Chapter 432: Exploits

I blinked several times in surprise. "Already?"

Vee nodded. "I don't think you've realized how many monsters we've killed. You've been having too much fun fooling around, as usual…" Vee said jokingly.

This was an actual joke, not her teasing me, as even right now, my slime ant princess with entourage and my slime hydra were roaming the castle halls. In theory, it was possible she had achieved it already, especially since all of my personas and I were fighting on multiple fronts, but it still felt too fast.

Or am I giving Vee the racial experience I would get from my personas for free?

There were so many factors at play that it was hard to know what was going on. Even when I looked at my notifications and saw that [Companion Growth] had now reached level twelve, that wasn't enough to paint the full picture.

Huh? I seem to have gained several levels myself…

<19 Skill Points are now available.>

<12 Trait Points are now available.>

Regardless of the party setup, my personal distribution was favored toward my class. Yet despite that, I'd gained two racial levels, and considering my high monster tier, too, that was a lot. My class had gained three levels, which sounded more reasonable considering it was my focus.

It looks like I'm getting more experience from my personas than I realized… Why else would I get two racial levels? And if I'm passing that onto Vee, and [Companion Growth] is also doing its own adjustments, then who knows how many shenanigans we've accidentally pulled off.

"Are you still fussing over the numbers?" Vee asked. "Just be happy they went up and embrace that dopamine hit!"

"Sorry… I am happy, but I still like to have a semblance of an idea of what happened. Not just for my own curiosity, but to see if it can be repeated."

"That's understandable," Vee agreed. "If we've stumbled upon a bit of a hidden trick, then we should exploit it to the extreme before it gets nerfed. So what's bugging you?"

"Well… The wendigos. Even though we are fighting their mutated forms, I feel like you and I are still being penalized for doing so. Like we've killed too many of them since we entered?"

"I think I get what you mean. Like, arguably, if we reached this point on the first try, we'd be getting even more rewards?"

"Exactly. But despite that, we seem to be getting the experience anyway? I assume through my personas… But I can't understand why."

"Well, they weren't here with us until now. So maybe they haven't received the debuff for farming too many kills?" Vee suggested.

"But that shouldn't be the case… Technically speaking, they are me."

"What if the system doesn't see it that way? Why else would they get their own class levels? Alternatively, maybe you're fooling the labyrinth with your slimy shenanigans."

I shrugged. The reason probably didn't matter; all that mattered was that we were likely benefiting from the personas being seen as new arrivals. In theory, I could exploit this by mass-producing personas, but that felt like a step too far even for me, and judging by my ants and wolves not granting the same benefit, it was clear they needed to be special.

"So, do you have your big surprise evolution?"

"Oh! I'd better check. I swear if Qhilleeqeth scammed me, I'm going to sick Sylbera on her…" Vee mumbled before going silent for a moment. "Ah! There it is! Yes! She didn't lie to me."

"Make sure you don't accidentally pick it now, or you'll miss the boss fight."

"I would never do something that stupid. Plus, who knows how long I'll be out? It could be a month for all I know. I need to make sure I've got a safe spot and plenty of food stored in my stomach."

That last part was probably not needed, but I didn't bother correcting her. I was just happy she was so excited, and I could practically feel the optimism leaking out of her. My curiosity was at an all-time high, but Vee had insisted that the evolution be a surprise, so I didn't press further.

What would a humanoid spider even look like? Maybe like a human with extra legs coming out of the back, kind of like wings?

But before we could even consider any of that, we needed to finish off this labyrinth. Since Vee didn't really want any further levels at the moment, I adjusted the party distribution again and also helped her adjust her own ratios towards her class using our connected adventurer tags. I had a feeling that it would've all gone to her class anyway, as why would the system allow experience to go to waste, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

"Okay, I think we are almost done with the castle anyway, from what the others are telling me, so we should be able to head to the throne room very soon," I told Vee after relaying the situation to the rest of the group.

"Sounds good to me. I wonder what the boss wendigo will look like?"

"Beats me… I'm just upset I never found a killer weakness against their cursed energy. I'm not worried about fighting it, but it's going to be a war of attrition of epic proportions."

"I wonder if we can request an intermission during the halfway point," Vee joked. "Anyway, I think I've done enough yapping for now. Time to see if I can kill one more myself before you slimes take all the credit."

With that, Vee rushed off, although with how quiet the castle was becoming, she might be hard-pressed to find another target. Even I was in a similar situation, with my minions spread out trying to find any stragglers.

I wasn't sure who claimed the final kill, but when it happened, we all noticed the change. From deep within the castle, an unholy and inhuman roar shrieked, causing the entire structure to tremble at its rage. At the same time, I could sense all of the remaining cursed energy permeating this place being sucked in like a vortex, to the throne room.

We all quickly regrouped a short distance from the location, the doors to the place practically glowing with ominous light from whatever was inside.

"I reckon it was a very good idea that we cleared the castle first and didn't rush the boss," Sylvester said.

"Why?" Sylvain asked. "It looks like it sucked up all the energy anyway. Sure, we would've lost the experience, but I don't see any difference."

"But when we killed them, their energy was halved, or did you forget that part of the explanation?" I asked.

Sylvester nodded at my words, confirming he had the same idea. Sylvain, however, shrugged, as if it didn't matter.

"Think of all that cursed energy gathered up without us halving it first? We might have had to fight the creature for literally days to deplete it," Sylvester explained.

"Or it might have counted as an immediate loss and sent us back to the start…" Vee shuddered. "Too much energy for it to contain, and it goes off like a nuke. Boom, we lose."

While Vee was being a little dramatic, she did have a good point. We probably didn't have to kill every monster before challenging the boss, but it might have been the best outcome. Of course, the pessimistic opinion would be to think that it only absorbed the energy because all the minions were dead, but I didn't voice that intrusive thought.

Since it didn't look like we were rushed, we took the opportunity to share our findings again, though there wasn't much further development. Assuming the boss shared its minions' peculiarities, we could exploit fire and light to control its movements or leave it vulnerable. I was still a bit upset that we hadn't found a surefire weakness against them, but the silver lining was that there were multiple moderately effective methods against them.

Truesilver was the most effective metal against them, but compared to what it did to demons, it was like saying humans were weaker to steel than to iron. Basically, a knife was a knife at the end of the day, and a human would get hurt if stabbed by one, even if one was a bit sharper or sturdier.

The closest thing to a weakness was my newly created [Draining Aura], and unfortunately, I was the only one capable of really using it. My personas sharing all my affinities was a given, but undonated skills still came at a penalty, and with [Death Magic] being so low level, it was compounded. I could've donated a level or two, but that would only reduce my effectiveness rather than really benefitting us.

None of us had found anything useful in the castle itself either, which was a disappointment for Vee, who thought there might be something hidden in here. Sure, there were valuables we threw into storage when we found them, but Vee was expecting some kind of "wendigo slaying sword" to be lying around.

All of that aside, the biggest conundrum we needed to settle was whether we should try dismembering it, and we all had very mixed opinions on the matter. It would make the fight much riskier, but another way to look at it was that by significantly reducing its active time, there was less chance of a screw-up or a change in the situation during a prolonged battle.

Sylvester also pointed out that there was even the chance that it might passively generate enough cursed energy that if we didn't force it into that frenzied state, we might not be able to deplete it. If that were the case, we'd be compelled to power it up to defeat it, regardless of what we wanted.

Well… I do have my secret weapon. I wonder if that will end up being our key to victory?

I hadn't shared my idea with Vee or any of my personas, as I wanted it to be a big surprise for everyone. Regardless of whether we actually needed it or not, I wanted to see what it was capable of, and a stupidly resilient enemy felt like a prime opportunity to do so.

"Master, will we be getting dimensional support like with the demon?" Sylbera asked me.

I sighed and felt out the situation with my [Personal Rift] and by trying to cast a few of my spells. It was better than when I first arrived, as I'd become loosely familiar with the crunched coordinates in the shrunken space, but compared to what I'd done previously, it was a sad sight.

"I can try, although don't expect any miracles," I sighed, shaking my head.

"Hey, you're doing better than me. If not for [Veil Step], I'd be screwed," Vee replied.

Vee was relying entirely on [Triangulate], and even when she tried to force her spells to work with [Mana Shaping], they fizzled out. In a weird twist, because I was learning to live without it and trying to construct my own interpretation of it, I was better off than she was. Either that or perhaps I was getting some kind of an advantage from [Folded Geometry].

It's a pity that expanding the space didn't work…

At the time, it had seemed like a great idea: if the coordinates are screwed up, then unscrew them! However, even attempting to do so caused a violent backlash and was crushed by the oppressive might of this snow globe.

"Don't worry, Master. I'm sure that even one or two timely teleports could be helpful," Sylbera said positively.

"Make sure you save one of them for me. I've come too far to die now," Vee joked.

Sylbera shook her head and sighed. "Mistress Vee, please spare us the gallows humor…"