176. REALITIES OF THE FIRST ADVENTURER

“HOLY SHIT!!? IT’S A SLIME!!”

Slime.

The blue blob with a glittering core in the center wiggled about. It looked like those semi-circular marbles. I don’t know if amoeba is the right way to describe it but instead of your usual ‘pyon pyon’ jumping, the slime extends its feelers slowly, pulling itself closer towards a specific direction. And instead of the ‘boing’ kind of sound, it’s movement made a sound more like slushing.

In this case, this slime was pulling itself to.. somewhere.

“Can we touch it?” Prune was taking photos using the camera widget.

“I believe this species isn’t corrosive,” Liliath said, moving closer and pressing a finger on top of its jelly body.

You could literally see how the body deformed slightly to the pressure. And it wasn’t like Liliath’s finger was being corroded or sucked into the slime. Huh, it’s more like jello than slime.

I too, went to feel the body of the slime. It was slightly sticky with lubrication, pieces of snow being dragged along with it– it was cold, and kind of solid. Maybe the slime hardened due to the temperature?

Nine and Prune had their turn to touch the slime who continued to ignore us and move towards ‘somewhere’.

“Cool..”

“It’s nice and soft.”

“But we have to kill it.”

“Huh?! Why?!” Prune reacted violently.

“Smack a slime with a stick, you know?”

“B-B-But..”

“Prune’s entranced by a slime, if you check appraisal it has [Seduction] skill you know?”

“What?”

Nine was lying. I checked it. This Frost Slime, among many other nicknames, is level 2 with stats around 4 to 12. Wait, 10 points is a multiplier of x1 right? Then a stat of 4 is a multiplier of x0.4? That’s like.. reducing the base stat isn't it?

I changed the slime’s AGI stats from 4 to 40.

“Oh my gawd..”

“OH SHIT, Look at it go.”

The slime’s speed increased about 16 folds. Prune started laughing at the ridiculous scene. It’s as if the slime had been sped up 16 times the normal playback speed, the way it moved its feelers was disgustingly funny. To put it into normal context, imagine a chicken moving while shaking its head back and forth; speed up that scene 16 times the normal.

“How fun,” Liliath chuckled beside me. Man.. reminds me of when we played around with ants. I returned the slime’s AGI stat back to 4 before it went on a rampage.

Now then– 

We went and found a suitable stick from the ground– who knew finding sticks could be so hard– shook off the snow and passed it to Nine. Honestly, it was more of a branch.

Nine changed his STG stats to 200 and walked up to the slime. Liliath, Prune and I watched from a distance. I know, we’re being very unprofessional as adventurers here but it’s a slime you know? A Slime!

Nine took in a deep breath and– swung the stick..

The cytoplasmic structure bent inwards.. but when the stick hit the ground (stick still inside its body), it reformed its structure and wrapped itself around the stick. Nine pulled it out in a hurry, the end of the stick now had goo on it. Not only was there this weird smell of sulphur– the stick was actually corroding.

“Fuck. I missed.”

To be honest, I was glad that our first encounter was this slime. It was a non-hostile creature that wouldn’t fight back. 

Nine did almost sever the slime into two, but because he didn’t hit the core, it was still alive and bouncing.

“I think we should each get a try.”

And then something like a pinata party happened. We each took turns to smash the core. 

The one who smashed the core in one hit was in the end, of course– Miss Demon Queen. Hell, she’s like our omnipotent artillery. I feel bad for having to depend on Liliath every time.

“I’m starting to wonder if I can kill an animal,” Prune said, seeing the slime melt into the snow.

The core was crushed into pieces, literally. I don’t know if we can sell it but I collected the fragments anyways, luckily the goo on it was not corrosive.

“Yeah, I can believe killing a mere slime would be this hard.. damn, reality is harsh,” Nine said.

“But we have to learn to kill in the end don’t we?”

“Yeah.”

“True. It’s just how this world works,” Prune sighed– fortunately, she wasn’t sneezing anymore. 

We proceeded to the forest.

===

Here’s the surprising thing I forgot to mention– did you remember when I said Liliath’s world was hella vibrant? Yeah, apparently, trees have leaves even during the winter. 

The forest wasn’t naked as one would think of it to be, rather, blue-indigo leaves of various shades adorned the tree branches, icicles and shards or snow could be seen on some of them.

That said, the leaves on the trees were much scarcer during winter than any other season. Still though.. fantasy is amazing. The sun had risen to the point where the sky was painted in a nice deep blue.

But here we are.. hunting down these fucking Hoppins. 

Liliath got her’s pretty quick, a single wind blade using was enough to decapitate it’s head. Yes, gore was a thing we had to get used to so everyone burned the image of the dead rabbit into our eyes.

The stench of red oozing blood, guts and rigor mortis. Yeah, this aura of death is unpleasant alright. I’m not sure if it’s specific to demon lords but it’s disgustingly intoxicating. Prune was strong enough to face the scene head on. She even used her hands to touch the blood and guts to really let the reality sink in. She properly washed her hands with the water Liliath created using water magic of course.

Nine used the lapiz-alloy sword to cut the horn from the corpse. It was a single short horn protruding from its forehead.

I get how there might be some value to selling the meat but.. considering the hassle and our lack of knowledge, I think we should move on to killing 3 more Hoppins and harvesting the 4 dozen frost thorn plants.

Instead of conveniently using the map to locate all the Frost thorn plants, we decided to properly use our eyes to seek out the herbs. We’ll depend on the map when it’s too much of a hassle. As for the Hoppins, we have no choice but to depend on the map for now, it’s damn hard to locate the damn rabbits that keep fleeing.

I honestly wonder how beginners go about completing the simplest of G-rank quests. This is like.. work. Seriously. Novels make it sound so easy, but I’m here actually feeling the nitty gritty of it.

Liliath used gravity magic to hold down a Hoppin. The second kill was Nine’s. Saying sorry, he swung his sword to sever the neck– except he missed it’s neck and sliced it’s body instead. The Hoppin flailing about..  convulsed.. before falling limp.

Dead.

“Wow, this sucks..” Nine said while gritting his teeth. He glanced at the bloodied sword. “We should clean up the blood or something right?”

“I don’t know, we didn’t even prepare much for this. There’s a lot we don’t know.”

“I suppose I will clean it with magic as of now, though, If I’m not wrong, proper maintenance is necessary,” Liliath said.

With this, we got our second horn of the day. Moving to the next Hopppin Liliath pinned down, we noticed a peculiar group of plants with sky blue leaves, almost crystal like, with large thorns. Bringing up the BookReader UI to check the image of a Frost Thorn plant, it looks to be one. 

For harvesting.. you know, we never really thought of how to go about it. But Nine dirtied his gloves and pulled up the plant together with the roots. You can easily pull it up it seems. 

Liliath swept a dozen or so with earth magic.. magic is convenient. I have never felt so useless.

Damn it Noel, control your thoughts. You suck yes, but use it as fuel to get better, don’t self-sabotage.

The third Hoppin was killed by Prune using the lapiz-alloy sword, the blade properly dug into the flesh, but stopped just at the spine area. Prune was shivering quite obviously after the kill, but was able to sever the horn herself, but with some difficulties.

The fourth Hoppin, was killed by me. I impaled it directly through its head. It died just like that. I took a deep breath to calm myself. 

Sorry.

Blood oozing out of the skull, the fur tainted in red– the smell of iron, dizzying pool of crimson..

I killed..

I killed something..

But oh well. I’ll just think of it as butchering a chicken or something. If I’m not wrong, I think my late grandmother used to kill live chicken for Chinese New Year. Though, I never really got to see how she drained the blood in the bathroom. All I knew was that she sliced the neck and let it bleed out.

“Noel?”

“I’m alright,” I said.

To be honest, I think there will be an aftershock once I cool down from the adrenaline. My mind may be suppressing my true feelings about this at the moment, so I better prepare for some mental repercussions later.. I’m not sure about Prune and Nine, but their expressions looked rather dull. Liliath was concerned for all of us.

Anyways, after collecting the horn– which proved to be much more difficult than I thought– we left the corpse and went on to collect the quota of Frost Thorns. Along the way we encountered various large insect monsters, blue globlins and snow wolves. Though.. most of them ran away when Liliath directed bloodlust at them. The stupid ones that set up ambush that we fought against with an ambush of our own, of course, got severed by wind blades.

Nine actually tried to fight against one of the two wolves, but it didn’t turn out too well even though he made her average stats over 1000, excluding her strength which was left at 200. No matter how good your stats were, it means nothing without the proper skills.

In the end, Nine did manage to kill the wolf. Just that..

“Fuck, fuck.. I need to get used to this.. damn it. It’s so.. so hard..” Nine said, breathing raggedly.

“You did well Nine,” I said.. or tried to at least.

“But this isn’t shit ain’t it? It’s a fucking wolf with stats many times lower than mine. Fuck. I’m so weak. Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Nine stabbed the body of the wolf again.. and again.. and again, and again.

Prune started tearing up after his nth stab, Liliath went over to console her.

I can understand his frustration.

Even with all these cheat skills, we could still die at any time.

It’s hard to imagine the reality the heroes must be facing compared to us.

177.

We decided to head back after collecting enough of the Frost Thorn plants. We dumped the material into the inventory of course. Since the corpse of the wolf looked like it was worth something, we decided to bring back the pair we killed. Stuffed it into the inventory of course.

We went quite deep into the forest, so the walk was fairly long one. We’ll get back to the kingdom by 12 pm based on my predictions. Huh, what a quick trip. 

We were seriously underprepared. We didn’t even bring things like a random sack to disguise our Inventory function, water– which was fortunately made up for by going for a quick trip to the apartment, and other materials to deal with the aftermath after a..

– A whisper of death chirped in my ear. 

An explosion followed by some crazy lightshow resounded as the ground shook. I turned around, gazing into the depths of the deep blue forest.

“Noel, did you feel that?”

“Yeah.”

“W-what?”

“Is there something there?”

“An infected guardian trent?” Liliath furrowed her brows.

The stats of the thing, including what Liliath was seeing appeared in a UI. It was a level 126 Guardian Trent, average stats around 400 to 500. The health gauge was at 9 percent for some reason.. and it was headed this way.

“Okay, AGI set to 0.00001, let’s go!”

“R-run right?”

“Yeah, let’s go, let’s go.”

“I’ll teleport, everyone stay still,” Liliath said.

Ain’t no way we’re taking that risk. Safety is priority, I have no idea what kind of creature that was but I don't think it’s something we can face without incurring a few injuries.

Festering Trent Guardian.

I operated my UI and compared its position to ours one more time. There are actually grids on the map and the current scale was that each grid represented 100 meters. The Treant passed a grid every 4 seconds, wait what?!

The magic formation for teleportation suddenly shattered.

“Noel!” Liliath suddenly stopped and pointed her hands to the back. 

A thick mana barrier surrounded us and a huge thud could be heard. Liliath let out a grunt.

Prune, Nine and I staggered backwards. 

I thought a Trent would look like a tree with a face but.. this one was like some molten bark with wiggling roots. Weird slimy mucus covered its body with dangling sacs.. and in front the centre, worm-like creatures crawled it’s way out of the Trent.

Demonic Helminths.

Parasitic worms.

Hundreds of them, all wiggling about. Shrilling.. pleading..

Pleading. 

It was begging for help. These worms were demons.. just like me.

I’m a demon; they’re a demon.

The stats of the worm exceeded 100 individually. Time seemed to slow down as my instincts screamed at me. I felt a chill down my spine.

Just then, five blade marks appeared on the worm infested Guardian Trent, and from those intersections, the bark burst from within. A large amount of pus-like fluid spilt and spilled onto the ground. A dull pain hit my heart.. I stood there frozen.

This feeling..

This feeling of watching my kins die in front of me..

What the hell is this feeling– it’s disgusting.

“Are you alright?”

She asked.

Wearing an unimaginable cosplay-like clothes, a low breastplate adorned with intricate motifs, a loose red skirt like some joke material and laces that crossed along her clothes.. she even held a sword that was made from condensed mana. Her hair was swirly, pastel pink, a colour that I’ve never seen before...

Her eyes had that same golden glow as Bleu.

“Yes, thank you for your assistance,” Liliath said after letting out a sigh of relief.

“Fortunately nothing happened. You must be an excellent mage to be able to defend against its battering ram.” her voice was mellow, but pressuring.

“I am honored?” Liliath replied, hesitant.

“Y-yeah.. uh..” Nine said.

“What happened here?”

And comes along another guy with black hair, wearing light adventurer clothes. He gazed at the now dead parasitic demons, eyes sharp as a sword. It’s the first time I’ve ever thought that such a phrase was fitting.

More so, the reason why my instincts were yelling at me wasn’t because of the Trent, nor was it the demonic worms..

It was because of these two.

“You let the demon escape and almost killed these adventurers,” the pink haired woman said.

The guy with black hair was about to say something–

But his words obviously got choked in his throat when he met Liliath’s gaze. Tears seemed to gloss his eyes over, an expression of dread washed over his face.

Like.. what? Another flag?

“Have we met before?” Liliath asked in a skeptical voice.

He remained silent.. 

“Jiwon-san, watch where you’re looking at,” the pink haired girl warned.

“Sorry,” he walked up to the worm and with his crude sword, pulled out a large red magic core, after that, “Moirae, let’s go,” he turned around and walked off.

Moirea, instead of saying a cliche, ‘what’s his problem’ line, stared as his figure disappeared into the forest. She then turned to us.

“Excuse me, are you staying in Erudite? Could you tell me which inn you four are staying at?” she asked.

“About that.. huh? No. Why?”

“For your safety,” She said with a pressuring gaze.

“We rented a small palace to stay in one of the florists.. n-not an inn,” Prune said.

“Is that so? Then will you be staying here for the next month? Or will you be going to some other kingdom? I suggest you stay away from Trinity Kingdom, there’s a coup d'etat about to be staged there. And a civil war between Phyls Kingdom and the duchy of Baroque is going to break out in a months' time. Keep that in mind.”

“Understood.”

“Good,” Moirae said so, bowed and left to where Park Jiwon went, “Liliath, whatever awaits in your future, stay safe, and be careful,” she forewarned.

The warning bells of danger softened the further she was away from us. The place returned to a desolate calm.

Park Jiwon.

One of the heroes.

And Moirae? Who is she anyways? Must be some significant female lead. 

And they didn’t even clean up the rest of the Trent corpse...

“Let’s go,” Liliath said promptly, as if urging.

“Liliath, do you know him?”

“No.”

“Then why did you ask if you knew him?” 

“Because I felt like it?” Liliath tilted her head at me cutely. 

Haha, I see what you did there. I guess dropping a random hint or flag to make his adventurer more suspenseful is all part of his story.

“Nine?” Prune called out in a concerned voice.

“Hm?” I turned to look at him.

He stood there stiff like a statue, his gaze glued to the UI.

“Nine?”

“What’s wrong?”

“Noel. Just a quick question–”

For a second there I thought Nine found an overpowered skill but..

“–why does this world have a Regressor?”

178.

“Prune, are you alright?”

I passed the chopped up spring onion-like leaves to her.

“I’m fine. I just need some time to get used to this life..” Prune said in a tired lisp.

After we returned from the guild, we had at least an entire afternoon free. Prune slept in her room the whole time. When she woke up, she was in a sort of dazed state. It took Liliath a while to crack open that shell of her’s. I wasn’t too sure what they talked about but I’m glad Prune was able to open up her worries to someone at least.

Squish, squish. 

Prune tossed the spring onions into the minced meat of an unknown creature together with various spices we borrowed from Margrett’s kitchen and started to mix it around using a spoon.

“Prune, do you recommend I slice the cheese block into thin pieces?” Liliath asked.

“Yes please.”

Tonight’s dinner would be minced meat and cheese stacked between bread. Cheese because.. well, there’s a lot of cheese in Erudite kingdom. It’s very different from the supermarket cheese back at home.. and to be honest, I don’t really like the cheese here but believe it’s something like kimchi where we’d have to learn how to eat properly to enjoy the taste.

Nine was sitting on the kitchen table organizing the skills we got today. By that, what I mean is that Nine started to Ctrl A, Ctrl C and Ctrl V every interesting skill she saw. 

Yes. She.

Nine wanted to cool her mind down a while so she changed to her female persona. Not that I really know how it helps but if it works then that’s all good.

Speaking of which, after that incident with the weird guardian Trent and an unexpected meeting with the Regressor and– from what Liliath said apparently, the Goddess of Fate, Moirea. We headed back to the adventurer guild after the ridiculous encounter.

We had to queue up, which was a bummer, but when it was our turn, we passed the items specified for the rankup and then the receptionist– a different one again this time– would help us process the rank progression. We’ll get our new F-rank card tomorrow. 

Also, just to side track a bit, the adventurer guild was called Sea Gold, and was in direct affiliation with the kingdom itself. It’s half owned by the kingdom and half privately runned.. at least, that's how I thought of it. The numerous guilds in Erudite kingdom compete against one another, so there is big competition for A-rank explorers.

Explorers or Adventurers? I wasn’t too sure anymore because the receptionist that we met in the afternoon referred to us as explorers.

Now, let’s talk about pricing of material, something I’ve been curious about when it comes to the economic stability as an adventurer. Price of one Hoppin horn– 2 big copper. If we sold the whole carcass, the price would range between 2 to 5 big copper.

We could’ve gotten more money..

Anyways, we asked about creatures we ran across such as the snow wolf, frost wolf, whatever you want to call it, the price was around 3 to 5 silver. We have two in the inventory.. but I guess we’ll exchange those once we learn how to drain the blood away.

I thought for a second being an adventurer could actually provide a decent amount of income but after thinking about all the trouble and costs of other things such as accommodation and weapons.. as well as risking one's own life.. It's actually not that efficient. 

Unless your passion is killing things, you’re better off working at some company somewhere– that was what the receptionist told us. Companies actually exist, you know? Which is why G-rank to D-rank cards are made of low grade materials. Most adventurers quit before reaching C-rank. 

As for the guy with the [Magick Sword] skill who tailed us before– we tried to just ignore him. 

With that, our chores at the guild were complete. We returned to the florist. 

Greeting the guard we stole [Strength Reinforcement (B)] and [Mana Imbuement] from this morning, we entered the shop to find Miss Margrett-san talking to an acquaintance. Rather than a noble, it was a butler-assassin of a noble.. of sorts.

After that, Miss Margrett-san said that she had to go somewhere and asked us to watch over the florist.

But.

We had no idea how to watch over the florist.

Even though she turned the sign on the door to ‘closed’, A young male customer came in with a maid. A quick appraisal would mark the maid, a her, as a ‘slave’. An aristocrat and his slave. Oh god.

Fortunately we contacted Miss Margrett using the messaging function and asked her for guidance. The young customer got himself the ‘on discount’ autumn bouquet series of various radiant flowers adorned with minty smelling plants. He also got the maid a small silver rose.

Huh. I guess I was the dick head after all. Not all nobles are bad. I found it surprising how that bouquet and rose cost 45 silver in total.

Way more than what we earned today just scrambling through the forest.

The young man with his happy maid left the florist while leaving an apology for intruding when he realized that the shop was actually temporarily closed.

Huh..

Putting that incident aside, Margrett-san accepted Prune’s offer to cook dinner, Margrett-san told us that she and Jennifer-chan would be returning late. I wonder what the butler called her for.

“Noel, could you buy some oil from the store?”

“You mean from the UI? The Sunflower brand? Sure.”

“Sorry about that.”

“It’s alright. We need it for cooking anyways.”

“Noel, I have to discuss with you about something later,” while browsing through the system shop to buy that usual cooking oil brand Prune used back in our world, Nine called out to me in a cute girly voice. 

“Yeah sure.”

Miss Margrett was later than we thought. We arranged the food down and plates at the shared kitchen down stairs. Again, not in the apartment. Liliath lit the fire in the kiln to warm the interior.

The sky was getting dark and the time was about 5 o’clock.

Miss Margrett wasn’t in danger as noted in the system map and snuck a peak with [God’s Eye]. She was on the way using a carriage and arrived 20 minutes later.

“I’m back!!” Jennifer-chan said enthusiastically as she hopped off with her school bag.

“Sorry for the trouble,” Miss Margrett-san apologized.

“Can I use the bath later?” Jennifer-chan asked.

“Sure,” Prune said.

“Thank you!”

“Apologies,” Miss Margrette-san said with a troubled smile.

Well. The after-dinner was as expected with Jennifer enjoying a nice warm shower. No puppy-sized blue cockroaches dropping in this time, fortunately. 

The early portion of the evening, after dinner, was spent talking to Miss Margrett about today’s events.

Apparently, Miss Margrett managed to land a contract to decorate a wedding venue for one.. I mean, the pair of the noble houses. She asked if we were interested to help out, the wedding would be in 2 weeks time. Since we there wasn’t really any particular demerit.. and having confirmed that it was alright for someone like us, who lacked decorative skills to work on such a project, we decided to just go with it. 

Miss Margrett passed us 5 silver coins as thanks for this afternoon when we sold the bouquet to the young man, hinting that she would be paying us more for helping out at the wedding.

Seriously though.. I’m starting to wonder if becoming an adventurer is really worth our time and effort? I’m having a dilemma. 

===

“Liliath.. could you..”

“I understand. In that case, we’ll meet again later in Bleu’s domain?”

“Yeah, thank you Liliath. Good night, love you.”

“Y-you too Noel, good night. Nine too, have a great.. pleasant evening,” Liliath said with a quick bow before retreating to Prune’s room.

Yeah sure, this is a fantasy world, but unlike Nine, Prune wasn’t the kind of person to get overly excited about being dropped into an isekai situation. The sudden shift in living situation is taking a toll on her.

Reality is settling in.

It’s the same for me and Nine.

Liliath was probably fine because this was the world she grew up in. Nine and I who started out brimming with energy yesterday— were slowly coming to our senses with the adrenaline dying down.

What the hell should we do in this world anyways?

There’s no straight path.

Unlike in the modern world where we are grounded by the activities in school, there isn’t anything to serve as a base here. We lack a routine, we don’t know what we should do.

Our future was uncertain.

“You two really.. even in this situation,” Nine sighed.

“So should we get down to business?” I turned to her with a flat smile.

“Whatever. So I’ve listed down a few things we need to get right–”

While Prune was left to Liliath, Nine and I were going to try to get things on track. This was what Nine wanted to discuss with me just now.

I’m sure a lot of what we’re planning here isn’t going to stick, a lot of readjusting is going to happen. 

But putting that aside, we need some plan. In place at least. There’s a phrase I’ve heard that says: in a war, a plan is useless; but, the planning is indispensable.

Having 5 different goals is enough to throw our choices into disarray, so we narrowed it down to only one. Modifying Nine’s goal, it turned into earning 10 gold in 30 days. Main reason is that we need a travel fund to complete the other 4 goals. This sounded pretty logical considering how money makes the world go round.

Of course, we also have the thing where Nine has to accompany Jennifer-chan as an adventurer. But how exactly can we earn 10 gold in 30 days? 

It wasn’t some ridiculous goal either. I was thinking maybe we should mow down some super powerful creatures in exchange for gold but.. it was too risky. Risky in what sense? The fact that we almost died from a Festering Trent proves a point. Moreover, we were using our cheats.

We lack skill, we lack practice, we lack knowledge about being an adventurer in general.

Hey.. Waitup, we have the system shop don’t we?

When I typed in gold coins in the search bar— Holy cow. 1 gold coin for 100 points?!

“Yeah, that’s why. But when I say 10 gold, I’m talking about it through our own effort,” Nine said with a pondering look, “How to earn that money is the question. But having this goal in mind is like the only thing that’ll make us use our brains. Any ideas?”

Besides adventuring, the only other way I’ve read up on to earn money is by running a store, a traveling merchant or something. Or maybe a part time job somewhere?

Hm.. 

Right. I shouldn’t really use novels as a base of reference. I need to use real life knowledge...

Even if I do use novels as a base, more important than money would be connections. Most MCs worry about money at the beginning, though, it becomes a rare topic after that has passed.

“Hey Nine, is there really any point in getting this money? I think we’re being myopic here. It’s the connections with people that matter don’t you think? If we get the connections right we don’t need to worry so much about money. If we need money then we’ll just depend on the store. We can’t just sell stuff using the internet here.”

“Then how? Do we depend on the daily quests and weekly quests?”

“I actually think yeah. I mean.. think about it. Our goal isn’t money, but to enjoy ourselves in this world. Like.. fear is getting our priorities messed up. If we just think of money.. I can't think of any ideas on how to do that. And if you’ve read novels, money isn’t an issue when he suddenly meets a big shot. And by big shot.. haven’t we already met like the Princess?”

Speaking of Princess Siesta, she hadn’t replied to us when we asked her what emergency it was. That said, Liliath was frequently sending texts to her in their private chat.

“I think I get what you’re trying to say...”

“And we’re not short on money currently, and this isn’t the modern world,” I added.

Seriously. Fear is making a mess of our priorities.

“Right, right,” Nine took a sip of the tea. 

“So with this, what exactly should our main goal be? What goal can both help achieve all 5 other goals?” I said as if muttering to myself.

“I think I have an idea. Remember how I told you back at the autumn festival that the only way to earn value is to give value? Since we’re not short on money and have a truck load of cheats at our disposal, I think we should help people. Build connections right? And just have money naturally come to us.”

That’s right.

Unless you’re some corporate worker.. no. Even if you are a corporate worker, what earns you money is the fact that you’re providing value. You don’t make money, you earn it. You gain value by providing value. 

Just that, the current us isn’t a salaryman. The value that returns after giving out value isn’t fixed, nor is it predictable. It’s a natural law of the world that you reap what you sow, but it takes time for what we sow to grow into something we can reap.

“We’re overthinking things,” I said, staring up at the ceiling.

“So in the end we just have to be us. Not some big bad demon lord in need of money to build a big kingdom,” Nine muttered.

Unless we really do wish to conquer the world or save the funds to reign a territory, attempting to go through all that work to achieve that which we don’t want.. would be miserable.

“You don’t achieve your goals, you become them,” I muttered.

Nine sprung up from her seat, “I think that’s it! Our next step isn’t about what to do to achieve our goals, but what we should improve on.”

“Makes sense..

See here. Heroes don’t become hero’s because they set their mind to become a hero. They become heroes because of who they are. I’m sure you’ve read novels like that before– where the carefree MC without any divine goal saves the world. Point being, the MC is already a heroic person to begin with, not because he aims to be one.

To put it in other words, an MC doesn’t become an MC because he aims to be one, and MC becomes an MC because he acts and thinks like one.

“But there’s a lot we need to work on isn’t it..” Nine then sulked.

“We have to learn magic, swordsmanship, and then.. learning how to deal with unexpected situations, learning how to camp, how to communicate with various people, learning how to make connections with nobles, learning world history? Leaning..”

“Stop right there. Take it slow, we’re overwhelming ourselves..” Nine said with a tired look.

In the end.. we basically came a full circle and stopped where we first started. There’s too much we need to work on but we’re also making things too complicated. A lot of what we were doing was letting fear get to us.

So we decided to take small steps first. 

We need to build up momentum. 

Since we usually wake up at 4 am, Nine and I decided to wake up at that time to train magic and physical strength— push ups and sit ups— until breakfast. Initially, we wanted to do sword practice but decided not to. Here’s the basis for this: we need to train our strength in the real world, our sword practice can be done at Bleu’s domain. In that way, we don’t waste our energy.

We’ll also tell Prune and Liliath to join in if they like. 

This will be our base to ground us, we’ll improve as we go along.

Now then, the real issue at hand.

===

[STATUS UNDER CONCEALMENT]

[CURRENT VIEW: TRUE STATUS SHOWN]

.

Name: Park Jiwon

Race: High Human

Lv: 122

.

Vitality: 76%

Mana: 73%

.

Stats:

HP: 940 

MP: 2032

DEF: 790

STR: 1102

DEX: 990

AGI: 868

INT: 602

LUK: 20

.

Skills:

[Appraisal] [Magic Regeneration (S)] [Parallel Thinking Processes (SS)] [Life Drain (S)] [Limiter Break (SS)] [Chaos Mind (A)] [Inventory (S)] [Sharpening (A)] [Telekinesis (S)] [Heart’s Eye (S)] [Air Step (S)] [Cooking (SS)]

.

Unique Skills:

[Pandora’s Box: Regression; first death acquisition (EX)] [Otherworld language] 

.

Title:

[Reincarnated Otherworlder] [High Elf’s Blessing] [Magic Chef] [Survivor] [The One who Has Lost] [The Foolish] [The Regressor] [Goddess of Fate’s Blessing]

179.

He’s got some pretty… beefed-up stats for someone who was just summoned about a month ago..

I’m confused. Besides the fact that his stats exceeded the Guardian Trent despite being a lower level..

What happened before the first regression? 

There’s a lot of plot I’m not getting here.

“Has your discussion come to a conclusion?” Liliath’s voice echoed softly, bringing Nine and I to turn to her.

“Not yet. How’s Prune?” Nine asked.

“She’s sleeping now, so I thought to spend some time hearing the contingency plans.”

“About that, since there’s a lot we need to deal with..” then I went on to explain the morning routine, which Liliath gladly complied with.

“Leaving that aside, you’re just about to enter a discussion regarding the Irregular right?” Liliath asked, “Noel, did you not make yourself a cup of tea?”

“Eh.. no..”

I actually didn’t brew tea this time around. So it’s only Nine that has a cup. There’s a really good reason for that.

“Then would you like some? I can help you with that.”

“No, really.. It’s alright.”

“Is that so?” Liliath tilted her head, with a pause, she brought a cup over and opened the shelf to find that.. all the tea was gone. “That explains it..”

“Sorry,” Nine said.

“It’s alright, I’ll refrain just from tea today,” Liliath said with a sigh, closed the shelf, returned the cup back to the holder and sat beside me. I brushed her hair to console her, she had this cute disappointed look.

“So we’ll start by talking about the timeline alright?” Nine said.

“Timeline?” Liliath examined Park Jiwon’s stats

“Here’s the thing, right now we know Park Jiwon is a regressor, which means he knows what's going to happen to this world.”

“And from that hint in the morning.. his first life didn’t look all that good, didn't it?” I said after Nine’s explanation.
“Which leads me to question this– is it a timeline with us in it, or is it a timeline without us? The regressor probably met Liliath in the past, we just don’t know how and when.”

“Regressor as in, those in Korean novels?” Liliath pulled up the BookReader Widget and typed up novels with time regression as a genre.

“Yeah, there are no other regressor definitions right?”

“So.. in a way he knows our future?” I said.

Okay.

So say if we were in the world before he regressed, what were we doing back then? Did some overdramatic thing happen? It has to be right? Usually, the only reason why a regressor regresses is because he or she dies a tragic death with some wish of revenge or wish to survive through some calamity.

But if we distorted reality somehow and only appeared during the first regression and not regression zero.. then we might have not existed in his life. In that case how did the regressor know Liliath? Or maybe the regressor also knows us?

What’s going on?

“Either he’s met us before, maybe the us that returned to the modern world to replace us, or he has met us the current us.. just that we are not currently in the first regression and not the us during regression zero.”

What the hell. This is confusing AF.

“Hm..”

“It did seem however that this regressor only recognized me. He gave everyone else but a quick look dripping in apathy,” Liliath said.

“That makes it even more confusing, is he just ignoring us and recognizes Liliath.. or did we really not exist back then?”

“Did something happen between us in the future?” Nine contemplate with a scrunched face. 

“I find it difficult to understand the significance of how this relates to our current situation?”
“I mean.. a Regressor spells bad news in a sense. The fact that he’s here means that something really bad happened during his first run. The thing is.. if we’re also involved in the first run, and if something happened during the first run that even we couldn’t deal with.. then something will definitely happen during this run.”

Liliath fell into thought.

“We have to stick together and can’t split up. Not now at least,” Nine said.

“Yeah.. Hey, wait a second, what about we just ask the Regressor himself?” I said.

“Oh.. why didn’t we think of that,” Nine coughed a laugh.
“Aah, that does sound like the most plausible option,” Liliath said, blinking at me a few times.

“Then it’s decided then. Next time we run into him we’ll ask for directions. But.. I don’t think we should go ask him now…”

“I agree.”
“Likewise. In that case, I’ll be in your care Nine.”

“Same here.”

“All the best together Nine,” I said with a yawn.

“Why does this feel weird? You two..”

“Oh, that reminds me,” I pulled up my inventory and took out a chain– a heart shaped crystal pendant. 

The inside was hollow, where the philosopher’s stone in my heart used to be before it became part of me.

“Liliath.”

“...” she stared at the pendant silently.

“Or do you not want to wear it?”

“Is it alright? Even though I’ve done something like that..”

“That’s just how it is right? I got this for your birth season after all.”

Actually, the pendent has been stuck inside my inventory since yesterday. I thought now would be the best time to return it to her.

I stared into her crimson red eyes, at her pupils, a captivating red glint that entranced my entire being.

“Then please,” She exposed bare her neck to me, her skin slightly red.

I brought the chain around it and fastened the lock to secure it in place.

“There.”

“You two go explode!”

“Eh.. no. Did we look like that?”

“Yeah of course you dimwit..” Nine groveled, but her face was red to the ears. Huh.. I was sure she drank tea and not alcohol– of course I know we’re causing her to puke sugar.

“We’re like a couple now so well.. that’s just how it is right?” I said in a not-so-convincing manner.

“Thank you Noel, I will cherish this forever” Liliath whispered in a soft voice, a small smile hung on her face.

Actually.. forever might be impossible.

“Ah shit. I didn’t prepare any birthday presents.” Nine said with a troubled expression.

“Your company itself already serves as a wonderful gift. And if you look at it in another way.. you did share with me your Unique Skill,” Liliath said.

“If you say so. Too bad Prune’s Unique Skill couldn’t create a new apartment..” Nine said with a wryly smile.

“Yeah, too bad.”

The fact was that we tried pasting [Home Sweet Home] into another person’s Unique Skill column, it worked yes but.. we always arrive in this same apartment. And if Nine opens the door on his end, nobody else can open the door unless that first door Nine created was removed. 

Of course, the convenient thing was that in this way, we can access this apartment no matter where we were.. just that the set point for the door would be where the last person opened it was.

“Think about it. You could do some really amazing stuff with more space. If there was a second apartment, you two can do IT all night long without bothering the other tenants. Right?” Nine quipped, stressing the word ‘it’.

“You wanna die?”

“Were you implying what I think you were implying,” Liliath hissed.

“What? You two wanna fight hHAH? Riajuus GO EXPLODE!!”

And so was the start of our adventure in Liliath’s world.