Melissa guided them towards the west gate of the city, and they walked for a while longer before stopping.

In the end with Edel accepting to carry Melissa for a faster trip, they won her over. Melissa climbed on Edel's back gingerly. They started out slow and waited to see how she reacted when Edel started to move.

Moving slowly there wasn't a problem, but when she started picking up speed was where things fell apart. Melissa couldn't sit comfortably while Edel ran, and he suggested she lean over and hug her neck. He'd seen Edel running, and even if they didn't reach a fraction of her top speed, she was fast.

In the end after a lot of effort, they could manage a slow running speed. Considering that this speed was his maximum a few months ago, it said a lot about how far he'd come.

Melissa screamed in excitement as the wind blew against her face. It was entirely too awkward and just a bit uncomfortable, but it was fun.

She guided Kiel and he led the way with Edel following behind. Half an hour later they stood outside a large cave. Melissa dropped to the ground, her breaths mixed with laughter. She had to catch her breath for a few minutes before getting up.

“Edel, you're the best,” she told her after she recovered a bit.

The entrance of the cave wasn't too large, but an average-sized person could pass through comfortably. They entered one by one, seeing the entrance of the cave faintly illuminated by the sun outside and glowing moss interspersed throughout the cave.

Sensing his curiosity about the moss, she explained, "The glowing moss is one of the most common features among dungeons. A few don't have them, but most do. It's very convenient." And he agreed with her, it was very convenient.

He expressed his suspicions through the bond, and she couldn't help but laugh, "There are people that theorize someone seeded this species of moss to dungeons all over the world. Most likely, however, it is just a moss that grows in high ether density areas, like the dungeons."

Kiel thought about it for a moment and decided he didn't care that much about it. The dungeon became wider after a while and soon they could walk side by side. Not that they did of course, Edel and he stood in front of Melissa while they explored the dungeon.

It didn't take them long to find the first monster. He barely had a chance to identify what kind of monster it was when Edel jumped ahead, reaching the humanoid-looking creature in fractions of a second and biting its head off.

It was a goblin, Melissa had brought them to a goblin dungeon. I've seen where this goes, and I do not like it.

But in all honesty, it didn't look like he would be getting a lot of experience from this dungeon. Edel wasn't this reckless normally, but against five low-level goblins, she rushed ahead, tearing them to pieces with her teeth and claws.

After the third time she rushed ahead, he had to stop her. It wasn't a problem when it was just the two of them, but Melissa couldn't follow that kind of engagement, and if she needed to help, she would be too far away.

Sending those exact thoughts to her, he got her to calm down, and on the next group of goblins she waited for them to get closer before ploughing into them. Definitely an improvement.

It took another half hour before the goblins they met were able to survive for more than a few seconds against Edel, though the only thing that changed was that he had the opportunity to teleport and finish them off adding maybe one second in the duration of the fight.

Melissa on the other hand couldn't help but stare at the two of them. She'd gone through this dungeon before and it was because it was considered one of the easier ones that she led them here. She still didn't expect them to be dealing with the monsters inside with such ease.

When she cleared the dungeon many months ago she remembered struggling against the endless number of goblins; goblins that kept growing stronger the deeper they went.

Even the silver-ranked adventurer hadn't been able to deal with the goblins at this level of the dungeon with such an ease. Instead of making her scared, she felt excited to see what these two could accomplish in the future.

She expected to see them struggle at some point in the dungeon, to need her help, but they ended up reaching the boss room half an hour later and she couldn't help but stare at them.

'It took us seven hours to reach this point... seven!' she screamed internally.

Thankfully Kiel and Edel stopped before rushing into the larger cavern. The cavern ahead of them was more than three times larger than the rest of the cave, and in the middle of it stood a goblin three times the size of the ones they had been facing.

It sat cross legged with its eyes closed, but she knew how fast that would change once they stepped inside the room. Hidden away were also a few of the stronger goblins the dungeon had to offer, but undoubtedly the biggest threat was the monster in the middle.

Kiel spoke, breaking her daydreaming, "Stand in the back, attack first, we finish it off."

He'd been getting better at communicating through their bond, "There are goblins hidden away," she replied, "they're a bit stronger than the ones you met previously."

He nodded, and turned to the wolf. They entered the cave, and behind them so did she. Instantly the goblin opened its eyes, and Kiel and Edel rushed inside.

Stolen story; please report.

Contrary to what she was expecting, they did not head for the goblin boss, but to the opposite sides of the cavern. Either Kiel forgot to explain the entire plan to her, or there was a translation error, because she didn't know what to do.

Deciding to ignore her worries and common sense telling her to run away, she gathered her ether.

From where Kiel headed appeared three goblins. Before they finished getting out from their hidey hole, he teleported in front of the foremost one and before it had a chance to realize what was going on, it was bleeding on the ground.

The goblin next to it reacted immediately, but he teleported again, its fist missing entirely. Kiel reappeared behind the third goblin that barely made an appearance before its head was separated from its body.

In the same manner he teleported for a third time in a row in front of the goblin that'd missed its attack previously. It took him the entirety of two seconds to finish all three of them off, and although she'd seen him fight, this was different than before.

At least Edel decimating the goblins on her side was expected; and even she wasn't as fast as Kiel was. Which of course drew the attention of the enormous goblin. Thankfully, she'd been gathering her ether the entire time, so the moment the goblin turned to him, she let out an attack containing almost a quarter of her ether.

The resulting fire arrow exploded against the monster's arms as it protected its face at the last moment. That was about the same time when Edel finished with her fight.

The monster immediately turned to face her, but before it could take another step, a running cat hit its leg with its claws. Because the monster was still disoriented from the massive fire arrow that exploded in its face, Kiel managed to attack its other leg with an even stronger attack as he almost cut off the entire limb, before teleporting away halfway across the cavern.

The monster was still heading towards her, but the cuts on its legs made it buckle. That was when a massive column of lightning hit the boss, bringing it to its knees.

She stood staring at the massive monster that'd taken entirely too much effort the last time she fought it. She'd forgotten to gather the ether for another attack, but it didn't seem to matter. The monster wouldn't be going anywhere.

The goblin was still incredibly dangerous, however, so she was glad Kiel decided to sit back instead of re-engaging.

Before it crawled back to its feet, another lightning bolt hit its face and while it was distracted by that, she hit it with a fire arrow. It took another two fire arrows to finish the job, and she was almost out of ether by the end of it.

She still had trouble comprehending what had just happened.

This entire trip was like a walk in the park. She expected the two of them to be strong, but to not even struggle against a high bronze dungeon? That was insane.

Looking at a status message in front of her, she saw that she'd just reached silver rank. She was excited for the entirety of one minute before a look of horror fell on her face.

It was one thing to go on a small adventure, and another to go on a dangerous enough one that she gained two levels at once. Cassandra was going to be pissed.

Unfortunately, there wasn't another message regarding a reward for killing the strongest monster. The system was kind, but not that kind.

If she wanted to climb beyond silver, she would have to complete a lot more dungeons, something that didn't seem like a possibility until now.

Looking at Kiel and Edel, she couldn't help but feel excited about what the future had to offer for the first time in a while.

----------------------------------------

Kiel not only gained a level, but he also gained a measurable increase to his spirit attribute for the first time in a while.

You have killed an essence enhanced monster! Part of its essence joins yours, you have gained +1 in the Body attribute.

Combined with his level up, he got two more in Spirit and one in his Body attribute.

Name - Kiel

Level - 16

Titles - Traveler, Unyielding, Ritualist

Body - 24

Mind - 24

Spirit - 33

Skills - Unbound Adaptation (Lvl 7), Climbing (Lvl 7), Ether Sense (Lvl 10) [Max], Affinity Sense (Lvl 10) [Max], Spatial Manipulation (Lvl 10) [Max], Spatial Rend (Lvl 2), Spatial Shift (Lvl 10) [Max], Ether Manipulation (Lvl 9)

There was also his Ether Manipulation closing in on level 10. He'd forgotten about it somewhat after recovering from his soul injury, but it'd progressed nicely even without him focusing specifically on it.

Increasing his attributes after so long felt nice.

He turned to Melissa excited, only to see her deep in thought. He had to meow loudly in order to get her attention and all that managed to do was switch her thoughtful look doing nothing into a thoughtful look caressing his fur.

When he bit her boots and dragged her towards Edel, he felt justified in his actions. Thankfully, she woke up from her daze, and they started heading out of the dungeon.

Walking at a normal pace felt too boring for the adrenaline-filled Kiel, so he forced Melissa to join him and Edel for a light run. She protested at first, but seeing them get further away, she picked up the pace begrudgingly. If anything, it should help take her mind off what is bothering her.

And thankfully it did. The gloomy low-light environment probably didn't help either.

It took them a while longer to reach the city, as Melissa refused to ride on top of Edel this time.

When they reached the city it was in the middle of the afternoon, and Melissa was in a much better mood. That was of course until she opened the door and saw Cassandra.

She smiled at her, and although Cassandra didn't know what had happened, she smelled something was wrong. Melissa started with the good news, she was now silver ranked!

She didn't need to say anything else as Cassandra's face changed from elated to incensed in the span of three seconds. Kiel tried to leave on account of being a cat, but she wouldn't have it that easily.

She blocked his way, crossing her arms and waiting for an explanation.

Normally that seemed like an insane thing to expect from a monster, but she knew he wasn't exactly normal. That said, he didn't exactly know what she wanted from him, and it wasn't like he could speak to her.

In the end, Melissa spoke to her about where they'd gone, and Cassandra closed her eyes. She said something in response which he couldn't understand.

Melissa thankfully translated for him, "She..." she sounded uncomfortable translating this part, "She, wants an apology." which sounded even more ridiculous from an outside perspective.

Seeing Cassandra angry shouldn't have been a blow, but seeing her struggling not to cry was too much. "I'm sorry... I'm sorry for putting Melissa in danger and running off without you."

Melissa translated for him, and he kept silent. She didn't say anything either, and instead walked back to her room, closing the door behind her.

Melissa too felt bad for agreeing all too easily to go inside a dungeon practically on her own.

In the silence that followed, he decided he would make it up to her. Thinking about how his parents solved their fights, he decided that an apology gift would be the proper course of action.

It worked for his parents, it would work for him.

He had a few ideas of what would make for a good gift for Cassandra, and so he told Melissa he would be searching for an apology gift. He also sent her an image of him offering a wrapped up box and Cassandra opening it, smiling and holding him dearly.

Melissa couldn't help but laugh, breaking the silence and patting his head gently.

His plans made, he left for the forest, Edel following excitedly behind him when he told her where they were going.