Chapter 4 - Section 4 - Rank Up

The battle this time lasted much longer than our fight with the behemoth floor boss from before, our tactics didn't change too much even with the changes to our line up.

The beast's endurance and weapon durability were next level though, and even the weakness Minotaur's have in games wasn't even present so cheap!

Gotta give a player a chance after all, and to think that "that" of all things was the real reason the beast was deemed to be Immortal by that MC or ringmaster or whatever he'd call himself.

""Good thinking Master to think that gem was the source of the Boss's immortality"" <Shenron>

"Well honestly I was just using my old gamers' mentality honestly, since the boss didn't go down even after all those mortal blows I figured something in the room was responsible for its regeneration" <Satou>

"Twas Strong, Worthy Opponent" <Hogaan>

"It was a hard fought battle for sure, but I'm glad we all made it through alive… er or rather in one piec… oops uh I mean GOOD JOB EVERYONE!" <Satou>

Looking across the array of my summons before me we were certainly beaten within an inch of our lives, Both the stone golems were missing an arm, and the rest of them looked to be crumbling from repeated heavy impacts as impact sights, and fractures ran all across their giant forms, Hogan was covered in cuts all over, Kurama though not wounded has surely been given quite the close shave as the hair atop his head which used to be quite spiky was now mown straight across, only Shenron appears to be without any mark of injury but that's certainly due to his barriers.

"Dismiss Rocky, Creed, Hogaan, and Kurama" <Satou>

"Aroo…." <Kurama>

Four trails of light filtered out from their bodies before being absorbed into me, the final cry from Kurama surely asking "why" I mean I get it I did promise he could remain summoned but there's something I'm planning on doing an i doubt i can do it if my summons are still out, at least It didn't work in the experiment we did so this is for the best, and well worst case he's only going to be gone for a day.

""Master I have recovered the drops from the boss for you however there is a chest that also appears that I am unable to open"" <Shenron>

"Oh thanks for that let's get that chest opened" <Satou>

Walking towards where the Minotaur fell an Ivory white chest encrusted with ruby like gems, that radiated the same crimson pulsing glow as the gem that used to reside on the Boss room's door before I destroyed it during the fight.

"Huh I really should pay attention to the heads up display more often to think those gems were called bloodstones, we could've saved so much time if I'd properly analyzed the surroundings before we'd gotten the fight started." <Satou>

After confirming the rest of the details about the chest I found it safe to open the chest itself bore the title of Dungeon Boss Treasure Chest and no traps were listed to be attached to it.

After cracking the seal and opening the hinged lid inside the chest were only 3 items.

A pitch black long sword with a red crackling pattern running down the length of the blade, the guard was shaped like a pair of demonic beings from the waist up extending in both directions, the pommel was a golf ball sized Bloodstone wrapped in the same black metal of the sword with its design looking like that of a kings crown.

A scroll sealed with a wax stamp, and lastly some kind of a messenger style looking leather bag.

Collected:[[1 Elite Titan Minotaur Horn, 1 Elite Titan Minotaur Hoof, 1 Greatsword of Titanic Strength, Demonic Blade SoulSeeker, Will of Emperor Titus XXVII, Magic Bag (Greater)]]

"Oh wait a sec before we go any further Shenron I've got to deal with my menu first there's something flashing now that I've turned the notification back on" <Satou>

[[System Message: You've reached the Level Cap!]]

I'd turned the notifications off during the kobold fight since each goblin summon requested a name so i suppressed that feature while I was fighting and figured it was unnecessary until i could clear the area entirely to a point where popups in my face wouldn't stop me or hamper progress.

"What! The level cap no way, but my status said my max level is only 30??" <Satou>

[[Please select your Character Class]]

"Character class, wait a second this is just like in the game again.. Right the first 30 character levels go to your basic training as a novice and allow a player to try a bit of everything but after that you specialize to specific character classes and tree's… but hmmm what character class should I develop for myself?" <Satou>

Well the game was pretty well balanced so I'm spoilt for choice on my first specialization the game itself was pretty expansive but being at level 30 I have quite a few choice I could go for.

So far I've been gearing towards either a Warrior, or Thief type character since I've not used or discovered how to use magic yet, but neither of those types really suit my gaming style not that this is a game of course.

Safety in the end is going to be the most important decision for me after all, so I should write off the fighter classes like;

Warrior, Monk, Barbarian, and Thief.

At the same time I've no experience whatsoever with support type classes so I should write them off as well;

Druid, Cleric, Witch Doctor, and Alchemist so that would leave me with only two specialization types either;

Ranged Combat Classes; Hunter, Ranger, Slayer, Gunslinger

Or

Magic Attack Classes; Mage, Sorcerer, Wizard, Conjurer

[Well if safety is what I'm looking for in this new world my best choice is certainly to recreate my character build for my primary toon (Player character avatar) from my days playing the game back on earth. But….. if I did that then without a doubt if this world is without a demonlord that's what I would become, well I could just go mostly in that route but go down a different path before I go too far.]

"Ok decision over, since I'd say I'm kind of already am one I might as well specialize myself to become a Conjurer" <Satou>

[[Selection Confirmed Class Change to Conjurer Complete]]

Following the choice I quickly pulled up my character screen to check if my stats dropped at all from the choice but luckily they didn't in fact some even ranked up, meanwhile my Level has been reset to Lvl 1, that's no different than in the game so I guess my next Class Up will occur at level 30(60) beyond that nothing else seems to have changed about my menu, except the number of summonable creatures from the Monster book has increased from 4 to 6.

If this is like the game then my Conjurer class should give a buff to all summoned monsters, and allow card conversion to happen with fewer cards.

In my gaming days at max level as a Top Tier Summoner I was relatively invincible since to face me in pvp (player vs Player) meant fighting a literal army of monsters before you could get to me.

""Congratulation Master on becoming a Conjurer, this surely is the perfect class for you, now our companion numbers will increase exponentially"" <Shenron>

"Thanks Shenron, though we do have to be careful since I'll surely be restricted on what I can summon since any beasts would be highly frowned upon, Kurama is fine but as he ranks up I'm sure his form will change and in the end he may wind up becoming a true monster that cannot hang out around towns, just like the evolution seen with a goblin paladin and iron lizard" <Satou>

""Quite yes, to approach a town with a company of Orcs, Goblins, or other monsters surely would draw the humans ire, but without ranking up further and ranking up your summons we surely won't know, since our only current example is Hogan who surely looks greatly different from common goblins but certainly would cause quite the commotion if anyone saw him without knowing the circumstances"" <Shenron>

"Agreed but for now let's get out of here, there looks to be a transfer circle over there" <Shenron>

Pointing to the edge of the arena where a blue glowing circle could be seen upon the ground, I walked beside Shenron and the two of us entered the circle the calm blue light started to pulse until my entire vision was filled with the light and a lifting sensation overtook my body, followed immediately by a feeling like I was falling.

'Ooff'

An involuntary gasp escaping my lips as I could feel my feet landing upon a solid surface. Warmth calmly kissing the exposed skin of my face and arms, a cool breeze brushing past my neck.

"Made it outside safely huh…" <Satou>

'Waaaaahhhh!' <Girls Voices>

"Where did you come from!!" <Young Girl>

In front of me a young girl screamed out in terror before pitching a fit and demanding and explanation of how we got into the center of the village without anyone seeing.

I mean I kind of see where she's coming from it'd probably pitch a fit if someone just popped out of nowhere in front of me.

"O~Oh my gods"<Young Girl>

A look of fear washed over her face before she just dropped dead face first into the dirt with her arms and legs splayed out.

"Uh what?" <Satou>

The girl in front of us still hadn't moved at all meanwhile the others around has dropped to one knee.

[Ah right they still have that whole gods messenger complex about you don't they, do you mind freeing their minds for me Shenron]

[[No worries at all Master]] <Shenron>

With that Shenron who was still floating by my side took off and flew up above the village stopping only to hover where all could see him, bzzztt a white light was then emitted from his entire body.

Surely for one not in the know would see this as a message from the gods especially for people are pious and devout as those I've seen in this world so far.

"Look it's the messenger" <Villager 1>

"Perhaps the gods have a missive for us all" <Villager 2>

"Praise be to Eella!" <Villager 3>

""Foolish Mortals!"" <Shenron>

'Crack'

A bolt of lightning strikes the ground below Shenron, and dark clouds began to swirl overhead.

""To think you would ignore the words of a divine being such as I!"" <Shenron>

"P~Pl… Please great messenger spare us for we did not mean to anger you." <Villager 1>

~Silent Cast: <Translation>~

""On countless occasions have not others informed you to stop referring to me as a messenger of the gods, and not to bow down in front of me. Ignorance of my will is no different than blasphemy against the very gods themselves!"" <Shenron>

"Awa it spoke!" <Villager 2>

"The voice of gods!" <Villager 4>

"Bwa.. our deepest apologies we meant no harm nor to displease you… err everyone getup now lest we draw further wrath upon ourselves" <Villager 1>

'Flash'

The entire sky lit up in a massive flash of light as another bolt of lightning shot out but this time rather than descending to the ground it rose up high into the sky piercing the dark clouds, dispelling the cloud cover, before returning to normal, Shenron was nowhere to be seen.

[[This should stop any further annoyances for the time being Master... hopefully, and as the story spreads it should make it safe for me to return to my normal form once we return to the town]] <Shenron>

[Uh I mean that's fine and all but where are you?] <Satou>

[[Oh yes but of course I just used life magic on myself to transform into a smaller form, I'm now but a necklace that looks like a serpent on you, should you need me or when the time is right for my return I will reappear]] <Shenron>

"The… the messenger is gone!" <Villager 5>

"Our foolish choices drove the divine beast away" <Villager 4>

"Him it was him the divine beast was next to that man from the beginning he must be the herald!" <Villager 7>

A stampede of woman charged towards me.

[Great so Shenron doesn't draw attention but I still do…] <Satou>

"Oh great herald of the Goddess Eella…" <Villager 1>

"Stop right there!! Did you not learn from what just happened? One more utterance like that and that beast is likely to decend upon us all to exercise its wrath" <Satou>

Everyone stopped in their tracks a visible tremor passed through them with pale white faces as if all blood drained from everyone present.

"We meant no disrespect to you, and your ho…" <Villagers>

'hrm'

"Erm.... Uh I mean is there anything we can do for you… sir?" <Villager 1>

"Better... for now all I need to know is where Raisa is." <Satou>

"Hmm? Well Lady Raisa collapsed last evening for some reason and hasn't woken up since" <Villager 1>

"What!? Take me to her at once" <Satou>

The former captives parted like the red sea as I was led away from the crowd following after the leader of the female captives.

Most of the women and kids i passed were dressed in repurposed rags, and hastily assembled clothing from what few scraps of cloth could be located around the village.

Towards the same tent I had previously rested in after conquering this village, the others who grouped up once again dispersed a few smatters of whispers started up before being quickly silenced, before they continued working on the various tasks that had been lain out for them.

After entering the tent I could see Raisa lying down on the makeshift bed I had previously woken up on after our siege of the goblin settlement, she was breathing calmly two younger girls kneeling down praying at her side.

"As you can see… uh sir. Raisa has been in this state since evening yesterday evening where she just collapsed out of nowhere and has been sleeping ever since." <Iskra>

The explanation came from the young girl who sat kneeling on the ground next to the bed the golden staff lying across her lap, on the other end of the bed her sister sat kneeling hands clasped tightly muttering some form of prayers.

"Yesterday evening huh… oh" <Satou>

[Oh god this is my fault isn't it…] <Satou>

"Appraisal" <Satou>

"Oh you have the Appraisal skill that will certainly help us with diagnosing the lady" <Iskra>

I calmly called out the skill even though I don't need to, since I can pull up her information from my heads up display, the praying sister meanwhile cracked her eyes quickly glancing in my direction before returning to her prayer.

Can't very well explain what's going on if I don't have a good excuse as to why I know what I'm about to explain.

"Uh so apparently according to my appraisal she's in a fatigued state and will remain asleep until her stamina is able to recover" <Satou>

"Oh dear so it's as we feared. She has Battle Sickness that is to be expected though given the number of goblins that were killed in our and the others rescue but to think it could strike so long after combat, after all you were hit with the same sickness but already recovered. You're an adventurer right? Do you happen to have a Stamina potion on hand that we could use to cure her the others really need her to guide us all, she helped out so much by taking charge and getting plans in motion" <Iskra>

[Battle sickness… more like level up sickness, that's a common trope in otherworld stories and after all I forgot to remove Raisa from our party before we went into the Dungeon so she got a share of all the xp from our dungeon crawl even though she didn't participate at all, so while she was working in the village without knowing it she was also gaining levels]

"I do have a potion yes" <Satou>

Pulling a pair of minor stamina potions out of the magic bag at my waist (really I materialized the items into my hand but made it look like it came from my pouch.

"To think the Lady would receive so many blessings in a row from the gods just for having rescued all of us" <Iglika>

Passing the two potion bottles over the first sister who proceeded to pour both into Raisa's mouth a faint green glow could be seen coming from her body before fading away, while the praying sister broke her prayer with a pleased look on her face, gazing over Raisa as if she was about to witness a profound miracle.

"ugh where am I" <Raisa>

"Lady Raisa!" <Iskra>

"Not a Lady... ugh... What happened?" <Raisa>

"Milday you collapsed we think from Battle Sickness, this is surely a trial given to you by the great gods as an avatar of their will" <Iglika>

"Battle sickness no way, but I hardly did anything at all! Sat.. Satou I could understand but not me, if the gods are going to employ anyone here it's not me" <Raisa>

[I am sooooooo going to be interrogated again later…]

"It's a blessing you've returned to us Milady even after we lost the blessing of the Mess… uh er hmm" <Iglika>

"Stop with the honorific's already just call me Raisa, but on the other hand. What do you mean we lost the blessings?" <Raisa>

"If you ladies don't mind I'd like to discuss some things with the la.. patient now that she has recovered" <Satou>

'Hmph'

Crossing her arms in displeasure as I just about called her a lady just like the kids, only just barely covering myself with the first replacement in mind.

"Oh um I suppose that alright for a he.. um sir like you, just remember the gods are always watching mister so don't do anything that would anger them." <Iglika>

[Seriously how hard is it to not call us messengers of god, or heralds. And what's with that last bit it's like you think I'm going to jump her the minute you two leave this hovel!]

The Lady in charge fanned her hands ushering the two little attendants out of the tent in a hurry

"So care to explain things then?" <Raisa>

Swinging her legs to the side so she was now sitting on the edge of this bed, I on the other hand had quickly materialized a bowl of porridge handing it over to her.

"Uh well I mean I don't mind but where would you like me to start?" <Satou>

"How about you start with why the hell you would go into that abyss by yourself!" <Raisa>

"What..? you mean the dungeon?" <Satou>

"A... A Dungeon!" <Raisa>

"Yeah. I mean at first I thought it was just a labyrinth but in the end it turned out to be a multi-floor dungeon" <Satou>

"There was an uncharted dungeon this close to the city!" <Raisa>

"Well yeah I suppose so…" <Satou>

"This is a disaster we need to inform the Knights Order to exterminate this dungeon as soon as we can if possible and if that's not possible then at the very least they need to fortify the entrance." <Raisa>

"What do you mean by exterminate?" <Satou>

"What else could I mean we need to beat the dungeon before it can create a stampede, and if it's a high level dungeon then we need to cull the monsters it spawns at the very least!" <Raisa>

"Oh is that all, well no need to worry I'm not sure what this stampede thing is but if I was going to guess then I'd say the Goblin village itself was the stampede, and as for the dungeon we already beat it." <Satou>

"Wha… wha" <Raisa>

"So with all that done I'll describe what happened inside as per you request but not until you eat that." <Satou>

Pointing towards the steaming bowl of porridge in her hands.

"You've been out of it since yesterday evening, and will certainly need to eat before we get back to work" <Satou>

She hastily consumed the bowl of porridge while I quickly described the monsters we'd encountered the trap that prevented our return, and the little performance we did upon our return to silence the growing rumours about me and my summons.

She wrapped up her eating wiping her mouth, so i rapidly chose to change the topic not looking forward to any questions or responses on this topic.

"What's the plan on getting everyone back to the city? Oh and I guess I should say to remember that I don't want to draw attention to myself" <Satou>

"The hell you say! everything that's happened here draws attention!!" <Raisa>

"Well I mean I suppose but it's not like we were trying to right?" <Satou>

"Well it might be normal to you but here in this world to summon a divine creature, Solo a Goblin village of this size, and then to solo a dungeon that's of an unknown level is far to abnormal!" <Raisa>

"Well I mean aside from Shenron nobody needs to know about the rest right?" <Satou>

"Well if what you say is true then the Dungeon will have disappeared after you cleared it so there's no evidence other than what you've told me about it, but when it comes to your Dragon word of it is surely to spread no matter how much you try to silence the rumors, and as for the goblins... well the extended stay could explain the mass goblin casualties which we could further talk down since even if the survivors state otherwise nobody would believe that the two of us could take down a full sized goblin village in a couple of days." <Raisa>

"Ugh even though Shenron's 'gone' now I'm still going to catch hell for this anyway huh and i guess the other things are within reason i suppose." <Satou>

"GONE!!" <Raisa>

"Well I mean kind of, the people were still making such a fuss that we put on an act and made it look like he returned as i explained before, but really he's right here" <Satou>

Pointing to the wiggling necklace on my neck.

"Oh my I'm terribly sorry about the people, but surely you can understand for them this is a series of interventions that doesn't appear in their normal lives plus they'll surely apply hero syndrome to you, and hell even me as well which will get worse with time as the story get grander" <Raisa>

"No I get it trust me, but that doesn't stop it from being a pain since I only did it to help out not cause more problems, and besides honestly if it wasn't for you I might've stopped after just rescuing the girls spending the rest of the time whittling down their strength" <Satou>

"Well if you keep him hidden the problem will disappear in time, but not soon enough I think to satisfy your desire." <Raisa>

"Just do your best to help me out when we get back to town, or I'll have to change once again… though i have a feeling even as much effort as i force you to give that's likely to occur anyway" <Satou>

Having seen me use Appearance changing items a handful of time already Raisa was aware what I meant by that statement.

'Slap'

Bringing both palms down upon her knees before rising to her feet.

"I should get to work, if we're going to make it back to the city by the end of the day!" <Raisa>

Heading off out of the tent leaving me standing there staring at the now empty bed.

[Well today will mark the end of the first real adventure but the start of so much more, first the aftermath of these days events, and after… the consequences of Raisa… to think she'd rise to level 35, from what I've seen around the city so far that makes her the highest level person I've ever seen so far, but I'll need to make sure to remove her from the party before my next adventure, but that raises a new concern her level is 35 so she didn't rank-up like I did, is that just because there are no set classes here? No that cannot be the "heroes" that were summoned all had classes assigned to them. Perhaps it's more that they only have a level cap but no class growth, eh doesn't matter right now and I can always inquire about it later.]