Heavy Knight Volume 1 – Chapter 23

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Chapter 23 – The Golden Rana’s Spawn Rate

After that we kept exploring the Dungeon for a while.

Even though with Luce here the spawn rate of monsters was greatly increased, the Golden Rana is still not a monster that you would be able to come across easily.
However, as a former Magic World player, I of course know the best spawn routes and the usual placement of monsters.
We should manage one…., no, two today.

“Fuh!”

I blocked the attacking box shaped monster’s ramming attack with my shield, then keeping close to its body I knocked it away with [Vital Blow].
With that the purple colored box went flying.

“Good, Luce, it’s time to run away!”

“Y-yes! But it looks like we could defeat it, so shouldn’t we?”

“No need, we should avoid unnecessary fights. That one is not our objective today and it may even start calling other monsters if we fail to take it down fast enough.”

That box shaped monster’s official name was Toybox.
After taking a certain amount of damage, the box opens and a demon with a cymbal pops out, which starts making a ruckus that calls other monsters.
It’s not that fast, so if you manage to unbalance it first, then it’s not too hard to get away from it.

“Fuh…..sorry about that. Because of how slow I am, we ended up having to deal with it one more time.”

“No no, that’s not…. B-but, should we really keep our focus narrowed to just the Golden Rana? Elma-san can keep the attention of the monsters amazingly well, so if we were to hunt other monsters like we did with the Patchwork Bear, then I have a feeling that I might be able to gain another three levels today even. There might even be other item drops in the meantime…. Elma-san knows which monsters would provide the best experience points and item drops, right?”

It’s no wonder Luce would come to think that.
For Luce, gaining eight levels in one day is already an amazing harvest.
Instead of switching to a risky strategy of aiming for a great windfall from rare drops which might end up nothing but a pipedream in the end, steadily increasing her level and watching out for normal drops like before sounds obviously more appealing.

However, in Magic World all you needed to do to raise your levels quickly was killing higher level monsters, which means if you were knowledgeable enough it was not at all difficult to raise your level out of the early game range.
My having the [Shadow Stomp] is also a big factor in being able to powerlevel others too.
That means that it isn’t that everything went especially well this time, but that in this world where the exchange of information is all but non-existent the leveling strategies of adventurers are particularly bad.

“Then there was no need to come to the Angel’s Toybox at all. If we wanted to keep to a slow and steady leveling and item gathering strategy, then there were other, better suited places for that. Also, the fact that it’s rarely seen was already taken into consideration. I expect we will only be able to find two at most if we keep at it for the entire day.”

However, the Golden Rana is more than worth the risk.
For our current levels, the best way of making money is to keep hunting Golden Ranas.
Even staying at the nearby village for a while and commuting to the Angel’s Toybox until we run out of Golden Ranas might not be a bad idea.

“Luce, if you want to do that, then as my teammate I will respect your wishes, but…. could we continue with it for a little while? It’s fine if we do it while fighting other monsters.”

Well, it obviously requires a lot of patience.
To begin with, Luce obviously thinks that coming across a Golden Rana is not that easy, and even if we do, she might have doubts about our ability to defeat it.

I can’t even be certain that my knowledge can be entirely relied on.
In the Mad Head fight, there were attacks I should’ve been able to cleanly avoid if it was a game, but my fear of my opponent and my lack of skill with the sword caused a lot of close calls.
I should very much avoid game-like thinking such as ‘if I move as efficiently as possible, then it should be doable’.

Even without that, I should respect my teammate’s opinions.
If I end up just unilaterally ordering others around just because my level is higher or that I know more, then I will be the same as my father and Klein.

“Ah! No no no! I didn’t really mean that! I will of course do what Elma-san says! I was just wondering a bit, then, um, I just asked without meaning to….!”

“Is that so? You don’t need to be so reserved.”

….it seems she wasn’t treated that well in Klein’s party and her servile attitude stayed with her somewhat.

“Let’s go and hunt Golden Ranas, even if it’s a hundred or even a thousand! I will do my very best!”

“….it’s good that you are so motivated, but if we were to really hunt that many, then the market would just simply crash in Rondalm.”

“Is the Golden Rana that amazing? I just barely heard about it in rumors and haven’t even seen anyone that managed to kill one.”

“Yeah, that’s the reason why I singled it out as our objective. However, even with increased Luck it’s not easy to come across one, so if you have started having reservations or feel anxious about something, then you can tell me anytime….”

Just as I was saying that, it happened.

“Ribbit, ri-ribbit.”

A frog-like sound could be heard.
As Luce and I slowly turned around at the same time, a Rana with a golden radiance hopped out from around the corner.
It kept rubbing its head with its front legs.

Th-that was much sooner than I expected!?
I thought we would need to buckle down and hold out for a few hours until we could come across one, but it seems Luce’s initial Luck stat must’ve been really high indeed.

There is a way of determining her Luck stat by having her try a Skill that’s affected by Luck a hundred times and calculate the result from that. I should try to have Luce do that when I have the chance.

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