Death March — Fixed

“Tek here, some people said that making cakes is like doing a chemistry experiment. I think that’s a big fat lie, I think people who make confectioneries have a good sense of taste, and talent from the beginning. Same with those who sing, dance, or other skills--if you have no talent--no matter how much you practice. I took art classes for almost five years--and I still fail at drawing stick figures.”

Now then, for the next several days, let’s activate and practice with my numerous skills. I wouldn’t manage to use up close to half my Skill Points, even if I maximize all of the skills that I’ve obtained, but since skills like Appraisal encompass several other skills in function--I’ll exclude Skills with questionable skills with questionable or redundant effects.

First, I wanted to level up Weapon Skills, but I already acquired enough skills for close combat, so I’ll keep the other weapon skills in reserve--but I have read useful appliances for the Dagger Skill from many history stories and fictional tales, I activate it, and level it up.

I enable almost all of the Physical combat-related skills--but the demerits for ‘Reckless Courage’ seem too high, I leave it inactive. I don’t know how useful Shield Bash will be for now, so I only level it up to five. If it’s useful, then I’ll maximize it.

Tactic skills are another one where I don’t feel the actual effects, but when I as Arisa, she says to activate them--I follow her advice. She says that if I combine commands and cooperation together, the party members could then use combo techniques. It seems that this is information that she learned from the hero, but Arisa herself doesn’t know how to use it--Oi, shouldn’t you have verified it?

Although, she says, “When we level up in the labyrinth--we’ll figure it out.”--it doesn’t seem that we will be able to use it right away.

I also activate the Herculean Strength skill; although I’m already strong enough to play with a lump of clay like it’s clay, so I don’t notice any massive increases in strength. Let’s just believe that it’ll make a difference when I fight a powerful enemy.

I did nothing to my Magic Skills branch, because there isn’t really any meaning until I can chant.

I make sure to max out and activate every Resistance Skill I have--except for Fear Resistance, which I put at level 3. It may just be a hunch, but it seems like it would have a similar effect to the ‘Reckless Courage’ Skill--and would end very badly for me.

I level my Production skills: Carpenter, Leather Craft, Weapon Creation, and Blacksmith to level 4--leaving me better than average, but not quite an expert; though if I use them a lot, later, I will level them up at that time.

My Alchemy and Compounding Skills are already maxed out.

With these levels, it should be enough for repairing, or making things that I will use in daily life.

Of course, I level up the Science-type Skills: Experiment, Appraisal and Education to the max--I also max out my language skills.

I didn’t do anything with my Art-related Skills.

Confirming it wish Arisa, the Singing Skill doesn’t have anything to do with rhythm--it seems to be a skill that will make people deeply moved with anything you try to convey with your singing--it sounds almost like Dylanizing--Scary--

I remember to level up skills that will be vital to interacting with others: Poker Face, Persuasion, Bribing, and Lip Service to level five--expert levels; I also maximize Surveillance Skill, and Marshaling is set to 5.

The most difficult to decide which to do things with are the specialty skills--certain skills are useful and I maximized, like Lip Reading and Enhanced Hearing.

Of course, I mostly keep Sex Technique deactivated--it would get rid of all the fun if I use it; well, it would be cheating.

Even after allocating this many Skill Points, I haven’t even used 30% of them. Since I’ll need considerably more Skill Points when I can finally use Magic, I decide to save the rest for now; I will probably also learn more skills along the way.

***

Since I have completed my Skill Activation work, what I should concentrate on next is to figure out how to learn the skills my companions have.

The skills that they have that I don’t are Etiquette, Thrusting, Dismantling, Heavy Blow, Enemy Search, Cooking, Collecting, Nature Art, and Spirit vision.

Among them, Nature Art seems to be similar to Arisa’s Unique Skill, so even if I get hit by it, I won’t learn it. According to the research left behind by Trazayuya, Homunculi have special organs that enable them to use Nature Arts--it’s probably something like a Race Specific Skill.

Mia’s Spirit Vision seems to allow her to see spirits, but I can’t even imagine how to acquire it, so I give up for now. Of course, I asked Mia about it, and I only got these, “I can it it, you know?”, “You can’t?”, “Why?”--those kinds of answers.

Let’s ask some adult Elves in Bornean Forest.

The Skill that I want to learn first is probably Enemy Search. The Map and Radar are excellent for searching vast areas and specific enemies, but they’re not good for fuzzier ones; even after setting it specifically, it missed something like Zen’s familiar the other day.

Runner-ups should be Thrusting and Heavy Blow, they seem like they will increase my attack power.

The remaining ones are Collecting, Dismantling, Cooking, and Etiquette; of those, maybe Dismantling and Etiquette will be useful--according to Arisa, Etiquette can be useful when used in combination with the Education skill.

***

I decided to ask Liza if she can teach me Dismantling next time we rest; I wanted to learn Thrusting and Heavy Blow first, but there’s no enemy to fight and I’m worried that if I were to practice with Liza--I might accidentally hurt her; although she can be healed with Potions, Medicine, and Mia’s Magic, I still feel some reluctance.

I’m also unable to learn Enemy Search yet, because there aren’t any enemies; I feel that I’m rushing things, but I also want to learn to use my new powers--to protect people important to me--here, unlike back on Earth, I have people I care about.

This was because of the Discovery.

Fine--I’ll explain the Discovery a little more--

In the year 1880, we discovered that the universe is part of a multiverse--we found an unstable gateway to another version of Earth, the religions were absolutely sure that this was the work of their various gods.

This was because of the great inventor Nicola Tesla creating a detection device.

In 1885, we managed to send the first person over safely--they were met by military, as expected, and we managed to open 2-way communication.

Their technology was slightly lower than ours, but their churches demonstrated true miracles--ones that could be shown and proved.

An Oracle came through the gate--but as soon as she entered our universe--She collapsed. She had to be in physical contact with the gate to stay alive.

It was then that we got the first ever contact with a true god.

They said that they never expected to ever seen this branch of the multiverse--this universe was completely off-limits to any divine being, or anything with a ‘League higher than mortal’.

No god was in our universe, and no god could enter without being erased by some great council of gods and higher beings.

Only one being of power was ever recorded visiting our world after the split, and they were the reason; they chose the soul of one person to reincarnate over and over--they used the power of the remains of every god who ever lived here to accomplish this; this person apparently served their purpose and was removed by the deity, but they kept this ban in effect.

For some reason, however my family, who were Catholic at the time--refused to give up on their beliefs--they hid this knowledge from their descendants. But I learned the truth, and I left my family--they branded me an Apostate and broke off all connections to me.

This was why I wasn’t too surprised with the title of ‘Previous Follower of a False God’ didn’t surprise me much. But I was curious as to how this world knew.

Around the year 1900, the connection collapsed, no other multiverse gates or dimensional holes have appeared.

Ahem, anyway; back to my skill training--

By the way, the wagon is about to leave the Seryuu’s Earl’s territory and enter the neighbouring Earl’s territory. There were a lot of basins in this territory--right now, the wagon is advancing through one such basin.

There are, of course, Monsters in this territory, but there are absolutely none along the road, they occasionally appear deep in the mountains. On the other hand, there are a lot of wolf packs and hibernating bears.

Since there seem to be a lot of beasts in the vicinity of where we are going tomorrow, I decide to have my combat training there--now then, let’s put aside the planning for now and begin the dismantling.

There is, of course, a reason why I want to learn dismantling now--it’s because we bought some fish from the children in a village located near a river we crossed earlier.

Since I have ‘dismantled’ fish before, I have an uncle who absolutely loves fishing, it’s probably going to be alright.

Since sharp is better than dull, I take one of the Daggers from my storage--It’s called an Obsidian Dagger, it has no special effects or magic; but it is supposedly very sharp. Of course, its sharpness cannot be compared to normal daggers--but it isn’t as strong as a Holy Sword, because it doesn’t have any special effects.

Following Liza’s instruction, I cut through the fish, and the wooden stump we are using as a bench, without any resistance. In an instant, I cut the fish into three pieces: The head, which was thrown away; the tail, also thrown away; and the main body--which I cut open the stomach and got rid of the intestines.

 

>>Skill: Cooking Acquired.

>>Skill: Dismantling Acquired.

>>Skill: Dissecting Acquired.

 

Well, I don’t need cooking, but I apply maximum into the Dismantling Skill, and one into Dissecting; I don’t really know what it does, but I have it, just in case.

After complimenting me for a job well done, Liza takes the fish meat and cooks it on Skewers, everyone one other than Mia and Nana watches the cooking meat. Once they are done, I have Liza distribute them, and eat one myself.

 

“Yummy!”

“Delicious.”

 

Tama and Pochi like it, Lulu and Arisa nod their words, causing Liza to look pleased.

Nana looks between them with a look in her eyes like she really wants to try it, but she can’t do that yet, so I endure. Since her eyes have become slightly teary, I fixed her mood by dropping several drops of fruit juice into her water--and stroked her hair, which seemed to enjoy much more, judging by the pleased look in her eyes--though her face was still blank.

***

After dinner, I have Liza demonstrate her Thrusting and Heavy Blow skills, I decided to have her do it now because I saw a large beast approaching the camp from a distance away.

Arisa volunteer to demonstrate her ‘thrusting’, but Lulu poked her in the head.

“Then, I will do a normal stab, a thrust, and a heavy blow in turns,” Liza spoke with a solemn tone, but she was actually grinning from ear to ear, the first time I had ever seen her have this expression--her tail was thrashing.

She seemed so pleased to get the chance to show off her spear skills to me, and the thought of teaching me excited her.

Getting control of herself, she grabs her black spear, stabbing three times with it. With a beautiful stance, she’s stabbing her spear more powerfully then possibly even some average soldiers in Seryuu City.

I can hear the sound of tearing air accompanying each stab. But I didn’t understand the different between the first two stabs, but the last one is clearly different.

Like a bowstring pulled to the limit, she twists her body back, then lunge forwards powerfully, a single blow that seems to reverberate with her whole body. It’s similar to her single blow that pierced through the rhinoceros beetle Monster in the labyrinth back then--but it is much more polished.

Hmm?

What was that just now?

“Liza, could you please do that last blow once again.”

“Yes!” She answers enthusiastically.

She takes the same stances as before, and her resulting blow causes the ground to shake. There really is a red line coming out from her spear for an instant. Checking Liza’s information, not only has her Stamina decreased, but so has her Magic Power; this might be an additional affect from Heavy Blow.

I asked Liza to borrow her spear, which she happily obliged, and decided to try to test it myself.

First, let’s warm up by doing normal stabs.

Unfortunately, I don’t produce the cool sounds like Liza does--it’s probably because I’m being careful as to not destroy the surround ground, and trees.

“Truly, splendid stabs.” Liza praises me.

But because the stabs don’t seem very good compared to hers, I feel embarrassed by her praise, it seems fake to me--I know that she means it though--I just feel insecure about it because someone so much weaker than me can do more skillful attacks.

Next, I try to imitate her thrusting, but something’s not right.

“Master, please excuse me for a bit.” Liza hugs me from behind, her hands grabbing the spear near mine while she explains what I am doing incorrectly.

Feeling her slim warm body pressing against me, her moderately sized breasts deforming through her shirt, and her scent filling my nose--I struggle to listen to her words.

“To do thrusting, when master stabs with the spear, master has to half-rotate your wrist for an instant. Loosen your hand for a moment, and then grasp it firmly when master stabs. I will show it slowly, please feel the movements of my fingers and wrists.”

She puts her hand on top of my hand, demonstrating the timing.

I see, this is something that’s hard to transmit with just words.

She shows me how to do it three times before she releases me--she pauses for a second before stepping back from me; my back now cold after the loss of her warmth--I pull my mind from that as I begin to do as she demonstrated.

I fight the temptation to do it incorrectly, just so she would embrace me again, to demonstrate how to do it correctly.

Yes, this is it.

“As expected from Master, mastering the secret by just doing it once,” Liza spoke with a proud voice from behind me.

The fact that Liza’s good at teaching is true, but I could learn it just by doing it once is unmistakably because of the Spear Skill level 10.

I do it several times, to make sure that I have the feeling memorized.

Still, even though I’ve become able to use it, I don’t get the Skill--so it seems that my guess, that I need to use it against an enemy to actually receive the skill, is correct.

The same thing happens with Heavy Blow--it goes without saying that I am not able to get the skill. I wonder if it’s because I don’t have the skill, even though I can imitate Heavy Blow, my Magic Power isn’t decreasing.

Seeing the red line let out by Liza’s Heavy Blow increased my desire to learn the skill--it looked so much like those attack in animes and some cartoons.

Blue light from Holy Swords is good--but I think that the red light really suits Liza; when I turn to her and say that, she blushed--which I also never saw before--I have seen many new looks on her face tonight, and they are cute.

A note from Tek

When I use the term: "Dylanizing", I am referring to the book: 'The Ship Who Sang', when she meets the ship who sings--who stranded herself on a world in depression after the death of her companion and uses songs to control people's minds (making them commit suicide--to die because she can't) -- using a technique to brainwash like bob dylan's songs could do in that universe.

--Not the Urban Dictionary meaning lol.