Ch 1-2

Waking up from a night of pleasant sleep, me and Fiona continued towards the Beginner City. I helped her pack the tent and stuff--Fiona donned that heavy-ass backpack as she walked the roads.

Along the way, we encountered various monsters: in addition to the green slimes earlier, we met wolves, goblins and the occasional orcs. Fiona easily wiped them all out.

[Gained 10 XP and 10 Gold!]

[You have reached level 5!

Fiona has reached level 20!]

The message popped up after we slew the last orc before the town's entrance popped into view.

To be honest, the battles were pretty short. I controlled all the battles, making Fiona attack and myself guard all the time since I didn't have to move around much. At a certain point, I learned a trick, like me hiding between the trees every battle so I couldn't get attacked even a bit.

It seems I could also strike the monsters endlessly as long I didn't go back to my previous spot, but since my damage was negligible--it's just a waste of energy.

Maybe the god of this world made me so weak because I had broken abilities? Well, whatever.

As we walked, I confirmed a few things I had. First, I could access the menu which showcased me and Fiona's status. There's also the item tab, containing all the drops of monsters so far.

I checked my status:

[Takeshi]

Class: None

Level 5

Hp: 30/30

Mp: 15/15

Str: 5

Vit: 5

Agi: 5

Dex: 5

Int: 5

Spi: 5

Luk: 5

Equipment :

Weapon : None

Armor : Another World Clothes (Def + 0)

Accessory : Glasses (Accuracy +)

...

Talk about plain. I think my stats were just about the same as Villager A. Let's check my skills:

[Skills]

....None

As for Fiona, she was like

[Fiona]

Level 20

Hp: 489/520

Mp: 98/150

Str: 35

Vit: 30

Agi: 25

Dex: 40

Int: 30

Spi: 99

Luk: 1 (lol)

[Skills]

Divine Favor [Mp: 5]: Heals all allies according to INT and SPI

Guardian [Mp: 15]: For 1 turn, take all the damage your allies will receive, using SPI as for defense instead of VIT.

Holy Sword [Mp: 10]: Deals extreme damage against undead and demons, 1.5x Atk dmg to everything else.

Ressurection [Mp : 25] : Revive one ally with 50% HP.

...well that was pretty op, that luck though.

..

I really need to get a class sometime.

You might wonder why did we kept going like this instead of staying put and grinding my levels, but well—I was just following behind Fiona. It'd be awkward to impose on her a lot further when she just want to return and claim her mission reward.

Especially since she seems pretty tired from lugging that backpack. It's the best I could do since I couldn't even help her carry that much.

"Ah...we're finally here."

"Huh?"

"The beginner's city. I think you had pretty good stamina for a non-combatant, Takeshi. We walked for hours, you know?"

Was it actually hours of walking? I remember we just walked on a straight line and encountered several monsters without a stop though. As the result, for me who didn't exercise that much, it wasn't that tiring.

Maybe there's that auto-skip function since this was basically an implicit tutorial?

"By the way, I want to clarify something, Fiona."

"Go ahead."

"What happens when a monster was defeated?"

"Come on, we just defeated one moment ago—they simply turn to corpse....ah."

"When we fought, the monsters simply disappeared after death."

"Yeah, when I tried to wrap my head around, I couldn't seem to grasp the oddity before you point it out...but why did the monster disappear in your case?"

"That's what I would like to know."

I couldn't simply tell her, it's because the world became just like a game in my shoes.

She kept on pondering, until she let out a sigh, giving up on the subject.

"What do adventurers usually do after defeating the monsters, in this case?"

"They dismantled it for the useful materials and most importantly, their magic stones. For the exception of slime monsters who turn to a glob thus can't be extracted from most of the time, the adventurers had their backpacks filled just by carrying monster materials to be sold at the guild.

The Holy Order also dealt with it the same way, but it's not like I have any room to store the materials...hehe."

I see, this matched up with the Isekai novels I've read.

Still, why was she alone then? Normally you'd move in groups or so.

Anyway, her life's none of my business, even though the snippets of things I heard made my heart wrench—it's not like I could help.

"I happen to collect a lot of these drops each time we defeated the monsters. I don't know, it felt like—it just collected things by itself."

Fiona's expression completely fell.

"Seriously? I can't believe it, not only do the corpses which would attract other monsters disappear, you automatically dismantled the dead ones? I find it hard to believe...."

"Well, let me just..."

I accessed the menu and took out the slime core as if I took things from a bag in thin air. Come to think of it, in RPG games, the monster drops were based on luck, but this time, whenever a monster died, their materials were all harvested.

Could this be... some kind of cheat ability?

"....it's true...that's a slime core. Even seasoned adventurers would find it lucky to harvest one."

"In addition of that, whenever we defeated the monster, I got an amount of gold."

Fiona, who was already so flabbergasted, her mouth looked like it would fell deeper than Niagara Falls, looking as if she's about to cry.

"...sniff...how much gold was it...?"

"The last orc we defeated yielded 10 gold."

Since I had enough of her disbelief, I took five gold coins from the menu.

"Uwaaaaaaaaaaaah! That's so unfair, I hate you...I really hate you!"

If you want to blame someone, please blame God for giving you 1 luck stat. That to be said, my luck stat wasn't especially that much higher than hers.

...for the moment, anyway.

What's this feeling? Seeing her crying face...I felt a tinge of joy.

Maybe deep down inside, I was a sadist.

Later on, I learned that one gold coin was enough to feed a single person for a month, provided they lived modestly of course. It was also only accounting for food expenses, not including the other tidbits.

..and monsters did not drop money at all when killed. My case is an exception.

"Really...Takeshi...you, if anyone else knew about this...adventurers all over the world would kill to have you on their party as a Support. An ability that allows you to see their health and mana, to automatically dismantle monsters and bottomless pit of inventory. Not to mention, even defeating few made you able to get rich..."

If this was an RPG game, the abilities I had would be a lot more than this. Would Fiona squirm epileptic seizures when she discovered, what I currently had, was probably not everything?

"Give me that five gold you have and I will pretend this conversation never existed."

"Sure thing."

I had around forty-five gold left in me anyway after I 'bribed' her.

"Mother...father...I have sinned, I just conned someone...but with this, you can live for many years without me having to do anything...nyohohoho...."

Man, she finally broke, literally. I guess she just had things hard in life.

She might have a loose lip when talking about her life, but seeing her as being a loner, my secret's pretty much clear. Besides, I don't really like to hide my powers all the time either. Best disclose it to someone trustworthy.

Even if I felt sorry for her, I'm not giving my money for free. I just hope she'd get a better life with that dosh.

Anyway, we finally arrived at the town entrance. Fiona went up ahead since she wanted to finish up the business with Holy Order as soon as possible.

While it's my turn to enter, there's a single town guard who kept on repeating.

"Hello, welcome to beginner's city!"

Over and over again...