"AAAGH!" Arthur screamed in pain. Now that the threat was gone he could focus on his injury.
"Stay still." Niles walked up to him and took out a bottle with a silver liquid inside of it. He opened the lid, and poured the contents over Arthur's injuries. Arthur screamed even louder, whatever this liquid was, it was hurting him even more. He bit on his shirt, but that just ended up ripping it. He convulsed on the floor, screaming and moaning. Jack looked away, unable to handle the event taking place right in front of him.
"There you go." Niles put the half used bottle back into a pouch attached to his belt. Arthur did not feel pain anymore, and instead felt a pleasant sensation. He looked down and saw that he was fully healed.
"It was a healing potion. Let's go."
And as if nothing happened, they began walking again.
The two that fought were thinking how the fight could've been better, whereas Niles was thinking how they could do better in the future.
'This is their first time fighting a non-human but still, I expected more. They need more experience.'
***
A couple of hours later, they got to a cave. The lakebed was not smooth, rather it was more like a combination of rocky hills decorated with algae.
"Get some algae and let's go rest inside." A deep voice commanded them. A couple of minutes later they were settled and sat in the cave. They did not need to rest, Niles was planning on talking to them.
"Not good." He sighed. "That fight was… underwhelming. Jack was able to blind it in one eye, but other than that you've done nothing." He continued.
"That monster was a weak D rank."
Jack interrupted him. All the beasts in the booklet had a ranking on them ranging from A to F along with an S rank. "How do the ranks work exactly?"
"You've got human rankings and beast rankings. The average normal human is an F rank. Whereas weak, normal animals such as rats or chicken are also F rank. A human should be able to beat a beast of the same ranking. Then you've got beast rank E where there are gorillas, bears and other dangerous animals, and so on. When a human is chosen, they rise from F, or E if they're well trained, straight to D or in some very rare cases, C. You're both high D ranks so you should've at least been toe to toe with that Cetus, but instead you suffered an overwhelming defeat."
Niles leaned on the wall of the cave and continued, "I understand that you have never fought against anything other than a human, so during this trip I'll make you fight even more beasts."
Arthur was immediately interested in this ranking, and asked Niles; "How do you rank up? And how do you get to S?"
Niles looked at him with a blank face except for sorrow in his eyes. "Just hope that you never get to S rank. Only four people have ever gotten there, and it's a curse."
'The four Warlords'
"You just rank up by being stronger. That's it. It's an ambiguous, exponential scale, but it's the most accurate in this case. There are some milestones to rank up sometimes. You can get to B only after you've unlocked your second stage, and that's only in the high C rank. You get to low or mid A after unlocking the third stage. That's all you need to know."
As Jack and Arthur were absorbing this new piece of information, Niles commanded them, "Go deeper into the cave."
They looked up at Niles with concerned looks on their faces. There was no doubt that something was living deeper inside the cave, they were not ready. Hell, they were still spent from that last encounter with a low D rank creature. Niles interrupted them before they could even retaliate, " I want to hear nothing. Go in, no complaining."
They both rolled their eyes and walked towards the heart of the cave with Niles trailing behind.
Suddenly a loud roar came from deep inside the cave, past the wall of darkness that prevented Jack and Arthur to look deeper into the cave. The cavern was trembling as if the roar caused an earthquake. For just a roar to cause an earthquake whilst they're surrounded by water was bad news for them. It meant that whatever was inside was well capable of ending their lives.