16. Tectonic Birds

"Are you ready, Naomi?"

"I was born ready!"

The two slimes let out a high-pitched battle cry before launching themselves into the air. The two cat-sized snot balls spun in the air and descended upon Gabriel.

"Here they come!"

The demon turned the sword in his hand and blocked the slimes with the end of his sword. The two beings bounced off his steel stick and right before his legs.

Thankfully, Gabriel didn't need to take another second of this assault.

He jumped away and revealed Naomi behind him, holding a book in one hand and casting with the other.

"Tectonic Birds!" Naomi shouted and as he did, three bird-like creatures flung out of his palm. These brown disks danced around his hand before flying into the slimes' gooey face.

"Chumiii!" The slimes cried out as the disks tore them apart.

The monsters destroyed corpses had no time to hit the ground before they dissolved into a cloud of particles. The names of their loot lingered in their place before disappearing with the wind.

"Nice job!" Gabriel gave Naomi an 'Okay' hand sign.

"You too, dude! I think there's some mad potential hidden in the two of us. Oh, and before I forget, here is your loot!"

Naomi summoned a slimeball out of his inventory and handed it to Gabriel. The latter gazed at the ball for a while before placing it in his inventory.

"We are splitting it fifty-fifty, right?" Gabriel out away the slimeball.

"That is the plan! Unfortunately, the two gave only one slimeball."

"Then why did you give it to me?" Gabriel grew a frown.

"Oh, no need to be so paranoid! I don't want anything in return."

Gabriel's eyes remained on Naomi for a while, but without any grand result. He felt no secret intentions nor any ill-will.

No matter how many layers of masks he wore, Naomi was still a good person by heart.

"Tsh!" Gabriel pulled away with a smile. "Let's not waste any time, okay? How about we spend today's earnings on a large dinner when we get home?"

"Hell yeah! We should get ourselves some sushi!"

"Aaand you just lost me with another unfamiliar word..."

The two wandered the meadows, fighting small slimes. They would've gone for a larger enemy, but it seemed like the meadow was too low-level for anything better to spawn.

The two followed a very simple tactic. Naomi would prepare his spell as they approached another slime, Gabriel would steal its attention and lead it to his friend, who then bombards the monster with an array of attacks.

"Tectonic Birds!"

This was Naomi's favorite spell. The small disks truly felt like they were alive and Naomi liked to think these disks were high-moving stone birds.

But even if that wasn't true, he really liked yelling the spell's name.

"Tectonic Birds!"

About an hour had passed and they've slain more than a dozen slimes by now. Gabriel felt only a little bit exhausted, but Naomi was on the verge of passing out. He approached a large stone and sat onto it, gasping for air.

"Are you alright?" Gabriel asked.

Naomi just waved at him, as if saying "I'm about to die but thanks" and opened his profile page.

As he did, the system on his hand shone with a blue light. Naomi looked at the stats before him and read the various numbers until his eyes stumbled upon something peculiar.

Suddenly, he regained his powers and he jumped up, raising his fist into the air.

"Yes!" He roared with joy and began poking the air.

Gabriel was utterly confused. He knew Naomi was observing his stats, but he didn't know what made him so happy.

"Naomi? What happened?"

"I leveled up! I made it to level two! I got a new effect that passively regenerates some of my mana, but that's not all! I got two skill points that I can spend!"

"Skill...points?"

"Yes! They are used to raise the power of your attributes. If my Intelligence is fourteen and I put two points into it, it will become sixteen! That's also what I'm going to do..."

Naomi touched something in the air and, subsequently with that, his Sigil began to glow with a dim blue light. It was evolving and it was visible.

"Woah!" Naomi looked at the circle on his hand. "Look! A line is starting to grow out of my Sigil! I am slowly evolving!"

The bright light stopped and a small line was left going out of his circle.

Gabriel remained silent through the whole thing, but even he could not deny the mesmerizing nature of Sigils.

Suddenly, Naomi patted him on the back.

"So? You've leveled up too, right?"

Gabriel remembered that indeed, their earnt experience points got shared. He opened his stats screen with high expectations, however, he was left feeling disappointed.

[ Name: Gabriel ]

[ HP: 20/20 ]

[ MP: 5/5 ]

[ Class: Warrior/Demon ]

[ Level: 1 (4/20) ]

[ Strength: 10 ]

[ Dexterity: 8 ]

[ Sturdiness: 10 ]

[ Intelligence: 10 ]

[ Souls: 0.125 ]

Gabriel did not level up. Even though he fought the same amount of monsters as Naomi, he earned only a small percentage of experience from that.

The experience that a monster gives is around 80% of its actual worth. If two adventurers share that experience, that means both of them get 40-40%.

However, since Naomi has two classes, the experience points he earns get shared between the two. That would mean he gets around 20% of the experience points, but even that's not true, thanks to the drop-off between the two classes.

When we divide all of that, we jumped from earning 100% of the experience points to gaining about a measly 15%.

Yes, that 15% applies to both classes, but it's still way less than what Gabriel should get.

What makes it even worse is that no matter the experience, it has no worth if it can not level you up.

"Oh, yeah. I leveled up to." Gabriel lied.

"Awesome! I don't know what class you got, since you know... You tattooed it onto your butt, but I recommend you go for more strength!"

"Thanks." Gabriel nodded. "I'll keep that in mind."

Once Naomi had regained his stamina, they continued further down the meadow.

Naomi hoped that if they walk far enough, larger and more monsters will begin to spawn.

Gabriel knew that that was true.

Suzuki led them into this meadow with a plan that involved more than just killing monsters. Gabriel did not know what kind of twisted surprise he had in mind, but Pepon's word echoed in his head.

"It's not too long until that psycho strikes..."

Pepon's words bore an ominous aura. She knew something about Suzuki that Gabriel did not, and it drove Gabriel mad with the worst possible thoughts.

"If Suzuki had a plan when he brought us here and Pepon knew about it... Why did she go with him? What does she know that I don't?"