"You surprised me yesterday. I thought you were going to die of a mana core explosion. How did you survive?"
Layla appeared in front of Eren when he was done practising his ranking technique. He had already gotten fresh, ate enough food for his storage and used a bunch of recovery potions on himself.
"Well, I don't know myself."
Eren said plainly, which was the truth. But he found it odd that Layla didn't ask or care about the other feats that he had pulled off. As if she was expecting a series of miracles from him. He didn't press the matter. The less he talked about it the better it would be for him.
"Hm. Maybe my master is just that talented. Anyway, I hope you are ready. The wraiths aren't going to be the only opponents you'd be fighting on the first floor.
With each passing day, the number of opponents in the daylight and at night would increase. So you won't have it easy even if you find an efficient strategy to cull the numbers."
'Hm? What does she mean by her master being great?'
Eren felt puzzled at first. He became irritated by the fact that the number of monsters he had to fight would keep on increasing - making his battle strategies useless. He sighed and let the caretaker finish her job in silence.
Layla looked at Eren from head to toe as if she wanted to ask him something more. But then she shook her head as if thinking about something and summoned an array some meters away from where they stood.
"What is it this time?"
The array began to light up, signalling that whoever would battle Eren would soon appear from the same. While being vigilant about it, he asked Layla.
"Oh don't worry. This time, there's only a bunch of mana beasts you are about to fight. They are in the same rank as you. It's just the number you'd have to worry about. A new batch would appear as soon as you are done with the first batch.
Don't try to underperform here, Eren. The more you kill, the better your rewards will be after the completion of each full day. So you might want to consider putting all out in every battle."
Eren furrowed his brows after hearing Layla's reply. He asked to confirm:
"You mean to say I'd get rewards every day for seven days based on the number of opponents I kill? How would you calculate my skills and what would be the rewards?"
Layla smiled cunningly after hearing Eren's reply. She waved her hands replied casually like it was her stuff that she was giving out to him for free:
"Oh, nothing fancy really. Just some higher-ranked artefacts and potions. How did you like that miasma potion I created? You used that on those preys of yours, didn't you? The potions that will be offered as rewards will be at least of that calibre.
More, if you can perform better. Like I said, nothing much! Nothing much. Hahaha!"
Eren had creases on his forehead from the bratty behaviour of Layla. But he didn't let it get to him and asked patiently:
"And how would I know about my progress?"
Layla opened her eyes wide as if she had forgotten something very significant. Then she scratched her right cheek and flashed an awkward smile before speaking up:
"Aaah! I might have forgotten to give you a tracking array. It was... you see... supposed to let you know about your progress in terms of the battle points. So the progress you made yesterday… you know... Hehehe!"
The creases on Eren's forehead increased as he heard Layla talking again. He felt like strangling the incompetent brat for her negligence. What kind of caretaker of a separate dimension of this scale forgets about such a crucial thing?
"Are you perhaps gone senile because of all the years you had to spend in here?"
Eren asked with a psycho smile on his face. He nearly died last night. And all that had turned into a fruitless endeavour. It would have been better if she hadn't told him about the rewards. Now all he could think about was how his efforts had gone into the drain.
Layla puffed her cheeks after hearing Eren's diss:
"How rude! You shouldn't ask a lady's age. You are a mannerless man, Eren Idril. You are most likely to get in trouble with high-ranked ladies if you pull the same stunt on them. Hmph!"
'Meh! I already have and survived.'
Eren thought to himself before letting things be. There was no point in arguing with someone who looked and behaved like a teenager.
"Alright. Just forget it. Give me the tracker now. I don't want to miss out on earning my battle points anymore."
Eren asked slowly, laced with frustration. This dungeon was more pain in the ass than he thought. It was lucrative, no doubt. But a pain in the ass indeed.
Layla pointed her index finger at Eren as if she was about to accuse him of something. But then she also let the matter go because it was her mistake in the first place. She tried to make amends though:
"Hmph! I'm not as petty as you, Eren Idril. By the powers vested in me by the master, I will grant you 100 battle points for yesterday's kill.
Usually, a battle point is counted after every monster kill. If their levels are lower than yours, it may take two or more monsters to give you one battle point.
You didn't kill wraiths worth 100 battle points yesterday. So aren't you happy now that you profited from bullying a young, innocent girl?"
Layla explained to Eren how the first floor's reward system worked. Then she generated a small array a few centimetres levitating from the palm of her right hand before sending it towards Eren.
The butcher didn't have to do anything. The tracker array was absorbed by Eren's right-hand palm as soon as it came in contact with it. It showed the number 100 written over the palm when he opened it up in front of him.
By now the teleportation array had come into action. It lit up brightly in a blinding light before allowing a bunch of mana beasts to enter the place.
Eren felt the chill run down his back first when he sensed the beasts' presence with his mana sense. Then he saw the creatures' appearance after the array's blinding lights faded out.
"What the fuck are those?"
Eren asked Layla angrily– as if he had been tricked by the little girl into doing something he wasn't supposed to do. The latter smiled and waved her hands at him and started to fade away. Her voice was heard in his ears before she completely disappeared:
"These are the special mana beasts I created and raised using my master's help. You won't find any official name given to them yet because they don't exist outside.
I just call them… Draconic Lizards. They are pretty, aren't they? Hehe! Best of luck and bye-bye!"
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AN: Illustration of Draconic Lizards has been uploaded on Discord and Insta.