Chapter 79. I’ll Definitely Win

Chapter 79. I’ll Definitely Win

A couple of days passed. Yeah, most of the monster killing was done by Rem’s golems, but sometimes the three of us held a contest without golems: who could kill more monsters. Rem participated too.

Damn it, I’m the highest-level one on our team, so why am I losing? Sherial took first place, Rem took second, and I stayed in third. Damn it. If there were way more monsters, I’d win. I have an endless supply of health potions—I can fight for days without resting—but the monsters run out too fast, and I lose.

Damn, when are Sherial’s arrows going to run out? This is totally unfair. Yeah, stupid thought. Sherial is an archer—fighting without a bow just isn’t an option for her.

Whatever. Soon, I’ll definitely win. I’m almost sure of it.

I looked at my sword—the Fire Sword. I’d just managed to upgrade it to Rank 4. Yeah, during this time I gained one more level too. Now I was Level 163, and my mana pool had already exceeded 1,000,000.

[Status]

[Name: Alisar
Level: 163
Experience: 4,762,816,190 / 7,450,000,000
Rank: 5]

HP: 15,303,110 / 15,303,110
MP: 1,066,630 / 1,066,630 (+343,740)

Strength: 507,659 (+32)
Defense: 505,703 (+32)
Speed: 516,949 (+32)

Intelligence: 5,614 (+2,000)
Magic Power: 5,609 (+2,000)
Magic Defense: 65,066 (+30,374)
Free Attribute Points: 0 (+2374) (+32,000) (-34,374)

Skills:
Swordsman (Rank 3)
Berserk (Rank 2)
Poison Resistance (Rank 5)
Reinforced Stomach (Rank 2)

Special Skills:
• Training Room (Rank 4)
• Alchemy (Rank 3)
• Ascensio (Rank 3)]

We’re fighting plant-type monsters—they should be weak to fire. With this sword, I’ll definitely win.

Alright, first I’ll check how much its power has increased. At Rank 3 it wasn’t very useful against these monsters, but at Rank 4 everything should change.

I aimed the blade at the stone wall and focused—the blade ignited with an even flame, and in the next moment a powerful stream of fire burst forward.

It was many times stronger than before, and it didn’t just reach the stone wall—if the wall hadn’t been so durable, the flame would have melted it without effort.

The temperature in the training room spiked for a few seconds. The air shimmered with heat, but soon everything returned to normal.

Yeah… with this kind of boost, I definitely have a chance to win.

And just in case, I took out a Mushroom of Origin and ate it.

[Mushroom of Origin (Rank 4) eaten.]
[Gained: +201 Free Attribute Points]

Yeah, it was a Rank 4 Mushroom of Origin. Of course, as soon as I gained the ability to upgrade magic items to Rank 4, the first thing I strengthened was the Mushroom of Origin.

Two hundred and one free attribute points—that was already more than three times what I got at Rank 3. And I still didn’t know what the maximum number of free points from a Rank 4 Mushroom of Origin could be.

Alright… time to finally win.

This time, I’ll definitely take first place in the contest.

—

"Still hoping you’ll win?" Sherial said.

"Not just hoping. This time I’m sure I’ll win," I answered, gripping the Fire Sword tightly.

"Dream on, dream on. You’ll never beat me," Sherial smirked.

The monsters began to respawn. In less than ten seconds, the entire clearing filled up again—more than 10,000 monsters. As soon as they appeared, the closest one noticed us and rushed forward. The rest followed.

I smiled at Sherial. Rem just stood there, focused. It looked like the contest didn’t interest her much, but she still paid the winner silver coins without fail.

Sherial smiled.

"Get my silver coin ready," she said.

So confident.

No… this time I’m the one getting that silver coin.

I poured mana into the Fire Sword, extended the blade toward the charging horde—and a powerful stream of flame erupted from it. It instantly reached the nearest enemies and burned more than ten monsters at once.

Within seconds, more than a hundred monsters burned up and turned into particles of light. They kept running toward me, and the stream of flame kept carving through new rows without stopping.

At this pace, Sherial won’t keep up. This time, I’ll definitely win.

I glanced at Rem—she had already dashed forward and was fighting monsters off to the side, keeping away from the line of fire.

Then I looked at Sherial. She seemed to be watching my sword and the stream of flame with surprise. Apparently she was genuinely impressed by how much stronger it had become.

Well… this time she has no choice but to admit defeat.

What? Why did she grin?

No… she doesn’t have a move that lets her kill faster, does she?

She’s not going to use her strongest attack skill.

These are only Rank 3 monsters. There’s no point in setting off a real explosion over something this small.

…Right?

Sherial took out an arrow. But instead of aiming at the monsters, she pointed it up, into the sky above their heads. The arrow glowed for a moment—and she fired.

I followed its flight. What was she planning?

The arrow shot high into the air, flared—and in the next moment a rain of arrows crashed down from the sky.

Thousands. A real storm of arrows.

They slammed into the horde, and in just a few seconds almost a quarter of the entire swarm died—more than 2,000… no, around 2,500 monsters vanished under that volley.

Sherial looked at me with a smirk.

Damn… am I going to lose again?

No!

I lunged forward, increasing the flow of flame and cutting a path through the horde, trying to kill as many monsters as possible while I still had a chance.

I kept burning through them, and then a rain of arrows fell from above my head.

Damn it, she isn’t even trying not to hit me! Looks like she doesn’t care if she tags allies—she’s just hitting the entire area.

I easily avoided the arrows and shot Sherial an irritated look. Even from here, I could see her smirk.

She knew those arrows could barely do anything to me, so she fired without hesitation.

Damn it… I lost again.

—

I tried to come up with a strategy to beat Sherial in this contest.

It would be great if I could upgrade the Fire Sword to Rank 5, but that wasn’t possible yet.

However, if I thought about it, the Fire Sword wasn’t the only magic sword I had. I already had a Rank 5 sword.

So I needed to figure out what it could do. If the Fire Sword could shoot jets of flame, then a Rank 5 sword had to have some kind of hidden function too. I just didn’t know what it was yet.

I took it and tried using it the same way as the Fire Sword. Something happened, but I didn’t see any noticeable changes.

Alright, I probably wouldn’t figure it out on my own. I needed to ask either Rem or Sherial.

Better to ask Rem—she understood this stuff better.

And anyway, if I wanted to beat Sherial, I couldn’t do it without unlocking this sword’s potential. It would be stupid not to use Rem’s help.

—

"This sword doesn’t have any secret abilities," Rem answered.

"What? Why? It’s a magic sword. Rank 5! If it has no skills… no hidden capabilities… then what’s the point? Why is it even a Rank 5 magic item?" I asked, confused and a little disappointed.

"Like I said, this sword is unbelievably durable. It doesn’t degrade over time and it doesn’t dull. And pouring mana into it only strengthens that property—makes it even more durable," Rem explained calmly.

An indestructible sword… sure, it sounded cool and all, but it wouldn’t help me beat Sherial in a contest.

"You want to beat Sherial in the contest?" Rem asked.

"Yeah," I answered.

"In this contest, you can’t beat her," Rem said calmly.

"No, there’s always a chance. There has to be some way," I argued.

"Well, try to think of something," Rem said, and began summoning golems, preparing for the next monster respawn.

Yeah… I definitely needed to come up with a strategy to beat Sherial.

—

Eleven days passed.

Damn it… Sherial always wins. I didn’t manage to win even once.

I even used Berserk, but it didn’t help much. Yeah, I killed monsters faster, but compared to Sherial it barely affected the result.

And there was something else that worried me.

By now I had reached Level 170. Sherial was already 155. Rem wasn’t far behind either—Level 152—but she was catching up to Sherial quickly.

At this rate, both of them would catch up to me soon. In all the time we’d been in the dungeon, I’d gained only eight levels. Sherial—eighteen or nineteen, I wasn’t sure. Rem—more than twenty-five.

I understood my level was higher, which meant I needed more experience, but still… if this kept going, I might end up being the lowest-level member of our team.

Level was the only thing I had over the others, so I didn’t want to fall behind.

I resumed training, deciding to do the Training Room tasks. But after thinking for a moment, for some reason I realized I didn’t want to continue.

By my calculations, completing the sixth task would give me around sixty billion experience points, but it would take at least a year. Meanwhile, fighting monsters for eleven days had already given me more than seventy billion experience points.

No, I can’t think like that. I have to do the Training Room tasks at least a little. Even if it’s only fifteen minutes a day.

Yeah, that’s a lot. Fifteen minutes here is ten days in the training room. But I have to do it. I can’t be lazy.

"You said you found this place when you visited the dungeon last time. So why didn’t you stay here longer to level up? It’s the perfect place," I asked.

This question had come to me a couple of days ago. If I’d found a place like this, I would never have left so quickly.

"We weren’t planning to leave, but Rem got an urgent system quest. The same one you got. Until she accepted it, the system window stayed in front of her eyes and made it hard to keep fighting. So we had to leave this place urgently," Sherial said.

"I see," I said.

I had also been forced to interrupt my rest because of that urgent quest. When a system window is hanging right in front of your eyes, it’s basically impossible to focus normally.

Oh, something changed. Rem stopped summoning golems. Some of the golems already on the field were destroyed by monsters, and the rest simply vanished.

I was about to jump in and help—just in case something had happened. But Sherial stopped me.

"Relax. Nothing happened," she said.

Magic circles appeared in front of Rem again, like before, but this time they were noticeably larger. Golems came out—around four meters tall. Still slim, built for speed, but they felt much more powerful.

She summoned only ten.

And the moment they appeared, they rushed into the fight.

Could you even call it a fight? Those ten golems simply swept through the monsters in their path. Ten versus several thousand Rank 3 monsters—and the advantage wasn’t on the side of numbers.

So… her skill had reached Rank 4.

Finally.