13 The Grind (2) - 12

"Bracken Ridge?"

"Yeah, it's a place I didn't originally put on my cheat sheet, but trust me, it's pretty good."

"Okay, if you say so."

Now, you guys might be wondering why she had decided to trust me so easily, because I had been a trash before I regressed back, but, this was all due to the way our family values were taught to each child of the next generation.

I mean, I've probably said this multiple time already, but, in our family, family was everything. If one couldn't throw their life on the line for the family without hesitation, they wouldn't be considered part of our family and thrown out.

This was actually how most of the successors had been chosen, with the most loyal one to the family being the next heir to the family.

And this meant that there was rarely ever any succession battle in the history of our family, with just the current patriarch of matriarch choosing who the next successor would be (Because there wasn't any discrimination based on sex).

Anyways, that was basically why we could all trust each other full heartedly, as even I, the trash, would never go back on my word or tell lies to the others, unless it was for their own good, and it would never ever be for sabotaging.

"Not gonna lie, but this is pretty far from the beginner town. Are you sure we'll be able to handle the monsters?"

I just looked at her pointedly, and she took this as an acceptable answer.

We continued running for a little while before I voiced something out loud.

"Heads up."

"Hmm?"

She immediately snapped out of her mindless state whilst running and pulled out her sword as we came across a few cannon fodders.

Needless to say, she slaughtered them easy whilst I supported her from the back, being a magician and all, and so we easily meandered through the area and got back to running soon afterwards.

"What was that?"

"Oh, we just passed through a small chunk of the Lark Lagoon, a level 20 area."

"Wasn't that the place that you had originally put down on your notes to be the leveling place?"

"Yeah, but the leveling there would be too slow for people of our level with our classes."

"So you have a legendary class too?"

"No, but I have a title that heavily slows down my leveling for a much bigger gain."

Hearing this, she thought about my words for a while.

"If your leveling is that slow... Do you really think you'll be able to make it through the game then?"

"Yes, of course. It's just a simple matter of always grinding monsters that are 20 levels higher than me!"

"..."

"You say that like it's easy..."

"It is, when I have all the strats right here." I said, whilst tapping the side of my head and smiling at her.

She could only roll her eyes after seeing this, as I was being a goofball in a place where most monsters where at least 10 levels higher than us.

But what could I say? I had learned to be humorous even in the worst of situations, that had been one of the reasons that I had been able to last that long in the mine after all.

Before all hope had been lost...

'And I have you too...' That was the second part to my sentence above, a part that I had left unspoken.

Anyways, back to the action, we had finally arrived in Bracken Ridge, and well, even a noob would have been able to see the best grinding strategy for this area.

I mean, it was a canyon, and, even in warfare dating back hundreds of thousands of years, there was always one thing that canyons were known for.

And that was the one man against a thousand scenario, where somehow, a small group was able to completely destroy a larger group.

The tactics back then were now extremely useful, as ballistics weren't a thing in this world, at least, not yet.

I mean, technically, magicians were ballistics, but at this stage of the game, our fireballs were nothing but a slight tickle to monsters 10 levels higher than us, not to mention 20.

Back to the situation, I led us along the edge of the canyon until we reached the part where we needed to jump off the cliff.

"There's gotta be fall damage in this game, right?"

"Nope, not yet at least."

"Really? I didn't think the programmers would make such a mistake."

"It's because there are no programmers that these mistakes are common in the game. Most of them will be gone by the time the game is released to the public though. We are the beta testers after all."

Hearing this, Aurora nodded, probably noticing the hidden message that I had conveyed to her in the sentence, as it made sense, and so, we both jumped off the edge of the cliff.

Needless to say, it was an exhilarating experience, as this would be one of the only times a human would be able to say that they survived jumping off a cliff without dying and without the use of skills to keep them alive as they touched the ground.

As for us, just, as soon as we touched the ground, the ground cracked underneath us, but we weren't damaged in the slightest bit.

[Ding! Glitch detected, initiating fix...]

[The glitch has been fixed, awarding player, "Ash of Winter", 15 skill points.]

Seeing that my sister had somewhat reacted to something, I knew that she had seen these two messages too, just that the name was changed and she had probably received less skill points. I mean, I only got 15 skill points because I had the "Glitch Master" class, so it could be estimated that she had gotten about 7 skill points from exploiting this glitch with me.

"This way."

Snapping her out of her daze after having received the skill points, she quickly swiped the system notifications away and followed me down into a deeper, darker area of the canyon.

Finally, we reached a dead end, a place where no light from outside reached.

Suddenly lighting up the darkness by manifesting a fireball in my hand, I told my sister,

"Get ready, they'll be attracted to my light."

I could only barely see her nod, before she disappeared into the shadows cast by my flame on the surrounding area.

Then, the sounds of fighting could be heard nearby, as my sister used the light from my flame to center herself whilst fighting in the darkness.

As for me, I just sat back, as I couldn't do anything anyways, that was, until all the monsters opened their eyes and stared at me from the darkness, their gleaming whites telling me where they were.

And so, I finally joined in on the battle, as I launched my first few fireballs at some of the white eyes near my sister.

Like I said before, these fireballs really couldn't do any damage to these monsters, but they helped my sister see these monsters better, as they all had a particular weak spot that was pretty obvious after all.

So, as the fireball neared a monster, my sister would immediately aim for the joints between the monster's legs before moving on to the next monster.

You see, these monsters were spiders, and with the strategy that I had discussed beforehand with my sister whilst we were running, they were all quickly turned to protrusions on the ground, as they were relieved of their legs.

And, as my sister went around de-limbing these spiders, I would go to were she was previously and stab these spiders through their heads, successfully killing them, as they were easy prey without their legs.

They were speed based monsters after all, but my sister had attained a legendary class based on speed, so...

Anyways, my exp bar was filling up very nicely, and that was all that mattered to me right now.

So I just set my mind on autopilot and went around mindlessly killing the fallen spiders.