“Satou here. I’m what you would call a Japanese ant drone, but despite working hard every day, I have not been abused enough for that ‘Anywhere but here’ escapism. Being busy, I think, has its own merits. I’m serious!”
The pain that assaulted me just before the sandstorm seems to have knocked me out for two hours. That sandstorm was probably the aftershock of the earth being devastated by meteors.
I give it my all trying to get my half-buried self out of the ground.
Feels like trying to get up from bed on a winter morning. I want to move my hand, but I’m so out of it I can’t even budge a finger.
My foggy consciousness cleared as soon as I hear that metallic sound.
I whisper to myself, but my mind is certain. It is the guy who shot the first arrow.
The map that has been open since before reveals him as the last enemy. An unexpected lucky survivor of three devastating Meteor Showers.
“That means I’ve lost!”
KANG—
The guy is bleeding all over, dyeing the tattered blue armor that managed to avoid disintegrating until now in a bright red. Spitting out the spear held in his jaws, he slowly climbs up.
This guy is using his spear as a crutch, dragging along his broken leg. He is pretty much wounded all over.
…Well, too late now.
Unsheathing the sword at his waist, that guy tosses it near my feet. A part of his armor that had been hanging by a thread, unable keep up with such a sudden movement, falls to the ground with a clang.
But to shatter the sense of realism, a health bar is displayed top-left of the guy’s head.
“It’s just a game!”
“●●●●! ●●●!”
“Are you saying ‘Take this sword and fight!’?”
I grab the sword with desperation.
“●●●●!”
Up until this very moment, I have never learned swordplay or swordsmanship2. My only experience swinging anything heavy was limited to using a hoe on my grandfather’s field when I was little, and pounding mochi during New Years.
I grip down, and desperately try to stand firm.
That guy makes a small smirk, and holds his spear against me. His stance is composed, unlike my botched attempt.
“●●●●!”
That guy pulls back his spear, and jabs at my leg this time as if to torment me, then when he pierces my thigh, I stumble back from the new pain.
Has the overwhelming terror pushed me over the edge?
It is evident that the guy’s health bar is nearly empty, but I still don’t think that I can win. Even if I take a swing at him, he can easily dodge and counterattack, and I will probably die from a stab to the throat.
While he’s taking his time to torment me, I should take the chance and run.
I carefully observe that guy’s movements, and parry his spear thrust with my sword at a good time, which throws him off his balance, perhaps out of surprise.
I slam the dirt at the guy’s face.
He blocks the dirt with his arm.
Still, the arm blocking the dirt is covering his eyes, so I swing my sword at the guy’s foot, and let it go. Maybe I swung too hard, as the sword flies toward the guy’s torso instead.
I was planning to take off the moment I throw the sword, but what I see stops me.
The sword flies with abnormal speed, cleaving the lizardman in two. The bisected halves splurt out blood.
Well, I don’t see anything more brutal than that.
Like enemies defeated in a game, the lizardman’s corpse disappears. But, signs of blood covering wherever the guy had stood prove that the battle wasn’t just hallucination.
Whew, what a tiring dream.
If it’s all the same, I’d much rather dream about flirting with busty bikini babes on a tropical island.
I take off my shirt to treat my wounds. It’s a bit chilly, but not enough to catch a cold.
Unbelievably, the bleeding already stopped. So quickly you wouldn’t believe I was just stabbed by a spear.
You know, I haven’t felt pain for a while now. If I completely recovered because the mission was cleared, it definitely feels like a game.
When I defeated the lizardman earlier with an abnormally fast throw, it was probably due to that high level. Including STR (strength), all my stats have increased as much as they possibly can, maxing out.
Wanting to survey the damage from the Meteor Showers, I peer over the cliff, but the scenery turns out to be absolutely horrific.
The place where the lizardmen squadron had appeared is also covered in craters.
From afar I can see the crevice-like Dragon Canyon, which now has large sections that collapsed.
Oh, right, this is a dream.
A game should act like a game, so I hope that there is some Event after defeating all the enemies.
To gather more information, I look at the Log.
After entries about using the Icon and killing some lizardmen, there are ones recording the death of dragons that originally ruled over the Dragon Canyon, mixed with ones about leveling up and receiving titles, and these continued until the entry on the defeat of the last lizardman.
After that is a long list of loot acquired. Seems like that lizardman disappeared at the end because his corpse was also treated as loot.
Recalling the lizardman’s appearance while he was still alive, I create a Graveyard folder within Storage and collect all of the corpses under it. I ponder a moment, then looking the Graveyard folder, I wish for them to rest in peace with my hands together like praying at a Buddhist Temple.
I check my status, and notice that the newbie bonus I used before is now registered under the category Magic. It was disabled at first, but I can use it once I enable the new spell.
I cast the spell “Full Map Exploration”, but don’t feel the effects, so I decide to try the meteor spell.
I wouldn’t know what to do if I didn’t test it first, then get told “Insufficient Mana” or something when I need to use it in an emergency.
Maybe because there are no enemies on the map, a window pops up with the prompt “Select Target”.
That worked, it seems, since my mana bar is rapidly decreasing.
The drain of mana stops after a third the total is gone, or about 1000 points.
I look up at the sky.
Then, exactly like before, meteors break through the clouds shooting down.
They’re massive—what the?
Before trying to figure out why that’s so, I instinctively make a run for it.
Meteors, or colossal boulders, rather, cut through the atmosphere.
Without keeling under the massive boom, I ran with all my might while shouting, but I don’t quite recall what.
I notice halfway that I am running too fast, but it is too late to slam on the brakes.
My ankles crush the stone below, and my fingers grabbing for the ground carve out ten grooves.
Whew, that was three times scarier than bungee jumping!
As the knee-buckling tremors continue to shake my world, I grab the ledge tightly, trying not to fall from that cliff.
When the tremors stop, I decide to go back on the cliff, in order to see the effects of that Meteor Shower.
I poke my fingers into the cliff, and make some finger-shaped holes. Since the rock isn’t particularly fragile, I am able to easily climb up the cliff.
I find a pair of sandals and take them out of Storage, but seeing them covered in blood, I quickly return them.
I take out my tattered, blood-stained polo, and rip it in halves to wrap my feet, fairly haphazardly, but they’ll hold for now.
Walking up to the edge, I see the horizon glow red.
Might be a simple fire, but I can’t tell this far away, so I check using the map.
As I silently stare at the mushroom cloud, I open the Magic tab under the Menu, and change the setting for the spell “Meteor Shower” from “enabled” to “disabled”, so I won’t carelessly use it.
If I keep using magic like this, I will definitely go on the Demon King Route. “A wise man keeps away from danger”, as the saying goes, so I better seal up this skill.
Various other stats seem to also have increased. My STR (strength) that let me poke holes on the cliff. The high VIT (endurance) that held me up against the shockwave. Being able to sprint so fast I could feel air resistance, was probably the effect of something like DEX (agility) increasing.
If I just hold it or roll it around, the sensation and strength needed feel no different from doing so before.
I try to sneeze while holding the pebble, and it didn’t get crushed. That’s reassuring. 3
Due to all that dust floating around, the weather is getting worse and worse, so I put up a simple tent I found in the loot, and get some rest.
It starts to rain, so I have nothing to do before it stops, and I get so bored I look through what I looted.
Gold coins, silver coins, jewels and so on pile into mountains.
There are several different types of coins for each and every country, making me lose motivation to sort them all out. There were more Furuu Empire coins than everything else, numbering more than ten million, weighing a ridiculous three hundred and three tons.
I still can’t figure out whether this is a game or a dream, but I probably don’t need to worry about money once I reach a village. I just hope it doesn’t trade only by bartering.
My delusional side4 I thought had disappeared is intrigued.
I don’t know if the Holy and Divine Swords have some sort of anti-theft measure, but I felt a shock like static electricity as soon as I draw them, so I put them back.
Next, I take out the Magic Gun from Storage and try shooting a rock nearby, and although there is a small but noticeable lag between pressing the trigger and firing, the power is nothing to scoff at.
Okay, enough playing, back to organizing.
At some point, the rain stopped.
I take out a bucket from storage and fill it up with water to wash my face.
I take a picture with the flip phone in my pocket.
Maybe I’m overthinking it, but even my voice sounds younger. Whatever, it’s not like dreams where you become a student again is uncommon.
I find out the map that, a hundred kilometers west of here, there’s a facility labeled “Warrior’s Fort”. No one’s there, and it’s on the edge of the map, so the situation there is unknown.
Before I go, I check out the Skill tab of the Menu for a bit.
If I learned these by leveling up, it feels like there is too few.
Skill levels go from one to ten, and I can level them up by adding skill points. One point for one level, a simple design, and since I now have thirty-one hundred points left, I will distribute points as I please.
I don’t want a repeat of the encounter with the lizardman yesterday, so I max out all the technique and resistance skills that might be useful in battle. The skills can still be turned on or off after receiving skill points.
Then after descending the cliff, I run across the terrain.
I have also put on a magician’s robe from my loot made of Yuriha fiber, which I have never heard of.
Facing away from the rising sun, I don’t think about anything but running.
Hmm? What was that?
I stare at the the invisible wall for a bit, and the AR displays a window that says “Edge of the Dragon’s Canyon Barrier”. Not sure how I feel about it, but something fantastical like a “Barrier” has appeared.
The membrane seems to block airflow, because when I kick up the dirt under my feet, it is stopped at the edge of the barrier. The environment is also separated by this barrier, as the originally brownish-red wilderness, has how become a light-brownish wilderness with some grass.
I take off the cloth covering my mouth as a face mask, and finally take a deep breath.
With a slightly low humidity, it feels like the winter air.
After going through the barrier, I immediately arrived at my destination, the Warrior’s Fort.
A few places have already collapsed, making it look more abandoned than I had imagined.
I investigate the inside of the fort and the surroundings, and only found a row of tombstones behind the Colosseum.
I open up the map, and the name displayed on the top-left changed from “Dragon’s Canyon” to “Seiryuu County, Shiga Kingdom”.
If this were a fairy tale, I might meet a beautiful princess and fall in love, but with my personality I’ll probably become Support Character A cheering from the sidelines.
I investigate “Seiryuu County” with the “Full Map Exploration” spell, but not before testing some things. Turns out, the AR display is a function of the Menu, while the map exploration spell provides additional information.
The design of the map is similar to the one in WW, and after the entire map has been explored, in addition to displaying the terrain, searching and filtering people and beasts are also possible.
There is another city, but it’s fifty kilometers away in the mountains, so that’s out of the question. There are quite a few villages, but they are all farther than Seiryuu City, there’s no need take the long way.
I think it’s bigger than Tokyo but smaller than Chiba? I’m not very confident, though, because I learned that while making scale models in middle school.
Unexpectedly low…
Within the entire map, fewer than ten are above Level 40, and none are above Level 50. Seems like Level 310 would be considered unimaginably high.
Maybe I’m being too cautious in a dream, but I don’t want to go through the same thing again.
On my way to Seiryuu City, a fast-approaching red dot appears on the radar. I’m running on rocky terrain full of hills, I can’t see anything even if I look.
In order to get a better look, I jump up on top of a rock.
My first time meeting a wyvern starts with a crash, then I am thrown back.
I roll on the rocky ground for more than ten meters, and stop as I slam into a stone wall.
How reliable.
Rather than a wyvern, doesn’t it look more like a pteranodon?
I pick up a pebble and throw it at the circling wyvern as a warning.
Though the wing was pierced, it was merely a pebble and couldn’t possibly take down the wyvern, but that did scare it away. In the direction of a far-off cliff, the wyvern flies away awkwardly in a wobbly path.
Well, the knight leading the army has a higher level than the wyvern, so they should be fine.
Still, I feel like I just pushed trouble onto others, so I decide to go check it out.
After three jumps, I finally climb on top of a twenty-meter cliff. I could have done so in two jumps, but tree branches sticking out on the cliff was annoying.
I leap over several large rocks on the cliff, and watch for the army that the wyvern has its eyes on.
I can hear the commander’s voice, but I don’t know what he’s saying even if I listen carefully. I can only speak Japanese and some simple English, but still, I can usually guess the language. However, it’s unlike anything I’ve ever heard before.
Speaking of which, the way that lizardman spoke before was the same.
After dodging the question, I check the Skills tab in the Menu, and sure enough the skill “Shiga Language” is now available, and I try adding skill points.
« You, make line, fast! »
I slowly increase the skill level, and I can now figure out that the sentence before meant “Get into formation! Quickly!”.
Other than the language, somehow I also got the seven skills “Combat”, “Sprinting”, “Vertical Maneuver”, “Enhanced Sight”, “Telescoping”, “Enhanced Hearing”, and “Lip Reading”.
The display was annoying while I moved around, so I had turned it off, but now I want to learn how skills are obtained, so I painstakingly change the log to display only a few lines, and set it in the corner of my sight.
Back to watching the battle—So, I distribute points to skills convenient for gathering information and enable them, the four being “Enhanced Sight”, “Telescoping”, “Enhanced Hearing”, and “Lip Reading”.
The army stands in a circular formation in anticipation of the wyvern’s attack.
My field doesn’t change, but the place I focus on appears clearly, as if zoomed in, how does it work?
I concentrate my wandering mind again.
Surrounded by those spear soldiers, ones holding crossbows are standing by in a crouch.
“Let’s see your Seiryuu spirit!”
Yeah, of course, it’s scary to fight against a monster like that right?
To the left and right of that person, stood lightly armored female soldiers holding something like conductor’s batons, which I thought were short spears at first, but as the AR pop-ups show, these batons are actually something called “short staves”. Their job should be arcane soldiers.
Around the three magicians, there is a group standing by probably as their guards.
It’s obvious that they’re keeping themselves on the side of the formation opposite the wyvern, in groups of four. They’re protected by full-body armors with a silver sheen, yet they’re hiding behind the formation?
“Bowmen, tighten your strings, wait for the spear to slow that thing down!”
Thanks to that, whenever the wyvern assaults the formation, it is repelled by the spears, and backs away fruitlessly.
Well, just like in a game, critical hits are possible, and a girl among the guards protecting the magicians, hits the wyvern with only one shot.
…In other words, that army is fighting because it is confident it will win.
I put the rocks back into Storage, and decide to just watch the battle.
After that, the wyvern assaulted the soldiers several times more, but is stopped each time by a wall of spears and arrows.
After the attack failed and the wyvern tries to fly back up, suddenly its wings lose lift, breaking its balance. As if slammed by an invisible hammer, it crashes the ground unnaturally.
When the wyvern lost its balance, one of the magicians at the center chanted a spell with a synth-like voice, then I hear the call “Turbulence”.
The modern and archaic terms are pronounced at the same time. “Ran Kiryu” and “Tahbyuransu” both appeared in my mind. The archaic version was translated into katakana.6 How interesting.
That was the first time I hear magic being chanted in this world, but how exactly are the spells pronounced?
The final keyword I understood, but the spell itself sounds less like a real language, and more like an irregular string of notes. I think it sounds a lot like music made with DTM software7.
While I am being distracted by small details, the battle goes on.
Still, the magicians seem to have accomplished their mission.
The higher-leveled knight, wielding a spear on horseback, pins one of the wings on the ground, forcing the wyvern on its side.
Where the wyvern crashed, it is less than a hundred meters from the cliff I’m hiding on.
“…■■■ ■■ Lightning Strike!”
It’s not as bad as real thunder, but the flash of silvery light and the loud boom hurt my eyes and ears. Turns out the Enhanced Sight and Hearing skills have their downsides.
Despite being pinned down and paralyzed by lightning, the wyvern still struggles.
The wyvern realizes that it would be defeated if this goes on, so it readies itself.
Perhaps due to that move, its wing comes loose, and the wyvern takes off toward a cliff.
“Stop it! Zena!”
The one who looks like the captain, gives a sudden order to the arcane soldier in the wyvern’s path.
I’d run for my life if I were them!
Advancing at the speed of a short-distance runner, the wyvern crashes into an invisible wall meters in front of the arcane soldier.
Because I am watching from afar, the situation doesn’t feel very serious, but those involved probably don’t agree. As the existence of magic probably doesn’t change physical laws, a force equal but opposite to the one being applied to the wyvern is applied to the magical wall, and in turn to the arcane soldier.
The magical wall likely did its job as a cushion. Even though the soldier was thrown into the air, it didn’t turn into a gory scene. She is probably at most only braised.
“…■■■ ■■ Lightning Strike!”
One is lightning magic giving a decisive blow to the wyvern.
I didn’t realize what the magic did at first, but seeing the falling speed decreasing, I now understand.
Twenty meters up in the air, she will fly right past me toward the other side of the cliff if I don’t do anything.
It looks scary, but I will be fine if I fall from this height. I’ve already done this once when I arrived here, albeit unwillingly.
Almost.
Gotcha!
Shit, I reached a bit too far.
I adjust my grip, and pull her up by her chest.
If this were a manga or light novel, it would be an opportunity for a lucky pervert scene, but unfortunately I only feel the hardness of her breast plate. A shame, but this is no time to be taken over by lust, so I just hold her properly and move toward the root of the branch.
She seems to have fainted when she collided with the wyvern, and is now unconscious.
In short, she is a slim and natural beauty, the type who is quite popular without her awareness.
The lashes decorating her closed eyes are long, and the brows hiding behind her bangs trace out an energetic curve, trimmed or not. Her face without any make up is blushing a bit, and her small lips neither too thin nor thick has a smooth pink hue.
She is wearing leather armor on top of her long-sleeved shirt and shorts, thick boots on her feet, and the firm robe that saved her life.
As I was too concentrated on saving her, I hadn’t noticed until now, that the log has new messages informing me of my new title.
>>> Obtained title: “Savior”.
>>> Obtained skill: “Carrying”.
Seems titles are as easy to get as skills.
“Are you awake?”
“Be prepared when you look down.”
As expected of a soldier, even when she is on a thin branch sticking out of a cliff, she only let out a brief cry and quickly held back.
“No, my body is a bit sore, but it isn’t particularly painful.”
“Ah, ouch!”
She moaned painfully the moment she landed, so I rush to support her. She seems to have hurt her ankle when the wyvern threw her back. It probably isn’t broken, but sprained.
“When I was climbing the cliff, you fell from the sky!”
She stares all wide-eyed up at the cliff. About five meters up? About as tall as a third-story window.
“Is that so? Then you are my savior.”
She is supposed to be a bit taller than me, but when she pulls down her chin, her eyes look up at me, resulting in a very destructive smile.
But, I’m not a lolicon who would take advantage of a girl more than ten years younger, so she’s out of the question.
The story about being a traveling merchant, is a setting I thought of on the road.
Though it’s very silly to be this cautious in a dream, considering the realism I’ve felt up until this moment, I might even be jailed if I’m not careful!
“I-, I-I-, I’m employed by the esteemed Count Seiryuu, Arcane Soldier Zena. I have been serving in the army for nearly two years. Seventeen and single, no-, no boyfriend.”
Looking a bit nervous, Zena tells me about her family with a serious expression. While I mindlessly responded, I find a stepping stone which I can use to climb up the cliff.
I hold her in a princess carry, and easily jump on the stepping stone. She seems shocked, but not due to the pain.
“Huh?! Climb up this cliff?”
I remind her to hold on, and lightly jumped from one stepping stone to the next, and to avoid giving her more stress, I use my entire body to cancel the force of impact.
“Haah, haah, you’re quite nimble!”
She raises her face slightly red from shallow breathing, and voiced her thought with a tremble.9
Maybe because she’s still afraid, she doesn’t seem to want to be let down from the princess carry, so I move between the rocks on the cliff, and bring her to her comrades.
“Halt! Who are you? Put down our comrade!”
That’s probably Zena’s colleague! She cautiously takes out a crossbow, and aims at me.
“Zena-cchi, quiet.”
I slowly lower Zena and let her sit on the ground.
“Lilio! This man is my savior, you know?!”
Though protests can be heard from Zena and her comrades behind the rock, it doesn’t seem like she is going to put it away.
“Who are you? State your name.”
“Don’t play dumb, state your name.”
“You’re a traveling merchant, but isn’t your luggage surprisingly light?”
It’s something I found while organizing my loot yesterday, the tabletop RPG classic, infinite-capacity Bag of Holding. Its name is “Garage Bag”.
Would a merchant who uses a Garage Bag be rare?
“Meteors? You mean yesterday’s ‘Starfall’, right?”
The Meteor Showers should have been visible from afar, so I use it as part of my excuse. So it was named “Starfall”, quite a fantastical name.
>>> Obtained skill: “Deception”.
>>> Obtained skill: “Explanation”.
Come on, I did just come up with the story, but I didn’t intend to get these skills. They seem to be useful though, so I put in some skill points.
Too bad I can’t see her face. I guess she must be smirking.
Thanks to my now-enabled Deception skill, all sorts of good excuses appear to me.
“Yeah, I know. Isn’t that the place people go to kill themselves?”
“The grave of my grandfather’s friend is buried there, and on the way to clean the gravesite, I saw that ‘Starfall’. I desperately ran after my horse, but I still couldn’t catch up to it in its frenzy…”
Oh! She believed me? As expected of the maxed out Deception and Explanation skills. Super effective!
Identification? I do have my license in my wallet, but that will only complicate things if I show that.
“No problem, just apply for another at Seiryuu City.”
“Wait, Iona, is it really okay to let him go like this? What if he’s some rogue?”
“He could also be a spy from somewhere, no?”
The girl who stood on the rock jumps down and starts whispering in the ear of the armored female soldier, and thanks to the Enhanced Hearing skill, I overhear everything.
“For personal reasons, I hate them right now.”
“I didn’t get dumped because of my breasts! But thanks for the offer. Please listen to my rants too!”
As I listen to girl talk, Zena comes back after talking to the guards, and apologizes for her comrades’ rude behavior.
I head toward their base with them, which is unavoidable because the city is in the same direction.
The smell of blood on the battlefield is repugnant, but, due to the effect of Pain Resistance, I only feel like vomiting, and didn’t actually do so.
…Did people die?
Men who appear to be combat engineers are taking apart the wyvern with a tough-looking saw. As if unsatisfied to merely bleed, every time the men pull the saw, the corpse splurts blood all over.
This is the first time I see a horse this close, its rough breathing carries a beast’s scent.
“Zena! You’re safe!”
Zena introduces me. Even though she added some unnecessary descriptors, I won’t say anything.
Sounds like he meant: It wouldn’t matter if she weren’t an arcane soldier, but since people are laughing, it was probably a joke, and not serious!
I am also asked about the situation around “Warrior’s Fort”.
Turns out, they are an investigative team from Seiryuu City, here to see whether there are any changes after yesterday’s “Starfall”.
Augmented Reality Kendo (剣道) vs. Kenjutsu (剣術). One is a sport with bamboo swords, the other is a method of combat with bladed swords. I keep imagining Pochi and Tama’s heads exploding into a mist of blood when Satou pets them and accidentally sneezes, all because they were shedding or something. (I have nothing against them, I swear) Yeah, his “中二心 chuuni gokoro”. Yes, Satou, we all know that you are a boobs man. Forgive me if this isn’t entirely accurate, but the first term seems to be the “modern” version of the word written in kanji (乱気流), while the second is the “archaic” version written in katakana as a loan word (夕—ビュランス). Desktop Music. Unfortunately, this doesn’t carry over in translation. The Chinese used the formal title for a Knight (爵士) rather than the more common term (騎士), but English doesn’t have that distinction, as far as I can tell. I’m assuming this is the same in the original Japanese. Also need help on this one. EDIT: I’ll take a page from the WN here and borrow a French word. Ladies and gentleman, the Suspension Bridge Effect.