Chapter 206 – Part 2

Translation: DarkHeartedAlchemist
Editor: Weasalopes

Let’s change the team for now.
As I don’t know if more problematic enemies are going to appear or not, it would be better to have something more versatile.
As such, Volff and the others will have to return.
I summon the monsters that are better fit for the avant-garde role.
Jericho, Goki and Senki.
I will also summon Naias to act as a supporter.
Yeah, that should be good. I will go with this.

As for the equipment, my Snow Beast’s Mace seemed to be working rather well against the Lizardmen.
The Enchanted Ice spell was also pretty effective.
All the monsters except Volff, who had Enchanted Melt on him, had that.
If that is the case, then my current setup can definitely work against those guys, especially Naias’s spells and curses.
But is it really going to be that easy?
After all, even with such a crippling weakness, Lizardmen are pretty tough.

Speaking of preparations
My main weapons will be Snow Beast’s Mace for attacking and Tonfa of Torture for defense.
I can try adding Thunder Shower or Volcanic Blast to spice things up.
Magic attacks like that are good.
I’m aiming for effects other than sheer damage.

Such a battle strategy results in draining much of my MP, but there are a lot of monsters.
All in all, I think the current balance is good.

Even boring things are better than nothing. You can gather a lot of items.
Lizardmen drop not only Magic Stones, but Ancient Stones as well.
Approximately 1 item every 10 defeated enemies.
Yes.
I kept hunting Lizardmen.
Eventually I had my fill.

Lizardmen were not the only residents of this map.
Of course there are other demons beside them as well.
For example, this guy over here.

Murder Hippo Lv 2
Demon Target Subjugation Active
Battle Position: Ground Water breathing Water Attribute

There was only one, and I had Naias there.
My mace worked nicely against it.
Literally, it is a slaughter. (EN: the characters used for ‘murder’ also TL as ‘slaughter’…the author was making a pun.)
Of course, there’s an item drop.

【Material】 Murder Hippo’s Fang Quality C+ Rarity 3 Weight 1+
Fang of the Murder Hippo. Known for its versatile usage in various arts & crafts.

Needless to say, I kept on farming them by using Call Monster.
Murder Hippos were fewer than the Lizardmen, and they were much slower than them in comparison.
But their movement speed in the wetlands was still far superior to mine and my monsters, which only deepened my fear of that swampy area and everything that was associated with it.

There were also some monsters in the air.
Their information were as such:

Great Beak Pelican Lv 4
Demon Target Subjugation Passive
Battle Position: Air Water Attribute Water Resistance

There was literally a flock of those guys.
There were probably more than fifty of them.
Thankfully they were just minding their own business, which was good, since I have no flying monsters in my current party.
For the time being, I will focus on fighting more Lizardmen and Hippopotamuses.
That should give us quite a lot of EXP points, and probably some Level Up’s as well.

《【Staff】 Level Up!》
《Obtained the 【Weapon Expert】 title!》
《Titles 【Weapon Expert】 and 【Martial Artist】 now available!》
《Congratulations! Title 【Battleholic】 obtained!》
《【Block】 Level Up!》
《Obtained 【Block】 special technique, Twist Down!》

Oh!
Hey, wait a minute!
That last info was quite unexpected.
Hmm, another skill originating from Block, huh?
That’s actually very cool.

All right, what should I do now?
Should I use Instant Portal?
Yup, let’s do that.
And most importantly, try to keep your shit together, me.

Weapon Expert.
It does not look like it’s going to grant me any additional skills, but according to the information I have received from Guren-kun, it will strengthen my Martial Arts skills.
And while we’re on the subject, it seems that the names of some of my Martial Arts skills have changed.

Yeah, some things have changed indeed.
For example, one of my favorite spells, Practiced Spirit has changed into True Practiced Spirit.
Why did it happen? I don’t understand!
Vibration stayed the same, without any tweaks to its name.
Why’s that? What determines what undergoes the change and what’s not?
And that other title, Battleholic?
Adding -holic to anything usually carries a negative connotation with it, so… does that title means I am a meathead who cannot think about anything else but non-stop fighting?
…
…….
Hey! Now that’s offensive! Who’s a goddamn battle maniac?!

Okay, calm down. Just calm down.
Don’t let something like that get to you.
If the system considers you to be a battle maniac, then just go with the flow.
Go crazy and keep fighting!
It’s hunting time! H.U.N.T.I.N.G!

《【Mace】 Level Up!》
《【Punch】 Level Up!》
《【Kick】 Level Up!》
《【Lightning Magic】 Level Up!》
《【Lightning Magic】 spell Enchanted Thunder acquired!》

Okay, that should be enough for now.
As expected, close quarters combat was still the most effective way of fighting enemies in this part of the map.
To that end, I tested out various weapons in combination with different spells and skills.
But all that fighting was still not enough for any of my monsters to actually Level Up.
What a surprise, huh? A Battleholic with Enchanted Ice who cannot fight enough to get his party members to level up. How cool is that?

The time is now 5:30 PM.
Let’s stick here for a bit longer, then we will surely get some results.

《Summoned Monster 『Naias』 Level Up!》
《Please add 1 Bonus Point to increase the value of the statistic of your choosing.》

The time is now 6:20 PM
Naias was the first monster to level up.
All right!
And here I thought that something must be wrong with the system, like it’s not registering the obtained EXP points properly.
Sorry for doubting you, developers, but if they were in my place everyone would get suspicious, even if for just a little bit.

Okay, time to increase Naias’s stats.
Her INT has already increased, so it will probably be a good choice to increase her VIT to grant her that much more survivability.

Naias Merrow Lv1 → Lv2 (↑ 1)
DEX 19
AGI 17
INT 24 (↑ 1)
STR 7
VIT 8 (↑ 1)
SPI 18

Skills:
Two-handed Spear Water Attribute Transform Nigh Eye Cursed Song Cursed Spell Water Breathing

Now that that’s done, I think it’s high time for me to have something for dinner.
I opened the Instant Portal, sent Naias back and summoned Bunraku.
Tonight, were having ourselves some meat!
For now, let’s organize all the stuff from my 《Item Boxes》, although I don’t think there’ll be that much to go through, because even though I have two 《Item Boxes》 on me, I only use one of them.
Also, the higher the Race level, the more space in each of them you’re going to have.
My current Race level is 21.
Together with a Bonus from my Rampaging Horse Belt, my current 《Item Boxes》 can have up to 484 items in them at any given time.
To give you a comparison, back in the good old days when my Race level was only 7, these could only fit up to 49 items in them, so the increase in numbers was rather significant.

Looks like the dish Bunraku is currently preparing is going to be pasta with boiled meat and mushroom sauce.
The smell of the slowly roasted thigh meat was so exquisite that simply sniffing it a little set off the fireworks in my mouth.
Oh yeah.
I haven’t eaten something like that for quite some time, so I’m sure the taste is going to be that much more awesome.

Well then, time to dig right in!