Return to C-Gate

The journey back to the airport was smooth as predicted. Since most of their route had been cleared out already, they had few monsters to deal with. Though it appeared to be enough for Brandon to reach level 10. It turned out he was at the cusp of level 10, and only needed a minuscule amount of experience to reach the coveted level.

Brandon naturally chose Hunter as his class and was quite excited not to be the last one in the party to level up and obtain a class. Currently, the party was sitting in the tavern and enjoying the use of a hard-earned voucher. They were celebrating their gains, with booze.

Derek however was pouting like a child, he was the only one in the party to not reach level 10, and obtain a class. He had seen how powerful his party had become after evolving, and he was starting to feel left out. Brandon slapped the kid on the back and tried to cheer him up.

"Oh cheer up kid, the next time we take a mission you will for sure level up to 10 and evolve."

Derek took a sip from his beer and smiled slightly. He imagined himself gaining the power to actually cast spells as an offensive mage. For now, he could really only simulate spells with the use of his staff. Judging by the increase in abilities his party had gained upon gaining a class. He figured he should be able to legitimately cast spells and become a true mage.

Though the party was drinking and messing around in the tavern, one of its crucial members was missing. Alex had elected to use his time to visit Emily. After all, every time he returned from a mission he would stop by her shop and let her know he was okay.

The one time Alex went straight to the tavern with his party, Emily was extremely unhappy and refused to talk to him for the rest of the day. Alex was brazenly flirting with the dark-haired beauty in front of her customers, which invoked the ire of every man within earshot. Nevertheless, they would not cause trouble in C-Gate, all they could do was curse the fighter with all their heart.

The bold youth proudly boasted about his encounter with the troll in front of all her customers, his words were met with a hint of disdain. Nobody believed he had come into contact with a troll and survived. Hell, most did not even believe such terrifying beasts existed. The rumors of trolls and other mega monsters were unreliable, and few chose to believe in them.

Though the humans currently referred to such creatures as mega monsters, the reality was they were simply just a significantly higher level than humans currently were at. If humans were twenty to thirty levels higher they could easily take on such creatures.

Yet, right now those monsters were a disaster waiting to happen. If they came across any human settlement it would be destroyed immediately. Humans had yet to gather the strength to survive against the overwhelming might of such high-level monsters. Luckily for them, such monsters were exceptionally rare and tended to dwell within the heart of the monster-occupied territory.

Monsters were scaled in levels much like Humans, the more powerful humans became, the more terrifying monsters would appear to combat them. Currently, it had only been around a month since the fracture happened, as such humans were extremely weak with their peak strength being around level 10 currently.

However, everything existed in balance, while more powerful creatures did exist, they were currently rare, and it would be a testament to someone's luck if they came across one. Most of the monsters humans fought with on a daily basis were on par with themselves or could be fought with large numbers.

Hence the large amounts of goblins, kobolds, lesser lizardfolk, and gnolls, which humans regularly fought with. However, trolls, orcs, ogres, among other things were a class of monsters much higher than humans were capable of fighting, and had been relatively unseen in the world so far.

With all monsters there was a hierarchy, while weak goblins did exist in the lowest of levels, there were also goblinoids significantly stronger, like hobgoblins, goblin champions, bugbears, among others.

The same could be said for the other monsters humans had encountered. The truth was, humans were simply fighting the weakest among the monster races and barely surviving. Though few humans were aware of this.

This was the reasoning as to why most people would never believe Alex's story of encountering the troll because they were incapable of imagining the world had become so complex, and filled with danger. Humanity had been knocked to the bottom of the totem pole overnight, and few humans could accept this reality.

Alex on the other hand never worried about any of this stuff, he never tried to understand the world more than he was capable of discerning on his own. He simply tried to survive and believed in order to do so he would have to become as powerful as possible.

This was why he was more interested in learning about the system humans could use, and how it could benefit him. For him, monsters were merely a matter of XP, something he could use to power himself with. So when he bragged about encountering a troll and surviving, that was something natural to do.

Emily however was not pleased, she told the idiot to be careful, and he ended up being stalked by malicious slayers and put into a near-death situation. Yet he had the gall to brag to her about his own misfortune, and stupidity.

Sometimes she felt as if Alex's brain had been replaced with a fat chunk of muscle. All he cared about was fighting strong opponents and getting stronger. The fact that he claimed his desire to get stronger and fight it out with the troll was all she needed to know about the character of the young man before her.

Still, it's not as if she disliked this foolishness. It was what allowed her to survive up until this point. Her estimation of Alex was that he was equally brave and foolish. She was fairly certain this was an accurate assessment by the way he handled himself.

After flirting around with Emily and secretly handing her a few tavern vouchers for her to use as she pleased, Alex met up with the rest of the gang at the tavern. By the time he arrived those idiots had already gotten drunk without him and he was quite bitter about that.

Still, they spent the rest of the night drinking and boasting about their expedition to any and all who would hear. It was a common practice for slayers to decompress after a mission and spin tales about them.

After telling everyone the wicked nature of the party from B-Gate the tavern could be heard from quite some distance with the drunken slayers cursing out the residents of B-Gate with the vilest of insults.

This was how Alex and his party had spent the remainder of their night, eventually they found their ways back to their residences, and slept off the alcohol in their blood. It would not be until noon of the next day when they had gathered together once more.