Chapter 23 Meeting after the battle

Nicholas is feeling groggy after waking up in the inn at noon.

Nicholas: "Ughh, my body feels so sore..."

After the defense against the horde of monsters, he immediately went to the inn to take a rest, went to bed, and fell asleep. After taking a bath, he cleaned himself of the grime and blood that had accumulated on his body during the defense against the monster horde.

Nicholas: "Waking up after a tiring night really doesn't feel great, whatever you did... ugh."

He shook his head left and right, trying to cast aside his head ache as he was rising up from his bed on the inn.

Nicholas: "Well, let's check the side quest first since it was already completed."

He opened his system panel, checked for his daily quest from the system panel, and took note of it. Right after, he scrolled down to do the side quest and checked for his current quest, "Survive the Monster Horde."

Nicholas: "It was really a monster horde. I'm such an idiot thinking a dungeon break and a monster horde are the same. I should really take into consideration the nuances in the words of the system quest next time."

Nicholas: "Well, what's done is done. Let's check for the rewards!"

From his groggy state, he suddenly felt dopamine rushing through his head, changing his feeling to really excited.

[Side Quest]

[Survive the monster horde].

[Survive the horde of monster 1/1]

[Kill at least 200 monsters during the dungeon break (334/200)]

[Rewards: Ability to choose [common] or [rare] skill scrolls x20]

Nicholas: "Oh, I really did a lot to those monsters, huh."

He really did not check his kill count that night; he was so focused on killing monsters that he even forgot to check if he had completed the mission right after the fighting since his body was quite tired.

*Press**Press*

He double-tapped the system panel to claim the reward from the system.

[Obtained: Ability to choose [common] or [rare] skill scrolls x20]

[You can check for the available skills in the system when redeeming the skill scroll.]

Nicholas: "Hmmmm..."

Nicholas was curious about the types of skill scrolls available on the system. He hesitated for a bit but eventually pressed reward. Since he can choose 20 skill scrolls, he might as well check the system list to see if there are any skills relevant to him.

Nicholas: "Woah.."

There is a whole catalog of skills. Each catalog is separated by its element, and currently only the earth element catalog is available. He was a bit disappointed; he thought he got to choose any skill from any element. But he guessed that he could only choose a skill from his current element.

He was not that disappointed, since he can unlock more elements in the future with promotion. Also, he also had the promotion slot scroll, which will allow him to gain another soul core, which, if true, can give him another element type and another weapon type.

Nicholas was slowly getting too excited with the hypothesis brewing inside his head, so he had to halt his thinking and decide to check on the girls. He should worry about these things in the future, so he left his bed and checked on the girl's room.

------------

Nicholas immediately took off to the inn to sleep after finishing the battle.

Maria and Clarice, on the other hand, stayed to help with the clean-up process and gather loot and rewards given by the adventurer's guild for helping defend the town from the monsters. They were also tired, but they had no choice but to do this, and afterwards they also went to the inn to bathe and immediately went to sleep.

Nicholas knocked on the doors of each of them, but there were no replies, so he decided to check on them by opening the door with his keys.

*Creak**Creak*

The sound of the door was heard due to Nicholas slowly opening it to avoid waking them up. Nicholas saw that the girl was still fast asleep, so he shrugged his shoulders and went downstairs to get a bite.

Since Nicholas woke up first, he went to the cafeteria to have a bite while waiting for Maria and Clarice. As he was eating, chatter and talks of the people with him in the cafeteria were heard.

Well, reasonably, the topic of the talks was the last night dungeon breaks were spreading. This occurrence was really unnatural since multiple dungeon breaks were rare in the empire. The awakeners were blaming the local lord and the adventurer's guild due to the poor management of those fluctuating dungeons. 

Nicholas, listening to the awakeners talk, also thought that it was really weird for multiple dungeon breaks to occur. He had some guesses on why those dungeon breaks occur, but without a proper investigation, they cannot know the reason for sure.

After a while of listening,.

A person from the crowd revealed that he's a part of the investigation team that went to check for any abnormalities in the surrounding area.

He talked about how the noble force had immediately investigated the possible cause of the dungeon breaks since the untimely dungeon break was really weird. There they found a huge amount of used enchantment stones and mana stones nearby the place of the broken fluctuated dungeon. As for how or why it caused the dungeon breaks, the motive was still a mystery.

Some people in the crowd gave opinions on the matter; some say that local lords have enemies trying to destroy them, while others think that an evil awakener wants to experiment on the fluctuating dungeon, which caused an anomaly.

After some time, Nicholas got bored listening to the stories made by the people in the cafeteria and began to check his system notifications. He checked his daily quest again, really took notes on what he had to do today, and began to check the earth skill catalog in earnest. 

After choosing and transferring a skill scroll from the system to his inventory pendant, he took out a book about agriculture and read it to pass time while waiting for his girls to come down.

Nearly an hour after he began reading, Maria and Clarice, who were dressed in beautiful casual clothes, came down from the second floor to the cafeteria Nicholas was currently in. When they entered, they got a dozen stares from the people still in the cafeteria, but the stares gradually decreased after feeling Nicholas cold stares at them.

Some people still recognize this noble kid from last night; he was a menace on the battlefield, killing monsters continuously and not taking breaks all night until the battle ended. The guild master was specifically impressed by his skills and wanted to reward him more; however, he immediately disappeared from the scene after the battle. Losing the chance of meeting the guild master and receiving a reward.

Maria and Clarice, seeing Nicholas in the corner, waved their hands and approached him. Nicholas then nodded and said to them that they should order some food first. They followed his order and went to order something to eat.

Right after ordering, they took a seat with Nicholas and talked about what happened after he went to sleep while they passed the time.

As they were waiting for their food, they began to chat about their experiences last night. Clarice shared her outstanding performance, bragging she could have done more if she managed her mana properly, while Maria listened to Clarice talk and sometimes commented on Nicholas amazing moves, teasing him slightly.

After some time, the girls both began to tease Nicholas, saying that he was currently the talk of the town due to his brave and handsome figure fighting valiantly to defend the town. With such an outward compliment, Nicholas began to blush slightly and pinched their cheeks to beckon them to stop talking nonsense. He also told them to eat, and they still have somewhere to go.

While eating, they began to chat again, talking about food, clothing, and the new trend of noble ladies using a new skin care routine. This continued for a while, then Maria remembered that the guild master wanted to meet them and Nicholas, so she reminded her young master to drop by to say hello to the master of the adventurer's guild in Marchelle.

Nicholas just casually nodded as a reply while taking a sip of tea while being immersed in reading.

They went out afterwards, treating this day as a rest day and spending leisurely time visiting some shops and cafés along the way. And before the end of the day, they went to the adventurer's guild to visit the guild master.

…

In a dingy, dark room

A hooded man was with a dozen people at a round table. People around him were silent; only one person was talking.

He was currently writing on a piece of paper while listening to the person speaking, and after the person who was talking finished his report, He looked up to other people at the table and ordered them to just continue about the status of their current project.

????: "What is the progress on the assimilation rate?"

The person, looking like a middle-aged man beside him, asked in a solemn tone. Normally, if anyone asked him with this kind of tone, he would immediately eliminate them. But he chose to swallow his pride since he needed this man's help for now.

????: "It is going smoothly; however, I think we need to change our tactic or slow down our pace since the church has been quite suspicious of the dungeon breaks and is starting to investigate." The hooded man replied casually.

The hooded man then said to continue their status report.

????: "For our group, we successfully made a deal with the Drakin and the Elves for a trade agreement," a man with long gray hair said.

One by one, people on the round table reported their status to the man looking like the leader of the group.

????: "Very well, this matter is settled for now. Proceed on your own volition; we must succeed in this plan and create a new era. Glory to Vitello!"

"Glory to Vitello!" said the people on the round table before dispersing.