Wish Fulfillment System

When Isaac opened his eyes again, what greeted him wasn't warm and gentle sunlight but rather the static light of a magic lamp.

'Ugh, what time is it?'

In response to this thought, the system displayed a small numerical clock.

[ 01:57 a.m. ]

Isaac couldn't help but smirk when seeing this. Of course he would have thought of such a simple feature as a clock. He just hadn't thought about the current time at all previously, so it hadn't made itself known to him.

When he looked around to see why the magic lamp was still turned on at this point in time, what greeted him was the sight of Jakk sleeping with his head on his desk, sloppily sitting in his chair. He was resting right on top of his various notes and a still-open book. Thankfully, for whatever reason, he didn't drool in his sleep, so the book didn't get damaged.

After feeling quite amused at this sight, Isaac thought about his current situation. It was still in the middle of the night. The outside world, that he could see through the window, was still dr.a.p.ed in darkness. At this time of the day, it would be weird for anyone he knew to be awake. This meant that he finally had some time for himself. But what was it he wanted to do?

A few moments of thought later, Isaac decided on going to the dungeon alone to hunt a few monsters. He still had a long way ahead of him if he wanted to gain a moderate amount of strength in this world, so continuously grinding like this would definitely be of help. Earning some money from the magic stones would be a plus as well.

Being careful so as to not wake up the sleeping Hume Bunny, by the time Isaac quietly had put on his equipment, he suddenly remembered that he wasn't a lone wolf anymore. He was now part of a familia, so it was reasonable for someone to come looking for him while he was out and about. Most likely someone like Ais or Lefiya. Consequently, they would wonder about where he was. Ais would be able to find him through the system map without a problem. He made sure of that by asking the system for confirmation whether or not Ais was already aware of this function.

Once the system confirmed this, he decided to write a note in case the one who came looking for him wasn't Ais. Isaac took one of the blank pieces of paper plus a pen from Jakk's desk stealthily and wrote a few short sentences. He returned the pen to where he had taken it from and placed the note down on his own desk.

'I'll be out for a while. If anyone is looking for me, just ask Ais about where I am, she'll know

- Isaac'

Short and concise. Why did Ais know his location? Other people wouldn't have to know. Could he just have said that he was going to the dungeon? Yes, but he didn't feel like publicising his plans like this. The less people knew where he was, the more comfortable he would be.

Isaac thought about whether or not to cover the sleeping bunny boy in a blanket as he had seen people perform such actions in the past. But after a moment, he shook his head with a wry smile. This boy was a Level 2 adventurer, so he wouldn't catch a cold by simply sleeping in a relatively warm room without a blanket. Covering him in one would most likely wake him up instead.

After checking his equipment once again and making sure everything was worn properly, Isaac silently slipped out of the Twilight Manor.

Out on the streets, the passersby by didn't notice Isaac walking amongst them at all. When he didn't want to be noticed, it was really hard to detect him. His entire existence would blur a bit, while others would subconsciously disregard him. This made it hard to be perceived by people when he wanted to be too, as he had to consciously suppress this part of himself. But it also made it easy to escape people who wanted to harm him.

On his way to the dungeon, Isaac stopped by at the Pantheon again, to exchange his magic stones. By exchanging the goblins' and kobolds' magic stones separately, he was able to figure out the price of the species' magic stones. He did earn a displeased look from the man manning the counter, though. Yeah, just asking directly would have been a better option.

A goblin's magic stone was worth 50 valis, whereas a kobold's was worth 100. He had made 400 valis during his previous dungeon visit. That wasn't a lot of money, but it was enough to buy a leather pouch he could fasten to his belt. He needed one if he was to exchange magic stones in the future, as he couldn't just seemingly produce them out of thin air in front of others. This time, it had been fine as he had been able to carry all of his magic stones in one hand. But that approach wouldn't be sufficient the next time he came here. He intended to kill a lot more monsters from now on, after all.

In one of the various adventurer necessity stores on the way to the dungeon, Isaac bought one such pouch for 200 valis, cutting his pitiful savings in half. But no worries, he would earn a lot more soon.

Ten minutes later, at around 3 a.m., Isaac found himself on the dungeon's first floor, far away from any other adventurers. At this time, there was only a handful of other people in the dungeon in the first place, so it wasn't hard to find a grinding spot for himself.

"Alright, let's get to work."

After mumbling these words and stretching a bit, Isaac had finished all of his preparations.

When he had easily dispatched 7 goblins and 4 kobolds, he finally came across a group of monsters, not just the lone stragglers he had encountered before. 3 goblins and 1 kobold were roaming around a single, large cavern. A happy smirk appeared on Isaac's lips. While it may have been safer for any other adventurer in his position to go for a sneak attack first, so they would have the upper hand, he had no need to do so.

His face turned entirely emotionless, as he entered the same state of calculation and prediction as before. It was even slightly easier to do so this time. Well, practice makes perfect.

A sneak attack wouldn't be efficient enough when he already was able to dispatch monsters of their species without putting himself in any danger. Stealth would be a waste of time, so Isaac relaxedly walked up to his prey, focussing on making his existence known again.

The first one to notice his approach was the kobold. Its species' perception was vastly superior to the goblins'. After barking loudly to alert the goblins around it, the kobold charged at the intruder, ready to tear him apart. A few moments later, the noticeably slower goblins followed suit.

Now that Isaac's information gathering regarding the two monster species' movements was already finished, he didn't need to prolong the fights anymore. He was able to end his encounters swiftly and decisively.

Without a moment of hesitation, Isaac walked straight into the kobold's charge, already having predicted the attack range and precise movements of his opponent, staying just slightly out of reach. At the same time, he positioned his drawn sword in a specific spot and put enough strength in the arm that was holding it. Not even a second later, the kobold had almost decapitated itself by charging straight into the sharp weapon. Before it could reach for its own neck to stop the blood gushing out of the gruesome wound, Isaac had fully beheaded it with a quick follow-up swing of his sword.

When their ally's body hit the floor, the goblins arrived. Two were charging at him from the left, one from the right. Of course, Isaac had already perfected his plan of action, so they weren't of any danger. Untouched, Isaac walked between them while cleanly decapitating them.

He did so because he determined it to be a faster and less dangerous way to kill these specific species of monsters. If he decided to impale their hearts instead, he would have to waste more time and energy pulling out his sword again, which left him vulnerable and gave him less opportunities. So while it was harder to slice off their heads because of their backbone, it was still a bit faster and consumed less stamina than what impaling them would entail. By this point, beheading was practically his signature move when dealing with goblins and kobolds.

Isaac couldn't help but chuckle happily because his first group encounter went smoothly, just as he had expected. There were a few spots where he could have taken an even better approach, though, so he would have to gradually smoothen out these slight imperfections. After he had collected the slain monsters' magic stones, his search for prey continued.

-----

When Ais had woken up this morning, her first thoughts had strayed to the young man she had fallen for. She couldn't help but wonder about what he was doing now - and the system took this as an opportunity to present her with the map, which was showing Isaac to be roaming the first floor of the dungeon.

While others may have been worried when seeing this, Ais was very well aware that nothing there could pose a threat to Isaac. Instead, she felt motivated to do her best when training herself, to get stronger as fast as possible. But she wouldn't be able to leave for the dungeon today. Riveria wouldn't allow it, seeing how she had just come back from there yesterday. According to the wise elf's words, regular rest was of paramount importance. Otherwise, she would crumble apart under the acc.u.mulated stress one day, unable to fulfill her ambitions.

So after eating a hearty breakfast together with Lefiya and her two Amazoness friends, Tiona and Tione, Ais excused herself from the group to train. She didn't really bother with what the others were planning to do, they probably had their own plans for the day.

Around lunchtime, while Ais was polishing her swordsmanship in one of the respective training areas of the Twilight Manor, she saw Riveria, accompanied by a visibly unhappy Jakk, walking towards her, so she stopped what she was doing.

With a quick explanation, she was brought up to speed.

A few minutes ago, Riveria had been to Isaac's room to have a talk with him, but he wasn't there. His roommate, who at the time had just finished putting on his equipment and got ready to leave for the dungeon after sleeping in, only handed her a note Isaac had left behind when she asked about him. Jakk clearly wanted to go to the dungeon as soon as possible now that he had already wasted a few hours, so he tried to make his way past the familia's Vice-Captain quickly.

To his dismay, once she had read the note, Riveria felt a bit peeved at having to go out of her way to find the young man. So before Jakk could leave the room, she ordered him to follow her until she had found Isaac. She didn't really have a reason for doing so besides wanting to teach the unfriendly Hume Bunny a little lesson, so he wouldn't be as rude to her when they next met. Jakk didn't even greet her, after all.

He simply couldn't go against his Vice-Captain's orders, so he followed along quietly, cursing his bad luck. Who knew how long he'd be kept from going to the dungeon now?

Riveria's explanation finished with the content of Isaac's note, after which she asked Ais if she knew where Isaac was.

Ais' response was immediate.

"He's on the dungeon's first floor."

When hearing this, Riveria couldn't help but sigh and complain for a bit.

"Great. I'd have to search the entire floor just to find him. I guess I'll just wait here until he's back then."

Before Riveria could even turn around to wander off, Ais made her an unexpected offer.

"I know where he is. I can lead you to him."

This made Riveria raise her eyebrows in surprise. Normally, it wouldn't be possible to pinpoint someone roaming the floor of a dungeon. If it wasn't Ais who said these words, she would have written them off. But as she was aware of the strange connection between the two, Ais might actually have a way to do it. Riveria had wanted to gauge Isaac's potential herself anyway, so going to the dungeon to find him would expedite her plans. Her decision was made.

"Alright, lead the way. Jakk, you come with us."

To the downtrodden boy, these words provided at least a bit of solace. His goal had been to go to the dungeon, now he would be able to do so. The Sword Princess seemed to be sure of Isaac's location as well, so he wouldn't lose too much time and would probably be able to wander off alone soon enough.

Half an hour later, when Isaac's system clock displayed 01:40 pm, the group of three was walking down one of the many hallways of the dungeon's first floor. In the distance, they suddenly heard multiple kobolds howling loudly, followed by a large number of hurried footsteps.

"Seven kobolds, quite a huge group for this floor. How much further until we meet up with Isaac?"

While hurrying forward to watch the fight, Ais answered Riveria's question.

"He's about to fight the kobolds."

These words spurned Riveria and Jakk to hurry along as well. For different reasons, however.

Jakk was a little bit worried about his new roommate. He just couldn't see a newbie Level 1 adventurer winning against such a huge group of kobolds. Yes, he may be cold at times, but he certainly didn't wish for someone he knew to die a grisly death. If he had the chance to intervene and help them, he would do so without hesitation.

Riveria was slightly worried as well. Someone with Isaac's bare minimum stats wouldn't be able to take on such a group, even if they started off with a sneak attack to reduce the numbers. But if what Ais had told her about yesterday was true, the young man should at least be able to get away unscathed.

Contrary to the two's expectations, when they got close enough to the fight to actually see what was going on, two of the kobolds' heads had already been removed from their shoulders. After following a seemingly random but elegant movement pattern, Isaac concisely escaped the deadly attacks of the rest. With another step, he smoothly sent yet another kobold head flying, then turned around while continuing his sword swing, to accurately decapitate another opponent from behind. He had lined them up perfectly amidst the seeming chaos.

Once again, Ais had been sucked into Isaac's performance. Riveria wasn't any better off. She was simply stunned and stared at the scene blankly. No amount of preparation had been enough for this. Just like Ais, she was also able to vaguely make out this world akin a chessboard, that the young man expertly navigated. Everything seemed to follow his will. Every enemy was seemingly positioning themselves ready to be cut down by his sword of their own volition. This kind of scene was truly hard to accept. The young man was weak, so incredibly weak. His stats were the very bottom of the barrel. By all rights, he should never have been able to perform such miraculous feats. He should have been blown away and killed by a single swipe of his monstrous opponents. And yet, he was simply untouchable, like a dancing mirage. With his precise calculations, he didn't even have to continue looking at an enemy for a while once their muscles had foretold a specific kind of movement. Riveria was only barely able to figure out some of Isaac's plan of action, and only because of the heightened perception being a Level 6 adventurer provided her.

Jakk, on the other hand, wasn't so lucky. He couldn't catch a glimpse of the chessboard-like world. All he could see was a weak adventurer seemingly miraculously and barely avoiding any and all attacks aimed at him. There were just too many close shaves. If the two ridiculously powerful women next to him hadn't stopped moving, he would have charged in to help long ago. While he was on the edge of his seat, gripping his fists tightly and couldn't really believe what he was seeing, Isaac's face showed no signs of panic or even emotion while he smoothly beheaded the last three kobolds. His movements seemed just like a dance of death. They seemed like he was dancing on a precipice. If he fell off, he would be dead. But if he succeeded, he would have achieved something incredible.

'I didn't take him for such a brave yet insane risk taker!'

Without being fully aware of how much he had just impressed his roommate, Isaac had finished picking up all of the magic stones and putting them into the leather pouch on his belt. He was covered in vast amounts of sweat from head to toe, his equipment was completely soaked by this point. He was quite out of breath and his muscles trembled in an uncontrolled and painful manner from all the strain they had been put through in the past eight and a half hours.

[ Achievement Progress: Kill 1000 Level 1 monsters. (81/1000) ]

After the final monster had turned into dust, Isaac sat down on the ground to catch his breath and rest for a bit. Over the past few hours, he had perfected his grinding technique a lot. He was quite proud of that. During the fight, he had already noticed the three new arrivals enter his range of perception but after he had checked the map and saw Ais was amongst them, he ceased to worry.

As soon as he had sat down, Ais was the first one to rush to his side.

"I forgot to take food and water with me this time…"

With a wry smile plastered on his face, Isaac looked up at the golden-haired beauty and confessed his awkward situation with a parched throat and hoarse voice. His stomach grumbled loudly as if on command as well. This humorous revelation blew away any air of seriousness previously present.

When Isaac had been in his transcendent state before coming to this world, he didn't have to eat or drink. And as time hadn't existed there either, such a basic but then unneeded thing as eating and drinking just slipped his mind. He had been reminded of his need to sleep when he had seen the darkness of the night the day before. Other bodily functions related to hygiene also made themselves known during the time he took a bath. But because his body, when entering this world, had been at its peak, and therefore satiated to the brim and devoid of thirst, he hadn't even thought about his need for these two basic supplements. Sure, he had seen a few food stalls and restaurants when he first made his way to the Twilight Manor, but it just completely escaped him.

Quite an embarrassment indeed. While there were various foods and drinks available in the system store, he didn't want to waste even more of his precious AP. Instead, he had planned to leave before it turned into a serious problem and buy some food on his way back home, with the money he would earn from exchanging his magic stones.

Right now, he wasn't too far off from his predicted limit, so he would have had to stop wandering further into the dungeon soon anyway, even if he hadn't met Ais' group.

The spectating Riveria, of course, didn't know about all of this. All she saw was how a perceived genius was sitting down on the floor exhausted, starved and parched, while complaining about having forgotten to think about two of the most basic of needs. This young man was able to take absolutely everything into account while fighting his enemies, but would miss such a simple thing, the very essentials. How amusing and ironic.

A faint smile appeared on Riveria's lips, while she was watching Ais pulling out a flask of water from the small satchel she had taken with her and handing it to the young man carefully. Following that, she sat down next to him, observing his almost utterly exhausted and overly strained body worriedly. This scene made Riveria think about the usually quite eccentric behaviour of the golden-haired girl and a certain thought flashed across her mind.

'Geniuses, huh? They're all such oddballs.'