Reincarnated as the Strongest Dragon

Chapter 26: Dungeon Aftermath

It was late in the evening when Liz emerged from the tent, holding Woxy in her arms like a stuffed animal. She had a confused look on her face when she locked eyes with me.

“Good morning. Did you sleep well?” I asked from my makeshift resting spot made up of two full-size foxlings.

“Uhm, yes, I think? Why was I sleeping? What happened to the dungeon?” Liz frowned as she tried to remember.

“We will get to that, but there is somewhere I would like to go first,” I said and shifted my weight, trying to let Roxy and Boxy know that I wanted to stand up. Roxy responded by putting more weight on my lap, pinning me down.

Aren’t summons supposed to listen to their summoner? 

“Roxy, could you let me go?” I asked while gently pushing his head away from my lap.

“Kyuu~” Roxy cried as he reluctantly stood up and moved away only for Boxy to immediately move and put his head in my lap instead.

Liz started giggling while I took a deep breath and sighed. “That means you too, Boxy.”

After a few playful protests, I was let go and could stand up again. “Are you ready to go?”

“Where are we going?” Liz asked.

 “It’s not far from here,” I said while taking a long cloth from my [Inventory]. “But it’s a surprise, so could you cover your eyes with this?”

“What’s with that mischievous grin? Should I be afraid?”

“Of course not. Don't you trust me?” I asked with a pouting expression.

Liz sighed and put Woxy on the ground before putting on the blindfold. “Don’t do anything weird now.”

I giggled as I moved behind her and picked her up. ”Do you three want to come as well? It’s not far from here.”

I took their inability to stand still as a sign that they wanted to join us and started flying towards the mountain a short distance away. Our destination was at the base of the mountain, which I had scouted before I put up camp. I landed and let Liz down before creating a few balls of dim light with light magic to act as lanterns. 

“Okay, you can remove the blindfold now.”

Liz removed the cloth covering her eyes and was surprised at what she saw. “What is this?”

“It’s a natural hot spring.”

“Natural? It doesn’t look that way.”

“I just made some minor adjustments with earth magic when I found it. A place to sit and a wall around isn’t too much to ask for, right?” I grinned.

“It’s beautiful.”

“I’m glad you think so. Now let’s get in, no need to be shy.” 

I got naked and slowly sat down in the hot water. Liz undressed and followed. My foxlings had caught up but didn’t show much interest in the hot spring and instead sat down nearby.

“I didn’t think I would end the day by sitting in a hot spring in the middle of nowhere with only a few lights to illuminate the darkness. This is lovely.”

I leaned my head against her shoulder. “Hearing that makes finding this place all the more worth it.”

“So, what’s the occasion?” 

“Do I need a special occasion? The guildmaster said this mountain had natural hot springs, so I thought we could check it out. Oh, right! Look at this,” I said and pulled out my new guild card, holding it up with a grin. “What do you think?”

“You got promoted already?” Liz asked while inspecting the card. “Somehow, I’m not even surprised.”

“I will take that as a compliment,” I said as I put my card away and started taking out some easy-to-eat snacks and some drinks. “Are you hungry? You just woke up, after all.”

“Seriously, what’s up?” She asked dubiously. “You are acting way too sweet.” 

“Why do you automatically think something is wrong?”

“So, are you going to tell me what’s going on?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re acting weird. You still haven't told me what happened in the dungeon or why I woke up in the tent.”

“Oh, that… I cleared the dungeon and gave the core to the guild.”

“I figured that out myself since you have your new card. What about me?”

“Well, what’s the last thing you remember?”

Liz rubbed her forehead. “Uhm, I honestly don’t know. It’s a bit fuzzy.”

“I see… Say, have you ever gotten sick when advancing to a new class?”

“You mean promotion sickness?”

“That’s what they are calling it nowadays? Then yes, ever had that?”

“No, I haven't.”

“Do you know why it happens?”

“You mean it isn’t random?”

“Hmm, I see,” I murmured. “I guess I should explain that first then. You know how classes give different benefits, like bonuses to certain types of magic damage and increased stat multipliers for certain stats depending on class?”

“Yeah, like fighter-related classes usually get more strength and agility per level while mages get more intellect and mind, right?”

“Exactly. So what you call promotion sickness is actually just your body being unable to handle the sudden change in stats. For example, if someone with 500 strength changes class and gets a way higher strength multiplier that increases his strength to 800, he will be sore and unable to move well for a few days while his body adjusts. Same with mages, they will get headaches and feel hungover.”

“But then it’s not wrong to call it promotion sickness, right?”

“Uhm, well, I can tell you the rest, but you have to promise you won’t get mad,” I said and looked at her anxiously.

“Huh? Okay, I promise?” She tilted her head at me.

“You can also experience the same thing when you level up too fast, but that basically never happens.”

“Am I supposed to get mad over this?” She gave me a quizzical look.

“Ah, no, but…” I looked away. “I have to stress I did not expect this to happen, okay? So the thing is, uhm…”

Liz took my hand. “Just tell me. I promise I won’t get mad.”

I inhaled deeply. “Okay, so you know how Hanna always talks about things she shouldn't talk about right so when I was at the guild she let slip that you had trouble raising your level because you were mostly solo and had trouble doing higher rank quests and monsters alone and that you were close to your next class and you had all the other requirements and were feeling down about it so I thought maybe I could help you out with just a little push since you said it was your birthday this week and you didn’t want me to buy anything but this wouldn’t count as buying anything so I took you with me to the dungeon which was a good idea up to the fourth floor when you started experiencing promotion sickness but it slipped my mind that that was the case at the time and then a dungeon boss that was three times stronger than I thought it would be came along and due to the bracelet I gave you that have a passive ability that forcibly takes 97% of all the experience from defeated monsters you received a massive amount of experience when the boss died and passed out from all the stats you got,” I breathed heavily from saying everything in one sentence.

She is probably going to be mad. Why did I think that would be a good idea? She said she wanted to be stronger, but people with that kind of conviction usually don’t want to get boosted like it was some MMO dungeon running group. 

“I’m sorry, what are you saying exactly?” 

“... You should probably check your [Status].”

Liz opened her [Status] and went silent.

“I used to be level 92…”

I glanced over to her. “... And now?”

“I’m level 164 now…”

No wonder she passed out after the prismatic hydra if her level was that low. Is 92 even low? For a human it should be decent, right? She is a C rank adventurer, after all.

Neither of us said anything and just stared out into the night sky. After a moment of total silence, Liz spoke. “As I said, I’m not mad.”

“Huh?”

“You wanted to help me, right?”

“Well, of course, but... Earlier, you said you wanted to be stronger, and I thought you wanted to do so by yourself. I kind of forced it on you…”

“Hanna said I had something troubling me, and you went out of your way to give me something for my birthday that would make me feel better, right? And then it went over your estimations, which led me to pass out?”

“That's about right, yeah…”

“What kind of a person would I be if I got mad over something like that?” Liz said and smiled. “I will keep getting stronger. Not like I’m done adventuring anytime soon.”

I turned around and hugged her. “Thank you. I’m sorry I didn’t say anything before.”

“Wouldn’t have been much of a surprise if you did, right?” She grinned.

“I will try to avoid making you pass out the next time I want to surprise you.”

“I appreciate it,” Liz giggled.

“By the way, do you want something more to snack on? You devoured everything I took out already.”

“Yeah, I’m quite hungry. I haven't eaten anything after breakfast, and it’s already late evening.”

I already dropped one bomb on her. Why stop now?

“Hah... Yeah...” I pulled out some more snacks. “I forgot to ask, when is your birthday? You said this week but not which day.”

“Didn’t I tell you? It’s in two days.”

“About that… Uhm, happy birthday?”

Liz looked at me and raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

“So you kind of overslept from the promotion sickness… By two days. Today is Friday”

Liz's eyes widened. “I have been asleep for over two days?”

“Yeah, you slept like a rock for two whole days and a few hours after you passed out.”

“No wonder I’m hungry. What did you do during that time?”

“I flew to the capital to report. Then I came back and scouted this place. After that, I just waited for you to wake up.”

“You waited the whole time?”

“I didn’t know when you would wake up.”

“Now I feel bad that you had to spend two days doing nothing.”

“I don’t think you need to feel bad considering why you passed out. If anything, I should apologize again.”

“You went out of your way to give me something for my birthday even though we just met, and you even found a beautiful hot spring? I think I can forgive you,” Liz grinned.

“Oh right, you can keep the necklace as well. I’m going to need the bracelet back, though. Pretty sure some humans would kill for it if they found out what it did.”

“Is it that dangerous?”

“It lets you forcibly take 97% of all experience. For example, a noble could take it and pay adventurers to kill monsters for him to gain levels fast. Or some adventurer could screw over his party members and take their experience without them even knowing. Overall dangerous item.”

“That makes sense,” She said and took it off. “Why do you even have such an item?”

“I made it ages ago when I was bored. Good to finally see a use for it.”

Liz let out a deep sigh. “And the necklace? What does that do?”

“Oh, that one? It protects you… So you know, never take it off.”

Liz squinted and looked me in the eyes. “So, What does it do?”

“If you channel mana into it, you will create a telenode that lasts roughly one hour. I will also sense if you do that.”

“What’s a telenode?”

“Uhm, basically, you lock down your position as a place that I can use [Translocation] to teleport to.”

“You can teleport?!” Liz blurted out.

“Only to telenodes.”

“So when am I supposed to use it then?”

I put a finger on my cheek and tilted my head. “Hmm… When you find yourself in more danger than you can handle?” 

“So, channel mana into the necklace if I think I’m about to die?”

“That’s about it. I hope you won’t have to use it, but just to be safe.”

“Can you create telenodes some other way than with this necklace?”

“There's a spell called [Create Telenode], which uses a non-attribute magic stone as a catalyst, but it needs to be a big one. The magic stone from the behemoth could be used to make one that lasts for a few years.”

“And you could teleport freely to any telenodes as often as you wanted?”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“Sometimes I forget just how amazing you really are.”

“Anyone could do things like that if they had thousands of years with nothing better to do,” I shrugged.

“I wonder.”

“By the way, do you want to sleep in the tent tonight, or do you want to go back to the capital?”

“I just woke up so I don’t think I could sleep either way.”

“That’s true… Then how about we go back to the capital to the fanciest inn and see if we can get kicked out for being too loud?” I said with a smirk.

Liz blushed. “I can’t afford something like that.”

“It’s your birthday, my treat.”

“Can we at least keep it below the point where we get kicked out?”

“No promises.”