A Lady's Generosity Should Not Be Wasted

Having finally dealt with everything related to leveling up, Marvin closed his character panel and began reading the spellbook while Miss Wuke ate.

Devils were roaming outside. If danger arose, he could use Anchor Teleportation to flee directly back to Friendly Arm, but there was never anything wrong with seizing every moment to improve his strength as much as possible.

Moreover, he had realized that the quest system was not omnipotent and could not be relied upon completely.

The quest panel could only display the current quest's success rate, allowing Marvin to assess the risks involved in carrying it out. What happened after the quest was completed, however, lay beyond its ability to predict.

Therefore, whether within quests or outside them, he had to keep improving his own strength to deal with all manner of unexpected situations and prepare as thoroughly as possible for every possibility.

Miss Wuke tore the bread into small pieces and fed them into her mouth as she observed Marvin.

Though she admired his habit of making use of every spare moment, she did not think it would be of much use.

Could he really learn a new spell in the time it took to eat a meal?

As it happened, Marvin really could.

For a mage to learn a spell, all they needed to do was copy it into their spellbook.

Well, perhaps "all they needed to do" was not quite accurate.

Because the copying process was actually far from simple.

When copying a spell, a mage had to connect their consciousness to the Weave, continuously draw upon magical power, and break down, analyze, and simulate the spell's geometric structure, energy flow, activation factors, and other elements within their mind.

Only after fully mastering the spell could they record it in their spellbook with a pen, making it convenient to cast later.

The time this process required varied according to the mage's aptitude and the difficulty of the spell being learned.

Marvin now had 16 Intelligence, which at least put him among the ranks of "high-aptitude mages."

Furthermore, the [Mage · Scribes Guild] class granted the [Mage's Quill] trait, which halved the time Marvin needed for copying work.

This trait applied whether he was copying scrolls or spells.

Marvin took out his spellbook and began copying the [Comprehend Languages] spell from the grimoire.

This first-circle divination spell seemed to offer no help in combat, but Marvin did not see it that way.

After casting it, he would be able to understand the devils' Infernal language.

Know yourself and know your enemy, and you will never be defeated.

Wouldn't that provide an advantage in battle against devils?

Miss Wuke continued eating as she watched Marvin take out his spellbook and begin transcribing the spell.

By the time she had finished the last piece of beef jerky, a flash of magical light bloomed from Marvin's spellbook.

"You really learned a new spell in such a short time?"

Marvin snapped his fingers and recalled Mage's Quill. "You know, I'm a Scribes Guild mage. I'm rather good at copying."

"An ordinary Scribes Guild mage couldn't do that."

Miss Wuke took it as Marvin's habitual modesty, and her opinion of him rose another notch.

By then, Miss Wuke had mostly recovered. She was still somewhat weak, but walking and casting spells posed no problem.

"Chitter, chitter..."

Just then, a little squirrel ran up before them, stood upright, and waved its tiny front paws incessantly, as though it were in a great hurry.

"It is...?"

"My local informant. If something urgent happens, it comes to notify me," Marvin explained with a smile.

He cast [Speak with Animals] on himself, and the incomprehensible chirping immediately became understandable words.

"Four monkeys came. One male monkey with shiny iron pieces hanging from his body, and three female monkeys... The male monkey suddenly went crazy, then got beaten by the black-furred female monkey..."

"Stinky red-skinned monsters came out of the flames. They all listened to the black-furred female monkey... They're catching monkeys everywhere..."

Squirrels had limited intelligence, so Marvin had to spend quite some effort before he fully understood the message.

The four monkeys should have been the Sacred Eternal Sun Squad.

The male monkey with shiny iron pieces hanging from him—that was Mr. "Hero"—had suddenly lost his mind without warning and begun attacking his teammates.

Then he had been defeated by that rather strange priestess—the black-furred female monkey in the squirrel's eyes.

Devils had suddenly appeared in the herb garden through a portal and captured the three members of the Goddess Body Fragrance Squad. Moreover, those devils seemed to be taking orders from that priestess.

What kind of absurd development was this?

Had he not already been suspicious of the priestess, Marvin would probably have been completely dumbfounded right now.

After giving the squirrel another handful of peanuts as a reward, Marvin told Miss Wuke everything he had learned.

After discussing it, the two agreed that their most urgent task was to leave this place.

Going out through the main entrance was naturally impossible.

So long as the devils had functioning brains, even if the druids' protective array temporarily prevented them from entering, they would still guard the entrance tightly.

That meant they could only find another way out.

Or carve one out themselves.

Recalling the mountain's layout and the camp's internal structure, Marvin came up with an idea.

He asked, "Miss Zorana, do you know [Transmute Rock]?"

"I used to, but now..." Miss Wuke shook her head.

[Transmute Rock] was a fifth-circle transmutation spell. But ever since she had removed the magic tattoo, she could no longer touch the fifth layer of the Weave.

However, the young head of the Fennar Family had other means as well. "I think I know what you want to do. I can't use [Transmute Rock], but I have this."

She spread open her jade-like palm, and a scroll appeared out of thin air. "This can summon Rock Moles. These little creatures can dig through even the hardest stone."

"Excellent. We won't need a backup plan."

Miss Wuke did not ask what the backup plan was. She merely nodded and followed Marvin back into the storeroom where she had previously been trapped.

Marvin drew energy from the elemental pool again and created an earth elemental rune, using it to shut down the array on the stone door.

The two units of elemental energy in the earth elemental pool had been exhausted. It would take a long rest of at least eight hours to replenish them.

The mechanism was the same as replenishing spell slots.

With the heavy magical stone door protecting them, the two did not need to worry about being discovered by the devils and could dig a passage without concern.

After looking around and confirming their direction, Marvin said, "If we dig upward at a thirty-degree angle from here, we should reach the outside soon."

Miss Wuke unfurled the scroll, swiftly drew out the magical power stored in the parchment, and cast the spell.

A dark brown magical glow flashed through the treasure room, and three Rock Moles appeared before Marvin.

They looked much like ordinary moles, except they were larger, and their claws gleamed faintly with a metallic sheen, incredibly sharp.

Rock Moles were creatures from the Elemental Plane of Earth and could understand Primordial. Both Marvin and Miss Wuke knew that language.

Thus, Miss Wuke gave the Rock Moles the order to dig while Marvin guided and corrected them from the side, making the excavation extremely efficient.

About half an hour later, the Rock Moles had carved a tunnel roughly four feet in diameter and two hundred feet long through the hard rocky mountain.

Blue sky lay at the end of the tunnel, and an occasional breeze blew in.

"Let's go see what's happening outside." Miss Wuke took the lead and crawled into the tunnel.

She was stronger than Marvin and wanted to recruit him into her family, so naturally she had to take the lead and project the bearing of a leader saying, "Follow me."

Marvin glanced at the graceful curves from Miss Wuke's waist to her hips, which even her loose robe could not conceal, and made a welcoming gesture.

Since she was being so generous, how could he let her down and miss such an opportunity to admire a beauty crawling ahead of him?

The pleasing—no, dull—crawl lasted ten minutes.

After emerging, they discovered that they were about halfway up the mountain, less than one hundred and fifty feet above the ground.

Marvin and Miss Wuke each cast [Feather Fall], lightly hopping across the mountainside until they quickly made their way above the Druid Herb Garden.

Looking down carefully, they found at least a dozen devils in the herb garden.

Ten imps were scattered throughout the area, searching and standing guard.

Four Bearded Devils surrounded the camp entrance. Unable to enter due to the protective array, they were violently hacking at it with their infernal cleavers.

In a large clearing by the stream, Mr. Eruien, the "hero protagonist," was kneeling on the ground as two Cambions continuously kicked and beat him while hurling insults.

His teammate, the Drow, had been tightly bound and thrown aside.

The three members of the Goddess Body Fragrance Squad had likewise been captured.

In addition, the devils had seized more than twenty civilians. Judging by their clothing, they were all woodcutters, hunters, herbalists, gatherers of mountain goods, and others whose professions required them to venture into the wilderness alone.

The childhood friend, a tiefling girl, stood some distance away and watched Eruien's suffering coldly.

Meanwhile, the female priest who had left Marvin with a favorable impression—gentle, cute, and socially perceptive, yet rather strange—stood in the middle of the clearing with the bearing of a queen, watching Eruien suffer.

Seeing that his teammates' lives were not in immediate danger, Marvin decided to observe for now and figure out exactly what had happened.