“They won’t be approaching us.” the prince said as he and Ajax stood around the fire. “You can keep cooking that would more likely turn them away since they only eat raw meat.”

After the fight with the big foots they finally decided it was time to make camp. Unlike the previous floors that all passed in a couple hours at best this floor would be one Ajax was going to fully clear out all by himself so they were going to be spending at least two or three days here.

“How do you know that?” Ajax asked.

“Monsters inside the dungeon mimic their behavior on the outside.” the prince said. “Or the ones outside mimic the behavior of the ones inside depending on where you stand on the theory that everything is a descendant of a being from the dungeon.”

“Wendigos would hunt us in a forest.” Ajax said, briefly remembering what he once skimmed over on the creatures.

“If you were alone maybe.” The prince said. “Wendigos are the werewolves' weak, sickly and twisted cousins. They don’t like fire and they always try to separate their prey, with two of us here and a fire the only way they would attack is if I started using my stealth skills.”

“Had to deal with some before?” Ajax asked.

“Yes, both inside and outside the dungeon.” the prince said. “The dungeon makes everything more aggressive but it doesn’t change them that much.”

“Why did you volunteer for this?” Ajax extended a plate of food.

“You are perhaps the most talented person ever.” the prince answered as he took a bite. “Hey this is actually pretty good. Besides your talent you are different from everyone else with potential I met.”

“How so?” Ajax was curious.

“Everyone else I met were either already past level one hundred when I met them or they were just like me when I grew up, surrounded by a protective bubble.” the prince explained. “I feel like watching you will give me a chance to make a breakthrough, if nothing else it’s an easy time to be earning good will from you, something that will become a lot harder as you grow in power.”

After he finished eating Ajax got started on putting up elaborate defenses. “Why are you doing that?” the prince asked.

“Because I’ll have you start using those stealth skills once I am done.” Ajax answered. “I won’t have anyone with me to keep watch so I need to practice setting up temporary denses for when I rest.”

“That’s a pretty good idea.” the prince acknowledged. “So how do you plan to clear out this floor?”

“What do you mean?” Ajax was confused. “I’ll just go around and clear as much as I can before using the obelisk to clear out whatever remains.”

“That’s the slowest safe option you have, not only that but its not even the safest of them all.” the prince complained. “You’ve been doing too many crafting and training delves. It doesn’t help that the team you joined when you first started delving in that backwater dungeon faced little to no threat on that floor.”

“Why’s that?” Ajax got defensive.

“You missed out on any floor progression delves.” the prince answered. “It’s what pushes the adventurers who make it to the top and hit the wall where they are getting restricted from entering the dungeon strong enough to compete with noble grown talent. It’s also what kills most adventurers as they try the climb.”

“I’ve faced hard floors before.” Ajax said as he thought back to the magma floor where they almost got soaked in lava by salamanders.

“It’s different.” the prince said. “Without backers adventurers are forced to go into bad floor matchups, not only that but they also go to floors where they are outleveled just because the spot was open and they can’t afford to just retreat and hope for a better theme next week.”

“But what’s that got to do with now?” Ajax asked as he conceded the point, he did remember a few delves where after a few hours on the final floor the team simply decided to retreat since the risk was too high.

“You haven’t learnt to use the restrictions and environment of a floor to their fullest.” the prince says. “You can scout pretty well, but what can you tell me about this environment and how it relates to clearing the floor?”

“We are in a dense forest.” Ajax started. “Besides the regular animals we have run into two more humanoid monsters meaning there likely isn’t anything else. No birds of prey. Great for hit and run tactics.”

“That is pretty much a textbook answer.” the prince nodded. “But you left out a few key details, let me know if you see an answer when I frame it for you a bit differently. You are in a zoned off, dry forest. You are facing physically enhanced monsters that mostly hunt in packs yet are antagonistic to one another. The forest is filled with mana infused trees, and none of those monsters are resistant to fire, most are in fact weak to it.”

Ajax’s eyes went wide at that. Was the prince suggesting that he start a massive forest fire? Not only that but it could actually work, there was no need to worry about the fire spreading too far the floor was closed off. Sure the mana in the trees would make them resistant to weak fire but once he started a fire with a powerful flame it would also consume that man infused wood to keep its strength and spread.

“See, that’s what you are missing, what almost every powerhouse raised by a noble house is missing. They wouldn’t consider such a strategy because it is too risky when the floor is of appropriate strength for the party or because it would cost them almost all their profit from it when they are with high level watchers.” the prince said with a grin.

“I’m starting to be glad you volunteered.” Ajax said with a smirk. “But I’ll need you to start using your stealth skills.”

“You call this a defensive position?” the prince said looking around at the small amount of defenses Ajax set up.

“No point training when I have as much time as I want to set it all up.” Ajax responded. “With you here I can afford to see how well I can defend myself when my preparations are more bare bones.”

With a simple nod the prince completely disappeared from Ajax’s senses and once he jumped out of his line of sight he lost him completely. All there was to do now was wait. Ajax took a few of the stockier branchez and used his magma mana to set the ablaze. Just because he was expecting an attack didn’t mean he would give up the advantage that a big fire would give him.

The snap of a twig close by woke Ajax up. It couldn’t have been more than twenty minutes since he had fallen asleep and now the forest was eerily quiet. The fire was the only sound he heard but he still decided to get up to take a look. Him getting up seemed to be the signal that they were discovered as the wendigoes attacked.

The monsters were tall, easily nine feet if they weren’t standing so hunched over. Their bony frames certainly not what Ajax was expecting as he could see they had almost no muscle on their bodies. What they did have was two rows of sharp triangular teeth, a prominent nose and claws on their hands and feet.

Despite their wiry frames deep claw marks could be seen on the trees as they launched off them and towards Ajax. A quick application of [Mana Syphon] easily made Ajax a match for them in speed and gave him a solid step up in strength. First things first however Ajax had to make sure he wasn’t surrounded.

He charged straight for the closest wendigo, looking to break out of the encirclement by forcing the fight to turn into a one on one for a quick moment. The action didn’t seem to surprise the wendigo but the small pit managed to get him to stumble.

A clean swipe of his magma infused axe easily cut its way through the ribcage and made it a good halfway through the torso before it lost its momentum, the blow killed the monster but Ajax knew he didn’t have much time as he threw the corpse behind him and turned to face advance further away from the remaining four enemies.

Much to Ajax’s surprise none of the other four wendigos were charging for him as he turned. Instead they had all latched on to the body of their fallen packmate and started tearing into it looking to devour it.

It was surprising to Ajax to see how the flesh ripped and blood and organs were spread. Worst of all however was the smell of burnt flesh that came from the wound that killed the monster. Despite having butchered things before the combination of the gory sight and smell made him hesitate for a moment.

That time all the other wengoes needed to strip the little flesh and skin from the body though none of them approached the charred part of the corpse. Even with the stick thin body shared to all four Ajax could see their stomach now bulging out of their abdomens. This was when he felt the curse mana radiate from them.

Their red eyes started to glow and their stomachs started to shrink as they all growled and charged towards Ajax once more, this time faster than before. The growl knocked Ajax out of his disgust-induced shock and he used a good amount of mana to freeze the ground around him.

Despite mana's weird interaction with physics there were some aspects that he could still use to his advantage so long as a skill didn’t actively reverse the process. The high speed and low weight of the wendigos meant they quickly slipped on the ice and Ajax took the opportunity to kill two of them right there.

Much like before the wendigos fully ignored him and went straight for the new corpses. This time however Ajax wasn’t surprised by that reaction so he quickly brought out his bow and killed one with an arrow to head.

The final wendigo reacted quickly to the range attack, Ajax’s second arrow only managed to ember in the monster’s thigh as it jumped away, the curse quickly consuming the new food and turning it into more power was simply not enough as Ajax’s hammer made swung with a metal augmentation broke clean through the arm the monster was using as defense and crushed the skull.