Shortly before we reached the forest, I decided to ask Philia a question.
"You mentioned you could use magic, but how proficient are you?"
She had told me she could cast spells, but I hadn't gotten a clear grasp of her actual skill level.
Remembering that, I figured I should find out.
"Well, both are Level 2, but it'd probably be faster to just show you, right?"
"If you use it now, will you still have enough mana to fight monsters in the forest?"
"I'll be fine. As long as we take breaks, I won't run out of mana that easily."
Since Philia sounded confident, I asked her to demonstrate.
Although both of her elemental affinities were at the same level, she seemed better at water magic.
Since we were heading into the forest, water magic was much safer to use anyway, which was a relief.
With that, Philia prepared to cast a spell right before my eyes.
"...Amazing."
I hadn't seen magic cast in person very often.
Philia's spell packed decent power, and her incantation speed was remarkably fast.
"How was that?"
"It was great. Good power, and the casting speed was fast, too."
"Ehehe, I'm not much for studying, but I love training, so I worked hard to get this far!"
Clearly pleased by the praise, Philia beamed with pride.
Having confirmed her capabilities, we continued directly into the forest.
Rather than heading toward a dungeon, we ventured deeper into areas where monsters roamed.
"A slime, huh? That's a great first target."
"There are three of them, though. Will we be okay?"
"When I was exploring alone, I could handle up to three at once. With you here, it should be even easier."
After saying that, I went over our plan with Philia before we closed in on the slimes.
"Spirit of water, lend me your strength! Water Ball!"
Philia unleashed her spell, firing it straight toward one of the slimes.
The blast shattered its core, killing it on the spot.
Having already closed the distance, I slashed the core of the second slime.
With two of their numbers dropping in an instant, the final slime lunged to attack me.
However, I deflected its strike with my shield, knocking it back and creating some breathing room.
Philia circled around behind it.
She brought her staff down, shattering the slime's core and wiping out all three monsters.
"Nice moves, Philia."
"That was so much fun! How did I do?"
"For our first battle together, I think it went great."
In all honesty, that was my genuine assessment.
We had taken them down far more reliably than I ever could alone, and having a partner greatly expanded our situational awareness.
Fights that used to be precarious on my own would now be safe and consistent as a pair.
Encouraged by our success, I gathered the materials from the defeated slimes, and we moved on to search for the next monster.
"That's a goblin over there, right? Are we not going to fight it?"
"...I haven't fought one yet. To be honest, aren't humanoid monsters a little intimidating?"
"Ah, yeah, I get that... but we'll have to fight them eventually, won't we?"
"Yeah. But we just formed our party, so for now, I want to stick to slimes and focus on building our coordination."
Philia nodded in agreement, and we quietly slipped past the goblin without drawing its attention.
From there, we repeated the routine of locating slimes, eliminating them, and moving on to the next area.
When the first evening bell finally echoed across the plains, we began our trek back to the royal capital.
Upon returning, we headed straight for the Adventurer's Guild to submit our quest report and claim the reward.
In total, we had defeated sixty slimes.
The payout came out to 30 copper coins, which we split evenly, taking 15 coins each.
With our business finished, we stepped outside the guild.
"Erik-kun, thank you for today. Thanks for heading out with me on such short notice."
"It was a great experience for me, too. Do you want to go out again tomorrow afternoon?"
"Yeah! If you're up for it, I'd love to. Are you sure?"
"I can't go in the morning because of town requests, but the afternoon works fine. It's best if we eat lunch beforehand, so how about meeting at the Adventurer's Guild within thirty minutes after the first noon bell rings?"
Philia nodded eagerly, sealing our plans to head out together again tomorrow.
Since we were staying at different inns, we parted ways outside the guild, and I headed back to my room.
Once back, I ate dinner, took a bath, and retreated to my quarters to check my status screen.
◇
Monster defeated.
1 EXP gained.
100/100 to next level.
◇
◇
Level increased.
0/100 to next level.
◇
✤
Name: Erik
Age: 10
Level: 3
Strength: 12
Mana: 12
Stamina: 12
Agility: 12
Dexterity: 12
Skills
[Swordsmanship: 2] [Physical Enhancement: 1] [Cleaning: 4]
Special Skill
[Fixed EXP]
Divine Protection
——
✤
My level had gone up.
Upon reaching Level 3, every single one of my attributes had increased by exactly 1.
"I thought it might have been a coincidence last time, but it really looks like my stats are fixed to only gain 1 point each."
Looking over the stat gains, I suddenly recalled something from before.
When I did strength training, I had earned EXP for my Strength stat.
Since then, I hadn't done any deliberate physical training, which meant I hadn't been gaining any EXP for my base stats.
"Maybe I should start incorporating some of that into my morning workouts."
My Swordsmanship skill had also leveled up.
There was no immediate rush to push it to Level 3, so I could afford to allocate some of my time toward raising my core stats.
With my routine for tomorrow decided, I lay down in bed and drifted off to sleep.