CH 84

The Meaning of Being Strong

When I shared my thought about out future plan to Nico-chan’s father, he readily agreed, as long as he could be with his daughter. Even if he didn’t, he had no objection about the decision made by the benefactor who saved him.

Somehow, I feel like I’ve met a normal person for the first time in a long time in this world. I think the only good adult I’ve ever met is Eira-san from the inn at Miniera, right? She sure was a nice person, she was nice to Lulu-chan, she gave us her clothes, she was a truly sociable and generous auntie.

Oh, and I’ve finally found out Nico-chan’s father’s name. His name seems to be Higurd-san, and from what I heard, he’s a former count. This peerage is ranked third both from the top and the bottom, honestly speaking, that’s quite an awkward rank. However, among the peerage everyone is familiar with, I think it’s actually ranked first. Well, that’s just my personal opinion, though.

And then, speaking of Jack-kun, he seems to have been impressed by my words and is now looking at me with gaze full of respect. Such glittering gaze from a noob who know nothing of the dirtiness of the world is honestly annoying. This is why I said, don’t blame me for what’s going to happen later. What a huge pain in the ass he has become.

Then, like a total drag, he said that he wanted to follow me. I’m an H-ranked adventurer, and now a mere F-ranked adventurer actually wants to follow me? What a joke. Huh? It’s the other way around? Well, it doesn’t matter either way.

“Anyway, no, you can’t.”

“What?! Just why?”

“Not only is it meaningless for you to join my party, we also have bad compatibility. Besides, if you follow me, that means you’ll be fighting monsters of at least Demon King level… well, to put it bluntly, you’ll only drag us down.”

“…!?”

So, I reject Jack-kun’s request. What I tell him is unmistakably my true intentions.

At the very least, before long I’ll have another showdown with that fake hero, and there also Apostle-chan, who said that she’d kill otherworlder, who will definitely appear in front of me again. At that time, I’m sure she and the organization behind her will come to kill me. Not to mention, after I fight and beat the fake hero, it’s not impossible that I’d appear in the Demon King’s radar.

There are too many monsters in my path ahead. Such opponents are surely too much for a mere adventurer like Jack-kun.

That’s why, I’ve chosen Leila-chan and Finia-chan, who are obviously powerful, Lulu-chan, who has a lot of room to grow, and Rishe-chan, who has unknown potential, as my party members. Speaking of resistance, I’ve also grown sturdy enough to face the fake hero, so for a newbie like him, no matter how you think about it his starting line is just too far behind.

“You should just look for comrades you can put your trust in.”

“… But, I honestly think that you are amazingly amazing, Kitsune-san… I want to be like you, too…!”

“You better not admire me… let me tell you, I’m just an H-ranked adventurer, you know? No matter how much I struggle, I won’t be able to beat any other adventurer. Probably, even against you, I wouldn’t be able to win.”

After all, my attack power is the weakest among all adventurers. Speaking of resistance, I should be at A-rank, so I don’t think I’d lose either, though. Even if I use my miasma to attack, the current me is still unable to do complex control of it. Even if I can surround someone with knives from every direction like the case with Reis, I’m unable to move all of them at once, after all.

That’s why, it’s not right to admire me. As an adventurer, I’m a total failure.

“I’m glad you think of me as someone amazing, but I can’t take you with me. No matter what you say, I can’t, and you can’t arbitrarily follow me, either.”

“… I, see… understood… However, I’m not going to give up that easily.”

“… Heh.”

“So, someday, when I’d become much stronger, strong enough for you to recognize me to be your comrade… would you let me join your party, Kitsune-san?”

What a persistent guy you are, Jack-kun. But I don’t dislike someone like that. For me, compared to a cheat genius Hero overflowing with sense of justice, I much prefer such an ordinary person who rises to the top through mud and dogged hard work.

Well, they say there is no better talent than hard work, I don’t mind giving him that much. Speaking of hard work over talent, in the end it’s impossible for such people to be talentless, though.

“Well, in that case, be sure to do your very best. If you slack even a bit, I’ll leave you behind, after all.”

“! Y, yes!”

Very well, anyways let’s make sure that I won’t meet Jack-kun every again. He says that he’ll do his best to be my comrade, but in the end he’s a pain in the ass, I haven’t forgotten how mentally exhausted I was when he bawled so hard yesterday, after all. If I happen to see him in the future, I’ll be sure to pretend I don’t see him and run away. As for whether he’s truly become stronger or not at that time, I can easily check it from a distance with the status appraisal, after all.

“Well then, Jack-kun. Good luck.”

“Yes… Thank you, Kitsune-san.”

With our conversation over, Jack-kun leaves the room. When he who bows his head to me, and I wave my hand back to him and see him off.

And then, as though taking his place, Leila-chan and Rishe-chan walk in. They seem to have the luggage with them, so most likely the preparation to set out is already complete.

“Then, I guess it’s about time to get going. Nico-san seems to be still sleeping, but… we can leave her for you to carry, can’t we, Higurd-san?”

“Yeah, leave her to me.”

“Leila-chan, Rishe-chan, we now have more people, so we need to replenish more food before getting to the carriage. Let’s get out of this town as soon as possible.”

“Yeah, got it.”

“Yes.”

Once everyone nods in agreement with my instructions, we can finally leave this town. Originally, we were supposed to stop here only for a short while and then leave right away, after all. It sure took us quite a long time here.

But, well, we did obtain a lot out of it, so I think the situation is pretty good for a restart.

And then, we leave the inn to leave the town.

◇ ◇ ◇

Meanwhile, on the other side. The hero party was also greeting their morning.

Among the hero party, the ones who were awake were the Hero and Jik. Every morning ever since their departure, they had been doing morning training in the form of bouts. For the hero who’d most of his foundations done and needed to accumulate practical experience, his morning training against Jik whose attacks were imbued with killing intent had given him a good amount of experience.

It was partly thanks to that, but with his tempered originally outstanding basic ability, combined with the flexible thinking that was accumulated through practical training, Hero Nagi had grown tremendously over the past few days.

Not just through his gaze, he now could perceive his opponent’s movements through sensation and presence, to read a move or two ahead. He also learned how to hide his actual attack by mixing it with diversion and fakes at times.

Of course, his basic stats had also improved significantly, he was now capable of fighting and defeating demonic beasts without much difficulty, and he had also learned knowledge about Demon King and demons from Miko Cecil.

”Haa… haa…!”

“… fuu … you, have gotten pretty strong, aren’t you? … at this rate you might surpass me in no time at all.”

“Hahaha… No way, I still can’t see myself defeating you at all…!”

Nagi, who was lying sprawled on the ground, said so in response to Jik’s words, and then sit up. Wiping away the sweat, he then sheathed his sword. While calming his ragged breath, he showed bitter smile of half frustration and half respect.

Then, once he had had his breathing in order, Nagi shifted his gaze from Jik to somewhere else.

“Haa! Phew!”

“Next one, let’s go!”

“Yes!”

There were Lulu and Finia, who were up even earlier than them and had started training. He didn’t know how long they’d been training, but Lulu was dripping with sweat, and every time she moved, beads of sweat fell to the ground. It was unknown whether it was because she was a beastman or something else, but she seemed to possess a lot of stamina, she’d been moving around ever since Nagi and Jik woke up.

It was a training where she dodged Finia’s magic and slashed magic balls made of light magic with her sword. Finia employed a low level light magic in her attacks which only capable of blowing off Lulu, and the targets Lulu slashed at were nothing more than glowing magic balls, with no offensive power whatsoever.

However, appearance wise it was hard to distinguish the attack light magic and the target light magic from each other. Moreover, not only were they numerous, their attack speed was also fast. So it was necessary to possess an ability to determine whether it was a target or an attack in an instant and then accurately slashed only the target.

However, Lulu kept on moving around. She perceived each and every looming ball of light in and instant, dodged or slashed, and then kept on repeating that as long as her stamina still let her to. Be it in Hero Nagi’s or from Jik’s perspective, her movement was both beautiful and full of overwhelming spirit.

What’s more, the most frightening part was that they couldn’t see the limit of her potentials. With each swing of her sword, it felt as though her movement was being polished by whittling down any excessive part.

Perhaps if she were to fight one on one against Nagi, Nagi would win, but it would still be a pretty close match. That showed just how strong her desire to become strong was, and how tremendous her overflowing talent was.

“… That girl is awesome…”

“Yeah, in a different sense than you, she’s without a doubt a genius… but I think she’s pushing herself too hard there… I just hope she doesn’t hurt herself.”

“… you’re right.”

After that, Lulu and Finia’s training continued for an hour until Cecil and Silphy woke up.

And here was their current status.

◇Status ◇

Name                         : Serizawa Nagi

Gender                     : Male Lv. 72(↑12UP)

Strength                   : 12030

Stamina                    : 13400

Resistance               : 310:STOP!

Agility                       : 13800

Magic Power          : 6780

Title                           :『Hero』

Skill                            :『Sword Art Lv.7』『Body Strenghtening Lv.6』 『Swift』『Intimidation』『Magic Control Lv.3』『Natural Gift』『Intuition Lv.4』『Fortitude』『Mind’s Eye Lv.3』『Concealment Lv.3』『Enemy Search Lv.3』『All Seeing Lv.3』

Unique skill             :『Ray of Hope』

◇

◇Status◇

Name                        : Lulu Soleil

Gender                     : Female Lv. 47(↑34UP)

Strength                   : 6890

Stamina                    : 10340

Resistance               : 100:STOP!

Agility                       : 7950

Magic Power          : 5670

Title                           : <None>

Skill                            :『Short Sword-Arts Lv.7』『Body Strengthening Lv.4』』『All Seeing Lv.4』『Mind’s Eye Lv.4』『Intuition Lv.4』『Wild Instinct』『Magic Control Lv.3』『Fortitude』

Unique skill            : <Spoiler Alert!>

◇

◇Status◇

Name                        : Finia

Gender                     : Female Lv. 57(↑30UP)

Strength                   : 5640

Stamina                    : 7890

Resistance               : 300:STOP!

Agility                       : 8020

Magic Power          : 19800

Title                           :『Fairy of Unrequited Love』

Skill                            : 『Light Magic Lv.6』 『Magic Recovery LV.6』 『Healing Magic Lv.5』 『Fire Magic Lv.6』 『Body Strenghtening Lv.4』『Intimidation』『Magic Control Lv.5』『Hit Accuracy Lv.4』『Parallel Thinking Lv.4』『Affection Strenghtening Lv.5』『Barrier Magic Lv.3』『Rapid Movement Lv.4』

Unique skill            : ???

◇

Those guys, and those girls, were getting stronger at a faster rate than Kitsune had expected.

Right now, even that Lulu had obtained prowess which rivaled even that of the Hero. Currently both of their statuses and levels weren’t growing as fast as before, however they had yet to reach the limit of their stats. With only sheer desire to get stronger, they’d dragged themselves to their current selves.

Both Finia and Lulu were getting stronger. Moreover, if they worked together, it was possible for them to easily defeat low class demon.

“Are you alright, Lulu-chan?”

“Haa…! Haa…! I’m, fine… desu!”

Finia was worried about the exhausted Lulu. As Finia possessed magic recovery skill, even if she kept on firing magic, she could easily recover after a while. And since she didn’t move that much, her stamina was barely exhausted. She wasn’t so much tired as Lulu, who was constantly moving around.

“You mustn’t push yourself too hard… Kitsune-san will be worried about you, you know?”

“… Yes… but, I have to get stronger… I, don’t want to… see Kitsune-sama looks like that ever again-desu!”

“… Lulu-chan, if Kitsune-san were to see you as you’re right now, I’m sure he’ll be sad, you know?”

“… I’m sorry, I’m going to wash my face for a bit….”

However, Lulu had slightly changed. She was unable to forget Kitsune’s face when she was taken by the Hero, so as though to shake off that memory, she had been pursuing nothing but strength. To make sure that Lulu didn’t fall apart, Finia had more or less held herself back during their training, however, Lulu still often had secret training by herself behind Finia’s back.

The current Lulu, even from Finia’s perspective… she was in a very precarious state.