Chapter 3 – Hold it!

OK, this is the real deal. I take deep breaths as I try to find the best grip on my spear, a futile attempt, as my body knows exactly where to grip it for several situations. It was always that way as [Pikeman] and nowadays, with all my experience, even as a [Student] or [Ranger] I instinctively feel whenever I hold the spear wrong.

My knees are shaking, but I can't stand down. This is a fight I have to do. My stomach is ice-cold and I'm sure that the only reason why I'm not running away is because I'm currently in the [Pikeman]-class and it braces my mind. A pikeman stands at the front and doesn't falter, even if facing the charging cavalry, after all.

I narrow my eyes, being short-sighted really is a disadvantage. But fighting with my glasses on is even worse, they're not meant to be worn while fighting and losing or breaking them would be bad. I can still see my opponent fine enough, only a bit out of focus at this distance.

Breathe in, breathe out. I'm only delaying the inevitable.

“[Speedthrust]!” I propel myself with the skill, as a good offense is the best defense. Though I may severely lack in offense, as the moment I get close, my opponent makes a quick sidestep. I abort my [Skill], but still feel a sharp pain in my face. At least I took away most of my momentum, but I feel something at the back of my head.

...this will hurt!

I try to brace myself, but my stance is off due to canceling [Speedthrust], so it's easy to slam my face to the ground.

My opponent stops her attack, but I feel cold steel at my neck. “Kenta, are you alright?”

“Brmlmlml-”

“Let's take a break, OK?” Rine sheaths her sword and offers me her hand.

I slowly stand up without taking it. “Dammit!”

“You're doing great!”

“Stop lying!” I mean, whatever I do, it's over in a few seconds. I stay still, she attacks from three directions at once, using her sword, feet, and fist. I attack, she counterattacks. I feint, she gets a hit in during the feint. I attack, abort the skill, and she does that superhuman shit that makes her first jumpkicks my face and then use the same foot to hook behind my head and slam me to the ground in one swift motion!

When I asked Rine to become my sparring partner after the Red Canyon incident, I knew that I would get beaten to a pulp about every day. But not improving at all makes it so frustrating! “What am I doing wrong!? I mean, except fighting you in the first place!?”

“You're too slow?”

“Then how can I become faster!?”

“Hm... your body seems fine, though I would like it if you join my morning training. It feels weird that you have all the muscles without doing basic training.”

“I'm a hero, after all.”

“Yes, but still... other than that... maybe it's your mindset?”

“What?”

“How can I explain... you expect to lose, so you lose.” That... makes sense. When my expectation is to lose, then my body will harden up and try to protect itself, making me less mental and physically flexible. Still, me ending up being hurt is just a realistic assumption!

...could it be that Rine's secret is that she can switch off her brain whenever she feels like it? … …I seriously can't dismiss this possibility.

If we can trust what the Luuto-disaster brought us, when I snapped against him, then I should have the potential to be as fast and powerful as Rine. I may have found a way to access some of this power willingly, but it has several hard limits. I can use it around three times, then I get a torturous headache, and I can only use it as a [Pikeman] in conjunction with my spear.

Heck, this may be an entirely different power-up from what I know and I only believe it's the same I had with Luuto! I think even Ara-san begins to see this as the more likely option.

“Kenta, keep thinking about it. You're going to figure it out, and I'll help you however I can. Let's look at how lunch is doing. It's going to rain again soon.” She's right, Kyou-san's [Weather Forecast] predicted heavy rain with short breaks in-between.

Therefore we even have set up a tarp for lunch. Kyou-san is still handling her pan on the fire, though I can see how she’s also heating up some bulbs on a stone close to it. “How was it?” She asks while not hiding her smile.

The first few days of sparring with Rine were very humiliating. Kyou-san and Ara-san have been watching us the whole time, the former grinning, the latter making notes. Yet it became so one-sided and predictable, that both of them decided to do something else with their time.

I feel someone climbing my back: “Kenta-ku~un. Let's do it.” It's Ara-san.

“Phew... I guess.” She makes sure that I can't run away, though that thought didn't even cross my mind. She's holding a paper in my face. “Let's see... we left off there, right?”

“Yes.” It's the copy she made of the American heroes' manuals. I always try to translate some of their English into Japanese, which is then translated into whatever the people speak here when it comes out of my mouth, only to be finally translated into Alfr Speech in Ara-san's mind.

Super complicated. Especially, as this world language doesn't even seem to have a name. Rine just calls it 'language', the same as she calls this planet just 'world'. Well, that may also be just a product of the translation-work of the hero-system.

“Let's see...” So far, we only covered some of the bases and while it's written differently, the content seems to be the same. “Next paragraph has the title '[Abilities] and [Skills]'. Hm... [Abilities] increase your ability in a certain field. Then it describes how some [Abilities] may be supernatural... no, rather: Supernatural for you...”

“So it does mean that there are no supernatural [Abilities] in the first place?”

“Maybe it's like [Spirit Magic]? For you, it's totally natural and has science behind it, while for me it's some magical bullshit.”

“Which would mean, that for every [Ability], there may be someone who naturally has access to it.”

“So how does things like [Stealth] count? Everyone can be sneaky, but [Skills] like [Camouflage]?”

“Translate further!”

“Erm... something about the [Rank]. Amassing... what? Experience? Knowledge? What the fuck does pro-fee, no, pro-fi-shen-shii mean? From the context I can say, your [Rank] increases by practicing the [Ability].”

“We should head back and make those heroes talk, even if it kills them.”

“No.”

“But Kenta-kun!”

“NO!”

“Bummer. Continue.”

As I continue, I realize that this section is actually more detailed than what I knew. Ara-san and I get three details from the [Abilities] and [Skills] that we couldn't find in either of our own manuals:

First, heroes amass potential to learn [Skills]. Those [Skills] reflect the needs, experiences, aptitude, and personality of the hero. We may have suspected this already, but this now seals the deal. Which may mean that I'll never learn that [Perforate]-skill! Dammit!

Second, each [Skill] becomes stronger with better [Attributes]. However, how much and in which way a [Skill] profits from each [Attribute] is dependent on the individual [Skill]. Healing spells become more powerful the higher the [Persuasion] of the hero is, while a charge attack will use [Agility] for closing the distance and [Strength] for its power. This is kinda new info, especially with the example. Who would have known that healing spells are actually tied to the mind-alternating [Attribute]?

Third, and this is the hot stuff: At some point, heroes will learn more [Abilities]. Yet they can have at most 8 slots, so whenever they learn a new [Ability], they have to replace an old one. It's possible to relearn it, but replacing it resets their [Rank] to 0 and they will be unable to use their [Skills] until it's increased again. Though this [Rank]-reset won't happen if you still have that [Ability] on one of your other classes.

“So the 'at some point'-portion is most likely the [Class-up], right?” I share my thoughts about it.

“It seems so. When we attained a [Class-up], we learned three new [Abilities]. Maybe there are other dormant ones we can even exchange now?”

“Would be great! Then I can get rid of [Animal Ken] and get something useful instead!”

“Or maybe each [Class-up] grants you three new [Abilities] and you have to choose later? You also need to unlock all your [Abilities] to even be able to [Class-up]... Now we need to find the instructions on how to exchange [Abilities]! It has to be here somewhere, in my manual there were instructions on how to initiate a [Class-up] on the hero-system, after all.” So we continue to explore that manual.

Exchanging [Abilities]... The gamer inside me feels excited, as this is a new way to customize my build. However, this also gives me some headache, as regaining [Ranks] to retrain an [Ability] seems to be a huge waste of time, so I better know right away what I want. This also makes me wonder if I should put effort into things that aren't obviously useful. I may be missing something.

Though the clause of keeping the [Ranks] as long as one of your other classes have that [Ability]... is the hero-system trying to make heroes diverse or rather take similar classes and just shift the focus? Or are both intended strategies?

This is the typical problem. Usually, a game-system has an intentional use, basically which strategy it supports best. Like a knight-class in an MMORPG, it will most likely support sword and board and therefore increases its power by using shields. While there are usually exploits to use and unintentional powerful combos, they're found out by accident or reading a game's code, so outside of what the designers expect.

The hero-system isn't telling us much. Don't get me wrong, I don't see it as a game-system despite its similarities, but still: There should be an intentional way. So far, everything points that heroes gain more by moving from place to place, but for what purpose is it?

I mean, I'm supposed to slay a Demon King who was just in a country next to the one I was summoned to, so why should I go on travels if this is my end-goal? It doesn't make sense.

“Then let us try to confirm our hypothesis,” Ara-san says, interrupting my thought process. “Katarine-san, would you listen?”

“Hn?” Rine is helping Kyou-san by watching the sizzling bulbs, while also having a conversation with her. “What did you say, Ara?”

“Kenta-kun and I have found something new in the other heroes' manual. You can switch [Abilities] 'at a certain point of your hero career', and Kenta-kun and I have a hypothesis that it means when you have multiple [Class-ups]. So open your menu as [Princess-knight] and try to concentrate on an [Ability] you don't need. Like [Shield], you don't have one and you don't have a [Skill] for that [Ability].”

“But I want [Shield]! I was starting to learn how to use it, just before I paused my training with my instructor. It's like his ultimate form and I want to learn that!”

“Your knowledge should not be tied to the [Ability]. I also don't think that you automatically switch it, it'll be like with [Class-ups]. I've tried, but wasn't able to open any sort of submenu, so it falls onto you, Princess Katarine von Stolzherz, to do that experiment.”

“Ooooooh!” Of course, relying on her like that excites her. She has this child-like sparkle in her eyes.

Kyou-san—who has listened to that exchange as it interrupted her own conversation—and I exchange quick glances. Ara-san is tricking Rine again, but in the end, we both are also curious.

Rine's [Princess-knight] is special in several ways. First, it's her first class, while the rest of us have weak first classes like [Student] and [Accountant]. [Princess-knight] is bonkers, and Ara-san thinks it falls somewhere between a first and a second [Class-up], even though Rine's level is too low for a second [Class-up]. She's just level 58, while a second [Class-up] has a level requirement of 100.

It's as special as Rine, who shouldn't be a hero in the first place. Ara-san's educated guess is that the moment Rine hits level 100, she may get access to even more stuff.

Rine still needs her hand to navigate the hero-system. At least she's getting faster and faster with this, but unlike me, who can quickly access everything within a moment, she needs around one second per screen. “Ah, I see something... [Academics], [Etiquette], [Conversation]... No, nothing of interest there.”

“You're mistaken, it's very interesting. Are these three [Abilities] all you can choose?”

“Yes, but I don't want to learn any of them... I mean, they're super-boring!” Rine shows again how most of what she learned as a princess was so boring to her, that she decided she’d rather learn how to be a murder machine, go out, hunt bandits, and be more heroic than the actual heroes...

Well, given that Ara-san has some [Academics]-skills and most are semi-useless, and Kyou-san's [Conversation]-skills are very manipulative in nature, I know why Rine doesn't see any worth in them. And seriously: Who needs [Etiquette]? Does it make your back all straight and stiff, unable to let books fall from your head and raise your pinky while drinking tea?

Ara-san doesn't seem to mind that someone calls an [Ability] she has some mastery in boring. “It's more about the fact that you could learn it than the [Abilities] themselves.”

I have to agree. The option to customize will be great for the future... the far future. It will take forever to get to level 100, and then we need the whole learning from a mentor thing again for another [Class-up], which means looking for a place, looking for the right people, and having the vision to choose smart [Class-ups].

Though this will only work out if we get to Zethtrin first, and with Correo still in hiding and using other heroes as his pawns, this may be much harder than I can even imagine.

―○●○―

Correo looks at the monsters he has gathered and put into trance, using a censer. The incense was a mixture of a tranquilizer and some of the midnight-blue liquid he received from the Lady, giving it some special traits. In a sense, the monsters were now possessed, only waiting for him to blow the whistle and mindlessly following the sound, destroying everything in their way, until they pass or die out of exhaustion.

He checks his pendulum, one of his hero-locators. The princess and her companions are still traveling, which makes it more complicated to use this monster nest at the right time. The incense will work for around three days, given that he had to prepare several of those monster armies...

The midnight-blue liquid—also called 'Blood of Midnight'—is very valuable and using it so much hurts Correo's sense of wealth. Yet he needs it. Not only to make sure that these monsters stay as they are, but also to create monster clones that can be easily deployed if needed.

Correo knows exactly that this won't be enough to overcome his targets. This makes his monetary regrets only worse. Nonetheless, he decided that he should change his plans for now and make another detour. His Seven-League Boots allows him to overcome great distances, yet using them so much to go back and forth becomes increasingly exhausting.

This isn't the time to be frugal though. He needs to give everything he can to accomplish his goal: The blood, his money, his connections, and his health.