Let The Grind Begin

"What? Why do you want to go to the dungeon?"

Lefiya couldn't help but be flabbergasted. Didn't they just get him out of that dangerous place? Who would want to go back there after barely escaping death by a hair's breadth just earlier today?

In response, Isaac simply smiled like a child who just got a new toy, stroking the sheath of his sword affectionately.

"I mean, we're basically already at the dungeon, we just have to go down a few floors. While we're there, I'd like to test out my new stuff and gain a little bit of experience fighting against monsters."

These words made Ais nod in approval. It was always a good idea to get used to new equipment. She was truly looking forward to this young man with seemingly unlimited potential possibly showing part of what made him so confident.

Grudgingly, Lefiya couldn't help but admit that there was no reason to deny him the opportunity. She had no way to argue against what he just said, especially because both her and Ais were accompanying him right now, making the trip as safe as it could possibly be. There was one more thing she had to remind the two combat maniacs of, though.

"We'll have to be back before nightfall. If we're any later than that, we'll get into trouble with Riveria…"

Once Ais and Isaac had agreed to Lefiya's plea, the group of three made their way back to where they first met.

-----

Contrary to the first time they had taken the staircase leading into the dungeon, this time, Isaac had received a lot less curious stares. This was, of course, because he was now wearing fitting clothing. Instead, almost all of the stares he received had been filled with envy and murderous intentions. It was quite baffling to him how so many people could get obsessed with Ais, a girl barely of age, to such an unhealthy degree.

After a few minutes, the group finally found themselves far enough away from other adventurers so that they wouldn't get disturbed.

From the first to the fourth floor, the dungeon's walls were coloured a light blue and gave off enough light to see clearly for tens of meters ahead. The vast majority of hallways were quite wide, enough for about ten people to walk next to each other comfortably.

Here on the first floor there were almost exclusively two kinds of monsters roaming about, either alone or in small groups. Both of them were, of course, Level 1 monsters. One of these two species were the goblins: green, short and slightly plump humanoid monsters with sharp claws. They were slightly taller than one meter and considered to be the weakest monsters in the dungeon. Still, if one only looked at their stats, they were all at around I-50. The other species were the kobolds. Just like goblins, they were also humanoids. Their bodies were almost completely covered in fur of various colours, mostly brown, and their heads looked just like a dog's head. They towered almost two heads over the goblins, while their stats could sometimes approach H-100.

An important thing to note was that the way stats grew wasn't linear, which meant that a goblin wasn't five times as strong as Isaac. Neither was a kobold ten times as strong. The two species were quite a bit weaker than that.

Still, it was plainly obvious that stat-wise, Isaac wouldn't be able to compete with them directly. Even so, he had requested for Lefiya and Ais to fall back as far as possible, to a point where they could still barely observe him. At first, Lefiya hadn't agreed but she was finally convinced when Isaac had told her that he wanted to focus completely and test himself without subconsciously relying on their help too much.

Currently, Isaac could see a single goblin wandering around the hallways about 20 meters away. It didn't even attempt to exploit the slight grooves in the walls or other parts of the terrain, clearly showcasing that it's intelligence was severely lacking.

With a little bit of excitement, Isaac unsheathed his sword and forewent any chance of a surprise attack by calmly walking directly towards his first monster opponent. As if a switch had been flipped, he cleared his mind of any distracting thoughts and observed the goblin as closely as possible.

Even before his transcendence, his mind had already been superhuman. It easily enabled him to register every single muscle movement, every breath and eye movement of such a slow opponent. Even though the goblin's stats were almost five times higher than his own, such a small difference couldn't even begin to bridge the vast gap between their awarenesses.

The goblin didn't take long to notice the sole adventurer making his way towards it. Once it did, it let out a guttural screech, that even Isaac's system couldn't translate, as it wasn't part of a language, and charged towards its perceived prey.

Meanwhile, Ais was observing from afar and wondering about how Isaac, who observably wasn't even a match for the stats of this single goblin, would deal with this situation. She didn't worry too much about the young man, though, as he seemed to be as confident as ever. Lefiya, on the other hand, was already about to charge out to do her best to defend this guy she somehow felt protective of. She knew how scary monsters could be, especially if someone wasn't used to them. Most people would just freeze up or blank out when they had to confront them alone for the first time. So she couldn't help but worry.

Before she could rush out, however, Ais stopped her, signaling for her to just keep watching.

At this moment, Isaac relaxedly sidestepped the goblin's charge, evading its claws by a safe margin: not too far, and not too close. After almost falling over, the goblin turned around with an annoyed expression on its face and charged yet again, convinced that it would hit its prey this time around. The same thing continued to happen a few times, before Isaac started to feint attacks towards the green monster and continuously changed the movement pattern he used to evade. Simultaneously, he registered every single reaction the goblin had to his actions.

It was as simple as a game of 3D chess with a lot more options. There was only a finite number of actions a goblin's body could reasonably perform at any given point in time. Isaac was testing the waters, figuring out which of his movements caused the goblin to react in specific ways.

Of course, to do such a thing, perfect and immediate control of the entire body was necessary. That was a realm a normal human being would never reach - and yet, Isaac had already reached it long before he transcended. It was one of the many steps necessary for him to succeed in transcending, after all. Now that his body could more accurately be described as an avatar of his soul than its container, it was even easier to perform these feats.

This whole charade had to look just like a drunken performance to an unskilled observer. During the entire ten minutes this exchange took place, neither side drew blood or even touched the opposing party.

Slowly, Lefiya began to understand what Isaac was doing and was baffled. She herself couldn't even begin to employ such methods. Because it was absolutely insane. What kind of mental capacity would a being need to calculate and predict each of their opponent's moves in advance? She didn't know anyone who could do so, not even her beloved idol, Ais!

Speaking of Ais, she was completely glued to Isaac's performance. Even though what other people would see was just a Level 1 newbie adventurer struggling to defeat even a single goblin, she saw a completely different world. A world like a chessboard. Although she couldn't make it out clearly, she got absorbed by this, to her, inspiring and captivating dance.

Just then, what could up to this moment be considered a humorous display, suddenly changed to a gory tragedy. Isaac had accounted for all possible moves and reactions of the goblin while it was still undamaged, not in pain and under no lethal threat. While there was always a very minimal margin of error, it wasn't hard to account for a one in a billion chance that a new pattern might emerge. Now, he had to change his modus operandi.

And just like that, in very quick succession, more and more small wounds started to appear all over the goblin's body. Piercing wounds, tiny slices, powerful slashes and a hacking motion that almost cut off the goblin's right arm. Many such attacks began to drown Isaac's opponent in a torrent of pain.

While a pale and horrified elf and still mesmerized Ais were watching, Isaac expressionlessly injured the goblin over and over, slowly dismembering it, while still giving it enough time to react to his attacks. Pretty early on, he had slightly grazed the monster's magic stone but was lucky enough to not have damaged it enough to result in the death of his experimental subject, so he avoided that spot thereafter.

After a grueling ten minute long torture that almost made Lefiya throw up and forced her to look away after a minute or so, the goblin finally stopped responding. It was dead.

After sighing sadly for a moment because he hadn't been able to research all of its possible reactions to harm and impending death, Isaac ripped the slightly exposed magic stone out of the goblin's chest, which prompted its body to turn to ash and disappear soundlessly.

[ Achievement Progress: Kill 1000 Level 1 monsters. (1/1000) ]

Noticing that the noises had suddenly stopped, Lefiya carefully turned around to see Isaac hold a small magic stone in his right hand. Finally, she wasn't in danger of throwing up anymore. Still, she was quite angry about what happened, so she walked towards him and indignantly confronted him.

"Why did you do something so horrible just now? Couldn't you just have killed it?"

Isaac couldn't help but be perplexed at this sudden complaint and explained himself.

"Well, it obviously wanted to kill me, so I used it as a research subject to prepare for when I'll have to face others of its kind. I didn't torture it out of ire, I just wanted to prepare for future reactions goblins could have to my attacks and movements. If I do so, I'll be able to easily dispatch any of them in the future and stay safe in the process. A challenge only seems hard if you don't research and prepare for it beforehand, after all."

Even though she knew that what Isaac had just told her was the truth, as she couldn't see any malice or deceit in his eyes, Lefiya still didn't relent.

"But still, was it necessary to be this cruel?"

Contrary to the timid elf, Isaac didn't think of his actions as excessive.

"The goblin was my enemy. What happens to an enemy of mine is irrelevant to me."

As if she had just grasped onto something, a crafty look appeared on Lefiya's face. She was sure she would be able to show him how flawed his logic was with her next words.

"But what if the enemy was a person, and not a monster?"

Of course, Isaac had noticed her change in expression and already expected her to ask something along these lines. He had to admit that it was truly adorable how innocent and naive her thoughts were. Because she had asked him this question, even if her opinion of him could turn worse, he would answer honestly.

"To me, there are only three kinds of beings. My enemies, my friends and the ones I don't care about. What difference does it make whether they are gods, humans, elves, amazonesses, pallums, chienthropes, any other race or even monsters? I will treat them according to how they treat me."

At this time in the explanation, his expression turned a lot worse, as if he was remembering a few unpleasant scenes.

"There are many horrible people whose actions are even more vile than the most terrifying monsters. So what makes them better than monsters? The only thing that could be argued for is the existence of a 'soul' and them therefore being sentient and able to communicate. But that's it. If there was a monster that fit these criteria, would there even be any difference between it and the people of the so-called sentient races? There would be none. Both have just as much of a potential to be my enemy, friend or just a bystander. Treating them differently would just be discrimination because of personal bias. To me, only their behaviour towards me will decide how I treat them, not criteria they have no control over."

Isaac's words felt like heavy punches to Lefiya. She was completely dumbstruck. Never before had she thought about these things. The simple dichotomy of 'monsters are bad and the sentient races are good' was all she had ever considered. But now, she couldn't deny that Isaac's words were sound, she couldn't refute any of them. Even though she didn't agree with how he treated his enemies. Maybe it was she who was in the wrong? Still, she had a slight aversion towards monsters, no matter what their intentions were. She couldn't just change that. But maybe she should?

By making her confused, Isaac had successfully diverted Lefiya's attention from his cruel and merciless actions. He smiled towards Ais who was just as deeply in thought about his previous words as Lefiya, which prompted her to smile back distractedly.

Without waiting for their thoughts to settle down, he walked further into the dungeon, eager for more enemies to cross his path. Once he was sure the two girls weren't paying close attention, he put the small magic stone he had just gathered into his inventory.

-----

By now, Isaac had slain three more goblins and finally finished his experiments related to their species. No matter what, he was prepared to face their kind. Additionally, he had also found a first and second kobold for his research.

When he had just managed to gain enough data, beheaded the kobold lying on the ground in front of him, wiped the sweat off his forehead and ripped out the magic stone, Isaac stumbled a bit upon receiving a slew of system messages.

[ Achievement Progress: Kill 1000 Level 1 monsters. (6/1000) ]

This first one, he had already expected. The following ones were the cause for his surprise.

[ Ais Wallenstein's fundamental beliefs relating to monsters have been changed by your words.

Quest 'Transform one person's fundamental beliefs.' completed. 100 Achievement Points rewarded. ]

[ Ais Wallenstein has fallen in love with you.

Quest 'Gain one person's love.' completed. 100 Achievement Points rewarded.

Quest 'Gain Ais Wallenstein's love.' completed. 1000 Achievement Points rewarded. ]

[ A feature has been unlocked.

Requirements: Have one person fit into all of the following categories.

(Fundamental belief transformed by host), (Friend of host), (In love with host), (Ais Wallenstein or Ereshkigal) ]

[ For anyone fitting into all of the previously mentioned categories, an assignable position has become available: Secondary Host ]

-----

She didn't know how long she had been watching the inexplicably charming young man elegantly stride through this fleeting world resembling a chessboard. But all this while, Ais had been thinking about the words he said before. His words about all of the species.

They had caused her to look back upon her own life. She remembered the time when the One-Eyed Black Dragon took away her father and mother. How, following this, she was alone for longer than she could even process. Her deep hatred for monsters spawned by what the damn dragon had done to her and her family. How she was taken in by a kind familia, pushing herself to the brink all the time on her path to strength and vengeance. After a while, she didn't even know when it started, she began to care for others around her.

And at the same time, because she wasn't solely focussed on her grudge anymore, she had begun to notice the dark side of the sentient races as well. Back then, a question appeared in her mind: Were they any better than monsters? Or were all evil beings fundamentally the same thing, her enemy? Isaac's words had brought this question back to the forefront of her thoughts.

Ais thought back to all the times she had heard about adventurers murdering each other in the dungeon and the streets of Orario. Back to the constant wars between country-style familias and the resulting refugees she sometimes ran across. Back to the muffled cries of help often heard from particular back alleys. There were simply too many horrible things to recount.

Was there anything wrong with treating people who treated her well as friends, and the ones who wanted to harm her as enemies?

No.

Why should she care about their race or species? It didn't make a difference. It was literally irrelevant. It didn't change what kind of being they were. Whether they were evil or just, whether they harmed her or the people she cared about or cared about her and her loved ones.

Just like how Ais hated the One-Eyed Black Dragon for the tragedy it had brought upon her family, she would hate any beings of sentient races that did the same thing to her or her loved ones.

Really, it was simple. Why did it take her so long to realize this?

It felt as if some kind of veil had been lifted from her eyes, but of course, that was only her imagination.

Deep inside her very being, multiple feelings and thoughts coincidentally joined together: the impressive calculative feats Isaac had just portrayed, his words that triggered an answer to her old question, his every other word and action ever since they met, plus the inexplicable resonant loneliness that made her feel true hope and understanding for the first time.

Ais felt a warm feeling in her chest. And it wasn't the usual warmth she associated with her own body. It was completely incorporeal.

Once she realized that this feeling wasn't only admiration or her desire for strength, she couldn't help but blush. It was something more. Something she had only ever heard about from others. Still, she recognized it immediately. Love.

Love truly was a weird feeling. People could fall in love at any time, without warning. Often times, there wasn't even a discernible reason. It didn't matter how long or well people knew each other. If a special something, a special connection, was there and enough factors came into play, it bloomed. It could happen in the weirdest of circumstances.

Just like how Ais' maiden heart was stolen while watching an enigmatic young man decapitate a previously tortured, mutilated and crippled kobold.

Shortly after she started to feel the warm feeling in her chest, she saw how Isaac stumbled for a moment. She had been ready to rush forward to keep him from harming himself with his still-drawn sword if he fell, but felt relief upon seeing how he caught himself almost immediately.

Right after that, he looked at her with a mixture of emotions showing on his face: surprise, confusion and happiness. Meanwhile, Ais was thinking about how Isaac was probably exhausted from all of this exercise and that was the reason for him stumbling a bit.

After staring at her for a few moments, a resolute look appeared on Isaac's face, as if he had just made an important decision.

A fraction of a second later, Ais almost got scared out of her wits when, without any kind of warning or indication, an intangible message box appeared in her field of view, personally addressing her.

[ Welcome to the Wish Fulfillment System, secondary host Ais. ]