Part Twenty-three
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Today was the day I was going to experience the Tenth Floor and lower for the first time. In preparation for this, not only had Hestia updated me, but I also used all of my new Ability Pages and Chapters.
We had both agreed that the best thing for me to do at this moment was to use them more or less as I earned them. The stronger I was now, the faster I'd be able to grind out more of them.
Blair
Level 1
Strength D-549
Endurance D-549
Dexterity D-574
Agility D-591
Magic C-600
My Basic Abilities had risen substantially, between my improved growth and stat boosters, I had wound up with well over 300 points of growth across my abilities in just two days. And I had gotten another Class Augment too, which I used to improve my Healer Class once more, and received a new magic for my trouble.
Cleansing Light: (Short Chant Magic)
"Come, Divine Light. A soul is afflicted, a body worn. Grant unto us this reprieve. Cleansing Light!"
Healing Magic. Weakens and/or eliminates abnormal afflictions and curses from the target, starting from the strongest to the weakest. Less effective against curses.
It was a helpful addition, making me able to directly heal poisons and other such effects. As tempted as I was to finally upgrade my Adventurer Class to A Rank and see what its final bonus would be, Healer was going to be more useful today. And I had a couple of monster-slaying quests that would reward Class Augments that I could complete in a day or two on my own.
And I still had my Benediction from Hestia, Thraka Elpida. As our Home was improving in Quality, so too were the Familia Blessings I received from the System. Or rather, they were being less penalized, as Hestia had explained. Since apparently their strength was tied to the state of our Familia's home.
Of course, ever since we had enough Merit stored up, Hestia had chosen to pay an additional upkeep to my own Benediction to ignore the penalties inflicted by our poor living standards, and that on top of the fact that the she had to pay to improve my Benediction once my stats had crossed into the D-rank range.
We weren't in danger of running out of Familia Merit anytime soon, but between the initial costs and the upkeeps, it definitely incentivized us to keep going into the Dungeon, since killing monsters, and performing Quests was the only way to keep getting that Merit.
I was confident that even if we ran into an emergency, like getting into a fight with an Infant Dragon when we weren't ready, I'd at least be able to hold it off long enough for us to escape. Absolute worst case, I'd be able to escape myself. I'd definitely out myself and my abilities as completely abnormal in doing so, but better that than dying, or risking my allies deaths when I could have acted. Preserving my secrets were not important enough to me to do that, and I held out little hope I'd be able to keep all of it secret for long anyway.
Takemikazuchi Familia had already noticed that my growth was weird. Or at least Ouka had.
It may be hard for someone whose main point of reference for Basic Abilities is Bell Cranel's absurdity to really understand, but I was already a high-end Level 1, even with just 1 C-Rank. It was something I had spent a long time with Eina about, to get a better sense of perspective. Broadly speaking, Basic Abilities were often divided into either 3 common categories, Low, Middle and High Class, followed by 3 higher divisions, for B, A, and S Rank respectively.
Simply put, hitting D-500 in a stat could be considered "High-Class". This was because once you had one, you were eligible to Level Up. Your efforts had excavated enough potential in an Ability to be ready to seek out the sorts of challenges you needed to Level Up.
But also because the gap between E-499 and D-500 was known to be larger than what came before it. Reaching D-Rank, and every Rank thereafter, was a kind of barrier, one where each adventurer had to find the potential within themselves and break through with their own effort. And by breaking through, you were rewarded with more than just a single point of strength, but a small jump. And another if you reached C, and another at B, all the way up to S.
Anything below D-rank could be called Low (I, H and G) and Middle (F and E). And High-Class was composed of D and C Ranks.
In some sense, the ability to break through these barriers was the evidence of your potential to become an even higher Level in the future. To join the ranks not of merely Level 2s, but Level 3 and beyond. The real Elite.
B Rank was considered a Superior Ability. A Rank, Elite. And S Rank, that was reserved for the elite among the elite. It was simply S Rank. To say you had a single ability at S was to announce that your future was to shine even among the crowds of aspiring adventurers in Orario.
Which put a monster like Ottar, who I recalled reading somewhere as having every physical ability at S as a Level 7, into perspective. And made Bell's stats, and where mine were headed, all the more insane.
A common distribution for a frontline adventurer's physical abilities might look something like 1 at C, 1 or 2 at D, and the remaining at E. The 400s were an acceptable place for an adventurer's secondary focuses to wind up. Only about half of adventurers will ever manage Level 2 at all, the rest either remaining stuck at Level 1 with sub D-Rank abilities, retiring from adventuring, or dying in their attempts to improve.
I knew that Ais Wallenstein, for instance, one of the strongest adventurers in the entire city, would Rank Up to Level 6 with two stats, Strength and Endurance, at D. Anything at D-Rank or beyond was a perfectly respectable place for your stats to be on the path to becoming a first-rate adventurer.
Trying to hide this growth from Takemikazuchi Familia was impossible, short of me simply not adventuring with them anymore, even after just two days spent with them. My own abilities were already approaching Ouka and Mikoto, if only in magnitude. My personal skills were, of course, still quite lacking. And if I stopped working with them for this reason, I'd also have to give up my weapons training with Ouka, and I definitely needed that kind of training.
No, hiding this from people I was expecting to rely on me and to rely on myself was not a worthwhile endeavor.
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"Orc!" Mikoto's voice called out as we walked through the fog-covered terrain of the Lower Tenth.
It shouldn't have been surprising, given Miss Eina's lectures and Ouka's own instruction in preparing me for stepping foot onto the Tenth Floor, but I was still shocked when the Orc showed itself.
10 towering feet of muscle and fat, Orcs are the heavy-hitters of the Tenth Floor, and the Dungeon's introduction to Large Category Monsters. These monsters are exactly what they sound like, monsters whose size has become a threat all on its own, apart from their already superhuman strengths.
The boar-faced orcs, apart from being the strongest monster yet in pure physical strength, have another tool. They can carry and use weapons. Given birth from the landscape of the Dungeon itself, landform weapons add range to the already impressive threat of the orcs. In this case, Orcs will pull the small, twisted trees of the Tenth Floor right out of the ground and use them as crude clubs.
Scampering around it like its posse, were a half a dozen Imps. They looked similar to goblins, but with more wiry bodies, longer, sharper ears and a distinctive purple tone to their flesh. The little demons often grouped around the far stronger orcs, and made for a nasty combination.
The orc would crash into a party like a battering ram, a mountain of muscle and flesh that could break up a party's formation, and then the imps would jump into the gaps, using their claws to rend anyone whose guard faltered from the orc's charge.
As I had been instructed, I fell back slightly to keep any eye on our front line. Ouka and Mikoto stepped ahead to be at the forefront, with Ouka stepping further forward to meet the Orc head on. Mikoto was just a step behind and to his left, while Chigusa and Asuka were on the right side. Kane was acting as the rearguard, with Oki and I in the middle.
Since my Healing might be needed at any time, I was in a good position to act and move to any position of our fight that needed assistance.
The orc took a wild swing with its club the moment Ouka came into its range, and Ouka showed his ability, easily stepping aside from the blow and thrusting his spear into the orc's hide.
I watched the fight unfold with careful attention. My job right now was to watch the way my allies fought and learn how to fight these monsters, not to fight myself, even if I was strong enough to do so.
Ouka had asked me to step aside with him the day before, after our training session.
"You've gotten stronger," Ouka had remarked. "Quite a bit stronger."
I nodded, unsure what to say. My growth was so abnormal it would be weird if my instructor didn't notice it. I had hoped he might not, but now that he had, I wondered what it would mean for me.
Ouka had stared at me with that serious look on his face that he got whenever he was acting as the Captain of his Familia. The silence stretched out between us, and shifted my feet uneasily.
"Being a supporter is wasted on you," Ouka finally said. "For now we'll continue as we have been, since I want you to have the opportunity to observe the monsters on the Tenth and Eleventh floors before you have to fight them. And we'll transition you away from being a Supporter and into a Middle-guard role. Where you can watch over the frontline and step in where needed."
"I understand."
He grabbed me by the shoulder and looked me in the eye.
"One question first." His expression hardened. "I'm not going to ask about it," he said, obviously referring to my growth, "but does it pose any threat to my friends?"
"No," I replied with a shake of my head. "If something does happen… I won't try to get you involved."
"Good enough," Ouka commented as he released his grip. "I don't think you have any ill intent. You're very strange, but as long as you don't put us in danger, you're welcome with us."
Ouka was a good man. A better man than me, maybe. I'm not sure I would have been willing to accept no explanation for my weirdness, and still trust me with keeping my friends safe and healed. Or maybe it was the healing that pushed it over the edge, despite any misgivings he may have had about my secrets, and made them willing to keep me around despite them.
Either way, I focused on the battle in front of me, watching how the monsters responded to each of my senior's different attacks and extrapolating that response to my own fighting style.
In the end, though, the Tenth Floor was only the pre-show for us. We only spent long enough on the floor to get me a feel for the way the fights would go before we found our way to the Eleventh Floor.
This was the real deal. Because in the Takemikazuchi Familia there were two members who were actively working towards Level 2, in Ouka and Mikoto, and two more in Asuka and Chigusa who both had an Ability at D-Rank.
Which meant seeking out more challenging battles. Specifically, it meant hunting Infant Dragons.
The Infant Dragon was the Boss Monster of the Upper Floors. A Level 2 equivalent Large Category Monster, it was more than a match for most parties of Level 1s. But if you lacked a Level 2 of your own to take you down below the Twelfth, Infant Dragons were the only efficient way to grind out the necessary High-class Excilia to Level Up. Taking a party of just Level 1s down to the Thirteenth was just begging for a massacre.
And that is why we were here.
In addition, two more threats were introduced, in the form of the Hard-Armored, a large armadillo-like creature with exceptional defensive strength, and the Silverback, a two meter tall ape-like creature with white hair. The anime had been quite poor in this regard, depicting the creature as a monstrously large gorilla. And we still had to watch out for all the same monsters as the Tenth Floor as well.
And it was the sole monster on the Upper Floors that would have adventurers all ignore the unwritten rule not to interact with other parties. When an Infant Dragon appears, everyone in the area fights it together. How its magic stone and drops are distributed is a matter for after the monster is dead, since Infant Dragons have been known to wipe out entire parties of adventurers who were cocky enough to take it on without an escape plan prepared.
They could be difficult to find, even if you were looking for them. There were never more than five or six between the Eleventh and Twelfth Floors, and there was usually at least a party or two like ours who was seeking out one of these bosses for the purpose of working towards their own Level Up.
"Hard Armored, behind!" The call came out from Kane, and we all shifted to face the new threats.
Unfortunately, we never did find an Infant Dragon.
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"You're resigning?" The owner of the jagamarukun stand seemed a little stunned.
"I am," Hestia replied with a sharp bow. "Thank you for putting up with me."
"I see. It sounds like your Familia has already found its feet then?"
"We have. I'll still finish out the week if you'd like, but after that I won't be able to work here anymore."
Hestia hadn't originally intended to give up her part-time job, but Blair had convinced her to take up running their Familia full-time. A goddess who sold snacks for a living hardly gave off a reliable impression to potential recruits. And apart from keeping an eye out for a white-haired boy looking for a Familia, Hestia did want to recruit more members eventually.
Not immediately, but there was lots of work to be done to their home before it would be ready for an expansion of their Familia, and Hestia needed to be there while the work was being done. Hephaestus had been kind enough to point her towards a Familia of artisans to take up the renovation of the old church into a proper home for her Familia.
"Congratulations," the woman who was her boss said. "If you don't mind finishing out the week, I'd appreciate it."
Hestia beamed and hopped right to work. She might miss it just a little when it was over.
While she worked, she couldn't help but imagine how nice their home would look once everything was fixed. And how nice her proper bedroom would be.
Or should that be their bedroom?
Her cheeks warmed up at the thought, even despite the fact she'd been sleeping in the same bed as Blair for days now.
Their bedroom sounded nice.
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Failure. That was all Bell had encountered.
No one wanted a country boy like him for their Familia. He'd asked around, and gotten the locations of a lot of the more notable Familia in Orario, but none of the big names were even accepting new members. And those who were had turned him away on sight.
How nice it must be to be a naturally magical and handsome elf, who gets let right in the door when a poor human gets turned aside, or a powerful dwarf, whose physique without a Falna was strong enough to fight the most basic monsters.
Humans were the least desirable race of adventurers, second only to the even smaller but otherwise similar pallums. Neither race had anything in particular going for them being utterly ordinary in every respect.
But Bell wasn't going to give up! He just had to find the right Familia. The Heroes in the stories never gave up after a single setback, and neither would he. Tomorrow would be better.