Through these raging battles, Ethnobalt crossed level 60 in no time.

“Hey . . . can I have a moment? I’m actually pretty hungry,” Ethnobalt said, clutching his stomach, which was definitely rumbling.

Ethnobalt was hiding in his human form, but just as Filo had been transformed by crossing to another world, Ethnobalt had been turned into a monster called a leshuant, a type of usapil, from his original form as a library rabbit. Considering his age, Ethnobalt apparently wouldn’t have a rapid growth spurt, but his body still had to be growing a bit.

“Let’s go back then. We’ve got most of the materials I was after too,” I said. We needed to quickly carve up the huge—and strange—monsters found down on the ocean floor. I’d considered just putting them into my shield and then popping them out again at the dragon hourglass, but we’d defeated some monsters so big they would probably crush a few buildings if I did that. It might be best to just put up with the drop items. Some pretty good gear had dropped.

We finished the hunt and returned to the village.

As a result of our efforts, both Sadeena and Shildina had reached level 120. Twenty levels in one day was huge, and it made me do a double take to make sure we weren’t back on the Cal Mira islands.

Once we were back in the village, I took Ruft to the dragon hourglass and performed a Raph-chan-style class-up on him. There was a puff of smoke just like with Raphtalia, but once it cleared, nothing much had changed.

“How do you feel, Ruft?” I asked him. Ruft inspected himself carefully but then tilted his head.

“I do feel stronger,” he started. “But I don’t really understand how.”

“Fair enough,” I responded.

“I was hoping to be able to transform like Shildina!” he said.

“If you keep working hard, you might be able to!” I encouraged him.

“You’re right! I’ll keep training!” he enthused.

“I wonder what kind of face little Raphtalia would pull if she saw this,” Sadeena commented. An angry one, probably, but while the cat was away, the mice could class up however they liked. It made sense, anyway. When I thought about the future, we would need Ruft to also start pulling his weight.

“Right then, Shield Hero. Should I go to Melty now?” Ruft asked.

“Yeah . . . okay. Trash is at the castle too, so you’ll learn a lot there. I’ll want you to take part in leveling up when you can, but put your studies first,” I instructed him. He nodded his agreement. I proceeded to send him to Melty, and then I returned to the village.

This was how we spent the three days prior to our departure: getting ready for the trip and mainly leveling up. The party went through a few variations, but Ethnobalt and I were a fixture. Sadeena also brought some of her own friends along.

When I looked at how Ethnobalt was coming along, his progress was a little slower than Rishia’s, but around level 95, his stats suddenly started to really grow. However, before our departure, he hit the growth cap and stopped increasing. It looked like stopping at 100 was the same for him.