Chapter 46: Power-levelingDay 48

  “Sherry, the young noble didn’t have a Cord of Substitution so I promised to sell her our extra.”

  “That’s good, David. I’m happy to contribute. How much did you get?”

  “Two gold coins. That’s below the auction value, but the crystal costs less than half a gold coin.”

  “Of course, the auction price has to account for the expected failures. You can make a lot of money this way.”

  “We can. Sherry, if you ever decide to leave someday, you’d never have to worry about money as long as you’d be willing to work with me.”

  “Leave you? What do you mean?”

  “Keeping you to myself is obviously best for me, but it’s terribly selfish. We should also consider your feelings. What if staying with me will ultimately make you unhappy? Maybe you want children or something else I couldn’t provide. Sherry, I don’t want you to leave, but I won’t force you to stay.”

  “Um, you do know I’m your sve, right?”

  “Yes, my dear Sherry, for as long as you want.”

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  “We will once again be helping Lady Rutina in the byrinths. She’s quite far behind us so we’ll burn through most of the early floors with her today. She’s not my student, but I’d do the same for any new group member. The goal is for her to be strong enough to be accepted by one of the duke’s parties.”

  After breakfast, we warped near our usual spot near Nordselm. We were a little early so I spoke to Bernhard while waiting.

  “Good morning, Bernhard. The young noble we brought here earlier, Lady Rutina, has asked to come with us to the byrinth. I’ll try to get her used to talking to regur people. Luckily, she’s much nicer than that bad Knight, Brunhild.”

  “OK, David, I understand. We’ll be careful.”

  Rolf soon brought Rutina along with a few guards. It was quickly decided that Rolf would check back around noon. He then took the guards and left. Rutina stood before us in her Sacred Robe and other gear I had picked out for her. I pulled out the extra Cord and Rutina stuck out her right wrist — I should have expected that she’d be accustomed to having people dress her. She paid the two gold coins and I checked through the rest of her equipment.

  “Lady Rutina, I am no longer your teacher, so I pn to call you ‘Demoiselle’ — it is a polite term for a young dy, especially a noble.”

  “That’s an odd sounding name, but I do not mind. What shall I call you?”

  “Whatever you wish, as long as it isn’t ‘David’.”

  “Alright, ?Der Swearte?.” [1]

  (Hmm, ?Swearte? like ?Schwartz?? I’m not ‘bck’ but I am quite dark compared to an elf.)

  With the all-critical naming etiquette resolved, I brought the demoiselle over to my party.

  “Allow me to introduce our temporary party member, Lady Rutina. Of course, you’ve met everyone except for Sherry.”

  “Nice to meet you, Sherry.”

  “Yes, Lady Rutina.”

  “Hello, Marcus and Theo. Good to see you again, Alina. Are you here to help out at the vilge?”

  “No, My Lady, I’m a regur member of the party.”

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  “Does Der Swearte want the floor maps now?”

  Alina bursts out in ughter. “Sorry.”

  “Not yet, Demoiselle. We’ll make short visits to each floor to help you quickly catch up. Maps will be useful ter.”

  “Oh, I didn’t know you’d have to slow down that much.”

  “As a future leader, it’s good that you see every floor. Besides, we can go fast since you’re not in the vanguard. Just don’t burn through your mana too soon. Theo, let’s start near the waiting room for this one.”

  “Oh, is this the goat floor with the boss we can’t fight?”

  “Yes, Demoiselle, good memory. We have the necessary weapons so it’s OK. Just stay back a bit since we’ll move quickly.”

  After a few goats, we reach the boss room. Rutina looks nervous but walks in with us. We quickly enter and start to surround the spawn location as Pan appears. I rush up and get lucky enough to stun it with the first hit.

  “Demoiselle, it’s safe so go ahead and cast a fireball at it before we finish it off.”

  Rutina does so and looks so proud afterwards. I appud her enthusiasm but it gives me the impression that she hasn’t entered a byrinths since my lessons. If that’s the case, what the heck were those foolish nobles thinking?

  “Demoiselle, as we move to higher floors, it may be that we send off spells at the same time. That would be a problem if we both had to chant. Now that you know that I don’t have to, I won’t. That way, there’ll be no chance of interference.”

  Moving onto the second floor, we whacked trees for 15-20 minutes till I asked Theo to take us near the waiting room to defeat the floor boss. We followed this pattern till we’d burned through the first 10 floors of the byrinth. We only gathered the useful drops and kept moving quickly. Outside of the boss rooms, I mainly hung back with Rutina and fired off spells, pretty much like usual, actually.

  When it was time to go outside for a break, the obvious fw in my pn finally dawned on me — how can we check if it’s safe to exit without revealing my warp skill? Pee break. Yes, that’s the best solution. I crudely excused myself, popped out of the byrinth to a spot behind the bushes, saw that no ambush awaited us and popped back inside. That was so slick, I doubt that my party knew what I just did.

  We went to Bernhard’s hut where he was waiting for us. Rutina didn’t show any special reaction when Bernhard spoke Brahim, so she probably assumed he knew it as the Vilge Chief. If it had become an issue, I’d simply admit that we’d taught him ourselves. Of course, that’d seem a bit intrusive in a noble’s territory so I’m gd she didn’t ask.

  By this point, Rutina wasn’t acting much like a typical noble. She was even gracious enough to praise her former servant.

  “Alina, I had no idea you could fight like that. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone move so quickly.”

  “Thank you, My Lady. I’ve been practicing.”

  “And everybody, I know it must be a bother to slow down to my speed. I really do appreciate it.”

  “The next floor has ants that shoot poisonous spikes. Anyone who gets poisoned will need help taking the medicine. Of course, it’s best to avoid getting hit, but don’t panic if it happens to you.”

  “Um, should I maybe get poisoned to know what it’s like?”

  “Demoiselle, that’s a very good idea. Alina will help you.”

  “Not Der Swearte?”

  “Nope.”

  Theo took us to the 11th floor and we quickly encountered ants. The rest of us moved to the side while Rutina bravely stood her ground in the center. Thwack. A spike jabbed right into her leg. I had Alina wait for a moment to give the poison time to really kick in and then sent her over to perform the mouth-to-mouth pill transfer. Rutina was understandably shocked but didn’t resist. I sent a quick healing spell while she was distracted.

  “Oh, um, I, I couldn’t do anything. I almost… I mean, thank you, Alina.”

  Everyone respectfully allowed Rutina a few minutes to recover before continuing. Thankfully, she didn’t see Alina’s pervy little wink at me. Rutina didn’t get hit again. A little while ter, we jumped to the boss room and finished it off. In hindsight, this review of the first tier was actually a good exercise for us too.

  “Coming up next is the second tier of floors. These are generally tougher and many of the monsters are either sensitive or resistant to particur types of magic. In our party, Sherry compiles this information. Even with a new set of monsters, the st monsters of the previous floors can join in, as usual. In this case, it’ll be ants and cows.”

  Sherry recites the main points for the current floor and Rutina shoots a firestorm against a group of trolls. I concentrate more on sniping anything that comes too close. We spend a bit more time on this floor before we eventually skip to the end. After the boss, we do the same against the shrubs of the 13th floor.

  Rutina looked absolutely drained so we decided to stop. Honestly, we moved at a grueling pace. I took another fake pee break to check the surroundings and then we walked over to Bernhard’s hut to rest. Bernhard soon came over to share a little mead. Rutina’s choice of drink is none of my business though I quietly asked Sherry to use moderation, mainly for Bernhard’s sake.

  “Lady Rutina, how about every second day at the same time?”

  “Yes, Lord Moreau, if that wouldn’t be too much of an imposition, I’d appreciate that. Would you like to see the maps now?”

  This was a nice, bound volume with good quality paper. Each of the first 42 floors showed the main path as well as several side paths. It looks like most of the exploration of each floor was recorded here. The maps even indicated the floor’s main monster. This was a notable step above our maps of Curatar — well, at least compared to the cheap, disposable leaflets I bought.

  “Can we borrow this book?”

  “Of course.”

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  Back home, Marcus took care of our equipment, Sherry and Alina cooked, and Theo and I copied the maps. Theo drew rough copies while I codified them into a series of numbers before every left or right turn, like ‘3L 2R 1R 3L’ for ‘go straight and take the third left, second right, another right and third left’ and so on. My pn was to cross-off each step along the way or do this in short, easily-remembered sequences. We decided to skip the full maps in favor of the terse notation. I wrote the first copy and Theo checked it for errors.

  We got through many of the maps before getting called in for dinner. With all gathered, I decided to bring up an old topic.

  “Sherry’s helped me understand a little more about the nguages and different poputions. So far, it’s just a mess where completely different nguage families are right next to each other. Anyway, I realized that I haven’t really asked about your nguages. Alina, what do you speak besides Elvish and Brahim?”

  “That’s pretty much it. I sort of understand the local cat-kin but can’t speak it.”

  “If that’s the same near Bode, I’ve heard it but can’t understand at all. Theo, is Brahim your native nguage?”

  “No, but I started when I was quite young. I’m actually from isnds lying far to the south. We speak ?■ k■■n■ g■■s■■?.”

  “Can you transte that?”

  “Yes, it means ‘the common tongue’.”

  “Yep, that seems to be what everyone calls their nguage. Anyway, Marcus, what do you speak?”

  “I grew up near Vale where we speak ?r■n■s?. It basically means ‘talking’.”

  “That sure sounds different than Tuuli’s nguage.”

  “Well, a few other nguages are spoken in the area.”

  “Um, what? Not just Valic?”

  Well, that was foolish of me. Of course an actual city could have immigrants or a mixture of cultures. Adding in teleportation, this could be expanded greatly. Even if it’d be too expensive for trivial use, it’s cheap enough for a commoner to make a clean start, far from home.

  Theo suggests, “Boss, you might try talking to someone from the Emaro tribe?” [2]

  “Oh, what does their nguage sound like?”

  “I have no idea. I meant because they are known to move around a lot and work as innkeepers.”

  “Thanks, good suggestion.”

  Alina asks, “David, are you trying to find your family?”

  “Nope. There’s absolutely no chance that they’re anywhere near here. I initially wanted to know about the nguages to help with an escape pn. Now, I’m just doing it out of curiosity. Thanks for the help.”

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  After the nice dinner conversation and a bit of rexation, Alina took my pce to help Theo with the maps and I went out to prepare the baths. If we get a new, live-in party member, we’ll need another tub. Filling one more shouldn’t be a problem if I max my MP recovery during the process or go chop some trees in the byrinth.

  “Sherry, would you like your shield to be enchanted next? It could any skill you want.”

  “Well, if possible, I’d like to use a Slime crystal, but they’re pretty expensive.”

  “No problem, I have two on order so we’ll reserve one for you. Let’s increase Alina’s evasion for now.”

  Sherry fetched Alina and her shield and I pulled out the Bat and Kobold crystals. A moment ter, Alina had a Damascus-steel Shield of Evasion. Alina ran off in a cheerful mood — she really does like high-grade stuff but speed and dodging are her favorites. Still, when she gets the Assassin job, I’ll need to switch her to a better sword.

  “Thanks, Sherry. By the way, what are you crafting now?”

  “I’m almost done with leather so I’ll probably start with wood in a couple days.”

  “That’s great. When you move to wood, we should look at the leather goods you made to sort them by open skill slots.”

  “That would have sounded insane just a little while ago. Actually, it still sounds pretty weird.”

  “Soon, it’ll feel like everyone else is weird.”

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  [1] Elves speak Old Saxon. This is supported by connecting the names Harz, Brocken, Anhalt and Gosr with medieval geography. Elves are too conservative and isoted for the transition to Eastphalian.[2] In the LN, the innkeeper of the Vale Pavilion is an Emaro (v1 c4).