“Come on, don’t be bashful.”

“I don’t think that I am bashful at all. I am sure Rebecca will make better use of them if you truly wish to give a gift to someone.”

“Ah, you spoiled the surprise. I was planning to let her get a bit jealous before I gave her when we were about to face the boss.”

“I am starting to understand why Clive isn’t so eager to accept the arrows now…”

Even Rebecca looked a bit annoyed at those words. The way too friendly Clarice was back and her antics returned at full power as well. Regardless, at least she didn’t insist on the topic and made things awkward. Still, before long, I noticed that her smile got a bit weaker and sad. She knew the reason for my refusal, so she couldn’t force herself to insist.

Eventually, we began to move again and when Rebecca was focused on the job, Clarice gave her a quiver with those arrows. Now that I think about it… I wondered if there was some effect on our there that could enchant quivers to produce arrows. I truly wanted something like that.

Since we got better thanks to the helmets, we were able to fight better, so we reached the nineteenth floor before sunset. The arrows that Rebecca received improved her effectiveness with the bow quite a bit, after all, and they hadn’t been enchanted yet.

“I think we should stop for today. Even if we take the whole day tomorrow to explore the next floor, we still will have plenty of time to challenge the boss.”

The thought of a waiting list to defeat the second boss briefly crossed my mind, but I quickly brushed it aside. That wasn’t something we had to worry about. Few parties managed to reach this deep into the dungeon, so the idea of running into a line of adventurers waiting for their turn was highly unlikely. Most groups struggled to make it through the earlier floors, and the ones that did usually weren’t well-prepared to push further. The first boss was practically a gatekeeper, filtering out all but the strongest or most determined.

Still, despite the low chances of competition, I felt a sense of urgency. Something in the back of my mind told me we couldn’t afford to waste time. Whether it was a gut feeling or just my natural instinct to stay ahead, I didn’t want to take any chances. The dungeon had a way of surprising even the most experienced adventurers, and I wasn’t about to risk being caught off guard. Better to move quickly than to regret it later.

“If you guys are tired, I can clean the path away by myself. We should at least advance a bit more on the next floor, just in case.”

Everyone looked at each other and wondered if that was the right call. We would keep fighting nine of those monsters all the time and we had some extra days for grinding, so they didn’t think that we had any reason to be in such a hurry. Still, they decided to agree with my idea… probably because of the issue with the helmets.

Usually, I wasn’t strong enough to deal with all of them by myself, but I used a tattoo to increase my mana regeneration. The lowest quality only increased by one and 1.0 point, but I could make it in the Apprentice rarity ranks and they increased it by 3.0. Activating that consumed all my mana, though.

Regardless, I had enough energy now to spam Rapid Fire, so the monsters never had the chance to attack. The others had their weapons in hand while they followed me from behind, but they didn’t have to do anything else.

… …

“He sure is versatile. Even without holy magic, he can buff himself and others. He can also enchant items and fight. That is quite odd for someone so young.”

Clarice said while holding her chin and studying Regulus, fighting with a serious expression. She rarely showed that kind of expression, so the others immediately got a bit serious as well. She wasn’t her usual goofy self. Clarice was now the younger sister of the leader of the Silver Arrow.

“How old do you think he is, Clarice? I want to bet that he must be twenty or something. That calm behavior when you get so close to him can’t fool me.”

Jalal tried to look serious as well, but his choice of words only made him look like a brat through and through.

“Impossible, with that much baby fat in his face. Even though he is a bit too tall for a kid… with all those characteristics, he almost looks like one of those…”

“One of those?”

Clarice didn’t reply to Jalal’s question, but she knew that she had messed up since the others looked very curious as well. She shook her head and decided to change the topic since she never saw one of those and she only had heard a few things about them. It was better not to spread any rumors that could cause problems for others.

… …

Stolen story; please report.

In the end, we proceeded through the night for two more hours before I decided to call it quits. I still could keep going, but the others were hungry, and they needed to rest as well. Sometimes, I truly couldn’t see myself as a vampire, but when night comes, with my full potential, I feel almost unstoppable, even more so since I don’t feel hunger, thirst, or exhaustion.

In any case, by now, Clarice couldn’t see the footprints of her old friends with that ease, so it looked like they were very far ahead of us. We didn’t have to worry as much as before.

“We aren’t as tired as before, thanks to the helmets, so we can take turns properly to watch the camp. If you enchant Rebecca’s arrows, I bet that we can split the guard duty for three groups.”

“Only if you want to make that much noise… only Clive and Clarice can fight without making much noise, and I don’t want to risk making either of you two turn into charcoal.”

“Ouch, you don’t have a bit of trust in us, huh?”

Jalal, Rebecca, and Gao began to talk about the watch duty. I was fine with just sleeping three hours since the exhaustion had yet to catch up to me. I was only walking and using skills, after all.

“With my current mana, I will need some mana stones to enchant the arrows, and I can only enchant one arrow per hour.”

“I am out of money, though.”

“... You can give me the money after we return to the guild. What kinds of enchantments do you want?”

“Well, since we are going to stay exploring this dungeon for a while, only frost and wind related enchantments, I guess. Do you have any recommendations?”

“No, just using a pair of those two will already make your arrows faster and have more piercing power as well. Thanks to the frost enchantment, you can basically double your damage to all the monsters in this dungeon, so your arrows might become even four times stronger with two frost enchantments.”

“... All right then.”

Rebecca gulped when she heard that. She didn’t have much attack power since she was a mage and an archer. So, she couldn’t help but feel pretty anxious about the possibility of obtaining that much power.

I took the first watch to enchant Rebecca’s arrows and soon I blinked in surprise thanks to the results.

You received 400 experience points

The skill Enchanting Touch leveled up. You received 1700 experience points

I wondered for a moment if I shouldn’t accept Rebecca’s gift and then receive those arrows. I could make that skill level up a bunch of times if I were to keep enchanting arrows with these ranks. It was truly tempting… Still; I had already made up my mind and being that calculating made me feel bad. Even more so since it involved a kid.

‘Perhaps I should take some time off again to make arrows and improve my skills related to that. They are easier to craft and take less time, so the chances of making arrows of this rank will increase exponentially.’

It seemed a bit too soon for that, but that definitely would help me in the long run… perhaps I should head for a dungeon next in which I could get a lot of good materials for bows. The atronachs could be used like that, but… staying in the third section for too long will be tough and I would draw a lot of attention as well.

In the end, the best option was to buy decent materials or get them from an employer… Buying would give me more freedom to do what I wanted without anyone bothering me, and I also would have the chance to use my merchant skills. That would give me more experience and that would make me save time and money in the future as well. Yeah, I could only see the merits now.

I thought about all that while defeating the fire crows and enchanting Rebecca’s arrows. Thanks to that, those four hours passed in the blink of an eye and the others came to take my place. Enchanting Touch reached level eighteen soon enough, so I probably could get it to reach level twenty by enchanting some more arrows and I asked Rebecca for more the next morning.

“I am not sure I can pay you all that much…”

“It is fine. The process is giving me a lot of experience. I will give you a decent discount.”

“How much a decent discount is equal, exactly?”

At least Rebecca was learning the true value of money… If you don’t handle it well, instead of making money improve your life, money will make your life worse. A lesson that I learned as soon as I started my solo life in my previous life.

Regardless, after negotiating for a bit, I told Rebecca that I could receive five Terra coins per enchantment. It was half of what I asked them lately, thanks to that, Jalal and Gao were looking at me wondering if I could do the same for them, so I could tell that when we leave the dungeon, they will bring me a lot more items to enchant for them and they will ask for the same price.

‘Maybe I created some monsters… monsters that truly want to save a lot of money by haggling. A small price to pay for salvation… hopefully, this will help them in the future.’

As we proceeded on the nineteenth floor, things got even easier as Rebecca used her new arrows. Her shots began to bring down the fire crows in one shot and she couldn’t help but smile. That was a rare occurrence, so the group’s mood improved a lot. It took a bit for mine to improve, but eventually, it happened.

You received 400 experience points

The skill Enchanting Touch leveled up. You received 2000 experience points

You have learned a new skill in the Enchanter class.

Essence Extraction: Extract the magical essence from enchanted items, allowing you to break down unwanted or obsolete enchanted objects to reclaim their magical knowledge for future use. The amount of knowledge recovered depends on the quality of the item. Cost: 100 Mana