A New Kind Of Grind

"Fuck," I hissed, catching the wolfgirl's mace on my shield, and returning the favor with my sword. The fun thing about delving is that, since a Level 4 delve was worth a thousand Level 1 delves, my first successful Level 4 delve would bring Paladin up to Level 3, at which point it'd stop being semi-vestigial and start being the source of my heightened Body Stats.

That hadn't quite happened yet, though, so this one wolfgirl fighter was enough to keep me on the back foot, fighting for my life, pouring my Alchemist-buffed stats and stamina into just trying to stop her from pounding me into chunky salsa.

I'm sure some other transfem would blush and poke her pointer fingers together while thinking 'outta my way straight girl I'm boutta get it' but unfortunately, as a dom and a top, I was not intending to receive any poundings from a wolfgirl today, no matter how buff she was.

The wolfgirl yelped and reared back, and I saw my opportunity, giving my all to slash my sword across and through her chainmail, as well as the flesh of her belly. From there, it was quick work for Nel to finish putting her down, shortsword in hand.

"Fuck, that was tough," I muttered. "Thanks for the assist."

"No problem," Nel said, having snuck up behind the wolfgirl and stabbed her in the back. Despite the Thief role's preference for skill over brute force, some amount of force was still in the cards. Besides, as much as chainmail was slash-proof (that stunt I pulled should not have worked), it was not quite stab-proof. As such, pushing a dagger through butted-ring iron chainmail was perfectly within the capabilities of a Level 5 Ranger.

"Alright... hooo, fuck," I said, breathing heavily. "I'm gonna... cast some heals, real quick. You need any?"

"I'm good," Nel said.

I nodded, and closed my eyes. "[Heal]," I cast. "[Rest]." And with that, my health and my stamina were restored- that wolfgirl had managed to hit me with that mace once or twice, and it did not feel great.

"You okay?" Nel asked.

"Mostly," I said, eyes still closed. "Ugh. I wish... that mid-delve... level-ups... were a thing. This would be... so much easier, if I had an extra level in Paladin."

"Why would they be a thing?" Nel asked.

"I once shot up two levels in the middle of a fight," I said. "I cast [Mass Sleep] as a Level 1 Wizard, knocked out thirty six bandits, and shot up to Level 3, just in time to fight four more Level 4 bandits, then kick their asses and hit Level 4 myself."

"...Huh," Nel said. "...You know, having a slotless Delver class that you're cross-training isn't super common here in the Guild, but uh... well, I can't help but feel like this is still one of the most normal days you've had."

"Normality is for vector multiplication," I said. "C'mon, let's get moving. I wanna finish this damn delve."

We delved the same Dungeon Gate the next day, but this time, I was a Level 3 Paladin.

The cowgirl's hammer caught me in the belly, launching me across the room; if I hadn't spent some stamina through Warrior on softening that, I'd be in a world of pain right now, but as it stood, I was just inconvenienced, and even managed to land flawlessly on my feet.

Still, it was pretty clear that her hammer had way better range than my sword did, and getting in close enough to do any damage was hard; she was damn good with that thing, and could block my attacks as soon as I tried to make them.

"Parry this, you fucking casual," I muttered, swapping out my sword for my revolver, and pulling the trigger.

She stumbled back as a fountain of red erupted from her left bicep, and I swapped back out for the sword, charging in to take advantage of her staggering. Sure, she'd used her own stamina to turn a lethal blow into a winging flesh wound, but that flesh wound was still in her arm, and she'd have a harder time stopping me from introducing steel to her vital organs.

Feint a stab to bait a block, punch with the edge of my shield to disorient, and then bring up the sword for the real stab. And that's how you take down a mini-boss in three easy steps.

"You're getting better," Nel said, nodding appreciatively at me as I flicked blood off my blade.

"Two levels'll do that to ya," I said, nodding. "Honestly... Hrm... Have you ever done a Level 5 dungeon?"

"Exactly once," Nel said. "Delving up a level is something that some people try without being carried, but... it's risky, and all it saves is three extra months of delving per level. Me, I'm an elf; I can afford to be patient. A thousand delves to reach Level 14 just doesn't feel like a huge commitment when I know I'm going to live five hundred years, if I don't do anything stupid that gets me killed young."

"Heh, fair enough," I said. "So, I suppose-"

"No, I'm not surprised that you want to delve up a level," Nel said dryly. "I love you, but I am also aware that you're a reckless meathead."

"Hey now, would it really be that dangerous?" I asked. "I'd have you with me, wouldn't I?"

"When a high-level is carrying low-levels, they're generally supposed to be at a higher level than the Dungeon Gate itself," Nel said dryly.

"Yeah, but we're both unusually good at what we do," I said.

"We are twenty five."

"Hrm, you're right. If it took you three years to do your first two hundred on-level delves as a fully-fledged Guilder, you must be pretty mediocre."

Nel sighed. "Roxy, I'm not the kind of prideful who puffs up and takes that as a challenge. You're just being a dick."

"Oh. Sorry."

"I'm willing to give it a shot," Nel continued, "but only because Dungeon Gates scale the challenge to the number of delvers, to make sure there's enough XP to go around. We won't be facing a completely unreasonable challenge, and... well, your build is pretty good, so I can accept that you're capable of punching above your weight class. Just... don't take any stupid risks when we do, alright?"

"Alright," I said, nodding. "Now... let's finish up this delve, and go home."

The next three rooms were pretty easy for us to clear, with just a bunch of standard monstergirl mooks with no real class abilities, just crappy weapons and armor. The loot was better than the Level 1 Dungeon Gate; where that entire thing had a payout of ten silver coins and a health potion, each individual room of this dungeon was giving us a payout of an entire gold coin.

Between the Purpleheart Collective and the Guild, I was pretty confident I'd never have to worry about money again. Soon enough, I'd be a proper D&D-style adventurer, who considered a gold coin to be barely any money at all, and would consider magic items costing a few thousand gold coins to be affordable trinkets.

The boss door loomed before us, and behind it, stood a level four jobber who would try and fail to separate me from ten gold worth of easily-fungible loot. Or so I thought, until I opened the door, and discovered that, hey, this boss wasn't a Fighter, she was a Wizard.

This wasn't a system where being a Wizard was the objectively superior choice. I was a single-class Wizard for long enough to learn that a Wizard, while objectively quite dangerous, was also perfectly capable of getting their shit rocked. However, all the same, I knew why fighting a Wizard was much more of a pain in the ass than fighting a Fighter: in an even fight, a Fighter can only kill one person at a time, whereas a Wizard could ruin everyone's day at once, and could do so from twenty paces.

"I got this," I said, before charging the blue-robed lady with the big pointy hat that hid whatever ears may have clued me in on whether she was a catgirl, a bunnygirl, or something else I hadn't encountered yet. Didn't matter; what did matter was that I'd been a Wizard myself, and I knew-

-that, yep, I would've also responded to a swordsman charging me by launching them back across the room with [Telekinesis].

"Are you sure about that?" Nel asked, quirking an eyebrow.

"...Yeah, I am," I said, nodding. "I'll learn how to fight other Wizards as a Paladin later. Right now, I'm going to fight another Wizard like Roxy."

I took a lightning bolt to the face without flinching; my armor was far more conductive than my flesh was, and like I've established before, that meant it protected me from lightning.

"I cast gun."

A gunshot rang out, and the wizard's chest burst in a spray of red.

"Oh holy shit that's a powerful gun," Nel muttered as I put my gun back away. "I was... I was going to say, using a ranged weapon is pretty standard practice for Fighters who're getting harassed by Wizards, since the Warrior role can be used to empower those just like melee weapons, but... uh..."

"Something to bear in mind for next time," I said simply. "Now c'mon, let's go loot the boss chest. I wanna see what dropped."