3 - previous story

Thor was born in a tiny farming village in a remote corner of the central country.

It was a simple village in the mountains with a beautiful view, although it was somewhat close to the marshes affected by the "Coma Hole".

It is no longer there.

When Thor was 14, it was attacked by a horde of monsters and destroyed.

Thor, who was faster than people, escaped by running to a mountain shrine.

However, only one monster persistently pursued him, and the three survivors, an old priest, his granddaughter, and Thor, fled into a hidden passageway of the shrine.

The old priest, his granddaughter and Thor escaped into the hidden passage of the shrine.

The daughter, decapitated and on the verge of death, was saved by her grandfather's skill, .

It is a tremendous magical technique that stops the time of the target.

However, it only stops time, and if it is released as it is, the daughter will surely die.

The old man and Thor fled to a town a short distance away, and showed their daughter to the medicine man, but he shook his head.

From there, they go from town to town and village to village, searching for a healer who can heal their daughter.

After repeated refusals, the old man and Thor finally arrive at the city of Dadan, where many adventurers gather.

They rushed to the temple of Aluria, the water goddess who presided over healing and music, and entrusted their daughter to a priest who possessed magical healing skills, hoping for a ray of hope.

But the response was the same here.

The old man gripped Thor's despairing shoulder and spoke in a calm voice.

"There is still one way to save her.

"Oh, tell me!　Mentor."

"Your skill is Restoration. If you use it..."

You can only bring it back for ten seconds!　And it doesn't even work on living things!"

"Certainly not as it is now. But if you raise the level, it's a different story."

To Thor, who is gaping at the unexpected story, the old man repeats his words.

The true power of the god of time can only be released after reaching the tenth level. Such was the case with my stagnation.

"So you might be able to help us!"

"............Yes, but what awaits you is a hard road."

I don't care!　I'll ...... do whatever it takes to bring him back to life."

Just as the old man had said, hardship awaited them all.

Skill points can only be obtained by defeating monsters.

Thor, who had registered as an adventurer that day, faced the monsters alone for the first time outside the outer gate.

And he was struck by a harsh truth.

Frightened and impatient, Thor desperately ran away from the monster, which attacked him with no regard for the sword he wielded.

The next day, and the next, the same thing happened.

On the fourth day, the gatekeeper, who could not bear to see Thor, taught him how to fight for a while.

Thor, who had grown up in the mountains and had only physical strength and quickness, learned how to hold a sword and finally became able to face the monsters.　

However, it was difficult for the boy, who did not possess any martial or magical skills suitable for combat, to break through the monsters' strong defenses.

As a result, the battle was protracted.

Over the course of the battles, which sometimes last several hours, Thor gradually learns how to win by avoiding and escaping.

Thor watched in silence as his peers of similar age developed their lower branch skills one after another and graduated from the forest of kobolds.

The boy knew that moving on to an area with even more powerful monsters would lead to his own death.

By the time he was over 20 years old, Thor had become accustomed to fighting, dodging and counterattacking.

On a good day, he could kill more than a dozen horned moles and pointed beaks in a single day.

He has also raised his to level 5, increasing the time it can be restored to 30 seconds and the number of times it can be used to three times in an hour.

However, the number of kills gradually declined as I reached my mid-twenties.

This is because the parties that used to invite me often, even if it was just to make up for a few, kept turning me down.

Most adventurers have passed the G- and F-rank ordeals in less than two years at the most.

By the age of Thor, it was natural for him to have acquired the middle branch skills and to go to intermediate areas such as the rivers of bloodshed and the windswept wilderness.

Now he is hanging out in a beginner's hunting ground with a green plate.

It was bizarre, and it was natural to be avoided.

Thor, who was at a loss for what to do, decided to take on the role of a guide as well as a beginner's escort.

It was a path that he had also struggled with.

This was surprisingly well-received, and with the new duo, the safety was improved and the number of kills returned to almost the same level as before.

All of my party mates at that time went on and on, but most of them came back without dying.

Perhaps the initial cautiousness that I had been taught had been helpful.

Nowadays, most of the station staff and guards who are understanding of Thor are his students or related to him.

However, the good times pass by surprisingly quickly.

When Thor was a little over 30 years old, the Adventurers Bureau issued a notice forbidding this guiding method.

The newly appointed deputy director had this to say

An adventurer is only an adventurer if he survives on his own. It is an outrageous behavior to ask a guide to lead you by the hand.

While this is a reasonable statement, the fact is that too many adventurers would put pressure on finances through the cost of logging fees.

It is likely that the plan was to restore some balance by thinning out the number of adventurers to a certain extent.

No wonder that the popular beginner's guide was curtailed as part of the plan.

Thor, who was banned from guided parties, returned to solo activities, and the number of kills dropped again.

It is said that misfortunes do coincide.

In the same year, the priest died of old age.

He was a great magician, but he could not use it on his granddaughter while she was under the spell of .

Therefore, even if the grandfather dies, the granddaughter's time still stands still.

It was really hard for her to live with her old body, which could not work properly, and with the little money she was earning.

But as a priest, he was the one who taught Thor how to read and write and many other things.

He also helped Thor to find his current lodgings when he was kicked out of the fifth inn because of the existence of a girl who looked like a corpse.

The old man was an important person who encouraged Tolle many times when he felt discouraged, and supported him with his wisdom and thoughts.

Thor, who had lived with him for nearly fifteen years and had become his family, finished the funeral with what little money he had and wept quietly.

From then on, Thor had a hard time.

His evasive counterattacks had reached a level where he could be called a master.

But his physical sharpness, on the contrary, was slowing down.

His prime was far away, and a gap began to appear between his thoughts and his movements.

Then, as if to cap it all, a commotion occurred.

Thor is caught in the middle of it and receives a serious wound on his left hand.

Normally, if the wound is not serious enough to cause death, or if it is not a localized defect, it will heal without a trace after being treated by a water magician.

For Thor, however, who had little money to his name, treatment consisted only of binding and bracing bones if they were broken, or applying blood-preventing ointment and wrapping cloths around lacerated bones.

As a result, the wound was closed, but Thor's left hand, whose tendons had been damaged, lost half of its grip strength.

He could still barely hold the sword, but he could not hope to regain his former sword speed.

While enduring more and more prolonged battles, Thor managed to push to level 9 at the age of thirty-five.

The reason it took so long was partly due to the fact that the number of points required increased with each level.

The time it takes to restore a person is now one minute, and the number of times it can be used increases to five times per hour.

Thor laughed at the sheer cruelty of what he had achieved after nearly twenty years of work.

Even his laughter faded away when he thought of the points needed to reach the long-awaited level 10.

The points needed to reach level 2 were 2,000.

Three thousand for level 3.

Level 9 was 9,000.

Then the next one would be 10,000. That's 10,000 horned moles.

In those days, Thor could kill three to four monsters a day.

Roughly calculated, it would take about seven years even if he hunted every day without a break.

At the age of 40, his retirement would expire and he would not be allowed to leave the outer gate without permission.

There was a way to escape, but it required a higher rank, which was impossible for Thor at that time no matter how hard he tried.

Already Thor's left hand had difficulty making even a proper fist.

Thor, who was cornered, came up with the idea of defeating the forest slime.

He would receive only one skill point, but a forest slime could be easily defeated with one hand, and with , his gains would not be damaged.

He could kill more than five forest slimes in a day, so he could accumulate 10,000 skill points within five years.

The only problem was that the number of slimes was not very large.

Thor, who was very generous with his time, went through the gate early in the morning and searched for them with his feet on sticks until sunset.

He became busier, but his income remained the same and he could no longer afford to live.

He took fewer baths, and when he walked around town, he was met with blatant scowls.

He has cut back on his food expenses, and his cheeks have become calloused.

My landlord, however, has noticed and started to make me lunch boxes.

However, there is nothing we can do about the impression we have made.

And Thor's skills also had a bad influence.

Severely damaged weapons and armor can be to be as if they had never been there, leaving almost no traces even if they have been in a battle of some magnitude.

To the uninitiated, it was no wonder that they were considered to be avoiding the rough stuff.

"Mud-slingers", "fence-snatchers".

These were the nicknames given to Thor by newcomers and novice adventurers who had no idea what was going on.　

Thor devoted himself to the hunt, despite the white eyes of those around him.

His gratitude for saving his life had long since faded.

But Thor did not give up because of the days he spent with the old man.

He shared his memories over and over again with his granddaughter, who was frozen in time.

Determined to fulfill the wishes of his precious family.

That's the first thing.

The other reason is that Thor himself has always wanted to see where the mastery of would take him.

It is not only points that I have put into this skill so far.

Thor's will and hope have also been poured into it.

And today.

Thor finally did it.