(9) Getting Outpaced

He laughed as she took a couple of pulls to get her hand out of the dirt. "A bit of overkill, don't you think?" He called out, teasing her.

"Shut up, you're just mad that you actually have to try." Zolis grimaced a bit. She was trying to be serious, but he always wanted to joke around.

He called out again, "With that Strength, you can probably just run around stomping on them. Be careful of the green ones, they are kind of like porcupines!"

What they did was form a small bit of air over their head that was difficult to see. The air was made of a few small currents of wind that were a bit sharp. With his Defense stat, he didn't have to worry about them at all, but he wasn't sure how she would fair with them.

She took his advice and began running around stomping on them. At first, her feet would sink slightly into the ground, but she quickly learned to control herself. Some of her stomps would even kill two or three Slimes at once.

Once he was confident that she would be fine, he started a conversation with Albus. They had talked a bit about how to link with his children's Grimoires but were still working on a solution.

He was pretty sure that Melody would understand. She had just recently turned 4 and her brother 3, she could spell some simple words but they had only just begun to prepare her for school in the coming years.

They had pulled the kids out of pre-school when he'd started staying home. They weren't being taught anything and were only picking up bad habits. In the same pre-school when he was a child, he had learned to read and write well, was forced to look up words he didn't understand in the dictionary, and even taught how to swim while he was still 3.

The American education system had become a joke, maybe having to start in this new world will weed out those in power. He began speculating about how the older generation that ran the country would perform in this current environment.

'Albus, we have to get strong fast. I'm not too worried about the old costs, but it's hard to tell what the military will do. The only bright side is that they will have tens of thousands of members in one place who have to share experience, it shouldn't be hard to stay ahead here in the country.'

Albus took a minute to thumb through his memories before responding.

:We should clear this dungeon quickly before the others that are waking up wander this way. Help Zolis clear the outer area quickly and then we can take the dungeon alone. If you move the children to the foot of the hill I will be able to keep an eye on them while you're working:

Geth simply nodded and did as suggested, letting his wife know the current plan. They would clear the area quickly, and she would stay with the kids while he cleared the dungeon.

She had been slaughtering the Slimes that were mostly Level 2 and 3 at this point. Of the 500 or so that had made their way into the clearing, she had already smashed a hundred. Cores littered the ground to pick up later.

He quickly joined in, and they had the area cleared within the next hour, Zolis taking out the majority. Once he'd gotten within a certain range of her, he'd realized that he was getting a small share of the exp she was farming. Around 10% or so per creature, Albus explained that this was due to their Grimoires being linked, and the percentage would change based on how much work each person put in on a specific enemy.

Zolis worked from the outside in, killing all of the weaker Level 2 Slimes quickly, while Geth rushed closer to the mouth of the cave and dealt with the lower number of Level 3 Slimes and occasional Level 4.

The Level 3's took him two hits each to kill while the Level 4's took him multiple hits. He could tell how much the difficulty was increasing, but so was the experience. Level 3's gave 15 exp while Level 4's were giving 20.

Zolis had quickly caught up to him, both reaching Level 12, she was 420 exp ahead of him at this point. His pride was kind of wounded. "So much for a head start," Geth muttered.

She had killed 350 Level 2's and 50 Level 3's in the time it had taken him to kill 80 Level 3's and 9 Level 4's. He called out to her "It won't be long before you've passed me at this rate."

She flashed a smile his way "Jealous yet?"

"I don't know, I lost about 10 HP there, how are you looking?"

Her smile instantly fell, she had a few cuts and multiple bruises. Even though she was fine fighting Level 2's, the 3's beat her up pretty bad. She had watched how Geth had taken the attacks from the Level 4's almost nonchalantly.

"Well, I'll just say it's good that we automatically get 10 health every time we Level up. I'm sitting at half right now." She sighed. "I'll leave the rest to you, I'm going to sit with the kids."

Kael had started to stir and it looked like he might wake up soon. He nodded and turned towards the dungeon.

He'd already distributed his AP, 3 into each Defense and Wisdom, bringing them to 28 and 27 respectively. The mouth of the cave was packed tight, and Slimes were already trying to crawl out again. Albus had kept the inspection going and informed him that about a quarter of them were already Level 4.

'These things are growing so fast, there's no telling what would happen if they were left unchecked. Albus, how are they Leveling up?' He thought out of curiosity.

:I believe that they are killing each other on their way out, due to how packed they are. They are essentially absorbing the cores of those they are trying to crawl over:

'I see, well that bodes well, to be honest. That means that stronger creatures that don't reproduce as fast would still be in the beginner Levels.'