Death March — Fixed

“Tek here, I did a lot of self-analysis and self-development during the days when I suffered through job hunting--I’m reluctant to have to do it again--”

I sit on the bed, placing the bag next to me.

Arisa starts removing her cloak as soon as she enters the bedroom, and when the door closes, she begins to take off her clothing.

Reluctantly I speak, “There’s no need to do that, this time I wish to discuss something with you.”

“Alright--but since I started, why stop?” Arisa winks as she finishes removing her shirt before sitting on the bed next to me.

“I decided to consult you about something, while I was out on my date with Zena originally--those two subjects aren’t related.” I gather my courage and speak.

“Hmm? Is it something to do with how you were zoning out with a worried look on your face when we returned from shopping?” Arise looked concerned.

“I wonder where I should begin--”

She smiled at me, resting one of her hands on mine, clasping it tightly, “Why don’t you tell me all about it? They said that the king has donkey ears!”

“Doesn’t that story end with everyone else finding out the King’s ears?” I raise an eyebrow at her.

“Never mind that--” Arisa shrugs, “How about just removing the things that you don’t want to tell me? Then again, I couldn’t tell it to anyone anyway, if you order me not to.”

“Oh, that’s right,”

Her words actually helped me gather the courage.

I tell her about the disposable long-range skill that had been there when I first got here. I change the story a little by talking about the large number of Lizardman communities, leaving out the Dragons and Dragon God.

Arisa smiles wryly for some reason.

“What’s wrong, I’m not bragging, you know?”

“I understand, but Unique Skills are our trump cards, you probably should hide it.”

“Sorry, I’ll be careful.”

I am pleased she believed me, but her response seems strangely underwhelming.

“Then, what is this consultation about? Were those Lizardman communities members of Liza’s race?” Arisa had changed her position while listening, turning and facing me while sitting with one leg up and hugging her knee with her free arm.

She was still shirtless, so it is slightly distracting.

With a sigh, I pick up the blanket and drape it over her--she giggles and then holds it around herself, “Alright, it’s a conversation.” There is a small flash of disappointment--but it goes by so quickly that I am not sure if I imagined it or not.

Liza’s race lived in some wetlands far away from here, they were wiped out after a dispute with the Weasel race many years ago--Liza told me that story during the the time we grilled the frog, back in the labyrinth. It seems that she was kidnapped by the slave-hunting humans when she was wandering with her family, she also said that she and her family were fearful of Dragon Valley, so they didn’t get close to it.

“No, it’s not that, it’s just that even though I accidentally annihilated all of those Lizardmen, I don’t feel any guilt. It feels to me that the guilt was easily and completely switch off like there was an ON/OFF switch. As if someone is manipulating my heart--”

If I didn’t get manipulated by Arisa, I probably wouldn’t think of it like this.

“Well, they call this paranoia in my old life--but that won’t satisfy you right?” Arisa speaks in a deliberately light tone, but she is obviously considering it.

“It’s different from paranoia, it’s as if the feeling of ‘Guilt’ is pushed into a closet--it’s hard to explain.”

“Hmm? Weren’t you originally cold-blooded?” She asks with a grin and pokes out her tongue.

“Since I was a programmer, I do like to think efficiently, but I don’t think I was cold-blooded. When the game I made was made fun of, I became depressed for days.”

“Heh, so you were a game developer? What kind of game was it?”

“I’ll talk about it later. Rather than that--”

“You want know what the cause of the ON/OFF switch feeling is?” She asked when I paused, and seems to smile mischievously, “Perhaps your MND, Mind, Attribute is too high?”

“Well, it’s certainly high, but--”

If your VIT is high, you become able to take many hits right? MND is the mental version of that. In the first place, you’re purposely trying to be tormented by guilt--and unless you’re a masochist, it should disappear very quickly.” She smiles and squeezes my hand as she speaks, trying to drive the point home.

I though that it was someone’s doing, but it seems that it was merely a problem of my Stats.

“Vitality from leveling up also adds to your lifespan--at first it ages you backwards until you are 25, and then you get extra years. For every level from 1 - 50, you get 1 extra year; from 50 - 100, you get 2 extra years every level. There are rumours that you get more at higher levels, but I haven’t ever talked to anyone over level 100--even the current Hero is only level 66.” Arisa spoke happily, “Ehehehe, longer youth, as long as we level well enough. With your help, Master, we could probably get higher than 100 and live forever!”

Is that so?

***

“Then, next.” I pause.

“O-kaay, come at me.” Arisa is playing around a little, winking at my words--but she is doing it to lighten the mood and make me feel more comfortable, not to be disrespectful or because she didn’t believe me.

It’s actually quite reassuring to have someone to confide in like this.

“Based on the logic earlier, if I have high INT, intelligence, then I should have a good memory, right? Yet I feel like I am becoming even more forgetful than before. How come?”

“Eh? You have dementia, even though you are this young?” She giggles, “I’m joking. Even though comprehension and memory do go up with INT, it doesn’t mean they go up equally. If high INT means that you can’t forget, then there wouldn’t be any careless scholars right?”

Well, my mentor was a professor who was extremely close to getting a Nobel prize--however, he had quite a lot of careless episodes.

“--That means, I really was just being paranoid?”

“Looks like it.”

Speaking of which, I originally became paranoid because of this girl’s attempt at Mind Magic.

Even though I think that, I’m not childish enough to say it--but judging from the way Arisa rolls her eyes and sticks out her tongue, it is likely that she somehow guessed my thoughts.

***

“Hey, Arisa.”

“What? Do you want to get sticky?”

“Uhh, not now--maybe later,” Now it’s my turn to poke my tongue out at her, teasing can go both ways.

After pausing for a second, I continue, “What are levels and Skills in the first place?”

“They are like the ones from Role-Playing Games, right?”

“Any other meanings beside that?”

“I don’t know, I didn’t get the chance to ask when I met god--and he didn’t answer any of the times I tried to call him after reincarnating.”

“Well, just tell me as much as you know.”

“Right then, I guess you can call a skill a condensation of experience and knowledge. When you have a skill, don’t you feel that you ‘somehow’ know what it does and how to use it? Maybe it’s close to intuition, or it is knowledge somehow uploaded into your head.”

I see--However, the Appraisal Skill seem quite obvious though.

“How about something like the Contract skill?”

“Well, the Contract skill is a kind of Magic skill; it has chanting and also uses Magic Power for the Contract. But it’s still basically like any other skill, even if you don’t have the skill, you could still chant and use the Contract Skill if you have enough Magic Power. However, like other Magic skills, if you don’t have the Contract skill, the required Magic Power to cast the spell will be drastically increased--and the success rate will sharply drop, making it realistically impossible.”

Then I ask about skill levels.

“This is the common standards for skill levels: level 1 is Beginner, level 3 is Trained, level 5 is Skilled, level 7 is Expert, and level 9 is Genius. It’s said that level 10 is Godly class, but I’ve never seen it.”

Is that so?

I generally raised my skills to level 10.

“Do Unique Skills have levels?”

“Nope. This was said by the god when I reincarnated: Unique Skills are a fragment of a god’s power, so there is no level. ‘Master it well’, he said.”

A fragment of a god’s power?

Certainly, Meteor Shower is befitting the name of Unique Skill, but beside that, the others are subtle.

“What? What’s with that expression?”

“No, well, when you said that a Unique Skill is a fragment of a god’s power--I though that my Unique Skill sure is subtle--”

“Oh?”

I have no proof for this confidence, I decide to tell her about Menu. She may be bubbly and optimistic, but I have the feeling that Arisa is reliable and trustable.

Hoping my trust isn’t misplaced--like it has been so many times with girls in my past--I tell her about the functions, “I’m telling you this because my Unique Skill is Menu, it has almost the same abilities as yours.”

“Well, I will listen if you want, but it’s probably better to keep it a secret, you know.”

“I don’t mind if you know, however--without my permission, do not tell a word of this to anyone--this is an Order.”

Arisa smiles at my words, for a few seconds, before her expression changes--becoming absolutely serious--she changes position, kneeling on the bed with one hand over her heart, “Yes Master--I’ll bring it to my grave!”

“My Menu has Self-Status, Status Check, Hide Skill and Inventory like your skills.”

Arisa sits up straight, like a student in class, “As expected of a Unique Skill, it’s a cheat. But isn’t it really common for a Unique Skill?”

“That’s not all. Although I can choose to allocate points to whichever skill I want, I can’t choose every skill, like you can. It’s only available for skills that I acquire with experience.”

“Isn’t it a degraded version of a Unique Skill?”

“The Hide Skill from Menu is superior, it can hide any skills.”

“It looks like it,” Arisa pauses for a second before speaking, “I mean, didn’t you use the Appraisal skill in the city? Your line of sight was unnatural, and your decisions were too accurate.”

This girl seems to know more than most people would, with so little information--was she some kind of secret agent?

“I’m good at observing people. You also have the Crisis Sense skill, right? Although your movement with the scammer was really great, it was amazing how you noticed it in the first place.”

“That’s also part of the Menu--I can understand the position of people nearby using a radar. There’s also a map, with an Auto-mapping feature. It gradually fills in as I walk around--it was a big help inside the labyrinth.”

“I see, it’s truly a ‘Menu’. Didn’t you think that you were inside a game when you suddenly had a Unique Skill without any explanations?”

“I thought that I was in a dream instead,”

“Well, it’s unbelievable, I know,” Arisa nods understandingly, sitting up straight with the blanket over her and her hands crossed in her lap.

***

While we’re at it, Arisa also teaches me about levels and leveling up.

“--That’s why you can level up by fighting or studying, so anyway, if you actively learn new things, you gain Experience. When the Experience reaches a fixed value, your level will be raised. It seems that Experience goes up faster if you fight Monsters with higher level than you.”

It seems that she heard about the Monsters thing from a knight in her homeland.

“Do you know why?”

“Not at all, I’ve never fought a Monster.” Arisa looks down at the bed for a second, seeming to be embarrassed at the fact, “But, if it’s Master, then you should know right? From what I’ve heard from Liza and the girls, they raised ten levels after only spending one day in the labyrinth--that’s higher than the result from my seven years of desperate studies, you know?”

“Certainly, it was abnormal growth when you think about it.”

“Isn’t it. That’s why, in order to increase our chance at survival, we should go to Labyrinth City to level up”

She said the same thing when we walked through town.

“By the way, what the heck is Demon Lord season?”

“I wonder if they don’t call it that around here? In my country, we call it that because it’s the season when the Demon Lord attacks--in a 66 year cycle.”