With Nero's goggles, it was too easy to find Rodther. The [Acrobat] wasn't even hiding. Nero walked to meet him after looting the bodies and collecting their Arbitrium, cards, and Essence.
"Make it painless," Rodther raised his hands as he noticed Nero approaching.
"Must I kill you?" Nero asked. "I really wouldn't do it if I don't have to. I think I murdered enough for more than a lifetime's worth back there. I'm not proud of it."
"I know too much about you. You have no reason to let me live," The scaled man said. "Sparing me is stupid."
"Do you want to die? Would you kill me if our places were swapped?"
"I'll be honest with you," Rodther said. "My only ticket out of this shit-hole is you. I can't kill the monsters on my own. I mean, I can but a pack of wolves will drain too much and I'll probably run out of food before that. And I doubt Valanaegornif will extend the deal he had with Cesar to me. He'll kill me just to shut me up if I kill you and get out."
"True. So, are we delving partners?" Nero extended a hand.
Rodther took it and shook. "Yes. Until we get out of here, at least." Nero pulled him up. "You're the leader here, Nero. A clean slate?"
Nero knew Rodther's status sheet. It told the story of someone that rose from nothing and scrapped a build with what he could find. He wouldn't turn down the offer of free help. One thing he also kept in mind was that Rodther had no murder charged against him. Prisoners kept accruing crimes after they were imprisoned. He decided to trust Rodther but keep him at arms' length. And put him to earn his keep.
"Not so clean," Nero pointed at the carnage in the camp. "Do you think you can salvage some of their food, sleeping bags, blankets, and gear?"
"Get me some water, and I'll wash and mend their clothes for you," Rodther offered.
"Yeah, no. I want Cesar and Husk's heads so I can use them later. Let's clean up our campsite."
The duo spent the next two hours rummaging through the remains of the camp, salvaging what they could. Arden's things were drenched in blood and unusable. The two minnids' packs were spared the carnage and their blankets only had a few drops of blood on them. They obtained twelve extra days of food. Nero stored the heads in his dimensional pouch with the intent of giving Cesar's head to Katia, fulfilling his promise of rejoining mother and son.
Nero shifted to his detection [Rogue] build out of Rodther's sight and laid on his bedroll to sleep. The ones salvaged from the dead party members he left all to Rodther. He was asleep the moment his head hit the pillow.
Did he wake up to the smell of... tea? Looking around, he saw a kettle over a fire.
"Hey, good morning. Or whatever goes for a morning in this god-forsaken hole," Rodther said with a chuckle. "Care for some tea?"
Nero took a tin cup and sipped. It was bitter but the last wisp of sleep left him. He slurped the bitter beverage in one go, wincing at the aftertaste. He felt energized.
"What's in there?" He asked.
"Some herbs, a mushroom, nothing harmful. A secret recipe of my people," Rodther grinned.
Nero wanted to cry bullshit but didn't.
"How old are you, Rodther? I'm sorry, but it is hard to tell with your race."
Rodther grinned. "I'm seventy. My people usually live up to two centuries." Nero noticed his teeth weren't reptilian. They looked tiny and square.
They ate breakfast and Nero stood up. "Good. It is time to clean up this Dungeon. Say, have you worked as a lumberjack?"
"I've cut down my share of trees. What do you have in mind?"
Nero pointed at a section without wolves. "We need to clear a section of the forest. Bring down some of these pine trees. We'll need an area free of burnable matter for my strategy to work."
Rodther snorted a laugh. "Somehow you made me believe for a moment that you were going to burn the Dungeon." Nero stared at his scaly companion with a deadpan expression. Rodther's mirth vanished. "No way."
Nero stored Rodther's pack in his pouch then walked with him out of the clearing and into the first line of trees.
"Yes, way. Now, let's get choppety-choppy with these trees. Here's a [Hatchet] card for you." Nero gave Rodther a green-border equipment card that required level 4. It dealt double damage to wooden enemies.
"Green-grade? Are you serious?"
"Yup. Trust me, you'll see the benefits of being a level zero really soon. Summon that ax and cut trees," he turned his bayonet on and sawed the first tree.
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Rodther couldn't believe. Not that he would give away a low-level green card. But that they were cutting down trees and clearing stumps instead of hunting monsters. The ax delivered on its promise. Cutting down timber was never as easy. When they stopped for lunch, they'd brought down all trees in a fifty-yard sphere. Nero cut the trunks down in sections six feet long and stored them in his dimensional pouch. The hard part was removing the stumps. After eating, he surveyed the area. it looked like land cleared for farming.
Nero used a card on his Abitrium and waved his hands around, concentrating. Stone rose from the ground and spread over the soil, forming a seamless slab. Was that a Skill? Maybe he had a piece of equipment that allowed him to use a Skill for a while. He heard about that once. As Nero always tried to hide when he was using his Arbitrium, Rodther decided to exercise the best part of valor and keep his lips shut. But his curiosity got the better of him.
"Why do we need to cover this area in stone?" He asked.
"So we can stay safe while I burn the other area. This part here is just temporary," Nero answered. "Our base of operations will be by the clearing."
He didn't answer further. Nero just focused on moving the stone. It was slower than molasses.
Once the slab covered the whole area they cleared, Nero once again fiddled with his Arbitrium and pointed at the entrance clearing. A ball of flame shot from his finger and bloomed to burn the whole clearing and the first trees next to it. The ball of flame grew to cover part of the slab of stone they were on! Just as sudden as the flames appeared they vanished. The whole clearing had only the bones of the dead now. Flakes of ash floated up with the wind. Nero fiddled with his cards hunching away from Rodther and once again the slab of stone extended to cover the clearing. He even buried the bones.
"Rodther, help me here," He called once the clearing was clad in stone. "I need you to hold these logs in place while I set them in place by moving the stone around them."
The six-feet long log pieces were assembled in a square. Nero cut notches in the logs and assembled them, forming a tower. To bind the logs together, he would take a lump of stone and mold it around the joints like mortar. They worked the rest of the day building the tower in the middle of the clearing. The damned thing was thirty feet tall when they retired to sleep.
"What is the point of that tower," he finally summoned the guts to ask during dinner.
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There was a huge chance Nero would just murder him once he was no longer helpful. As bitter as it tasted, it was a sad truth Rodther knew too much. One benefit of doing manual labor was that the mind was free to wander and think. Rodther needed to find a way to escape his predicament. To make himself worthy of keeping alive. He'd even toss his male pride aside and become Nero's bitch. It would... unfortunately not be the first time. One thing he didn't tell Nero was that while he smuggled people with a high level cap out of the kingdom, he was caught in his second mission. Rodther was a prisoner for fifty years already, always denied the chance to go up in level as his build was considered too weak to progress. Surviving that long in Bast's Dungeon Essence mines was a feat.
"To clear the Dungeon faster and safer, what else?" Nero replied matter-of-factly. "I think we need to extend the tower another thirty feet. It surely is sturdy enough to hold the weight. We'll finish it tomorrow, then we can have some fireworks," He finished with a grin.
Rodther had no idea what he meant. Five hours into the next day, he found out. The tower was finished and the wood was entirely coated in a thin layer of stone. When he asked Nero why to cover the wood with stone, he just shrugged and answered: "So the wood doesn't burn."
They were on the finished sixty-feet tall tower overlooking the extensive forest around them. Nero did some calculations on the wooden beam of the railing, then pointed at a bucket of water he'd just summoned.
"Get a damp rag and wrap it around your nostrils and mouth. I'm going to burn the forest, I hope the smoke doesn't reach us."
He didn't question the young man's sanity. Rodther just did as asked.
"And if it gets too smoky in here, get ready to descend down to ground level. Here it goes, [Fireball]"
It was nothing like the one he cast yesterday. The ball of fire flew far into the forest and struck a tree, blooming into a sun. Yes, that was the only thing Rodther could compare to the ball of flame hundreds of yards wide that single spell created. Leaves became ash instantaneously, the wood started to burn as soon fresh air was allowed back in the area of the fireball. Several other eruptions and explosions happened as the charred wood started to burn. A huge plume of smoke started to rise and Rodther thought about going down, but Nero had his rifle braced against the tower railing.
"Incoming! Rodther, defend the stairs. [Shadow Coating]."
The rifle became pitch black. Rodther lost count of how many different Skills Nero used. Who was this monster? He never got an answer. The rifle started to rattle like a snare drum in a marching band. He saw Nero's screen lit up once while shooting. Two dozen shots later, Nero stopped to reload. The ammo went into the butt of the rifle, an obvious modification. He kept shooting and reloading. The shots didn't make the same sound as they did that night. It was muffled, probably by that black coating.
Five minutes later, he heard the howls and grunts of wolves and bears. A small horde entered the clearing. Nero's rifle kept rattling and Rodther could see the results. Each shot caused a sheen of ice to spread from the wound and a surge of lightning to course through the burned monster's body. From this close, Nero didn't miss many shots. His Arbitrium lit up again. He shot at the bears first and then the wolves. It made sense. A bear could damage the tower, the wolves just barked down there and kept trying to jump up the tower.
Minutes later, it was over. The forest still burned.
"Stay here and keep watch. I'm going to collect my loot," Nero said.
"Works to me, boss," Rodther nodded.
Nero climbed the ladder down and Rodther fell into a heap on the tower floor. What the heck did he just witness? The boy was a powerhouse! It couldn't be just the rifle. What mysteries did he keep? One thing was certain, it was obvious why that guy got the prince's attention.
"At least I got to see something awesome before I died," Rodther sighed.
Some minutes later, Nero returned. "Heh, an Anima crystal. Lucky!" He cheered. "How's the smoke up here?"
So he was left behind to work as a coal canary. "Not bad. We're upwind."
"Good. So I know where my next targets are. Ready for the next volley?" He asked.
"I'm just watching. Be my guest."
This time he fireballed to the left and then to the right of the previous spot. He fiddled with the lens on his hat and kept shooting the angered monsters. It was bloody efficient, Rodther had to admit. Nero went down to pick up the drops and used fireball four more times before night fell and they had to sleep.
"Let's stay up here on the tower. It's safer. There are no flying monsters in here," Nero suggested.
Rodther shook his head. It was too surreal for him. "As you wish."
He went to sleep with the sound of a burning forest in the background. The next day was a repeat of last afternoon. Nero would toss a massive fireball at a section of the forest, then shoot all the creatures that were coming.
Rodther wondered where he got that much ammunition but he saw them coming from thin air. The dimensional pouch, of course. No prisoner was allowed to have one. The physical pouches in one's bandolier could be shown empty if the wearer so wished, but a dimensional pouch could hide thousands of cards even for a dimwit like Rodther. That caused the ietermahue to wonder. Nero's pouch was either the one measured in inches or the one measured in feet. He was very keen on limiting the logs to six feet of height, going as far as trimming some that were a bit taller than that. It meant that it wasn't the feet one.
It also meant that his lowest Attribute between Reason, Willpower, and Perception was seventy-two. The kid was quite the shot with that rifle of his. Rodther knew for a fact he needed to have high Dexterity and Agility to use such ranged weapons. He cut the trees faster than his ax with that bayonet. No matter how powerful that weapon was, he had to have the Strength to back the power.
It begged the question. Just how powerful was this level zero person?
Rodther was so absorbed in his thoughts that he filtered out the sounds of shooting, the grunts of monsters dying, and the forest burning around him. It was only when he found himself coughing that he snapped back to reality.
"Guess we are downwind now," Nero complained. "Let's go down and wait for the fire to die out."
They climbed down. The slab of stone was a treasure trove of shining red crystals and cards. Rodther picked up a crystal and checked. Three hundred and fourteen Essence. Double the amount from before. It came from a bear and these bears should be between levels twenty and twenty-six. Inverting the formula, Rodther found the average party level. Fourteen after rounding. Exactly half of his. He checked other crystals and handed all of them to Nero after he confirmed it. He was indeed level zero.
"You are indeed level zero, aren't you?" He finally summoned the courage to ask.
Nero smiled back, "Yes, that was obvious. People call me Nero Zero, doh."
"How are you so powerful?" Rodther asked.
"Because I worked hard," Nero shrugged.
"How can you use so many Skills?"
"Because I worked super hard," He chortled then stopped suddenly. "Well, the first question I can answer in more detail. I'm level zero. Anything I kill can give me an Accolade. I earned four after we built that tower. Charisma, Perception, and two on Dexterity. And as my level will never rise, I can get as many Accolades as I want.
"In fact, I have a growing suspicion that it gets easier if the monster is of a higher level than me," Nero grinned at the end.
Rodther found a sliver of envy in his heart. The kid had unlimited growth potential. Today he was slaughtering a rank-III Dungeon. He earned two Accolades each day. That was four levels for a normal person.
"How many Dungeons have you cleared?" Rodther asked.
"Eight. This one will be the ninth," Nero answered casually.
The conversation died while Rodther stood stupefied. They rested and ate in a depression they dug on the central area while the Dungeon cleared the smoke. It was mind-boggling how casually Nero treated the Dungeon. Once the smoke was gone hours later, they resumed their routine. Two days later, the green pine forest was painted ashen black. Most trees had burned in the first two zones. The bears and wolves were gone. The third zone's monster was the diseased deer.
"We need to go to the deer zone on foot. My fireballs can't quite reach it that far," Nero declared. "Let's go."
They crunched the charcoal and ashes of the trees along the way. Without the trees with their lower branches and the undergrowth, the only thing that blocked visibility were the black spires, the burnt remains from the trunks. They reached a not-so-thoroughly-burned section of the forest and Nero raised a hand.
"There's a crystal under the ashes, near that root. Get it, please," he ordered and unslung his rifle.
Rodther looked at Nero's goggles. Probably something that detected Essence. He heard about these lenses that detected essence. Truly enough, after sifting through the ash, he found the crystal and a card. A blue-grade Skill, [Cure]. It reduced the strength of Poison and Disease. The thought of taking them for himself never crossed Rodther's mind. The truth-teller at the exit would seize them. He stayed alive as a prisoner for decades by following the rules to a fault.
"Oh, thanks. That will surely come in handy," Nero cheered as he took the card. It reinforced Rodther's suspicion Nero could somehow use Skills and swap them.
The fire had spread to the deer area. The monsters were scorched but still alive, moaning in pain from their burnt flesh and the disease. The information Rodther gathered on this Dungeon told him that engaging the deer in melee was bad as their disease spread through contact. The deer didn't even need to break your skin, just touching it or getting gore on you could get you sick.
Not that it mattered to Nero. At first, the deer would die in two shots and after the sixth deer, they would all die in a single shot. Maybe some power that increased damage the more of the same enemy he killed? No. That would be orange-grade. Rodther felt rather useless. Not even as a porter he could work, everything - including his food - was in Nero's dimensional pouch. Was it some attempt at kept him under control?
"Nero, I'm rather hungry," He said.
"Oh, sure. Here's your pack," He replied with the bag in his hand. "Let's pause to eat a snack. I do need to replenish my mana."
Nero sat with his back to Rodther, who immediately stretched his neck a few inches. He thought he was being sneaky but the [Acrobat] could see Nero.. was he maybe swapping cards in his Arbitrium? That was very strange! But Rodther feared he'd die if he pried too much or even if Nero noticed he was peeking. It would be easier to hide if he used that fancy cloak of his, but the boy was obviously naive enough. But it would be too suspicious if he huddled under the cloak and fiddled with himself, Rodther thought with a chuckle.