Over the next few days, Gauss kept circling around Grayrock Town, using the opportunity to test the effects of the newly learned Locate Creature spell.
He pulled his gaze away from the goblin corpse at his feet.
A white snowy owl glided down from above and landed on his shoulder.
It had a round little head and an adorable face—perfectly making up for the one thing cats couldn't do: fly.
It turned its head to look at Gauss and broke into a goofy, dopey grin, like it was completely dazzled.
"Find anything?"
"I found a small pouch of coins."
"Nice."
That cute snowy owl was Alia—transformed.
While Gauss and Shadow dealt with the enemy, she'd shifted into a bird and swept through the monster nest.
Coins weren't very useful to monsters the way they were to humans—they couldn't just trade them for supplies on demand—but plenty of monsters still loved shiny, glittering trinkets by instinct, so they tended to hoard them anyway.
Rumor had it that in some large monster tribes, metals like gold, silver, and copper even circulated as currency.
Some tribes would even smelt and mint their own coins.
"Locate Creature · Kobold."
Gauss switched targets and cast the Level 4 spell again.
Mana rippled outward from him, quickly blanketing a huge area.
Trees, rocks, frozen ground—none of it could block this search.
Or rather, any ward capable of interfering with a Level 4 detection spell was far beyond what ordinary monsters could manage.
He scanned the area. No kobold traces.
So he canceled the spell.
Compared to goblins—with their ridiculous adaptability—kobolds preferred warmer environments, so they usually found a more suitable place to overwinter long before deep winter arrived.
Total Monster Kills: 16,998
Without realizing it, since the battle ended, Gauss had accumulated nearly two thousand more kills.
Of course, that speed was the result of several factors stacking together.
First, during those two days rescuing Blackwater refugees, he'd killed a huge number of pursuing monsters.
Second, after the Grayrock defense, a large chunk of the routed monster remnants fled into the Jade Forest's outer rim. With Locate Creature, Gauss could step into the forest edge and "snatch them up" like chickens—one scan, one catch.
Those unlucky monsters had finally regrouped to lick their wounds… only for Gauss, the relentless monster hunter, to come knocking again.
Level 4 Spell: Locate Creature Lv3 (6/50)
With frequent use, the spell's proficiency was climbing fast.
That's how skills worked: use them more, get better.
And his racial talent Dusk Hour would occasionally "drop" a bit of skill experience too, randomly adding to various skills—most often to newer, lower-level ones.
Plus, his magical talent was absurd. Once Gauss learned a spell, he usually mastered and refined it at frightening speed.
That said, leveling was quick for the first three levels. Once a skill hit Lv4, growth slowed sharply.
Even for a monster like him, his highest skills had only reached Lv5—and only the most-used ones:
Gauss Omni-Armor Lv5 (145/200)
Magic Missile Lv5 (77/200)
Firebolt Lv5 (5/200)
Gauss Omni-Armor didn't need explanation. It was his core skill, used constantly—more accurately, it was rarely not on him.
Even in sleep, a protective field covered him.
So from start to finish, its proficiency level had always been far ahead on his list.
And even when he activated special states—like the draconic scale armor from Scale-Tempered Bloodline, or the ghostly defense from Second-Stage Ghoul Form—Gauss Omni-Armor had already fused with them.
Or maybe those defensive forms had evolved in the first place largely because of the influence of that core skill.
As for Magic Missile… also self-explanatory.
Useful.
If you run into five or ten goblins on the roadside, you're not going to throw a Level 3 Fireball or a Level 4 Ice Storm at them.
Even if he had the mana to spare, it was overkill—and besides, blasting the landscape and innocent animals for no reason didn't sit right.
Alia would look genuinely pained when he did that.
So for scattered monsters, Magic Missile and Firebolt were still the optimal choice.
More casts meant faster growth.
Lv1 was "entry," Lv2 "skilled," Lv3 "proficient," Lv4 "master," and in Gauss's sense, Lv5 was already the "pinnacle."
At least for these three Lv5 spells, he could practically play tricks with them now.
Near-instant casting, lower energy cost, stronger output.
Magic Missile and Firebolt could be rapid-fired in huge strings, completely beyond their baseline use.
In his view, Lv5 meant you'd internalized the skill into something uniquely your own.
A level very few casters ever reached.
So now he was intensely curious—what did Lv6 look like?
"Transcendent"?
Would new effects appear?
Right now, Gauss Omni-Armor was closest to Lv6… but as proficiency rose, even a sustained spell like Gauss Omni-Armor was gaining more slowly.
"How's your dream going?"
As he spoke to the snowy owl on his shoulder, Gauss also waved Shadow over from the distance.
Before the New Year, Alia had awakened the ability to transfer real plants into her dream. Their first test had been a specially cultivated magical olive bonsai.
She'd immediately called Gauss over to examine it, so he knew the whole story.
"It's already bearing fruit in the dream."
"I brought some out last night."
"Want to try it?"
"Yeah. Thanks."
Gauss nodded.
He took a few fresh green olives from Alia.
They looked no different from normal fruit—just plumper, with a dense mana scent clinging to the skin.
If you didn't know, you'd never guess they'd grown inside a dream.
Gauss and Shadow each took one and bit down.
The flesh was pale and tender, full of juice.
Unlike ordinary olives—bitter and astringent—these were sweet and fragrant, the aroma blooming instantly as the juice hit their tongues.
That unique "magic fruit" energy flowed into Gauss's body like a warm current.
"Tastes good."
Gauss nodded.
"And it's packed with energy."
The satiety and energy it provided were stronger than most low-grade mana stones.
More importantly, it was gentle—harmless to the body. If processed into a potion, it would probably be even better.
"It might be the dream environment," Shadow said.
Alia nodded.
That olive plant had been bred and altered by her, but artificially cultivated magic plants usually had low yield and mediocre quality.
Wild magic plants grew on mana veins and other special nodes—conditions her garden simply couldn't match. The only reason it survived at all was because of her special soil and druidic power.
But inside her dreamland, the problem seemed to vanish.
Once a crop existed, an odd force would well up from beneath the ground and nourish it.
"Still, it looks like I can only transfer magic plants. Regular plants won't go in."
Alia sighed.
The cooldown on transferring plants, and the requirement that the plant be a "magic" variety, meant she couldn't rapidly flood the dreamland with greenery and revive it overnight.
"It's already amazing."
"From now on, when we find magic plants out in the field, we can gather them and have you move them into the dream estate."
When Gauss and the others found wild magic plants, they usually harvested the fruit and left the plant behind.
Because if they uprooted it, it would almost certainly die once removed from the mana vein.
But now they had a portable cultivation estate.
From here on, they could produce fresh magic crops continuously.
…
Back in Grayrock, order had fully returned.
Time healed everything, and the shadow of war seemed to be retreating.
Once it was confirmed the Jade Forest wouldn't organize another immediate offensive, Sir Belrock and his soldiers—stationed outside town—prepared to return to Iron Anvil Fort.
"Safe travels, Sir Belrock."
"Gauss—come visit Iron Anvil Fort sometime."
"I will."
After seeing the army off at the gate, Gauss and Eberhard headed back into town.
With war over, Grayrock entered a new phase of rebuilding—so much to fix, so much to do.
To house refugees from Blackwater and help locals who'd suffered losses, the town hall launched work-for-aid programs, opened new posts, repaired walls and homes, and offered loans.
The victory itself also brought postwar gains.
Lost population was gradually replaced by new arrivals.
Given enough time, Grayrock could grow even more prosperous than before.
If it kept expanding, maybe in a decade or two it could even rise into a real border city.
With the huge victory, Gauss's fame soared again—and Grayrock got dragged into the spotlight with him.
He even picked up a new title: "Grayrock's Guardian."
Some people—especially in big cities he'd never visited—had doubted the story that he'd "beaten" a transcendent-tier Dragon Priestess in Longflute Fortress.
But this time, his feat—taking the enemy leader's head in the middle of a massive army—had been witnessed by countless soldiers and recorded by military scribes.
For a while, Gauss's name shook the entire province.
That was how it worked for anyone climbing from the bottom: you proved yourself again and again, forging your name with accomplishments.
Especially in major cities and the kingdom's heartlands, residents often carried a sense of superiority.
They trusted their own famous veterans and celebrated prodigies more readily.
A "rising star" from the border was usually met with scrutiny—until repeated, undeniable victories forced belief.
Village → town → city → province → kingdom → continent.
A famous adventurer had to climb step by step—until they reached the grandest stage.
Gauss had some real fame now, though he was still somewhere between "city-famous" and "province-famous."
Many towns and cities in the province had heard of him, but he wasn't yet a household name everywhere. Most of the chatter was concentrated around where he'd actually been active.
"Eberhard, I'm here to see if there are any good commissions."
"Bored already?"
Eberhard had finally carved out a little time after days of nonstop work—only to see Gauss walk in.
He was teasing, but after the last two weeks, he genuinely considered Gauss a friend.
Even though Gauss was much younger, he carried himself with maturity—and was stronger than Eberhard besides—so Eberhard had no reason to posture.
He'd heard the rumors long ago: Gauss was a commission machine, a monster-slaughter addict.
Turns out it was true.
A normal adventurer, after serving as the key force that ended a battle, then clearing remnant monsters outside the walls and escorting refugees… would rest at least a week or two.
Gauss didn't even stay idle for a day.
He'd cleared the forest edge that morning, and now he was back for more work.
Eberhard couldn't help feeling old.
"So, what kind of commission?"
"Combat commissions. Preferably involving elite-tier monsters."
"Want me to pull up the elite goblin jobs?"
Eberhard asked—clearly understanding what Gauss usually hunted.
"No. Not goblins this time."
Gauss shook his head.
He glanced at his Monster Index.
Somewhere amid the chaos of the war, the number of elite-tier species recorded had quietly climbed to 19.
He was missing only one more species to hit 20 and unlock a new talent draw.
Sure, a blue-tier talent probably wouldn't boost his raw combat power by much now, but you could never have too many racial talents.
It was like spells: a caster didn't use every spell daily, but every spell added depth to their foundation.
And who knew—maybe someday it would be exactly what you needed.
Eberhard looked puzzled, but didn't press.
He wasn't chatty, and curiosity wasn't his vice.
Last year's winter hunt, when Gauss was only a level-one professional, Eberhard had already noticed something unusual about him—yet still never directly approached, only quietly smoothing over small issues behind the scenes.
He assumed Gauss just wanted variety.
Elite monsters weren't a threat to him anyway.
~~~
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