Dungeon of Niflheim

409 Chapter 409: Coaxing a tiger

“Understood master.” Findlay and Khuno both performed a military bow.

“Is there anything else that needs my attention?” Frost asked quite anxious to get everything in regards to the dungeon out of the way as fast as possible.

Findlay and Khuno looked at one another before replying.

“At the moment master other than the issue with the dungeon vault there isn’t anything that needs your personal attention. As you said the secondary defence zone is no longer at optimum efficiency but we’re not yet at the point where we need to abandon it. The forest bunkers should serve for another few waves before we’ll enact the retreat protocol to the tertiary defence zones. And all our forces have already been made aware of the protocol so the retreat should go off without a hitch.” Khuno reported first.

“In regards to our forces we’re still capable of defending against the current waves. The dozen ronsos as well as the evolutions of the veteran forces have made a world of difference. Even the C-ranks that populate every wave now struggle to make a dent when we’re working together.” Findlay spoke the last part with a slightly guilty conscience. Because of his desire to fight solo against a frenzied ursa he ended up injured and exhausted thus taking him out of the fight for a while.

“Good, very good.” Frost cupped his chin and nodded with pride, his ronsos were doing well.

“What about you Findlay how have you been faring in regards to evolution, last time I checked you were just shy of your max level.”

“....Haaaaaaa well about that it seems I’ve encountered an issue.” Findlay froze for a second before letting out a deep sigh.

“Master I seem to have hit some sort of bottleneck. My level has already reached the very limit of 49 but for some reason it won’t change to 50. I’ve killed D-ranks and even C-ranks with the ronsos aid but there’s been no change on my side.” Findlay frowned and clenched his fists; he was greatly frustrated by this issue. His master ordered him to achieve B-rank before this stampede was over yet for some reason the system wasn’t allowing him to take that last step and he didn’t know why.

.....

“....Your level is fixed in place?” Frost frowned and tilted his head to the side.

‘Why is that happening?’

“Yes master, I can no longer grow in strength.” Findlay wanted to hide his failings for as long as possible hoping that if he just kept fighting and killing the problem would resolve itself but since his master asked specifically about the issue he could not lie.

Khuno placed his hand on Findlay’s shoulder to comfort his general counterpart. This situation could very well affect him in the future, so he too was worried.

Frost thought deeply about this problem for a couple minutes but came up with nothing. Ice troll commander was not the limit of the ice troll species and in terms of potential Findlay was positively filled with it therefore C-rank should not be his limitation.

“Haaaaaaaa oh well no matter we’ll take this one step at a time and try to understand the issue. Don’t worry about it too much Findlay just keep doing the good job that you’ve been doing.” Frost let out a sigh before smiling in a gentle manner. He copied Khuno and patted Findlay on the shoulder, telling him not to worry.

“....Master” Findlay looked at his master in confusion, this problem was a big deal, yet Frost was brushing it off like it was an everyday occurrence.

“Is there anything else?”

“....Eh...um...no I think that’s everything master.” Findlay and Khuno looked at one another in confusion. Frost’s attitude was quite surprising to them, he was too happy and shiny.

“Well if that’s everything I’ll be on my way, much to do in such a short time frame bye.” Frost smiled wildly before teleporting to another part of the dungeon leaving Findlay and Khuno in their confusion.

“.....That was weird right?” Khuno asked with a puzzled expression.

“Yeah normally master would like to get to the bottom of such an issue immediately, putting all else aside while we brainstorm and experiment to find the answer.” That was Frost’s usual behaviour.

“Hmmmm, perhaps there’s something else that interested him more than your issue and was it just me or was master kind of glowing?”

“Glowing?” Findlay thought back and couldn’t help but agree. The moment Frost arrived before the two of them he was in a bright mood and smiling. Even the current state of the secondary defence zone couldn’t shake his mood, a slight frown lasting but a second was all he saw.

“.....You said you couldn’t get in touch with Master or Mistress Maya earlier right?”

“Yeah the connection was immediately blocked.”

“....” There was a few seconds of silence before a wide smile grew on Khuno’s face.

“Ignoring communication from his general, not leaving the private space for several hours and now he shows up in a joyful mood despite seeing the state of the secondary defence zone and hearing about your inability to evolve...” Khuno gave Findlay a knowing look, wanting his comrade to come to the same conclusion he did.

“....You mean he and Lady Maya.” Findlay’s eyes opened wide in realisation. One of his hands moved up to cover his mouth but the knowing smile was already present.

“Yep Master and her must have slept together, how else do you explain such a bright expression and radiant aura hehehehe.” Khuno laughed out loud and elbowed Findlay in the side repeatedly.

Findlay responded with a prominent thumbs up in regards to his master finally crossing that threshold with Lady Maya. He’d been present for their flirtatious banter and was merely waiting for the day when the two of them progressed into a more serious relationship.

The two generals laughed out loud, praising their master after he left.

“Atchoo! Owowowo” Maya sneezed causing her upper body to move and cause her pain.

‘Someone must be talking about me.” She moaned and groaned as her body sent signals of both pain and pleasure to her brain. Her beautiful, smooth white skin was covered in red hickeys. Frost left no area untouched marking her entire body with his lips.

Her already massive peach butt had grown almost an entire size because of his rough yet sensual caressing. Several red imprints of her lover’s hands could be seen on both cheeks. And of course no small amount of blood had dyed the bed sheets. She was no longer innocent, both she and Frost were now full adults yet for some reason only she was the one in pain. Her damn lover was ecstatic, feeling only bliss yet here she was splayed out on the bed trembling and unable to even control her own body thanks to her pain and pleasure receptors being overloaded.

“Bastard! Bastard! Bastard!” Maya screamed into the pillow with clenched teeth as she bared with the agony having to wait until she could use healing magic to help mitigate the pain at least.

With the stampede under control Frost teleported to his next destination, the 5th floor where Kiba currently was.

A fair amount of wolves were lost during the ghost wave thus the newly summoned monsters needed training. After Kiba overcame the freezing vampire bats poison and partook in the delicious azure spark quail he returned to the 5th floor so as to train the newbies. The wolves and coeurls still had large roles to play after all.

“Kiba!” Frost shouted out the name of his battle mount as soon as he arrived.

“Roooooooaaaaaaarrrrrrrrr!” An excited roar soon filled the area in response and the image of Kiba flying through the air quickly entered Frost’s sights.

“Oomph!” Once again Kiba flew at break neck speed and slammed into Frost, generating plumes of snow in all directions.

“It’s good to see you doing alright after getting poisoned.” Frost though in a fair amount of pain after catching a 2 ton tiger with his chest petting the big cat with affection.

“Chuff” Kiba chuffed with pride, the soul bond between the translating his thoughts.

“Yes, yes the poison of a mere bat could never hurt a glacial winged tiger such as you I know.” Frost scratched Kiba’s ears eliciting a loud purr.

“Have you met up with Khuno and the ronsos yet?”

“Roar!” [Yep they’re pretty strong and cool since their tigers]

“Hahahaha I see, can you talk to them like you do with the wolves and coeurls?”

“Roaaaarrrrr!” [Yeah they can understand me since we’re all tigers, though I’m cooler since I’m a full tiger and can fly]

Kiba puffed out his chest arrogantly, confident that he was the best monster under Frost’s command.

“Hahahahahaha I see yes the fact that you can fly is quite impressive, but they can conjure cold flames, pretty cool right.”

“Chuff!” [I guess hmph]

Kiba struggled to admit that he was quite jealous of that ability. He found the silver coloured flames conjured by the ronsos incredibly cool and he desperately wanted to be like the ronsos in that regard.

“Hahahaha don’t worry Kiba I’m sure once you reach your next evolution point you’ll be able to do something even more impressive.” Frost laughed and coaxed Kiba who had become grumpy.

“Roar!” [You mean it, you’re not lying right!]

Kiba slammed one of his paws down on the ground and looked straight into Frost’s eyes, making sure he was telling the truth.

“Hahahahaha why would I lie Kiba, I promise you that when you grow up you’ll be more than a match for the ronsos.” Frost petted Kiba’s fluffy head with affection.

There was no falsehood in what he said. Winged glacial tigers were quite the monster, their abilities greatly expanding once their mature and reach B-rank therefore Kiba had a lot to look forward to.