◇

"N, no, you can"t, master."

Lulu looks at me with anxious face.

"It"s alright. Now, relax yourself."
"Y, yes."

I put my hands on the waist of Lulu who"s frightened while inching back, leaning her body on me.

"Let"s go, Lulu."
"I, I can"t. It"s too big."
"You don"t need to worry. Believe what I say."

While calming Lulu who"s still anxious, I put my hands on top of Lulu"s delicate hands.

And--

Lulu"s finger pulls the magic gun.

◇

At the waterfall basin that spreads before our eyes below, there are six giant monsters resembling newts that exceed 10 meters acting as they please. The monster"s name is Hard Newt, and their special ability is acid breath it seems.
Every one of them are on upper level 20s, they"re relatively strong.

There"s a reason why I take Lulu along for monsters hunting despite frightening her.

During Muno incident, Pochi"s level had become lower than the others, so I took her on a monster hunting date when there were monsters on the highway near our camping ground. Arisa and Mia found out about it and protested that it was too unfair, so since it can"t be helped, I promised to take them on monster hunting dates whenever there were strong monsters on the highway near our camping grounds.

And then, they did rock-paper-scissor to decide their turns, but not only Arisa and Mia, Nana and Lulu also partic.i.p.ated in it; eventually the order for the hunting date was Mia=>Lulu=>Nana=>Arisa. Doing it one-by-one is inefficient, but apparently, "Just the two of us together.", seems to be important.

About three days ago, I found reasonably strong monsters, so I took Mia along, but even though we had defeated seven level 15 caterpillar monsters, her level wasn"t raised. Apparently, it"s hard for elves to level up.

◇

"M, master one of them is coming here. W, what should we do."

Lulu desperately clings to my chest. Desperate Lulu is cute too.
I invoke Remote Arrow outside of her vision, and after a shot from the magic gun hits the monster, I destroy the hard newt monster easily with the arrow. It seems that the remaining five monsters have recognized us as enemies. Since the newts are climbing the cliff, I shoot them with Remote Stun to knock them down the cliff.

"Lulu, drink this, and shoot the second shot afterward."

I make Lulu drinks magic recovery potion, and let her charge the magic gun. I had thought that she could supply 30 shots since she was level 3, but her magic power was halved with just one charge. It seems that the charge efficiency is greatly different for each person.

Maybe her level has leveled up after defeating one monster, this time one charge only consumes 20% of her magic power. We aim together like before and shoot.
I destroy the monster with remote arrow after the magic gun hit it, after doing this work routine for three minutes, the extermination of six monsters is complete.

I leave Lulu who"s completely exhausted after her first combat on the cliff, and go down to collect the monsters" remains. Looks like there are three monsters higher leveled than the ones earlier on the other side of the waterfall, but Lulu"s level should have been raised to 7-10 after defeating this many. Let"s leave the rest for the hunting with Nana.

I carry Lulu who"s not feeling well on my arms, and run on the water surface of the great river along the highway leading to the tributary, back to where everyone is. Sky Drive skill is way too convenient.

◇

"Ara? Lulu what"s wrong? Are you tired from your first battle?"
"A, Arisa. I, I"m fine."

Arisa runs anxiously when we get back to the camp. Lulu has firmly a.s.serted that she"s okay, but she looks pale.
Her body seems to be surprised with the radical level up, just like Liza and the others have been in the labyrinth. If we take that time into consideration, she should recover if she sleeps for 3-4 hours. If it"s painful, I"ll give her an anti-fever potion to drink.

"W, wait, just what kind of things were you guys fighting?"
"Six newts on the tributary ahead."

Arisa who has confirmed Lulu"s level presses on me. Lulu"s level has gone up radically from 3 to 13 from just fighting six monsters. Her level rises considerably higher than my expectation. There might be First Attack bonus or something like in games.

Lulu has gained new skills, the [Cooking] skill that Lulu has longed for appears. Furthermore, she"s also got [Shooting], and [Sniping], probably due to monster hunting, and there"s also [Compounding] skill, maybe because she"s helped me compounding before, and lastly, she somehow gets [Chanting] skill too. Lulu has never partic.i.p.ated chanting training even once before, so I wonder why she"s learned it? I"m envious.
Arisa knows the answer to that.

"Eh? Chanting? Ah~ I might know. Lulu has always practiced chanting together with me since we"re small. She didn"t learn the skill until now probably because her skill point wasn"t enough maybe?"
"Then, wouldn"t she learn Mind magic?"
"Somehow Lulu isn"t able to think of anything related to science. She was just bad at magic theory no matter what, and dropped out halfway."

Drop out....

"Isn"t fine if she just memorize it?"
"That"s a wrong way of thinking! You have to understand the chant"s meaning if you want to use magic!"

Looks like Arisa is quite peculiar with the aesthetic.
I"ll teach Lulu some chants in secret next time. She might learn magic skill on the next level up after all. Or rather, I"d like her to teach me the chanting skill instead.

Arisa puts Lulu on top of a cus.h.i.+on, and cools her with a wet towel. I take out a painkiller and an anti-fever potion and hand them to Arisa.

"Thank you. However, you shouldn"t ease the pain from level up growth with medicine. I haven"t tried it myself, but it seems that the stat increase would be bad."

Hoo, is that so. I"ve almost made her drink it.

I leave Lulu"s care to Arisa, and ask Liza to make an easy to digest food for one person. Pochi and Tama have gone to the great river to catch fish. Since we"ve had tempura yesterday, I guess I"ll make fried white meat tonight.

While thinking such thing I lead Nana for sortie.

Hunting with Nana is easy since she could use Magic Arrow.
Instead, the soft feeling during the traveling to the hunting ground, and the clinging body with wet clothes when we"re in the waterfall caves is so s.e.xy, it"s dangerous. I"d like to praise my reasoning mind.

The hunt ends with nothing noteworthy happening, and I collect crystals, jades and a bit of the stalact.i.tes inside the cave. If Nana didn"t stop to admire the limestone cave for 30 minutes, it would had been over faster.

I wonder if the newts here are special and gives a lot of exp, Nana has also leveled up from 5 to 12. She has learned new [One-handed Sword], [s.h.i.+eld], [Parry], and [Horseback] skills. It seems her Nature Magic skill has leveled up too and she could use new magic, [Shelter], and [Sharp Edge] now.

◇

"In just half an hour, Lulu had surpa.s.sed my level, and in another hour Nana had equaled me. I think this is quite serious."
"Agreed."
"We want strong enemies too!"
"To the prey!"

Arisa and Mia who are in seiza with their hands on their laps are having a meeting.
What kind of farce is that?

"Prey~?"
"Meat, better than fish nano desu!"

Huh?　Pochi and Tama have come back before I know it. Their buckets are full with caught fish. Looks like they have also properly catch sh.e.l.lfish, shrimps and the likes. I feel like eating Paella when I see the sh.e.l.lfish. Sadly I can"t make it since I don"t know the recipe.
Pochi seems to be dissatisfied with having fish every day. Maybe I should make some steak from the wolf meats.

Lulu seems to have woken up, but she still looks unwell. I decide to cancel our departure today and let Lulu and Nana rest.

When I tell Arisa and Mia about the insect monsters in the cave, I end up sortieing for the third time while carrying the two on both of my sides. The two hate to have their level behind more than being alone together.

"Uha! R, running on water like this. A water strider!"
"Float walk?"

I"ve already told about this to Arisa and the others, but they seem to have thought that it"s not a skill that could be used for prolonged time.
Mia is probably talking about Float Walk, an intermediate level water magic.
I"ll surprise them by flying in the sky next time.

"No wonder Lulu"s and Nana"s hunts were fast."
"Convenient right?"
"Nn."

The insect hunts in the cave is done by repeatedly having Arisa and Mia attack first with their magic and for me to destroy the monster. Since the two"s magic power run out in the middle of the hunt, the pattern changes into me attacking first with Remote Stun, then the two attack with short spear and dagger to give damage, and I finish off with the fairy sword.

An insect monster gives less exp than 10% of the exp gain from the newt monster earlier. From Arisa"s observation of the exp during the hunt, it seems that she would level up once after 40-50 monsters.
I can"t check my own exp since the counter has stopped with number 9s lined up. Judging from the digits, there"s no mistake that it"s more than ten millions. There"s a gauge that indicate the percentage to the next level, I only know that there are still 80% left until then. I don"t want to think the concrete points.

The high-pace efficiency-maniac-like hunt ends after defeating more than a hundred small monsters for two hours, and the result is that both Arisa and Mia level up by 2. In spite of the fact that Arisa"s level remain higher (than Mia"s), she would level up again after a bit more. The required exp for elves to level up might be around twice of human.

Nevertheless, I wonder what do these many monsters eat to multiply so much?

Mia answers that question.

"Spirits."

We can"t see it, but it seems that there"s a place underground lake with transparent water inside the cave where spirits gush out, the monsters are predating them. Correctly speaking, it"s not predation, but absorption it seems, however since Mia doesn"t know the detail, I"ll ask the adults in Bornean forest about it.

I try to stare hard at the underground lake, but unfortunately I can"t see the spirits.

◇

I"m practicing the fairy sword to master it after the meal to help digest the food.

I raise the sword overhead, stop, put magic into it and swing downward. And then when the sword is down I suck up the magic power from it, and quickly raise the sword that has become lighter.

I"m getting used with the weight-changing characteristic of fairy sword and the swing speed increases little-by-little. In 30 minutes, I"ve grasped the movement I want after repeating without stopping, I end the practice.

I"ve got applauses for some reason. Everyone has surrounded, watching me before I know it.

"Real~ly, cheat huh. Do you know what you"ve been doing?"
"It"s just a form practice though?"

Like reaching the second self-taught form or something?
Arisa lays her hand on my nape, draws her face close and whispers.

"You don"t seem to understand huh. Normally, one can"t pour magic power into a sword that fast. Incidentally, you"ve even dispersed magic power from the sword, I"ll say this again, something like absorption is impossible."

Is that so?
Since it"s possible with Liza"s magic spear, I"ve thought that it"s obvious though?

"Isn"t it because they think they can"t that they end up not able to do it?"
"There"s no way it"s like that right? If people could so easily do it, something like magic potion isn"t needed then. When you need to consume MP for magic, you could do something like absorbing magic power from a loaded magic tool, it could become the only battery."

Arisa releases her hands from my nape and takes up a giving-up pose.

I see, it"s a good story.

I thank you Arisa. Since it"s poor if it"s just words, I hug her. Since Arisa is a mysterious creature who"s fine with attacking but gets embarra.s.sed when she"s attacked by the proactive opponent, it"s fun to occasionally do surprise attack.

For the time being, I should check the efficiency by pouring and absorbing magic power on the sword, putting it inside the storage for one night and the absorb the magic power from it; I decide to check how is the decay.

According to my expectation, it should be able to hold the same amount of magic power as I usually put it into.