The snacks Demeter made were a bit sweet.
Or rather, the fruits and vegetables grown by the Demeter Familia mostly inherited their Goddess's "excellent virtues," being much sweeter compared to others of their kind.
Lunor, on the other hand, had heard the tavern proprietress, Mama Mia, complain about it.
Mama Mia was a dwarf—although Al found it hard to imagine that this burly aunt, who was about the same height as him, maybe slightly shorter, but definitely over 1.8 meters tall, was a dwarf.
But in short.
"Mama Mia prefers salty and spicy flavors. She belongs to the quite common heavy-flavor lovers among dwarves, so she always felt that the fruits and vegetables sent by the Goddess were too sweet."
"Well, alright."
"Do you like eating sweets, Al?"
"It's fine, I eat them. When I'm researching, there are times when I overexert my brain and get especially exhausted. Eating more sweets can effectively relieve that."
"Eh?"
"Because sugar can quickly replenish stamina and soothe the mood—eating sweets makes people feel happy."
"I see, you know a lot, Al..."
As Lunor nodded.
She didn't take the apple pie from Al's hand. Instead, she took out a cloth from the small leather pouch at her waist and wiped the bloodstains off the boy's face.
Well, even though it might get dirty again later, at least he looked much more pleasing to the eye like this.
"By the way, Al, you..."
Just as Lunor was about to speak, she saw Al suddenly stuff the apple pie into his mouth, then grab his hand crossbow and kill all the goblins that had just spawned from the nearby wall.
The silver crossbow bolts pierced through the monsters' heads, pinning them directly to the stone wall.
Obviously.
Even during rest time, Al reserved some stamina to deal with monsters that might suddenly appear at any moment.
Watching this scene, Lunor pursed her lips and swallowed the reminder she had just wanted to give.
She had planned to tell Al.
In the Dungeon, one must never let their guard down at any time, especially when resting...
As a result, Al seemed to be much more experienced than her.
Wasn't this guy a rookie who just became an adventurer yesterday! Now he made it seem like she was the newbie making a fuss over nothing!!
"Are you from the School District, Al?"
"What's that?"
"Eh, you don't know, Al..."
The School District.
Its full name was the Maritime Academic Institution Special District, a city atop the super-massive floating ship Hringhorni—or more accurately, an "architectural complex"?
It would drift across the seas around the world, recruiting and nurturing talents to become adventurers.
The students of the School District were extremely high-quality "Familia member candidates," so every three years, when the School District visited Orario.
All the major Familias would go there to recruit talents.
"I just felt that you know a lot of things, Al, giving off an educated vibe. So you aren't a student from the School District after all."
"..."
The largest ship in the world?
I really want to go see it.
Are there that many interesting places outside of Orario?
The City of Swords, Solingen;
The Magic Kingdom, Altena;
The Far East;
The Hometown of Opera, Mestora;
Lunor seemed quite knowledgeable. From the girl's words, Al could tell that she had been to many places before coming to Orario.
That was probably a bad memory, so Lunor only touched upon it briefly.
The girl suddenly stopped talking.
She also realized that abruptly asking about someone else's past seemed impolite. Everyone, more or less, had pasts they didn't want to bring up.
"Why do you want to be an adventurer, Al?"
"Because of my interest, I guess."
Gulping down an entire stamina potion.
Al found that his body had indeed recovered a lot of vitality. The price of this kind of potion was around a few thousand Valis—not exactly cheap, but certainly not expensive either.
Well, the potions were also prepared by Demeter. If they weren't enough, he could go to the Pure White Clinic on North Main Street to get more and just put it on the Familia's tab.
"Lady Demeter really spoils you. Ordinary Level 1 adventurers can't afford to drink potions from the Dian Cecht Familia."
"Well."
Gulp, gulp, Al drank another bottle.
The taste was indeed not bad.
Quickly realizing that the stamina he had just consumed was mostly recovered, Al couldn't help but think that this kind of potion was indeed very useful. Even if one wasn't adventuring in the Dungeon labyrinth, in everyday life, it should probably be a must-have item for many men.
His thoughts suddenly went a bit astray.
It's just that, if it could recover stamina, wait, no, no, right, could it also conveniently replenish that... "volume"?
Lunor said that the potion's effects were actually not as good as some recovery magic.
Then wouldn't that mean as long as mana wasn't depleted, one could have infinite refills...
"Do you know recovery magic, Miss Lunor?"
"No, but Ryu does."
"..."
That green-haired elf girl looked a bit dull, but it turned out she was that erotic... No, my thoughts are going astray.
No, wait, I'm just making a completely normal "application scenario conjecture"!
Shaking his head.
Al stood up again, ready to continue farming monsters.
But before that, he picked up the Gatling gun that had been thrown on the ground just now because it ran out of bullets.
Al looked at Lunor and suddenly spoke again.
"Miss Lunor, come, let me teach you how to load bullets."
"Eh?!"
"I need to optimize the workflow... Later, when the bullets run out, while I'm engaged in close combat, you can help me load the bullets, Miss Lunor. That way, we can keep the cycle going..."
Exactly!
Combined with stamina potions that could maximally replenish stamina, this way, they wouldn't need to rest for so long.
Al quickly taught Lunor how to operate it.
In fact, it was indeed simple, nothing more than removing the empty magazine and then attaching a fully loaded one.
"Like this!"
"Let me try..."
"Uh-huh, then let's continue farming monsters."
He once again had his mechanical assistant deploy the RX-60 Trap Tracker.
Al began a new round of monster farming.
Sure enough.
With Lunor helping to reload the bullets, the monster farming efficiency had indeed greatly improved.
He had to admit.
The "workflow" really needed to be optimized, relentlessly optimized!
...
"Eh?! This much again!!"
The sun was setting.
In the Guild Hall, Miss Eina, as Al's adventuring advisor, simply couldn't believe it when she saw the boy's bountiful harvest again today.
"Didn't I say, Mr. Al, that you can't cause another explosion like yesterday..."
"I didn't, I used this today."
Al raised his hand crossbow and said so.
"Really?!"
The magic stones the boy earned today were enough to exchange for over eighteen thousand Valis. Although it was much less compared to yesterday, he had only gone to the Dungeon at noon today and just stayed for half a day.
...
An ordinary Level 1 rookie would need about a week to earn this amount.
That is to say.
Al killed in half a day the number of monsters others would kill in seven days.
"In short, go take a bath first. Your current appearance is too eye-catching."
Looking at the boy covered entirely in monster blood, Eina sighed.
She thought to herself.
He really is quite an incredible guy...