Slave Harem in the Labyrinth of the Other World (LN)
Volume 2 - Ch 3.02

If we decide to go to the upper floors of the Labyrinth, it is quite possible that were going to get more EXP points from defeating monsters. If we advance little by little without letting confidence to go into our heads too much, then we should be perfectly fine. We dont have to overdo it just yet. For now, my absolute top priority should be to guarantee our safety. As they say, slow and steady wins the race. If we were to force ourselves too much just for the sake of going forward, then I can already see us falling to the ground hard right before reaching the finish line.

That being said, we cant allow ourselves to be neglectful either. Even if its one step at a time, we have to keep getting stronger by increasing the levels of the Jobs that we already have and continuing to aquire new ones.

That being said, I have delivered a steady slash with Fragarach towards the Needlewood in front of me, cutting it horizontally at waist-height. Now, lets see how much damage it did.

As expected, this time a single blow was not enough to kill it. Is that how big the difference between the Bonus Weapons is? And I just lowered it from Lv.6 to Lv.5 this time. Is every Bonus Weapon aside from Durandal useless? No, no matter how much weaker they are in comparison to Durandal, every Bonus Weapon should be stronger than the weakest of the weak weapons, Copper Sword.

But still, from the very basic equipment to The Holy Sword Durandal the difference in the range of power on those things is a total bullshit. Not to mention that theres too many options in these things. If Fragarach from Bonus Weapon Lv.5 is that much weaker than Durandal, then what is a weapon from Bonus Weapon Lv.1 supposed to be, just a hairs width better than Copper Sword?!

While I was busy with my internal monologues, the Needlewood threw its wooded fist towards me. Ive let my guard down too much, so theres no way for me to dodge it in time

Huh?

but then Roxanne jumped in front of me and started to shower the Needlewood with a barrage of punches. Left hook, right hook, left straight, right straight.

Hah

She also dodges the enemys attacks gracefully, after which she immediately jumps back into melee range to throw a jab or two its way.

Using the distraction Roxanne provided, I moved in with my second slashing attack, after which the Needlewood collapsed. So Fragarach takes two attacks to kill an enemy instead of one?

W-Wow, amazing

Yes, master. That new sword of your is plenty strong as well.

N-No, I was talking about you, Roxanne. Those movements of yours

Really? Then, thank you very much, I suppose.

No no no, you shouldnt be thanking me. But even if she herself doesnt agree with me, that doesnt change the fact that her performance just now was outstanding. Huh? But wait a minute if she doesnt think that something like that was amazing, then does that mean she wasnt serious just now?!

This is a world filled with dangerous Labyrinths and vicious monsters. Taking that into account, the fact that Roxanne is able to pull her own weight in a fight shouldnt be all that surprising. Still, back when I was at the Somara village, I saw with my own eyes that ordinary people were having trouble with repelling Bandit attacks and Slow Rabbits, and even if they all banded together they would be unable to defeat something like a Gumi Slime. But those with enough strength to enter the Labyrinth would obviously be different than normal people.

Anyway, as long as battling without Bonus Weapons is concerned, Roxanne is overwhelmingly stronger than me. Then again, maybe I shouldnt put that much though into it and just accept it for a fact?

Guided by her superior sense of smell, we continued the exploration.

The next monster we happened upon was killed by me with the usage of Rush, which I successfully activated by thinking about it as I raised mu sword in the air in preparation. I scored a clear hit on the Needlewood, which collapsed onto the ground with just a single hit.

Rush seems to be a Skill that allows the user to instantenously close the distance between him and the enemy, attacking them at the same time. I tried switching it with normal attacks, but I was unable to determine how much the strength of the attack rose with the usage of Rush.

Next, I tried testing the Swordsman Skill, Slash. Once again, the Needlewood unfortunate enough to be my test subject was killed with a single blow. Results? I dont really understand the difference between Rush and Slash. I guess I technically could run additional tests to test both of those Skills in more detail, but honestly, I dont want to do it. As long as they involve fighting against monsters, even the most harmless of experiments could quickly turn fatal if I wasnt paying enough attention. So instead, Im going to try something a bit safer, the kind of experiment I can perform without much of a risk.

Character Reset not only allows me to redistribute my Bonus Points and change the Bonus Skills I want to use, but I can also change the values of my stats by adding and subtracting points from them. I was wondering what was going to happen if I tweaked them a bit, and now is as good of a time as any to replace that out.

The stat that Im going to fiddle around with is going to be STR (Strength), since it directly affects how much damage I am doing with my sword attacks, and my aim here is to always kill enemies with a single blow.

While keeping the points that Ive put in Bonus Weapons to keep Fragarach (31 Bonus Points) and keeping the option of the Third Job, I used the remaining 75 Bonus Points to increase the STR value as much as possible, and with such settings I attacked the next monster. Surprising nobody, the Needlewood got obliterated with one strike.

Yup, that confirms it: more STR means increase in the attack power.

But even after increasing STR to 75 points, there wasnt really much of a change, by which I mean that my sword didnt feel lighter and my swings didnt get any faster. No, maybe it did become somewhat easier to swing around, or maybe that was just my imagination playing tricks on me. Maybe my mindset has changed, and I subconsciously started thinking that I am now really strong, and that affected my muscles in some weird way? No, that actually sound way too far-fetched to be true. Even when my levels went up or Jobs were added and removed, there was no real change to the sensation. It remained the same the entire time.

I reverted my settings to the ones where I invested in increasing the amount of EXP gained (x10) and lessened the amount of EXP required to Level Up (1/10th), except this time I increased my STR to 45 points.

Now, lets see how those are going to perform, shall we?