Chapter: 85
After a short break, Frey and Arthur’s faces were full of vitality.
Nana Karl has gotten used to worse forced marches, so she’s fine, but those two are not.
Kids these days just lack grit, I tell you.
If you experience Captain Possell’s Knight training, you’d think that at least getting some sleep is a win.
Maybe I’ll coax them into experiencing the Allen family training when I have some time.
Don’t you think they’d come over if I told them how I got stronger?
“Lucy Allen. So, what are we doing now?”
You looked like you were about to die when we just arrived at the safety zone on the 34th floor, but now you’re all lively, huh, Arthur?
Your enthusiasm is nice to see.
‘I’m going to hunt monsters!’
“We have to massacre some shoddy monsters.”
“Huh?”
My plan is very simple.
Going up and down between the 34th and 35th floors to hunt monsters.
Hunting here at our level is the most efficient.
The monsters on the 30th floor are armed orcs, and I don’t know if it’s because of their traits, but there are so many of them.
They rely on sheer numbers rather than individual specs.
Realistically, it’s a terrifying concept of numerical violence, but from a gamer’s perspective, it’s different.
More orcs mean more chances to grind.
If I keep hunting orcs until we get forcibly ejected from the dungeon, our levels should rise significantly, right?
“Is that it?”
After I shared my plan, Frey asked if it was boring.
“Fighting orcs is just going to be dull.”
“I agree. Does fighting orcs provide experience for this level of party?”
What were you expecting?
If you enter a dungeon, it’s either a dungeon strategy or grinding.
There shouldn’t be anything else to do besides those two.
And, seriously.
I don’t like how they seem to complain after running this far.
Do you think grinding is easy?
The hardest part of RPGs is grinding, you know?
You won’t feel it until you do it yourself!
‘You’ll find out if it’s boring once you try.’
“Boring? Really? Are you confident?”
Maybe they sensed something from my words.
Arthur subtly glanced around, but Frey was different.
She confidently nodded without hesitation.
“Of course. No problem, even if it’s orcs.”
‘Really? No problem, no matter how many?’
“Shoddy swordsman. Seriously? Even if shoddy orcs pour out, it’s no problem?”
“Yep. Of course.”
You just nodded, didn’t you?
So you’re agreeing to this forced march that’s about to start, right?
Then I can push you and Arthur without a second thought.
Thanks, Frey.
I feel like a weight has been lifted off my chest because of you.
‘Then let’s begin!’
“Alright. Shall we move? I don’t think there are any whiners who want to wimp out here.”
*
About three hours after Lucy started the hunt.
Arthur had to admit that he had overlooked one important fact.
Lucy Allen was trained in the Allen family, the most renowned swordsmanship family in the continent.
The training in the Allen family is notoriously intense.
Even quite well-known knights often break down and flee in sheer panic.
Lucy was trained alongside those knights.
There’s no way she would use something as simple as hunting orcs for training.
When she first described this forced march, she used the word massacre.
At that time, Arthur thought Lucy was just being arrogant and overly confident.
But he was wrong.
There was no better word than massacre to describe the current forced march.
“Four easy orcs up ahead. No shoddy one will fall behind, right?”
“When you turn the corner, there are three pigs squealing.”
“This time, six? Think they can win by grouping up? The nerve of these shoddy ones.”
Battle. Battle. And once more, battle.
Arthur couldn’t remember how many orcs he had hunted by now.
But he suspected the number was easily over a hundred.
Naturally, fighting orcs wasn’t particularly difficult.
With Lucy Allen expertly taking the brunt of the orc attacks upfront and Frey precisely slicing orc necks whenever the chance arose, how could it be hard?
Just with Arthur effectively transitioning between the front and back for support, they secured easy victories.
No matter how many orcs there are, they’re still just orcs.
There were even times when Frey would jump out on her own to wipe out orc packs and return.
In the early stages of the hunt, Arthur thought hunting orcs was way too easy.
However, that was just after a couple of battles.
Even the easiest of battles become a problem when repeated.
You start to feel it in your stamina.
You can’t move like you did at the beginning, so the difficulty of the battles increase, and the coordination among party members starts to falter.
As their synergy declined, battles took longer, and stamina was depleted faster.
Normally, a standard party would take a break before reaching this point, but not Lucy Allen.
“Is someone already tired even though you said it’s no big deal? As expected, the pitiful prince has shoddy stamina. Should I carry you? How about I give you a lift?”
In response to suggesting they should rest, she just replied like that.
Usually, Arthur would prioritize a calm judgment over his humiliation, but Lucy had a strange power in her words.
Determined not to lose to her, Arthur gritted his teeth and replied that he was fine.
After more than twenty battles, the chatter between the party members vanished.
Lucy Allen continued briefing and commanding, but there were no responses.
They simply didn’t have the strength to reply anymore.
Frey’s sword swings were duller than before, and Arthur’s judgments had lagged, often resulting in mistakes.
Even Lucy, whose stamina was usually the highest, started making mistakes.
And as battles neared thirty repetitions, they had already reached their limits.
Arthur felt the magic power within him draining.
Frey was just breathing without any outside actions.
Even Lucy Allen showed signs of fatigue.
Everyone was crumbling.
“Professor Karl. Is this really okay?”
Even if it’s safe in this dungeon, that only means they’re not facing a life-or-death threat.
Injuries and wounds can happen anytime.
If they maintain this forced march in a party battered to bits, someone is bound to get hurt badly.
As Arthur spoke up, Frey perked up her ears.
She couldn’t voice it due to her pride, but she was tired too.
“Is there a problem?”
Arthur hoped for a good response, but Karl’s reply was far from what he expected.
“No problems with this forced march at all?”
“Yes. This is training that pushes stamina to the limit. It’s a necessary experience.”
Karl said.
When entering a dungeon, the party can’t control all situations.
The notion of resting when necessary is nothing but an illusion.
“It would be nice if we could appropriately retreat to a safe zone whenever we needed, but the real situation doesn’t always unravel that way. Sometimes you may not encounter a safety zone until you finish the dungeon strategy.”
“So, this is training for that time?”
“Yes. That’s why I am not stopping it.”
That insufferably arrogant woman actually thought about that?
Arthur turned his gaze forward after hearing Karl’s words.
There walked Lucy, forcing a relaxed demeanor while leading the way.
Come to think of it, she was the one struggling the most here.
Always at the front taking the brunt of the enemy’s attacks, she was doing the most work.
Yet she didn’t say a single word about taking a break.
Lucy Allen was pushing herself into hell.
Was it really about gaining experience?
“I’m sorry. I was just being difficult. Please forget it.”
“Yes. Understood. Prince.”
After receiving a clear answer from Karl, Arthur took a deep breath.
Yeah, he still had enough strength left to complain.
He couldn’t collapse before Lucy Allen did.
What kind of humiliation would that be?
*
Leveling up is slower than expected.
It’s not just one or two problems, but the biggest one is definitely stamina.
In the game, there was no need to worry about party members’ stamina.
They never complained about getting tired.
But now that it’s reality, it’s different.
Both Arthur and Frey are human.
No matter how extraordinary they are beyond the range of ordinary, they still have limits.
They can’t maintain the same pace from the first hunt to the last hunt.
Until now, they had forced themselves to keep pace, but their limits were finally showing.
Even Frey, who had been rushing out boldly at the start, now flinches every time she hears there are orcs, signaling that it might be time to rest.
‘Should we take a break, everyone?’
“Hey, you shoddies. Is your legs shaking? If you bow your heads, I might let you rest, you know?”
“I’m fine.”
“No problem.”
Arthur thought they’d obviously raise their hands welcomingly, but the answers from Arthur and Frey were different.
“I can still move.”
“Orcs are trash. Still easy.”
Are they really okay to push through when they look like they’re about to drop dead?
Are they not wanting to lose to me or something?
Well, anyway, if they want to roll around more, I have no reason to stop them.
*
Remarkably, Arthur and Frey followed my relentless march all the way.
Though they took brief rests under Karl’s lead along the way, that was it.
In the end, despite barely being able to stand, they gritted their teeth and followed behind me.
Thanks to that, I managed to hunt until I was forcibly ejected from the dungeon.
As a result, my level only increased by 3 throughout the day.
In other words, my current level is 18.
That’s so slow.
I thought I might not reach my target in one day, but I didn’t expect it to be this pathetic.
Considering how leveling up becomes harder as you level up, I might have to spend days just on leveling up?
Normally, I’d enter the dungeon again tomorrow to grind, but unfortunately, I have a prior engagement.
Tomorrow, I have something to do on the streets of Soul Academy.
As a gamer, I have to witness the onset of the main quest, right?
I wonder who the evil god causing havoc throughout the first year of Soul Academy will be this time.
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