Text flashed rapidly before Gauss’s eyes.
A single Light spell—
—and the nearby wraiths took staggering damage.
“Total Monsters Kill: 1526.”
In an instant, twenty-five wraiths were reduced to dust.
If the rest hadn’t fled so quickly, the number would...
After a short rest, Gauss and Alia rose and, treading carefully over the slick moss, made their way toward the deep-green “birdcage” pavilion.
Though this space was wrapped in verdant growth, the neat flagstones underfoot and the relatively open layout—few wild shrubs running rampan...
But when he checked his personal panel in the Adventurer’s Manual, there was no visible change in his attribute values.
Forget it.
Even if it was a hallucination, at least as pure food he’d thoroughly enjoyed it.
“How do you feel after eating? Any side effects?”
“Is that the mimic from before?”
Alia had finished her fight early and had actually watched Gauss skewer that lump of meat out of the “chest,” but she asked again to be sure.
The “food” lying in the cast-iron pan—braised red and giving off a rich aroma—was such a fa...
Its shell was hard, and the moment it was attacked it turtled up—so did it have any exposed weak spots?
Staring at the mimic ten-plus meters away and the ground beneath it, Gauss had an idea.
He used Message to tell Alia to back off a bit. Then, while firing a three-bolt burst of ...
“Be careful.”
Upon reaching the platform, Gauss actually calmed down fast.
He shot a wary glance at the green acid pools beside his boots, bubbling and steaming white. The stinging reek and the sight alone made one queasy.
He looked away.
He and Alia advanced cauti...
He hadn’t expected their attacker to be a plant.
It was his first time seeing a creature like this, and curiosity flickered in him.
Still, he didn’t feel much threat from it; it probably wasn’t at the level of an elite monster.
Even so, he didn’t get careless—this w...
Following the clues from the adventurers they’d rescued, Gauss and Alia headed out.
“No telling if the entrance has moved…” Alia fretted.
Gauss’s gaze locked onto an unusual cave mouth in a distant rock face that slanted downward.
Beside the rock wall, a crooked-nec...
Faced with these nasty setups, the two of them wasted nothing—like locusts sweeping through, they salvaged it all.
With Mage Hand they tripped mechanisms at range; with Entangle they had vines trigger the traps; then they collected the metal spikeheads from pit traps and the sharp heads ...
The Serpentfolk didn’t wait for Gauss to reply; his figure slipped away and vanished from sight.
Alia walked over, her gaze landing on the metal bracelet on the ground.
Its design was extremely simple—no ornate decorations or carvings—just a few badly worn geometric lines.
...
He glanced down; the crushed leaves on the ground and the footprints were quite fresh.
Alia nodded in understanding.
They’d run into other adventurers a few times yesterday and everyone had minded their own business, but when you bump into people unexpectedly, it’s best to keep ...
“Why aren’t you moving?”
Gauss looked back, noticing Alia had halted, her face cycling between pale and green, and asked in puzzlement.
“For the record, I am absolutely not going to eat dirt.”
“I’m not either,” Gauss chuckled, shaking his head. “What do you ...
“Bang!” “Bang!” “Bang!”
Three blasts erupted almost at once.
When the Magic Missiles struck the mud golem’s body, they released a force of energy.
Its mass was blown open in three pits almost immediately.
“Mmm!!!”
The golem bellowed.
Gau...
BOOM!!
Dust billowed.
Gauss and Alia dodged fast.
The attack didn’t hit them.
In that split second, Gauss had already seen their attacker’s true form.
A mud golem—an elite monster.
A distant cousin to slimes and gray oozes, but tougher than common s...
The next day.
They bought tickets for the coaches to the labyrinth.
The convoy rolled along the South District’s avenue toward the western gate barbican. Passing beneath the bastion-like arch, the view opened into endless scrub and woodland.
Near noon, the coaches stopped b...
Barry, the mountain city built around a giant tree, was astonishingly vast.
Once Gauss and Alia left the barbican and stepped into the outer city, dense blocks of buildings swallowed the view. From within, aside from a faint glimpse of the towering inner walls and the central Mother Tree, ...
The year’s festival passed, and New Calendar 1015 arrived.
Within a couple of days of the new year, the ice and snow began to melt. Yet the thaw often feels colder than snowfall; even Gauss, tough against the cold, added a few layers for warmth.
Knock, knock, knock!
Gauss w...
When Gauss went out, he overheard townsfolk chatting about several knights on griffins having landed in Grayrock. At first he took it for rustic rumor and didn’t believe it—street gossip shouldn’t be swallowed whole; he often heard people boast they’d seen a dragon.
Only when he wa...
Alia had already picked out the cantrip she wanted.
Druids don’t have that many common cantrips to choose from.
Mending was something Gauss already knew. Produce Flame—same idea; Gauss had cantrips and spells that could cover that function. Thorn Whip is a weaker version of Enta...
Before the Adventurers’ Guild closed for the day, Gauss headed to the branch to ask about rank promotions.
To go from Bronze 1-star to 2-star, you not only have to reach Class Level 2 but also accumulate enough completed quests.
After checking with the front desk and confirming th...
A torrent of mana—stronger, purer, deeper than before—surged from the chalice like a burst dam and merged at once into the current coursing through his whole body.
Boom.
Gauss felt his very cortex tremble. Streams of information washed through his mind, and faintly he sensed a m...
Although Burning Hands, like Magic Missile, is a Level 1 spell, it consumes far more mana.
It’s easily the most energy-hungry spell he knows so far.
That also made practicing it much harder.
Fortunately, he had a Secondary Core Spell Slot.
It takes a little over two days...
He slept straight from the afternoon into the next morning.
Gauss woke to a sharp, gnawing hunger.
He hurried to his stash and chewed some dried frog meat to take the edge off; once the pangs subsided, he left his room.
After more than a dozen hours of sleep he finally felt f...
As the tiny black speck in the distant sky grew larger, everyone finally saw Eberhard descending from above on a griffon.
Only then did their taut nerves ease, as if their backbone had returned.
The camp couldn’t withstand a second ordeal; if the venom wyvern circled back for anot...
They lit a campfire.
Gauss handled the ingredients while Alia set water to boil.
Lunch today would be a stew.
In this bitter cold, nothing soothes the spirit like a pot of steaming soup.
Gauss had wanted to add some frost-snake meat, but for Alia’s sake he didn’t; ...
“So hot…”
When he first gained the talent [Quick Digestion], it hadn’t felt anything like this.
This time, as the talent loaded, Gauss stood in the knife-edged winter wind yet felt as if he were shut inside a furnace, heat blazing through every inch of him.
He could c...
Seeing this, Alia and Gauss both nodded.
Gauss waited a moment.
Casting Entangle at range takes Alia a bit of prep time.
Fortunately, the seeds Echo had dropped were already infused with her druidic power.
Even at a distance, she could still sense the nature energy wit...
A few days later.
The world was a blank sheet of white.
Heavy snow blanketed the forests and the plains.
Two figures and a large gray wolf trudged through the lonely, snowy woods.
Behind them, a long line of footprints stretched back into the deep thicket they’d come...
When the battle ended, a plume of green signal smoke rose—the mark that the sweep was complete.
Only then were the two captured adventurers helped out from their makeshift shelter.
They were both injured to varying degrees: fresh wounds from the fight and bruises and cuts from the...
“Total Monster Kills: 1022.”
After clearing the last few stragglers nearby, the tally froze on that number.
Seeing the two Level 1 adventurers on the other side dealing with the dozen-odd monsters left to them, Gauss didn’t cut in. Hitting the next stage—2,000 total kills—...