Editing Skill Tree Goddess:Volume1 Chapter1 (section)

===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.