Alsvartr did end up taking some damage. I could tell by the blood oozing out of her nose. At first, I regretted giving her the necklace. However, then I noticed that there wasn't a lot of blood. Because of this, I guessed that she didn’t lose more than a few health points. More than likely, this was because Hyggiandi was looking out for her. However, it did take longer than an hour.

Alsvartr opened her eyes and sent a mental message, “I’m tired. Can I go take a nap?”

“Uh, sure. Of course,” I said. We could always go hunting bats when she woke up. Although I was slightly disappointed that I had to wait for my experience points, the fact that Alsvartr was okay more than made up for that. I watched as she pulled herself erect, flapped her wings, and flew off up to the ceiling where she found a good perching spot.

Actually, why did I have to wait? I could go on my own. With that in mind, I set off. Although in my previous life I had been somewhat directionally impaired, I only got lost a few times before finding the giant bat colony. Just as I did the previous day, I used Shape Magic to learn the Zone of Death spell.

Once that was done, I crouched down in the same spot as yesterday. Taking a deep breath, I cast the Zone of Death spell and started the slaughter. Everything went just as expected. Although I was continuously bitten, knocked down, and pummeled, I managed to slay every single giant bat that came near me. I even had to use my claws a few times while I waited until I could use my twilight breath attack again.

After losing my concentration for who knows how many times, I decided then and there that I was going to take some type of feat that would allow me to keep my concentration. Of course, that depended on if it showed up as a choice. Otherwise, I was going to have to look for an item to help me instead.

I almost lost my cool a few times when I cast Zone of Death only to have it immediately disrupted when I was bitten by one of the giant bats and lost my concentration. Even with my high armor class, I took a lot of damage. If I had clothes, they would have been turned into bloody rags within minutes of the bat massacre.

I was exhausted by the time I finished off the last of the giant bats that prefer fight over flight. Well, that should teach them that running is sometimes the best option. While I had intended to just sit down and take a break, the cave floor looked so comfortable that I couldn’t resist the impulse to lay down. The fight had taken a lot out of me. Then again, I was also certain that I had gained a lot of experience points. “System, please show my experience points,” I said, staring up at the ceiling.

Experience Gained: Killed 158 Creatures: 158 x 25 xp = 3950 xp

Total Experience: 18,665/14,000

“Ugh,” I groaned. After splitting the experience points with my familiar, I had gained less than two thousand experience points. “It is probably because more bats chose fleeing over fighting. Yesterday I got rid of some of the most aggressive bats. Today I eliminated some more. However, if this continues, more and more bats will choose to flee as soon as I show up. At this rate it will take a week to level-up.”

To say I was disappointed was an understatement. I knew that I should have been happy with the experience I was receiving. After all, I was certain that regular adventurers would be overjoyed with the amount of experience I gained in this one conflict. I would be a god of leveling to them.

“Now there is a thought. Maybe I can also be a god of adventurers, if there isn’t already one that is.” I had no desire to fight an established god for their divinity. Sighing, I dragged myself upright and started heading back to my room. In the back of my mind, I was coming up with a plan. Maybe I could take a few shielded kobolds with me and blockade some of the cave exits so fewer giant bats are able to escape.

After walking for a few minutes, I turned around, realizing I was more tired than I had thought. Apparently, large back to back battles were starting to frazzle my thinking. Once I got back to the cave entrance, I took out the Beacon Ring and contacted the tribe to let them know where to pick up the food. While I was tempted to take a nap while waiting for them, I was worried that something might sneak up on me while I was asleep.

Stolen story; please report.

“Oh, my goodness, there actually is a way that I can take a nap,” I said, pulling out a mushroom to chew on. I couldn’t believe that I had forgotten about my spellcasting abilities. I was getting too focused on one or two spells. I was like one of those cliche wizards who only knew one spell, Fireball.

If I wanted to take a nap, all I had to do was set up the Alarm ritual beforehand. Popping the rest of the mushroom into my mouth, I got down to work and cast the ritual. Afterwards, I enjoyed a well-deserved rest. It seemed like only minutes later when the alarm woke me up. I resisted the impulse to ignore the alarm and stood up. Even though I was fairly certain the individuals who had set off the alarm were kobolds, I’d rather not attract attention and discover they were dark elves or some other threat.

Fortunately, it was the kobold foraging party. The foragers were actually a branch of rogue scouts who specialized in locating food and bringing that food back to the tribe. Their skills in running far outclassed their actual combat abilities. However, their ability to sneak around was unparalleled, except perhaps for the assassins.

I watched as the kobolds started collecting the bodies. Basically, each kobold was only able to carry one body. I hadn’t watched them yesterday or the day before, so I had expected them to place the bodies in carts that would be drawn by wereweasels. However, the foraging party each carried a bat on their back. A few of the other kobolds scouted ahead and a few hung behind.

I was actually impressed. That was some stamina. Admittedly, only I called them giant bats. Everyone else called them primal bats. The normal bats I had killed weighed about half a pound. These bats weighed as much as I did. True giant bats were several times my size. However, from my viewpoint, these bats were still giant. Then again, Alsvartr was getting bigger and might soon be just as big.

Watching them lug those huge bats around started to give me an inferiority complex. I was exhausted just carrying around the bags of dried food. Was I really that weak? I mean, I knew I had a really low strength attribute, but I was starting to realize it now. I added a belt of giant strength to the list of needed magics. I needed something for strength and something to help me concentrate on my spells. Even if both those items required an attunement, that would leave me with one attunement left. Now all I needed to do was find those two types of items and figure out what I wanted to do with the last attunement.

I trailed along with the group of foragers, completely happy in the middle of the group. Despite my location, none of the kobolds showed their usually talkative nature. We walked in total silence. At first, I had thought they were nervous to be in my presence. When I realized they were just being safe so as to not attract attention, I felt a little embarrassed. I was extremely glad I hadn’t said anything earlier that would make me want to facepalm.

I remembered doing things like that many times in my past life. For someone as smart as I was, and who had worked in the produce section of a grocery store as a teenager, I had really embarrassed myself when, at the age of fifty, one of my friends had to explain that pickles were just cucumbers that had gone through a jarring experience. I had to get him to explain the joke and argued that pickles were not cucumbers.

Of course, I did a lot of stupid things. One of the stupidest was when I was working in the produce area at the supermarket. I had been a little overconfident. Okay, I was stupid. One day, when I was watering the vegetables, I noticed that a light switch wasn’t working.

I decided to fix it myself. However, I didn’t know where the fuse box was, so I decided to just be careful. I don’t know why I chose a completely metal knife instead of getting a screwdriver off the shelf. I opened up the light socket and discovered what a circuit was. It turned out the knife I had could melt. The fact that my life was full of such situations showed that there was a higher being watching over me.

By the time we got back, I was exhausted again. Maybe for the third attunement I could get something that would increase my constitution. Hopefully, I would get them soon. Before I went back to my room though, I stopped by the feces drop room. For some reason, I had to go to the bathroom again. As soon as I dropped my liquid brown deposit into the hole, I scurried away from the stench as fast as I could. Maybe some of that stomach rumbling wasn’t from being hungry but from having the runs.

Whatever the case, I didn’t have time to think about the reason since I was certain that our tribe would be invaded before too long. However, for now, I was too tired to think. After eating a hot meal someone brought me, I flew up to the bed and took another nap. During the nap, I dreamed about being a giant kobold who smashed invading armies of gnomes into the stone walls to create wall paintings.