The day was truly a beautiful one. Lush green fields all around interrupted only by the occasional massive trees, a calming wind what gently moved, and despite it being nearly an hour after noon the heat was barely felt.
Adrian, however, could not enjoy this amazing environment much, he was instead trying to get himself ready for his first fight against a monster.
He had done all he could think of and everything that his party members had suggested that he thought wise. He was equipped with some basic chainmail that had boosted his physical defence quite decently, his weapon, an Iron Sword, was the best one he could use at level one as it boasted both the best attack and a fairly decent speed rating and while not fancy the original weapon was a good quality one. Adrian also had potions at the ready, plus he had confirmed that Andrea and Bellamy could heal, so unless one of them wanted to betray him right at this moment he should be fine.
All the same, the idea of fighting while having Malty at his back made him quite nervous. So both to remove her from the board and to ensure much greater benefits for the day, he decided to go for a rather simple idea.
He waited until Andrea led them to a fairly large tree, it was equidistant from the forest that he could see nearby and the mountains, and it was close to the nearby plains as well, making it a good central spot, he nodded at her once she looked at him inquiringly, he had asked her to lead him to such a place when she had indicated that she was familiar with the geography of the area, and she had done a good job.
"All right everyone, since we don't have much time before the wave hits again, we need to be as efficient as possible. Our goals are simple, we need to kill a large number of monsters to level and gather a large variety of materials for me to upgrade the Legendary Sword." he paused here for a moment, " I need to experiment a bit to see the consequences of adding more and more of the same monster to the Sword to see if it helps or if simply focusing on one of each monster is enough. So our goal for the next half hour is to hunt down balloons. They should be the weakest monster here and the one in the greatest number," he looked to Andrea here, and she nodded once.
"We should aim for getting the remnants of at least 10 ballons each at a minimum but get as many as possible in the next half hour. If you encounter other monsters or see any useful herbs or plants that you can easily carry, take them as well." he continued, "We are going to split up into two teams, Andrea and I, and Bellamy and Malty. This way we have attack and defence balanced out. Let's begin immediately."
"Understood," said Andrea.
Malty had just frowned a little but when she caught him looking, she smiled and said," Of course Sir Hero."
Bellamy simply nodded before stating," Rest assured Sir Adrian we shall complete your orders."
"Good." he said with a smile," Then we shall see each other here in about half an hour."
He began walking at that, nodding when Malty wished him luck and then once they had covered some distance he asked Andrea," Where would you suggest we start?"
She considered that for a moment, before pointing in a direction, "Balloon swarms are common there. Likely to be the best place."
"Very well," he said, and tried to calm himself down, his heart was beating quite fast, he knew that he shouldn't be this nervous, these were mere balloons, the light novel had suggested that they were utter trash, as had the information that he had gotten from Andrea and his other party members and what the guild information counter had provided him.
Balloons had pathetic attack, worse defence and decent speed, for a normal level one. For Adrian who had already unlocked four weapon forms, three of which gave him a +2 for speed, and all of which gave him a +2 or in one case a +3 for attack. He should be fine. Probably.
Andrea's words proved to be true, they had scarcely walked for about 500 meters when balloons started to become common. He could see them from afar, moving about in the tall grass, and occasionally bouncing upwards.
He tried his best to focus on their movements, he had expected it to be a little difficult but oddly enough it was almost effortless, he had more than 10 balloons in his line of sight and yet he could track all of them easily. Was this an effect of boosting his speed stat? Enhanced perception to go with the speed? Or was this a side effect of the Legendary Sword boosting him physically? It could even be the fact that he had the Status magic now as an inhabitant of this world which pushed him past his previous limits.
He felt himself calm a little, he could see them coming.
"I shall draw their attention." said Andrea, her tone and demeanour shifting into something far calmer and far more serious, gone was the girl who had quietly followed his lead, instead here he could tell she expected obedience, "Please start your attack after that."
Andrea was as good as her word, she ran forward Sword and Shield in hand and then slammed the flat of her blade against her shield, making a loud sound that drew the attention of five nearby balloons.
Adrian watched carefully as the balloons moved towards her, their speed was still easy to perceive, and then bounced out of the grass, teeth first.
She killed one of them and then blocked the other two.
Adrian focused on those two that rebounded off her shield. She had angled the shield so that they were moving in his direction, so he repositioned himself slightly and intercepted one of them while it was still falling.
The Iron Sword cut through it like it was going through thin air.
Only the small bursting sound and the drizzle of orange fragments made him believe that he had hit something because he had felt no resistance at all when he had swung his weapon. But he didn't dwell on this for the second Balloon had already nearly hit the ground and would soon bounce in his direction.
For this one, he swung again, the balloons arc easily predicted, and once again it died, just as effortless as the first one, and fragments rained again.
That had been absurdly easy, Adrian could feel his tension drain out, especially when he saw five notifications that all said the same thing.
0.25 Exp Gained.
0.25 Exp Gained.
0.25 Exp Gained.
0.25 Exp Gained.
0.25 Exp Gained.
He shrugged the notifications off, and then looked to Andrea who had already killed her three. As expected of his highest level party member.
She was looking at him as well and he simply indicated that they continue, before kneeling and absorbing the fragments of the balloons he had killed, it wasn't enough to unlock the Sword Form but it was a start. Andrea started moving after she gathered her fragments into a small bag and then they moved forward.
Their hunt for balloons continued to be just as easy as the first time. The pattern of attack was identical. Andrea went in first, then they both worked together and killed them. Adrian found himself growing more and more comfortable with attacking and after a small amount of time, they had killed nearly 30 of these balloons, which combined with the Exp gain from his other two party members had been enough to level him up twice.
He had also managed to finally unlock the Orange Balloon sword and even the Red Balloon Sword, both offered nothing more than stat boosts but that was hardly a negative or an unexpected result.
The Balloon Swords were quite basic, he opened up his Status menu while they walked back to the tree once they had finished their time limit, Andrea acting as a watchdog.
Orange Balloon Sword (unmastered)(0/15) : Lv 1 0.00% +0
Energy Level 0/100
Rarity: Very Common
Enchantments: None
Status Enchantments: None
Equip Boosts : Attack +1
Equip Skills: None
Special Ability: None
Red Balloon Sword (unmastered)(0/15) : Lv 1 0.00% +0
Energy Level 0/100
Rarity: Very Common
Enchantments: None
Status Enchantments: None
Equip Boosts: Attack +2
Equip Skills: None
Special Ability: None
Nothing special at all, Adrian continued adding the Balloon fragments that Andrea had gathered, able to see his inventory slowly filling up with Red and Orange fragments, the vast majority of the loot orange fragments, and once they reached the tree and found that their party members were not there, Adrian leaned against the tree and began to test out the fragments.
He brought up the Orange balloon Sword and focused on one of the fragments, absorbing it into the sword.
Orange Balloon Sword (unmastered)(0/15) : Lv 1 0.00% +0
Energy Level 0/100
Rarity: Very Common
Enchantments: None
Status Enchantments: None
Equip Boosts : Attack +1
Equip Skills: None
Special Ability: None
No change at all. He kept this up until he saw a minor difference, but a significant one.
Orange Balloon Sword (Mastered)(0/15) : Lv 1 0.00% +1
Energy Level 27/100
Rarity: Very Common
Enchantments: None
Status Enchantments: None
Equip Boosts : Attack +1
Equip Skills: None
Special Ability: None
It would seem that absorbing the same material into a sword boosted both the mastery of it and the Energy level needed to boost the Lv of the weapon. But this was not the end to his testing, now he tried to focus on increasing the number (0/15), the first slot filled in effortlessly going from 0 to 1 in an instant, barely consuming 1% of the total Orange Balloon fragments.
But to go from 1 to 2 and then 2 to 3 was a lot more difficult, taking 5% and then nearly 13 % of the original total. Worse he didn't seem to see any positive effects, the screen stayed the same, save for the number going from 0 to 3.
Hmm, the power-up effect should have done something….wait maybe it was simply not being displayed because he didn't think that the modification should be tried to think about the ratings of the weapons, which he normally saw on separate screens, and the damage bonuses, or even viewing the values in decimals, he focused on believing that it would be there, and after about half a minute, he reopened his Status Menu after closing it and found.
Orange Balloon Sword (Mastered)(3/15) : Lv 1 0.00% +2
Energy Level 55/100
Rarity: Very Common
Enchantments: None
Status Enchantments: None
Status Rating
Attack: 18
Magic Attack:5
Defence :0
Magic Defence :0
Speed: 9
SP :0
MP:0
Stamina: 1
Damage Increase: 25% Against Balloon Type Enemies.
Equip Boosts : Attack +1
Equip Skills: None
Special Ability: None
Yes, there had been something hidden!
His mood plummeted there, just how many more things were hidden that he hadn't even considered, his knowledge of different empowerment methods was supposed to be his ace, if he couldn't make full use of it, then he was in trouble.
He considered the situation and then added more balloon fragments until the counter went from 3 to 4 and then observed the screen again. The difference was obvious.
Orange Balloon Sword (Mastered)(4/15) : Lv 1 0.00% +2
Energy Level 90/100
Rarity: Very Common
Enchantments: None
Status Enchantments: None
Status Rating
Attack: 24
Magic Attack:7
Defence :0
Magic Defence :0
Speed: 9
SP :0
MP:0
Stamina: 1
Damage Increase: 40 % Against Balloon Type Enemies.
Equip Boosts: Attack +3
Equip Skills: None
Special Ability: None
It seemed that using items to boost his weapons could boost basic stats of the weapon and increase the ability to damage different types of enemies, useful but situational and locked to a given weapon. While increasing the other marker allowed for basic equip boosts.
"Sir Hero!" he heard a voice, and his head snapped up, and he saw Malty and Bellamy, both of them holding a dozen monsters in total, in fact, he could see Bellamy's backpack nearly stuffed as well, just how much hunting had they done?!
Wait for a second, he was level three right now! He had been ignoring the notification about EXP gain for a while now, but he hadn't noticed that these two hand been hunting enough for him to level up again.
Bellamy dropped the monster corpses he had been holding onto on the ground carefully, and then removed his backpack and opened it to reveal, Balloon fragments and several herbs. Malty who had been holding onto her small pack and a monster corpse did the same.
"We have gathered the materials you requested Sir Hero, I hope we did alright," she asked, smiling softly.
Adrian moved out of his slight shock," You both did spectacularly. Thank you."
Bellamy said nothing but gave him a deep bow, while Malty's smile widened and said," It is an honour, Sir Adrian. Your thanks is a reward that is more than worth the effort."
She was laying it one thick, wasn't she? What exactly was her analysis of him that she thought such blatant flattery would work on him?
Still, he had to respond to their efforts, after all, no matter how much of a bitch she was, and how inevitable the betrayal there was limited harm in using her, for now, "Then I thank you again, please give me about five minutes before we start again, take a break, I just have a little more testing and then we can truly get started."
She nodded at that and he got back to work, time to test out status enchantments and then after some combat, he would try out the levelling scheme which the original Sword hero had tried.
Things were finally looking up.
"Eleven levels in a day." spoke Bellamy in a bit of a daze," Truly the Legendary Heroes are without equal."
Adrian had to wonder if it was truly that impressive, surely some rich nobles who could pay powerful adventurers would have them party up and then level up just as quickly?
He considered the situation for the moment and then voiced his previous thought. The answer surprised him as did the person who chose to answer.
"Sword hero is not familiar with the annoyance of levelling." said Andrea," It takes new adventurers many weeks to reach level 10, it is considered their first milestone. Eleven in one day? Very, very odd."
For the first time, he could hear some genuine annoyance in her voice, Adrian had to wonder how much she had to struggle to get to her first milestone.
"Indeed Sir Hero, your levelling is truly incredible, and I believe that Miss Andrea has failed to mention that our growth is quite incredible as well." said Bellamy finally breaking out of his daze," I never expected to grow two levels in such an area in a mere day."
Adrian shrugged at that, "You can thank the sword for that." he said," It seems to massively boost exp gain, I'll have to check if I can get the exact magnitude of the boost, if it is a variable number I'll have to make sure to work on optimizing it."
He knew the boost however, +900% was an absurd number to even contemplate, perhaps this was the reason Andrea had joined? After all, even with her being 28 levels above him at the start, she had gained a level as well. Malty who had the lowest level among the three had gone from 17 to 20 in just a day, and while a part of him hated the idea of empowering a woman who would likely go on to become an enemy he could not raise any suspicions just yet.
And where was Malty? Well she was walking right next to him, she spoke, clearly unwilling to let the conversation linger in Bellamy and Andreas hands, "I don't think that our dear Hero realizes just how amazing he is." she said, before holding onto his arm, pushing her breasts against him, "Sir Hero it is normal even for nobles with a lot of help to stop levelling after level 30 simply because of how much time it takes unless they plan to adventure or join the army, your ability is incredible"
Adrian smiled at her, but made a point to push her off his arm, she pouted in response," Interesting, but as I said the ability something the sword provided. But I think you all have a point, we have done very well today, let's celebrate shall we?" he said, "Any inn you can think off where we can get a good meal and a few drinks for say 20 silver?"
That was probably the most honest statement he had made since he was dragged to this world. The day truly had gone quite well, he knew that the levelling would slow from here but to reach level 12 in one day was unexpected, he didn't know how well Motoyasu and Itsuki had done, given their knowledge of farming spots and their larger parties they had probably done even better than him, but he was feeling content with his progress for now, hopefully his methods of enhancements would let him stay competitive despite their greater levels. Naofumi did concern him a little, he would have to find a way to check on him without drawing Malty's attention to him, somehow by luck or something more sinister Naofumi had been spared her malice for the moment, and while couldn't say that he cared or like Naofumi, no one deserved to have someone like her after him.
"I have the perfect place in mind Sir Adrian." asked Malty, "It's a wonderful place and it is a little difficult to get in, but I'm sure I can manage."
"Malty I presume you mean a fairly high-class place?" Adrian asked, "I would prefer a smaller place, I apologize if you were looking forward to going to your suggested place, but something a little simpler would be my preference." he turned towards, Bellamy and Andrea," Any suggestions?"
Bellamy nodded immediately, and enthusiastically mentioned, " Yes sir! There is an inn not far from here, it has food from all around the world. It is a favourite among my friends."
Andrea interrupted his sentence here," It is full of church idiots," she said, "they will go mad with the Sword Hero there. No peace or fun."
"Now see here, Miss Andrea.."
Adrian had to blink in surprise as Bellamy and Andrea began to argue right in front of him. He had not expected this from the super formal Bellamy or the stoic Andrea, it emphasized just how little he knew about these people.
He turned to look towards Malty who was annoyed. "Enough." she commanded, her voice cold," we shall go to an inn of my choosing." Her voice turned sweeter as she spoke to him," Adrian I believe I know a place that you may like, I can lead you there."
"Then let's go, we can sell some of the drop items later and then go to bed."
They started moving but Andrea and Bellamy continued their argument despite Malty's glare. Adrian was a little surprised to find that he was feeling a little relaxed. It was very odd that he would be so calm.
Then he realized just why all this felt so achingly familiar and his helpless rage returned.
Their argument, it reminded him of his siblings, how they mocked and teased each other about every topic under the sun, and then laughed about it later. Adrian tried to ignore the part of him that told him that he would never see them again.
It didn't work.
