"So, how much of the instructions you gave to Eleanor were actually necessary?" Maria asked once Eleanor left.
"Oh, all of it," I said.
"Really? All twenty pages of it? And, your handwriting is so tiny…"
I shrugged. "As I was explaining before Eleanor's success interrupted us, it's too easy to introduce bias to experiments. If I wasn't going to run that experiment again later, I wouldn't have let her run it. Her attitude alone might ruin the experiment."
She didn't look convinced. "If you say so," she still agreed as she crossed her arms. "But, for the moment, should we go to the fourth floor?"
I paused for a moment, considering the merits of setting a fully-fledged base here, but decided against it. The first floor didn't have enough monsters to keep us supplied with mana, considering the scale I planned to work at. "Sure, let's go," I said.
Security was a concern, but not a big one. All I needed was to check the second floor once every half an hour. Without the mist to block my gaze, keeping the dungeon safe was considerably easier. There would be no ambushes prepared that could avoid my notice.
As we moved down, we discussed upcoming technical challenges, and how we could improve our coordination even further. "Too bad we can't sell what we craft without creating a commotion," Maria admitted with a sigh. "I might try to reach my contacts, but most of those contacts I acquired through my family and…"
"You don't know which ones you can trust, and which ones will immediately inform Thomas," I said. "Understandable."
"It's not that I'm afraid of that little snot," Maria said. "But, his external support scares me."
"I'm guessing you're referring to those men that had transformed into monsters," I said.
"Exactly. I have never heard of something like that before. He always had shady friends, but something like that… no, it's above his grade."
I just nodded. Ultimately, I knew too little about her family situation and the rest of the world to even help her brainstorm, let alone actually help her come to a useful conclusion. "Let's not waste our time theorizing about a motive," I said. "We just need to focus on how to get stronger. So long as we can do that in secret, we can shatter their plans."
Maria nodded. "Yeah. Even if we can't figure out a way to give Eleanor Essence, having better weapons would multiply her combat efficiency."
"In the worst case, we can help get her a Legendary skill," I added.
"As far as consolation prizes go, that's a good one," she agreed. "Finding a Legendary skill that fits her style is already enough of a challenge. Then, there's the Stat requirements to absorb those skills…"
"Exactly," I said. "Still, we need to figure out the best way to help her. We're still poking around blindly, and developing a proper theory would take a significant time."
"Too bad we don't have too much time," Maria said. "If it wasn't for his last trick, I would have assumed that Thomas was at his limit and would be leaving us alone, but that's clearly not the case. Those men that were somehow able to absorb the dungeon miasma is not something our family knows of."
"You suspect external support."
"Yes," she said, but I could see her hesitancy. She clearly didn't want to vocalize her other suspicion, which was that his supporters were a part of the Griffin family. I let that slide. As long as she was aware of the possibility, there was no point talking about it. "I'm afraid that he'll come up with something even more devastating next. We probably have at most a month before we start selling the shells, and it'll make whoever this mysterious supporter will push him to attack again."
"True," I said even as I took a step to the side, dodging another monster as we moved deeper into the dungeon. "But, a month should be enough to qualitatively improve our power, enough to deal with whatever nasty surprise he has."
"You think so?" she said.
"Yes. With the dungeon tamed, we can operate all three floors with ease, and even systematically exploiting the fourth floor is sustainable, meaning we could improve all two thousand to above level twenty-five with upgraded classes, with all of them armed with at least an Uncommon skill, each armed with the gear I made for them."
She paused for a second, no doubt running the calculations far more accurately than the rough calculation I had done. "Unless we have to collect Rare Nurture as skill stones," she said.
"Yeah, that assumes a significant portion will be able to improve naturally," I replied.
"What if none of them can?" she countered.
"Then, we'll have less of them. Maybe five hundred?" I said. She nodded, showing that the number made sense. "It'll be worse, particularly if their next attack is against the town."
She paused. "I wanted to say that even he isn't that much of a madman, but…" she said, her voice fading. "I wouldn't put it past him to deliberately trigger a monster horde against us."
"Against a proper town, it's very difficult. Collecting and directing enough monsters to overwhelm the defenses is enough of a challenge, especially since the other towns would send out their elites to deal with it, to prevent their town from being the next one."
"And, since we're so far away from the other towns, no one has to to keep themselves safe."
"Exactly," she said. "There's a reason we were able to take over this dungeon on the cheap," she said. I didn't ask her what she meant by cheap, as I had a feeling the number would have scared me. After all, there was a difference between a cheap dinner and a cheap yacht. I didn't want to distract myself with a pointless tangent.
"How long in advance do you think we would get warned against a monster horde?" I asked.
"Two weeks at a minimum," she said. "We have daily patrols in the sky, and even the smallest monster wave is not stealthy. We would catch them easily."
"I see," I muttered, then I paused, wondering just how easily I could help people level up. "How far away is the nearest location with environmental mana?" I asked.
"If we're willing to brave through some dangerous locations, four hours at this pace," she said.
I nodded. This meant that, as long as we traveled light, an overnight trip should be enough to help the farmers level up. And, with a two-week notice, we should be able to level all of them up as long as I armed them properly and brought them to the fifth floor.
Not exactly an ideal option, as the moment we showed our advanced weaponry, the secret would be out. I wasn't naive enough to think that I could convince two thousand people to keep it a secret, and the moment they realized we could access the fifth floor, they should realize we had killed multiple dungeon bosses.
The vision advantage was good, but it was hardly a decisive advantage it had proven to be so far if the enemy prepared for it.
"The ability to rapidly help them acquire better classes means that we should be able to raise enough forces to deal with any monster waves," I said.
"At least, the ordinary ones," she said. "It would be harder to deal with the giant ones," she said. I curled an eyebrow. "You can think of them as the equivalent to a dungeon boss. Large, stronger, often with some kind of dangerous ability," she said. "The lack of environmental mana means that they won't be as dangerous as they could be, but still, they might be problematic, especially if they came with abilities that can counter me."
If it wasn't for her performance against the dungeon boss, I might have assumed that she was exaggerating a bit. With that, even her offhanded mention took precedence. "Do you think that's likely?" I said.
"In a natural monster horde that would approach our town, next to impossible," she said. "There's no location with enough mana to actually support that kind of a monster, so it requires a lucky dungeon break. But, if it's an artificial one … it feels almost inevitable."
"And, how would it counter you? Some kind of magic resistance, enhanced mobility, invisibility."
She sighed, forlorn. It was the first time I saw her in such a deep loss. "Frankly, all of them are possible. Maybe I made a mistake trying to force the issue of breaking through the level hundred barrier. Maybe we should stop this venture before it's too late."
A part of me was tempted to encourage her to do that. Unfortunately, I genuinely didn't think that it was the best path. Not for her, not for myself. Not even for the thousands of farmers who chose to risk their lives to join a new town.
"Don't worry. Two weeks is more than plenty to develop a special counter. If we can help Eleanor figure out how to use mana, her lethality would multiply significantly. Together, we should be able to deal with any beast that relies on invisibility or mobility."
"What if it has other abilities," she said.
"Then, we can find a different solution. Like siege weapons."
"We can't purchase more, at least not the kind that could help against the kinds of beasts we'd need help dealing with," she said. "They are good against the weaker mobs, but against stronger monsters, they quickly turn useless."
I thought about offering to start coming up with better variants, but after some thought, I decided against it. Finding the secret behind the natural skill upgrades, improving my class skills, figuring out the principles behind the mana attacks, developing a better system of mass production, designing better defenses for the town …
No, my list of activities was already too crowded. But, it might change if I could reach Legendary Forging.
The rest of the journey had been filled with various topics of strategic significance, where we did our best to discuss the processes necessary for the next steps.