Nero, The Legendary Hunter

The next morning Nero woke up as usual with Choko on top of her. Nero liked to be hugged by Choko, but Mother Nature was calling her. She took Choko off her and went to the bathroom.

After making her daily necessities, Choko was awake, sitting on the bed with sleepy eyes as she shook her head.

"Hungry?" Nero asked softly.

"En." Choko nodded her head cutely.

"Wait, I'm going to the reception for breakfast." Nero left after dressing in casual pants and a sweatshirt. When she returned, she brought eggs with bread and coffee, and milk.

"Milk?" Nero asked as they sat in the chairs around the table.

"Coffee with milk, please," Choko said. She picked up a very large glass and downed it all in one gulp. Then Nero filled it up and they went back to eating. Now she felt awake. After all, yesterday was a tiring day, although she is happy to reach level 16 and have all her stats above 450, and Strength 521.

After breakfast, they cleaned the dishes and started to put on armor. However, Nero gave Choko the part of the Valkyrie's armor that she would no longer wear. As for the rest, she said she would give it to Choko later when she got more new armor. She said she was lucky with drops in the dungeon.

Everyone already knew Nero's good fortune. After all, she was really lucky. And that's why they didn't suspect. Even they had received some armor themselves, but none as extravagant as Nero's.

Nero also gave Choko some accessories that she wouldn't wear herself, as she had better ones. After that, Choko's armor, although not a complete set, remained beautiful in Nero's eyes. She hugged Choko and said, "It looks beautiful on you."

"Thank you, your new armor also suits you a lot. You look fabulous~" Choko kissed her.

After the two left the inn, the other members were already waiting for them outside. They seemed more excited than ever. After all, reality hit when they woke up the next morning and found they were at least level 15.

They noticed Choko wearing a part of the Valkyrie's armor and Choko gave the old one to Jana.

"Thanks, I'll use it now. Wait 1 minute." She went back inside the inn. After almost 10 minutes she came back. Well, they didn't really expect that it would only take 1 minute.

"Choko, you look beautiful in that armor," Honda said with a smile.

"Thanks," Choko smiled back.

"Jana looks good too," they said when she came back out. However, Jana's eyes were on Breno.

Breno turned tomato red, but said, "It looks beautiful."

"Hehe~ Thank you." His compliment was what made her happiest. If Breno wasn't so shy, she would kiss him right there!

"Thinking about it, we are very strong now, degozaru," Jingu said suddenly.

"Well, it will be interesting when we enroll in the Hunter School," Honda smiled.

It was insane. At the rate they were going, when they enrolled, they'd be treated like school geniuses. It made them smile from ear to ear. After all, they would have more privilege and access to the most important library with skills that might be compatible with them.

"We still have 14 days until enrollment, let's make an effort!" Jair was excited.

"Yeah!" Not only him, but all the members of their party were also excited to level up. Hopefully, they might even reach level 30, which would be a C-Rank Hunter. It would be a dream.

They went to the Hunter Headquarters and sold all the disposable items they weren't going to use and bought all the stamina and mana potions they'd need. After leaving, they walked towards the dungeon.

When they arrived at the front of the dungeon, all that was left was for everyone to treat them like royalty, as they even wanted to revere them, especially the guards who knew the difficulty of the dungeon.

After entering, they already had started killing, or rather, Nero started shooting so many arrows that she killed everything in less than 1 minute. But she didn't want any of that, and the rest split the kills into equal shares. In the end, Nero would just keep the money.

Floor 2 was the same, arrows showered and the gorillas died. Floor 3 was the masochistic penguins. It was even faster, and took far less than a minute. What took time was to collect the corpses.

Then it was floor 4. The bulls and cows didn't have a good end either. They quickly died by arrows, or by Nero's summoned monsters that were all above level 14 and by Choko and the rest.

On the 5th floor, it took them a little longer; it took 4 minutes. From start to finish, Nero only used arrow showers even to kill the boss. She wanted to increase this skill to the maximum.

"Well, that was quick... Shall we challenge the 6th floor?" Honda asked...

"No, they are dragons. It will be difficult for you to kill them, as they are flying and attacking from the sky and their levels are:

[Reptile Monster [Water Dragon] Rank E+: Level 16!]

[Reptile Monster [Earth Dragon] Rank E+: Level 17!]

[Reptile Monster [Fire Dragon] Rank E+: Level 18!]

[Reptile Monster [Lightning Dragon Boss] Rank D-: Level 20!]"

"Oh, forget what I said. After all, it's the top floor of this dungeon. Of course it wouldn't be easy, but let's just finish our runs, I believe in us!" Honda said wittily.

"Yes, I guess it won't take long. Maybe today you can reach level 17? Well, let's continue," Nero said.

"Yeah!" They said in unison.

After that, they continued to go in and out, killing monsters up to the 5th floor. This went on for 15 times! 15 times!! They were dripping with so much sweat that their clothing and armor were soaked through. All the potions they had bought before were gone.

"I'm sweating all over meee! Let's go back and shower?" Jair asked.

"No, we're going to level up and vomit impurities. It's going to be a waste of water if we do it later, Degozaru," Jingu said sensibly. As unpleasant as it was, it was better to stink from a little sweat that was bearable, then later go shower.

"Well, that is reasonable. Okay, I want to level up fast too!"

Nero gave them the Level 10 Monster Cores. They were: level 6 - 3,015, level 7 - 3,330, level 8 - 7,020, level 9 - 1,254, level 10 - 1,710.

They began to believe strongly that they could make it to level 17. After all, this amount of Monster Cores was insane.

"Nero, won't you meditate?" They were curious as they didn't see her start.

"Yeah, I'm just thinking a few things over. Don't worry about me, keep meditating," Nero said with a smile.

In truth, she wasn't going to use any Monster Cores today. She had: level 11 - 8,918, level 12 - 5,018, and level 15 - 32. She could evolve if she used the ones from level 12, however, Nero thought it better to use the level 11s and then tomorrow she would have enough to climb again to the next level.

It was good to think about the future, and she would only have to wait one day. And the biggest reason was that she was still scared...

'What kind of madness will it be when I turn my charm to its fullest?' That question kept popping into her mind.

Like yesterday, she had been shooting the bow at the wall. The others were so intent on meditating that they didn't even notice her. Sometimes she trained and strategized how to use her attacks better. In fact, she still hadn't use the Sacred Energy...

'I need to test this. Is it similar to dark energy, or does it have any healing power? Mm, anyway, there's no monster to test it on, but I'll make arrows out of it and see the result,' Nero thought.

The arrow of light appeared in her bow. Nero kept shooting and tried to use arrow showers. Basically, she could use all her abilities with this sacred energy. Now she just needed to test the effect it had...

'Should I go up a floor and test it on a dragon?' Nero thought.

After that, she shook her head dismissively. She didn't know what the other dragons' reaction would be and she wasn't prepared to face an army of dragons. 

In the end, she continued to practice with her arrows and train her skill, reating strategies to attack better, even how she could use attacks to deceive the enemy. In general, she had some fight improvements while waiting for the others.

Some had already reached level 16.

'I'm actually building a powerful group...'

Of course, she was happy about this. It was nice to have strong friends so I could explore the dungeons with her. Thanks to them, she did the dungeon 15 times without using a lot of potions. Well the others had used a lot, but she had an absurdly large mana pool and only sometimes needed to stop and meditate. Her stamina was what she spent the most.

Things progressed well. Time went by very quickly and all of them, without exception, managed to reach level 16. Choko had even managed to reach level 17. Well, she was already at a farther advanced level than the rest were, so it was understandable. However, this already made them very happy.

"It's finally over. Wow! We are monsters! We actually did 15 dungeon runs!" Honda laughed out loud.

"No comment. I just want to shower and sleep, *degozaru*," Jingu said and added, "But tomorrow I'll definitely reach level 17!"

"Oh! That's how you say it!" Honda tapped Jingu on the shoulder and smiled.

When they left, people didn't even approach them. They didn't smell good. When they arrived in their rooms, like yesterday, Nero and Choko took a shower together. After all, it was easier when one washed the other and removed the dirt, wasn't it?

"Oh, it looks pretty dirty here, I'll wash it well~" Nero began to scrub gently and for a strange reason, Choko started moaning nonstop on shaky legs.