55 First Raid On The Third Floor

We didn't hunt as much today since we had the boss battle on the second floor and we are new to the third floor. Not only are our levels lower than the cap, but we're also not used to the place, so falling for an ambush or getting surrounded was much more likely.

Thanks to that, we had to proceed with a lot of caution, even though our hunting dog seemingly had a tad too much energy and wanted to go all out.

There weren't any mana orbs dropped, so today's income was primarily from the monster cores we found, which amounted to $88, a little better than last time if we were counting only the gains from cores, but the lack of a mana orb really hurt our earnings.

It didn't matter too much though since our primary objective was to get level-ups, and we had great success with it.

Licia, Claire, and I got to level 9, but neither of us was close to level 10. Anna, Beatrice, and Ellie all got to level 7, a bit far from level 8 too.

I've got quite a few levels in [Movement Speed Up], so strengthening it further made sense since now I could probably outspeed and at least have better reactions to even the highest-level opponents on this floor.

Considering the special occurrence of the"raiders" on this floor, having someone on par, or at least close to their speed seemed crucial to me.

Aside from that, I also put some points into Strength and dexterity since those are essential.

I was going to ask the girls what status they decided to focus on this time since knowing everyone's abilities and preferred fighting style is necessary to come up with strategies, however, before I could do that, Licia and Claire began reporting theirs to me, prompting the others to do the same.

It seems like my point allocation wasn't too bad since Claire and Licia also went for a similar distribution. But what really surprised me was Claire's decision to not strengthen her [Fire Magic].

Claire: "Well, Beatrice said she can increase its level pretty easily, so I thought it'd be better to focus on [Swordsmanship] since it would be useful for half the party..."

Her being so thoughtful towards others made really proud, but I didn't let that feeling distract me from what I've noticed. It's true that she strengthened her [Swordsmanship], but she also focused on [Mana Control], which was now at a higher level than Licia's.

There might've been a lot of reasons for her to choose this skill, but given that we just talked about her death circumstances, it felt to me like she was trying to prevent herself from repeating past mistakes.

Miwen: "You really care about us that much huh..."

Claire: "Hm? Yeah, obviously."

While I'd like her to do what she feels most comfortable with, I can't criticize her efforts when she's aiming at becoming a better version of herself.

Her argument also makes sense, by making use of Beatrice's Gift, she can focus on skills not related to magic and just get any levels in magic from me sharing the skills later, at the same time, she can contribute a lot by leveling useful skills for the party using her own Gift.

Beatrice's [Deep Secrets Of Arcanum Omnimagic], Claire's [The Last Flame Knight of Abdure], and the [Share] function from my [Gacha Kingdom Building] complement each other to create a system in which a high amount of skill levels can be obtained with ease.

There are a bunch of conditions for it to work, like Beatrice training and studying, Claire leveling up and I having enough [Kingdom Points], but it's definitely way faster, easier, and more effective than if any of us tried to achieve something similar alone.

Speaking of which, I gave Beatrice permission to pursue magic, and since she had that staff that dropped from the [Weapons Banner], she used some points to get [Water Magic] and increase it to level 3, which was surprising to see since she had already spent the majority of her points to increase her Intelligence status to boost her magic power further.

I might've underestimated just how strong her Gift effects really are.

As for Anna and Ellie, they increased the status favored by their Gifts, playing at their strengths.

I was amazed by how much stronger we got in a single day and thought we might be able to clear the third floor before the event started.

I had to keep watch on everyone's loyalty though, the sudden spike in power might've given the new girls some bad ideas, but it was the contrary actually, after today's raid, every one of them became a little bit more loyal.

So much so that I didn't think I'd have to worry about betrayal from them for now...

If there's one thing I'd complain about is everyone's behavior back home actually.

Among the three girls that came from the [Companions Banner], Ellie is the only one actually helping with something when back home.

Beatrice took possession of my phone and seemed immersed in whatever she was researching.

Anna seems to have joined Mia and Claire in the sloth faction fight to monopolize the TV.

I guess Mia did offer to help me train, so now the battle for the throne of laziness is between Claire and Anna.

While my Gift seems to be about kingdom building, right now I feel more like a cook in the army than a king...

Maybe I should try summoning someone and having them exclusively work at home? Like a maid or something...

Well, I can't choose who I actually summon, so chances are I'd actually just get someone else to feed, so I left these thoughts behind and before going to bed just did a bit of research on my own on the AOG.

What that guy was talking about today felt odd to me, but maybe I ended up thinking too deeply about it because of my connection to the Army Of The Gifted through my sister, since I couldn't find any news aside from their new recruitment campaigns.

Aside from my sister, I had no connections to anyone inside the AOG, so I couldn't make an investigation that wasn't only surface level at most. The best I could do was ask Roy and Sam if they knew something or someone in the AOG.

These two are still adventuring, and seems like they just reached the fourth floor with a new party, so there's at least a chance that their party members might know something.

I don't know what happened to me at the time, but I ended up contacting my parents to ask a bit too, which was something pretty rare for me to do... I'd only understand the mess these actions got me in much later though...