I managed to make 2 more Ero bracelets. They came out a little worse than the previous ones, with a charm value of 157 and 160. But that's good enough, I'd say.
I put the finished ones in the desk drawer and picked up a new bracelet. I inspected its smooth surface to ensure everything would be fine. Then I activated [energy manipulation] and infused my inscription needle with energy. Looking over at my notes again, I began to etch. As I finished the first line, I heard a knock at the door.
I put the needle down and asked, "Who is it?"
"It's Sterling." The voice said.
"Ah." He did say he'd come back. Tomorrow we are going to the dungeon, so he made it on time.
I opened the door. Sterling was standing there with a suitcase in one hand, bending his body in the other direction to offset its weight.
"Hey." He said.
"Hey," I said back.
"I brought my stuff." He lifted up the one suitcase he had with both hands and showed it to me. It looked big enough to hold everything you'd need for a week-long vacation.
"Is that everything?" I asked.
"Yeah." He came into the room. "Should I have brought more?"
I shrugged. "No, you don't need to." It's better if it's light since we'll be traveling.
"Where should I put it." He asked, looking around at my room. There was a lot more space after Otto helped me clean up.
"Just put it wherever." I shrugged. "It doesn't matter."
I closed the door, went back to my desk, and picked up the needle. Sterling put his suitcase in the corner and sat down on the bed. Letting him be, I inscribed the second line on the bracelet.
Then he asked, "What are we doing?"
I turned to him and said, "I have work to do. I'm kind of behind, so I won't be able to do anything else." He didn't say anything, so I asked, "Did you eat?"
"Yeah." It was just past lunch. "I ate before coming."
I wanted to tell him to go eat somewhere, but if he ate already… "You know we won't be leaving the capital till the end of the month, right? You can do whatever you want till then."
"No. I want to be here."
"Hmm." I leaned back on my chair. "What did your mother say when you told her?"
"She was actually supportive. She thinks pretty highly of you."
"Oh."
"But my manager was pissed, though."
"Oh, well, two days' notice is a little small," I said. Suddenly quitting would be inconvenient for the employer.
"No, I said I'll work till we leave the capital. She'd have gone insane otherwise." He wryly smiled. "That's fine, right? I won't work full-time, but I'll probably work like 4 days a week till we leave."
"Yeah, that's fine. No, that's good. I don't want you getting bored here."
"Oh, okay." He looked to the door and said, "Where's Garth? I was hoping he could teach me how to be a butler."
"You don't need to be a butler. I'll hire butlers if I need them."
"Hmm. I want to be of help."
"Ah, you can help him out if you want, but you don't have to."
"Okay." He said, and the room became silent.
"Garth has his own room, so do you want your own room too?" I asked.
"No." He shook his head. "I want to stay with you."
I smiled. "Okay." The room became silent again. "Well, you can do whatever you want. You don't have to stay here and watch me work. I'm just going to be boring."
"No, I have nothing to do. I'd like to stay here if you don't mind."
"Suit yourself. Then, I'm going to get back to work." He made himself more comfortable on the bed. He was cute, but I couldn't let him distract me.
I shook away the thoughts of jumping into bed with him, infused the needle with my energy, and got back to work.
Hours went by, and Sterling brought me dinner while I was working. "Thanks," I said, and after taking a few bites, I continued to work.
Hours passed by again, and eventually, I felt too tired to go on. So I put down the inscription needle and the half-finished bracelet. I stood up with a smile, ready to have a little snu-snu before sleep, and went to my bed. But I found that the man was already asleep. With a peaceful smile, he was tucked under the sheets. He was too cute. I didn't dare wake him up. I scooched in beside him and got under the sheets too. I snuggled up to him without waking him up. After 18 years of sleeping alone, it was nice having someone to snuggle with.
***
The alarm woke me up at 4 in the morning. I quickly shut it off and whispered to Sterling, who was waking up, "Go back to sleep, honey. It's still early. You don't need to wake up now." He grunted something and half-opened his eyes before laying back down.
I got ready, made the first batch of insecticide, stuffed everything we needed in the space expansion bag, and stepped out of the room.
Garth and a sleepy Nikola were waiting for me. He put our food in the space expansion bag and ran out to get our rickshaw.
"So Sterling chose you, huh?" She said, looking at my breasts.
"Why do you care?" I asked. "Were you going to add him to your pack?"
"Hmm. It's good that the leader has someone. It'll be embarrassing if the leader can't get a man." She smirked. "Don't worry, I won't take him from you like Garth."
"You didn't take Garth from me," I said. Me and Garth were never a thing. He's my butler and my childhood friend.
I didn't like the stupid smirk she had on her face. "Here he comes." We both looked down the street and saw Garth riding towards us on a rickshaw.
***
We climbed onto the teleportation platform and chose the 19th floor.
As soon as we arrived, we saw a cockroach the size of a tiger. Nikola launched herself forward. As swift as the wind, she cut the monster vertically in two. Green blood covered her dark blue blades. Everything had happened in an instant. I was impressed.
"Come on." She said. "You want to finish these 3 floors in a day, right?"
***
We were taking a small break in front of the boss's room. There was a giant stone door behind us. There were no other adventurers this deep down in the dungeon. Killing the boss was something of a graduation ceremony for F-ranks. It happened maybe once every few months. In smaller towns, a dungeon can go uncleared for years. After the boss is killed, it takes about a week for it to respawn.
Today we planned on graduating. It was night. We could rest, and we could fight the boss tomorrow, but none of us wanted that. We were full of energy and ready to go.
"Is everyone ready?" I asked, standing up.
"Yes, master." Garth stood up.
"Wait," Nikola said and lifted the bowl of soup to her lips to drink the last drop. Then wiping her mouth, she said, "Okay. I'm ready."
We channeled our energies into the door, and the door began to slowly open.
There was a red carpet leading to the throne. On the throne sat a humanoid cockroach. And beside her were 4 guardian cockroaches; one big and upright, another hovering slightly above the ground with its wings beating 20 times per second, one small with 4 wands, and another shapeless one made up of 1000s of little cockroaches.
I didn't hesitate for a moment and first attacked the flying one with [energy manipulation, lightning, telekinesis]. It tried to dodge using flight. With [telekinesis] and [energy manipulation], I could turn the lightning into a plasma beam. The plasma beam curved and punctured a hole in the cockroach's wings.
The cockroach magician with a wand in each of its 4 arms created multiple magic circles. Thankfully, those wands weren't Gold rank. What came out of the circles were cockroach bullets.
Nikola and Garth hid behind me while [Shield of Andromeda] protected me. Nikola waited for the moment the bullets stopped to launch herself towards the magician. She used her new move: [twisted tornado] and diced up the magician into several pieces.
The cockroach queen jumped off her throne and punched at Nikola's head. She lifted her swords and blocked the punch just in time. But the force of the punch threw her back. She used her acrobatic skills to land on her feet.
In the meantime, Garth [air slice]d through the cockroach with burned wings. The constantly shifting amalgamation of cockroaches attacked Garth. I used [energy manipulation, telekinesis] to lift the whole bunch of them and smashed it against cockroach queen. She was fighting Nikola to a standstill, but this tipped the scales. And Nikola cut off one of the queen's arms.
I launched [energy manipulation, lightning, telekinesis] at the big and upright one. It was fighting Garth. It had too high an endurance, and Garth's attacks weren't doing it much damage. But my plasma beam shot right through its body. Giving Garth a wound he could stab his sword into. He did exactly that, stabbing his sword in its new wound at an angle. A shrill cry sounded from its disgusting mouth.
As the little cockroaches began to gather again into its strange amalgamated form, I grabbed it with [energy manipulation, telekinesis] and threw it at the queen again. Distracted again, it got two of its arms chopped off. Then it tried to ignore Nikola and attack me. But an F-rank monster like the cockroach queen had no chance of penetrating through a legendary ranked shield. Its fists were blocked by the transparent golden shell that formed around me. I shot it with [energy manipulation, lightning], the force of which threw her back at the throne. While the queen was recovering from the sudden blast, Nikola saw her opportunity and used another one of her moves, [twin-x], and chopped her head off.
The big upright one fell after being stabbed multiple times by Garth. He'd mercilessly stabbed it over and over again where it was wounded.
The 1000s of little cockroaches tried to amalgamate again. "Garth!" I yelled, "Go get the insecticide!"
Exhausted and panting, he answered, "Okay." He ran to where he'd dropped the space expansion bag and pulled out the tank and hose.
"Come on. Come on. Bring it over." I urged him. Beating the amalgamation down with [telekinesis]. They were a persistent bunch.
Garth brought over the insecticide. I grabbed the hose and sprayed it all over the little cockroaches. After a good spraying, they stopped trying to amalgamate since most of them were dead.
So we'd conquered the dungeon. Garth cut open the queen and got her core. It was bigger and had a nicer shine than all the other cores. We cut out the cores from three of the guardian cockroaches. Leaving the 1000s of small cores that were part of the amalgamating cockroach entity behind. We also got 4 Bronze wands. Frankly, the treasures we got from the cockroach-witch were much better, but whatever.
Looking at the aftermath of the fight, I felt pretty good. I was getting better at being a magician. Though the end result was the same as in the game, the feeling was totally different. It's obvious that it would be, but it was a whole new learning curve. Orchestrating and supporting the attack from the back while the martial artists attacked at the front was the safest option after all. I need to get better at one-on-one fights, but that can wait till later. Currently, I'd say I'm growing at a decent rate. Well, by this world's standards, I'm growing at an incredible rate, but if I want to reach level 100 in 4 years…
I shook my head and cast away my pointless thoughts, and stepped onto the teleportation platform. The platform the throne was sitting on was also the final teleportation platform. I wanted to say 'good job' to everyone and finish the dungeon conquer with a small speech. But before I could speak my final words, they activated the teleportation platform and disappeared on me. "Hm." I followed right behind them and teleported to the entrance.
It was around 10 o'clock at night when we got back to the inn.