“Steven, hold it off for a few more minutes!” Sophie yelled out as she blocked another attack from the hobgoblin in front of her.

“On it!” Steven yelled back. He was currently holding off the extra hobgoblin that had entered the barrier.“Ranged focus fire!” Sophie yelled out once more. I had to admit Sophie seems to change once she is in battle. Each one of her orders is on point. She is a natural leader. It’s just that it is a huge contradiction compared to when she is not in a fight. Since she is so quiet and barely talks to anyone.-.

“Young Miss Sophie is truly amazing,” Sally said with a sigh.

“You can just call her Sophie, you know. I know you will not call me by my name but at least call Sophie by hers. We are all family now with the same surname.” These past few days, I have been trying to get Sally to call me by my name, but she refuses. The best I can get is Young Miss.

“Then I will call her Sophie,” Sally replied, causing me to purse my lips. I mean, come on! I want to be called by my name as well!I sighed as I said: “Well, it is true. Sophie is a fast learner. She is a natural at everything she does. But this is not just something she gains overnight. She actually puts a lot of work into training. It’s because of her dedication that everyone else has been training during rest periods. Our team is really becoming a strong force.”

“That it is. Each one of them is improving by the day. Even Hailey, whose magic is weak, has grown a lot. Her sixe spell casts have now grown to almost thirty in a short time, and her fireballs have strengthened quite a bit. She can even cast two at a time now thanks to Young Miss’s guidance.” Sally seems to have been watching everyone closely. I guess this is an occupational disease for those who are guards. Always watching those around you and analyzing them. Not that this was a bad thing.

“They all have improved a lot. I can say that before, Steven couldn’t fight one of these hobgoblins on his own, but now he is able to fight one to a standstill. They have all grown so much.” Mainly because they are gaining levels in this dungeon, I noticed. I went against my normal morals and used Appraisal on Steven when I saw his quick improvements. And when I first checked him, he was level 22, but now he was level 30. That was a huge gain. I also checked Hailey, and she went from level 10 to level 20. This was all within one floor. I am not sure how this works, but it was a good thing.

“Let’s hope we can clear the dungeon and finally leave this place. My nose may not be as sensitive as yours or Sophie’s, but I still have a higher sense of smell than humans. And each floor, the smell gets worse and burns.” I looked over at Sally, whose nose was wrinkled, and reached up and scratched her rabbit ears. “Don’t worry. We will leave this place even if I have to use my final trump card to finish off the boss monster of this place.”

Sally’s ears twitched as she nodded her head. She seemed to really like her ears scratched because her lips curled up into a small smile and her head leaned more towards me. Whether she noticed this or not, I do not know, but it was fine with me. Her hair and ears were soft and fuzzy.

“Although Sei does look bored,” I said as I looked at the girl who was standing there yawning. She was standing next to Adel while Adel tried to gain more battle experience. It was just her magic seemed to be less effective against monsters of a higher level. Her stop would only last a few seconds before she would need to redraw another magic circle and cast it again.

“She needs something else besides just using stop. While it is useful, the usability of it is not all that practical if you are facing more than one enemy that is resistant to magic. I will have to work with her on creating a new spell that can do more than just three things.” I really wanted to create a time spell that worked in a different way. I have no idea how to do it, but the fact that it could only be used on one target at a time was not very useful. Even if we could make a multiple target version that had a shorter duration would be better than nothing.

“It would be good if she could spread out a field that slowed time.” I heard Sally’s words, and my eyes lit up. It would be like a barrier, but it would affect everyone inside it with time magic. This could be used not just to slow but to stop as well. And since it is a kind of domain…. The hamster wheels in my brain were spinning. I quickly began drawing on the ground, trying to come up with a proper magic circle that even Adel could use that would not consume too much mana.

The problem with time magic, or as it is called by Adel cosmic magic, is that it is very ruled based. As if the magic was being restricted by some unknown force. It could only have one command and lasted for a certain duration. While the duration could be expanded, this also depended on the level of the person you are casting the spell on and their resistance to magic. Hence why I could easily cast it on the idiot instructor. But for Adel, who has lower stats than me, she was restricted to the rules and the duration when it came to higher level beings like the hobgoblins. If she were to be able to use it as a domain, it would allow her to keep the same rule but have it auto apply when it wore off because they were in her domain. This would have the same kind of effect as telling someone to be stop for a year or forever as long Adel kept the domain up.