The party started cutting proof tokens off the monsters.
Hephaestus, meanwhile, launched a "furious assault" on anything already processed.
Habit is a terrifying thing.
Without realizing it, Hephaestus had gotten used to the taste of kobolds and goblins. It chewed with a blank face, one bite per corpse, like it was eating bite-sized bread.
At this point, just by looking, it could tell which of the ordinary monsters would taste okay and which ones would be a bit worse.
Then it would eat the acceptable ones first.
That's prestige for you—he'd eaten enough to build experience.
Gauss watched the shadows slip back to Shadow's side, still incredibly curious.
He reached out and poked one of their arms.
The sensation at his fingertip was very strange.
It didn't feel like warm, solid flesh, nor like pressing through empty air. It felt more like touching some kind of flowing medium.
Halfway between solid and not solid.
Really weird…
"Do they have their own basic consciousness?" Gauss asked.
He'd noticed that through the whole battle, they'd moved entirely on their own. It didn't look like Shadow was puppeteering them.
"They do, but not very much," Shadow nodded. "They can handle simple combat instincts and basic tasks. They'll generally choose the strategies I would."
"But if it's something that takes a lot of thinking, they probably can't do it."
Gauss nodded. That told him enough about them.
Once the battlefield was cleaned up and the hunting crystal had recorded all the kills, the number climbed to 2104.
The elite kobolds alone had contributed 115 points.
Compared to the second place score from the morning, he'd now pretty much doubled it.
That should be a safe margin, right?
Gauss thought it through.
It was only the seventh day of the contest—they still had until day ten. But even if he went back to the inn and slept straight through the rest of it, odds were good no one would pass him.
His very existence probably pushed half the field into early "I give up" mode.
Outside first place, the prize difference between second and third wasn't that big; the main difference was who got to choose rewards first.
First place at least meant something when you said it out loud. Who would go all-out just to fight for second?
He'd basically killed the competition.
Gauss stepped over to the open patch of ground where the loot had been piled.
"Shame to waste these hides."
He lifted up a few pelts. The kobolds' crude tanning had already cut their value, but they were still better than nothing.
"There are some spellbooks here too," he added, glancing over.
Most were just cantrips, but surprisingly, two were Level 1 spells.
Some were written in Common, others in symbols Gauss didn't recognize—likely the possessions of the kobold casters they'd just killed. Whether those spells were looted from somewhere else or passed down within the monster tribes, it was hard to say.
But with Comprehend Language, reading them wouldn't be an issue.
Gauss exhaled softly. With a murmur, he cast Comprehend Language. Those squirming, tadpole-like glyphs quickly unfolded into legible text before his eyes.
He flipped through the slim leather book made from unknown hide.
"Level 1 Spell: Stone Softening."
Its effect was to alter rock from within, weakening it so it was easier to break and dig.
"Level 1 Spell: Solidify."
Its effect was to bind loose sand and gravel into a hardened mass, though it needed regular maintenance.
"That's very kobold."
Gauss shook his head, amused.
One built to destroy, one built to build. The user's style was written all over them.
Combined with the hide and the writing system, he guessed these were probably spellbooks that circulated among the kobold clans. That caster he'd killed had likely come from some large monster tribe, bringing his clan's spell manuals with him to expand the tribe here.
Human mages weren't the only ones with magical traditions. Monsters had their own forms of inheritance too.
These two spells weren't particularly useful to Gauss at the moment—but he still wanted to try learning them. He wanted to see how hard kobold-origin magic was for him to pick up.
And hey, two more first-circle spells were hardly a burden.
Even if he didn't need them right now, stashing them as extra perspectives and knowledge was worthwhile.
Not just kobold magic either—if he found spellbooks from other monsters, he wanted to learn those as well.
Maybe it was leftover thinking from his previous life: he believed that to be a true master, you had to absorb the strengths of many schools.
As for the cantrips, he certainly wasn't going to pass those up.
Compared to the kobold spells, the other cantrips were all written in Common—not special, but useful.
Mage Hand, Light, Ray of Frost, Shocking Grasp, Acid Splash.
Out of the five, he already knew two.
He planned to pick up the remaining three.
Who knew where the kobolds had gotten these cantrips, but they'd just saved him the cost of buying them.
Ray of Frost would be perfect for quick emergency refrigeration.
"We heading back?" he asked.
Once the loot was sorted, the party left the cave.
They climbed back onto the dragon and took off toward Lakeside Town.
During the flight, Gauss didn't keep drilling Hephaestus.
Instead, he poured his attention into the cantrip scrolls. Down below, Hephaestus finally relaxed, as if relieved not to be subjected to another round of lessons.
By the time they touched down, Gauss had already mastered Ray of Frost and Shocking Grasp mid-air.
And that wasn't even him pushing himself; if he really rushed, learning all three remaining cantrips during one flight wouldn't have been a problem.
The difference between people could be brutal.
These spells might take an average person months or longer to learn—assuming they even had magical talent in the first place.
For him, they were something he could pick up in the time it took a normal person to drink a cup of coffee.
Cantrip: Ray of Frost Lv1 (8/10)
Cantrip: Shocking Grasp Lv1 (9/10)
Arcs of electricity danced over Gauss' fingertips, hopping from knuckle to knuckle.
Way too easy…
He shook his head.
At this point, cantrips felt like grade school arithmetic to him. There was no longer any "hard part" to them—just a bit of time and repetition.
He found himself wondering: When his level got higher and his magical aptitude went up another notch, would learning a new cantrip be almost no harder than breathing? Maybe just a glance at a scroll would be enough?
By the time Hephaestus landed, they swapped back to chocobos, and marched through Lakeside Town's streets, Gauss had already finished learning Acid Splash too.
"Any plans for this afternoon?" Alia asked on the way to the Adventurer's Guild.
"Not really," Gauss said.
He planned to slow the pace down a little.
On the one hand, the best commissions were always available in the morning—by afternoon it was mostly leftovers.
On the other, there was no need to grind himself into dust.
Adventuring was a long-term career. It was more like a marathon than a sprint; a sustainable rhythm mattered far more than one burst of effort.
They went into the guild hall, submitted the commission, updated the leaderboard, and left.
"Oh, Alia—want to swing by my place this afternoon?" Gauss asked once they were outside.
"Sure. Did you need something?" Alia agreed automatically, then grew curious.
"Nothing big, just want to practice spells together," Gauss waved it off.
He planned to tutor Hephaestus later and practice his own magic at the same time.
She'd just bought a new skillbook at the guild. He figured: if I'm already letting one sheep graze, why not let two?
He wanted to test whether his Draconic-boosted Comprehend Language really had that "inspiration" effect.
The three others—Shadow, Serandur, and Albena—had been pretending to look elsewhere, but their ears were clearly pricked. All three raised their eyebrows at once.
So this was… special coaching?
"Gauss, I actually have time too," Shadow coughed lightly.
"Me as well, Sir Gauss," Albena nodded vigorously.
Serandur didn't say anything, but his eyes said plenty.
"All right then, we'll do it together," Gauss said.
Druids were spellcasters in the traditional sense, even if their power came from nature, so he'd originally only planned to try it with Alia first. But seeing everyone so eager to improve, he wasn't about to turn them away.
…
That afternoon, the party gathered in a secluded clearing outside town.
They'd picked a shaded valley with a small stream running through it. With autumn coming on, it was neither too hot nor too cold.
Gauss summoned Hephaestus.
Ulfen, Echo, and the Powderwing Butterfly also appeared.
Serandur deployed the folding house.
Before training, he pulled out a few big melons he'd just bought.
The variety was called "sweet melon," but unlike the sweet melons from Gauss' previous life, they were more like watermelons: huge, with deep blue rinds and pale, ice-blue flesh. Juicy, very sweet, and rare.
Naturally, priced accordingly—each one cost several silver coins, not something normal folk would buy on a whim.
But for Gauss' party, that wasn't a concern.
If you earned money, you were supposed to enjoy it.
They sank the melons into the stream. Gauss flicked a Ray of Frost across the water to chill it further. Soon a thin layer of frost formed on the rinds.
Once they were icy cold, he lifted one onto a flat board, rapped a knuckle lightly on the surface.
With a crisp crack, the melon split open, revealing a core of pale blue flesh like carved ice crystal.
White mist curled from the juicy flesh, and a clean, sweet aroma spread through the air.
They shared the melons, giving Hephaestus, Ulfen, and the others a bit too.
"Summer's really over, huh," Alia wiped juice from her face, hands on her hips as she stared across the valley and the faint autumn colors creeping over the grass. "With autumn coming, crops ripen, and monsters go out hunting to build up winter stores."
"Time for adventurers to really show what they're made of."
"Mm."
Gauss nodded.
"But if you think about it…"
"In spring, snow melts and hibernating monsters wake up to feed. In summer, heat and active mana make their tempers flare. In winter, monsters go for last-ditch food grabs to survive the cold, and some winter-only species show up."
"So honestly, monsters are active all year round, right?"
"There's no off-season for adventurers."
He chuckled.
"You…" Alia was briefly at a loss, then pouted. "You're so annoying, I was just trying to set a mood."
That little interlude passed, and everyone got down to actual training.
Alia held the skillbook she'd bought—Moonlight Glow, a Level 2 spell.
She felt she had enough bandwidth again for a new spell.
She'd originally not wanted offensive magic, figuring she'd never need it.
But Gauss had nudged her into this one.
Moonlight Glow created a ribbon of moon-bright light that damaged enemies who entered it—a sort of AoE zone spell.
Gauss' idea was simple: he believed everyone in the party needed some offensive capability so they could protect themselves.
Having it and not using it was very different from not having it at all.
Besides, with Hephaestus and Shadow already serving as "shared kill" engines, he figured the rest of the party stacking AoE would only speed up monster clearing.
As his Index and kill thresholds rose, his requirements for kill volume were only going to get higher.
Back at the start, ten monsters would earn him a reward. Now it took at least two thousand.
Help made that progress far more manageable.
As for recruiting stronger party members—that wasn't necessarily a good idea.
Most high-level adventurers already belonged to stable teams and might not want to join his. Even if they did, it would take a long time to build trust and teamwork.
And the higher their level, the more fixed their temperament and methods became—shaped by years of jobs. They might not mesh well.
Put simply: the stronger the teammate, the more willful they tended to be.
Shadow and Albena were exceptions in that regard.
On paper, Gauss only had these four teammates—but at the guild, there'd been no end of solo players trying to apply. Almost all of them failed his "first impression" test.
He placed a lot of weight on gut feeling.
And highly skilled teammates weren't all upside. He needed the kills too.
His ideal was a teammate like Hephaestus or Shadow, whose kills could be shared as his own.
Next best: people he could trust who would follow plans and support him when needed.
Since he didn't yet understand the mechanism behind shared kills, he could only assume it hinged on some invisible affinity stat. In that case, Alia, Serandur, and Albena were his best candidates.
Of the three, he considered Alia the closest to him—she'd been with him the longest and shared the most with him.
They'd been together all the way from Greyrock Town, when he was still a low-tier adventurer, to where they were now.
He figured she had a good chance of being next to share kills.
As for Shadow… he still hadn't quite figured that out.
From the first time they met, he'd felt something familiar about her. After this breakthrough to 6th level, that feeling had only grown stronger.
He'd quietly tested her a bit earlier.
She'd told him nothing—just smiled and shook her head.
Even so, he was sure something important had changed during her breakthrough—something that had dramatically shifted how she felt about him.
That only reinforced his theory that shared kills were tied to closeness.
Right now, Alia was holding the Moonlight Glow skillbook in both hands, staring at him like a lost kitten, waiting for him to speak.
Gauss had said he could help her master it faster, but then gone quiet, leaving her itchy with anticipation.
"I have high hopes for you, Alia," Gauss said softly.
"???"
Alia only looked more confused.
~~~
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