Editing Skill Tree Goddess:Volume1 Chapter1 (section)

==Chapter 1: A King, Inequality, a Dragon, and Even a Hero==

===Part 1===

The capital city of Marbalsonde was a comfortable place to live…but maybe that was misleading.

It would be more accurate to say that cheap but nice inns were comfortable no matter the city. Gilbezos Overridge pondered this upon waking. With such comfortable places spread across the entire kingdom as a chain of inns, he could see how they had more or less dominated the industry.

For one, these inns were the only lodging facilities with running water in each individual room. …A hot spring or large bath would be one thing, but his disappointment was immeasurable whenever he was shown to a cramped shared bath. At an inn filled with adventurers muddy after a day of rough adventuring outside, the bathwater would quickly become visibly filthy and he got the feeling anything he left in the changing room would be stolen as soon as he turned his back.

“Mgh.”

And for some reason, this was an unusually soft morning. The goddess, who looked to be around 18, was smiling at him while embracing his head on the pillow.

“…Why are we in the same bed?”

“Good morning, Gilbezos. Maybe it’s some weird preference of yours, but why do you insist on sleeping on the sofa every night when such a kind and gentle goddess is willing to share a bed with you?”

Queen Size had begun as textile dealers with a focus on bedding, but they had since developed in many other directions.

In addition to running these inns, they were a powerful presence in shipping, transportation, restaurants, and clothing. They arranged wagons and ships traveling to a wide variety of destinations, they supplied sandwiches and other portable food for bringing into dungeons, and (although Gilbezos had never used this service) they would, for a hefty fee, build small rest stops in the middle of dungeons. …So in the fields of food and cold-weather gear made of cotton or silk, they were rivals of Shirayuri and her Necessities Emporium that dealt in just about everything.

Now, this was a single room since that was the cheapest option, meaning it only had the one bed. So the small boy always let the goddess use the bed while he slept on the sofa.

“That business with Shirayuri yesterday must have worn you out.”

He would normally wake up before it reached this point, but he must have slept too soundly last night. And so she managed to carry him from the sofa to the bed.

“Hungry?” asked the goddess. “Then wash your face and take a shower before we head down to the dining room.”

“It is nice that each room has its own bathroom. How about you go first?”

“Fine,” was all the goddess said as she got out of the bed and reached for the bathroom door.

But then she turned back toward Gilbezos for some reason.

“Hee hee. Maybe they didn’t care so much since it’s inside a guest room, but these bathroom locks are so much cheaper than the rest. Do you know how to force one open, Gilbezos? You’re more than welcome to barge in and join me☆”

“Please just hurry up and shower, Lady Seliphenia.”

Her smiling face vanished behind the door and he eventually heard the water running.

Alone in the room, Gilbezos sat on the bed and sighed softly.

Goddess Seliphenia had been like this as far back as he could remember. But he still had no clue why she was so obsessed with him.

She claimed Gilbezos Overridge wasn’t his original name and he had been reincarnated after dying in some other world, but he had no memory of this. As far as he was concerned, his only life was the one that began with him being born here and raised by his current parents. Seliphenia was concerned something had gone wrong in carrying over the “saved data”, but Gilbezos himself didn’t really care. Nothing he had heard about that past life made him want to know more.

“Ahh, all clean. Gilbezos, go enjoy surrounding yourself in a goddess’s sweet steam.”

The dining room was downstairs on the first floor. Requiring washing up before breakfast was one unique trait of living in an inn.

Yes, living here.

However, Gilbezos was not being pursued by debt collectors and his home village hadn’t been destroyed when some old custom got out of hand.

He had made a promise. So he couldn’t back out now.

That was nothing special. He was only human, so he would run late and forget things and he would fail jobs for the combat guild. But he made sure he kept the promises that really mattered.

…He had tried to live his life as simply as possible, but in the process of keeping a few promises, he had found himself leaving home and going on a journey. The details will be omitted here, but it was the kind of reason that led his parents to secretly accept his leaving. Or rather, they supported his decision so much he couldn’t help but notice it. Admittedly, their support was conditional on Seliphenia going with him. So even now, he would write letters home or send them gifts whenever he found the time.

And so the boy entered the bathroom, took a shower, and dressed. He wore a sword of 50-60 centemetora at his hip, but he barely ever had a chance to use the blade Shirayuri had made for him.

It did come in handy though since, unlike his skills and magic (which tended to produce an excessive amount of force), it would send bandits and thieves running scared without having to actually use it.

The goddess was drying her hair by the fireplace and applying a beeswax lotion to her skin, but he hurried her along and left their second floor room. A beeswax lotion sounded like it would be tasty, but she insisted it wasn’t sweet at all. After descending the stairs, they found Enoisa waving at them while leaning on the counter with her elbow.

“Morning, Gilbezos. You like a hot sandwich, vegetable sticks, and hot milk in the mornings, right?”

“…So I’ve been here long enough you know my order.”

“I have to show the proper respect to our long-term guests.”

The inn’s manager didn’t look the goddess’s way. Not even once. But not because of any mystery about Seliphenia’s identity. She simply had no time for someone who slept in one of their rooms without paying.

Enoisa Holysign was a capable young woman of around 18 who could make small adjustments to the inn’s food instead of just following the menu. For example, she was even willing to swap out the bitter bell pepper for asparagus even though he never asked her to. She had wavy pink hair and an adult look that perfectly matched her dress’s ultra-short tight skirt, but what were those? He couldn’t help but wonder about the horns on her head or the black tail emerging from the back of her blue skirt. He wanted to say the triangular tail was decorative, except it was slowly swaying side to side even now.

She always seemed to be lazily resting her weight on the counter while wearing high-heeled pumps without socks. And…

“Oh, dear. What’s this passionate gaze I sense? Gilbezos, are you an ass man?”

“?”

“You can learn what that means when you’re older, Gilbezos,” said the goddess. “Besides, you’ve always been more of a fan of your goddess’s boobs, haven’t you?☆ C’mon, if you keep zoning out here, I’ll start wiping off your face with this cloth here. Jiggle, jiggle.”

“There is one thing I understand: that this stupid goddess is making fun of me.”

Still smiling, Goddess Seliphenia stuck her arms underneath Gilbezos’s and…

“Up you go, little Gilbezos☆”

“Gyahhhh!?”

…Did she have to lift him up like a small child right here at the inn counter where everyone could see them!? And that smile said she knew full well this would damage his pride more than anything. She always got like this the instant he insulted her even a little!

The small boy and the goddess ate breakfast and discussed their plans for the day at a round table in a dining room full of ordinary tourists and merchants. The same as always. He just wished the chairs weren’t so tall his feet didn’t reach the floor.

“If you get any on your clothes, I’ll suck it right out for you, okay? But anyway, what are you going to do today, Gilbezos? Another job where you beat up a naked girl statue to delight a shut-in little girl?”

“That isn’t all I’m good for.”

Besides, he had only learned the Hyper Golem’s core was a naked statue after the fact. And even if she was a girl, she was still a hunk of rock, so it wasn’t as bad as it sounded!

The Queen Size inns that had been spreading across the kingdom lately always promised a comfortable sleep – in fact, these mysterious establishments would heal all of your HP, or Health Points, (if that dropped to 0, you died) and MP, or Mystery Points, (if that dropped to 0, you couldn’t use magic and such) no matter how badly injured you were – but the inns themselves weren’t free. To continue staying here, he needed money.

After eating breakfast and paying, he resumed speaking with the blonde goddess (whose hair actually changed color and shine depending on the angle).

“You just don’t listen, Gilbezos. How many times do I have to tell you to focus on earning LAW instead of money. That way you can learn more skills.”

“You’re the Skill Tree goddess. I feel like you’re biased there.”

“Besides, the better your skills, the better the jobs you can take. Continue chasing money from your childish perspective and you’ll spend all your time earning just enough to barely scrape by.”

Gh.

“Also, have you given proper thought to how you want to develop your skills? Don’t forget that the magic earned through the Skill Tree is-”

===Part 2===

Archangel: “Archangel here!”

Lesser Demon: “Lesser Demon too.”



Archangel: “I know this is breaking our own rules already, but our meta talk will be intruding on the main story for a second. Today’s topic is the magic types that tend to trip up beginners!”

Lesser Demon: “The goddess is trying her best to explain for younger Gilbezos (while secretly reveling in getting to play the tutor role), but she’s doing a terrible job of it. We’ll break it down into something more digestible.”

Archangel: “To begin with, there are seven magic types.”



Fire, water, wind, earth, other, light, shadow.



Lesser Demon: “They also correspond to the seven days of a week on the calendar.”

Archangel: “The order shows that fire is strong against water, water is strong against wind, etc.”

Lesser Demon: “The other type can be confusing. It’s hard to picture what the magic can do based on the name alone.”

Archangel: “Because it’s an abbreviation for ‘other forms of natural disaster and destruction’.”

Lesser Demon: “Just think of it as the type responsible for locust swarms, getting lost in a looping cave, crops being destroyed by salting a field, and things like that.”

Archangel: “But don’t assume all natural disasters belong to the other type. Volcanic eruptions are fire type, lightning is shadow type, and hail is water type. The other type is only ‘other forms’ of natural disaster and destruction.”

Lesser Demon: “Lightning is shadow type because of how, y’know, thunder will rumble whenever something ominous happens. But the end of the week loops around to the start, so light is strong against shadow and shadow is strong against fire.”

Archangel: “Because not even the fire created by human civilization can conquer the shadows and even those shadows are destroyed by light. It’s a mythological interpretation☆”

Lesser Demon: “Why do you sound so delighted?”

Archangel: “How about you try reading your name aloud real quick? Anyway, these type interactions are only rough approximations. Not all monsters in the sea are weak to wind magic.”

Lesser Demon: “Shirayuri’s Hyper Golem was made of stone, but her weakness was water. That’s because you can use skills to give yourself some resistance to your type weakness.”

Archangel: “Physical attacks also have types: slash, impact, stab, shoot, compress, break, etc. Compress includes tying and constricting and break includes bending things until they break, so a figure-four leglock counts as both.”

Lesser Demon: “This is crucial information for you masochists out there. A single whip can delight you with several different types, so learning them all could be your ticket to true happiness. These types aren’t strong or weak to each other, so they’re only used for more general ideas like ‘this monster can withstand slashing attacks, but not impacts’.”

Archangel: “Oh, right. I nearly forgot. Magic attacks generally can only harm whoever you have decided for yourself is an ‘enemy’. So you can launch an AoE magic attack during a chaotic battle without worrying about hitting any of your allies.”

Lesser Demon: “But on the other hand, friendly fire is possible with non-attack magic and physical attack skills. Hee hee. So if you know the rest of your party can’t stand you and your tough talk is constantly getting the others into trouble, you might want to watch your back.”

===Part 3===

“So instead of relying so much on the payback, you need to actually think it through for yourself. Got that?”

“Yeah, yeah. Urp.”

The black-haired boy managed a weary response. He honestly hadn’t been listening. That overly-helpful young woman’s lectures could go on so long he felt like his soul was leaving his body.

When they departed the inn, they were nearly pushed back in by the bustling energy of the city street.

It was hard to believe only a few years before the kingdom had been locked in a large-scale civil war against the monsters…but if he said that aloud, the experts might get after him, insisting this was only a temporary lull in hostilities and they were still at war with the Demon Lord’s army.

The adults were discussing all sorts of things out on the stone-paved main street.

“According to the sky forecaster, a Sky Territory will be passing directly over the capital this afternoon. It’s apparently a water source, so we need to bring our laundry in. We don’t want waterfall water drenching it.”

“Hey, at least there’s a chance some surprise waterfall training will leave a young girl all wet and see-through.”

“Old man, there’s a furious-looking old woman approaching you from behind. And now that I warned you, the rest is in your hands.”

The goddess looked exasperated (while ignoring the old man’s screams).

The street was about the same as always.

Walking side by side, Seliphenia was the taller of the two. More than a whole head taller. …Which really bothered the boy who couldn’t quite reach 140 centemetora.

“So you need money, hm? What a sad life you’ve chosen, Gilbezos. So are you going to visit the guild again and accept another hunting job? Such an inefficient way to live.”

“Do you have a better idea of how I can earn money?”

“Visit Shirayuri’s lab and offer yourself as a subject for human experimentation?”

“No! I am not letting her slather me with plaster so she can make a detailed mold for a new golem!!”

While taking the stone-paved main street to the combat guild, they passed the royal castle which picture book artists the kingdom over would kill to get a chance to see for themselves. Gilbezos ran into a familiar face at the entrance there.

“Oh?  Good morning, Gilbezos.”

“Saezuri.”

Saezuri Ferslona. The 17-year-old older sister of the shut-in was leader of the Undine Knights, one of the kingdom’s five elite fighting forces. Gilbezos liked her because she was polite to him even though he was younger than her. And shorter than her. What an angel!

Unlike Shirayuri’s long and unkempt black hair, hers was cut short and maturely set. Her sharply intellectual face and the brutally enormous sword on her back felt at odds with each other.

Goddess Seliphenia’s lips curled up. But into a nasty grin, not a pleasant smile.

“(A retaliatory force that targets enemy commanders and traitors who threaten the kingdom’s interests is a nice peek at the darker side that allowed the Limonfarbe Kingdom to lay claim to an entire continent.)”

…Please stop. How am I supposed to respond to that?

In Saezuri’s defense, actual revenge was not the main purpose of her knights. Supposedly, the idea was to use the very existence of that trump card to prevent the brutal acts from happening in the first place. But they did do their job when it was necessary. He heard they had no qualms about carrying out what they called “unauthorized cross-border missions” as an example to others.

The lively knight with greenish-black hair asked a question.

“Have you seen my sister? Whenever she learns I am looking for her, she folds up her shop and makes herself scarce. I need to drag that foolish girl outside so she can get some sun. Before the mildew sets in.”

“Hmm…”

“That look means you have seen her, doesn’t it?”

Gilbezos couldn’t see why it mattered so much, but he didn’t think any harm was meant by the extreme meathead who had risen among the knights until she led an entire group of them (while wearing miniskirt armor and wielding a giant sword). She was only assuming what had worked to her would work for her sister. But he was certain ''this'' was the reason Shirayuri’s shut-in tendencies had been growing year by year. Saezuri’s solution was a horrendously poor match for someone as thoroughly indoorsy as her sister.

Seliphenia spoke up while teasing her long blonde hair with a finger. So that she could tease more than just her hair.

“Oh? But doesn’t a good guardian watch silently over their loved one while they live the life they want to live?”

In fact, Shirayuri ran her Necessities Emporium on her own and made a living selling weapons, armor, equipment, medicines, foodstuffs, and more, so she wasn’t causing anyone any trouble. The way Gilbezos saw it, she only seemed to be continuing down the path of a merchant.

But the miniskirt knight glared over at Seliphenia (who she saw as someone of unknown occupation).

“That is called being irresponsible. Your initial skill choices and their arrangement have a major effect on the rest of your life. The roots of the skill tree are the very direction your life will take, so if you realize later on it was a mistake to learn nothing but boring earth type magic, it’s too late to switch over to hot-blooded fire type or elegant water type.”

Saezuri gave a snort from her lovely nose and pushed her chest out.

The lack of jiggling was due to her overly sturdy breastplate. And that sister really needed to apologize to the earth type specialists.

…Also, Seliphenia was supposedly the most beloved of the many gods in this kingdom’s pantheon, yet none of the ordinary people reacted or responded when they heard her name. With so many statues of her, people apparently assumed she had based her look on that and was publicly practicing to play that role in a mythological play.

“Once you learn a skill, it’s with you for life – it can never be taken back. No matter how great your regret, the LAW paid into the Skill Tree is never coming back. That is why it is so crucial to acquire skills according to a plan, not on a whim. If you do not look past the bad influences and learn effective skills, you can ruin your entire life!”

“I feel like it’s even worse to ignore a goddess’s most generous advice.”

“Our Ferslona family worships War God Megalogweleba, not Goddess Seliphenia.”

“So is that flat chest due to the family genetics, or was the entire family cursed after earning the wrath of a goddess? But it’s not too late for you, Shirayuri. You still have time to grow.”

While the knight burned bright with fist clenched, the skill goddess smiled peacefully, her smile even less sincere than a songstress’s fan service.



A learned skill could never be unlearned. The LAW spent to acquire it could not be taken back.



That was why people lived pure, upright lives and aimed to learn the optimal skills. And when they lacked the necessary skills, they would form a party and work with their party members to overcome whatever hardship they faced.

Those righteous and moving stories were formed by that foundational rule that supported all this world’s people and their society.

The small boy sighed softly.

…That did appear to be the rule. ''Just not for him.'' He could freely receive a payback for his skills, regaining the LAW he spent so he could rearrange his skills as many times as he liked.

Seliphenia, who had complete control over the Skill Tree, said this was not some blessing of hers – it was a mysterious trait Gilbezos had been born with.

“Anyway, I assume you’re visiting the guild for the same reason everyone else is today?”

“?”

“For the new suicidal hope of the poor. I do not envy your having to work for money if it means challenging a mountain of a monster like that. Still, I do respect anyone who has the will to fight.”

Bghwhhh!!?

H-how could a knight who ate on the government’s gold possibly understand his troubles!?

“That said, Gilbezos, whatever that woman of unknown occupation might say, I recommend extreme caution if you are going to accept that hunting job. I feel like this recent target is simply too powerful.”

“Hm? Why do you make it sound like this is none of your concern?” asked Seliphenia.

“Because monsters are not my domain. My targets are all human.”

…She had a way of saying terrifying things like that with complete composure.

“What do you mean by too powerful?”

“If you haven’t already heard, you will know what I mean once you check the bounty posters inside.”

It was plain on her face that she had a headache.

It was unusual for that all-physical meathead to complain, but apparently this warranted it.

“His Majesty has personally posted a job. For the immediate slaying of ''Balsta, an S-rank Lindworm-form dragon'' who has taken up residence at the abandoned casino near the capital’s city limits.”

===Part 4===

Queen Size had arranged a large wagon (and the passengers had split the fee), which was now clattering along.

When the royal castle vanished beyond the horizon outside the canopy, the sense that they were in the dangerous outdoors truly set in. Even in one of the two most powerful kingdoms, the fields outside the cities were plagued with monsters. Or maybe the great size of the kingdom was exactly what allowed for that.

The passengers were all adventurers or mercenaries clutching powerful weapons. The mood made the wagon seem to reek of blood before the fighting even began. To be fair, S-rank meant the monster’s strength was in the ''range'' between an aristocrat’s territory and a monarchy and none of them had heard of the Lindworm form before. This was the natural result when you gathered a group of only the people who didn’t chicken out after hearing they were to hunt that sort of dragon.

Curled up with his back to the canopy, Gilbezos whispered to the goddess next to him.

“This Balsta hunt was a job personally posted by the king. Did you hear that? Personally.”

“Yes, and before he always went through a minister or aide who wanted to earn some points with him.”

That said, this wasn’t too unusual.

The Limonfarbe Kingdom and the Desestmarth Empire.

The two ruled the continents on either side of a narrow strait and did not at all get along. Enough so that it prevented the many other smaller kingdoms and dominions from causing any trouble.

However, the empire across the sea was not their kingdom’s only enemy. There were threats within the kingdom too, such as the many unexplored areas that existed in the plains and remote islands beyond the heavily populated regions even after the kingdom was approaching its thousandth year. All because a kingdom spanning an entire continent covered too much land. There were plenty of dungeons crawling with monsters and abandoned villages or temples commonly became dungeons once inhuman things moved in.

These things would cause severe damage to the kingdom if left unchecked and that would cause the worldwide power balance to collapse.

Simply put, if monster damages hollowed out the kingdom from within, the kingdoms and areas that were being suppressed now would again strike out and destabilize the world as a whole. And the enormous empire was the prime candidate there. Visiting ruins to slay the monsters living there sounded like a task for the meatheads, but it was in fact a crucial job that saved the world at large from crisis.

Similarly, the mere spread of rumors suggesting the kingdom was shaken would harm the public good, which prevented the king from sending in the elite knights such as Saezuri to hunt the monsters. Instead, he would use amateur adventurers ''who didn’t leave any records or statistics in the official documentation''.

“Hey.”

While Gilbezos was lost in thought, he was addressed by a brown-haired delinquent-looking young man holding his knees nearby. He seemed to like black leather, but it didn’t look like he had chosen it for its sturdiness. His body was covered with meaningless studs and belts. His weapon appeared to be a spear. The shaft was hollow and had been collapsed down for transport, so it didn’t look very impressive.

“Is a little kid like you really joining the dragon hunt? You can’t be much older than 10.”

“I’m not that little. I’ll have you know I’m 140 centemetora tall.”

“Don’t use your fleeting hopes to lie to the man,” said Seliphenia. “When you measured yourself the day before yesterday, you were 139.5 centemetora, remember? I will admit you are older than 10-year-old Shirayuri, though.”

“Man, are the guild receptionists even doing their job? None of that makes any difference. This is too risky for you.”

The man was correct that Gilbezos was the youngest one here.

Then again, he may just have been bored. Same as Gilbezos.

“Besides, are you planning to fight with that sword at your hip? The thing’s teensy.”

“Oh, this is just for show.”

“Huh?”

“I mainly fight with magic, so I barely ever use this.”

…Hm. So 50-60 centemetora was small. Even though the sword was nearly half his height.

“Yikes. Are you sure that’s a good idea? Not what I’d call a smart way to live your life. Such an inefficient way to learn your skills.”

The delinquent seemed legitimately worried for Gilbezos.

And he had a point. When using LAW to learn skills from the Skill Tree, your options were either to specialize in one specific thing or to become a jack of all trades, master of none. If you wanted to defeat any enemy you might encounter with only magic skills, you were forced to go the dangerous “jack of all trades” route where you learned some skills from each magic type. Play your cards wrong and the “master of none” part would be your undoing.

However, Gilbezos didn’t have to worry about that since he could receive a LAW payback for his skills as many times as he liked.

“Damn, I can’t just leave you to your fate. If it gets bad out there, you can rely on me. You’re lucky I noticed you.”

Was that man the type who wanted to be the leader in any given situation? Once he got going, he started revealing more and more about himself even though no one had asked.

“This is a dragon hunt, okay? It’s the kind of job you see in your storybooks. That makes it a job for me, the Great Liod Prominence and my Dragon Special skill! It took a lot of work to learn that, so I’ve gotta use it when I have the chance!!”

“What? You learned Dragon Special, the elite Rank 9 skill that’s actually fairly useless because there aren’t many times in life when you need to be able to challenge a giant dragon alone and survive?”

“You have some guts, kid. But I don’t regret it. Spending all that LAW on a bunch of small but useful skills just ain’t my style!!”

He looked like a frightening delinquent, but he turned out to be a delinquent with a heart of gold and also a good guy to have on your side.

Perhaps his primary concern here was women. For example, the goddess chuckling next to Gilbezos who looked around 18, who had huge boobs, and whose clothing looked like it would become entirely see-through if the light shined on it just right.

Or so the small boy thought, but…

“Don’t worry. I’m not interested in women.”

Hm?

“It’s life or death in the dungeons. I know far too many older adventurers who’ve lost their lives due to ‘distractions’ like that. So I’ve sworn to myself I won’t make the same mistake.”

The Great Riod Prominence was sounding unexpectedly somber. He was an earnest guy for a delinquent.

“(I mean, can you believe the veteran hero Gurban was hit by a special attack with the ridiculous name of Sexy Panties Succubus Ninja Arts, giving him the poison, paralysis, curse, sleep, shock, seal, trance, lunacy, and charm status effects all at once? Then a ton of monsters swarmed him from behind and attacked him. I won’t let that happen to me. I’m never letting myself die in such a pathetic way. I won’t, I won’t, I won’t…)”

…Something he had seen in the past had apparently left a deep scar on him. Perhaps his delinquent exterior hid a sensitive young man. Regardless, this delinquent with a heart of gold knew how to switch between work and private(?) modes, so he left no openings (when it came to battle at least). Gilbezos had lucked out when it came to fellow hunters.

“(Not interested ‘in women’, huh? So he might just be very interested indeed in you, Gilbezos.)”

“Why does that idea seem to delight you so much?”

“Do you need some cheek rubbing? Rubby, rubby, rubby☆”

“Gyahhhhhh!?”

…Was this goddess jealous of a fantasy she had invented herself!?

Then Gilbezos’s eyes met those of a nervous-looking glasses girl sitting nearby. She looked like a magic user, but more of a healer priest than an attacker black witch. However, she wasn’t focused on Gilbezos.

“I-I think I ''am'' interested in that woman there.”

Hmm?

This wagon was threatening to develop a relationship diagram more complex than a major city’s five-way intersection.

The goddess herself kept a composed expression.

“(If she’s willing to mention her feelings in public like that, they can’t be all that strong. You know what I mean, don’t you, Gilbezos?)”

…Did she have to add that last part? But yes, she was right. Revealing a crush was as bad as death in his mind!!

The nervous glasses girl of around 14 introduced herself.

“I’m Rachel Vibrato. As you can see, I’m a priest.”

“Isn’t your weapon a bit much for that? You the kinda priest who hits people?”

Delinquent Riod gave the girl a skeptical look because of the mace she held between her head and shoulder. It was a silver staff with a large, swollen end, so it wasn’t much different from the large hammers used to break down columns when demolishing an abandoned building.

“I originally planned to be a heavy warrior, but I changed my mind after finding the heavy armor unbearable on steep mountain paths and scorching hot beaches. But the skills I learned back then are still with me, so I use a blunt weapon for all my magic.”

“Wait, even your healing magic?”

Small Gilbezos’s interjection dragged him into the conversational vortex.

“I-I am a priest, so I do have healing skills of course! So if you need healing, just ask!! …It does hurt a bit though since I have to hit you to heal you (whisper). But, but. The magic skill heals more than the physical attack hurts you, so it’s a net HP gain!”

“Hey, are you telling us not to worry because our caved-in skulls will return to normal!?”

Riod shuddered and raised his voice. He may have been wondering if there was a real risk of having an ally smash him in the back of his head in the middle of a serious boss battle.

“Speaking of jobs, Riod, what’s yours?”

“A light trickster. Y’know, the one that lets you make two moves each turn. It apparently makes you really strong if you master it cause then you can use multiple consumables and not just do multiple ordinary attacks, but that tree means you’re STR doesn’t grow much. That’s why I’m also learning some shadow type magic from a different area.”

More of the passengers began introducing themselves. They may have been itching to do so.

“I’m a black witch. You can leave the attack magic to me. Of course, I can only use mid-level magic since I’m learning several different types!”

“U-um, my job is thief. You know, the kind that learns Steal and Unlock.”

The title could be confusing, but a thief was a combat specialist who used that sort of skill for the benefit of others and society. The knife-wielding girl in the baggy sleeves was not an actual burglar.

“What’re you, little boy?”

“A beginner.”

“Wait, you’re still the basic starting job?”

Yes, but only because having to change his clothes each time he switched up his skills would turn his battles into a costume party. And acquiring gear for each job he wanted to use wouldn’t be cheap.

Once it got started, more and more people began speaking up. Even if they had been silently curled up before. A bearded man named Seafog Cheerful wanted the large payout of this job so he could buy a field out in the countryside and retire early. An unemployed maid named Viola Megalopa wanted to build up her resume to get hired at a nice mansion. Gilbezos didn’t understand all of it, but he grasped that being an adult wasn’t easy.

“It sounds like Riod and his Dragon Special will be the most useful. If you have any support or buffing skills, focus on him first.” (Bearded Man)

“I have a lot of buffing ones, but they eat up a lot of MP.” (Unemployed Maid)

“Oh, then I can share my extra MP with you. By hitting you with my mace!” (Hitting Priest)

But they couldn’t be certain of anything until they saw the dragon for themselves. They were only guessing when it came to the enemy’s traits, type, and skills.

“I’m fine being the main player, but I feel like you’re deciding my fate for me.”

…For a delinquent, the Great Riod Prominence was easily pressured and clever, which probably caused him a lot of grief. Actually, was he even a delinquent?

“I still can’t believe each of us gets 500 thousand yeno just for participating in the dragon hunt and that whoever delivers the finishing blow gets a bonus of 5 million yeno! With 500 thousand, I can eat fancy dinners every night for a month!”

“It is incredible, isn’t it? I bet I can afford a foreign vacation after this.”

“Yeah, but none of us gets paid if we don’t win. And that includes the participation pay. Still, 500 thousand might just be enough for a field out in the country where land is cheap.”

At any rate, this was the group joining Gilbezos on the dragon hunt.

There were several wagons, meaning the total number of participants was several times this, but he had a feeling this group would stick together.

===Part 5===

The wagon stopped well before their destination.

Would it be dangerous to get any closer? Gilbezos and Seliphenia got out of the wagon with the others.

“I’m all stiff, but now I can finally get out and stretch. Hey, kid, you should do some stretches before the battle too. You’d feel pretty silly if you snapped a tendon in your leg right away.”

Riod gave some advice. Was there any end to his helpfulness?

“Shall I give you such a thorough massage you start to feeling sleepy? Rubby rubby,” said the goddess.

“Why did you even travel with us all this way?”

Once all the fighters left the wagons, there had to be more than fifty in all.

…That meant this dragon hunt would cost the crown more than 2.5 million yeno from the participation reward alone. That was an unimaginable amount. Even if they had to win to receive it, the king was being awfully generous.

Adventurers were used to dungeons where it was winner take all and rushing for a treasure chest could get you caught by a deadly trap, so having this many work together was unusual.

“Any shadow type users!? If you’re a specialist in shadow and darkness attacks, then join me over here! If you provide support or healing with light, then line up over there!”

“Fire specialists won’t have much use on the offense front, so line up in front and fortify our defenses! He’ll be blasting us with his fire type breath, so we need as much type defense as we can get!”

Apparently the other wagons had thought up their own strategies. The many people moving to take charge may have lost the initiative in their own wagon and were now trying to draw in people from other wagons.

“The dragon’s supposed to be at an abandoned casino…is that it?”

Gilbezos stared into the distance. It was half buried in vegetation and stone, but he spotted a structure that looked like a mille-feuille some rude person had smashed flat. All the obvious artwork, goldwork, and other valuables would already have been looted, but he could see some distinctive green tables inside.

“Gambling isn’t exactly rare in the capital, but they still paid out the ass to build a casino way out here. I bet they were betting on some unspeakable things,” said Riod.

It wasn’t unusual for a location of human cruelty to end up turning into a dungeon. Like strange laboratories and mysterious facilities where humans were bought and sold.

“So what strategy have we settled on?”

“Oh, mister is going around letting everyone know we have someone with Dragon Special.”

“Who’s mister?”

The nervous glasses priest (whose name Gilbezos had already forgotten) was right. It turned out having a relevant Rank 9 skill meant a lot. If they had a skill specialized for use against dragons, it would be foolish not to use it.

“Geh heh heh!! You’ve made a wise decision here, my friends! So just set the stage for me and watch me shine!”

“I’m glad he’s not very bright. Gilbezos, we should take a step back. The key to adventuring is to stay safe. If this goes south, we can run away while the dragon is munching on that idiot out front☆”

“I heard every word of that, you damn sweet girl.”

The general plan was as follows: With Riod Prominence and his Dragon Special at the center, all of their support and buffing magic was focused on that one man. The majority who couldn’t take part in that would either use fire type defense to act as a shield for the others or use magic and items to recover any lost HP and MP.

With that decided, they all approached the massive casino ruins.

They set foot in the dragon’s territory.

The dragon hunt had truly begun.

“Ugh, i-is this one of the dragon’s footprints? I-it’s huge…” nervously commented the 14-year-old plain glasses priest.

Sure enough, the black soil had been crushed down over a large enough area to gather rainwater and look like a small lake. The needlessly knowledgeable bearded man said the dragon had to be around 250 metora long to have feet that size. A terrifying thought.

They arrived at the half-destroyed casino.

An odd smell hung in the air.

It was a stinging odor, but it wasn’t quite the same as a monster’s bestial stench. What was it? This was more sour. Gilbezos also felt a slight stinging in his eyes. It wasn’t just him because quite a few of the adventurers were rubbing their eyes or holding their brow. He also noticed an unpleasant heat, like a warm breath, that felt out of place in this green area.

Where was the dragon? If it really was 250 metora, it would have a hard time hiding.

“Hey, I’ve got a bad feeling about this…”

The delinquent, who apparently wasn’t one for tests of courage, edged over toward Gilbezos. The goddess wasn’t happy about it.

Something felt off to Gilbezos too. As big as the casino ruins were, the rooms and passageways had been created for human use. A giant dragon was living there? How? It would have a hard time fitting inside, much less living comfortably there.

He felt like they were making some fundamental mistake here.

He heard something beat at the air. Up past the hole-filled ceiling.

In the sky.



Balsta the S-rank Lindworm-form dragon.



He had heard that impressive name over and over by this point, but what he saw soaring down from the sky was an enormous wyvern. One of those dragons with a lizard-like body and bat-like wings.

When it spread those wings wide, the scenery vanished. No, it blotted out the entire sky, including the sun, eliminating all light. Like they were surrounded by a giant windowless dome.

A dragon that reached 250 metora with its wings spread wide couldn’t fit inside the half-destroyed casino in the first place. There was only one reason why it would hang around here where it found no shelter from the elements.

“Oh, no. This is its food storage, where it keeps all its dead prey!!”

“No, it’s letting it ferment. Intelligence on the level of a leafcutter ant is all it needs for that.”

Quite the gourmet dragon if it wouldn’t eat its food raw. That sour stench was the animals it had hunted. And if a captured human was thrown into that strange hothouse, they might end up rotting to the dragon’s taste. And for no other reason than preparing them as food.

They were already within its firing range.

In fact, spreading its wings had blocked off their escape in every direction, allowing it to crush this small prey. Just like a fisherman would cast a net and catch a school of fish without considering each individual one.

The group was captured by fear before the fighting even began.

And the dragon didn’t hesitate. It opened its great maw with light flashing within.

It was going for its most powerful attack first.

A scorching beam engulfed the world. Yes, filling the entire dome of space that left no way out.

…It used its dragon breath.

Nevertheless, Gilbezos was not dead yet. The team of fire type defense magic specialists had held back the first blast on the front line. But who could say if they could stop a second. Even if they could block more than 90% of such a ferocious attack, they could be gradually worn down and killed.

The bearded man shouted from the front line where he had a shield spell active.

“Go, Dragon Special!! If you chicken out, we’re all doomed!!”

“So I’m not even a space-filler now; I’m a skill launcher!?”

Half in tears, Riod Prominence readied his spear in desperation.

He shouted in magic language and finished with a Wisdom spell word.

'''“Wa Bu Nu Yu Mo Ya Yo Ru Ki Ki Te Re Ko Sa Sa Ne To Me Ru Gu Gu To (Gather the shadow and launch it as a fearsome attack) – Lundax!!”



'''Boom!!!



The dome of the dragon’s wings was torn through from the outside. And something the size of a bell tower dropped onto the dragon’s giant head: a hammer of dark, dark shadow measuring more than 50 metora.

It was not unharmed.

This did real damage to Balsta, the S-rank Lindworm-form dragon.

But Riod Prominence grimaced.

“Why didn’t it sink in? In addition to the major damage of the hit, that high-level shadow-type magic is supposed to stab into the target and continue to reduce their AGI and DEX. I thought reducing its accuracy would give us a chance, but not if its hide can deflect my attack!!”

“Um. You’re kidding, right?”

“Damn! This is worse than I thought. Since it breathes that fire-type breath, its weakness should be the shadow type, right? But for some reason it deflected even my Dragon Special! I worked hard to learn that skill. What in the hell happened? It’s considered a passive skill, so it shouldn’t be able to miss!!”

No, the shadow type was the dragon’s weakness and the anti-dragon special effect had worked properly.

The damage really had been boosted.

But the dragon’s HP, VIT, DEX, and other life force and defense values were so massive the change appeared minimal. As if to say that the petty tricks of mere humans made as much difference as pouring one or two drops of water onto a hot frying pan.

“I need you to listen. This is very serious,” said the goddess. For once sounding terribly cold. “I will rearrange your skills into ones specialized for escape, so you need to get out of here right this instant. As quickly as possible.”



The second attack arrived.

The merciless dragon’s breath first slammed the vanguard to the ground despite their fire type defenses.



That was when it all fell apart.

The small boy was a good distance away, but his skin still received minor burns. The unemployed maid may have imagined she had been engulfed in flames because she screamed and rolled on the ground despite being as far away as him.

It didn’t end there.

With their shields gone, they didn’t stand a chance. A third attack would slaughter Gilbezos and the rest.

Time was short.

“What the-!? What are my skills right now?”

The goddess clenched her fists near her chest and tilted one of them. She seemed to be miming pouring water from a pitcher into a cup, which caused golden light to draw out a pattern. The boy glanced over at the Skill Tree.

'''Acceleration

:'''0 Stamina Usage

::'''Type Defense – Shadow Type Halved

:::'''Shadow Type Attack Magic – High

What was this? Gilbezos felt like he was losing his grasp of the situation, leaving him with only questions.

He had a mix of skills to let him run away and shadow type magic to strike back at the dragon. Didn’t she know attacking here was a waste of effort? This was more of a mess than usual when the goddess removed his skills, returned the LAW to him, and gave him new skills. Had she panicked? Besides, when would he need shadow type defenses against a dragon with the ultimate fire type attack?

“…?”

No.

Wait. Hold on.

This combination of skills let him use this magic!!

'''“Ke Zu Ka Ri Ya Wa Bu E Re Au Ne To Sai Sai Mu Na (The folded shadow slices into the distance) – Laznide!!”

He held his index and middle fingers together, picturing himself making the smallest possible gap between them.

…Think of Riod’s hammer. Just like other types of magic, shadow and darkness were something that existed independently. So whether it behaved like particles or like liquid, applying pressure to it would cause it to rush toward the exit. Which meant it could be controlled!
He summoned an ultra-pressurized shadow and swung that around.

In an endlessly straight line.

The sharp shadow blade left through a seam in the dome and extended past the casino ruins and even beyond the horizon. The he sliced off the top of a distant mountain and swung that into the dragon’s face. With a deafening crash, the dragon staggered back.

…Simply put, he first created shadow magic, compressed that between two shadow type shields, and accelerated it to create an ultra-pressurized blade. Add in the 0 Stamina Usage and the force of the ejected shadow would not deteriorate, allowing it to extend endlessly.

Riod Prominence’s eyes widened.

“Wh-what the hell’d you do!? Did you just do more damage than I did with my Dragon Special!?”

“I don’t know and I don’t care!!”

He still couldn’t deliver a finishing blow. There was a chance Gilbezos could win eventually if he continued fighting with help from the overpowered goddess, but ''then no one other than him and the goddess would survive.

But even if he couldn’t defeat the dragon, knocking it off balance fully eliminated the domed cage, allowing the sunlight to shine in.

Now was not the time to use the goddess’s power to fight. Gilbezos raised his voice so the others could survive.



“Run!!”



Chaos reigned.

They rushed outside. Had it been a mistake for humans to try and challenge a dragon? They weren’t arranged in ranks and they had no plan. Even when running away, they didn’t all run in the same direction. They scattered in every direction, only trying to get as far as possible from the center of the blast.

When the next thick beam flew in from behind, it passed over Gilbezos’s head.

The dragon breath detonated far ahead of him, but the shockwave alone knocked him and the others to the ground.

(Where’s the edge of its territory? How far do we have to run to escape!?)

A boulder was lying nearby, but hiding was meaningless. Running away was the only real option.

Yet Gilbezos saw someone curled up right next to it: that delinquent.

“What are you doing? If you don’t get out of here, you’ll be burned to ashes along with that wall!!”

“Oh, I’d love to run away…”

Gilbezos realized Riod Prominence was making no attempt to stand up. His tone of voice and his breathing suggested he was enduring excruciating pain.

Nothing at all would remain if he had taken a direct hit from such a powerful breath. Had the explosion launched a piece of stone or broken tree into him?

He seemed to be holding his right foot.

Had he sprained it?

No, he may have broken the ankle.

“Lady Seliphenia!! Is there anything I can use? Like the toughest defense magic that can repel any attack, or the ultimate healing magic that can reattach a severed leg!?”

“Sigh. Gilbezos, is there any real reason to rescue that living baggage?”

He wasn’t going to abandon someone to die because it was more efficient. Gilbezos lent Riod his shoulder.

Riod himself widened his eyes in surprise at being rescued.

“Your tiny body can’t support me. Leave me! Besides, there are plenty of people you should be helping first! Like any kids, or women, or the elderly, or the injured, or the sick, or…well, anyone really!!”

…Even with his life on the line, the Great Riod Prominence remained a good person through and through. This settled it. There was no way he was a delinquent. He was the kind of guy who would take in a kitten on a rainy day and who took great care of his parents, but who wanted to make sure no one knew. Was this what it was like to have a big brother?

It turned out someone else had been left behind in the chaos. The nervous 14-year-old glasses priest was slumped down nearby. Yes, Gilbezos remembered now. Her name was Rachel Vibrato, wasn’t it?

He was already lending a shoulder to someone bigger than himself. So…

“''Lady Seliphenia''!!”

“''Why should I''?”

The boy didn’t have time for that overly simple rejection. Why did that stupid goddess care so little about any human other than him? In the end, the thief with the baggy sleeves happened to be fleeing this way, so he got her to help Rachel. He couldn’t abandon the injured or those who had lost the will to fight. And with that taken care of, he fled.

He saw several dark objects approaching from the horizon. They were wagons. A lot of wagons. The capital may have sent a rescue team after Gilbezos’s group didn’t return.

There were a lot of injuries, so the more vehicles to carry them back safely the better. Gilbezos began to rejoice, but then he froze.

“What…the hell?”

This wasn’t an emergency rescue.

The many wagons traveling leisurely down the center of the large road were far too defenseless for that. This was simply a second group of adventurers approaching. With no understanding of the crisis before their eyes.

Balsta raised its large head and looked into the distance.

“Hey, wait…you’re kidding, right!? No, run away!!”

His voice couldn’t reach them at this distance.



A massive breath blew away everything on the horizon.



It swept from right to left and triggered a massive explosion. The scale was hard to judge at this distance, but the dust cloud thrown into the air was far taller than the towers visible here and there. Even from here, Gilbezos felt a stinging pain across all his skin, like he was being pricked by tiny needles. He was receiving minor burns.

“…”

Simply watching it blanked his mind.

His tears evaporated.

So much tragedy for nothing more than fighting and losing.

…How many had been killed in the second group that was blown away before they could even hope to prepare? How could they have been ready or even accepted their fate?

Gilbezos mentally counted beyond ten before he could get any words out at all.

“Dammit!! Why all this? Goddammit!!!”

There must have been hints. Saezuri had called it “this recent” target. That meant the job hadn’t been posted at the guild today and it was so horrifyingly difficult no one had managed to complete it yet.

A flapping sound rang out.

Had they moved too far from its territory? Balsta spread wings larger than a small park, took flight, and returned the way it had come. Ignoring a group it could have killed at any time.

Gilbezos did not feel relief. Even though he had avoided the worst fate where he was captured and fermented in a strange hothouse to match the dragon’s tastes. This was no more than the monster’s arrogance. It didn’t see them as a threat or even as food.

“What is the king thinking? If you’re going to post this job, you need to at least give us some hope of winning. Endlessly throwing people into this inescapable dead end will just lead to more and more groups being wiped out!”

“He doesn’t care if it does,” said someone nearby. The bearded man was bloody and unable to get up. “Unlike official agencies like the knights or the army, amateurs like us ''don’t require any records or statistics''. He probably doesn’t care how many people die if it will keep that troublesome dragon busy.”

“…!!”

True.

That had been the idea behind the job being posted at the guild. But taking advantage of that with a job that had zero chance of victory was malicious on another level entirely!!

If nothing was done, another group would show up.

Maybe later today, maybe tomorrow. But adventurers who had seen the job posting would gather together, show up, and be beaten down by that scorching breath. It would keep happening. For the world, for the kingdom, for the national interest…but really for the king who had posted the job from a position of safety.

Some people screamed in anger. Some sighed in resignation. But most sobbed, their voices distorted by tears.

Rachel Vibrato was a priest. That healing magic expert had crumbled in despair in the face of such an unthinkable number of severe injuries. Her knowledge of healing magic probably let her know her MP was nowhere near enough to heal them all.

The colossal dragon could not be defeated. This tragedy would continue just to hold it back.

“No…I can’t take it anymore… Won’t someone break this chain!?”

He had no obligation to respond.

Nothing at all required him to take on this burden.

But…

“What do you want to do, Gilbezos?” whispered Goddess Seliphenia.

Silence.

Then the small black-haired boy spoke.

“''I will.''”

He had made a promise.

So he couldn’t back out now.

“''I will break this chain.''”

===Part 6===

He had a new goal.

To eliminate the king’s reckless dragon hunt job and break this hellish chain!

===Part 7===

Gilbezos returned to the capital and held a planning meeting.

More adventurers would be wiped out if the reckless dragon hunt job at the guild wasn’t eliminated somehow, but how exactly could he do that?

He decided to discuss it with Shirayuri in her mysterious shop that had again changed location.

The shop was shaped like a 10-metora square, but a wall ran along the diagonal. Half the space was lined with products and the other half contained the counter/workshop. The idea was probably to show off as much of the interior as possible in panorama, but nothing could be placed in the triangular corners, meaning less usable area.

Shirayuri was rummaging around in the workshop beyond the wall. Apparently she was too busy to stop. With her smithing, alchemy, and synthesis, fire was often seen in the shop.

“Vwahhh!”

A muscular macho made of stone stood in a corner of the shop. Was that the Hyper Golem gatekeeper? She seemed smaller than when he fought her outside, but…yeah, he found this a lot less concerning. It didn’t bother him as much as the naked statue.

While waiting for Shirayuri to finish her work, the goddess laughed and spoke.

“Interesting that the first one you go to is 10-year-old Shirayuri.”

“Yeah, I know I can’t do anything on my own… Damn that S-rank Lindworm-form dragon. Why couldn’t I defeat it? Then all those people wouldn’t have gotten hur-”

“Goddess Skill: ☆Special☆ Low-Level Guys Just Need a Good Sitting On.”

“Hwahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!?”

…How he ended up squashed face down on the floor will be left unsaid. You can probably guess!

“Th-that is not a real skill. What are you doing, Lady Seliphenia?”

“You weren’t hinting you wanted that? Oh, Gilbezos, I thought you were making a show of how needy you were feeling. Rub, rub.”

…He couldn’t deny that, but could she at least find a different method? Or at least not cross her legs so elegantly on his back?

Then, he noticed the Hyper Golem tilting her head.

She approached and did something. The exact same something the goddess had done.

“Vwahhh.”

“Hey, wait, stop, Goly, I’ll literally be crushed if you do thaaaaaaat!!”

“Stop taking advantage of the Hyper Golem’s inability say no for your experimentation, Gilbezos.”

Finished with her work, Shirayuri poked her head out with despair on her face.

…She had the worst timing.

Gilbezos was worn down in body and mind. He hoped to at least get down to business.

“Combat guild jobs can only be canceled by the person who initially posted them.”

“So in this case the king?”

It was best to assume they couldn’t just ask the king to cancel it. Gilbezos was a homeless drifter and a short one at that. Knowing the systems of the grownups, he wouldn’t be allowed an audience with the king or even onto the castle grounds at all. Which meant…

“I think it would be easier to lie and say you have a message from the king.”

Completed jobs, like gathering healing herbs in the mountains, could be reposted, but jobs canceled before completion, like the defeat of a powerful enemy, could not be reposted. Because there would be doubts if it was possible at all.

“Would that work? Since it was a job from the king, wouldn’t the cancelation message either need his signature or his royal seal?”

A handwritten signature could be forged with practice. With the Manuscript skill used a lot by priests, you could get quite close to the real thing. Because that was so common, there were professional contract appraisers who always carried a loupe with them.

That meant Gilbezos would need the seal that proved a message was from the king. It was undoubtedly highly complex, but…

“”You’re good at crafting skills, Shirayuri, so can’t you forge it for me?”

“Tremble, tremble. You might as well be asking me to get executed for treason. Forging royal documents is punishable by ''at least'' a group beating to shatter all your bones followed by publicly burning you alive at the stake. But it wouldn’t reach that point because the instant my knight sister got wind I was planning it, she would give me a spanking. Tremble tremble.”

“She’s barely ever in the capital, so she probably won’t have the chance.”

Apparently this was a fairly serious crime. He did note that Shirayuri never said she didn’t have the skills to do it. But maybe it was better not to get the younger girl involved.

He had made a promise. To end the cruel chain.

But he couldn’t bring trouble to anyone else.

“Well, if I can’t forge the seal, there’s only one option left.”

“Hm? What else is there?”

“''Sneak into the royal castle and steal the real one.''”

===Part 8===

He made his move late that night.

Enoisa Holysign, the mysterious tailed young woman who was always more lively at night, never did leave the inn’s first floor counter, so Gilbezos chose to jump out the window from his second floor room.

“Oh, damn. What do I do when I get back?”

“You’ll have stolen the royal seal to forge a treasonous document by then. Do you really think you can get back to the inn at all? This kind of overly straightforward plan really does feel like the half-baked idea of a child. Oh, you’re just so cute!”

No point in worrying about afterwards. Got it.

''Right now he had to focus on keeping his promise.

On the way to the castle that was visible from every part of the city, he spotted several round shapes in a corner of the dark street. Travelers cloaks and frameworks of branches fallen from the roadside trees had been used to create the bare minimum of handmade tents. …You couldn’t call these houses. Any rain and they would be soaked through. Yet he didn’t hear anyone stirring within.

Not everyone in the vast kingdom was happy. The food handouts for the unemployed only amounted to a scrap of bread and a thin soup made from fish bones. It couldn’t be nearly enough.

“Then where did all the money for the dragon hunt come from?”

Did the king looking down from the heights of his castle not understand what a reasonable amount of money was to the common folk? Gilbezos didn’t fully understand it, but so much was taken from the people in taxes and yet none of it seemed to be spent on the people.

He finally arrived at his destination.

The royal castle stood with the tall mountains behind it and a giant moat and castle walls surrounding it on the other three sides. There were only so many bridges across the moat, so surveillance would be focused there. Gilbezos couldn’t exactly cross the bridge, break through the thick gate, and enter there. ''That would be doable if he was only trying to defeat an enemy,'' but his goal tonight was to sneak in.

Goddess Seliphenia whispered in the darkness.

“How are you going to sneak in, shorty?”

“Using skills.”

“Hee hee. I do love a spoiled boy who accepts his weakness and comes to me for help.”

The scary part was how ''she wasn’t being sarcastic or insulting. She truly meant that.

Gilbezos would grow reliant on her if he didn’t limit his usage.

The reckless dragon hunt job would continue, leading to more slaughter, unless he acquired the royal seal. So now was the time to rely on her and play that trump card. Now was not the time to be stubborn.

The goddess clenched a fist, held it out at chest height, and moved it as if grabbing a long baton at the center and twirling it around. The impossible motion caused impossible golden light to appear. That was the Skill Tree, but the circle covered a wider area than he had expected. The bright light felt dangerous when he was trying to hide in the darkness.

This forced him to stare at Seliphenia’s chest, but…

“I don’t need any combat skills right now, so remove all of them and return the LAW to me. Replace it all with movement skills like silent footfalls and swift movement.”

“Oh, dear. Are you sure about that, kid? If an enemy guard finds you before you spot them, a single attack will kill you.”

“Put together my skills under the assumption that this is all over if I’m spotted.”

The rules of the game had changed.

He wondered how exactly he was going to get in, but it turned out he could simply walk along the moat’s surface. And when he placed his feet on the castle wall, he easily walked up that too.

“What is this? Since when is gravity magic a thing?”

“This isn’t any of the seven types of magic. There is a skill commonly used by thieves that keeps you from taking damage no matter what is on the ground you step on. As long as you can place the soles of your shoes there, you can walk on lava or up a cliff. Without any adverse effects.”

Apparently the skill was called Traversal. With this, he could get in from any direction.

It turned out the top of the excessively tall castle wall doubled as a lookout passage.

“Kh.”

Spotting a figure at that same height, Gilbezos ducked down, but he was surprised to find the distant lookout didn’t move from that spot. They only slowly and regularly moved their head side to side.

“Looks like shadow magic,” said Goddess Seliphenia. “It shouldn’t do anything unless its false eyes and ears pick something up.”

“But that magic is for use at small fortresses on the front line. When so many soldiers are injured they don’t have enough people left for lookouts.”

Puzzled, the small boy peered from the top of the castle wall…and into the castle’s front garden.

His brain jammed.



“There’s…no castle?”



That wasn’t quite accurate.

The storybook conception of a castle would include a few rectangular stone buildings and pointy towers linked by walls and passageways.

Here, only the pointy towers existed. The rectangular buildings that could be seen as the primary castle were nowhere to be found, with only an unnatural empty space left behind.

Based on the number of windows, every building less than three stories tall was missing. That was more than half.

They had been selectively removed.

“Doesn’t look like they were blown up or destroyed,” said Goddess Seliphenia. “They were cleanly dismantled and removed.”

“…”

“And with the help of the tall castle walls, they took great care to make sure no one in the castle town outside noticed.”

Were they being rebuilt? Had they been moved elsewhere? Gilbezos couldn’t figure it out. And with entire buildings missing, along with whatever artwork and furniture was within…was the royal seal even still here?

Was the shock he felt at this tragic sight a sign that, despite his complaints, he still wanted the king to live in dignity and luxury? If so, he had been tamed without even noticing it.

“What now? Withdrawing would be the safe choice now that you’ve run into the unexpected. Just leave.”

“I doubt I’ll get another chance at this. And even a day’s delay means another day’s worth of adventurers heading out on the dragon hunt to be slaughtered.”

“Hee hee. Oh, you little goody-two-shoes, you’re so virtuous☆”

The state of the castle was a mystery, but withdrawing wouldn’t improve anything. So he had to keep going.

Gilbezos descended from the castle wall into…the garden? There were no beds of roses or fountains. Only damp earth without even grass growing on it.

There were a lot of the shadow lookouts, but he spotted some human soldiers as well. However, the ones who appeared to have magic skills were few and far between.

The building containing the main hall appeared to have been removed, but there was still a rectangular building in the back. Tall towers were generally used for lookouts and prisons, so he ignored those. He would just have to search the one castle-like area left.

The rectangular building’s door wasn’t even locked. Had this place been “removed” as well?

The interior looked abandoned.

Almost like an ancient ruins style of dungeon. One that had been stripped bare by thieves.

A commoner like Gilbezos didn’t know what a castle was supposed to look like inside, but he knew it was wrong for it to be lacking not just artwork and carpet but the bare minimum of light fixtures.

Was this really the right place to look?

After some hesitation, he was about to turn back when he saw someone there.

A lot closer than he had expected.

“Whoa!?”

He cried out, even though he had decided himself he couldn’t afford to be caught.

“Oh? To think we would receive an uninvited guest now of all times. Perhaps it was fate that we would encounter such an oddity on the final day.”

A maid?

If so, then she would see him as a traitor who had snuck into the royal castle late at night with a weapon. Being a child wasn’t going to get him out of this one. She only had to scream to summon a ton of guards, but she didn’t seem concerned at all.

“I am Canidia Celebrate, one of the few people left in the castle with the king, innocent guest.”

“One of the few left?”

“There are also a handful of soldiers capable of padding out the number of guards with shadow magic. Not even a housekeeper like me can expect any payment, so we are more or less working as volunteers.”

…Why was the very top of such a massive kingdom so run down?

Saezuri Ferslona traveled the continent-spanning kingdom in her duties as knight, so she may not have seen the situation here at the very center. Otherwise, she never would have been hanging around the capital city streets so casually.

The shock in his eyes must have conveyed his thoughts because the weary maid replied.

“The king is thinking only of helping all the people. He sold it all for that.”

“…”

Only then did it hit Gilbezos.

The food handouts for the unemployed only amounted to a scrap of bread and a thin soup made from fish bones.

…But even that didn’t just appear out of thin air. Preparing food cost money, so in a kingdom that spanned an entire continent, how much was the total annual cost of feeding the poor day in and day out? Dismissing that food with an “only” was the arrogance born of Gilbezos’s ignorance.

But the king hadn’t quit.

Securing funding by increasing taxes would not eliminate the people’s troubles. So he had made up the difference by selling off his own art and furniture…and this was the result.

“Is that also why there are so few castle buildings?”

“The stone was dismantled by the room and reconstructed at the residences of wealthy collectors and dilettantes across the land. The only exceptions I believe were the ancient temple’s altar and front gate which were taken away to adorn a museum.”

What the hell?

This wasn’t at all what Gilbezos had imagined.

He had envisioned a ruthless king who lured in adventurers with promises of lavish rewards to hold back the unbeatable dragon that threatened the kingdom.

“You will understand soon enough.” The maid spoke even more flatly than the Hyper Golem. “You are still young, adventurer, but I do wish you could stop it. Unfortunately, that is not possible. No one in the world can overturn what the king has chosen, so please do not worry about it.”

What did any of that mean?

Was he supposed to get anything out of those words?

But the maid stepped aside. As if letting him through. The double doors that had been behind her presumably led to the courtyard.

As if drawn in, Gilbezos walked forward.

Something he mustn’t see – mustn’t learn of – awaited him. He could tell.

But he couldn’t stop.

Gilbezos Overridge’s small hand grabbed the knob and, trembling, opened the forbidden door.



He grew dizzy with despair.

The sight alone froze his feet in place and he couldn’t even move his fingers.



They were facing each other.

The king and something else.

As if they held weapons to each other’s throats.

The king was a muscular man with short black hair. In his 40s, he was an adult with a vast gulf of time between him and Gilbezos. King Grivelt. Everyone in this continent-spanning kingdom would recognize him. His face was engraved on their currency after all.

That much was fine.

But something else was confronting him. The young man with long red hair wore pitch black armor and seemed to distort the world around him with his mere presence. A small earring hung from his ear. A hammer taller than he was rested on his shoulder. Even though he was the slim handsome type. After facing Balsta, the S-rank Lindworm-form dragon, Gilbezos had thought he would be nearly immune to fear, but not here.

Not with that man.

The slim handsome type? But his entire body was radiating a boiling murderous aura. He had human form, but only the form. Gilbezos could already tell ''that the greatest strength found in the puny category of human wouldn’t stand a chance here.'' This man was easily two or three steps past the limits of what humanity could oppose. It wasn’t even an issue of winning or losing. Carelessly seeing this being could scare you to death. He was that sort of extraordinary.

Without thinking, Gilbezos lamented to some place other than here. Even though the goddess was smiling by his side.

“What…is this? Something isn’t right. I’m supposed to be here to deal with the Balsta situation! ''Why is an even greater threat showing itself before I’ve even dealt with that''!?”

“Master.”

A light green girl wore a thick collar around her thin neck with chains branching out around her body from there.

Her skin, her eyes, and even her two braids were all translucent.

She wasn’t human. She was likely a jelly, an ooze, or some other monster like that.

She looked naked…but maybe not? It was easy to miss as it was so form-fitting, but she was using more light green slime to form a bikini-style swimsuit. Gilbezos recognized it because he had seen the goddess wearing one during a vacation to the tropics. Then again, the slime was the girl’s body, so it honestly didn’t seem like forming clothing out of it accomplished much.

The faintly transparent jelly girl waved her hands in a fluster.

“Th-there’s some stranger in here! Be careful. Now that something unexpected is happening, maybe it would be safer to withdraw and reassess the situation, master.”

“Shut the hell up.”

With a dull “pow!!”, something pierced right through the jelly girl’s gut.

The black-armored young man had thrown a kick her way.

Maybe it came from being made of slime and maybe she was nearly immune to physical attacks, but those excuses didn’t matter. It had to hurt on the emotional level at least, yet he didn’t even glance her way.

“My blood is pumping more than ever and you want me to leave? Go to hell. I’m in the middle of a killing. I told you to keep your mouth shut except when it’s MP draining time. You’re just getting in my way, you filthy slave.”

“Yefh, cough, I’hm sowwy, mafhter…”

The king grimaced at the barbarism and verbal abuse, but his voice remained firm when he spoke.

“That dragon is no more than a diversion. To keep most people’s focus elsewhere, where the true threat cannot reach them.”

Come to think of it.

Balsta had been a horrific monster that Gilbezos never wanted to see again, but ''despite the many serious injuries, he hadn’t actually seen anyone die.'' If all of that had been planned, it would mean the king had prepared a “perfectly balanced” enemy that no one could defeat but would not kill anyone.

And why had the king needed to direct all those adventurers’ attention elsewhere?

Did he know that a great number of people ''really would'' die if they carelessly provoked the true enemy?

“This man is the Hero.”

The king identified the threat.

This was the true enemy who everyone had to be kept away from even if it meant sending them after the “safe diversion” that was an S-rank Lindworm-form dragon.

“The Hero who was once exalted as the greatest among us, but who fell to darkness and has become our enemy. ‘Brave Liar’ Slenid Darkocean.”

More than anything else, Gilbezos was shocked to learn that monster had come from the human side.

The sword-wielding king did not waver.

He was directly confronting that thing, yet he could still move. Without a hint of quavering.

“Today I will stop him even if it costs me my life.”

He casually tossed something over.

Gilbezos caught it in a hand to find a rectangular object. It was a seal molded from gems and pure gold.

This was the royal seal.

“With that done, there is no more need to divert the kingdom’s adventurers’ attention with a phony dragon hunt job. Would you please cancel the job to avoid any unnecessary confusion?”

That had been the boy’s original purpose here.

The opportunity had been literally handed to him. He had no reason not to rejoice at this windfall.

But something bothered him.

“Wait. Can’t you just cancel the job yourself!? Once this is all over!!”

“Brave Liar is not so simple a foe.”

He was, after all, someone who made Balsta into a “safe diversion”.

He had to be strong enough for Balsta to pale in comparison.

“He used to be the Hero who ''single-handedly slew at least five SSS-rank dragons.'' And yet I must insist on stopping him myself. Thus, I do not expect to see the world after the fact. Hoping to survive would be greedy in the extreme.”

So it was all part of his plan.

He had sold off all his possessions for his subjects, he had distanced them from the true danger, and he would now eliminate that danger without telling a soul. And he was willing to burn through the remnants of his life to do so.

He was not a villain.

Which meant Gilbezos had to find a way to support him!!

“I want to know all of that Brave Liar guy’s skills. Lady Seliphenia, does he have some kind of weakness or loophole?”

“…”

“Lady Seliphenia! You’re the only one I can rely on!!”

Gilbezos’s desperate cry got the goddess to sigh and move her hand. She waved her palm as if fanning her face. The golden glow of the Skill Tree opened at her chest.

But her face displayed the resigned expression of someone staring at the chess board, knowing there was nowhere left to move their pieces.

'''––––––

:'''Certain Death

::'''––––––

:::'''Light Type Magic – Hero Exclusive

What…was this?

The listed skills did not match the number of flashing red lights. There were weird gaps. Wasn’t the goddess with complete control over the Skill Tree supposed to be able to see all of an enemy’s skills!? Then what was this!?

“They aren’t reliant on LAW or the Skill Tree. My guess is they are independent skills provided by special gear. And if they’re outside my control, I can’t see them.”

Gear?

Like his sword, armor, or earring? It wasn’t even clear what was providing the skills.

Now Gilbezos couldn’t know the man’s weakness or even how his skills worked together.

All the more reason he shouldn’t battle the man head on.

No. The king was fighting to the death because he understood the danger, right?

“It was fortunate I ran into you two at the end here. This would have been too much of a burden for my maid Canidia as she cannot fight.”

Gilbezos couldn’t let the king say this.

“If I do die, do not valorize my death. You must not create a world that accepts my fate and believes that death in the face of adversity is to be expected. …And if all of my efforts are in vain and I fail to stop him, I leave this task in your hands. I do not care how: find some way of stopping Brave Liar.”

This might as well have been a deadly curse, so he couldn’t let the king finish his statement.

Gilbezos truly believed so.

“So if it will leave a path open for you to accomplish that…”

But at the same time, Gilbezos knew all too well that there was no stopping it now.

Nothing at all in the world could make the king change his mind. Just like that maid had said.



“I will not hesitate to throw out this well-worn life of mine.”



A deafening boom followed.

Something fearsome erupted out and, the next thing Gilbezos knew, the king and Brave Liar were crossing blades in the night sky. The Hero had switched weapons from hammer to thin sword. The heavy attack capable of breaking down castle gates was probably only meant for an initial surprise attack. After that, he would draw this blade from the long handle to stab any enemy he had failed to defeat.

All of this came after the fact. Including Gilbezos’s awareness of it.

He hadn’t seen anything in the moment.

The king may have been skilled enough to lop off Gilbezos’s head in an instant.

But even so…

“!!!”

''He hadn’t seen it.

Even with all that…the king couldn’t reach Brave Liar’s level. Their clash was brief. The blood only came after a short delay, but that blood dyed everything red.

He was cut down.

His body, his life, and his feelings were all slain without hesitation.

Brave Liar easily landed on the ground, his voice reaching dazed Gilbezos’s ears. A voice carrying only scorn.

“Weak. That’s the only word for it.”

“…”

“And you called yourself a king? Pathetic. All strength is determined by your skills. Did you think your royal blood gave you a different kind of strength? Authority and official titles do nothing to add to your stats. They’re useless in combat.”

Gilbezos knew drawing that man’s attention now would be suicide.

Nevertheless, he spoke up.

“…Take that back.”

“Huh?”

“The king wasn’t weak or pathetic! He was a king to the end, which was why he was able to stand up to you without trembling. So it absolutely was not useless!! You’re wrong, so take back all the filthy words that spilled from your mouth!!!”

Gilbezos drew his sword.

It was ordinarily no more than for show, but it did carry the destructive power to kill. And now he drew it of his own free will.

The blade named Reyvaslafe had been forged by Shirayuri Ferslona.

It was designed to be used with magic, so it was made light to keep it from breaking its wielder’s concentration. However, its double-edged blade meant it could not be used non-lethally no matter how it was wielded.

Gilbezos could no longer continue on empty-handed.

From here on, every skill and magic he used would carry the definite meaning of death.

''He would embody the type of strength that held people’s lives in his hands.

And to demonstrate that, Gilbezos Overridge charged toward Brave Liar. He based the attack on the Single Sword skill required for all samurai-type jobs and added in Guard Resist Breaking, Physical Attack AoE Boost, and Attack Up, Defense Down.

He thought he managed a clash between their blades.



But then his broke.



That was the last thing he perceived before he was hit by something like a black gale that didn’t even fit in his field of vision. Whatever happened, he was launched as if by a castle cannon, rolled violently along the ground, and crashed into a stone wall. Something rusty-smelling rushed up from deep in his chest and his vision flashed in and out before finally vanishing.

He had lost.

He had known he would…but it still hit him hard.

===Part 9===

“Is that all? Pathetic,” spat Brave Liar, the black-armored Hero.

What was that kid’s deal? Brave Liar had won a direct battle with that godawful king, but this left a bad taste in his mouth.

One person remained standing.

A goddess stood there, seeming to blow in the night breeze. As if she had no commands to choose from and could only remain stationary.

Brave Liar ignored her and lowered his weapon. She would never attack. He knew that well as someone who had intentionally manipulated the Skill Tree to plan out his growth.

''As long as you followed the proper route'', that goddess would grant skills to anyone, enemy or ally, who paid the appropriate LAW. And once she granted you a skill, she would not confiscate it or lock it down. He didn’t know if that was her personality at work or if that was just how the system worked, but he knew it was true. She wasn’t someone who would attempt an obvious boss battle here.

With that in mind, he felt no anger toward the kid who had opposed him. Only pity.

“I know it’s weird for me to say, but that was a suicide quest, kid. Being given the option to attempt it is, in itself, absurd. You didn’t have a single chance, so giving it to you was a real nasty move.”

The black-armored Hero sounded melancholy as he turned away.

That was when his slave girl partner raised a frantic voice.

“M-Master!!”

“Huh?”

“Um, well, uh, look…on your cheek. A cut.”

Brave Liar rubbed the back of his hand against his cheek and noticed a small smear of red there.

Had it happened when the kid’s sword broke? The cut was smaller than if he’d nicked himself shaving.

But this was also the first damage he’d taken, something the king had failed to achieve.

“Tch.”

Brave Liar clicked his tongue and lashed out in irritation, kicking hard enough for his foot to break right through the jelly girl’s belly. Then he left the deserted castle.

===Part 10===

Once it was all over, Gilbezos Overridge spoke up while collapsed on his back.

“…How am I alive?”

“At the last second, I swapped out your skills for Blood Illusion, Heart Rate Camouflage, and Presence Eraser. The ultra-kind goddess’s lovey-dovey playing dead set☆ Sparkle, sparkle☆”

Without even getting up, the small boy sighed softly.

…This trick would only work once. The next time he lost, he would die no matter how he tried to hide it. No, he would be killed.

He knew that, but…

“Strength isn’t enough. I need more skills.”

“Then you’ll just have to push yourself hard and earn a lot more LAW.”

“I made a promise to the king.”

“Then you’re going about it the wrong way. Did you think you had some unique condition where you would earn LAW by just lying around doing nothing?”

The small form sat up.

Now that he had a goal, what reason did he have to stay put?

To avoid valorizing the king’s death and prevent the creation of a world where death was forced onto people during times of hardship. And if the king failed to stop Brave Liar, it was up to Gilbezos to stop him by any means necessary.



He had made a promise.

So he couldn’t back out now.

===Part 11===

He was satisfied.

He had died satisfied.

He had supported his people as a proper king until the very last moment of his life and he had exposed the true enemy as Brave Liar. He had failed to stop that enemy himself, but he had informed the next generation of the threat to the kingdom. That unexpected visitor had been more of a fortune than he deserved.

But now the king opened his eyes.

He was in a white temple. Even after ruling an entire continent, he did not recognize this place. So perhaps it was outside his kingdom.

But hadn’t he died?

…Or maybe he had died and that was why he had been summoned “here”?

He heard a voice, but saw no one.

A female voice.

“You may be satisfied with what you have done, but there is another world even now plagued with troubles that needs your help. Many such worlds in fact. Are you at all interested in saving them? …And are you interested in living a full and peaceful life this time?”

“…”

He had no interest in a peaceful life. That was a luxury that would not lead to the majority’s happiness.

But what if there were still many people needlessly carrying pain and suffering on their shoulders?

What if someone standing before their enemies was all it would take to dry their tears?

“I swear on my name as a goddess that you were meant to live a longer and happier life, but it was cut short here. So I will make it up for you in your next life. As the goddess with complete control over the Skill Tree and who directly controls growth and life, I swear I will bring you happiness. So I promise to send you to another world where you can be happy.”

A bright but gentle light shined down on him from overhead.

No response was needed from the king.

The goddess made her announcement.

“Hero of the Chosen Soul, welcome to the temple of the Otherworld Reincarnation Goddess☆”

===Between the Lines 2===

Archangel: “Archangel here!”

Lesser Demon: “Lesser Demon too.”



Archangel: “First, a round of applause for the king who has become a star in the sky. It’s time for more meta talk from the dimensional boundary provided by the autonomous servants created by the goddess. This time, we’ll provide more information on the Skill Tree!”

Lesser Demon: “I would be the servant who thanked her master for the gift of autonomy by handing her a letter of resignation. Anyway, I notice Brave Liar sees himself as ‘someone who had intentionally manipulated the Skill Tree to plan out his growth’.”

Archangel: “That’s because a normal person without the ability to fight doesn’t think of it that way. They contact the enormous Skill Tree like they’re in a dream and just vaguely learn some skills as they grow. I suppose it’s like always choosing the ‘recommended’ option based on your personal preferences and traits?”

Lesser Demon: “But that doesn’t allow for minor adjustments, so I bet you end up learning a bunch of unnecessary skills. That really adds more weight to what the giant sword and tiny miniskirt knight said about not wanting her sister to be led astray. If it’s more of a subconscious thing, the contents of your dreams would probably affect it a lot.”

Archangel: “Yes, but Shirayuri can do smithing, synthesis, alchemy, sewing, and crafting at only 10, so she’s definitely consciously controlling her skill acquisition. It’s just that her sister-obsessed sister isn’t aware of it.”

Lesser Demon: “The top half of the list of ‘humans to watch out for’ can all do it consciously, right? Including that meathead of a knight sister.”

Archangel: “To be clear, LAW – that is, the gems or numbers used to acquire skills – can be earned outside of battle. Studying, cooking, climbing over the fence to peep on the women’s bath – pretty much anything counts as learning.”

Lesser Demon: “The greater the threat to your life you overcome the slower time seems to flow in that moment, which concentrates a lot of that down. So in the end, exploring dungeons and fighting enemies is the most cost effective option.”

Archangel: “But there’s not much point in visiting haunted houses, jumping off a ledge when you know there’s a net waiting to catch you, and any other test of courage where you actually know it’s safe.”

Lesser Demon: “It all comes down to what you know. If you weren’t aware, you would have earned plenty of LAW.”

Archangel: “If you honestly thought it was a real, a haunted house could end up killing you of shock, though.”

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