Prepared, Youngwoo and Hilda go to clear the 11th floor

Yougnwoo transmitted to the 11th floor together with Hilda. On his back, there was a large backpack filled with necessities he'd need for an entire week, including some clothes to change into, some detergents to wash whatever he needed (it came out as more space efficient than taking more clothes), and some basic tools he could use to prepare his food.

Hilda had a smaller backpack on her back this time, but she additionally had a training bag in one hand and a magic staff in the other. She didn't tell Youngwoo that she was going to also spend the entire week on 11th floor. In all honesty, he was shocked to find that out.

"It'll be better for both of us that way. I won't need to run here and there, so I'll be more rested that way. Won't we be able to do more quests that way?"

"...I guess." He shrugged. "We got half an hour before the day begins."

"Then we can go and stash some stuff away for safekeeping." Replied Hilda. With nothing more said, the two of them set off.

It wasn't difficult to find a place to stash their stuff in. Well, actually, it was Hilda who stashed her things. Youngwoo was actually completely content with going around with his backpack. Soon enough, the two of them walked up to one of the farmers and asked for a quest.

The day had begun in earnest when there came nearly 500 people, all of them wanting to finish their quests. It was truly a rat's race, but Youngwoo and Hilda were calm. By the time the daily quest limit was reached, both of them had cleared 14 quests.

The sun was high in the sky when the two of them heard alarms on their phones, signalling that it was time to eat. There was silent understanding between them, and before long they hunted a small boar. Just some minutes later, they were sitting in the same spot at yesterday by a campfire, both of them eating some meat in silence.

A little while later, Youngwoo decided to practice his sword dances (silently), and Hilda watched him again. After a little over an hour, he sat down to meditate. However, after a minute or two he was surprised to hear Hilda sitting down near him, crossing her legs in the same manner. Was she also attempting to meditate?

"Is meditation a mandatory part of your training?" She asked, her eyes closed much like his.

"I simply like it. Helps me control my breathing." He replied. "Why?"

"Nothing, just curious."

"..."

After a few minutes of silence, Hilda decided to get up. After doing some stretches of her own, she asked:

"Do you mind if I train a bit myself?"

"Go ahead. I'll go and wash myself in the river. Be back in 15 minutes."

"Alright." She replied.

Youngwoo grabbed his backpack and started going in a direction where the river was. The clearing where they trained was rather close to the river, no more than 500 metres. After arriving at the place, he stripped and washed himself. The water was cold, but he didn't even feel it thanks to his skill. After ensuring he was clean of the sweat, he washed his clothes, and after that he strained them to the best of his ability. With the wet clothes in his hands, he returned to the clearing, and saw Hilda casting her spells.

With a swipe of one hand, she sent a few earthly formations ahead in a wave-like pattern, and as she brought the other one down, the area in front of her became spiked with multitude of icy shards. Cold sweat went down his spine. Truly, Dragon Witch's true power was incomparable to that of her zombie form. There was little things that could beat her in terms of raw power. Indeed, that was the reason she rose to be 2nd ranked in the future.

Seeing him arrive, Hilda halted casting of her next magic. She waited for him to go and place the backpack back where he picked it up from, after which she resumed. Earth Dragon Ascension, Ice Dragon Tail Swipe, Ice Dragon Breath. Her three most powerful skills were used whenever she recharged her magic, rupturing the land in front of her over and over. After about 30 minutes, she finished firing her last bits of magic, and looked at the effects.

Several trees in front of her were uprooted due to EDA being used many times. Their bark was pierced deeply by IDTS icicles, and IDB covered them and all nearby terrain with a coating of frost. In fact, even though Youngwoo wasn't affected much by temperature changes, he still DID feel the drop. It was almost like he came back to 1st floor. Hilda must've dropped the temperature of nearby air by at least 20 degrees, quite probably even more.

He shifted as he was meditating, his sword on his lap as he tried to ignore the sheer destruction displayed by Hilda just now. To be fair, it was difficult to do so; this young woman looked cute from the outside, but she sure had power to take on armies on her own.

Wait... take armies on her own? A thought arose in Youngwoo's mind. 'With power like this, she'd be nearly invincible... Then why... why did she die in the original timeline?' When he started to think about it, it didn't make sense. 2nd ranked in the Tower at the time, with enough power to probably hold banshee's entire army down, hell, she of all people would have a chance at destroying it, even on her own. Then, how come that her guild failed? There was something amiss in here. But then again, Youngwoo decided not to overthink anything. After all, the original raid took 14 hours. It was natural that she must've been tired from using her spells over and over again and commanding everyone. It must've been a lapse in concentration.

Soon after finishing her onslaught on innocent plant life in the area, Hilda sat down next to Youngwoo and leaned over a tree behind her. Her breathing was heavy, but stable. Indeed, she must've used up all of her magic. Sweat ran down her cheek as she asked:

"Do you have any water?"

"Sure." He replied, and grabbed a bottle from his backpack.

As Hilda begun drinking, Youngwoo laid down on the ground. With his breathing stabilized and his muscles regaining strength, he simply looked at the sky. Man, wasn't this a peaceful place? Actually, in moments like this, it was difficult to believe that some floors of the Tower were infested with things like giant slimes, orcs or demonic creatures.

"So..." He started. "Do we move or stay here?"

"...I don't know." She shrugged lightly. "I'm fine with whatever. There's a lot of time before tomorrow starts."

"..."

Without saying a word more, they stayed in the spot they were in.

Youngwoo started thinking about his quest. From what he was able to recollect, finishing 12th floor is also going to take some time, quite possibly even more than the 11th. And after that, he had to figure out how he wanted to go about the 13th floor. Would he have to rush through the floor to get his hands on the Wardstone? Or would he be able to take his time in searching it? Could he ask Hilda for help, or would it be too much? In the first place, would she resist the urge to take it for herself?

An hour passed by, and the two of them barely moved from their position. Then, as the second one was passing by, Hilda finally asked:

"Doesn't it feel a little... mundane, Youngwoo?"

"...yeah." He admitted. Truth be told, he was growing tired of sitting on his phone all this time. He should be conserving the battery life anyway. "Should we move?"

"I think it'd be reasonable. Maybe we should visit Issar and find a place to sleep in?"

"Good idea."

With that in mind, they both got up and started walking. The walk itself was uneventful. Actually, take that back. Everything afterwards was uneventful as well. Actually, the entire floor brought nothing of interest for the day.

After arriving at the inn where Hilda stashed her things, she went to the bathhouse (surprised that there actually was a building like this), and washed herself. Later she changed into more leisure clothes, consisting of a large t-shirt in a green color, and long pants that covered her all the way to ankles. She fixed her hair into a ponytail, and with that, she and Youngwoo started to simply walk around the village. Unable to find a sleeping spot in an inn (unsurprisingly to be honest), they decided to simply sleep by the clearing where they trained.

In the late evening there they were, both of them munching down some beef bought from the village butcher and bread from the baker. Fire between them was burning nicely, surrounded by a trench of earth.

When the night came, they decided to take shifts on sleeping. Youngwoo said he'd stay up first, and after hearing no resistance from Hilda, he got up. In order to keep himself awake, he decided to do scouts around their encampment. Soon, after doing a few circles, he found Hilda asleep, leaning by a tree with her hands crossed on her stomach.

She was a nice companion, Youngwoo had to admit. She seemed to be cold, but he knew it was because of the Calm Mind she had. More often than not, he found her to be quite a pleasant person to be around. She spoke her mind up when she needed to, but has opted to remain mostly quiet. While at first she was wary and somewhat aggressive towards him, her attitude soon changed. She became a bit more open, and sometimes he even saw her smile. Well, wasn't it good fortune for him? It seemed like he could make friends with someone as powerful. He smiled lightly at the thought.

After a few hours of (barely) not falling asleep, the time came to switch roles. After Hilda got up, Youngwoo leaned against his own tree and fell asleep in a heartbeat. And the woman simply stared at the fire.

She was skeptical at first. It seemed that Youngwoo was trying to get something from her by being so nice. It almost felt like he was going to ask her about a favor for helping her out before. However, as time went on and they both did quests together, she started looking at him with a new perspective. He was a nice person. He used weird, but actually somewhat dazzling techniques, and she was sure that he'd be a powerful Hunter if he gained a skill related to swordsmanship. It was accurate to say that he danced with the sword, and yet, he was accurate in his blows. He always spoke politely, even when they were alone. Well, he seemed like he was worth her interest. He looked like a person who she could see a friend in.

The next day eventually came, and Youngwoo and Hilda immediately went to finish more quests. Then they practiced swordsmanship and magic respectively. And then, they washed up and did little to nothing until it was time to sleep. Actually, they slept some even during day out of boredom.

Day after day, this routine was repeated over and over again. Soon enough, they started to practice at the same time, as if fighting a single enemy. Deciding it would be better to conserve time and do more quests instead, they only left the floor for some hours to charge their phones and change the clothes they had in bags. And their quest count kept rising.

18, 24... finally, on final day they reached a grand total of 81 quests finished. Youngwoo looked at the number with a numb mind while sitting on a chair in the inn. He was certain; this would place them in rankings. There were hundreds of Hunters doing the quests, and him and Hilda secured an advantage on day 1.

Then, every Hunter on the floor received a message.

[11th floor quest is finished.
The seal blocking transmit from 11th floor has been lifted.
Transmit to floor 12 will be opened in 2 hours.
10 Hunters with highest amount of individual quests finished will be given cards according to their rank. Visit Issar's overseer, Savi Mahoney, to receive your rewards.]

And then, in a brilliant flash of light, a small card appeared in front of him. Actually, no, it was 2 cards that appeared in front of him and Hilda. Both of them got hold of their own, and suddenly, new messages came.

[Quests finished: 81
Rank: 1]

"R-Rank 1?" Youngwoo asked himself. He knew he was almost guaranteed to be on the rankings, but he didn't imagine it would be as good. It seemed that him and Hilda were most effective of all Hunters. He wondered by how much. But that could come later. For now, he had to ask her. "How'd you do, Hilda?"

"Rank 1." She replied. There was some surprise on her face, but her voice didn't shake at all.

"What? But... I got rank 1 too... does this mean we failed?"

"Maybe it counts us as team effort? After all, we did all our quests together." She said. "Wouldn't it make sense?"

"...I don't know." He replied. He put a hand on his chin. "Then... should we just go and receive the reward?"

"That'd be the wisest option, probably."

With their minds set, they moved on. The destination: one of the better buildings in the Issar village. It was rather tall, standing at 3 stories tall, and had a very clean look to it despite the rest of the hamlet looking like it was going to fall apart on its own. This was home of Issar's governor.

[A/N: I know, I know - lazy writing on skipping ahead until the floor is cleared. What can I say? I'm more inclined to write fight scenes than peaceful times.]