บท 192: CHAPTER 192(Ways To Pass Time)
Please read the author's notes. (Examples and explanation of moves and appearance+ Monster Sources)
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CHAPTER START---
---24 Days Ago, The Dragon Vase...
Walking up to floor fifty-nine after delivering a cache of supplies to the floor seventy safe-zone was no real issue for Yang Shen.
While everyone on his team came together to train, mostly him helping them or Thalie giving Welf and himself combat instructions, they'd have to separate for various reasons.
One such reason was Welf's current project of solving The Bug Jar which has him locked up in his forge. For Thalie it was her constant flipping between being annoyingly doting on Mikoto to the almost murderous training of the girl. For Mikoto alone they'd burnt through more than one case of Elixirs within a week, not the kind of training a fourteen-year-old would normally volunteer for. It also wasn't the kind of training her familia would give, and that was if they could ever afford it.
While his allies were doing their own things, Yang was working out some of the finer points of his magic and constantly hauling supplies, occasionally taking a quest or two from the guild notice board to pass the time.
Entering the Dragon Vase's lowest floor he expected to be assaulted by the Valgang Dragons. With his most recent sword ready and a white-cold mist pouring off his body he's pleasantly surprised to see that that entire massive chamber is empty.
The dozens of Wyverns and seven Valgang Dragons are completely destroyed, the floor littered with monster crystals and drop items, all done by one man.
"So I assume this is your training?" Yang asks as he sees Ottar sitting on the floor cleaning his greatsword of the dragon blood.
The man looks up for a moment to see Yang put his sword away and deactivate his magic, with his blue coat on he stuffs his hands into his pockets and approaches The King.
Ottar returns his focus to cleaning his weapon, "Until you accept my request, yes, this will have to do," he says in a serious tone.
"This again, I already told Freya and now I'll tell you, I don't like fighting people. Plus if I break her favourite adventurer she'd get mad," Yang says, rolling his eyes at their persistence.
"Her favourite adventurer?" Ottar asks, looking at Yang with his eyes wider now.
"You," Yang says as if it were obvious. "It's always been you, I barely talk to her about my Falna or my adventure, she doesn't care about any of that stuff. But you impressed her with that, it's pretty obvious who she pays more attention to as an adventure."
While to most of the world this would be an outright lie, it was the truth. The public believes that Goddess Freya couldn't steal Yang Shen and add him to her familia so she created romantic ties. A simple but effective strategy to add to your own military might.
But the truth is, Freya couldn't care less if he was level-ten or had no Falna, she only cares about the man that is Yang Shen, not the adventurer everyone thinks she's attracted to.
But Ottar, she has pride in him for his accomplishments and constant improvement as an adventure. That has always been his sole focus and the results showed, she was proud of him.
A small smile forms on Ottar's face as he processes what this means, he hadn't lost the favor of his goddess to Yang Shen at all. As if they were on the same track but doing two completely different races for different prizes. One won her love as a man, the other her adoration as an adventurer.
But he didn't get this far by being complacent and happy with his current status, "thank you, but I'd still like to at least spar with you," Ottar persists even now. "My familia isn't suited for exploring the deeper floors, nor is Loki familia, the only challenge I can get to, is you..."
Yang lets out a tired sigh and folds his arms, "you're annoyingly persistent. I'd take you to fight the Xixecal but I already cleared it..." he looks behind him to see the pathway back to the frozen floors. "Ok, one-time deal, I'll take you around some of the lower floors but this stays between my team, Freya, and you. After my next expedition I'll consider us having a very light spar," Yang finally gives in, mostly to pass the time.
Ottar immediately stands up and places his sword on his back, "thank you, you have my word I won't tell anyone but my goddess," he says with a firm nod.
Yang shakes his head and begins walking to the entrance, "yeah well...just hope Freya doesn't get mad if frostbite kills you on these floors... or if we spar and I accidentally cut you in half or something," he says.
"I'm level-eight and specialize in defense, you're level-seven, can you really?" Ottar asks.
"Maybe," Yang turns to give him a sly look, "but we both know that levels mean a lot less after level-six, that's when the skills and magic that transcend the power of having a one or two-level advantage come in, right mister 'Devoted' ?"
Ottar is a bit surprised but quickly schools his expression, "my goddess told you about that?"
"Who do you think gave her the training plan for that skill?" Yang asks with a light chuckle.
As he walks forward Ottar is frozen in place for a moment as it all truly sinks in. Yang never saw him as anything resembling a rival, he even went as far as to advise his goddess on a training method that works rather than have Ottar try to figure things out himself.
Ottar cares about others to the extent that he wishes to be the best, not for his own pride, but for his goddess. He pays no mind to anyone weaker than himself and focuses only on those ahead of him. Until Yang Shen there was no one to chase, no competition. But now looking at Yang's retreating form he suddenly realizes there is still no competition.
Yang could, no, he would pull ahead eventually, but he cared so little for his position as the strongest that he didn't mind helping the only person that could threaten it.
'I see...this is what it means to be Odr,' Ottar thinks as he begins walking to catch up. He'd been curious about what his goddess meant by 'A special, one-of-a-kind soul' and her other usually fanatical and nonsensical ramblings about this man. But he couldn't imagine anyone else doing what Yang is currently doing, especially not himself.
---20 Days Ago...
"Isn't it beautiful up here," Thalie says in a bit of awe. Sitting atop the outer wall of Orario, hundreds of feet above the ground she enjoys the sun setting on the horizon. "Can you imagine that I was so scared of heights I would have missed this...that would have been a waste."
"Ngh, ugh..argh!" The sound of a struggling Mikoto is the one response she got in return.
"Stop being dramatic," Thalie says. "You've done this before just focus and pull, the more noise you make the more energy you waste. You have to be ready for things like this so they don't stop you from fighting."
"P-please," Mikoto mutters.
Thalie scowls and turns around, as she hangs her feet above the walkway she shakes her head at Mikoto.
The girl was currently wearing long purple combat pants with a matching long sleeve top. Gone was her impractical kimono, according to Thalie it was 'made to be seductive as a distraction,' whilst she was trying to 'train you well enough so you don't need to rely on the enemy being dumb to kill them, because monsters don't care about your tits and ass.'
As much as Mikoto disliked completely abandoning the traditions of her homeland, she hadn't been able to make a solid counter-argument to even one of her new sensei's observations.
It made sense on too many levels. Seduction doesn't work against anyone worth fighting or monsters. Ninjutsu is fine but specializing in it will get her killed against the challenging foes both in and out of the dungeon. And as for her leotard under the kimono, 'No pockets equals useless,' according to Thalie...and women everywhere.
This is how she found herself dressed just like her sensei, the woman who has quickly become like the mother she never had, and currently the mother she would dare say she never wanted.
Considering she was currently pinned to the stone wall with Liberty in her shoulder, definitely not the mother she wanted. Feet dangling off the ground she struggles and struggles to remove the spear, feeling weaker from the blood loss and already spent energy.
"Please, help," she barely manages to speak.
Scoffing at the display of weakness Thalie hops off the wall and casually removes the spear, Mikoto crumples to the floor in a heap.
"You should be ashamed of yourself," Thalie says. "I'm acting as your enemy and you beg me for help. Seriously? You said you wanted to be a great warrior and I agreed that you had potential, we had a deal and this crap wasn't part of it. I swear Take is the softest military god I've ever met," she says bitterly.
"I-I'm sorry, sensei..." Mikoto forces herself to sit up, not yet finding the energy to stand.
Looking down at her Thalie's battle-hardened shell doesn't crack, but it gives just a bit. She was trying to make Mikoto a great warrior without making her only trait being a living weapon, she was trying to make someone more...balanced, than herself. And she was trying to learn to be a real person along the way.
"Alright fine I won't put you back up on the wall," Thalie says. Looking away from the smiling girl as she hands her an Elixir. As Mikoto drinks it she feels her wound and energy fully restored. A five-hundred-million-Valis Elixir was essentially a full restore for a level one, within reason. A group of five level-one adventurers could work for well over an entire month and not have enough money left over after repairs and living plus adventuring expenses to even enter the shops that sell them.
"Thank you, sensei," Mikoto says with a dazzling smile.
"Don't misunderstand," Thalie says. "I just decided that putting you back on the wall wouldn't be efficient, give me a lap and we'll call it a night," she points to her right, down the path that runs in a perfect circle around the city.
"Wha---"
"One lap around the city, get moving," Thalie says in a suddenly harsh tone.
"Uh, yes, right!" Mikoto bows and begins jogging down the pathway, beginning her forty-mile run as the sun sets behind her.
Looking at the back of her student disappearing into the distance Thalie shakes her head and turns around, beginning a brisk walk. Just this once she'd meet Mikoto a little bit closer than the full distance...
---17 Days Ago...
"Alright, I'm here," Yang announces as he enters Thalie's apartment.
Entering the living room he sees Mikoto sleeping while aggressively cuddling one of the couch pillows, laying on the floor. Sitting on the couch was Welf and sitting on the floor stroking Mikoto's hair is Thalie, both wearing the left gauntlet of their armor.
Walking over Yang takes a seat not far from Welf and glances at his own piece on the couch, only his was the right arm.
"What'd you do to her this time?" he asks while pointing at Mikoto.
"She's shit at holding her rum," Thalie says.
"She's like twelve," Yang says.
"fourteen."
"Same thing, she shouldn't be drinking."
"Well now we know," Thalie says.
At this point Welf enters the conversation, "anyway, how was training with his majesty, he any good?"
"Mmm," Yang thinks about it for a moment, "hard to tell, physically strong and tough, skills that make him stronger and tougher I think. That's all I could tell without seeing him fight a major threat. He didn't use any magic or active skills since we only went to floor sixty-five. He's nothing useful even if we could trust him not to leak our end goal to Freya."
"Well while you were doing that I finished the maps," Welf says. "Put on the gauntlets and I'll show you...'
As they all put on their gauntlets Welf activates the enchantment.
Suddenly they see the room they're in projected a few inches above the gauntlets as a green 3D hologram, as if mapped by echolocation. Completed with three little dots inside, a gold marker for Thalie, a red for Welf, and a blue for Yang, but the sleeping Mikoto wasn't on the map.
"Ok that's pretty awesome," Yang says as he puts his other hand in the hologram, it passes through without issue.
"How does it work," Thalie asks, playing with the hologram just like Yang.
"I mixed a few things from Yang's book, couldn't quite get the efficiency I wanted, nowhere near it actually," Welf admits. "Basically you activate the enchantment and put magic into your helmet, it sends small waves of that magic out that gets mapped into your suit. Then when you put on your helmet all the maps connect and fill in what the others missed and saves it all as one big map. The more magic you put in the more of the map you get. Only maps non-living things so this is just for dungeon routes."
"How much to map Orario?" Yang asks.
"I think you could do it fairly comfortably," Welf says. "In combat Thalie and I can't afford to spend that kind of magic so the mapping will mostly be left to you."
"Naturally," Yang says. "Alright, the supply caches are in the safe zones, we've been updated, our gear is good, we ready?"
"Yeah I'm ready," Thalie says.
"Me too, I'm itching to hit level six," Welf says.
---The Present...
"See, that was...easy..." Welf says between gasps for air.
"I wouldn't say easy," Yang adds, "but the maps made it manageable at least."
"Whatever, it's over now..." Thalie says as she removes her helm.
Walking out of the tunnel both Welf and Thalie are covered in bug guts and other fluids, thick green mucus sparsely splashed across their armor.
Smelling as if they just crawled out of a sewer that died and was thrown into a bigger sewer, the trifecta walks into a familiar area, a lush green forest with massive crystals hanging from the ceiling above.
"I told you there wouldn't be a boss, The Bug Jar didn't fit the boss pattern," Yang says as he gently taps Welf on the shoulder.
"Two weeks of filthy bugs and mapping that labyrinth," Thalie shakes off some of the mucus, "if there was a boss I'd be pissed."
"Whatever, I'm just glad we made it," Welf looks over to Yang as they stop to survey the land, "we should probably rest here for a few days. Use the Status potion to update before we go further and I need to do some minor repairs."
"Right, right," Yang points to a small clearing in the distance, "I'll erect our floor eight-six safe-zone plateau there and we can make camp, next stop, floor one-hundred..."
END CHAPTER---
Any guess as to what's on the mythic floor 100?
Sorry this came out late, stuff kept me from editing :/
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keanu_eugene
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---Yang delivering supply caches to safe zones...
---Yang and Ottar bonding...
---Thalie and Mikoto bonding...
---Welf made the maps and got them to floor 86 safe-zone...
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