Gauss listened to his companions rambling, but didn’t offer any comnt.
Right now, he wasn’t particularly short on money.
Of course, money is always a good thing—nobody ever complains about having too much of it. With enough, he could buy better clothes, boots, weapons, or even hire soone to train him.
But for now, he could get by without it.
One of his original goals for saving up had been to buy a magic staff. But that plan seed to have stalled.
He did get the bone staff, and it suited him remarkably well. It felt like a natural extension of his body, needing almost no adjustnt at all.
The problem was, even soone as experienced as Andernie the halfling hadn’t found a compatible core for her staff after all these years. Gauss figured it was probably unrealistic to think he could just buy one.
Plus, even without a core, the bone staff was more than enough for soone at the apprentice level like him.
So there was no rush to complete it.
Munching on his breakfast, Gauss began planning his next steps.
His total monster kills in the bestiary had surpassed 50.
The next milestone was 100.
That didn’t sound too hard, but it’d still take so ti.
Assuming he could kill 10 monsters per quest, he’d need around 5 more missions.
Reaching 100 kills would guarantee another bump to his physical attributes.
Right now, his stats were:
Strength: 5
Agility: 6
Constitution: 6
Intelligence: 7
Perception: 5
Charisma: 5
Compared to when he first arrived in this world, this was a huge improvent—no longer a complete pushover across the board.
He had gained 1 each in Intelligence, Constitution, and Agility.
This pushed him one step further ahead of the average low-tier adventurer.
Before, thanks to mastering Magic Missile, he was already one of the more competent apprentice-level mages.
Now, with the addition of Mage Armor, a previously glaring weakness was patched up. With his above-average Agility, Constitution, and Intelligence, very few low-tier adventurers could beat him in a one-on-one fight.
Most apprentices couldn’t even cast three different spells at once—yet he could. And on top of that, he had three attributes above the norm.
So once this mission was over, his top priority would be training Mage Armor.
He ntally bumped Mage Armor to the highest priority slot.
Survival cos before damage.
In fact, he wasn’t even planning to take another quest until he got at least Lvl. 2 mastery in Mage Armor. At lvl. 2, he’d be able to cast it smoothly in most situations.
Once that was in place, he’d think about taking a new monster-hunting contract.
His goal was to gather five monster types in his bestiary and unlock a talent draw.
Right now, he had Goblin, Sli, Skeleton, and Water Ghoul.
Just one more to unlock a talent roll.
He wasn’t sure what kind of ability he’d get—but he wasn’t expecting anything amazing, given those monsters weren’t exactly top-tier threats. One of them was practically an embarrassnt to the word “monster.”
Still, a passive ability or sothing that improved training efficiency could be surprisingly helpful.
Then there was the issue of choosing his core skill.
He ntally cycled through the three spells etched into his mind:
Mage Hand
Magic Missile
Mage Armor
All of them had pros and cons.
But Gauss had confidence. With the adventurer’s manual in his possession, no matter which one he chose as his core skill, its growth potential would eventually make it powerful.
Mage Hand was highly versatile, Magic Missile had powerful offensive capabilities, and Mage Armor—well, that one was universally useful across all phases of his career.
And it was precisely that potential and flexibility that made the decision so difficult.
“Whatever. I’ll see how it goes later. Either way, I need to focus on training Mage Armor first to boost my survivability,” Gauss told himself, deciding to stop overthinking it.
After the recent encounter with a ghoul, his sense of self-preservation had skyrocketed.
You never knew what kind of unexpected enemy might appear during a supposedly “low-level” quest.
Gaining new abilities was aningless unless you properly trained them and turned them into real combat power. Rushing into another job without preparation was asking for trouble.
“I’ll check my progress once I start training again. If Mage Armor levels up quickly, I’ll designate it as my core skill. In theory, it should be fast—it can be practiced anywhere, anyti, no special conditions needed.”
Even careful Gauss was starting to lean toward Mage Armor. But he knew the final decision would depend on actual training results.
If it turned out to be slow or inefficient to level, no matter how much he liked it, he couldn’t afford to waste ti.
Between the two Level 1 spells, he’d go with whichever progressed faster.
By the ti breakfast was finished, Gauss had clarified his entire ga plan.
The Night Owl team headed cautiously back toward the riverside where they’d fought the night before.
In daylight, the riverbank was littered with chunks of flesh, dried blood, and scattered guts—but the ghoul was gone.
So were the water ghoul corpses.
Given how many there were, it was unlikely the ghoul ate them all in one night. Most likely, it had dragged them off to a lair as stored food.
Not long after, Harvey arrived with a few strong n.
When they saw the wreckage left behind, any lingering doubts Harvey had were instantly erased.
There were tons of water ghoul remains, proving that a major fight had indeed taken place.
Upon further inspection, Harvey’s n even found traces unique to ghouls in the cracks between rocks—gray-white hyena-like fur, claw marks in the dirt, and strange translucent sheddings like mbrane.
These details confird Leavin’s group wasn’t lying.
There was no reason to go to such lengths faking a scene after already defeating so many enemies.
In the end, Gauss and his team received an official verification letter and set off from the fishing village.
Whether Harvey and the other villagers chose to issue a new bounty through the Adventurers’ Guild or cross their fingers and hope the problem was gone was no longer Gauss’s concern.
…
On the road back
The group had smiles on their faces once again.
Harvey had honored his promise and paid out the 20 silver coins as a bonus.
And with the signed, stamped verification letter confirming they’d taken down 20 water ghouls, they’d be entitled to another 20 silver coins upon returning to Grayrock Town.
They could also sell off the remaining water ghoul materials for a few more silver.
All in all, everyone would walk away with 7–8 silver each—a very profitable run.
Gauss was eager to return to the safety of town and start training his new spell, hoping to quickly internalize everything he’d gained from this adventure.
As anticipation filled the air, the outline of the gray-brown border town slowly ca into view on the horizon.
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