The Saint’s Dungeon Business - Chapter 15

The Saint’s Dungeon Affairs – 15

[NSFW]

So that was how we began today’s wolfdog hunt. We were just unlucky with the first encounter which was a pod of 2 female wolfdogs. Most of the encounters after that were male. Some groups were mixtures of females and male wolfdogs; two or three males with one female wolfdog almost seemed like female wolfdogs were protecting the male ones. That still wasn’t threatening to me and Sarah, though. The male ones have their unique weakness so Sarah could easily kill them when I distract them, and with Sarah’s cover and my physical capability, up to three female wolfdogs were not that big of a deal.

When Sarah waits on a tree, I go around the area and lure the wolfdogs by one group. When we’ve cleared the area, we look for a good tree for Sarah to climb on then I repeat luring the wolfdogs.

We’ve hunted until late night and Sarah’s Archer hit level 7 as well.

I know the level gap is huge but that’s definitely too fast. With a bit of exaggeration, I could feel she’s getting good with her bow on every shot. Maybe I could describe it as a completely skilled archeress who had a limit on her skill for some reason but rapidly gaining her skill back. And the impact gets so much stronger on every level up which makes it hard to believe that it’s a one-level difference. Her attacks are now strong enough to cut off the balls from male wolfdogs with just one or two arrows and damage the female ones. There’s definitely something but I can’t tell what it is. Would she let me know what it is when we get closer?

“It’s finally over.”

“What’s over?”

“Levelling up. Didn’t you say your Archer job levelled up to 7? You won’t be able to level up anymore because of your level limit.”

That’s right. There’s no way for her to be stronger other than levelling up. And that’s what I was aiming for. Now she said her goal is to be strong, she’ll have to level up.

But now the problem is, how should I bring this up? If I rush her to level up as soon as she hits her job level limit, that’ll be too obvious. Is there any way to make her mention it more naturally?….

“Not yet. I levelled up to 8 just now.”

Making my thought meaningless, she said it as if it’s nothing.

“What?!”

I checked her level with Analyze, and it was definitely 8.

I mean, what just happened? How is that possible? It took me so much time for me to level up by slaughtering wolfdogs, and she levelled up in just two days! She’s unbalanced!

“Why are you so surprised?”

“No, nothing. I do lack general knowledge in this world, but I heard it’s not easy to level up by hunting monsters. I was wondering how you did it so fast.”

“it’s nothing. I wasn’t that far from levelling up when we first met.”

Fuck, I see. I’ve never thought of that. That still doesn’t  change the plan. That’s only 1 level difference. If I level her Archer to 8, there won’t be any problem. But it’s over 12. Damn it, I thought I could finally do it today, but I guess I should wait for tomorrow. I haven’t fought so long before, so I was mentally very tired.

“Well, then let’s head back for today and come back early in the morning tomorrow and get it up to 8. I’m too tired to fight anymore today.”

“I get that you’re tired but we’re selling misc items today before we go to the inn.”

“You didn’t have to mention it. I’m telling you I couldn’t think that far because I was so tired yesterday.”

Hmph. I wasn’t going to be in the same room for the fap before going to bed. Wait, maybe I should save for tomorrow’s big event. Hehehe.

We went to the guild to cash in. The Guide Lady with the perfect service smile had a complicated face today for some reason.

“Hi. Is everything alright?”

“Oh, Guwon. Good Evening. No, it’s a bit…. By the way, have you been hunting the wolfdogs today? If so, wasn’t there anything unusual?”

“No, nothing much…. Oh, there were female wolfdogs mixed in.”

“I see. I suppose you did not have much problem dealing with the female wolfdogs.”

“Sorry, but does that mean it’d been troubling others?”

“Normally people fight the monsters at their level range. There were some number of adventurers who went to fight male wolfdogs but met exceptionally strong female wolfdogs and ended up dying or badly hurt. I think the regional recommendation level for the dungeon the guild guides the adventurer with should be recalibrated.”

Come to think of it I am much stronger than the people of this world. My level might be around for the recommendation level for the wolfdogs, but by stats it was no more or less than massacre. I get hurt by those female wolfdogs sometimes so to the adventurers who dealt with male ones, the female one would have been like a disaster.

“That’s not good. It must be hard for the guild too.”

“Indeed. We are investigating on why the female wolfdogs suddenly appeared, but the monster’s habitat is not very well known so there hasn’t been much progress.”

The reason the female wolfdogs suddenly appeared, huh…. Don’t tell me that I overkilled male wolfdogs so the female ones freaked out and came out.

No way.

…it’s not it. It must not be it.

Come to think of it I stayed too long at one place with overboosted stats. No one will know what I did if I stay quiet. Okay, that’s what I’m going to do.

“That must be hard. The adventurers aren’t scholars, too.”

“It really is. Here is what your magic stones are worth. Oh right, here is the compensation for the information. The recommended level for female wolfdogs is 15, and 20 Silvers are arranged for your information.”

“Woah, that’s a lot for a comparably low-level monster.”

“That just shows how much effort the guild is putting for collecting information. Some adventurers keep the information for themselves, so that definitely helped highering the compensation.”

“I see. Well, have a nice day.”

“Thanks, you too.”

Sarah was busy looking around the guild. That’ll only make you look countrified. Stop looking around.

“Good news. We got 20 silvers for sharing the information on female wolfdogs. Let’s sell the misc items tomorrow and just head to the inn right away!”

“That’s great. See you later, then.”

Sarah took half of the money and walked away.

“Hey, hey! Where are you going?”

I was going to get on with my business today but I was perplexed when she acted so.

“Where am I going? To the inn, of course.”

“I mean, why are you going alone?!”

“Do we need to be together when we have enough money to get a room for each?”

“Just what are you thinking of the things I said yesterday?!”

“I know. I was just kidding. I’m tired, so let’s go.”

Sarah’s mouth corner lifted a bit, then she led the way. That chick is now even taking a dig on me.

After the night, I and Sarah came to the dungeon early in the morning. I and Sarah both wanted to get her Archer job to level 8, on different reasons though, so they came out early.

“Let’s move on then. We should try hitting level 8 for Archer today.”

“…Thank you. For being this nice to me.”

“It isn’t much. Don’t mention it. It’s also good for me to get my partners strong.”

Sarah must be thinking I am purely doing all this for her, seeing how she’s honestly thanking me unlike herself. This is all for me, though.

“Let’s go kill more wolfdogs, then.”

“Really? I’m stronger now, and it’s okay to go for monsters with higher levels. You don’t have to worry about me.”

“Stronger doesn’t mean much for level 8. You know that’s still lower than the recommended level for that rabbit you can see there, right?”

Sarah took out an arrow from her quiver then shot with it in an instant.

Shoosh!

The arrow made a threatening sound that’s incomparable to the first sound I heard from her shots, flew to the rabbit and penetrated it. It was a great one-shot kill. Is it possible for a level 8 to kill a level 10 monster with a single shot?

“Do you trust me now?”

“Hey, they explode if I fail to control my power. That’s not enough to gain any trust from me.”

I said so but I was very surprised. It’s hard to understand her firepower. What is her secret? I should master Analyze or something.

So Sarah took out the monsters like rabbits or racoons with single shots each on the way to the wolfdogs habitat. And then we finally arrived.

“Considering our abilities, I think it’d be more efficient to go for monsters with higher than mere wolfdogs.”

“Let’s practice against the wolfdogs until your Archer job level up to 8. We had no problem yesterday because you were safe up on a tree, but you can’t do that forever.”

“Fair enough.”

The first pod was 2 male wolfdogs. Normally Sarah aims for the balls while I distract them, but Sarah suddenly raised her bow and shot with her arrows before I could make my move.

“What are you doing?”

“Just watch.”

Sarah said it with a confident face, then started shooting arrows in succession like a scene in a movie. That’s strange. Those arrowheads look like they’re glowing a bit.

About the time the wolfdogs made it to me, they became hedgehogs with arrow shots on their body and fell to the ground.

“See? I can do that.”

“Are you really showing it off to me? I have a feeling you don’t know this because I’ve been luring them to you, but two hits are all I need to kill them.”

I flaunted myself trying to hide my mixed feelings. It feels like she’s a lot stronger than yesterday. And what’s up with her glowing arrowheads? Is it a skill? That’s normally an attack with mana imbued, sort of, which the masters usually use. Is her level really low? I suspect she’d lied on her level. I know she didn’t, because I can check it with Analyze, but her firepower is simply unbelievable.

As the result of the hunting pace getting faster with Sarah’s increased attack damage, we could barely hit level 8 by the late night. For some reason, the ratio of encountering female wolfdogs got higher. It was close to not succeeding but we reached the goal.

As I picked up the magic stones I asked her in passing.

“So, what will you do tomorrow?”

“Like what?”

“You said your goal is to be stronger. You reached your job level limit, so you got to level up rather than coming here.”

I’m not good at mincing the words so that was the best I could do.

“…….”

Sarah stopped talking and started staring at me intensely. Look at those eyes. If I directly said let’s smash, she’d murder me.

“Let’s take a day off tomorrow, separate up, get somewhere to level up, then join back later.”

So I intentionally said to separate up. It doesn’t seem like she knows anyone here, and even if I said so, would there be anyone to have sex other than me?

“Actually, there’s something I want to say about that.”

Sarah turned to me and said directly looking at me. Okay! Go on!

“I want to get stronger, because I have a goal. But that doesn’t mean I would do ‘that’ with a man to get stronger.”

What is this rubbish now. How are you supposed to get stronger without having sex, in this world.

“So…. You can still level up through combat, right? I want to get stronger by doing so. It’s been only 2 days but we have great teamwork, and fights are smooth so I don’t think it’s impossible.”

Holy…. I’m not insane enough to do that. I’ll rather part with you. If this was a game, I might try playing it with extra restrictions. But the brutal fact is that this is real. If we actually do that we will age to death before we get strong.

“I can tell you don’t know one thing…. I don’t know how strong you want to be, but you can never get strong before you grow old and die. I know I’m from a different world, but I know that much.

“Yes, I can. I can. And I’ll never weigh you down in combat.”

I knew something was off. That indescribably fast growth rate of her does have a secret. Seeing how she speaks, she could have been levelling up just by hunting so far.

What should I do now?