I heard one of the ice goblins scream at me before charging at full speed, their weapons raised high. My praying mantises were ready to protect me, but I aimed the gun instead, took a deep breath, and fired.
*Bam*
*Bam*
*Bam*
Three beams of blue light shot out from the gun and hit the three goblins simultaneously, making 3 holes in their head. The hole then started to freeze the bodies and formed big blocks of ice.
[+40 EXP x3]
I stood there in amazement, staring at the gun in my hands. It was not only beautiful but also incredibly powerful. I couldn't help but feel a sense of pride and gratitude towards my nanobots for adapting to the ice affinity. I was sure that it would have been powerful nonetheless, but the ice affinity added something more to the gun.
"Well, should we continue, then?" I said with a slightly excited voice.
I started to walk around without caring much now. I didn't expect any ice goblins to be able to kill me as my nano-praying mantis was always protecting me. And now that I had a gun as well, I could help without endangering my life.
And so I started to go down the floors again. But I took the stairs instead. I wanted to fight as many goblins as possible and level up at least once more to be able to fight the hobgoblin waiting upstairs.
***
Two hours later.
I started going back upstairs, feeling happy for all the goblins I had killed. I only managed to level up once, but I still managed to kill more than 15 ice goblins. It was a feat that I was really happy to have achieved.
However, there was one big problem, and it was the proficiency of my gun. While in the beginning, I could kill the goblins with a single bullet, but now I needed sometimes four to even kill one of them.
'It seems like the more I use it, the less powerful it becomes.'
[It is indeed true. The energy in your gun is consuming the one you imbued it with at its creation, thus it slowly starts to get less and less powerful.]
'Then why are my creatures not the same?' I started talking with the system more and more as it was a great source of information.
[They don't possess an affinity. That's the reason why. In exchange for the power of an affinity, the energy consumption of your nanobots expands grandly.]
'Isn't it better to make guns and other things without affinities, then?'
[It depends. For example, the reason your gun is becoming less powerful is that it uses its ice affinity to creat bullets. Then if your gun isn't imbued with an affinity, how will it produce the bullets?]
'It won't?' I asked as I started to understand the principle behind the nanobots.
[That's right, it won't create any bullet on its own. Thus, you will have to create and shape the bullet on your own, which means that it could become as powerful as an affinity one for example. As for your creature, it's the same for the gun. Each strike imbued with the affinity will eat away the power, thus disabling them as time passes.]
So it was like this. No wonder the gun was starting to get less powerful.
Then should I make another one for the hobgoblin? But won't it have a higher ice affinity than the ice goblins? Then should I make a normal nano-gun?
"August, you're back!" Julius said excitedly. He looks happy to see me again.
"Y-yes. How was y-your hunt?" I ask as the nano-dog and nano-cat come back to my side. They both rubbed their chin on my pants.
'Cute.'
"It was really nice. I managed to level up nicely thanks to your cat. He was really useful." Julius continued with a smile. He looked like a child who wanted to be praised right now.
"C-congrattulation." I told him what he wanted to hear, and his smile grew even wider. I then turned toward Roselle.
"Me too, it was really safe thanks to doggy," Doggy? Did she give a name to the nano-dog? "Though I have a question. I neither know what to take for my level-up reward, nor which stats I should improve."
"Oh yeah, that's right. I wanted to ask you that as well August. What should I take?" Julius asked me as well.
I thought for a while before answering. "F-first, you should pick the skill reward because-..." I didn't even have the time to finish my words both of them shone in a bright light. I looked at them dumbfounded. "W-why didn't y-you wait for my e-explanation?"
"I trust you, so why would I wait?" Julius said so confidently that I became even more dumbfounded.
"I know that you think carefully before speaking, so I'm sure it was the right thing to do." Even the calm Roselle? Seriously? Did I have such a big impact on them?
I shook my head and sighed. "Anyway. T-the reason I asked you to t-take this one is that having a large p-panel of attacks is better for now. As for your s-stats, you both should i-invest in stamina and intelligence b-because you can increase the w-weight of your strikes, as well as y-your speed with telekinesis or time m-ùanipulation. So I think it's the b-best choice for n-now."
Unlike earlier, they both thought for a moment. Though they came to a conclusion pretty quickly as they nodded in satisfaction.
'Well, I guess they trust me quite a lot now.'
After some more chitchat, we finally talked about what was important.
"How should we proceed to attack the hobgoblin?"
"I-it won't be easy, but a-are you guys still w-willing to go?" I asked just to be sure. I spent two hours making a plan, so I needed to be sure of their willingness first.
"Yes. I'm confident that you won't let us die, so I'll follow you." Julius said and Roselle nodded to his words.
I sighed at his confidence in me and started explaining my plan. I didn't really know if it would be effective as I made a plan before, but it was still better than nothing.
Once I finished explaining and answering their questions, we finally started moving. We slowly climbed the stairs.
As we approached the upper, I could feel the tension rising. This was the toughest opponent we had to face so far, and we had to be careful. I could feel my heart beating faster, but I tried to calm myself down by taking deep breaths. I didn't want to make my companions worry after all as they were surely less confident than me, even though they weren't showing it.
"A-are you ready?" I asked my companions, and they both nodded in response. "Then let's go."
We stepped into the freezing first floor, and the first thing that greeted us was the stench of rotting flesh. The floor was filled with decaying corpses, and the smell was almost suffocating. We couldn't smell it earlier, but it was worse than we thought.
'I should have tried to look for the blueprint of a mask or something!' I cursed at my foolishness. But I couldn't do anything now. The moment we step into the floor, the stairs going down was blocked by some sort of barrier.
Suddenly, we heard a loud growl, and the hobgoblin appeared in front of us. It was massive, standing so tall with bulging muscles and sharp claws. It looked at us with glowing red eyes and roared, causing the ground to shake.
I gulped, feeling a shiver go down my spine.
[You encountered the boss monster 'Ice hobgoblin']
[Be cautious as you can't escape from the boss' room.]