And (N)one Shall Remain

“Sir Inolet,” said Alissa to get the old knight’s attention.

 

“Yes, Miss O’Connor? Do you perhaps have another question?” replied Sir Inolet almost like a fond grandfather. Despite the stern teacher persona he adopted early on with them, he had since mellowed quite a bit to Alissa, who often asked the right questions, a quality he valued greatly amongst those he taught.

 

“It’s something that came to mind, but do classes affect the amount of experience people gain?” she asked openly. “I’ve noticed that during our first dungeon delve, the three of us who were summoned gained enough to hit the second tier, while most of the rest only gained five to six levels back then,” she continued. “But on the second delve, we gained around a dozen levels, while the others gained nearly as much despite being in their third tier. Other than their new classes, I see nothing that would have accounted for such a difference.”

 

“Well observed, Miss O’Connor,” praised the old knight with a grandfatherly smile. “Your hypothesis is close to the truth, though you missed on some parts,” he explained to her. “Classes do not affect the amount of experience we gain. Each class has a different amount of experience needed for each level, and also gain them through different ways.”

 

“For example take Madam Gillian, the [Courtly Royal Chef]. She had never fought anything in her life, unless you consider butchering animals that would be used for cooking as a fight. Instead, she gained experience almost entirely from activities related to her class, which in her case meant most anything related to cooking. In that way she gains a steady influx of experience simply for doing her job.”

 

“There must be drawbacks as well, no?” asked Alissa. “Otherwise there would be nothing stopping one side from just amassing civilians who were in their fourth tiers and overwhelming the other side through the sheer stats those people would have gained, no?”

 

“Ah, there it is again, that lacking bit of common knowledge that nobody who was born and raised here would ask,” noted Sir Inolet as a nod. “While that does happen from time to time, mostly when people refused to leave their homes and fought to the death, or in emergencies, it’s not a common practice for a reason, girl.”

 

“For one, while a fourth-tier civilian might indeed have high stats, especially if their class was a high quality one, they would generally lack the skill and ability to apply those stats into fighting,” continued the old knight in a lecturing tone. “Care to take a guess how many combatants like… say, your companions during the first dungeon delve that a fourth tier could take on?”

 

“Hmm… Ten?” replied Alissa with her head slightly tilted in open curiosity. Ethan, who happened to be nearby, also kept his ears open to the conversation.

 

“Try one. If they were lucky, at that, and did not end up with a class where most of their stats went to Mind or Soul with no way to apply it in a battle, in which case they might not even be able to handle one,” answered the old knight with a shake of his head. “Those who had more physically intensive jobs like blacksmiths might be able to take on two or three, as they would be more Body oriented, and those stats were the easiest to apply as they were.”

 

“Some others whose work demanded skills with items that would work as weapons, like Madam Gillian from my earlier example, who could probably outmatch any of us when it comes to handling a knife, would also have a better time, but otherwise?” he continued on while they walked. “Most of the time it would be a disproportionately wasteful loss of life considering how easily one could raise a second tier combatant, and how much a fourth tier civilian could contribute outside of combat.”

 

“I see,” admitted Alissa as she nodded. “It was a silly question on my part, I guess.”

 

“No question is silly, girl. What is silly is not asking questions when you have them,” chided Sir Inolet in turn. “If you have a question and ask someone who knows the answer, then you become less ignorant from the exchange. Meanwhile, keeping that same question unasked would just result in your ignorance growing needlessly.”

 

“Sir, in that case, mind a question of mine?” asked Ethan as he raised his hand. The old knight replied to him with a questioning look followed by a firm nod. “Related to Allie’s earlier question. Those who gained the [Companion] and [Associate] classes are leveling really fast compared to others. In your opinion, is that to allow them to keep up with us [Heroes]?”

 

“Well noted,” replied the old man with a satisfied nod. “That is generally believed to be the case, yes, though in our recorded history, most of them started to slow down in growth once they reached the tail end of the fourth tier,” he explained. “Those who reach the fifth tier are true rarities, only ever seen during the wars, while those that reach that level of power and survived the war were unheard of, other than the [Heroes] themselves, but naturally, they aren’t staying either.”

 

“And why is that, you think?”

 

“Ask one of those robed bastards and they would feed you some crap about how that level of power was encroaching upon the domain of the gods themselves, and as such, was beyond a mortal’s means to wield, leaning to the premature ends of those that went that far,” said Sir Inolet with a scoff. “If you ask me, people are just afraid of that sort of power, especially those in power at the time. I had always found a couple of the deaths to be rather suspicious myself. Keep this to yourselves, of course.”

 

“Our lips are sealed, Sir,” said Alissa.

 

“Keep what to ourselves?” replied Ethan. “We weren’t talking about anything just now, weren't we?”

 

“Heh, no we weren’t,” answered Sir Inolet with a slight chuckle at Ethan’s attempt at a joke. “Anyway, you two take a proper rest. We’d be departing for the next dungeon first thing tomorrow morning.”

 

“Understood, sir,” they both replied.

 

They had just finished one last sparring session with Sir Inolet that evening, the day before they were scheduled to head towards one last dungeon to hit their third tiers. Both Alissa and Ethan noticed the improvements they had during that spar, as the two of them were now capable of holding their own against the old, experienced knight even when he was going at half his power, whereas before he would just toy with them with barely any exertion.

 

“I’ll come over to your place later,” whispered Alissa once Sir Inolet had left them for a while, to which Ethan nodded. They generally met to talk in his room since Alissa was the one with the stealth skill and could go there without anyone noticing.

 

Sure enough, roughly fifteen minutes after Ethan returned to his room, Alissa appeared out of the shadow cast by one of the chairs in the room. She had dressed down to what passed as everyday clothes in this world, namely tunics and trousers, and immediately plonked herself on the nearby chair while Ethan sat on his bed across the room from her.

 

“So, any news you got from the girls?” he asked curiously. Alissa usually tried to avoid making such clandestine trips to meet him unless she had something important to tell him that couldn’t just be done during training when they were practicing in her shadow realm. It didn’t help that the local attitudes about propriety and the likes – at least amongst the upper class – meant that they only generally met each other during mealtimes and training otherwise.

 

“Apparently they haven’t given up trying to get more out of us,” stated Alissa openly, referring to the various factions vying for power in the Kingdom. “Nadine told me that there would be another batch of twenty sent to accompany us for this next dungeon, all on the tail end of the second tier like last time, despite the dangers.”

 

The next dungeon they were headed to was a far more open area, with creatures that were mostly in the late second tier to mid third tier in power, with the bosses reputed to be at the fourth tier. To send some youngsters barely in their late second tier into such a place was little different than suicide, especially since Alissa knew that Sir Inolet would instruct her team to let them fend for themselves like last time.

 

Still, greed and pride was apparently enough to drive some people to near-certain death either way.

 

“Fuck, that’s going to be a bloodbath,” commented Ethan with a frown. “As it is, we’d likely be far too busy staying alive and keeping the others of our team in one piece, ain’t no way we got time to spare to help them out too.”

 

“I’m pretty sure they know that, but just don’t care,” noted Alissa. “That’s not all, though.”

 

“Oh?”

 

“She also let slip that they’re adding more chaperones for the party,” said Alissa. “Given Nadine’s status and that it was her father who made that slip of the tongue, there might be more to the next trip than what we expect,” she continued as she rested her arms on top of the seat’s back. “It bugs me that none of them seem to have any idea what it is, though.”

 

“I have a thought, sec,” said Ethan as he rose from his bed and rummaged through one of the drawers near where Alissa sat. He finally pulled out a roll of parchment which he spread on the table, displaying a map that depicted the south-eastern area of the Kingdom’s territory, their next destination. “The dungeon we’re headed to next is around here, right?” he asked as he pointed towards an area on the map.

 

“That should be about right,” answered Alissa as she took a look at where Ethan pointed.

 

“And the frontlines are roughly here,” he said as he traced a line through the map with another finger. “If the information here is up to date, there are forts here, here, and here,” he added as his finger pointed at several spots on the imaginarily line he had just traced. “Are you seeing what I’m seeing now, Allie? Looks like enough reason for the extra guards, to me.”

 

“Fuck a duck. That area’s one of the more poorly defended parts of the frontline. If the demons were to make a concentrated push there they could likely reach the dungeon before they were stopped,” she cursed as she noticed what Ethan was hinting at. “Then again, to do that they’d need to know we’d be there, no? I don’t think the risk of traitors are that high, considering the racial issues we have here.”

 

“Yeah, but it’s still a risk that warranted extra guards. For all we know those demons might be using that area to send in spies or scouts into the Kingdom’s territories,” argued Ethan. “I mean, I can see why they left that part more lightly defended. The creatures of the dungeon itself made for part of the defense there, and there’s another dungeon further south and west of the one we’re headed to that whoever was trying to slip through that region had to pass through.”

 

“Making good use of the natural defenses,” noted Alissa. “Since dungeon creatures generally stayed in their area unless left alone for too long, they made perfect guard dogs, in a way,” she said as she nodded. “And anyone trying to pass through there would likely alert them and cause a ruckus given the high levels of the creatures involved.”

 

“Yeah, it’s a pretty smart trick, honestly. Either way, I think we should still prepare ourselves in case the worst case scenario comes to be.”

 

“Way ahead of you. The girls were already preparing since they heard that we’re getting more chaperones and all.”