In Preparation

While making our way home today from the dungeon raid, the girls and I made some small talk.

It was pretty relaxing for the most part, but when the subject of the raid itself came up, Claire had something to ask me.

Claire: "You were really rash today, Miwen. Is there a reason why? It's a little unlike you..."

Both of them know about the [Events], and they are on board with helping me deal with them when the time comes.

Still, my actions today were a little different from what they're used to.

I was definitely rushing things a little more than usual, but the reason for that was the difficulty slider, had not changed from the last level-up.

After that, I thought that the worst-case scenario would be for the difficulty to remain the same again.

Unfortunately, now that I got another level-up and the difficulty has yet to change, I was in that precise scenario.

Leveling up today was almost a necessity to see if I could cause the slider to change.

As it is clear that this won't help, I might have to change my methods. However, I've yet to get an idea of a worthwhile alternative.

Miwen: "Well... the events are coming, and I kinda wanted to get to level 7 before they happen. I thought it would be good to speed things up a bit..."

Claire: "I understand that but do be careful, Licia and I are one thing, but Sam and Roy do not level up as fast, if you try to power through your way, they might get injured or... worse..."

She was right..

It's hard to put everyone on the same boat when there's such a difference.

The challenges that these two can take on are not in the same league as those Roy and Sam can.

Even if I take into consideration our power as a group, the truth is that everyone needs to do their part, and while Licia and Claire can handle more, if the others were to fail, the entire group might collapse.

Miwen: "I judged that we were doing alright, so I thought we could handle some more challenging battles at a deeper point inside the dungeon..."

While certainly risky, I was still calculating our odds, and I thought we could afford that much.

Going deeper than what we did would certainly increase the rewards, but wouldn't be worth it in my opinion as one injury might lead to more, and the deeper we are, the harder it is to make our way back.

Things can turn into a snowball very quickly if we're not careful.

Claire: "Just be careful. Sudden encounters inside a dungeon can be quite random at times, you might encounter a strong monster without even delving that deep. And you never know when a battle may draw the attention of other enemies... it's better to pick easier fights so that even if you end up ambushed, you can fight back..."

This advice is not far from the tips that veterans often give online. If anything, she actually pretty much nailed it.

Still, I saw genuine care in the way she talked. It made me a little happy to see her being thoughtful like that.

Seeing that the girls were so willing to stay and give me a hand was very rewarding for me. It validated my decision to go the extra mile for them, and it felt like confirmation that I was doing a good job with them.

As such, even though I was already considering such things, I decided to respect her sentiment.

Miwen: "I'll keep it in mind, thanks."

After that, we eventually arrived home where I prepared dinner.

Nothing much had changed, but I allowed Licia to try her hand at the oven and the more "big girl" tasks.

She has been trying to help a little for a while now, so I ended up accepting her help.

Of course, I kept an eye on her just to be sure, but she ended up handling everything pretty well.

I should've figured that was going to be the case though. She's been watching me with keen eyes all this time.

In any case, aside from simple stuff like cutting vegetables or handing her a few items, today's meal was all on her.

And so, there was a certain excitement filling the air as the time for Claire and I to taste test.

Miwen: "It's... pretty good! Congrats!"

Claire: "It might be even better than Miwen's!"

Miwen: "No way? I refuse to accept defeat by a beginner like this!"

I'm not that fond of my own cooking, so this was mostly a pride issue.

Still, I think Claire just felt like teasing me, which is pretty fine to me.

It was not without reason though. Licia's meal was more than praise worth.

Her own excitement and happiness seeing Claire and me eating her food also added a little more to the dish though.

Purposeful or not, it's not an ability I'm confident I can replicate, so it'll probably be a trait just of her own.

In the end, dinner came and went quite quickly since I tried to convince her to do something a little more simple to start with and just develop her skills with experience.

Thanks to that I had a little free time, so I decided to teach them a little more things, and I settled for watching movies on the TV.

Surprisingly, it was quite difficult for them to get it even though they just had to follow a few steps.

Maneuvering through the menus is a little hard for them as they don't actually touch it.

But with time I'm sure they'll figure it out, and it will help with introducing all the other wonders of the modern world.

After that, finally came time for me to start the rolls, since I had used up almost all my mana, there were no rolls on the [Mana Banners], but from my level up, I had 6 rolls I could do in the normal banners through the daily tickets. The results for these rolls were the following:

[Movement Speed Up] was leveled up twice, making its level go all the way to 4. It's quite a simple skill, but it's also pretty effective, and I can notice how much faster I'm than what someone at my level should normally be by comparing myself with Sam and Roy, for now, having this skill at such a high level was definitely a good boost.

[Reading Speed Up] and [Enhanced Drop Chance] also leveled up. Out of these two, [Enhanced Drop Chance] was the best result by far.

And for the last two skills that I got...

[Faster Tree Climbing].

A whooping two times, as if to spite the [Movement Speed Up] skill that had just recently dethroned it as the highest level skill in my possession. To be honest this skill is not even worth the effect of my mind going blank whenever I roll on the gachas, even though that effect only lasts for less than a second. But I know how to punish my own Gift for this, since I've gotten a bit more mana now, I'll spend some tickets on another banner that I've been eyeing for a while now...

The last thing I need to do before going to bed is to claim the points from the Kingdom menu and organize the skills. With the 16 points I just got there should be a lot that I'm able to do now.

Alas, just the [Ice Magic] skill that I wanted to get from Licia did cost me 10 of these points, leaving me with only 8 since I had 2 in reserve from yesterday. For now, I saw that Claire had enhanced her [Mana Control] so I decided to also get it since it was only 3 points.

I didn't plan to share any skills with the girls, but since [Enhanced Drop Chance] has such a good effect on the party, I spent 4 points sharing it with them, this way, I was left with only one point remaining, but our main source of income should also be improved, if only by a little bit...

That would mark the end of the day for me and with the [Events] approaching, I spent all the time I had just thinking about what I could do to make them easier, and even if there was anything I could do to change the predicted difficulty.

These thoughts accompanied me to bed until a new type of anxiety soon took over as I shared the bed with these two girls to whom I find myself growing more attached as the days go by...