After taking care of the first wave of monsters gathered at the coast, we could only see the dense forest stretching out to the horizon. The greenery truly extended to every corner that we could view. No one would be surprised if a dinosaur’s head suddenly popped up.

We had nowhere near enough time to thoroughly search every corner of the Philippines for monsters. We couldn’t waste time. Of course, we had come with a solution prepared.

“So I just sing songs that attract?” Plene asked.

I nodded and smiled gently. “Yep. Just focus on singing. I’ll take care of the rest.”

“Ok!” she replied happily.

The solution was none other than Plene. To kill monsters with my Evil Eyes, I needed them to be within my sight. It would be nice if I could draw them towards me with Provoke, but Provoke’s range wasn’t that big.

However, unlike my shouting, Plene’s singing traveled far and wide like the sweet scent of flowers attracting honey bees. Plene had never accompanied me to Event Dungeons or Dimensional Mercenary missions, but now was her time to shine. Ah, come to think of it, she did shine before when Event Dungeons appeared on Earth.

“Lala~ Lalala~” she sang.

My father commented, “What a beautiful voice.”

I slapped him lightly.. “Don’t get infatuated, Father. Snap out of it.”

Father looked like he was ready to crack open a beer bottle. I restrained him and strongly circulated Peruta Circuit. I could feel a countless number of monsters coming over, attracted by Plene’s singing.

I ordered, “Battle units, you all can rest. You must be tired. If you want, you can even go back to Resting Place of the Angels.”

Licorice interjected, “Thank you for your consideration, Dear Husband, but we can regain our strength through battle!”

I nodded. “Alright, then be on standby. You all can help take care of the monsters unaffected by Evil Eyes.”

“Yes!” they choroused.

To be honest, the succubi’s mind sharing ability was rather convenient. I could just grab one randomly and the rest would understand what I told her. That being said, I wanted to stop them from becoming even more infatuated with me as time went on!

Everyone prepared themselves so that they would be ready to face the strong enemies. As I circulated Peruta Circuit and waited for the monsters in the distance to arrive, I thought about ways to effectively release my charm.

The strength, dexterity, and constitution stats directly affected my body, whereas the magic stat was my mana itself. I wasn’t sure what the luck stat did exactly, but I could more or less control the other stats. I could display as much strength as I wanted and display as much speed as I wanted. If not, it would be impossible for explorers to live their everyday lives.

At first, I thought the charm stat was like the luck stat, something outside of my control. However, after experiencing many things, I came to realize that it was controllable. Then, it must be possible to control how much of it I used just like I did with my other stats.

Furthermore, if I could focus it to strengthen one part of my body, like the eyes for example, and stop releasing my charm through my whole body, I could get Hwaya and Ludia to stop looking at me judgmentally. As such, learning to control my charm was one of my top priorities. After all, charm was a monster-like ability that could even demolish an ability user’s self-control!

Plene continued to sing, “Lala, lalala~! Laaa~!”

“They’re coming. I can feel it!” I warned everyone.

Hwaya asked, “Would it be about 0.1% of the Philippines’ monsters?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know, but there sure are a lot!”

0.1%...So we only had to do this 999 more times? I tried to trick myself into thinking positively, but I couldn’t help but sigh. Dealing with monsters on a scale of a country was no joke.

Ludia sidled over. “Don’t sigh too much, Shin…I’m happy, it’s been a while since I did something with you since I can’t be with you in the dungeon.”

“I get it, so go away, Ludia. Your eyes are really dangerous right now,” I remarked as I began to step back.

Licorice commented, “Dear Husband is so strange. It is only natural for a man and a woman to embrace each other, why does he refuse it so adamantly?”

Ludia gave the succubus queen an approving look. “For the first time, I agree with you, Licorice. Why don’t we exchange some ideas?”

Licorice nodded. “Sure, let’s cooperate, witch.”

I swear I’ll learn to focus my charm on only my eyes! If this continues, I’ll be conquered before I can conquer the Philippines!

In just four days, we had managed to completely wipe out monsters from 40% of the Philippines. There were monsters powerful enough to resist Plene’s singing, but they couldn’t hide their presence from us. We just had to find them and kill them. These monsters could also resist my petrification. When I asked Daisy and Yua if they were interested in either of those monsters, they shook their heads.

“Not this one either?” I asked hopefully.

Daisy refused, “Not cute.”

Yua agreed, “It’s not cute.”

I eyed the two of them. “Is there some standard I don’t know about? Is it really because they’re not cute?”

We only had five hours to rest per day. I was the only one who thought it was too long. At first, everyone rolled their eyes and called me a tyrant.

“I know we’re on standby most of the time, but Shin, you’re always using your power. Are you okay?” Ye-Eun asked.

I blinked. “Eh? You were worrying about me?”

As I planned on taking two hours out of that five to hunt Floor Masters, I couldn’t help but be flustered by Ye-Eun’s question. Were these people still doubting the power of explorers’ stats? I found out the answer to my questions the next morning.

“Strange. Why am I not tired?” Ludia asked.

Ye-Eun commented, “Hmm, even after I became an ability user, I still felt sleepy from time to time…but now I’m not sleepy at all.”

Walker exclaimed, “So this is the power of stats…!”

Wait, these people, were they in the dungeon for only eight hours a day like some office work? When I asked them, the others gave me stares that said, ‘Are you crazy?’ It seemed I was the weird one. Hwaya advised me seriously, “Shin, I know you feel pressed for time, but there’s a certain level of stress you get just from battling. Without even realizing it, your mind is being hurt. You’re already getting stronger quickly, so don’t push yourself too much. Many of us here feel pain seeing you hurt.”

“Y-Yeah…” I rubbed the back of my head.

Since she was genuinely worrying about me, I couldn’t refute her even though I really didn’t feel anything. Feeling awkward from Hwaya’s stare, I nodded. In the end, I didn’t tell anyone I spent an additional two hours hunting Floor Masters. Though, I suspected that a few of them already knew about it.

On the fourth day, something unexpected happened. During these four days, we went around the Philippines using Plene’s singing and my Evil Eyes to wipe out monsters. Before we noticed, the number of monsters swarming us had decreased. However, I knew that it wasn’t because there were more monsters that could resist Plene’s singing.

“There should be more monsters the closer inland we get. How strange,” I muttered.

Licorice interjected, “Dear Husband, I’ll get the kids to survey the area”

“Might die, dangerous. Undead, safe.”

Daisy stopped Licorice and took out a skeleton of a hawk from her inventory. Then, she put a small crystal ball in its eye socket.

“Scout,” she ordered.

[Kiaaa!] the hawk cried and soared into the air. Its speed was incredibly fast. At the same time, Daisy took out another crystal ball that seemed like an enlarged version of the one she took out before.

“We can…see with this,” she explained.

I gasped, “Wow, so we can use this to see what the hawk is seeing?”

“Floor Shop 770,000 gold. Revival privilege, 70,000 gold discount,” Daisy remarked proudly.

Apparently my name was being used here and there without me knowing about it. I told myself to apologize to Loretta the next time I saw her as I looked into the crystal ball. The hawk’s incredibly fast speed made it hard to see the surrounding scenery, but once I got used to it, I could see the dense forested area around us.

For about five minutes, nothing was out of the ordinary. There weren’t any monsters that came into view as we had already cleaned up this area. It would have been nice if that continued, but Hwaya soon shouted, “Wait, what’s that?”

“Monster migration,” Daisy answered with a shocked expression. She was right. A group, no, a herd of monsters had finally entered into the hawk’s view. Strangely, they were all moving towards one direction. Land monsters were plowing through the forest, while flying monsters flapped their wings and cut through the sky. It was almost as if they were racing towards the same finish line.

“This is…”

“There really is a commander…”

Hwaya gulped. I could hear her voice trembling slightly. I understood why, as one of the monsters running in the crystal ball was…

“Isn’t this the same type of monster as the one Yua hated?” I asked.

Hwaya nodded. “Yeah, it’s the same monster as the one that didn’t get petrified. From how much mana it had…”

Sumire interjected, “It was an SSS rank.”

“Ho.”

There was no way an SSS rank monster would run like a dog playing catch for a monster weaker than itself. It meant that there was a monster that was overwhelmingly stronger than an SSS rank monster.

“A map, anyone?” Hwaya asked, looking around.

“Here you go, Hwaya-nim.”

One of the succubi handed Hwaya a 3D hologram map of the Philippines. Comparing the map with the scenery in the crystal ball, Hwaya estimated where the monsters were heading to.

“Luzon Island…southernmost area.”

Hwaya's voice fell. Soon, she came up with an answer.

“Bulusan Volcano…They’re going to a volcano!?”

My instincts told me that there was a monster that my Evil Eyes couldn’t do anything against.

I shrugged. “It’s fine. I don’t know if there’s enough space there for all these monsters to gather, but this is more convenient for us. Let’s head over there while we take care of the slow ones.”

Hwaya shook her head. “No, we don’t know what will be there, Shin. Let’s split up our forces. I don’t know what the monsters are up to, but they’re certainly not trying to help you kill them all at once.”

That was true.

“Then let’s kill them before any more of them reach the volcano,” I suggested.

Hwaya quickly thought and said, “We have six succubi battle units. We’ll split up and go with them. Shin, you go with Plene and kill as many of them as you can.”

“Got it.”

“Succubi, line up!”

The battle units immediately began to line up. The other members of Revival also stood nervously at Hwaya’s frosty vigor.

“There might be a monster stronger than any monster we’ve faced so far. You can’t just rely on Shin to take care of everything. Make sure you’re ready for this!”

“Oh, my daughter-in-law candidate sure is feisty,” my father commented.

“Father, you just scared the other daughter-in-law candidates with that.”

“Guys, is the Philippines the only country with a monster like this?”

“Probably not…”

I couldn’t help but recall the Demon Army Commander I met in the Luka continent. A monster that far surpassed him was likely waiting for us. After all, it was a monster that could control SSS rank monsters…how many monsters like this existed on Earth?

Michel muttered, “So the real war is beginning…I'm shaking a bit.”

Walker snorted and replied, “Hmph, we just have to kill them. What, you’re scared?”

Michel grinned and retorted, “Of course not. But since you’re so full of spirit, I’ll be expecting a lot from you.”

“Trying to act cool, old man?” Walker raised an eyebrow.

We set off after splitting up into a total of seven teams. Our final destination was Luzon Island’s southernmost area, Bulusan Volcano. The battle was not far off.