Infinite Dendrogram - Volume 11 - Chapter SS1

Bonus Short Stories 
Powerleveling 
December, 2044 
A few days had passed since the battle against the Tri-Zenith Dragon, Gloria. 
“Leveling is soo boring...” grumbled Tsukuyo Fuso, one of the kingdom’s Superiors and the leader of its largest clan, The Lunar Society. 
She was currently wand-bashing monsters in the Tomb Labyrinth. 
Her secretary both in game and out, King of Assassins, Eishiro Tsukikage, was binding said monsters with his shadows. He would prevent them from moving, and she would beat them — a highly orthodox way to raise a newbie’s level. 
The reason why she, who was far from a newbie, was doing something like this was because her level had been reset as a result of using a potent skill that had that as the price. She was now working to recover her lost levels. 
Some would question why she was bashing them instead of using skills, and the answer to that was because she’d ran out of MP and SP needed for spells and the like. She’d drunk so many MP and SP potions that they barely had an effect anymore, so she had to resort to this newbie-like method of leveling. 
Being a Superior Embryo, Tsukuyo’s Kaguya was very demanding in terms of MP and SP, and at her now-low level, she didn’t have nearly enough of either, so she ended up doing this quite often. Any new levels gained did little to fix the problem. 
“They say time is money, and I’m here doing this...” 
As contradictory as that may have seemed, she thought about how effectively she could’ve leveled up before her level was reset.

In Infinite Dendrogram, there were two basic ways of leveling up — killing other creatures or completing job quests. Both methods provided the person with shapeless data energy called simply “Resources,” and crossing a certain threshold of it gave them a level. 
Levels gained through fighting were easy to understand for all those familiar with video games — you received Resources from enemies in the form of XP. Some of the loser’s Resources went to the victor, and some returned back to nature. With monsters, Resources could also become items. This was especially obvious with UBMs. 
The distribution of XP in group battles was directly related to performance. Attacking, defending, supporting... everything you did in battle influenced the amount of XP you would receive. This distribution was why Eishiro was only doing the binding and Tsukuyo was doing the attacking. Though, whenever Tsukuyo had the MP and SP for it, she would contribute to the battles by debuffing or supporting instead. In parties, it was actually possible to turn on a setting that made the distribution equal, but it was unusable due to the immense gap in levels between Eishiro and Tsukuyo.

Now, as for job quests, the other leveling method... the way they made people level-up was actually unknown. 
Job quests were arranged by the guilds for the respective jobs and offered to those who had them. While the source of physical rewards for completing these jobs was very clear, it was still a mystery where the Resources that caused level-ups came from. 
It definitely wasn’t the guilds distributing these Resources. Completing job quests just seemed to imbue the achiever with Resources from the natural world itself. In fact, some guessed that that was actually the case — that it was part of natural law to give Resources to those who completed job quests. 
This was actually one of the foundations for the many job-based religions on the continent, including the kingdom’s state religion. “Those who fulfilled their duty today will be given the power to live better tomorrow” was quite a popular idea among them.

“My case is pretty troublesome...” Tsukuyo grumbled again. 
Many would reset their levels to improve their builds, and they would generally have an easier time leveling than before. After all, level resets were often focused. Losing a single job would mean losing only a small amount of stats, meaning that fighting to regain the levels would be fairly simple. 
Tsukuyo, however, dropped down straight to level 0. Even if she tried to make up for it with the equipment she had, items that increased by percentage weren’t that effective at low levels, while items that gave fixed bonuses weren’t that potent. Naturally, she couldn’t be all that effective at powerleveling.

Job quests were another option, but that was difficult, as well. 
In fact, it was impossible for her. 
Tsukuyo was, after all, the High Priestess and the leader of The Lunar Society, and the kingdom’s job guilds for the priest grouping were owned by the state religion. It would be bad for her reputation if people heard that she, the leader of The Lunar Society, was working for a rival religion. Even if the magnanimous state religion wouldn’t care, the onlookers would. 
Another thing that would be bad for her reputation was the very fact that she was now low level and desperately trying to climb back up. 
“Lady Tsukuyo,” Eishiro tapped Tsukuyo on her shoulder. 
“Ah. Gotta hiide,” she replied as she sunk into his shadow. 
Eishiro did the same right after finishing off the bound monsters. 
They’d done this to hide from an incoming party of Masters.

About a minute later, Tsukuyo and Eishiro rose from the shadows. 
“Let us go elsewhere.” 
“Okay.” 
Tsukuyo was the leader of the top-ranking clan, one of the country’s Superiors, and thanks to her role in defeating Gloria, one of Altar’s Big Three. She enjoyed that reputation, but it made it all the more difficult to show herself in the state she was now. That was why she always hid when people came, then moved elsewhere. 
It was a chore, but she had to maintain her majesty as one of the kingdom’s greatest. She wanted to hide herself as she was not just from the general public, but also her own Lunar Society. The only ones she trusted enough to help her level were Eishiro and maybe Ichiro Shijima. 
Though, Ichiro couldn’t leave Torne right now, so he couldn’t be here to assist her. Not even Tsukuyo was cruel enough to take away the family time of a man who was said to have not long left to live. 
Eishiro, on the other hand, had to put up with her business in and out of Dendro. He’d actually been helping with her inefficient leveling for several dozen hours now, all while making time for college work and chores in real life. His loyalty was equal to steel. 
“...I know this is all we have, but just how long will it take for me to get back my levels at this rate?” Tsukuyo sighed as she thought about how many hours of this she would have to go through. 
“Let us progress patiently. We have time,” said Eishiro, standing next to her with a gentle smile on his face.

Eishiro collapsed in real life just three days later.

The End