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Chapter 35
"Do I really have to do this?" Laura asked me, making sure I was sure of my decision.
"Yep." I simply replied as I checked the shining liquid flask in my hand.
"But I'm a mage." She argued as she moved sideways.
"And that's just a D-rank boss." I countered as I checked my status.
[You have leveled up x4]
[Your party member Laura Ravenknight is now level 67]
[Your party member Maximilian Specter is now level 137]
[Your party member Rose is now level 189]
It turns out that the limit to level up from anything below D rank was only applied to me as when we cleared an E-rank dungeon before this, I didn't gain a speck of EXP but both Rose and Max leveled up and Laura's level rose by 27.
When we came to the D rank dungeon, however, my rank rose with good speed. Although there was only one D+ monster that Laura was currently fighting without the use of spells or skills.
There were still enough monsters of D- and D rank that I leveled up by four.
"And I'm an E- rank." She argued.
She was but she soon wouldn't be. Although her rank was E-, her level was far lower, in the realm of F rank so even though her level had increased, her rank wouldn't until her stats reached that point.
"Rose can deal with it in seconds," I spoke as Rose, who was standing beside me puffed up her chest with pride.
I knew it was unfair to compare Laura and Rose as Rose was a natural monster whose talent was almost comparable to mine.
Laura became annoyed at my remark but that also distracted her for a minute which caused her to be almost hit by the green hobgoblin.
This was a goblin dungeon and just from this, I was able to make the moon dew shine by a lot. Goblins are full of life after all. anyway, I was making Laura fight the hobgoblin without the use of her skills or spells.
The reason was simple. To increase her physical stats. The more she would suffer, the more she would bear, the more progress she would make.
[Your party member Laura Ravenknight is now level 67]
And I was proven correct. Even though she hadn't killed the monster by now, she had definitely gotten used to it.
I was providing her with defense with my divine shield whenever she would get hit and whenever she would get tired, I would throw her a stamina potion.
Even the monster was terribly tired by now but Laura still had more room to grow so we waited. Waited until she killed the goblin on her own.
After about twenty minutes, she had finally managed to drive the dagger in hand into the head of the extremely tired monster.
[Your party member has slain a hobgoblin]
[You have leveled up]
[Your party member Laura Ravenknight is now level 89]
Rose and Max didn't level up but Laura made a giant leap in her level. Even from here, I could hear the small transformation of her muscles as they realigned themselves according to her new stats.
"How do you feel?" I asked when she was puzzled by her changes.
"This is your doing?" She asked perplexed. I simply nodded and moved to harvest the body of the dead goblin. The body of the goblin disappeared and the liquid shined a little more.
Now that that part is done, the next part is very tedious.
At first, I had decided to use the bat bodies in my inventory for the purpose of money but now that I needed a large amount of life force, there was no better alternative than thousands of bat bodies.
Although we had finished two dungeons, there was not enough life force in both of them to completely fill the life force gauge of the moon dew.
I needed enough life force to sustain an SS rank awakened. Even if I collected monsters from ten dungeons like these, I wouldn't be able to collect enough.
"Let's go back now. And Laura, I need you to collect some excavators." I instructed Laura as we started to leave.
"Excavators? Why?" She asked confused. Instead of replying, I just smiled.
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"You…. You hunted all these…. By yourself?" Laura asked with nothing but astonishment written on her face.
Even Rose was tremendously surprised as she saw me dump thousands of dead bats from my inventory. I wanted the excavators to take the mana stones out of these bats and once they were done doing that, I would absorb the bodies of the dead bats to charge the moon dew vial.
"Don't be surprised. Just get them done." I instructed before asking the chief excavator, "How long will this take?"
The excavator, an old man with hunched back replied, "With this many bodies, it will take at least ten days. At maximum, seventeen."
I nodded and then asked, "What would be your charge?"
Pay a fair man his share for his fair work. The first rule in business when dealing with the labor class.
"I… I can't take money from Her Majesty." Of course, he was called to the palace by the queen herself. There was no way he would be taking money.
"You're hired by me, not your queen," I replied and urged him to get my stance across that I wasn't taking no for an answer.
"Well, this much work would be a thousand gold coins." He replied hesitantly, quite averse when he stated the price. I could tell that he was holding back but I didn't point that out.
I just pulled a pouch of mana crystals that had been unused yet by Rose and gave him about a hundred of them. Just one mana crystal was about a hundred gold coins.
In the first place, mana crystals were rarely ever sold as no one would want to sell them and they had no measure on a price but this low-grade mana crystal would be around my accounted price.
The old man's eyes turned saucers when he counted what I was giving him. To be fair, this work was quite a lot and these crystals were mostly useless to Rose now since her mana was already at C rank.
Still, with how many crystals I still had and how many crystals I would get from this excavation, both Rose and Max could easily increase their mana to B rank.
"Take them. They're your fair share." I said and turned to leave before he could get over his shock. I left Stewart to oversee the work.
"You didn't have to give him that much," Laura stated once we were inside the palace.
"You're a queen Laura. A ruler. Learn to be benevolent to your people as much as you are stern. He would have done our task for free, but now, he will do it with all of his heart. The latter is always better than the former." I replied.
"Forget about all of that, be ready tomorrow, until the excavation is done, we will train with all our hearts," I stated with a smile and visibly saw as all three of them pale and sweaty.
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[Your party member Laura Ravenknight is now level 97]
[Your party member Maximilian Specter is now level 139]
[Your party member Rose is now level 190]
Even after almost half a month, Rose's level had barely increased. Max had improved but even that very slightly. Laura's progress had also become slow.
Still, now Laura's rank was almost at the peak of E+ and she would break through to the rank D, from where her awakened journey would begin. Although I wanted to stay here for that, it will be too late until that.
I had to leave by day after tomorrow. The excavation was done today. It took only fourteen days even though there were so many corpses.
Still, it was nowhere near enough. It had to be kept in mind that so far, the highest-ranked life force I had absorbed was only D. The person I was trying to give it to was ranked SS.
This much life force wouldn't be enough to even sustain her life force for three months. That's not enough time for her to master the techniques to divert the power.
And that was why, when we entered the room where Monica was sleeping, I pulled the body of the vampire I had hunted in that bat dungeon.
Even though the vampire was dead, there was not a single sign of it on his body. The magical wavelengths emitting from the body were still vibrant enough even though it was a corpse.
This was a count-ranked vampire. A B+ rank existence. A B-rank vampire and a B-rank human were in no sense the same. The vampire would always win as they have inherently high physical stats.
"Where did you get this?" Laura asked, astonished once again. Stewart was amazed even more than before. There was not much reaction from Rose this time as she already knew about it.
"By killing him," I replied with a smug smile on my face.
"But who did?" Laura asked again to which I nonchalantly replied as I brought the vial near the corpse, "Me."
Unfortunately, I couldn't extract the life essence of the vampire. Life essence is half of what a being is. If I take it, half of the life force would be gone.
With this vampire, I could extend the life of Monica by a few years. Vampires live a long time so their life force is also stronger than other creatures. Everyone except dragons as they are inherently strong and superior beings.
"Step back." Once I had absorbed everyone, I stood up and walked towards Monica with a shining vial in my hand. There was no need to feed this to her as her body would hungrily absorb the liquid because she instinctively needed it.
The survival instinct would kick in and I doubt, the body would let any of the dew go to waste. And as expected, as I poured the liquid on her, it was absorbed in that instant.
Once I had poured in all the liquid, I too moved back. It would take some time and the process comes with a blinding light. I don't know why but it serves no purpose.
[It's to add a dramatic effect to a miracle]
That kind of made sense.
Although it's not much of a miracle, moon powers contain powerful life force. Harnessing that power is what is difficult. Very rarely, and very rarely by my standards, a body containing moon powers is born.
Unfortunately, there was no one with moon powers in the novel. So I had to do with the alternative. Moon dew. Moon dew is water that comes into existence after thousands of years of the moon shining on it.
Many more conditions have to be met for it to become moon dew except for just moonlight. Anyway, I was lucky to have obtained moon dew.
Had there been no moon dew, many of my plans related to Laura would have been set back by a few months.
The blinding light slowly began to shimmer. It kept on flickering until it was just a speck of light and even that was snuffed the next moment.
Everyone in the room, patiently waited for a miracle to happen. With bated breath, they kept their eyes on Monica, wondering what would happen next.
"Be ready." I turned to Stewart and said. Even though her life force has returned, she will still be mildly disorientated after staying unconscious for a long time.
Without any other words, Stewart perfectly understood what I meant and withdrew his sword. Stewart was just an S- rank. Compared to an SS+, he was miles apart.
But like I said, Monica would be disorientated after staying unconscious for such a long time. There is a chance that she might not be able to bring out her full power.
[Warning]
[Excessive dark mana is gathering]
'You just hate disagreeing with me, don't you?'
"Everyone out!" I shouted and without hesitation, Stewart picked Laura and Max closest to him and Rose held me, and we bolted out of the room just before a force wave emitted from Monica and blasted all of us.
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