Gacha Kingdom Building

Enthusiasm was running high, especially for Claire and Mia, who had my permission to go all out now.

Since we\'ve just arrived at this floor we are very far from its level cap of 25, as such, we\'ve decided to make this one a quick expedition and not venture too deep in order to minimize the chances of facing opponents too difficult.

Speaking of which, this floor brings back the slimes that we used to face on the first floor.

This time though, not only are they bigger, stronger, and sturdier, but they also come with a new twist.

These slimes now inhabit the bodies of dead adventurers, manipulating their corpses and using their slime bodies to glue together their limbs.

Of course, the internet is filled with images of these monsters, some are used for the purpose of cataloging, and some are posted for the sheer shock value that the gruesome sight causes.

If not for the dungeon also naturally spawning such creatures, they\'d make for a tremendous jumpscare if you suddenly encountered one after a long time.

They don\'t have the same troublesome abilities as the monsters from the fourth floor, but as a tradeoff, killing them is extremely hard.

You can destroy the head and it will continue to move, take off its arms, their legs, and it will remain alive, though by that point it won\'t be much of a menace anymore.

The best way to deal with them is to destroy the body completely, you can achieve that physically, but using magic is way more efficient, even more so, when you take into account that maintaining physical contact with their bodies for too long will cause the slime to glue you to it.

As such, even though Mia is at the highest level among us, she\'s having a hard time dealing with the monsters.

It\'s already bad for us who have some reach in our weapons, but for someone who fights barehanded like her, it\'s awful.

Claire: "...It\'s going to be hard for you to continue like this, do you know how to handle a sword?"

Mia: "I\'m not really good with bladed weapons, and I\'d like something shorter, but sure. I\'ll just ask someone to help me train later."

Surprisingly, Mia didn\'t really show much pride and accepted that it would be better to change her fighting style.

In terms of efficiency, it ends up being around the same as fighting these monsters barehanded since she\'s not very used to fighting with a weapon, but attacking them with a blade is much safer as if the blade happens to get stuck, you can just let go of it.

Even more so considering that Mia got one of the two small daggers that Ellie carries with her. These are the result of some rolls on the [Mana Banners] whenever I have some mana left, and so, they aren\'t really good or special, but they do their job, and losing them is not a big loss at all.

What followed ended up being a problem though...

Claire: "Yeah... I\'ll need to teach you later."

Mia: "If I\'m going to learn, I\'d rather it be from the best.. can you help me with that?"

Saying that Mia directed her gaze toward Licia, who like most of us, was actually paying attention to the monsters inside the dungeon.

Licia: "Um... If you\'re fine with me..."

Mia: "Of course, no one else compares to you when it comes to sword fighting."

Claire: "I\'m right here!"

Needless provocations aside, Claire and Licia are both pretty good at handling swords, but their fighting styles differ a lot.

Licia\'s swordplay is way more precise and tricky to deal with, almost all of her strikes have more than one intent behind them, and when paired with her ice magic, she effectively traps her enemies into a decisive series of blows one mistake will cost their lives. It\'s not the fastest style for dealing with monsters, but it\'s reliable in basically every situation.

In a way, it shows that she really made a living by hunting monsters in the dungeon. Her style is flexible and adaptive, and she\'s confident in creating chances for herself and positioning the enemy where she wants for a final attack. It\'s a "one size fits all" type of approach to defeat a variety of different monsters.

Claire, on the other hand, shows how much she\'s been taught with the way she quickly goes from stance to stance, maintaining an advantage against her enemies.

But her fighting style relies more on aggressiveness and power. She almost follows a pattern with a few modifications here and there, and whenever she gets blocked, she powers through using her magic.

It\'s really hard to say which is better since they both have different approaches, but for Mia who has ice magic, learning from Licia is probably the right choice.

Nothing about that helped to calm Claire though, as she proceeded to show off how amazing she was by destroying almost everything we passed by using her magic and sword.

She didn\'t have to say a word, the sheer smugness in her face as she alone defeated half the monsters we encountered said it all.

Mia: "...Tch!"

Seems like their competition had also gone back into full gear on this floor, and Mia\'s provocations did nothing to help her get ahead.

A bit later Claire ended up running out of steam, which was no surprise given how much mana she was wasting to flood the floor in fire.

Now that she didn\'t have mana to spare, Mia was almost sure to pull ahead, but...

Claire: "Miwen... mind giving me a hand?"

Well, that was unexpected. It\'s pretty rare for Claire to ask me something.

Miwen: "Eh... I don\'t know. I\'d love to preserve the sanctity of your competition..."

While she did her best to use her charms in her favor, pleading with her pretty face in a low voice, I knew how serious they were taking this, so of course I\'d use whichever chance I got to further tease them.

Claire: "...I\'ll let you do that again... and if you want... I\'ll even..."

It seems like even when making a deal this girl shows her aggressiveness. There was no way for me to resist the cards she put on the table, so of course, I took them all while already imagining the things I\'d do to her.

Miwen: "Just a little alright?"

Claire: "Like half of yours, right: At the very least?"

Miwen: "Yeah, yeah. But don\'t spend it all at once alright?"

Claire: "Sure!"

It was a good chance to test the [Mana Transfer] and learn about the rate of transfer, which was surprisingly high. In less than five minutes I had already managed to give her half of my mana, which she would proceed to waste in less than an hour.

I found it amusing to see my own mana generating immense pillars of fire everywhere, even though it was by someone else\'s doing.

What wasn\'t so great was that Mia decided to bump me pretty often, and as Claire\'s advantage grew, she increased her strength more and more while rushing to a new target.

I tried to not mind it, but she eventually gave me a light punch that actually hurt a bit.

Miwen: "Ow... aren\'t you going overboard?"

Mia: "You helped her cheat, you...! Ah! There\'s one right there!"

She didn\'t even stay long enough to actually give her sermon and instead chose to use every single second to stay on the hunt.

Miwen: "Should I be worried ?"

Beatrice: "Why? It only benefits you..."

Miwen: "I guess..."

Thankfully this didn\'t last long, as when Claire came back to ask me for more mana I decided to end this raid due to one of our members being unable to fight anymore.

I also had to forbid anyone else from giving her mana.

And I kinda screwed Mia over since it was her chance to pull ahead now that Claire was basically out of commission.

We were already going to end up early today anyway since I wanted to celebrate the defeat of the fourth-floor boss and take tomorrow off, but I made certain to drill into Claire not to do this next time since it might become a problem if we have to end early.

She replied by telling me not to worry since she got a huge advantage in their score now and wouldn\'t have to repeat this for a while, which is far from the answer I was expecting, but I can take my time to properly get the right response from her.

On a better note, we managed to get one level each, and as far as drops go, it was pretty good since we sold everything aside from the bottle that dropped from the boss and still got $385.