Reeling In Small Fry

Just like every morning, Jakk left the Twilight Manor to get started with his daily dungeon activities. This time, however, he wasn't accompanying Isaac.

Yesterday evening, his roommate had explained the current situation to him. And even though the hume bunny youth was everything but happy about what he had now been asked to do, he knew that complaining was of no use. It had to be done, as the situation was quite unfavourable.

A few minutes after Jakk had left, he emerged from the maze of small alleyways surrounding his familia's home and finally set his sights on his first stop - a small, unremarkable inn by the name of 'Bard's Respite'. Just a few meters from the entrance, a beautiful young chienthrope girl was gripping the hilt of her sword and excitedly waiting for someone.

When Jakk entered Mina's field of view, she excitedly checked whether her lord was following him, only to be disappointed. Because she had no clue about what was going on, as she hadn't been informed of any changes to today's schedule, she walked up to the antisocial bunny boy.

"Why isn't milord with you?"

Upon hearing that question, Jakk could only smile wryly. Having such a beautiful young girl refer to Isaac with a title like this and being close to the breathtakingly beautiful Sword Princess… anyone would be jealous of that, at least a little. Very quickly, though, Jakk steeled his heart. His heart had already been stolen by someone, therefore such greedy desires wouldn't rattle his beliefs.

Before his lack of a response could make the girl grow any more confused, Jakk explained the situation.

As Ais and Isaac had attracted a lot of attention yesterday because of their close relationship, Isaac was worried that someone would make trouble for his students. Therefore, he had already left the Twilight Manor earlier and made his way to the dungeon, without bothering to hide his presence at all. Even more, he was trying to attract the attention of everyone spying on him. With this, the risk to his acquaintances was severely reduced. For today's training, his students were to train alone in the dungeon until they would leave to have a lunch break. After that, they would have to rent a training area from the Guild, specifically from Yolanda, and wait for him to join them there.

To clear up the last remaining specks of Mina's confusion, Jakk proceeded to explain how the Sword Princess had many very obsessive suitors, who would harm anyone that got too close to their idol.

When she realized the severity of the situation, Mina grew a little panicked, before realizing that making a scene and attracting attention would be contrary to what her lord had in mind. Upon calming herself, she asked a question that suddenly came to mind.

"What about Averin?"

"He'll have to stay at the manor for now. We can't bring him with us into the dungeon, just in case someone is observing us. It's too dangerous."

Isaac didn't even know about the short encounter Mina had with Hermes and Asfi yet. But even without factoring that in, the chances of someone observing his companions were still pretty high, so he had taken the necessary precautions. As for the rooster… he would just have to laze around at home for a few more days, until Isaac's long-standing plans would bear fruit.

Once the hume bunny youth and dog girl made their way towards Babel, an unremarkable passerby was following along, seemingly coincidentally.

It was a young chienthrope woman with short black hair, light brown dog ears and a medium length tail of the same colour. Her bronze coloured eyes stealthily followed the two youths through the crowd, while she was strolling along the street with her red-brown boots. She wore a matching leather jacket, shorts and a crimson scarf, under which she was clad in a revealing black shirt. A sheathed dagger was securely fastened to her black belt, while her hands were protected by gloves made of the same kind of leather.

She didn't seem out of the ordinary at all, as most people in the crowd wore outfits of a similar style.

"They're finally on the move."

These mumbled words weren't loud enough to enter the ears of any of her fellow passersby.

When Jakk and Mina met up with Kalin, their current situation had to be explained to him as well, in hushed tones. Contrary to Mina, who had reacted in a worried manner, Kalin's face twisted into a mask of rage when he heard how his benefactor was being treated. He was barely able to hold back his anger.

This rage was aimed at the unreasonable people who would go so far as to make trouble for someone's associates simply because of a crush. That was insane! But as he was well aware of how many scumbags and self-righteous people walked this city's streets, he couldn't say he was surprised. Orario was a melting pot of all the world's strongest and most exceptional beings. Many came from their own villages or countries, where they were the cream of the crop, the very peak. When these frogs left their wells, they wouldn't just suddenly lose their overbearing behaviour. Additionally, their behaviour would teach others to behave the same way. The effects could be seen everywhere.

Still, there was no use obsessing over it. Kalin knew that he couldn't be of much help as he was now. He could only continue refining his arts and accumulate just a little bit more strength. With Isaac's promise of letting him join something akin to a familia in mind, Kalin tightly grasped his spear, a fire of motivation burning in his eyes.

Just like every day, the group of students quickly distanced themselves from other adventurers once they entered the dungeon. They didn't notice the young chienthrope woman following them just outside of their range of perception, however.

Once they had finally found a suitable spot, Mina and Kalin got to their daily training routines and killed their goblin and kobold opponents remarkably swiftly and easily. Isaac's training was nothing to scoff at.

The only outsider who witnessed this surprisingly skillful slaughter was the chienthrope woman. She silently whistled, clearly impressed with what she was seeing.

"Sure enough, even though they're weak, they're well trained. We're on the right track."

-----

Deeper within the dungeon, Isaac had already reached the 13th floor. Compared to yesterday, however, he was now sweating quite a lot and clearly exhausted. He was running low on fumes.

After finishing a battle with a group of almiraj, he finally had some time to catch his breath. Gone was his breathtaking combat skill, replaced with an ordinary one. The eight almiraj had been a very tough ordeal, there had even been a few close calls where he had almost been injured.

Isaac sat down and leaned against the dungeon's wall to relax his strained muscles. Just a few meters away, hidden behind an unremarkable crevice, was a large hole leading down to the lower floors. If one wasn't intimately familiar with this floor, they wouldn't know about this emergency exit.

To quench his thirst, Isaac got one of the flasks of water from his backpack, which he had set down next to him, and took a sip. When he tried to put it back, however, the situation suddenly changed. Before he could react, a crossbow bolt knocked the flask out of his hand and nailed it to the wall.

While Isaac instantly sprung into a combat ready stance, his sword drawn, a focussed look on his face, a group of eight entered the cavern he was in from one of the connecting caves. They didn't bother to hide their appearances, so Isaac was able to ascertain that there were six men and two women, one of which held a crossbow - she was the one who had loosened the bolt.

"Oh, nice reactions for a weakling. But it's too bad, you won't have much more time to grow stronger."

A quite handsome man with short brown hair commented, a derisive sneer on his face. His equipment was a little bit better than the others', although it wasn't extravagant. A decently decorated sword was sheathed at his waist. Still, it's quality couldn't compare to Isaac's.

"What do you want?"

Isaac was quite tense in this situation, his eyes darted to all of the cavern's exits, seemingly trying to check which one to use for his escape.

"We want to give you an early burial. What better place than the dungeon, a place impossible to monitor?"

Before the man could continue with his explanation, one of the women joined the conversation. She wasn't particularly beautiful, but her long dark hair and passable face made her look above average. She was wielding a huge bastard sword, ready to attack at any time.

"How dare you think of hogging our wonderful Ais?! A pushover like you isn't worth of her!"

In response to the fierce and hateful tone of her voice, Isaac stayed remarkably calm. With a nod, he confirmed his suspicions.

"So that's what this is about."

This comment wasn't aimed at his adversaries, therefore he didn't give them any time to respond, before asking them another question.

"All of you are here to kill me, is that correct?"

To the group of eight, it sounded just like a desperate plea, while in actuality, Isaac was just making sure whether or not one of them just tagged along without really intending to follow through with this. If they didn't grasp this chance… too bad.

"Let's hurry and kill him already, before someone else sees us."

The man who uttered these words completely ignored Isaac's question. His body was mostly covered in plate armour, while he was wielding a cheap shield and axe. The face mostly covered by his helmet was scarred from a long history of fights.

Judging from the vast amounts of killing intent all eight of them showered him with and the lack of any evidence to the contrary, Isaac surmised that none of them had any lingering doubts, so his formerly tense guard relaxed, which didn't escape the woman with the crossbow. This was her chance!

"What? You want to surrender? As if we'll let you!"

With these words, she loosened a bolt, sending it on a straight path to Isaac's face with a speed she herself wouldn't be able to react to.

But Isaac had already predicted she would do that, as he had paid close attention to when she would pull the trigger. After moving just slightly out of the way, Isaac charged at his opponents.

Of course, everything up until now had been an act. He wanted to lure everyone currently following him out into the open before ascertaining their motivations. Once he had made sure that there was nobody else hiding in the other caves leading to this cavern, he decided to make his move. His opponents consisted of one Level 2 and seven Level 1 adventurers. The former was the better equipped swordsman, who would most likely be the only slightly tougher opponent in this confrontation. The best he would be able to do was give Isaac the smallest amount of pressure, though, as he wasn't one of the stronger Level 2 adventurers around.

Such a fast dodge and reaction took his attackers by surprise, so before he arrived in front of them, three of the men had already formed into an attack formation in response. They were trying to box him in but their teamwork was clearly lacking - obviously, they weren't part of the same party in their everyday lives. Sadly, this group of three didn't even serve as a warm-up for Isaac. While charging at them, he had shifted his position slightly, so as to hide his right arm and sword from their field of view. This enabled him to already start his attack before they visually recognized it. Instantly, the left attacker had been decapitated.

This, in turn, stunned the other two men in the improvised formation, giving Isaac enough time to decapitate the middle one without resistance. The man situated to his right was the one equipped with the shield and axe. Contrary to his compatriots, he hadn't taken long to shake off his shock and had already brought down his weapon upon Isaac with a mighty swing… which was effortlessly sidestepped.

After this, Isaac turned and used the gained momentum to power up his next attack, which he aimed right at the axe-wielding man's neck. Probably due to his relative poverty, the man wasn't wearing chainmail under his plate armour, just a plain and cheap gambeson. That wouldn't be enough to cause Isaac's attack to even pause.

At this point, however, the Level 2 leader of this ragtag group had arrived by his companion's side, ready to block Isaac's sword stroke with horror displayed on his face. They had vastly underestimated their rival in 'love' and paid dearly for it. Before they even had a chance to react, two of them were already dead…

Besides the woman wielding the crossbow, the rest of the group finally approached as well, attempting to restrain Isaac by sealing off all of his possible paths of escape. But to Isaac, their attempts were akin to a newborn's - simply not effective at all.

Before Isaac's sword clashed with the blocking leader's, he suddenly spun a little, leaned back and redirected his attack at the same time. Contrary to the leader's expectations, Isaac wasn't aiming at one of the gaps in his defense. Instead, he was aiming his sword stroke at a completely different direction.

Thanks to his perfect calculation, Isaac hit the approaching crossbow bolt precisely at the right spot and with enough force to make it change its course without losing nigh any of its kinetic energy whatsoever. The only one of the opponents who even realized what was going on was the Level 2 leader, whose eyes almost sprung out of their sockets. He just couldn't believe what he was seeing!

Well, whether or not he did wouldn't make a difference. A fraction of a second later, the redirected crossbow bolt perfectly hit the plate armour wearing man in his left eye and penetrated his skull. His last remaining eye was coloured in shock, pain and horror, while it was rapidly losing the light of life.

By the time the man fell to his knees, the rest of the group finally realized what had happened. They paled and shivered, clearly intimidated. Finally, they realized that they were in way over their heads. That didn't matter to Isaac, however. He had already closed in on his next victim, the bastard-sword wielding woman. When she realized that she had been singled out, she hastily swung her sword out of pure instinct, but Isaac delicately twirled around her descending slash as if he were dancing. Before anyone knew, he had decapitated the lady in one smooth motion.

"Nooo!!"

A desperate, heart-wrenching scream came from one of the last two men besides the leader. For all Isaac knew, he might have been pretty close with the woman. Not that he cared.

Instead of focussing on their make-shift encirclement, the man charged at Isaac with eyes red with rage. This only made him a lot easier to deal with. Although the Level 2 was already breathing down his neck and had launched his attack, Isaac was prepared for just that. Swiftly, he deflected the leader's attack, which in turn numbed his right hand a little as a result of the difference in their strength stats. At the same time, the single step he was forced to take back made Isaac smoothly avoid the spear thrust of the incensed man. As soon as he had stabilized himself again, Isaac ended the guy's turbulent emotions once and for all, by making yet another head tumble to the floor.

As for the woman with the crossbow, she was already trying to run away, after she had realized how horribly wrong the situation was developing. Isaac had been paying attention to her all along, so he didn't miss this. There was only one man situated between them, so he charged at him and feinted an attack. Shortly before they would clash, he stepped around the guy and left him there unharmed, mainly focussed on finishing off the escapee. This also put the man between Isaac and the leader, which would hinder the latter for at least a few seconds - plenty of time.

Using his speed, which was vastly superior to the woman's, Isaac arrived behind her in less than five seconds and beheaded her as well. Then, he turned around to face the last two opponents.

At this point, the Level 2 leader was fuming with anger. Yes, he was scared. Anybody would be if they were in his situation. He had even thought about running away before he had clashed swords with this slippery eel of an enemy.

His companion had already fallen onto his butt and was staring at Isaac as if he was a horrific, inhuman monster. He had no will to fight left. The leader, however, was different. During their brief clash, he had noticed that his strength was vastly higher than his enemy's. Because of this, his thoughts steered away from trying to escape, which he could most likely manage to do with his superior speed, and towards aiming for victory. In the first place, their collective goal had been to murder this eyesore. Why give up on it now that there was a ray of hope?

Little did the leader know that this was all just part of Isaac's plan. After all, why let an enemy get away if one can help it? The roots of future conflict had to be ripped out as soon as possible.

With a guttural roar and gathering all of his strength, the enemy leader lunged at Isaac. Upon seeing his plan come to fruition, a happy smile flashed across the latter's face, while he focussed on the challenge at hand. This opponent would be quite hard to insta-kill. He wouldn't be too much of a challenge either, though, as his stats were barely higher than a Ligerfang's. Especially after yesterday's update, this confrontation shouldn't pose a problem anymore.

That said, Isaac deflected the leader's attack yet again, this time not bearing any of the impact himself. He then rapidly aimed his sword at the enemy's neck, which prompted the leader to hastily block Isaac's strike. Because he had been too scared of being beheaded and focussed solely on the approaching sword arm, the leader hadn't paid attention to the rest of Isaac's body, which was a mistake.

At the very last moment, Isaac redirected the strike, aiming straight for the gap between the opponent's neck and left shoulder plate. With most of his strength behind the strike, Isaac's sword cut through the man's collarbone and shoulder like butter, separating the man's left arm from his body.

For a short moment, the leader's face scrunched up in pain and he instinctively wanted to grip his left shoulder to stop the pain somehow. However, his mind quickly cleared up and made him realize that that would have been a foolish move. Pain wasn't important right now, survival was! By surpassing the limit of his pain tolerance, the leader denied Isaac this opening with gritted teeth.

Well, he thought he did. It was all for naught. The split-second distraction was enough for Isaac to be just a little bit faster than his opponent. Before the leader's responding strike could reach Isaac's sword, he had already been decapitated.

Still, after the beheading, the leader's attack still collided with Isaac's sword with full force, almost knocking it out of his hand. The impact was enough to make Isaac stumble back a few meters and rub his reddened wrist. His muscles there had almost snapped, they had been strained close to their limit. While letting his right wrist focus solely on recovery, Isaac took his sword into his left hand and walked up to the last survivor.

[ Achievement Progress:

Kill 1000 Level 2 monsters. (20/1000) ]

"D-Don't come any closer! I surrender. I give up! Please, spare me!"

All of these desperate pleas fell on deaf ears. With no other option, the man could only back up quickly until he hit a wall. Without giving him another chance, Isaac showed him a gentle smile… and beheaded him.

[ Achievement Progress:

Kill 2000 Level 1 monsters. (1717/2000) ]

"Oh well, time to check if they have anything useful."

While mumbling this, Isaac discreetly peered deeply into one of the connecting caves, then he winked happily, before focussing on his loot.

Far away, beyond where Isaac's range of perception should have ended, Bete was leaning against one of the dungeon's walls. When he saw that annoying wink, he gripped his fists tightly. With a '"tch", he turned around to leave.

"Cheeky brat."

Spitting out these words between his clenched teeth, Bete made his way deeper into the dungeon, prompted to redouble his efforts of getting stronger thanks to what he had witnessed just now. This level of skill was simply mind-boggling. If Isaac grew at the same rapid pace, he would be losing the challenge he put forth way too easily. Still, Bete was a little glad that he didn't have anything to worry about with this new familia member. Not that he would ever let anyone hear him say that, though.

When Bete finally left his actual range of perception, Isaac smiled warmly. He knew that the werewolf's harsh words and insults were his own way of showing his caring nature. Because of some past trauma, he sought strength and despised his own weakness more than anything. Therefore, whenever he saw someone else not treasuring what they had or putting enough effort into protecting it, he got angry. Most of this anger was directed at his younger self, however.

Bete wouldn't let a member of his familia die on his watch, ever. He would complain about having to save them, though.

Most likely, as he was also one of Ais' admirers who paid attention to any news related to her, Bete had heard about what had happened yesterday and decided to see whether Isaac needed assistance when dealing with any of the inevitably attracted lunatics. If his help was needed, he also would have put Isaac in his debt. No matter what, Bete could practically only win.

Although Isaac didn't support Bete's behaviour in regards to strength, as it was simply too narrow-minded, he could appreciate well-meant intentions.

After he had finished looting, Isaac had practically stripped all of the bodies down to their underwear. Or, well, nothing, in case they didn't wear any. He gained a few low quality weapons and armour pieces that he could potentially sell or give to his subordinates. Some of the pieces of equipment his assailants had worn, however, would need to be repaired should he ever aim for them to be used. Besides that, there were a few miscellaneous items and 280.970 valis, all of which was stored in his infinite inventory space. Sadly, however, the group didn't carry their entire fortune with them, so Isaac didn't make much money - for him, grinding in the dungeon would be way more efficient.

While thinking about what to do with the partially naked, decapitated bodies, Isaac decided on another experiment. How long did it take for the dungeon to absorb a body? There was only one way to find out.

In the next hour, Isaac's right wrist fully recovered while he hunted some monsters that spawned in and around the cavern he had been ambushed in. Finally, after exactly one hour, the absorption process began.

It was basically the reverse of a monster's birth.

Before a monster was born, it grew in a cocoon located on the other side of one of the dungeon's walls. Once it was born, it broke open the cocoon and the wall before being left alone in the dungeon. As for the reverse, the absorption of bodies, a gash opened in the dungeon's floor, which had enough room for the body to fit in. It would then close and the body would be absorbed by the dungeon or whatever entity was controlling it.

Interestingly enough, however, such a thing wasn't known to happen with living people, so the dungeon's absorption targets would have to be dead and not move for exactly an hour.

Now, as for what to do with this knowledge, Isaac wasn't sure yet. But it would certainly be useful someday, right?

Thankfully, the hour he had been spending here wasn't wasted, as he had been able to kill more monsters for his Level 1 monster slaying quest and gather their magic stones.

Having finished all of his business here, Isaac took the shortest way down to the lower floors: the hole he had been close to this entire time. He had already planned out a route back down to the 15th floor, where he had been forced to stop yesterday. The route made use of the holes in the dungeon that were both relatively close to each other and covered the shortest vertical distance. If he accidentally fell into one that was multiple floors deep, Isaac's body wouldn't be strong enough. While he would be able to survive the fall, he would certainly be injured, which was something he - and any sane person - would prefer to avoid.

Within ten minutes, at 8:15 a.m., Isaac arrived on the 15th floor. As he had upgraded his Status yesterday, the minotaurs and Ligerfangs that had proven to be quite the tough opponents before were now significantly easier to deal with. While they still gave him generous amounts of excelia, it had been reduced just as significantly.

The deeper the floor one was on, the longer it would take to get to the stairs leading to the next one. Because of this and his quite thorough exploration, it took Isaac a whole two hours to make it to the last room before the stairs leading to the 18th floor. It was a truly gigantic cavern with slightly crystalline, semi-transparent walls, which housed the floor boss reigning over the entirety of the middle floors, the Goliath. Another name by which these more significant floor bosses were usually referred to was 'Monster Rex'.

All Monster Rexes had two things in common. First, it took a long period of time for them to respawn. It could take from one week to a few months. Second, they were up to multiple Levels stronger than all the monsters leading up to their spawn location.

A normal adventurer would have to be at least Level 4 to stand a chance against the Goliath, whereas Isaac would most likely be able to slay it while he was still Level 3. Thankfully, there was no need to do so right now, as it was still in the middle of respawning. From its current shape and size, which he could vaguely make out through the crystalline wall, it had most likely been slain very recently.

As he would have to make his way back to the surface relatively soon, Isaac didn't go and check out the 18th floor and the city within, Rivira. It wouldn't be worth it to go there unless he had a lot of time at hand to study it in detail. After all, he would have to stay there quite often in the future, therefore it would be better if he knew as much about the place as he could.

With nothing better to do, Isaac decided to spend the next two hours slaying minotaurs and Ligerfangs, trying to get his stats maxed out for this Level. He wasn't entirely sure if he would make it today, as the monsters kept giving him less and less excelia the more he accumulated, but ten minutes before he had to head back up to the surface, he finally got the system notification he had been waiting for.

[ Post-update Magic stat has reached the maximum. No further Magic-related excelia can be gained until your Level increases. ]