Frostfire Legacy

Aster and the girls checked the guild just in case there was a new situation going on, but fortunately, the second floor calmed down after hunting the Rogue Boss.

It was still a mystery why such a powerful boss appeared on a low floor, but for now, it was carefully recorded as an extremely rare occurrence. After Aster finished talking with Zena, it was Kali's turn to talk to her. It didn't last long, as she just said a few words before passing a small chip to Zena and turning to leave.

"Was that your report?" Aster asked after chasing Kali.

He remembered her taking pictures of the boss monster and talking about making a report about it or something, after all. Kali glanced at him, her expression remaining the same as usual, in a frown, as she nodded.

"Yes. I simply wrote and submitted everything I observed about the boss monster, along with the images I took." She explained quickly. "Unfortunately, we weren't able to see all its abilities, but well, it's already a miracle that we killed it in the first place."

A Rogue Boss with an estimated level of 15 appeared on the second floor with an average level of 4. It would be a hopeless battle if it happened on any other occasion. Honestly, without Aster's help, the second floor would've been overrun and rendered completely inaccessible.

After they got out of the guild, they didn't go straight toward the dungeon but instead went to their usual weapon shop.

It was funny when the dwarf shopkeeper panicked after seeing Liz enter, and they both started to talk in hushed voices, one trying to hide her real background (which she's not doing a good job of) and one trying to not be rude to the owner's daughter, finding a common ground to compromise.

Aster, while there, checked two more bags and also canvassed the price of the next level of their equipment. Of course, this excluded Liz, as her equipment was practically already at the top of the line. But other than her, the others were still in great need of better weapons and armor.

"Should I buy everyone new equipment?" Liz offered, but Aster quickly shot it down.

Being indebted is fine and all, but for him, it's better to work hard and earn money to use to buy their equipment. That way, their attachment to it would be slightly different than when receiving it for free.

"And in the first place, normal adventurers usually buy equipment that way," Aster explained. "Only those with special backgrounds start with a full set right off the bat."

"A-Ah! I don't have a special background, alright?!" Liz denied it in a panic. "This equipment is... right! It's a hand-me-down from my older sister! Yep!"

"Really...?"

"Really!"

Well, Aster wouldn't be tricked, of course. It was obvious that her equipment was brand new, after all. When he was satisfied with teasing Liz, the group listened to the dwarf's words.

"T-Three million..."

That was the cost of one set for each of them! Of course, there's a minor variation between each of their prices, but the shopkeeper claimed he will round down all exactly to 3 million as a show of goodwill to his frequent customers!

"... We need more bags." Aster declared.

---

Inside the dungeon's second floor, Aster's party split into two groups. One pair was Kali and Liz, while the other was Cassy and Tina. Both teams were working on two jobs: hunting slimes and delivering them to Aster. Of course, to keep the balance in terms of experience gain, they were switching roles now and then.

Aster, on the other hand, was simply sitting down, not gaining a single experience, while extracting the cores from the hunted buggers.

Although he was seemingly getting the short end of the stick, as always, he didn't really mind it. After all, he would have chances to farm experience later on.

Of course, since everyone was already at level 5 or 6, the experience gained from the slimes was getting reduced to about an eighth of its value. As such, nobody but Tina has a chance to level up quickly, catching up with the rest.

After he extracted another core, Aster wiped the sweat over his brows and glanced behind him. There were a total of six bags now, with all of them being filled to the brim with Green Slime Cores.

"With each bag having 50 cores on average, that's equivalent to 300 cores! The price of each core is 10 thousand Tels, which means we already have... 3 million Tels!"

It had been about an hour since they entered the dungeon, and they had already reached the amount for one complete set!

"Everyone! The bags are full! Let's return to the guild first!" Aster called to the girls, who were busy killing more slimes.

They weren't going to run out of enemies, of course, as slimes has a quick respawn rate. As long as nobody was near their designated area, a level 3 slime would respawn after one hour at most! It perfectly matched their hunting speed!

Aster wanted to go and accompany the girls back, but instead, he was left with Cassy, while only Kali, Tina, and Liz went out to deliver the loot to the guild.

Since they would get bored doing nothing, the two decided to take a walk while hunting monsters nearby. With Cassy's at level 6, there's no way a monster would be able to bypass her senses and launch a surprise attack against them.

Aster was casually killing any monsters that came close while, at the same time, practicing his use of his Carved Seal.

"Freeze!"

With a casual wave, he would freeze the enemy wolves' legs, keeping them in place, before he would deliver the finishing blow, a clean strike through their heads.

"Phew... I'm getting faster at casting the seal!" He exclaimed while wiping his sweat.

"That's true~! Soon, you should be able to use it in the middle of a messy battle too!"

Cassy agreed, smiling sweetly.

"Ah, another wolf group is incoming, about twenty meters to your 2 o'clock."

"Freeze!"

Now, his casting was almost instantaneous—well, not really. It still takes him five seconds of deep concentration before the freezing effect comes out. It was a great improvement, but still far from being truly fit for battle.

"Hii hii hii!"

"Oh? Newbies found! Kaha! Let's play with the girl first before dragging them; what do you say?"

"Stop it. Do you want the boss to scold us later? If I get in trouble because of you, you're dead."

And just as they were coming close to a forest biome, a group of ten suddenly appeared. Aster moved back, standing before Cassy as if to protect her, his face serious, before shouting at the visitors.

"Who are you? What do you want?"