Slave Harem in the Labyrinth of the Other World (LN)

I know that I should probably use this against their leader in order to get rid of the most dangerous one of the entire bunch, but hear me out on this, okay? Normally I would have done that, but since that guy has Lv.40, I do not know how much total HP he has, and the last thing that I want to do is to use it against someone who is going to turn out to have mor of it than me. As you probably remember, it was already difficult for me to properly use Equivalent Exchangeback when I used it against that Bandit Lv.3 that was a part of the raid group that invaded Alan-sans Slave Shop, even though I definitely had a higher level than that guy.

But this time, the scenario is a direct opposite of the one that has happened on that night when Alan-san hired me as a bodyguard for his shop. This time I am the one who has a lower level, while the leader of the Bandits has a higher one. I know that I said that since I have multiple Jobs equipped instead of a single one then I should be able to take that guy on in a fight, but when I was saying that I meant it as just the combat scenario.

As long as actual HP is concerned, I have absolutely no way of knowing which one of us has more HP, so if I tried to use Equivalent Exchangeon him, I would have no way of knowing whether or not things would not have ended up badly for me instead. With the Bandit Leader, there are simply too many unknown factors to keep in mind.

For example: the Bandit Leader may have a lot of HP just because his level as a Bandit is so high, but on the other hand, it may also be that he simply has a lot of HP in and out of himself, not because he possesses the Bandit Job. Now, Equivalent Exchangeworks in such a way that it exchanges my total MP pool with the specified opponents HP and then reduces it by the same amount, and if the opponent has any HP left over, it then drains the HP of both the Spells caster and his target until the HP of one of the two reaches zero, or at least that is how it is supposed to be based on my observation from the times when I actually used that Spell.

So if it turns out that the HP of the Lv.40 Bandit Leader is actually bigger than mine, then even after I use Equivalent Exchangeand it is going to do all of its shenanigans with the swapping of HP and draining MP, I am still going to be the one who is going to have less HP than the Bandit Leader, which means..

Which mean that I am the one who is going to die first when I use that Spell, and that is a risk that I absolutely cannot allow myself to take.

However, that would have only been the case if I was adamant about using Equivalent Exchangeon the Bandit Leader Lv.40. On the other hand, since the level of that Explorer is Lv.25, then that means that his level is most definitely lower than mine, so there should technically be no problems with him as with the Bandit Leader Lv.40.

Now, My MP is full ever since I restored it in Harubas Labyrinth. Well, it might not be fully restored because I still had to use some of it in order to transport the three of us from Harubas Labyrinth to Tares Labyrinth, but such an amount should not be fatal to me right now, so I should not hesitate one bit when dealing with this Explorer and the other two low-levelled Bandits. That is right, that Explorer might not be a Bandit as long as my Identifyis concerned, but as long as he is pointing his sword at us along with the three Bandits, he is essentially no better than them in my eyes, and deserved to be disposed of just the same.

And so, I activated Equivalent Exchangewithout any reservations.. and at the next moment, the Explorer exploded. Or no, maybe not exploded. Saying that he exploded is a poor choice of words, because it would be more appropriate to say that he disappeared. Yes, disappeared without a trace, in such a way that the place where he was standing just now has become completely empty. He was gone without ever making a single sound, so if someone was looking at the place where we are in right now the entire time, they might have said that he was actually never here to begin with. It was that kind of phenomenon.

My MP has not decreased as much as I was expecting either. I would say that it has dropped to about half of its total value, so naturally, since my MP did not drop down to the red zone, I did not have to go through the bitter depression associated with losing to much MP this time, for which I am extremely thankful. Since I am not going to be depressed, it means that I am going to be able to fight the remaining Bandits at my full strength, without going all batshit about their each and every move.

I feel fine, I can fight!

To that end, was that Equivalent ExchangeSpell really that equivalent? The Explorers HP and my MP may have been exchanged equally, but he still ended up disappearing almost instantly, so that must mean that I had much more MP than he did, and that is why I was still left with over half of it left even though the Spell activated itself and worked properly.

Is it because the level of that Explorer was that much lower from mine? Or maybe it was because that Explorer had much less total HP than I have right now? Or maybe my MP has increased so much because I have the Job of a Mage? After all, I managed to obtain the Job of a Mage only after I used Equivalent Exchangefor the very first time, and before I used that Spell, there was no other way for me to obtain the Job of a Mage, since I gained the ability to use all those different types of Basic Magic only after I unlocked the Mage Job after casting Equivalent Exchangewhich trained me from almost all of my MP reserves for the very first time since I have arrived in this world.

Maybe one of the things that the game is not telling me about the Mage Job is that it gives the player significantly increased MP pool upon equipping it in order to compensate for the fact that the Spells cost a significant amount of MP to be cast, especially when you are a low-levelled player who just unlocked the Mage Job and would normally not have enough MP to cast anything on their own? Is that how it has always been with it? Am I at fault here for being too incompetent to even realize something so basic, so elementary?

Anyway, going back to what was currently happening between us and the Bandits that attacked us, the remaining three were pretty much stunned speechless by the sudden disappearance of their fourth companion, and I mean that in a very much literal sense.

That which has happened to him was so sudden and so abrupt that they could only watch at the end result completely slack-jawed and at a loss for words. Well, in their defense, if I were the same as them and lost one of my companions in such a mysterious, inexplicable way, I would have probably reacted in the same manner that they did.

But since I already knew what was going to happen to the guy who was going to suffer through being the target for Equivalent Exchange, it means that I have the element of surprise on my side, and you can be damn sure that I am going to use it to the fullest. Now that the bandits are still stunned by what they were witnessing, they are no different than the training dummies or sitting ducks, so I am going to have to exploit that particular condition of theirs in order to whittle down their effective fighting force.

You damn Bandits. If you were any other people, I would have probably allowed you to get away from this with your lives, but now that you are oh so pitifully stuck in one place and unable to move even a single muscle because your tiny little heads and crippled minds cannot comprehend what just happened here, you are just going to die because of it.