"Sounds like you were as successful as I was," said Ren as we sat at a table in the corner of a restaurant that would have made me nervous to even look at back on my world. The place screamed 'money' and while I was well off thanks to everything, I was still not sure how much of that would have gone to even a single plate here, let alone the sheer amount of food they'd heaped onto the table before the five of us.
"So you did finish cleaning out the caldera ring?" I asked, very nervously munching on what looked like a potato chip, but tasted funny. It probably WAS some kind of potato chip, but without all the grease and chemicals I was used to, honestly. Still, it was a fine reminder of the junk food I was missing at home, and even with the lack of suck things, I ate from the plate, as Welts, Lucia, and Ray were looking just as nervous as I was.
Ren was…either oblivious to it all, or more likely, just not the kind to care about such things. He had a plate with some of the nicer foods on it, including what looked like a cupcake but was filled with some kind of gravy I didn't recognize. He ate with a nonchalant air as he looked around, the staff of the place standing by the kitchen, looking at us as we were the only table with people at it.
"The thing is literally a ten to twenty-five meter wide circle of land that's about three times the size of this island. I think we fought as many fish type monsters that came polding out of the sea as the land based stuff," he said, and Welts nodded.
"Around half of our targets were that. The rest were a mixture of dogs, birds, and slimes. In all total, we did three laps of the island before Ren was satisfied that we'd cleaned it out," he said in a tone that implied he thought the extra was overkill, but one couldn't argue with the results of their work, as Ren was now slightly past Level One-Hundred, and Welts was going to actually make it to the level cap of Ninety-Five by tomorrow at the latest if the hunting were even half as good.
Lucia and Ray were much the same, being over Level Ninety each, and with even one clear tomorrow, we'd have them at cap. My own Level was still only eighty though, as I hadn't been doing the slaying, and apparently because of that I got far less EXP from the party mechanic than my more combat oriented partners. That was fine with me, as I still had many, many skill points now to play with, and was already considering where to place them in my mind.
Outside there was a suddenly loud cheering noise, attracting all our eyes to the window nearby, showing an upscale, but still less so than this place, bar across the way. There, the adventurers like L'Arc and Theresa, as well as Naofumi and Motoyasu's groups, were currently enjoying themselves. Quite a lot if the smile on Raphtalia's face was anything to go by as she motioned for her next opponent to come on, her previous one, whom she'd been armwrestling, picking himself up off the ground.
We had opted for the fancier place, if only for a quiet atmosphere, but this being a smaller resort, the upscale and downscale were a matter of taste, and so the open air bar was nearby enough that the ruckus of the adventurers was spilling over. We were lucky that none of them had been tossed through the window yet, honestly, as they roughhoused and otherwise drank themselves into a stupor.
Ray had, at least twice, offered to go 'settle them down' as only a Guild Hall Administrator could, but Lucia had encouraged them to let them blow off steam. Apparently they'd had a hard day, as Naofumi's 'Champion' skill boosting Raphtalia had let her get most of the kills today, with Filo and him racking up quite the list themselves. It had left the adventurers antsy, and they needed a way to release that tension.
Welts called them brutes, but otherwise ignored them, which made sense for him. He was a caster, after all, and a noble before that by his own admission. Still, one could see the amused twinkle in his eye as he said that, showing he appreciated what they did, if not the noise they were making. We ate our meal, chatting a bit more, as we observed the wilder groups across the street, and when we were done, we asked for the bill, only to be told it was being paid for by the Count.
I still left a few silver on the table…then switched it out for five gold, the last I had on me, which seemed to excite the people we left behind as we stepped out, finding that, in the few minutes we'd taken to assemble ourselves, the tavern had broken out into an all out brawl, with several people smashed into the street fighting with their weapons that clanged loudly against one another.
Interestingly, Motoyasu was not involved, as he had grabbed Rishia and rushed to a side street, watching the chaos unfold with a smile on his face that said, if he were alone, he'd be joining in on all of it. Rishia seemed far less enthused by the display, and looking towards Ren, I could tell the teen was far, far from enjoying it, growling under his breath about how uncivilized it all was, his hand going to his weapon for a moment, before the crowd found itself blown away.
Literally, as a wind spell like a small tornado scattered the largest gathering of people, courtesy of Filo, who was in her natural form rather than the little girl one she sometimes took. Around her, having been protected from the worst of the blast, Raphtalia, Naofumi, L'Arc, and Theresa came out, all looking ready to throw down, but finding that, thanks to that one attack they had no opponents still on their feet.
"I assume there's a good reason for this?" I asked, loudly, and having, if not stats, but at least size on my side, most of the people on the ground pulled themselves out of my way as Naofumi, turning to me sharply, breathed a sigh of relief, and scratched at the back of his head with a smile on his face.
"Yeah, one of these thugs decided to hit on Raphtalia, and pinched her butt. I decided that required an object lesson on why that was a bad idea, and…things escalated," he explained with a grin, meanwhile Lucia and Ray glared hard at the adventurers, one of which, a woman in fur, stood up, and bowed her head towards the Shield Hero's group.
"I apologize, I don't know what came over me. Let's just…call it even," she said, rubbing an obviously sore shoulder as she collected a mage looking gentleman, and a woman with an elegant air about her wielding a rapier. The three, along with the rest of the random adventurers walked away, leaving the group of us to mill about for a moment, helping right some tables in the bar and stuff, before heading out.
"So, you guys had a good time at the bar, but how did the leveling go?" I asked as we made our way towards the Hotel, which was also the Count's estate.
"Great for us. Rishia was underleveled before, but with how strong she is, she took out all kinds of penguins, so she's up to over sixty now. Most of that from some walrus with a hammer," said Motoyasu, sounding confused by that last point. I didn't question it though, as I looked to Naofumi who shrugged.
"I'm still pretty much behind the curve when it comes to levels, but Raphtalia and Filo have finally hit seventy themselves, and I think, if we stay here for a week or so, we'll hit level cap with their power," he said, and the tanuki woman smirked, flexing her arm as if to show off her strength.
"That begs the question then. How do we break the second level cap?" asked Ren, who gestured to Welts, who was nearly there himself. We obviously looked to the party members…to Welts, Lucia, and Ray mostly, as Rishia, Filo, and Raphtalia weren't likely to know the answer.
"There are many rumors about it, that the Church CAN in fact break the second cap if you're worthy of it, though given Balmus' conversations with you, I'd have expected that to come up in one of them," said Ray as she took a few steps faster than the others, standing beside us on the walk towards the Hotel.
"Obviously, the Guild is very interested in such rumors, but has never been able to verify them. I know of only three people who have broken the level cap in any nation in my lifetime. One is Tyran, the former King of Siltvelt. The other two are the current Kings of Melromarc and Faubury," she explained, and looking to the other two, they nodded.
"So…they all have synced with a Vassal Weapon. Is that what you have to do then, do you think?" Motoyasu asked, but Welts was the one to shake his head at that.
"The Church has records of far more than seven people in the past being able to do it at once. They claim that it's part of a lost ceremony that they might be able to rediscover if the Guild would simply allow them to experiment on high level adventurers, but such requires trust, and none of the Keepers of the Hourglasses inspire that emotion much. Either here in Melromarc, or in any other nation," he added the last with a shudder, and honestly I was curious if he'd had a bad experience, but chose to keep my question to myself about it.
"So there's a way, one that the King of Melromarc knows, apparently. So why don't we just ask him?" suggested Ren, and that seemed to catch everyone off guard. Even I hadn't been thinking about that as an option, given the King should really have volunteered that information if he had it, but remembering all the other small details he'd forgotten about, like bosses sticking around if we didn't kill them, it made sense.
We discussed a few more ideas, but in the end, Ren's suggestion seemed the most fitting, as we finally made our way back into the Count's mansion, the Princess meeting us in the foyer, or front desk of the hotel, with the Count himself beside her. They'd dined in today, allowing the Heroes to enjoy an evening without the royal air hanging over them. In reality I figured that the Count had nixed the idea of her going to the bar with Naofumi, and she simply hadn't wanted to come to the high class place with us.
Regardless, Naofumi, with little lead in, asked her about her father's level, and she admitted, at level one-hundred-thirty-two, her father was the strongest man she knew personally, though his brother was said to be one-hundred-fifty or perhaps more. However, she had never questioned how he attained such power, and given, even with her adventure today helping to defend the town from a few stray monsters, she was nowhere near the second level cap, it made sense.
That did make me wonder briefly HOW he'd gotten to such a high level, given what we'd learned before about the length of time between levels for most adventurers, but Ray was quick to point out that the King of Melromarc, for all his failures, was a man of his people, and had, before the wars ended, many times gone out to defend his kingdom from monsters and others, his magic enough to reduce entire armies of the creatures sent against him by his foes to nothing but ash.
That…made a lot of sense, and explained why he was so intense sometimes. It was easy to forget the man we met had lived through wars both terrible and bleak, honestly. Still, it meant we would ask him about it in the morning, and soon enough we asked about rooms, and the Heroes Parties found themselves bedding down for the night, intending on cleaning out the islands in the morning, and then heading to Melromarc to find out how to make best use of all we'd been doing.
