The next morning, Scarlet had appeared to have recovered and was back to her normal self, with the rest of the children in the party staring at her as she scarfed down two dozen pancakes. 

“Um, Scarlet. Not meaning to be rude or anything but… are you sure you should eat that much?” Raphaela asked tentatively.

“Yeah. I’ll be fine. I use [Body Enhancement Magic] to help speed up the digestion and prevent cramps.” Scarlet informed them as she reached the end of the meal.

“Yeah but… Aren’t you afraid of gaining weight?” Raphaela asked softly, as if the words ‘gaining weight’ were somehow forbidden.

“Not at all. Keeping my weight up is the entire point. And if I get too much fat, I can burn it off using more [Body Enhancement Magic].” Scarlet said before starting to mumble the spell to start the digestion process.

“Wait, you WANT to gain weight?” Caesia said in disbelief.

“That’s right. I need to make sure my body fat percentage doesn’t get too low, or it will interfere with my natural growth.” Scarlet said. “Everyone who trains hard when they are young needs to keep in mind that if they lose too much body fat, it will stunt their growth.”

“...It will?” The other two girls said together.

“Yeah. In order to grow, your body needs fuel, so you won’t grow if you don’t have enough fat stored away. To go through a healthy puberty, a man needs to have a body fat index of around 17%. While a girl needs 24%. So it is best to keep to those numbers until you reach your full height.” Scarlet explained. “Of course, your heritage does have an effect on your growth and body-type too, but even if you come from a tall family, if you don’t have enough body fat on you during your developmental years, you will end up shorter than you would otherwise have been.”

“Hm… I see.” Charles said, scratching his chin before reaching for another plate of pancakes. 

“Why do girls need more than boys?” Caesia asked.

“It has to do with the development of our secondary sexual characteristics and the regulation of our menstrual cycles.” Scarlet said in a matter of fact tone.

“...Don… Don’t say those kinds of things so casually!” Caesia shouted, turning bright red.

“I see. So you need some body fat to help grow big breasts.” Raphaela said, the 5-year-old girl having a look of determination on her face as she too reached for another plate. The pink-haired girl’s mother had been rather thin and short. Maybe she had inherited a complex about it.

Both her parents were combat focused fighters, so it was likely that Raphaela’s body fat index was rather low from rigorous training, much like an Olympic gymnast. And just like said gymnasts, she might end up small if she didn’t watch it.

Scarlet had been rather small in her previous life, mostly due to malnutrition in her earlier years. When she was 16, she still had the body of a 10-year-old. So she wanted to grow up to be tall herself.

She’d grow up to be tall and beautiful like her mama!

“You certainly are knowledgeable about the subject.” Mehal said, rather impressed, after Scarlet gave the rest of the children some more tips on regulating their body fat. 

“I read all the books on the human body I could get my hands on when I started to learn [Body Enhancement Magic].” Scarlet said.

“That could be said about every subject.” Maria said through a giggle. “Scarlet usually reads around 30 textbooks a week. Poor William had a hard time lugging them all back and forth all of the time.”

“Hey, it was the horse doing all the work.” Scarlet said, turning red.

“That poor horse.” Maria said, placing a hand on her cheek and adopting a look of pity, causing her daughter to pout.

“30 textbooks a week. ...Impressive.” Mehal said, wondering how one achieved such a thing while still training. But the sun was rising and they had work to do. “Everyone should finish their meal quickly. We will be getting to work soon.”

“Alright. We’ll start on finding our first targets.” Scarlet said, calling Branwen over and performing a Spirit Merge.

The two used [True Sight] to get a bird’s eye view of the area from 4 miles up in the air, scanning the land for magic and memorizing everything’s location in the span of 2 seconds before canceling the skill.

“There is a signature not too far away. It’s a little weak, but large. Probably a large group of weak enemies.” Scarlet said.

“Sounds like a good warm up.” Charles said after packing away the last of the pancake. “What kind of monsters are they?”

“Let me check.” Scarlet said before using [True Sight] again, checking the location the magic signature had been at. “Huh?”

There was nothing there. Odd, she was sure that she had seen something at that location when she looked from above. She checked again from a few different angles, before looking down. 

That was when a gasp escaped her mouth and a wide smile spread across her face. “I found a big one!”

---

 

The Timber Wood Gecko was one of the apex predators of the area. A monster which easily fed on the lesser monsters and grew to a massive size. And as monsters could grow levels by either absorbing mana to expand their Magic Stones, or by hunting humans and other monsters, the Timber Wood Gecko’s could grow to a surprisingly high level in just a few years.

But like most cold blooded monsters, they hibernated through the Winter season, borrowing underground and sleeping until the spring came.

This particular specimen was in a very deep and comfortable sleep, 15 feet underground. He didn’t notice anything going on around him in his dark little hole. Not even as a shaft opened up right above him and poison started to drip down from above.

It wasn’t until the burning from the poison really got going that the monster woke up with a scream of pain and rage. It noticed the shaft and started to dig its way up out of the ground, towards whatever creature had been foolish enough to attack it in its beautiful sleep. Its powerful claws ripping away at the ground, tearing away large chunks of it as he pushed its way out of its hole.

Within a minute, it had broken through the surface, all the while suffering the pain of the poison that was sinking into its body. But when its front legs broke through to the surface, it was in for a surprise.

A large spider's web had been draped over the area, and the monster immediately found itself entangled in the silky mess, making its difficult to move its front legs to pull its body out of the earth.

It shouted in rage, looking about it only to find itself surrounded by twenty foot tall stone walls, with little humans on the tops of them. 

One of the humans, a small girl with long red hair, was chanting, a large amount of mana gathered about her, and as she finished her chant, the magic rushed towards the Timber Wood Gecko, not attacking it directly, but flowing into the ground beneath it, causing the earth to quickly compact around its lower body.

It attempted to flail about, but with its upper body in webs and its lower body hardly having enough room to wiggle in, it was trapped there.

“Mess it up!” A human boy shouted, before chunking a barrel at the monster, the wooden barrel bouncing off of its head.

Several more barrels followed after, the Timber Wood Gecko shouting angrily as they hit, until one of the barrels broke, and it was covered in the smell of oil, created through the use of [Transmutation Magic] on the local trees.

…

Each of the humans shot their crossbow bolts, each one with a flaming tip at the trapped Timber Wood Gecko and its body was quickly set on fire.

The Timber Wood Gecko screamed. Its body was on fire, it was still suffering from the effects of the poison, and it was still caught in the webbing and earth trap.

Because of its high fortitude, thick skin and large health pool, it wasn’t dying quickly from such a weak fire and small bolts, but it had no way to fight back.

“Just keep firing at it!” The girl with the red hair shouted. Her shots seemed to hurt the most, as they glowed with a green light which penetrated the monster’s hard earthen skin, dealing healthy damage.

The assault continued for 10 whole minutes as the monster tried to dig itself free with its entangled claws, but eventually, it succumbed to the damage, and its struggling stopped.

“...We did it!” Andy cheered as they all received their experience.

[You have killed a level 66 Timber Wood Gecko and have earned 73026 EXP]

[EXP requirement for Level 33 has been reached | Rewards: +10 in all stats]

[EXP requirement for Level 34 has been reached | Rewards: +10 in all stats]

[8139 EXP to next level]

[General Skill: Trap Setting has reached level 1~10 | Rewards: +10 Intelligence, +20 Deception + 55 EXP]

[8084 EXP to next level]

Scarlet was brimming with happiness.

The ambush had taken 3 hours to set up, but had paid out with 50 times as much EXP as she had received the previous day, and she had grown 2 whole levels.

All around her, the other children were having similar reactions.

“I just grew 3 levels at once!” Caesia shouted in delight.

“Same here!” Garci shouted.

“I got 4!” Sidney whooped.

“It filled me about a little more than half way.” Maria said. Despite having got nearly 50% of the total EXP, she still didn’t get enough to grow a level.

Charles just grinned like a madman as he had gone from level 25 up to level 28 in just minutes.

“What in the world is something like that doing in a place like this? I thought this area was supposed to be pretty safe.” Andy said as he looked down at the monster they had just killed, half of its 30 foot long body still buried underground. 

“This area is safe.” Mehal said calmly as he approached, now that the battle was over. “While there are a few monsters like this one spread throughout the area, they are all in hibernation. Even as you constructed the fortress on top of its nesting sight, it didn’t even steer. So you don’t really need to worry about them… Unless you do something as insane as purposely attack one. Your ambush was wonderfully executed.”

Normally, a party would have walked on past the monster without either knowing that the other was there. So being able to find one wouldn’t happen during the Winter Season. And a party at their level would not have been able to handle the monster in a direct fight.

The group had struck gold thanks to Scarlet’s scouting abilities.

“Alright! Let’s see if we can’t find another one!” Scarlet said happily.

“Another one!?” Garci shouted in disbelief.

“Of course! This is way more effective than hunting wolves and boars!” Scarlet declared.

If she took down 8 more of those, she could reach level 40.

“Agreed. If we can continue to set up these sorts of ambushes, it is better to target the largest enemies that we can safely handle.” Charles said. 

He had believed that he would have to fight all Winter in order to reach level 30, but if they ambushed a second of those monsters, he would already have reached his goal for that season. Then he could look to even greater heights. 

“Alright, buy make sure you don’t over hunt them. They are the apex predators in this area, so if their population gets too low, it will throw the whole ecosystem into chaos.” Mehal said. 

So long as things were still within his ability to protect the children in the case of an emergency, he would allow them to do whatever they pleased.

---

 

“What a productive day!” Scarlet said cheerfully as they settled back down for the night.

They had managed to locate and kill an additional three Timber Wood Geckos, bringing her up to level 37, while the other children reached level 33 and her mother grew up to level 48, and was close to 49.

In truth, things would have probably been easier for Scarlet if she was hunting the monsters alone. She could slip out at night, uncover one and then just pelt it with [Necrotic Claw] arrows from the air until it died. But she didn’t want her mother to get angry with her for doing something so reckless.

Besides, doing it as a party was fun. And even if it was inefficient for her, she was helping her friends grow as well.

If they kept this up all Winter, forget about reaching level 40, they might all be able to reach level 50!

...Though that would probably drive the Timber Wood Geckos to extinction in the area, and would cause the monsters they preyed on to grow out of hand. She’d have to settle for getting herself and the other kids to level 40 and then moving to another area.

But if the same logic holds true in other places, there should always be some kind of larger predator that is hibernating that they can take advantage of.

“We thought it would take all Winter just to get to level 30, but now we are well past that after just two days.” Charles said with a wide smile. “It would seem I find myself just falling further and further into your debt, Scarlet.”

“Don’t think of it like that. After all, we’re friends.” Scarlet said. “So, what are you going to put your Talent Point into?”

“I already put it into [Elemental Weapon Arts].” Charles admitted.

“[Elemental Weapon Arts]?” Scarlet repeated with a tilt of the head, not having heard of the skill.

“It is a Skill that allows the user to coat their weapon with attributed mana for different effects.” Mehal said, holding up an open hand with a rock resting in the palm. “Observe.”

He tossed the stone up into the air and as it fell, his second hand struck in a blur of movement. Scarlet could sense the sharpened water mana surrounding Mehal’s hand as it passed through the air, slicing the stone in two.

“Wow!” Scarlet said, applauding the display. 

“Using this skill, it is easy to attack the exact elemental weaknesses of an enemy. And it lies at the crossroads between magic and physical combat, making it a valuable target for a Talent Point.” Mehal said.

“Sounds like a useful skill.” Maria said before her shoulders slumped. “But I’m still having trouble with [Mana Sense] so it is a little far away for me.” 

“I’m impressed at how skilled you are already when it comes to combat, given your laborer Class. You know how to make the most of what you have and use your Bond and Class skills in interesting ways.” Mehal complimented her, getting her to blush in embarrassment.

Meanwhile, Scarlet had pulled out her short sword and was trying to wrap mana around it. Within seconds she was rewarded with the [Elemental Weapon Arts] skill.

“You’ve managed to grasp it already?” Charles said, amazed. “It took me months to get my first level in it.”

“I already have a really high level in [Mana Control] and [Evocation Magic], which really helps out. And I got to witness Mr. Mehal doing it first hand.” Scarlet said while still focusing on the weapon. Moments later, the wind mana was replaced by light and dark mana, at the same time. [Dual Evocation], another higher end skill. “I’m surprised that Charles was able to learn it. Weren’t you still having problems with [Mana Control] back in the Summer?”

“I was, but your advice in that regard proved to be quite helpful.” Charles said as he watched the light and shadows dancing along the surface of the blade. “In truth, I am taking this Talent Point in order to try to further boost my growth in my [Two-Handed Sword] skill.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes. I’m trying to get it as high as possible before I receive my Class.” Charles said with a nod. “In truth… before I met you, it looked unlikely that I would be able to reach the skill level of 125 needed to get a Tier 6 Class, despite my best efforts. But thanks to the resistance training clothes you made, I have a chance of maybe even reaching level 150. I can’t thank you enough.”

The resistance training clothes really had been a game changer for him, as while he had been using training weights, there was an inherent ceiling to their use, in that with his young body being so light, the weight from his sword swings would throw him around too much and he would be completely unable to maintain any balance at all after the training weights became more than 5 pounds, which just wasn’t enough to make a big difference anymore with how much Strength he had. Where the resistance cloths could be scaled up as much as they needed to be without compromising his balance and momentum.

“You don’t need to thank me. You’re the one who is putting in all the hard work. Though I am glad to have helped.” Scarlet replied, a little embarrassed by his gratitude for something she did without thinking about it. “Remember though that you were the one who gave me the idea of training with restraints on. If it wasn't for that, I would have never made the clothes in the first place.”

“Even so, thank you.” Charles said with a bow of the head. “So what Skill are you planning on putting your next Talent Point into.”

“Ah… Well…” Scarlet faulted for a moment, scratching her cheek before confessing. “I’m trying to get a Talent Point to put into [Magic Equipment Crafting].”

....

Everyone in the camp just stopped what they were doing in order to stare at the girl.

“...What? It's a good Skill.”