It has been a few days since the end of the siege battle and there had been no other response from the Capital of the Reschbauch Kingdom. Still, even during this time of waiting for the storm to come, the lives of the normal citizens continued on. During this time Valdel was helping around the city. He left Zwei and Nika back at the dorm as he wanted to be alone for today. Kuro and the other girls were also doing their thing. As he was walking through the streets almost everyone greeted him. Since at this point, most of the people knew who he was and were quite happy to see him. Valdel smiled and answered everyone"s greetings, he even knew their names. In the city of New Grenton Valdel was the most liked person and was also the most eligible bachelor. Many n.o.ble families who have allied themselves to New Grenton were trying their best to push their daughters into marriage with Valdel. They knew that among the people on the top Valdel was the closest to Ren who was now practically the ruler of New Grenton. So establis.h.i.+ng blood ties with Valdel was for the best, since doing so with Ren seems impossible.
So sometimes as Valdel was walking around town some n.o.ble would accidentally b.u.mp into him. Said n.o.ble would then introduce his daughter to him and would force them to have a little chat. That type of event has happened on numerous occasions to date. Valdel being the nice person he was would always accompany the lady for a bit.
Due to his face, his kind disposition, and his heroic charisma once the meeting was done, it"s not Valdel who would fall into the honey trap it was always the girl.
...
Today like any other day after Valdel helped some random people do random ch.o.r.es like looking for a lost cat, helping a lost child find his/her parents, acquiring a random herb in the nearby forest for some random alchemist experiment. Once he was done doing those things he would head out to the dungeon Ren conquered during his ranking test. Valdel goes there to train his sword skills.
Since the dungeon core has been taken, the dungeon no longer produced monsters. But the natural-born monsters in the surrounding area have made the now empty dungeon their home. The dungeon was now occupied by Myrmekes which were giant ant-like creatures.
These creatures had hard exoskeletons that made it difficult for them to be cut by any normal weapon. Not only did they have incredible defensive capabilities but they also possess a decent offensive strength. Their mandibles which were their main weapons for an attack were very powerful.
Their mandibles were sharper than any sword and once you were caught by those sharp powerful jaws, your bones would be crushed into powder. That wasn"t the only weapon they had, the Myrmekes were also able to spit acid that could melt even the st.u.r.diest of armors. Getting hit by one of those acid spits would make for a gruesome death.
Not only were they hard to kill one against one while using a sword, but they attack in waves which makes battling them a nightmare for even master swordsmen. Usually, to fight Myrmekes you would need a party that had multiple spell casters and a well-equipped s.h.i.+eld man. Seeing as those kinds of abilities that the Myrmekes have would be the bane of most swordsmen, but to Valdel this was a great enemy to practice with.
He wasn"t even using Zwei for this battle and simply bought a generic looking steel sword that you could buy cheaply in any weapon shop. He was doing all this because of the last battle. He noticed that he was relying too much on Zwei"s abilities. Though his current strength plus the strength of his weapon could deal with most problems, to Valdel that wasn"t enough.
The ideals he sought weren"t possible to achieve without absolute strength. If Ren didn"t appear to save Lara what would"ve happened? He hesitated as he didn"t want to kill Niel at the time. In fact, in that whole battle, Valdel didn"t kill a single person. Yet because of his weakness, the option of defeating Niel without killing him and saving Lara at the same time wasn"t available to him. Back then his only choice was to either kill Niel or to sacrifice Lara. Neither option was to his liking.
If only he was as strong as Ren, no if he was even stronger then he could uphold the ideals he so loves. Which flash-forward brought him to the dungeon filled with Myrmekes.
...
Valdel who was slas.h.i.+ng at the body of a Myrmeke was able to hit the weakest points of its exoskeleton. The first time he came here he wasn"t even able to attack it properly as the sword would break after one slash. But now after numerous trial and error, Valdel was able to figure out the weak points of the Myrmeke body. The only problem was the weak points were hard to reach so Valdel was forced to make smaller swings with his sword. Also, he was now using piercing moves more than slas.h.i.+ng moves.
For every Myrmeke that fell, Valdel"s swordsmans.h.i.+p improved. After clearing the third floor today, Valdel was about to head back to the city, but then he saw something in the corner of his eye. There was a coin stuck on the wall. That was weird seeing as Ren said he already stripped the dungeon of all its treasures. Without thinking too deeply about it, Valdel took the weird-looking coin and decided to show it to Ren. After taking the weird-looking coin Valdel headed back to the city.
...
Upon returning to the city, Valdel was happily walking to his favorite bakery. As he was walking he spotted the daughter of a n.o.ble waiting for him at the corner of the street. Most likely she planned to accidentally b.u.mp into him and say that it was such a coincidence to be b.u.mping with each other near his favorite bakery. Seeing her anxiously waiting made Valdel sigh as he continued onward and as he foresaw the lady did everything as he predicted. She then invited him for dinner, Valdel was about to say yes but then he saw an old lady carrying a heavy bag.
"Sorry, I"m busy right now. Maybe some other time." After politely declining the young lady"s offer Valdel dashed towards the old lady and helped her carry her things.
...
As the day was ending Valdel once again bought a cheap steel sword, and headed back to his dorm to rest.