Scarlet

Without wasting any time, I rush into the entry hall, only barely avoiding having my leg chomped on again by another hound. They all quickly follow me through the doorway into a relatively decently sized room with no window, no connecting rooms except a few places marked on walls that look like would be a nice spot for a room or doorway, and some sort of kitchen area with a sink. The only relatively useful thing in the unfurnished room looks to be the chandelier hanging high from the ceiling. And even that is too high for me to reach, since despite the moderate size of the room, the place is quite tall and without any furnishing.

As soon as I make it out of the entryway and into the room, I rush to the other side of it and turn around, focusing on the hounds again as I continue using both blood boil and life drain on them, ever so slowly hurting them and healing myself. But despite my actions, they all manage to form an encirclement around me, forcing my back to the wall next to the one with the kitchen, facing opposite of the entrance.

Of the seven hounds, I focus on the two located on the outskirts of the group, both of whom are limping pretty badly with visible bruising made worse by the bubbles of blood popping on the surface of their skin and beneath the surface.

Without hesitating, I sprint forwards toward it, the wound on my leg nearly healed by now as I raise my blood clawed right hand and swipe it straight at the hound, making it back up and just barely avoid my strike. I then hear the other hounds begin to close the encirclement further with my movement, but I ignore them to kick off of the ground and attempt to perform a flip around the hound, only to end up stepping on its tail and tripping in the process. The action of stepping on its tail though is enough to make it yelp and let down its guard long enough for me to hurriedly climb to my knees and reach around to grab and tear out its throat.

Six dead.

The other hounds don’t dally and close in on me, a few of them quickly taking nips out of my legs and arms before backing up again as I grit my teeth in pain. But I don’t take it sitting down and return the favor, tearing strip after strip out of them in the process. And after we both share strikes for who knows how long, I receive the stacks for three more of the hounds, following which the remaining three immediately beat a retreat, leaving me collapsing onto my back in the room in ruined clothes and covered in blood.

Seconds pass. Then the seconds turn into minutes, and I continue lying in place until Tar finally says, “If you’re going to laze around, do it near a window.”

So I struggle to my feet, grimacing as my wounds begin to seep more blood from the action before I slowly stumble my way down the hall, listening for sounds. Particularly the sound of a breeze, since the shield doesn’t block the air from entering through. And after stumbling down the hall to a corner, I enter the first room around the corner and continue trailing a bloody path to the window on the far side of the living room the entryway opens into.

Then I collapse onto the ground right next to the window, barely having the strength to take my jacket off in the process, using repair on it afterwards while rolling up both my sleeves. I have to get Tar’s help to roll up my pant legs though, since I can’t reach down there right now.

After all, the floor is so comfortable…

Surprisingly, it only takes about half an hour for all of my wounds to heal to a point that they aren’t any more than simple scabs. And at that point, I simply use clean and roll my sleeves and pant legs down again, repairing the rest of my clothes in the process.

But as I’m putting my jacket back on, I can’t help but ask, “Do you think leveling up is making my body somehow heal even faster from the moonlight?”

The tanuki doesn’t look surprised at all by the question and answers rather quickly, “Of course it is. Just like with how raising your physical stat increases your perception, increasing your magical stat will increase any inherent magical abilities your species has.”

That’s good to know.

After stretching a little bit and using clean on myself once more just because I missed it earlier with my jacket, I focus on my hearing to listen to the demons on the floor. But I don’t hear any, outside of that one knight – the same as the last time I checked just a few minutes ago.

Guess the hounds really must have left the floor. That or Alex killed them.

It’s also possible that they went too close to the knight and were killed by it instead.

Regardless of the reason for their disappearance, I begin to leave the room, all while letting the messages for the dead hounds finally flow.

{Level 23 Demon Hound defeated. Bonus EXP is awarded for killing a creature above your level.} x3

{Level 24 Demon Hound defeated. Bonus EXP is awarded for killing a creature above your level.} x4

{Level 22 Demon Hound defeated.} x2

{Five Skill Points are awarded for surviving a fight with ten or more demons above your own level.}

{One Skill Point is awarded for killing a demon.} x9

{Congrats, you have leveled up to level 23. Two Free Points have been awarded to you and your stats have been updated.}

Nice. A level.

And a free five skill points too. Although only barely, since exactly ten of those hounds were above my level. The other two were at my level.

Also, does it not count my level-up during the battle when calculating the achievement?

“No, it doesn’t,” Tar answers quickly enough as I continue walking down the hall. “The system calculates possible achievements that a contractor can meet at the start of each period of combat from what we’ve been able to tell. Meaning that when it gave you that achievement, it was still considering you level 22.”

Oh. Interesting.

Well, anyways, on to check out the knight! And probably run away on account of it being too high a level or something.