Ten Days

Today's haul had truly been enormous. After settling the commissions, the total earnings had exceeded 220 gold.

After paying them 30 gold, Lu Cang still had 190 gold left.

For a child, that was already a fortune.

As expected, as long as you had the strength,

making money was easy.

After completing ten commissions, it was only dusk.

He felt a little stronger today than yesterday.

Even after running around all day, he didn't feel especially tired.

The Adventurer's Guild was noticeably more crowded.

His teammates from today planned to go for a drink to celebrate their earnings.

For Tier 3 adventurers, earning 10 gold in a day was a rare income, even during Harvest Moon—especially when it was so easy to make.

Lu Cang turned down their invitation.

He was alone in Rhein Town now. Though he'd gotten familiar with today's teammates,

they weren't yet close enough to trust with his life.

In these circumstances, Lu Cang didn't want to risk being knocked unconscious.

He looked up at the sky.

Night was falling, and the stars were slowly appearing.

"Never mind... I'll go practice magic."

Lu Cang rented a private training ground and continued working on his spell proficiency.

He also got in some more practice flying with Ice Spindles.

Aside from the Demonic Tide drawing adventurers to the area,

life was actually quite uneventful.

There were none of the upheavals or outbreaks of danger he'd imagined.

After that, ten ordinary days passed. Every day, Lu Cang bought a newspaper to see what news had come from Tomb God Stele Valley.

The Tier 7 Dungeon really was dangerous.

Bad news came in every day. By now, only a few adventuring parties remained that hadn't been wiped out.

Iz and his party were among them.

There wasn't anything Lu Cang could do to help. Aside from flipping a coin each day to pray for their safety, he was powerless.

He had now trained nearly all the spells he'd learned to LV:200.

As expected, just as he'd imagined, he couldn't raise their levels any further after evolving them. They were stuck at LV:201.

That included the Void Realm, the Magic Enhancement Technique, which had also reached LV:200.

However, the Magic Enhancement Technique couldn't evolve.

His progress with magic had more or less ground to a halt.

During the day, he'd spent most of the past ten days taking adventuring commissions and forming a steady party with Loth and the others.

They'd cleared more than eighty Tier 3 Dungeons.

They'd slain more than ninety Tier 3 Lord-class monsters and wiped out over thirty monster settlements in the wild.

At the Adventurer's Guild, everyone gazed at the monthly commission rankings.

The star of the month on the list was none other than Lu Cang.

In ten days, one person had taken more than two hundred commissions.

And every one was a major commission: slaying Tier 3 monsters, exploring Tier 3 Dungeons, or exterminating monster hordes.

He hadn't taken a single minor commission like "investigation," "harvesting," "gathering," or "transport."

His commission earnings alone had already exceeded 300 gold.

It was hard to imagine how he'd managed it.

He averaged more than twenty commissions a day. Even just traveling from one location to another would take a considerable amount of time, wouldn't it?

Even without relying on Izpalut's name,

Lu Cang had already become a legend among adventurers, passed from mouth to mouth.

[Rhein Town Library]

Lu Cang didn't go looking for work today.

The main reason he'd taken adventuring commissions was to test his strength, improve his magic proficiency, and get used to fighting.

This world demanded combat, and Lu Cang didn't want to be caught in danger and act like an idiot.

Another reason was to learn more about the world as he adventured, and to pick up useful information by talking with his teammates.

Now, his magic was all at max level, and he'd gained plenty of combat experience.

He'd explored many Dungeons and talked about all sorts of things with his teammates. There wasn't anything in particular he still wanted to learn from them.

So there was no need to keep taking commissions.

"Well, well, little Lu Cang!"

"Are you really not taking any commissions today?"

In the library, Loth spotted little Lu Cang and draped an arm over him, pressing her chest against his shoulder.

Oh, it was the indebted healer...

"Hehe, I've taken commissions for so many days in a row. I just want to rest a bit today," Lu Cang answered tactfully.

"Fair enough. You've been adventuring for so many days straight. All right, all right."

"But this Demonic Tide is getting denser and denser."

"I saw in the weather forecast that the Demonic Tide is almost at Level 5 density. If this keeps up, a Level 5 monster might really appear in the wild."

"That sounds dangerous." Lu Cang turned a page and replied.

A Level 5 Demonic Tide...

The wilderness was different from Dungeons. It was difficult for high-tier monsters to appear out in the wild. Most of the time, the monsters found there were Tier 1 to Tier 3.

Most towns didn't have Tier 4 monsters nearby for adventurers to hunt. Those were generally only found in Dungeons.

Lu Cang didn't dismiss what Loth said.

Instead, he took it seriously as he leafed through Advanced Magic and considered what to do.

This wasn't a good sign. Should he lie low for a while?

A Tier 5 monster was three tiers above him. There was a good chance he couldn't beat one. The best thing to do would probably be to hide somewhere safer...

And wait for this Demonic Tide to pass.

Lu Cang asked as casually as he could, "Sister Loth, are there any other relatively safe towns nearby?"

Loth tilted her head back and thought for a moment. "Hmm, I don't think anywhere is safer than Rhein Town."

"The kingdom's powerful adventurers are all heading this way. They definitely won't ignore a Demonic Tide this big."

"And actually, Rhein Town already has several Level 5 adventurers."

"Going out on your own right now would be more dangerous. You could easily run into a fully formed, powerful monster."

"But with your strength, little Lu Cang, you'd definitely survive a Tier 4 monster~"

Oh, so she meant he wouldn't survive a Tier 5 monster.

Lu Cang mulled it over.

If he remembered correctly, Iz and the others had said they'd be back in about half a month.

Thirteen days had passed since they left.

They should be back soon.

And other Level 5 adventurers had arrived in Rhein Town during that time. In theory, the town was very safe.

If the sky fell, they'd be the first ones to face it.

If it really came to the town, Lu Cang would have time to escape.

For the next few days, he could just stay in town, read, and rest.

He could also put some of his recent ideas about magic into practice. Thinking about magic with the mindset of someone from another world really did seem to open up new possibilities.

"If you want to rest, little Lu Cang, Maizer and I have plans to explore a Tier 3 Dungeon with another party today."

"You don't mind, do you~?"

Lu Cang nodded. "Mm-hmm, not at all. Be careful."

Loth was strong enough, and Tier 3 Dungeons weren't that dangerous. Based on their experience over the past few days, if they ran into something they couldn't beat in a Tier 3 Dungeon, they could still escape without much trouble.

Loth waved goodbye to Lu Cang.

After she left, Lu Cang watched her walk away.

She was a lively healer, and once he'd gotten to know her, she'd turned out to be the chattiest of them all. The reason she was in debt was that she trusted people too easily.

If someone tried to sell her something, they could get her to buy the whole lot without much effort.

So, even though she was a Level 3 adventurer who could earn plenty of money, she'd bought a pile of things she had no use for: armor for a defender, a sword for a Warrior, an anvil for a Blacksmith, and shoes for an assassin...

Heh, no wonder she was broke.

As for Maizer, after adventuring during the day, he still managed to juggle two women in the evenings. He was dating both of them without letting either find out about the other. He'd even spend the night with one, make an excuse to slip away, and then go see the other...

Heh, he was a textbook scumbag.

Thanks to the gold he'd earned alongside Lu Cang, he had money to throw around, and things had been heating up with both women over the past few days.

Every day on the road, he'd tell his stories about his romantic exploits as if nobody else were there.

Of course, Loth and Trand were always giving him grief about it.

But either way, they were the first friends Lu Cang had made since coming to this world.

As for Iz and the others... they felt more like a mix of mentors and friends, like guides who had shown him the way and introduced him to the world.

Lu Cang spent the whole day at the library. On his way back to the inn that evening, he passed the Adventurer's Guild.

He saw a white notice posted on the wall.

Another adventurer had gone missing.

Before every adventure, they made all sorts of preparations, but accidents still happened.

Adventurers lucky enough to escape would report to the Guild when their teammates had died or gone missing inside a Dungeon.

The Guild would then post the list of missing people, just as it had now.

They called it "missing," but they were probably dead. Very few ever came back.