"Sorry... I'm so sorry..." - Gust

I munched my breakfast(?) while the black-and-blue beaten Gust sobbed apologies after apologies, with a harisen made outta webs, of course. I've been practicing making these before.

Caution. Disturbing someone while they are eating is a good way to earn their ire.

"-!!" - Gust

Ah, finally some peace ~. Guess I can forgive him. Besides, there's still some stuff I need to look at.

SYSTEM MESSAGE:

Evolution is complete.

Due to your evolution, the following abilities are granted:

Your natural status values have increased.

Natural Aether Point gain has increased from 0.2 to 0.3.

You have obtained the following skills: [Darkness Daggers Lv.1]; [Magic Eye of Weakness Lv.1].

You have acquired the trait: [Evil Eyed].

This is the System Message I haven't had the time to be looking at before now. Clothes and food are more important than information sometimes.

As for the skills, [Darkness Daggers] is somewhat similar to the [Darkness Bullet] skill. The latter creates a bullet of darkness and shoots it at the target while Daggers creates a dagger made from the same kind of "dark energy". The difference is what's made, and that I can wield and throw the daggers however I like.

The new Magic Eye seems to be like the Deterioration eye, just that this one targets people with stats instead of items with Durability. According to the Kigal-Note, the skill will gradually lower the target's stats as long as I keep an eye on them with this Magic Eye. Their stats will gradually return to normal after a while after I turn off the skill or stop looking at them. I glared a little at Gust with it, and it seems to be quite fair with its MP cost. For me, that is. Garami likes~.

Speaking of stats, what are mine now?

Name: Garami | [Migrant] Race: Stygian Executioner Gender: Female Level: 1/50 Traits: 4 Karma Value: -191 Main Class: Arachnid Assailant Lv.14 Skills: 58 Titles: 12 Blessings: 1 Aether Points: 23.6 HP: 116/116 MP: 171/171 SP: 115/115 STR: 138 VIT: 78 MAG: 123 RES: 113 SPD: 297 DEX: 321 INT: 120 LUC: 150 LP: 15

WOW! Wasn't it supposed to be like, humans had around 80-to-100 in all their stats (except for the last row)? I'm great! Amazing! Fabolous! The strongest!!

Ah, or maybe not. I remember reading in the Kigal-Note once that stats may naturally grow higher by age if you keep on training them, without relying on skills or anything. I did try that out but to no result. But if a human, who prolly lives their lives until their teenagers before hunting monsters (if any at all), then their stats may have grown higher than the original 80-to-100 values.

Rather, my high stats were because of intense level-ups and multiple evolutions, something that humans, who are born as E-rank creatures from the start. Maybe that's the reason why monsters in fantasy stories are generally stronger than humans?

And wait! I just noticed now, but I kinda rushed my way through my lower levels. If some other monsters managed to reach E-rank despite starting as a G-rank, and they took their time unlike me, wouldn't they have high AND trained stats? Maybe I'm one of the weaker monsters out there??

"...I should take more classes..." - Garami

...was that me? Wow, even my voice is beautiful. People would kill me if they got to know you could get this flawless beauty package just by dying and surviving a Dungeon as the lowest member of the food chain... Okay, maybe they wouldn't...I think?

"What was that?" - Gust

......

Reply. The owner of this unit wishes to obtain more classes so she can enhance her status value's growth.

Excuse me for being a little embarrassed for having such a nice voice so suddenly. I've lived more than a year without talking, so it's sorta weird for me.

"Ehh..., oh, now I get it! Consider yourself lucky, miss demoness of the year! I got some good news for you!" - Gust

---

After I finished eating, Gust led me from the kitchen, around the gas-and-corpse-infested main hall, and brought me to the barrier-blocked west wing of the mansion.

"Watch this," said Gust as he patted the walls close to the barrier for a while until he found a hidden switch. Pressing it revealed a keyboard-like panel.

*Click, clack, clunk, crash*

Gust then started to input some "suspicious" commands, and then...the barrier was turned off. Hmm?

"Hehehe. I didn't just kill time after I finished helping with the rat poison. There were some records hidden in the library that talked about this mansion, so I spent all my time looking for them!" - Gust

So that's why he was snoring when I found him...yesterday? Not having a clock, or even a calendar, can be a pain sometimes.

"Long story short, I found the various security codes for the magitech barriers in this mansion. The ones in our wing must have been damaged because they would have been active if they were in one piece." - Gust

Lucky us then.

"And here's the real meat: this mansion used to be the training facility for young nobles of the Avalar kingdom! ...you don't know about it, do you?" - Gust

Question. Should the owner of this unit possess this knowledge?

"...guess not. I'll shorten the story again, but this mansion was remade into a museum for some well-known guy in Avalar. The part telling who it was had been damaged, so I have no idea. However, they kept the old training installations that the young nobles used when they discover what classes they had an affinity for as part of the museum." - Gust

Something like that exists? If that's the case...

"It seems like you've guessed it. The same training installations were used to unlock the classes that were the perfect hits for the young nobles. And they should work till this day..., as long as they're not busted like the west-wing barriers." - Gust

Please, don't. Not when I have my expectations raised so high.

We moved through the west wing and finally found something that smelled of a jackpot. A huge, eastern-ish door. It clashes so hard with the rest of the western mansion that you would need to be an idiot to fail to recognize that there's something about this place. There's a sign above the door. It says..."The Paths of the Warrior"..., I think. Wait, when did I learn to read a different world language? The language skill I got from the Migrant title extends even to text? Cool!

The room behind the eastern door looks like a fighting dojo from an eastern movie. There are wooden weapons of practically any type of weapon you could think of lined up by the walls, and several wooden dummies are placed in different areas.

"Seems like we're testing the three Paths first." - Gust

"...paths?" - Garami

"You don't even know about that?! This has to be a "start from the beginning"-situation. *Cough*, classes are divided into five general categories, depending on their abilities. Warrior, Magician, Scout, Crafter, and Special. The Special-line is for any class that's difficult to classify into the first four class lines.

"The first three classes I mentioned are further divided into particular sub-categories. The last two are exempt from this because there would be too many categories if people tried to make them. That, and

"Currently, we are in a facility to discover our Warrior-line classes. These can be divided into three sub-categories, called "Paths". We have the Path of Weapons, the Warrior-line classes that focus on using a weapon to attack with, the defensive Path of Armor, and then there's the Path of the Body. These are the martial artists that fight unarmed." - Gust

So, attackers, tanks, and martial artists. That's an easy way to divide them.

"There's one more thing: people, in general, are only good with one or two of each of these sub-categories. Someone can be good with both the Paths of Weapons and Armor, but it would be a stretch to expect them to be good with the Path of the Body." - Gust

Meaning if you're good with two members of the same category, you're damn talented. And if you're good with them all, you're a genius? Maybe even a monster.

I doubt I could work as a tank, so I'm not even gonna bother checking that Path. I mean, my VIT is the only one still below 100.

Ignoring the baseball-throwing machine-looking item, I went to the wooden puppets that were standing in rings on the floor. After I entered the ring, the puppet started to move and took what looks like a martial arts stance. Kukuku. Stupid dummy. I've been fighting barehanded all my life. Some puppet won't be able to take me by surprise!

---

"What a surprise. Not. What were you thinking?" - Gust

"......ouch." - Garami

21 attempts, and 21 losses against the damn dummies. I hate dummies.

*Sniff*. So having lived a life fighting without weapons just because I never had one doesn't automatically make me a pugilist. I should have predicted that, but the whole thing with the dojo taken straight from a martial arts movie made me a little too hot-blooded to think honestly. This is completely my fault. I'm reflecting here on my bruises.

Gust was kind enough to scavenge the dojo for a first-aid kit and some medicine for me. This place is specifically designed so that people won't lose HP while inside those rings, but you can still get beaten black and blue. And the pain...the paaaain!!

"What are you going to do now?" - Gust

"......weapons." - Garami

Leaving while defeated doesn't sit me right! I walked to the weapon grid and started to test them all out. The trial for the Path of Weapon is to find a weapon you're good with and strike a "power measurer", as Gust calls it. The gizmo only counts the power that comes from your compatibility with the weapon, so stats and skills don't have a say in this test.

Let's start with the classic. A one-handed sword! Hi-yeah!! ...42 points. Tch. The requirement to clear this trial is to score 100 or more points with the power measurer. Am I that bad with the hero's most common weapon? What else do we have here...a whip? Hmm...

*Smack!*

Wow! 102 points! I wonder what that says about my personality. What else here do they have?

---

Many weapons later:

And with this, we're...DONE!!

*Clang!!*

Oh, boy! 169 points! A new high score!

"I never expected there would be anyone except for the Grim Reapers in legends to be that good with the war scythe weapon." - Gust

Hehehe. Stop praising me~. It goes to my head so easily that it should be outlawed~~.

But man, it's always the last place you check that's the winner. Or in this case, the last weapon you test.

Most of the other weapons gave me low scores, averagely around 50, but I found 4 things that I'm good with. The scythe from just now, the whip, a wooden dagger, and some old-fashioned gun that had the firepower of a peashooter.

The four weapon types were shown on the monitor-like display right now along with the words "congratulation!". Geez, which idiot was it who thought up this system? I feel like I'm participating in some cheap variety show on TV.

"Hey, it says here that you're allowed to take a weapon as a prize." - Gust

Gust was pointing at a sign that had appeared after the trials were over. Hmm...tch. The reward is a first-time thing. Plus the weapon looks like it's a beginner's weapon.

"...which one is good?" - Garami

"You're asking me for advice regarding weapons?" - Gust

I simply nodded. I got no experience with this stuff except some half-faded memories of fantasy stories from my old life. I'd accept even a cat's paw for help now, so why not a bird's advice?

"Even if you ask me...what about this scythe? It looked pretty cool when you swung it at the target." - Gust

It's cool, but also too big. You'd need to be a floating grim reaper from the legends if you want to use that thing. Or maybe some sorta centaur-like creature.

"It's no good? Then...what about this dagger?" - Gust

That's the safest option, but I recently obtained the [Darkness Dagger] skill, so unless it's some dagger with a special effect, I don't think I'd be using it. I made one of the Darkness ones to demonstrate to Gust.

"Oh yeah, you ain't in the short for those... What about this pistol? Bows and arrows are more valued since you can increase their performance by simply improving your STR and DEX for range and accuracy, but..." - Gust

Tch! This damn fantasy world and its common sense-defying stats make bows stronger weapons than guns! I bet that developing guns is a pain in this world seeing how easier it is to grow stronger with the bow, seeing that the latter is so much more popular.

Now that I think about it, bows and arrows are likely easier to mass-produce in this world, not to mention upgrading them to become stronger weapons. Guns and bullets, however, are likely much more difficult. And the only way to improve the firepower of a gun is to develop the weapon, as improving your skills and stats are likely only gonna help with the gunslinger's accuracy.

Unless I get myself some awesome weapon, I think I don't have a future as a gunslinger. And the weapon provided as a reward seems weak, practically a starter weapon, just like the rest. Not to mention it seems I'm not getting as much ammo as I can carry, so...

"It's a bust, huh. Then all that's left is the whip, but..." - Gust

Gust started to trail off after I refused the pistol by shaking my head. What's wrong?

"Whips are considered to be the weapon used only by weirdoes, so..." - Gust

Oh, that kinda thing. I got enough luggage to be bothered by that, plus most of the thread-related skills like [Thread Control] work on items like whips as well, so it's a good fit for a simple reward such as this.

I accepted the whip and started swinging it around to get the feel of it. It has high durability (not as much as the Rat King items though), but no special effect. Well, just having one is good for now.

"...I think I ended up with someone worse than the ghost knight..." - Gust

Pardon? Anyway, time to reach the next testing ground! Woo-hoo!!