"H-huh..."
Watching Leo land alongside the Silverback's collapsed body and casually flick the blood off his short sword, Line's eyes went wide, her face full of shock.
She was stunned.
She was scared.
Because of how Leo had performed, and because of his strength.
"H-how is this possible?"
The girl looked at Leo as if she were seeing something utterly unbelievable.
There was no doubt about it. The strength Leo had shown was far beyond what she'd expected, beyond what she could believe.
Hasn't he only been an adventurer for less than half a month?
Didn't he only receive his Falna eleven days ago?
H-how can he be this strong?
Line couldn't make sense of it.
As far as she knew, even the most gifted adventurers could only raise their basic abilities by two or three ranks in half a month. Even their strongest ability would have a hard time going up more than three ranks in that span.
And even if all their abilities went up three ranks and reached F, that still wouldn't be enough to beat a Silverback.
To take on a Silverback, at minimum, at least one ability had to reach D, and the others couldn't drag too far behind. Only then was it possible.
But that absolutely wasn't something a newbie less than half a month into being an adventurer could pull off. Even a full month into being an adventurer probably wouldn't be enough.
The strength Leo had shown was far past that line. He didn't look like a newbie who'd received the Falna less than half a month ago. He looked more like a veteran of several months, or even several years.
This kind of strength definitely wasn't normal.
Could it be a special enhancement Skill?
Line, unable to even consider the possibility of an inhuman growth rate, landed on that guess.
It wasn't out of the question.
Some adventurers, even with low basic abilities, could use special Skills to amplify themselves and put out strength far beyond their current Status.
Take Lefiya. Why could she, just a Lv.3, put out firepower on par with a Lv.5?
For one, her Magic stat had been raised to a high rank before each level up. For another, she had a Skill that boosted the power of magic: Fairy Canon.
It was a Skill that strengthened magical effects, and when limited to attack magic, the strengthening effect doubled. A rare Skill.
Thanks to that Skill's amplification, combined with the high Magic she'd accumulated at Lv.1 and Lv.2, Lefiya could match a Lv.5 in magic firepower.
There were similar examples. Old man Gareth had two Skills that boosted his strongest basic abilities.
Dvergr Enhance, which raised his Strength.
Ardigalea, which raised his Endurance, and further strengthened his resistance when dealing with attack magic.
With those Skills boosting him, plus the fact that his Strength and Endurance had already hit S, old man Gareth was terrifyingly strong in those two areas. In all of Orario, he could guarantee a second place and contend for first. Aside from that one Lv.7, probably no one would dare match him in either of those areas, and even that Lv.7 might not necessarily be stronger than the old man.
In Loki Familia, there were several others with this kind of Skill, ones that enhanced, strengthened, or corrected their basic abilities, letting them stand out in their respective specialties beyond reach.
Line now suspected that Leo very likely had this kind of Skill, and its effect had to be very strong and very rare. Otherwise he wouldn't be putting out this kind of performance across the board.
Strength, Endurance, Dexterity, Agility... all four of Leo's basic abilities had very likely received Skill corrections. That was why he could perform like this.
The thought turned Line's shock into wonder, and the way she looked at Leo became different from before.
A Skill that could amplify four basic abilities at once. That truly was an incredibly powerful and rare Skill.
"Just what you'd expect from someone Ms. Ais thinks highly of. Definitely not ordinary."
Line felt a flutter of excitement, like she'd uncovered some incredible secret. Her mood lifted unusually high.
When Leo returned in triumph and walked over to her, Line rushed to meet him.
"Mr. Leo! You're amazing!" Line leaned forward, words tumbling out. "You've only just become an adventurer, but you can already take down a Silverback! That's incredible!"
"Is it really?" Leo saw the girl had shed her earlier shyness and smiled. "This kind of thing is only impressive among Lv.1s. For someone like you who's already an upper-class adventurer, it shouldn't be anything special, right?"
Leo really didn't think much of it.
Line had gone with the expedition force all the way to the Deep Floors. She'd seen no end of strong people and powerful monsters.
A single Silverback that showed up on floor 11... in Line's eyes that probably wasn't much different from a stray dog. Even if he'd beaten it, in the eyes of someone like Line, who was used to seeing the inhuman feats of first-class adventurers, he probably looked about as impressive as someone good at fighting dogs.
So Leo didn't feel any pride. He thought Line was overstating things.
"But Mr. Leo, you've only been an adventurer for less than half a month!" Line's admiration didn't waver in the slightest. "Gaining the strength to defeat a Silverback in less than half a month... aside from some of the secondhand rumors about first-class adventurers in their younger days, this is the first time I've ever seen it happen right in front of me!"
That's because you haven't met the original protagonist yet.
That guy also became strong enough to beat a Silverback about half a month into being an adventurer.
Leo grumbled to himself, but his face stayed calm.
"If you want to be impressed by me, save it for after I hit Lv.2. Otherwise it's a bit much."
Leo shook his head at Line and turned to leave.
He was still just a Lv.1 newbie adventurer in the end. Being admired this much by a Lv.2 upper-class adventurer like Line felt like being a kid getting praised by an adult. His whole body felt out of sorts.
Even though he was already capable of leveling up to Lv.2.
Leo left Line behind and pushed deeper into the floor, fighting the monsters that appeared in the thick fog.
Imps, Orcs, Bad Bats... one kind of monster after another emerged from the fog and rushed at Leo, but instead of retreating, Leo moved forward to meet them head-on.
While fighting, he kept trying to fold Ais's teachings in, slowly but steadily improving his swordsmanship and combat technique, trying to convert everything he'd gained from today's training into real strength.
His Status was growing fast, so he didn't have to worry about it. That meant he had to pay more attention to technique, or he'd pay for it badly later.
To that end, while deliberately honing his combat technique, Leo sealed away his Magic himself. Unless too many enemies showed up at once for swordsmanship alone to handle, he wouldn't use Magic. Otherwise, he fought with the sword alone.
As for the small shield... ever since Leo's Status had been updated and his strength had jumped, he'd had almost no use for that shield anymore.
For Leo, who was walking the path of a Magic Swordsman and leaned toward high-speed combat, a shield was never going to be a required piece of gear. A fighting style that did without a shield actually suited his self-image better.
A sword in one hand, Magic in the other. That was the class he saw for himself.
The reason he hadn't tossed that shield aside in his room yet was purely in case some special situation called for it.
So Leo fought with single-minded focus, more concentrated than ever before.
Part of that was because he no longer had to handle the spoils himself.
Just as Line had said: Leo only had to fight. She'd handle everything else.
Now Line followed close behind Leo, watching the battle while deftly carving the magic stones out of one corpse after another and stashing them in the pack on her back. After the magic-stoneless monsters crumbled to ash, she searched the remains for drop items and tucked those away too.
Her speed at processing the spoils was every bit as fast as Leo's speed at killing monsters. She knew the terrain of floor 11 well enough that she could've found her way with her eyes shut, and there was no chance of getting left behind.
More than that, Line would occasionally dart into the middle of the fighting at just the right moment, hand Leo a potion to restore his stamina, then quickly pull back and shake off the monsters. It didn't disrupt Leo's combat at all, and saved him a lot of unnecessary effort.
It made Leo deeply aware of just how important it was to have an excellent Supporter at your side.
With this, my clearing efficiency should at least double, probably more.
He didn't have to deal with corpses himself, didn't have to pick up magic stones or grab spoils, didn't even have to carry his pack or any of the weight. He could leave all of it with the Supporter. It made fighting smoother, made it easier to get into the zone. His efficiency had multiplied.
The benefits of that were huge.
First, his earning rate definitely went up alongside it. That was undeniable.
Second, the rate at which he trained his abilities went up too, letting him grow faster.
Finally, Leo could focus on honing his combat technique, honing his swordsmanship, improving his ability to deal with enemies.
It was three birds with one stone. There was no way Leo wouldn't be pleased.
"Roooaaarrr...!"
In the middle of Leo's increasingly fluid combat, a new kind of monster let out a roar and came charging in.
Its body was about the size of a Human teenager, standing on two short legs. Its forelimbs had what looked like sturdy claws, and its back was covered in armor. Its body was wrapped in carapace divided into several sections. Scaly skin extended all the way up to the head, forming sharp, angular shapes like a helmet. An armored rat monster.
This, like the Silverback, was a monster that only started appearing from floor 11 on: the Hard Armored.
It was similar to the Killer Ants that started appearing on floor 7. Both had hard carapaces. The difference was that the belly and chest, which weren't covered by carapace, were both soft and fragile. Compared to the Killer Ant, which was protected by its hard shell across the whole body, the Hard Armored's weak spot was easier to target.
That said, the Hard Armored's carapace was far harder than the Killer Ant's. Its defensive capability was beyond what any other upper-floor monster could match. It was, without question, the hardest monster in the Upper Floor region.
It was generally accepted that in melee combat, it was almost impossible for a Lv.1 adventurer to take down this kind of monster alone. One of the biggest reasons the Guild's clearing advice suggested that newbie adventurers should have basic abilities at the B-S range before tackling floors 11 and 12 was the presence of the Hard Armored on those floors.
So, the Hard Armored and the Silverback together were considered floor 11's signature monsters. Aside from the rare species "Infant Dragon," which numbered fewer than five total and could wipe out an entire low-class adventurer party on its own, treated as a Floor Boss on the upper floors that had no Monster Rex, the Hard Armored had to be the toughest monster to deal with.
Facing a monster this hard, one whose defense basically couldn't be broken without superior equipment, Leo's approach was simple.
"Meteor Dance!"
The short chant rippled into being and ended just as fast. Leo unleashed the Magic he'd been holding back at the armored rat monster roaring toward him.
A streak shot through the fog like a meteor across the sky and struck the Hard Armored dead-on. With a thunderous crash, its impossibly hard carapace was blown apart, the entire upper half of its body blasted away. Only the two feet were left standing on the ground. A grisly end.
The attack had destroyed the magic stone along with it, not even leaving a fragment behind. Line, who had caught up, stood frozen in place.
It took her a good while to come back to her senses.
"So, Mr. Leo has Magic too."
What beautiful Magic...
Line's thoughts ran along the same lines as Ais's.
But she didn't overlook the power of that Magic either.
"Blowing away half a Hard Armored's body in one hit... that Magic is incredibly strong too."
Line's impression of Leo kept being updated.
In the end, Line landed on the same thought the Familia's leaders had.
Maybe Mr. Leo, like Ms. Ais and Ms. Tiona, can become one of the Familia's pillars.
Being a pillar of Loki Familia could only mean one thing.
It meant becoming a first-class adventurer.
Only those who reached Lv.5 earned that name: first-class adventurer.
There were fewer than forty in all of Orario, and only seven in all of Loki Familia. Every time a new first-class adventurer was born, the whole city celebrated.
If Lv.2 was a height only a portion of the talented could reach, then Lv.5 was a height that only true prodigies could attain.
Line was just a Lv.2 non-combatant, but she had seen first-class adventurers fight countless times. And now, in Leo, she saw a container on par with those very figures.
The thought that her own Familia was about to gain another future first-class adventurer filled Line with genuine happiness and anticipation.
And the thought that she was the one supporting such a person made her even more motivated. She threw herself into processing the spoils with renewed energy...
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