Sunlight filtering through the dense trees.
The chirping cries of mountain birds.
At this rate, I didn’t need an alarm at all.
“Brother, wake up.”
“…I’m awake.”
It felt like I’d only closed my eyes for a moment, but morning had already arrived.
Rubbing my sleepy eyes, I sat up.
“Haahm… I need to hurry home and sleep.”
“Shall I carry you on my back on the way back?”
“I’m fine. I’m not that bad.”
To be honest, I felt like I might collapse at any moment.
I’d already pulled an all-nighter after drinking, and then I’d gone and chopped wood too, so I was insanely exhausted.
[100/100]
Still, in the end, I did it with my own power.
Of course, I did ask Rachel to leave only the final blow for me, but the quest was clearly encouraging that kind of loophole in the first place, right?
I waved cheerfully at Adel, who was running toward us from afar with his eyes wide open.
Until yesterday, the trees would have blocked the view.
Thanks to cutting down trees all night, the village now had a nice, open view.
Once the remaining stumps were cleared away, it would be no exaggeration to call it an empty lot.
Maybe because this was an achievement accomplished with nothing but a single axe,
Adel’s jaw dropped.
“H-how did you do this? I’m certain that until yesterday, you even struggled to cut down a single tree.”
“Well, I got better as I did it.”
I answered with a shrug.
Adel, astonished, raised his thumb.
“As expected, you possess talent worthy of the Empire’s Greatest Sword.”
“My brother is good at everything!”
“At this point, it would not be an exaggeration to call you the Empire’s Greatest Barbarian.”
“He’s the greatest in the Empire in every field!”
The two of them busied themselves praising me while I stood there in silence.
Embarrassed for no reason, I waved my hand.
“It’s nothing special. If you guys work hard too, there’s nothing you can’t do.”
Seeing them acknowledge it like this made all the suffering feel worthwhile.
Though, in truth, Rachel was the one who had suffered, but a familiar’s achievements originally belonged to the summoner.
“So, the reward?”
“Ah, of course I must give it to you.”
Adel slipped a jade ring from his finger.
“Here is the reward I promised.”
I received a secondhand ring with no particular patterns and no gemstones set into it.
This must be the Woodcutter’s Ring.
I had no idea why a ring worn by a former executor had a name like this.
Well, since his ban on holding side jobs must have been lifted, maybe he had made his second job advancement into a woodcutter.
Thinking that, I looked down at the ring in my hand.
As I said earlier, its appearance was extremely ordinary.
But this was an item I’d received for clearing a hidden stage.
It had to possess some incredible ability.
Checking an item’s information was simple.
I just had to shout “Information” inwardly.
==========
【Woodcutter’s Ring】
【Grade: U】
【Description: A ring worn by Zerp Garion, who rose to the rank of count with a single axe. It seems it can be used in place of an identification card in the Eden Empire.】
【Skills】
▶ Wood of Ten Fells (十伐之木): Any tree can be cut down by attacking it 10 times with an axe.
▶ Skilled Axe Work: Increases proficiency with axe-type weapons.
==========
Wow, holy shit.
It’s a first-floor reward, and it’s Unique grade?
Unique was the highest grade known so far.
It was known to drop at an extremely low probability after clearing a hard boss.
Since so many people wanted one, they said it would sell for at least tens of billions if put up at auction.
And I’d just obtained one.
Though its abilities didn’t look all that great,
selling just this one thing would probably let me live the rest of my life in idleness.
…But for some reason, I didn’t want to.
That strange feeling I’d felt yesterday.
It had felt like I’d recovered some lost memory.
Though what remained now was only the residue of emotion, I wanted to feel that sensation again.
To do that, I had no choice but to climb the tower, so I put on the ring.
“It’s a wonderful ring.”
The ring fit perfectly on my index finger.
Although I’d lost the chance to make a fortune, I didn’t feel regretful at all.
Because…
There was still a reward left.
Yes, there was still one more reward I was supposed to receive.
An item I’d never heard of before called Fragments of Time. And there were even five of them.
If I sold just one, maybe I’d be able to break even.
Holding onto that expectation, I reached my hand out toward Adel again.
After tilting his head for a moment, he soon smiled brightly and offered me a handshake.
“Then, if I have another task to ask of you next time, I shall request your help again.”
“…That’s it? You don’t have anything else to give me?”
“Pardon? I’m certain I have given you all the rewards I promised.”
Adel shamelessly tilted his head and pretended not to know.
At least, that was how it looked to me.
“If you’re going to act like that, then I have no choice but to test the performance of this ring.”
“Pardon? W-why are you suddenly raising your axe?”
“You tried to pocket my item. You’re prepared, right?”
“What do you mean? Pocket your item? I can state with certainty that I have never done such a thing.”
For someone saying that, he seemed to have a guilty conscience, as he was backing away.
I grinned and was about to raise the axe.
But looking again, Adel was standing still in that spot.
The one moving was me. More precisely, my field of vision.
Beyond my sight, which was growing distant as though zooming out, cracks began to form in the world.
The falling leaves, the felled trees, and the three people among them.
They were all stopped there, fragmented like a single landscape.
The only thing moving was me.
Blink.
The moment I closed and opened my eyes, my body had somehow arrived in a place pitch-black on all sides.
That place seemed like outer space, like a darkroom, and also like a world within death.
The only things emitting light here were the fragments floating in midair.
I picked up one of them and observed it.
It looked just like a puzzle piece.
Meaning I couldn’t tell the shape of the completed whole from just one piece.
As soon as I relaxed my grip, the fragment floated back into the air.
It swam into a rectangular frame that I had no idea how long had been hanging there.
Inside the already completed landscape painting were the three people from earlier.
The finishing touch.
A masterpiece.
A single fragment dug into the space that had appeared between them.
The completed picture looked strange.
A moment ago, I had definitely been holding an axe, and Adel had been panicking as he tried to run away.
But now, those three were smiling so brightly.
What in the world happened?
Just as my thoughts were about to continue flowing,
Ppa-bam!
With the sound of a fanfare, letters appeared before my eyes.
==========
【Hidden Stage 1. The Birth of Adel Village】
【Clear Grade: SSS】
【Contributor: Seo Uri】
【You, who were clumsy with an axe, accomplished an unbelievable miracle by cutting down one hundred trees in just a single day. Thanks to that, they will welcome a warm winter and remember you.】
【You have acquired the title “Village Hero.”】
- The base favorability of Adel Village residents increases.
==========
Dense lines of text descended from top to bottom like ending credits.
Even if I wanted to see the picture, my view was blocked and I couldn’t.
Shraaak!
A curtain was even drawn across it.
This somehow made me feel like Nero.
If I could see that picture one more time, I felt like I might understand something….
The moment I unconsciously reached toward the curtain,
as though telling me to take this and get lost, purple ore fragments fell from the sky.
【You have acquired Fragment of Time X5.】
A window of a different color appeared as if a blue screen had popped up, covering my vision.
=========
【Fragment of Time】
【Grade: ???】
【Description: Fragments of time that have broken away from a dimension. Each fragment contains one million years of time.】
【Effect: Upon use, reduces the cooldown of a selected skill by one million years.】
=========
【Absorbing the Fragments of Time in your possession.】
【Using 5 Fragments of Time on the skill “Late Bloomer-type.”】
▶The cooldown of Late Bloomer-type decreases by 5 million years.
▶Remaining duration: 494,999,997 years and 363 days
I hadn’t even thought about using them, but they’d been used on their own.
My curiosity about the painting disappeared, and rage surged up.
‘No, what difference does 500 million years or 495 million years make for you to use them here!’
It felt so wasteful I was about to go insane, and tears sprang to my eyes.
When I thought about how a potion that reduced cooldown by one hour cost 100 million per bottle, the back of my head throbbed even more.
Maybe it was because of the stress, but my vision went black from the headache.
“……ther. Brother! Are you conscious?”
A short while later, when I came to, I had arrived in the clearing where I first faced the goblin.
The things I’d seen earlier were gone, and all I could see was Rachel’s face looking down at me with worry.
Judging by the softness behind my head, it seemed I had been lying with my head on her lap.
“…How long was I like this?”
“B-Brother. Huaaang!”
As soon as our eyes met, Rachel burst into tears and hugged me.
Her heavy chest pressed down on my face.
“I thought I might never see you again… sniff….”
“…Mmph!”
“I really missed you so much! Uwaaang!”
It took quite some time for her, now sobbing, to calm down.
And I heard later that the time I’d been unconscious was only about ten minutes.
***
“Mmnya, Brother. Don’t leave me.”
Rachel hugged me while talking in her sleep.
It seemed she had fallen asleep now that the tension had eased.
It felt awkward to go outside like this, so I remained in the tower and assessed the situation.
Right, it was all a dream.
The Fragments of Time should definitely still be with me…
▶Remaining duration: 494,999,997 years and 363 days
It wasn’t a dream.
The title I’d received and the reduced time were all still the same.
Ah, the back of my head hurts.
Even if I considered the ring a reasonable investment, this was like foolishly pouring money into a stock scheduled for delisting.
“…No, this is seriously driving me crazy.”
After cursing for a long while, I eventually let out a sigh.
Right, there’s nothing I can do.
Regretting something that had already happened wouldn’t change anything.
‘The Late Bloomer-type cooldown went down by a whole 1%. Nice.’
Forcing myself to cheer up, I got to my feet.
“…Ngh!”
Rachel woke up because I accidentally stepped on her foot.
She could have looked resentful, but as soon as she saw me, she smiled brightly.
‘I was originally planning to be satisfied with the 10th floor.’
After going through all that, I wanted to understand the secrets hidden in the tower.
If I kept climbing the tower, I would probably learn something.
“Rachel, can you clear the tower all the way to the end? It’ll probably be about a hundred times more dangerous than when you cleared it.”
“Pardon? I can’t say for certain, but I’ll do my best. If it’s to protect you, Brother, I can throw away my life.”
Rachel steeled herself with firm resolve.
I had already seen more than enough of her strength yesterday, and she was favorable enough toward me to ask me to marry her.
But as we climbed the tower, situations would surely arise that Rachel couldn’t handle alone.
The tower I would be climbing was Hell difficulty. It was harder than the tower the Hero had climbed.
Only now did I feel like I understood why the other-dimensional me had made so many contracts.
He must have known that clearing the tower alone was impossible.
‘I should try to find a way to raise my skill level.’
After deciding on my next goal, we exited the tower.
At the same time, a message appeared before people’s eyes.
『This is a general notice.』
『Someone has completed the hidden stage on the 1st floor.』
『The 1st floor will change permanently.』