidding!!

“Come on… be able to heal!”

Activate Heal!

Holding the Great Prismblade in one hand, and holding my other hand over the wound on my leg, I activated the heal spell and felt relief wash over me.

Good, apparently ‘heal’ is considered an elementary magic. Of course, what is even the point of having an HP stat if I just get crippled everytime I get hit? My HP had dropped down to 13/95, but I only ever felt pain in my leg… this is more realistic than game-like, given that I’d quickly bleed to death with a wound like that in the real world.

I healed myself two more times and looked at my stats again. I got… 100 exp!? From one mob? Did I get more for soloing? Or is the orc just way stronger this time? I leveled up twice from just one monster! I looked at my map and found another nearby enemy. Guppy and I rush over to it and nuked it with icelances and fireballs before getting too close. Once it was staggered from the damage, I activated Elemental Cleave and sliced it in half with what appeared to be a frozen, flaming, stone reinforced lightning bolt. There was no resistance. Leveling again, I realized the needed amount of experience was higher than before to reach level 5. Before it was 300, but now it was 400.

Ah, I guess that was enigma’s balancing change… now, why did I get 100 exp from one monster when before it always gave 21?

Noting my MP was about half gone, Guppy and I rushed to the nearest red dots on the map. There were two together, so Guppy and I nuked them to submission before I charged in and stabbed them for the killing blow. They weren’t able to offer up any resistance. Having only about 40 MP left, I topped myself off with the Slime Battery, and rushed to the next group of enemies. Following this pattern, Guppy and I eliminated another 12 orcs before I ran out of MP and emptied the slime battery of charge. I dismissed Guppy and made my way back to the Gateway. The whole process took around 45 minutes, and I leveled back up to 8, learning a new skill called ‘Channel Elements’ that cost 15 MP per minute, and getting much higher stats for the effort. Sitting now at 360 MP, I regenerated 6 MP a minute, which was twice the required amount to have Guppy summoned. The drawback, if you could call it one, was that I now needed 600 more exp to level, which was way more than what was originally required to level up to 9.

Reena and Lola were sitting at a nearby café enjoying some drinks while various groups of adventurers would come bother them and ask Lola to join their party. Apparently, someone overheard she was a level 17 Galaxy Mage and the news spread around like wild fire. After all, if a 14 year old girl was already that high leveled, she was probably some sort of genius. Or… she level grinded for a week with the main character of an RPG, and her strength now defies logic. World ending cutscene magic spells are definitely in that girl’s future.

“So… I think the monsters are a little tougher than before, but they give way more exp. I need more to level now though, so… I’m not sure how easy it’ll be to level now. The orcs on level 11 give 100 exp a kill.”

“You… you fought by yourself on the eleventh floor? How is that even possible?”

“Eh? Is that really so impressive? You basically soloed the entire floor yourself in my last timeline. I only got like 16 kills in the past 45 minutes. You took out all 50 in two hours.”

“What!? You found 16 monsters in 45 minutes? That’s an insane encounter rate!!”

“I told you, Reena. It was worth waiting for him to come back.”

“Eheheh… I guess so. I totally doubted you.”

“Let’s take a rest, and charge up my MP, as well as the Slime Battery. Then, when we’re ready, let’s go wreck some monster.”

[Name: Kyuu

Class: Level 8 Hexblade

EXP : 1600/2200

Age: 15 (30)

HP: 150 MP: 360 STR: 45 AGI: 45 VIT: 40 INT: 75 MND: 75

Spells: Anchor Moment (10 MP), Recall Moment (3000 MP), Time Vault (20 MP/Minute), Time Cottage (1000 MP), Summon Slime (Level 1 Guppy, 15 MP + 3 MP/Minute), Elemental Cleave (10 MP), Channel Elements (15 MP/Minute)

Equipment: Great Prismblade (+25 Piercing/Slashing/Blocking, Imbue: Elementary Magics), Slime Battery (0/5000 MP)]