Chapter 10: The Hero is punishing and considering, and crafting an evil plan
The surroundings already began to darken as I finished forcing the currency exchanger muscle daruma to swallow all the molten copper coins. Maybe in an hour, the sun will fall completely.
The man, after being forced to swallow, seemed to have used up the last of his remaining strength to withstand it, fell as he was no longer conscious. Right now, he is violently spasming at my feet.
Well, he did continuously use his Force Up until the very end, so it’s quite probable that he will survive even if I leave him be. Well, that’s only in the case that anybody cared enough to heal him though.
「Mmm, it wouldn’t be fair if I were to give him the killing blow…」
I acted as I was stimulated and angered by the memories of those who betrayed me, however, I did clearly declare that “if you swallow all the copper coins, I will forgive you”, so I have to abide it, for my own good. If I were to break my vow and use my force, just to calm my feelings, then, I would probably become just like them.
I don’t think that there is any possibility that he will ever try to sabotage my revenge. He did pay for his crimes, so any more than this would cease to be “Retribution”.
I did become an avenger, but I did not become a demon murderer.
If I were, at some point, to find pleasure in killing; then I would die before I get my revenge as I would transform into someone else. I cannot let that happen. I made a vow to myself to get my “Revenge”, so I cannot allow myself to make a single mistake on where I draw the line.
He is the one of whom the target of my wrath is, so I cannot allow myself to screw it up for the second time, not in a one in a million chance.
「Nevertheless, to think that the human body is this resilient…」
To tell the truth, I didn’t expect him to survive until the end; this muscle daruma bastard is sturdier than I thought. I predicted that he would die after the 20th coin.
I wanted to use him as an example, so I deliberately made it so that it would be horrifying for the others. However, if I were to leave him alive, I would be categorized in the slum as someone seemingly naive.
Nevertheless, I’m not remotely planning to cure him. So even if the guys who are hiding nearby flock around us, I won’t give a damn. In the end, it was just due to the fact that “I let him off because I wanted to”. I don’t mind one way or another if he survives or dies because of this. After all, he is still a citizen of this country who doesn’t deserve my help.
I took the money that should be mine that was replaced with counterfeits made with illusion magic, which was exactly 5 large silver, 23 silver, and 20 large copper coins, and put them inside the bag full of gold coins.
As I finished packing the coins until it was full, I started to walk away. I never heard of what happened to that man.
☆
「Well then.」
At the edge of the town, the side road 1 to 2 streets away from the main street.
I entered an inn that I chose randomly, and I put the cases I was carrying under my armpits to the ground. The 20 cases that I had bought on my way here are making a sound as if there was glass inside of them.
Inside of the bottles, there was blue liquid which is valued at 4 large silver coins, known as the MP Potion.
「First off, I have to check my status, there is something I’m concerned about.」
Thinking that, I opened the status window.
In this world, there are 3 ways to increase your status abilities.
The first one is the basic body strengthening and training which would fortify and correct the base.
For body strengthening the strength, endurance, and agility status are improved; magic wise, if you were to spend your mana to the limit, then, it could increase your mana capacity. However, the strengthening pace isn’t that high even though it shouldn’t be ignored.
It doesn’t mean that the status will increase exponentially as long as you keep training, instead, it means that there is a limit for races, excluding the species such as dragons which are strong without high levels.
The next one is enhancement through skills. They are mainly divided into two types, ones which are usually active all the time, the 【Passive Skills】, while the other ones are only occasionally active, the 【Active Skills】. It is not like there aren’t any exceptions to these two, but it could be basically separated into these two types.
Among them, there are 【Passive Skills】 that can buff the status. There are skills which are commonly known and aren’t complicated like 『Body Strengthening』 or 『Endurance Enhancement』. Other skills like 『HP Regeneration Improvement』 buff the HP. And the skill 『Mana Efficiency』 enhances statuses such as magic resistance among others.
And to stray off the topic for a bit, contrary to 【Active skills】 like 『Sky Walk』 or 『Haste』 which rely on the consumption of HP and MP to operate, simply invoking actions or repetition won’t let you earn 【Passive skills】 or level them.
These 【Passive skills】 require several established conditions to level up, for example, the 『Tracking Lv2』 skill was earned by following the 【Without the target realizing, follow him for 10 minutes or more】 condition. Furthermore, it adds a correction for agility.
Regarding the classification of my soul sword, it can be considered to have both passive and active skills. Using the soul sword as a weapon, the part which uses its special ability could be considered as an 【Active Skill】, on the other hand, there are passive skills that come along with the awakening of a soul sword.
For example, the 【Verdant Green Crystal Sword】 enhances physical strength, endurance, and magical resistance, while the 【Fire Spider Leg Sword】 buffs statuses such as agility and endurance.
However, according to the calculations, the soul sword could only increase 『+50』 on status while skills buff only a percentage of the status, which becomes something like a bonus as you train your basic abilities.
So, returning to the topic, the third option to increase status is simply to level up. Although physical training increases the fundamentals like leveling, it doesn’t come close to leveling.
Leveling up can be only done by accumulating experience, and you can get it from “killing things or living beings who have consciousness or instinct”. Of course, that includes humans, and the reward increases proportionately to the difference in status.
Truthfully speaking, there is another way to increase your status, but that hasn’t been disclosed to the public, and individuals who are aware of it won’t reveal it because of certain reasons, which is why I won’t disclose it now.
And because of the experience from the 6 hoodlums and the 2 gargoyles (the bodyguards from Duphein’s mansion should have been saved with recovery potions), so I should have earned some, but:
「……I’m still level 1. Why is that?」
When I killed those hoodlums, I thought that it was because of their low level and they were even lower than me who has all the corrections, however, I’m sure that those gargoyles from Duphein’s mansion had even higher stats than me. I have proof since I gave them a punch to the stomach that didn’t even flinch them. I thought that it was strange so I had no other choice than to touch the part of the screen where 『Level』 was written.
Then as I looked at the displayed screen, I cast my eyes down in shame.
Actual Level: 1
Experience points accumulated: -20000/150
Remaining earned experience points: 1012
「Dear Goddess of the Earth, it is true that you said the regression from time transition would have to be dealt with, but aren’t you overdoing it with the negative points?」
I complained instinctively. I sighed lightly and moved on.
Although there was a display of the actual level and accumulated experience points from time ago, I have never seen the 『Remaining earned points』 option on the bottom before. I knew instinctively what that was for, but I had to make sure by tapping the display.
Please decide on the experience points to be distributed.
Points left 1012
【００００００】 YES／CANCEL
「As I thought.」
Selecting the number input field, a dial display appears with a scroll which controls it. It seems that with this, I can decide on the distribution of the experience points. Perhaps, it was changed since the soul swords now need to be unlocked by accumulating experience points.
For the time being, I now know that I won’t be able to level up for some time. Because there are a lot of negative experience points, for some time, I will be forced to hunt so I can level up. Even though the level increases, if there is no difference between status, there won’t be a juicy amount of points; even if the difference between levels exists, there is the correction done by all the soul swords, so without prey as extravagant as the gargoyles, I won’t be able to save experience points.
After closing this tab, I went to open the soul sword’s tab.
In an instant, I checked the list which indicates all the soul swords that are available right now.
「So, the ones I can use are the 【Soul Sword of the Beginning】, 【Fire Spider Leg Sword】, 【Verdant Green Crystal Sword】, 【Magical Mending Hook Sword】, and finally, 【Holy Sword of Vengeance】, huh.」
To be able to unlock each of the other types of Soul Swords, I need around 3000 or more experience points. Furthermore, the swords require more experience points to unlock as their priority gets higher. However, I’ll think about it later.
For a period of time, I’m going to review the properties of the swords which could be the main weapon again, one by one.
「The Holy Sword of Vengeance, so it was like that huh……」
After I revived in my second try, to think that the reason that I became more sensitive regarding evil intentions and hostility was because of its passive skill. So it seems, that something like my sixth sense will alert me if someone is directing such intentions at me. Apart from that, I looked for some of the other details of its abilities.
The conditions for acquisition were indicated at the bottom: those were 【1. To swear with absolute certainty, vengeance on more than 10 guys whom you trusted; 2. To be given more than a fixed amount of physical damage in total by those who are targets for revenge.】
That’s why I was able to obtain this sword at death’s door.
「Speaking of which, what happened to that…」
After reviewing the abilities once more, I scrolled down the list of Soul Swords again.
In it, there was a 【???????????】 section that displayed a mystery Soul Sword.
It was added suddenly after I impaled her, the Demon Queen.
It didn’t change the display even after my second life, and it doesn’t show anything after I select it.
Differing from the other Soul Swords, it is not disabled by a lack of experience points, and neither it is marked with a key mark, but, it is still colored in gray.
「Anyhow, I cannot be this optimistic……」
With my actual status, I will probably be gradually worn down if more than 70 of the king’s knights surround me.
I should be increasing my abilities as fast as possible, by acquiring skills to enhance myself. I’m in no position to drop my guard.
「As I thought, I should buy it tomorrow. It should also be of help when I exit the town.」
I put all the things in order inside my mind that I require before I leave this town.
Then, after finishing with all the miscellaneous matters, I moved onto the main event.
I put the necklace on the middle of the table and prepare the Lower Grade MP potions within my left hand’s reach so I can drink it at any moment. And I grasp a substitute knife blade, the 【Magical Mending Hook Sword】 which has a key-like shape at the tip of the hook blade.
「Aaagh, I wanted to see it with my own eyes, it’s deplorable but there is no option, huh. Wait, no, if I were to ask Shitty Glasses, couldn’t he send me the recording without being discovered?」
It is a merely trivial plan for harassment, however, I certainly want to see with my own eyes, the faces that the king, queen, and the princess make. If I were to twitch it in the direction of excessive acting, it could be of great assistance.
Besides, the time which I spend with the king and the queen is rather short, so I have no certainty of which punishment I should give to them at this point. Although it is dangerous, I should get the information.
I’m reluctant to ask more favors of Shitty Glasses, but under these circumstances, I don’t have any other choice. For my revenge, I would even lower my head to him.
「However…… kukukuu…」
I laughed while I thought of the moment when I succeed on my scheme.
It’s not like I’m not tired after all the things that happened today. But my top priority right now is this over taking a rest. Putting it with other words, I won’t be able to sleep without finishing this.
As I poured my mana into the 【Magical Mending Hook Sword】, I was making progress on my work while humming happily.