Chapter 72: Chapter 67 – Encounter, Take Two

<I think those are pretty good boots, Scarlet.>

Alicia suddenly piped up before I passed through the fountain room on the next floor.

"Huh? You think they look good on me you mean?"

"Of course they look good on you Master!"

<No, well, yes, that too. But I meant that those boots also have some nice stats as well.>

The two of us completely ignored the dark spirits interjection. Fortunately she didn't seem to notice that fact and didn't get down about it.

<Those boots are made from the leather of a shadow panther, and even have an enchantment.>

Taking a closer look at them, the matte black boots did seem to have its own aura, or at least something similar to one, though it was very weak and barely noticeable even when I looked at them closely.

<It says that the boots are enchanted to make your body a little lighter.>

"I suppose that's nice? Though I don't see having much use for such a thing though."

I couldn't really feel the effect, but my strength stat was pretty substantial, so I barely felt my own body's weight. Like, it was there and I was aware of it, but there was a significant lack of resistance when I moved around, like my body was comprised of almost no mass. Going from feeling like close to zero, to actually close to zero wouldn't make a noticeable difference most likely.

Then again, something like this might've been extremely popular on Earth. Being able to say that you weighed less than you actually did when you wore these boots would be popular most likely. That, and I suppose there'd be people that would actually take advantage of the fact that you'd get less tired from moving around or carrying heavy things while wearing such boots, even if it only reduced your own body's weight. Somehow it felt like the latter group would be a minority though.

It did make me wonder how much my current body weighed, but unless if I could somehow recreate the metric system accurately, any such speculation would be pretty worthless, as there'd be no possibility to accurately use my common sense from Earth regarding my weight.

<I guess, but it might make floating and flying a little easier?>

All I could give her was a shrug. I didn't really know if any amount of weight reduction could make a noticeable difference, but it was nicer than not having anything I supposed.

Even without any of that, I did like the design of the boots. The slender, calf length boots held in place with a few simple clasps, otherwise mostly unadorned. And the black was the best part. It felt like it had become my personal colour, after wearing almost all black almost exclusively all the time since I was born into this world.

The next floor was more of a tropical rain forest than a jungle or more temperate forest like the other floors. Combined with that, the main monsters were large black haired apes that attacked from above and in groups.

The apes, called chaos monkeys, swung from branch to branch, throwing broken branches, rocks, as well as some unmentionables. I took especially great effort to avoid getting hit here. The smell alone made me want to just avoid them.

The words 'purge the unclean' felt appropriate, despite the difference in context. And thus, every time they showed up, I did just that. Even as I anticipated them showing themselves by first detecting the monsters thanks to [Sense Presence], I readied spells to suit the situation. From ice lances for small groups to fireballs for larger, spread out groups.

The fireballs were especially effective, but extremely inefficient. It ate up a good amount of MP, and I wasn't really inclined to drink the blood of monsters that habitually did such dirty things. The going got better when I tried out a variation, where I detonated a tree near the middle of the group first, then set fire on the cloud of wood particles, creating an impromptu fuel air explosion. The effects were quite impressive, as the flames consumed the entire group. If the monsters were more spread out, I just needed to destroy more trees and do the same thing, easily wiping out the group before they could do anything.

The best part was the MP expenditure was nearly non-existent. The initial spark to ignite the dust cloud only used a single MP, and blowing up a tree only took up a handful each time, easily an amount low enough for me to recover before the next encounter.

That said, it was a little difficult to make work well. I tried to shatter the tree by forcing it apart at high speeds using [Earth Magic]. If I merely did that and ignited the resulting dust cloud, the effects were good, but limited. But the problems occurred when I tried to push things further by also spreading out the dust cloud quickly using [Wind Magic]. It was difficult to tell if there was some sort of interference or it was simply hard to swap elements seamlessly, but the faster I tried to make the string of skills happen, the more complications and difficulty I found.

It was odd and annoying, but not terrible. At least for the fights I was getting into.

At the end of the floor, the boss was merely a silver haired gorilla, which was culled with a single ice lance. At the levels of the monsters at this floor, having a single monster at a greater strength ended up being easier than a group of lower levelled monsters, even if they would normally have been weaker.

By the way, the treasure chest from the boss room contained a pair of heavy looking bracers. They didn't actually feel heavy though, and it felt like it glowed slightly with brown light. Alicia happily told me that it was a set of steel bracers with an enchantment that increased its durability. It went into my bag without a second thought.

We tried waiting for a short time at the next fountain room, but there was no indication of the armoured woman showing herself, so we moved on once more after a few minutes.

Again, we moved on and leisurely made our way through the floor. As the monsters this time were gorillas with various fur patterns and colourations, I didn't have a pressing need to reduce our time on the floor. Or rather, spending more time was better, as it increased the likelihood of that woman deciding to come and face us.

Not only would it give her any time she wanted to prepare, but it would also reduce the likelihood of her thinking that I was insurmountably strong. At least that was my hope.

With that thought in mind, we took another break in the next fountain room after one-shotting the steel-bodied silver-back that stood as the floor's boss.

Then the next floor, the one after that, and even a few after that, deliberately slowing our progress on each floor.

On the twenty eighth floor, we decided to make this floor our point to make our stand.

The reason was simple: if we kept going, we risked reducing the chances of that woman showing up.

The monsters on this floor were gardener trolls. Monsters with blue or green skin that stood lankly over twice my height, possibly three times, but it was a bit hard to tell due to how they stooped constantly. They wore moss covered bark as clothes and used bundled vines and logs as weapons.

They were merely big, strong, and slow. Not really a challenge in the slightest. Not even when they generally came in groups of three to five.

They said that the bigger they are, the harder they fall, but it almost felt like those words were made for these creatures. The second after I bore a hole through their foreheads with an ice lance, I had to fight to keep my balance as the ground shook due to the impact of the monster falling over.

But it was more an annoyance than anything. Even if its companions were mostly unaffected by the shaking, it didn't mean that I couldn't kill them even when I was on the verge of falling over.

Of course, a not insignificant part of that was due to the monsters' level, which was in the 140s.

After taking out a group of gardener trolls, I stopped to take a small break. Not because I needed it, but to try to make it look like my progress was dropping even further.

<She's not showing up, is she?>

"Yea. Honestly, I don't know how much further we can afford to go before she decides to not bother."

<Right. If she thinks that she doesn't stand a chance, she won't bother showing up.>

"And if she doesn't show up soon, who know when she'll make her appearance, or how much stronger she'll have gotten by then."

<You don't think she might just give up?>

It was a pretty hopeful thought, but relying purely on hope wasn't very conductive to living a long, happy life. Although doing the opposite didn't mean that you'd be happy, it at least increased the chances of living a long life.

"I don't. If I was her, I wouldn't have bothered to invest in my life in this world, and concentrated getting the reward that was promised. Whatever it is, it's gotta be good enough to make it worth spending a lot of time and effort into finding and getting rid of me."

<I see. I don't like the idea of having to fight someone, but if they won't stop trying to hurt you...>

"Yea, I don't want to get hurt if I don't have to, so for that sake, we're trying to get things done now."

After a few more encounters and I enjoyed a meal for myself, we headed back to the fountain room. There, I gave Claret her meal and we lounged around for a while before heading out again. We wandered around for a while longer before heading back to the fountain room and wasted time listening to some of Claret's stories before going out for a third time.

I was starting to lose confidence in the plan. The longer we continued to try it, the more it felt like we might've already gone too far and that woman had given up. That was one thing I really wanted to avoid. I really wanted to skip out on having to look for that woman manually. Trying to find a single person in this large city, who might leave together with the large number of regular travellers at any day, any time, was just a pure nightmare.

Yea, I really hoped that things wouldn't come to that.

As we stood around after our seventh encounter, a blip appeared on [Sense Presence]. It had probably been more than a day since we faced off with that armoured woman. The thought that she might've finally shown herself got me anticipating the meeting.

Frankly speaking, I was pretty bored, and the thought of that boredom finally ending had me looking forward to something I normally would've dreaded.

<Let me handle this on my own Claret.>

<But Master!>

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<We both know that either of us can beat that woman without issue. Both of us going at it is way past overkill.>

<But in that case, I should do it! There's no reason for you to have to face off against someone who's out to kill you!>

<In a sense that's true, but it could also be seen that it's best that I face her myself.>

<But...>

<And most importantly, I need the experience. If there happens to be another person sent after me, I need to learn to deal with them, even if it's only by a little bit.>

<...I understand Master.>

To be frank, the real reason why I didn't want her to subdue that woman on my behalf was due to the fact that she was liable to just kill her. I doubted she'd do that on purpose, but if she got triggered, such an outcome would become unavoidable.

At the very least, I want to give her as much of a chance to chose a peaceful option instead.

<But at the very least, let me stay nearby. In case the impossible happens, so that I can protect you.>

<That's fine.>

As the presence approached, the three of us waited for the lone figure to turn the final corner.

"Die!"

As the figure appeared before my eyes, her gleaming white armour forcing me to squint due to the harshness of its light, she immediately drew her sword and started charging straight at me.

Even without looking I could tell it was an amateurish move, despite being self taught myself.

The figure wildly swung her weapon from above in a predictable arc. I almost sighed at the poor strategy employed by my opponent.

Squinting through the annoying glare, the sword at least swung in a smooth motion, with proper speed and strength, and it seemed like if it were to connect, the strike would do substantial damage. If it were to connect that was.

I wasn't about to let such a thing happen, thus I raised a hand and caught the blade, squeezing it between my fingers and immobilizing it.

But against my expectations, when my skin made contact with the supposedly cold metal of the gleaming white blade, it felt like my hand was set on fire instead! I had certainly stopped the sword, and there was shock in the woman's eyes at seeing her blade being caught, but despite that, the pain in my hand was as if she had succeeded in some sort of attack neither of us had quite expected.

Before more damage could be done, I quickly let go of the sword and hopped out of reach.

When I glanced down to have a look, my fingers were charred black and cracked with blood seeping out. It was as if I had touched a red hot stove top with my bare hand for a good dozen seconds or something.

With only my hand exposed to the artificial sunlight, I wasn't healing very fast with all the shade from the thick canopy above. I threw off my hood and tossed my hat to Claret before undoing my wrist belt and pulling the sleeve of my injured arm to further expose my skin to the light.

I grit my teeth as the cracks slowly closed and the whiteness of my skin returned.

All the while, I kept a part of my mind on [Sense Presence] to make sure that my opponent hadn't tried to charge at me again. Instead, she had simply stood there and let me recover.

Perplexed at this baffling behaviour, I looked up at her. While I couldn't see well through her thin visor slit, it was pretty obvious she was staring at me. And furthermore, her stance was loose, as if she wasn't prepared to actually fight properly.

She simply looked as baffled as I felt, and I wasn't quite sure why. Not like I really cared that much.

<Be careful! That sword is enchanted to do light elemental damage!>

Alicia's sudden warning explained why I got hurt the way I did. The blade must've been enveloped by light aspected mana. It kinda figured that this woman would've been armed with a weapon specifically made to deal with me.

Or rather, I should've realized it in the first place. That harsh glare from her equipment, there was a good chance that it was actually leaking the mana from all the enchantments her gear had.

<It's also made of mithril, so be careful Scarlet! Ah, I should've done this at the beginning!>

<It's fine. We know now, and we can just be aware of that sort of thing for next time.>

<Alright. Ummm...all her equipment is made of mithril! And they're all have light aspected enchantments! The greaves increase agility, the cuisses raises constitution, the breastplate reduces damage taken, the gauntlets increase strength, and the helmet improves vision! Even her scabbard regenerates her HP over time! And it's not just a little, but the enchantments are really powerful! Are you sure you'll be fine?>

<It'll be fine. She's too weak to be a real danger. I just need to watch out for that sword.>

Most likely, this person came to this world after I did, and at level one like I did. This explained why a human could've raised her level so much. It was easy for me to keep going hours on end, day after day, as my vampiric constitution meant that I didn't need much rest, any sleep, and I could recover any injuries and restore MP simply by feeding. Vampires were basically made for extended battles to the point that I doubted there were any other race that could do it as well.

But with equipment like that, this woman would've had no trouble taking on monsters significantly higher than her own level to quickly gain XP. The result was something that was capable of hurting me even with my extremely high level.

Even if it was due to my own carelessness.

That armoured woman still hadn't made a second move yet, even though Alicia even spent the time to explain her equipment to me.

Well, if she wasn't going to make the next move, then I might as well.

Lowering my hips, I finally got a reaction out of that woman, but it was already too late. I wasn't going to give up the initiative just because she finally snapped out of whatever made her stand there with a completely open guard.

Wrapping my body with a wind shield to ward off air resistance, I kicked off the packed soil, leaving an indent in the shape of my foot as I charged at high speeds. Passing by the woman as she raised her sword. To me, fully in combat mode, the movement appeared painfully slow, as if she was in extra slow motion or something, but in reality I knew that it was simply my perception of time speeding up to match my actions. If my brain didn't do such a thing, I would've tripped over my own feet as I wouldn't have been able to tell my body to make my second step before my first propelled me into a wall or something.

The thought made me wonder what stat caused this time dilation. Logically, it would be my intelligence stat, but since all my stats were extremely high and lacked too significant variation between them, I couldn't really know for sure on my own.

Once I made it around to the armoured woman's backside, I lightly slapped her elbow, sending her weapon flying to be impaled inside of a tree. Nothing but the hilt and pommel was visible from where I stood.

With my other hand, I grabbed her wrist and pulled it behind her before knocking her down with a light shove. While I slowed down along with my perception of time, the woman hit the ground as I followed along, only to land on top of her with my knee in her back.

I was forced to grit my teeth as the palm of my left hand, where I was gripping the woman's gauntlet, felt hot like I was touching scalding water. It seemed like even non-damaging enchantments still harmed me. Sometimes being a vampire was pretty inconvenient, but at the very least it wasn't as bad as it could've been. It didn't hurt nearly as badly as being under direct sunlight, and in addition, I was recovering all the damage as it was being dealt thanks to my sunlight absorption skill.

"Kya! Wh, what happened?!"

"I've pinned you down, that's what happened. Now, talk. Who sent you?"

As a starter, I wanted to test her compliance as well as confirm our suspicions.

"Ah, you! Damn you!"

The woman swung her free hand at me, but as long as her armour didn't come in direct contact with my skin, her wild swinging couldn't hurt me. That said, it was still annoying and wasn't very productive. I put strength onto her pinned arm, pushing her clenched fist up her back until I felt a little bit of resistance. A little bit, though, to me was probably quite a bit to her.

"Owowow! Stop!"

"Feeling like talking now?"

"Fine! Fine! I'll talk! Just stop it!"

Satisfied with her answer, I cut the pressure to her arm. But just in case, I held a firm grip on it while keeping my knee in the small of her back as added insurance.

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