“Hiyaaaa!” Henri screamed, swinging his sword without any technique at the rat monster in front of him.
Instead of hitting it with the bladed side, he ended up hitting the rat with the flat side of his sword instead, smacking it away like he was using a baseball bat instead of a sword.
We managed to fight our way to the second floor after a long trek through the first floor.
Surprisingly, we did not encounter any other groups while we were there so either we were moving faster than everyone or, more likely, slower than everyone else.
I believe we should be slower since we did not see anymore monsters after that so I assume the people who came before us had already cleared out the monsters around this floor.
Since there weren’t any monsters here, there wasn’t much we could do which also meant we could not accomplish our initial goal of getting used to each other within the same party.
That’s why we were all of the same opinion to go down a floor lower to test it out.
The monsters were still the same on this floor as the previous one, the only difference was that there were more of them than before.
Tika was busy with fending off three rats herself while Jules was occupied with one on his own.
As for me… I only have one Weakened Dungeon Rat to fight with and I was intentionally taking my time with it.
The rat tried to leap at me but I’d already discovered its attack patterns so I was able to just take a small step to the side to avoid it.
It then turned around and tried to do the same thing again which meant that I just needed to do the same exact side step to avoid that attack too.
Of course, if I was just doing it normally, the lesson would have been meaningless to me. That’s why I was taking this chance to improve my dexterity skill by moving as little and as late as possible.
I also had to keep an eye out on the rest of my party since I have to kill it right after they have killed their own enemies before they figure out I was intentionally taking my time with it.
It wasn’t much, but at least it was better than nothing.
Plus, Odeta seemed to be quite entertained by it and she was watching me intently as I continued to avoid the rat despite being able to kill it whenever I wanted.
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Tika swinging her sword in a horizontal arc and cut through two of the rats in a single swing, leaving only one of the rats for her to deal with.
At the same time, Jules defeated his opponent as well, though not as elegantly as Tika.
He ended up tripping over his own foot before he unintentionally fell on top of the rat, crushing it underneath his own weight and killing it.
Really anticlimactic, I know.
Henri did not fare any better either since he killed his rat by swinging his sword and missing it entirely, only for the rat to hit its head on his arm before spinning into the air and falling back down on its head, breaking its neck.
I’m not even making any of this up.
Oh well… It was their first actual fight anyway so it’s arguably quite impressive for them to be able to do this much already… Is what I’d like to say if they weren’t freaking out right now.
“Ahhhh! I fell on top of that rat! Ahhhh! My clothes are all sticky!” Jules cried out.
On the other hand, Henri was looking around all confused, “Eh? Is it already dead? But… I didn’t kill it? Wh… Who?”
I went ahead to slash my sword down from above my head after the rat tried to leap at me again, cutting it into half.
Ignoring the two brothers, I directed my attention back to Tika who just managed to block the jump attack from the rat with the flat of her blade, allowing her to slam it down on the ground before stabbing it through the head with her sword.
Well… For a first real battle, I’d say it wasn’t so bad, all things considered…
Tika turned to us, “Wow! As expected of Special Class students! All of you managed to deal with your opponents quite easily!”
I’d say whether that was easy or not was subjective but whatever, I won’t take that proud moment from them.
I cleaned my sword with a spare cloth before sheathing it, an action that Henri noticed.
“Eh? Do we need to do that too, Aster?”
“Hmm? You mean cleaning the blade before storing it? Umm… Kind of? If you’re planning to use your sword for a long time of course. Otherwise your blade might start to rust.”𝑜𝗏𝓁xt.𝗇𝓔t
Well… Not like I’m really attached to this sword since this is just a normal steel sword that you can get from the shop… Still a little bummed that I lost that enchanted sword though… I wonder if it’s possible to get another one as a Dungeon reward or something.
Otherwise… I guess I could just go buy one from an auction or something, seeing that I do find myself in the possession of quite a bit of money after all.
Then again, I probably only need such a weapon only after I have started on my journey so I’m in no rush to get one yet.
Tika was looking at me while wiping her own blade, “Aster really knows a lot! I heard you were actually twelve years old?”
“Actually… I turned thirteen just a few days ago,” I explained while sheathing my sword.
“What?! I thought that was a joke! Are you really younger than I am?! But you’re so… So… So mature!”
Well… If we’re going by my real age, I would say I’m past my thirties already but that’s beside the point…
I shrugged, “My Mother does say that I mature faster than most people even amongst Meslatars.”
“I thought for sure that Aster was one of those older students who only recently decided to start school or something… But I suppose you are still older than most people in your school year.”
I shrugged, “I was supposed to enrol two years ago but some things happened and I had to be delayed for two years.”
Odeta gasped, “Oh! That’s really lucky! I would not have been able to join sister Aster if you came here two years ago! Sister Ardi was still training me back at home at that time!”
Huh… So it’s actually quite fortunate that my enrolment was delayed by two years I see.
“But to think that Aster was younger than I am all this time and yet have so many skills… Ughh… I have so much more to learn…” Tika cried.
I patted her back, “No need to worry, Tika! I… I err… I guess you can say I’m an anomaly! So don’t need to worry yourself about it!”
Odeta came to back me up too, “Yeah! Sister Aster is special! There’s no one else that is as special as she is!”
Err… Somehow that just sounds like you’re insulting everyone else so let’s just not go there, ok?
I decided to change the topic, “A… Anyway! Umm… I think we did pretty good with our first group fight, right? None of us were hurt that badly either!”
Henri and Jules ended up getting hit by a few tackles from the rats they were fighting but there were no serious injuries from that since their clothes managed to absorb the brunt of the blow.
Tika, being successfully distracted by my change in topic, leapt up to her feet excitedly, “That’s right! Everyone is so great! All of you are able to handle a monster like this alone!”
“Eh? But earlier on in the school year, we were brought out to the forest to fight monsters and we had to fight goblins though…” I pointed out.
“Ah, but that was having a group fight against a single monster right? This one is different!”
That… Was definitely not what happened since I distinctly remember that we had come across a group of six goblins despite there being five of us. It should have also been the first time that most of the students were experiencing live combat for the first time too.
Ah, wait a minute… Pretty much every other group we came across in that forest had the number advantage against those monsters, so maybe it was just a case of us being really unlucky?
Damnit, I bet it’s all because of that stupid Andrew and his bad karma for being such an idiot that caused that to happen!
At least now I know that wasn’t normal…
That reminds me…
“Are you two ok?” I asked the brothers. “You guys do realise that you have just killed something, right? No shortage of breath, a fear of death or trauma of any kind?”
Jules looked at me in concern, “Umm… These are just monsters, aren’t they, Aster? Why would we feel anything from killing them?”
Oh… I guess they’re that sort of person… In that case… Nevermind, let’s just continue~