Chapter 22.

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A few more seconds and he could see the eggs shaking. It was a little surprising that they were both hatching at literally the same time but he suspected that was due to the Monster Seal rather than natural coincidence.

Raphtalia looked on with a smile responding to every twitch of the eggs. It was not long before cracks swept across the surface and the two filolials burst out.

And he did mean burst, the egg fragments went flying everywhere as the Black Filolial bounced out of his little prison. The white one was more sedate but fragments still went flying.

"Guee!" proclaimed the Black Filolial before jumping straight into his lap.

Adrian was a little surprised but found himself with an armful of the bird. It was surprisingly warm and soft. It looked very different from what he had expected. Adrian had seen newborn chickens, they had been ugly featherless beings with some sort of fluid stuck on them. The Filolials, in contrast, were covered in feathers and looked adorable.

Adrian stroked the one in his lap for a moment before the other one walked up to him as well and pecked at his knee. He laughed at the look of envy on its' face before picking it up as well. Then he paused to consider just how he had managed to read the facial expressions of a bird.

"They're so cute." he heard Raphtalia say in a whisper. She was staring at the birds.

"Would you like to hold one of them?" he offered, almost without thought, thankfully the Black Filolial played along and walked towards her in response to his words. It seemed they understood English as well. Clearly these things were super birds, he could not afford to underestimate them.

She hesitated for a moment but an insistent peck from the Black Filolial had her smiling before she picked it up and gave it a hug and for the first time, he saw a glimpse of the girl who must have existed before the waves struck her home and initiated the utter destruction of her life.

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Adrian carefully made note of the monsters within range of his Blindsight. There were nearly four hundred and fifty of them, most were nothing special and the remainder would take nothing more than a moment of focus. He double-checked anyway and found that his initial analysis was correct.

He spent a single instant verifying that his charges were alright and found them eating their snacks. The filolials had proven to need more than their body weight in food since their levelling had started and Raphtalia had a significant appetite as well. Thankfully his sword allowed him to supply food to them with little difficulty and currently they had more than enough food with them on the floating wooden disk.

Adrian then used Dash to move both upwards and forwards. In a fraction of a second, he had reached the ideal position to strike down his targets and he activated his Glide skill that seemed to allow him to control his movement through the air. It was not flight, more of a controlled fall really, but it was enough to stay in his favoured position for a second or two.

That was more than enough for him to use his enhanced perception to track down and decide exactly how to strike his targets. Adrian held up his weapon and intoned," Thousand Swords."

Immediately ten ethereal blades glowing the same blue of the gemstone embedded in his sword manifested around him. Each of the ten then split into another ten swords, which in turn split again. In less than a second, he was surrounded by a thousand shining blades. Adrian commanded them to hunt down the targets he had decided for them and they obeyed.

Adrian had not bothered to consider things like obstacles or distance. His blades were fast enough and had enough power to pierce through hundreds of obstacles and still have enough power to kill their targets and considering that he had an average of two and a half blades per target he was certain that at least 90% of them would die.

It took the slaughter five seconds to be completed and a moment to check on the results with Blindsight confirmed Adrian's estimates. Most of his targets were indeed dead, for the rest, he said, "Change Sword. Explosive Sword."

In an instant massive explosion rang through the forest as the swords near or inside his targets suddenly ruptured. There were a few survivors of even this.

Adrian quickly checked on the filolials and Raphtalia. It had been less than ten seconds since he had left their vicinity but Raphtalia already looked a little scared. Adrian ignored her fear for the moment. It was cruel but he needed them to be levelled up as much as possible. So he repeated his previous series of skills.

Blindsight to target, Dash and Glide to travel to an optimum location and then Thousand Swords to kill them. It consumed nearly 5% of his SP to perform this combination of skills despite the SP mitigation Status Enchantment but the massive amount of experience and the limited time that he spent away from his dependants made it the best possible tactic.

Adrian repeated this combination thrice, the result was that a massive area in the shape of a circle centred around Raphtalia and the filolials was completely cleared of monsters and that he had boosted their levels by a fair extent. Adrian himself was only at level 36 despite killing more than a thousand monsters but his filolials were at level 15 and Raphtalia was at level 22.

That should be enough for them to grow up to adulthood even if he stopped hunting here and now as long as he supplied them enough food. Of course he wasn't done yet, he would probably have to spend the next two hours or so harvesting the monsters he had killed but he would be able to take the wooden disk with him ensuring the safety of his party and giving the filolials a chance to grow up enough that in the worst case they would be more capable of defending themselves.

Already their stats were incredible and were rising each time he bothered to check on them. It would seem that their biological development altered their stats, Blindsight allowed him to confirm that they were growing fast enough to be easily observed and their stats were increasing by three or four points per second. Right now their stats were around a tenth of the werewolf but it would only be a matter of hours before they were able to match him.

Still, they were levelling faster than he had anticipated and worse his growth was slower than he had anticipated. It would seem that he would have to leave Dragon territory without hitting level 50, still that only meant that he would need to target some aquatic monsters - he would need them to find the hourglass in Cal Mira and class up his party.

He shrugged off his contemplation. That was something to worry about later, for now, he should focus on harvesting these monsters. He had no intention of ignoring such an easy source of power.

Adrian used Dash to appear in front of his party members. The two Filolials chirped at him in greeting but dived back into their food without waiting for a response. Raphtalia was far more relieved and though she said nothing and continued to nibble on her food, he could see that she had relaxed after his arrival.

No doubt she was glad that she had her defence against this forest in close range.

Adrian focused on the projections that were embedded in the wooden carrier disk and started moving towards the closest monster. He hoped that he got some sort of skill to make his harvesting easier it was quite annoying to spend mere minutes to kill thousands and then spend hours butchering them.

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Harvesting monsters was tedious above all. The gains from dismantling and absorbing them were substantial he had gained more than ten times the stat gain in comparison to his level up from 35 to 36 but the reality of it was that it was dull and disgusting. Thankfully Adrian had a really fascinating process to observe.

The accelerated growth of his filolials.

Raphtalia and his filolials were changing right before his eyes but while in Raphtalia's case the growth was relatively slow with her only gaining a few centimetres in height until now despite being a higher level than the filolials for the two birds it was a far swifter and more significant change. Adrian had to confess he truly adored Blindsight. It allowed him to glimpse the true magnitude of the changes that the filolials were undergoing.

Some aspects of their growth could be considered to be obvious. They were getting bigger and heavier but those changes were eclipsed by the internal changes. A larger nervous system whose size was doubling every ten or fifteen minutes, denser muscles, larger bones, more numerous internal organs...the list went on and on. It was honestly terrifying and underscored why they needed to eat so much, their body mass was literally doubling every half an hour.

Already they looked more like swans rather than their initial ball-shaped body and he could see that their torso, limbs and neck were elongating with every passing moment. Adrian had assumed that it would take at least till midday to see their fully grown form but it was clear that it would take no more than another three hours at most.

Even more amazing was just how rapidly their stats were increasing. They were doubling every few minutes. Already they were nearly a fifth of the stats of that werewolf on average and in case of the White Filolial her MP stat was more than half of the werewolf's one. The Black Filolial, in contrast, had fairly high stats but they were even across the board.

It seemed that one was specialized in magic while the other was a generalist with a minor focus on defence. It was an interesting stat distribution and one that made him a little suspicious.

A defensive generalist and a magic-user for the backline was exactly what he wanted. It would round up his party like no other combination. It was simply too perfect. Plus Adrain remembered Filo from the light novel, she was pretty much a pure attacking agent, which was perfect for Naofumi. It made him wonder if the Legendary Weapons had altered the filolials so that they fit the hero.

Still, it was nothing to complain about per se but it did underscore just how little he knew about his primary weapon. The Legendary Sword was his only real asset for the moment. Hopefully in time, the Filolials would aid him, but for now, every single one of his plans was dependant on the sword. It was unnerving to realize that the most critical aspects of his plans were dependant upon a tool that he had such little understanding off.

Adrian finished absorbing his latest target and ignored the notifications on the swords once he had confirmed that it was just another attack stat boost. He focused on the wooden disc and began to move again.

To his surprise, the White Filolial stopped eating and jumped off the disc before starting to walk next to him. Adrian looked at her and asked," Is there something wrong?"

He checked to see that there was plenty of food left and found that she had left her pile of food half-eaten. What did she need?

"Guee," she said before tapping his hand with her beak and then pushing her head against it.

Adrian blinked in surprise before realizing that she wanted head pats. He ended up giving into he demands, feeling an odd sense of amusement at her clear happiness after he began to pet her. He had never had a pet before but it was good to see that she enjoyed his company. Perhaps it was a side effect of the monster seal and the imprinting process that ensured her trust and affection. Or maybe it was just that he had given her food.

Of course, the Black Filolial was not just going to let it be and so he jumped off the disc and then chirped at him as well before staring at the hand that was not petting the other filolial. Adrian sighed and stopped petting the white filolial and said, "I apologize but this is not the time. I need to finish harvesting the monsters, I shall play with you both after we make camp okay?"

Adrian was treated to a loud 'guee' of protest from the black filolial though it folded after the other filolial nodded and returned to the disc. It still grumbled and stared at him with pleading eyes.

Adrian sighed at the ridiculous sight of a goddam bird making puppy dog eyes at him. It was annoyingly adorable, "I promise to play with you later, okay?" he said and the bird nodded.

Adrian was a little annoyed but mostly he was impressed by their incredible intelligence. They were barely a few hours old and they already understood his language perfectly. It was a little stunning and Adrian was starting to wonder just how intelligent the average filolial really was. How much of their intelligence was his sword and how much was normal for a filolial?

Forget filolials. How smart was the average monster? Was he killing sentient beings?

Adrian shook it off. Even if he was, there was little choice in the matter, this world was kill or be killed. If he wanted to survive the waves, survive Fitoria and survive the humans he needed power.