Kotori had been in the wood elf village for a year and a half now. She was cresting her 8th birthday and was starting to feel a little anxious.
She had spent the time "dungeon diving" with Mari and Amelie. Apparently, Dungeons were just areas where mana would accumulate and thus were especially dense which gave rise to "monsters" that would spawn. Mana itself was naturally occurring so the monsters would keep spawning as long as mana kept cycling in the area. Apparently the more mana there was in an area the stronger the monster that was spawned. The monsters also seemed to be a timer and thus it was pretty easy to time visits with their spawn time. The thought reminded Kotori of how players would camp boss spawns in MMOs for farming.
Kotori learned that there actually wasn't much of a difference between a spirit and a monster. Both were beings that were made of mana and the only difference was whether or not they were hostile. The lizard they fought was a type of beast spirit.
Areas with a high amount of life would have a lot of mana and thus would become breeding grounds for dungeons. This is why forests were often where dungeons were located.
Though Kotori had heard from the few elves in the village who had left the village before that cave dungeons existed and that they were located in caves with a high density of mana crystals. She was unsure of what mana crystals were but the name seemed pretty self-explanatory that they were crystals that could store mana.
While diving Kotori had spent a lot of time developing her flute skills. Kotori herself was quite bad at close combat. Her stats were low and her only real offensive skill was the discordant song. She was much better at hanging around and letting her allies do most of the work.
Kotori had also finally learned the difference between [Magical Musician] and the musical songs her father taught. [Magical Musician] let her cast spells using the music as a conduit. This meant the amount of mana she used was unlimited and let her do anything she wanted with the song. On the other hand, the songs her father taught her had set effects and a maximum amount of mana that could be imbued within them. The more complex the song the stronger the effect but also takes more skills to cast.
Kotori spent much of the time sneaking around and then landing the killing blow. Since many of them couldn't see the actual HP of the monster, Kotori simply used "status" to wait until monsters would super low and then hit them.
Amelie had grown as well. She had lost much of the baby fat that gave her the cute "Girl next door look" and she was starting to gain the wolf-like face of the other warriors in the village. Still, Amelie fought differently than the other warriors in the village. She was not as strong as the other warriors on account of her only being half-elf. So she developed a roguelike fighting style. Slowly whittling down monsters and then landing a killing blow.
Evidently, it seemed that Shu didn't need to do anything and if Kotori gained EXP from monster kills Shu would also grow as well at a slower rate.
Still, if Shu killed something it meant her EXP gains were also slow. It really was a troublesome system.
[Shitty game devs not setting up XP sharing properly!] Kotori would often think
She was beginning to get a little bit of hay fever. Killing monsters was trivial while she was with Mari and others.
She tried to ask if she could go alone but after the lizard incident, the Boss had zero intention of letting her do anything alone.
Kotori was beginning to think it was time to leave the village.
Honestly, it was about time since she was 8 years old she was basically an adult right?
She couldn't just keep being a freeloader right?
.
What?
16 is the age of adulthood here?
8 is basically 16 right?
Right?
.
.
.
"Denied!"
The boss had immediately denied Kotori's request
"But I'm old enough"
The boss glared at her
"Last I checked you become an adult at 16," she said
"But I'm pretty strong"
Indeed Kotori had grown quite a bit and would be an even match for an average human fighter but otherwise, she was still rather weak in comparison to the truly strong in the world.
The boss had also taken to seeing Kotori as a surrogate child and thus protected her fiercely. Apparently, when the Boss had heard Mari let her get hurt she was strung up as a punishment.
Of course, Kotori had grown quite a bit since then, but the boss was completely right in her assessment that Kotori had no right to leave the village and set out on her own. Less than half a year ago she was a desperate child running through the forest after all.
Still, The way Kotori asked her to allow her to leave reminded the boss of her sister, Asha when she wanted to leave.
Kotori had the same steely determination. It was often hard to see Kotori as a child since her demeanor made her seem a lot older than she really was.
"But..." She tried to protest
"DENIED!" the boss said with no room for response
Kotori slumped her shoulder and left the room.
The Boss relaxed once she saw the figure of Kotori leave her house. For a small child, her determination was very troubling to deal with and thus the boss often had issues with trying to say no to Kotori. Her inner self knew that Kotori was stagnating but she was unable to allow herself to let Kotori get herself into any more dangerous situations. Even though she had made up with Amelie on the same issue she was still reluctant to let Kotori, who was basically a small child to do anything dangerous.
[Still] the boss thought
[She needs to grow]