52 Human Companions II
[Evolution complete]
[Received 5 stat points]
[Sense +5, Agility +2]
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The entire times walking around on the 41st floor, the group didn’t run into many monsters, at least not nearly as many as they should have. The 41st floor was the floor dominated by the mantants, and because of their way of attacking, they always came in waves and not individually, making each face off physically tasking for the humans. Luckily though, the ants had not been coming as much, and the group had more time to rest and focus on advancing to the next floor.
‘Seems like it was a good idea not to recall my legion.’ Victor said in his mind.
Though Victor had thought of bringing them back, he realized it would better to make them deal with majority of the ants and only leave some for the group to handle. If Victor had to fight always, it would raise the chances of him doing something that would bring suspicion on his character. Something like accidentally using more than the required strength was there, and not like he had seen the others use their actual bodies to fight, so he still wasn’t exactly sure how strong they were..
Going by what they said, some people had skills that focused on their own bodies and not things like shooting fire balls or creating lakes. Abilities could be divided majorly into two types. There were abilities that allowed people to use the energy within them to do certain things (kind of like casting spells), they are referred to as emitters. Then, there were abilities that improved the users body making them able to utilize their physical bodies in battle (Basically martial arts and the likes), they are referred to as enhancers. The first group had more means to affect their surroundings and also do a wide range of things, while the second could do inhuman things using their very flesh and bones.
This would mean the lady that wielded a sword who Victor fought on the lower floor would be the second type, while the rest were of the first.
The problem now was that Victor had already said he had a fire oriented ability, and had been using his fire breathe ever since. He did say he was strong physically, but it would still be very unusual for even an experimental subject to show the same level of strength as an enhancer.
Some time passed, maybe a couple days since they had to stop and rest and also sleep along the way, and from Victor’s map, they had reached the path that led to the next floor, they just had to walk for at most two hours before getting there.
These days Victor spent with the team were one of his most difficult and hellish days since he had to pretend to be asleep and just lie there for hours doing nothing, while being perfectly fine and feeling no sense of tiredness. Victor didn’t have an option that would just shut down his body for some time either, so it was inevitable.
Throughout the night, Victor had nothing to do while lying there awake, so he just opened his system to check how his legion was doing, and how much they had advanced. Luckily, none of them had died.
..
Arac: Level – 43 >> 44
Konda: Level – 43 >> 46
Gurok: Level – 44 >> 47
Amadon: Level – 49 >> 53
Pyro: Level – 52 >> 56
..
Arac was the least lucky, since he had to be unsummoned, but the rest seem to be doing very good. Amadon looked to be the highest level yet, and despite being the highest levelled, he could still advance faster than the rest. It was evident the higher one’s level was, the least likely it was for them to level up, as the experience needed also increased, but Arac could still power through despite that.
(A/N: Monsters in Victor’s legion will be taken as men since their gender isn’t really known. Unless it’s clear what the gender is, the monster will be referred to as masculine.)
Seeing as they would be going to the next floor the next day, Victor made sure to bring his legion closer and at the right time unsummoned them, just before everyone woke up. After some time past and everybody had woken up, they resumed their journey to the next floor, and just like victor thought, two hours was what it took to get to the next floor.
Victor couldn’t help but notice something was different with two of them as they approached the path that led to the next floor. They looked like something was bothering them a bit, and would often look behind to cast a glance at Victor and the other who could control water and ice as both of them walked behind, while Larry as the leader walked in front.
‘Something’s off here, their behaviour is a little off.’ Victor said as he monitored them more.
Though it was clear to him that the two before him were up to something, he couldn’t just say so without evidence, and he was sure the others would side with their friends who they’ve known for a longer time than him who was a stranger.
‘No need to involve myself.’ Victor thought to himself.
They made their way through the path, and after some minutes of descending the path, they arrived at the 42nd floor. As from what Victor could remember, this should be the floor where he encountered minotaurs and the fire-imps. There was just one thing he had in his mind at this point.
‘I have to separate from these guys. Tagging along is only limiting me.’
Victor could just choose to kill them and move on, as he originally planned, but after benefitting so much from them, he thought that leaving them alive was the best he could do for them. Getting away from them wouldn’t be that hard. Victor didn’t need to think through it much, it wasn’t like he was their buddy or something as lofty as that, so simply leaving and not returning would be enough.
“I need to take a leak, I’ll be right back.” Victor said as he walked away.
Before that, he thought he would be a good person and at least inform the two people that were least suspicious that the other two were acting weirdly. From what he could deduce, the person most likely to be in danger was Larry who was the team leader, so he chose to tell only him about the behaviour he had noticed earlier. Good enough, Larry wasn’t an impulsive person, so he was able to quietly tell him without the others finding out.
When he left to ease himself and took long to come back, Larry could roughly guess what had happened, and after making a bit of effort to search for him, they gave up and just moved on.
Victor immediately detached himself from those he was just with and began his search. The layout of this floor was very clear in Victor’s head, and was something he needed not to use a map for. He had threaded this floor in various forms, so something like finding his way around was no problem at all.
First of all in Victor’s agenda was to grab every single opportunity he got by the balls and not shy away from any kill. Normally he would just avoid killing low level monsters since the experience points wasn’t much anymore, but now every single one was going to die if they crossed paths.
He immediately headed for the best spot where he knew he would find some number of Lycan and kill them at least for an appetiser on the way before he got to the first Minotaur.
From the group, he was able to learn that many different groups and guilds from different countries had been sent to subjugate the cave, and the number was around 15 different teams on estimate. Because of this, Victor was sure to run into more humans the further he descended the dungeon. He hadn’t seen many human corpses so far, so it could only mean that they made it far into the higher floors.
‘It’s sure to get rowdy later.’ Victor said in his mind while cutting off another lycan’s head off its body.
Normally this would have been a hassle for Victor, but this time was different. After spending time with the humans for some days, he realised that they weren’t as bad as he originally thought. Seeing as humans were at the bottom of the evolutionary chain, he thought they would be weak and useless, but aside from their strength, he could see that they could also have their importance.
“The days to come might be even more favourable than I originally thought. They would surely help me a lot.” Victor said as he proceeded deeper into the floor.
Since he took a different route, he missed the first minotaur, but where he was headed was the spot where he had fought the second one previously, and surely enough, when he got there, the monster he came for was standing within his sight.
‘Long time no see.’