Chapter 99: I'm Sorry It's Short

The conclusion of the previous meeting in the tavern, Kazuma gives the Beginner Dungeon another try but this time Ray is here to straighten up the three other dead weights of Kazuma's party.

"I'll summon a few operators just in case but Kazuma should try going alone while the three of you try to go on your own." Ray made a quick briefing before they entered the dungeon.

"Remember, I take no bullshit. Do it right or he'll discard you three as you three only hinder his progress instead of helping like a party should." Ray spoke out the harsh but true words to the three ladies.

"Also, before we start. Take this medicine." Ray gave a pill to Darkness which he obtained from his medic operator.

With his current commanding position, Darkness is afraid to question Ray's decision and just take the pill. She felt nothing changed and ignored it. Then they enter the dungeon with the discussed arrangement.

Kazuma will go alone with a medic operator responsible for healing him only. Meanwhile Darkness, Aqua and Megumin will form a party. Together they will need to conquer the dungeon while Kazuma focuses on practicing his combat skill.

Immediately in the first hallway after a corner everyone stumbles upon 4 slimes. Kazuma with his bow stretched and arrow nocked, he aims and releases the first shot that hits bullseye. The slimes move closer which render Kazuma's bow useless in such short range which causes him to switch to his new longsword that Ray gifted again along with a new basic exoskeleton suit. His insanely high luck coupled with decent equipment, Kazuma was able to make three accurate consecutive slashes that damaged the Slime's cores.

Kazuma simply couldn't believe that he killed those four Slimes in such short times. Now he is convinced that himself is better without the three. Meanwhile the said three are having a crisis of their own thinking that Kazuma is intent on dissolving the party and discarding them three.

"Already give up that early?" Ray asked in the same voice he used on his soldiers. A voice that carries no sense of familiarity and only cold disinterest and indifference.

"If not then go and show him you three wanted to stay by his side and improve. Time waits for no one and none are willing to wait especially for mere deadweight. Go prove you three are worth the time and effort to wait." Ray chastised them while giving them some verbal push before he sent them off on another path of the dungeon.

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Fast forward an hour later, Kazuma did well leveling up as he killed hundreds of Slimes by now. The three ladies however didn't even kill more than a dozen of Slimes. However Ray didn't mind it as his purpose for the three is to find what they lack and find a way to tackle that issue.

"Miss Darkness, unfortunately what you need right now isn't dungeon diving or adventuring. What you need is to train to swing a sword PROPERLY. How the heck do you even become a Crusader when you cannot even swing a sword properly?" Ray commented speechlessly since Darkness couldn't even hit a single thing right.

However, instead of hearing Ray's advice. She is fuming for another issue.

"You! What did you do to my body! I cannot feel a single bit of pain even being ganged by monsters!" Darkness points at Ray to accuse him.

"Ah, I heard from Kazuma you are a masochist. The pill I fed you is a clump of nanomachine that I use to inhibit your dopamine receptors to feel no joy from pain inflicted to you." Ray explained generously to the terrified Darkness.

"To put it simply, you no longer feel joy and pleasure from pain or simply anything that feeds you masochism." Ray shrugged and moved on to also terrified Aqua.

"Next… *sigh* I am literally disappointed. What kind of Arch Priest are you when 80% of your skills are dedicated to party tricks? Are you actually an Arch Priest at all? Where are your support skills? Healing skills?"

"Arch Priest duty is to keep your party alive at all cost but you lack all appropriate skill for that purpose. In my opinion, you are the worst of the three. Even offensive skills are so strong that using them has severe percussion. So, either you spend your skill points on the appropriate Arch Priest skill set or kiss your goal of defeating Demon King goodbye."

"Then the last one, Arch Wizard Megumin. My advice is the same to you too. Spend your skill points on a proper Arch Wizard skill set and get your Explosion magic later instead of forcing yourself to use it before you are even prepared for it." Ray said and finished giving his advice to Kazuma's party members. Whether they will listen or not is dependent on themselves.

After that, Ray bid Kazuma a goodbye and gave him a better set of exoskeleton suits as thanks. He actually profited a lot from this encounter with Kazuma's group, especially Megumin.

Seeing her Explosion magic made Ray wonder if he could create similar or stronger magic in the near future.

While he is helping them, his mind and the AI are formulating a new spell after the think, 'Why not create a spell that produce thermonuclear bomb?'. This feat is possible for Ray even at his current state but it is severely inefficient in terms of its mana consumption to yield ratio. It would be more efficient to just explode mana to have higher yield than the thermonuclear bomb spell.

The process of thermonuclear fusion to put it simply is trying to collide two hydrogen atoms at insane speed and fuse them. When both atoms fused, it will lose some of the mass that will in turn decay into pure energy that is expressed as heat energy that is the explosion, the result of the detonation.

However, this phenomena Ray is able to find naturally in the Sun's core. This fusion is possible only due to immense gravity. So, the fusion requires both immense gravitational force and energy in the atoms to move at high speed for them to collide and fuse. The process is where 90% of the mana goes while the other 10% is to harvest hydrogen from electrolysis water molecules in the air.

What he needs now is to research. According to the knowledge of magecraft. All magus stumble upon such troubles too but they will dedicate their life perfecting the spell and sometimes take generations to eliminate the problem they encounter to make a spell usable from its rough conception version.

Ray wanted to do the same too. But, before that. He needs to return to the DxD world. It's been three days since he last returned to meet his family. He is running on fumes and needs to refill his 'Cheshirenium' with plenty of cuddles.

However, his thoughts are laid bare to certain jealous dragons in his mindscape. She wouldn't actually have such thoughts before but after the ordeal in the recent Bounty, she became like this. A foreign emotion that suddenly appeared in her heart and made her wonder why Ray only prefers cuddles from her sister instead of herself. Is she not cute enough for him?

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Very short, only 1.2k words. I stop here because what I write next would be a new chapter also, Chapter 100 next! I'm very excited to hit the next milestone!