Chapter 36 (1/2)

Volume 1

Nidome no Yuusha 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?」