The sheer quantity and quality of the experience gained in yesterday's battle was a great deal, so there were a lot of Rank-Ups today.
Hobuji-kun, a Hobgoblin Cleric became a Half-Saint lord
He now stands almost 170cm tall. His limbs are a bit thin, but he is actually quite muscular over all. His skin is a pale white with black tattoos visible on the backs of his hands. He has Silvery colored hair reaching past his shoulders with Golden eyes.
Just like Supesei-san, he has an orb embedded in the middle of his forehead with two 5cm horns growing next to it.
As for his status, it seems that, like Supesei-san, he is a lower sect of the "Lords" category. His race seems to excel in protection and healing. As a test, we had him try healing a slave's wounds. The healing rate was leaps and bounds beyond what it had been before the Rank-up.
He also now had a new innate ability that covers him in a field of light. I tried hitting this field with my regular strength without any added abilities. He managed to hold up well against 20 of my regular strikes. Not bad.
Hmm, its quite a sturdy defense so I have to admit it was a little frustrating.
At any rate it was decided that now he would be called Seiji-kun instead of Hobuji-kun.
The next rank up was Hobufu-chan who was a Hobgoblin mage. She became a "Ghoul"
I have to admit that I had a taste of the rotten flesh that she was generating, it was actually delicious. I have to say that it surprised me a bit.
Despite the fact that the Ghoul's body is rotten for the most part, there is still a black tattoo on the pale skin on her face and she had black hair. Her face appeared human at a single glance which I did not expect given that she is a Ghoul. Regardless, she gave off a strong atmosphere of danger around her.
Recently both Ogakichi-kun and myself were pleased with the rapid Rank-ups of the troops. Though this time seeing the latest developments, somehow a light chill ran down my spine but other than that there isn't much else to say on that matter.
For Hobufu-chan it was decided that her name would change to Gurukufu-chan. By the way, she can control her rotting flesh to a certain degree, so she won't turn into a pile of flesh, so that's one worry out of the way.
Hobume-chan became a "Dodomeki" with a series of tattoos throughout her body.
She stands at about 160cm tall with a feminine body. She has long black hair down to just above her waist, and she was quite a pleasant experience for my eyes if I'm entirely honest. I provided her with new cloths, because the old ones didn't seem to... well.. suit her anymore. I decided on a white kimono style clothing set.
Oh, just to mention, her white kimono-style clothing had an enchantment like [Bio-Sword] but it is [Bio-Armor]
Apparently her race handles a wide variety of witchcraft with the trade off of very low physical capabilities across the board. But as to what her race is fully capable of will have to be gained through experimentation and training.
This isn't all too bad, a wide variety of different classes with me dominating the front and tactics of warfare isn't too bad of a deal.
As for her name, I decided on changing Hobume-chan to Dodome-chan.
At the same time, five Goblins, including one that was part of the previous slave unit we liberated, Ranked-up into Hobgoblins.
As for the rest of the Hobgoblins, seven others also ranked up, most of them aren't really worth mentioning, but two of them turned into Ogre Mages. They stood tall and appeared very strong. They had large muscular bodies, with black tattoos, standing roughly the same height as myself. They gave off a hearty laugh and appeared to be perfectly suited to the battlefield.
They were each given a set of large firearms and camouflage clothing. If you were to look at them at a glance, you would be hard-pressed to see them.
They were renamed respectively.
As for the Kobolds, six of the common Kobolds became Kobold Footmen, the leader who had been the first Kobold Footmen had become a Kobold Samurai.
He was equipped with a kimono and vermilion colored gloves that have tones of black. His appearance was that of a man in his late thirties. He had a sword around his waist, with dog ears and a tail.
It would seem the further that the Kobolds Rank-up, the more human they become. Sigh, the Kobold Leader looks like some old uncle from an anime, this is terrible!
Well... Appearances aside.
His name would simply be the Samurai Leader to me anyways. It seems that he is able to draw from the [Mana] of this world to some extent, and his presence is far deeper than it had been before.
The Samurai Leader's [Mana], according to him, was used for the technique [Noriyuki Tsuji Akikazenotsuji].
By the way, if I were to inquire about [Mana] from the others, I'd be generally looked at like a fool.
In general, from what I can gather, [Mana] is an energy form that is gathered within the body or magical weapons to perform certain abilities and or attacks.
This fact troubled me slightly, but I suppose I've just been doing it unconsciously so I didn't bother worrying about it too much.
After dealing with my main force's Rank-Ups, I sent everyone off to celebrate with the spoils of war.
As for me, I feel it's time to have a word with the surviving members of the slave unit. More than half of them had decided to return to their respective towns, but none of them had requested such things as travel expenses. I saw them off with some food and that was that.
After seeing them off, I went around completing various tasks such as clearing more space in the cave for living quarters and expanding the training grounds. I helped oversee the food getting passed out and provided the cooking team with the cooking utensils that were looted from the human army during our various raids. Currently, no one is receiving a salary, but I suppose if we grow large enough, some members may require it in the future.
After some thought, I decided that providing some wages might serve well to convince some of the slave army to stay and participate in my mercenary group . For some of them, there was not much of a home to go to, and the others were born into slavery so joining seemed to be their best options to begin with. While hourly wages would surely be expensive, I'm sure some manner of compensation can be arranged, such as payments and shares in the spoils of war during Missions. This way would be far less harmful to the over all funds I have access to. I wont deny my greed in this regard.
Roughly fifty people decided to join:
3 "Lords"
5 "Half-Lords"
4 "Drago-newts"
6 "Half Drago-newts"
10 "Ogres"
1 "Troll"
5 "Lizardmen"
5 "Dwarves"
1 "Dullahan" / "No neck Knight"
3 "Ape-men"
1 "Dhampir"
3 "Redcaps(Murderous Gnomes)"
2 "Tigerman"
1 "Centaur"