After that day, the amount of time I spent at the lodging decreased noticeably.
No, the amount of time I spent inside the castle itself decreased.
I was living outside almost twenty-four hours a day.
It was to throw myself into the most extreme situations possible.
For the first two weeks, I lived in the Demon Realm.
Honestly, looking back on it now, I have no idea what I was thinking, doing something so reckless.
A guy who had never even lasted a week in the Demon Realm was saying he would stay there for two whole weeks on his very first attempt.
As it happened, the guard writing up the entry and exit record was James, the same guy who had been in charge when I returned to Rotten from Tusnis through the Demon Realm before,
and maybe he thought it was as reckless as I do now, because he tried desperately to stop me before finally giving up.
After all sorts of twists and turns, I received permission to go to the Demon Realm,
and I never once returned to the lodging midway.
I spent fourteen days straight in a place with no drinking water and no food.
Of course, I did bring emergency rations and water with me.
I was doing this to train myself, not to kill myself.
There was no harm in preparing for the worst.
Though somehow, later on, the water and food I brought ended up becoming another trial that tested my patience…
Anyway, that was how it went.
There were five goals in total that I wanted to achieve, or improve on, in the Demon Realm.
1. Investigate the plants of the Demon Realm.
2. Investigate unidentified monster species.
3. Strengthen my ability to cope in extreme or crisis situations, improve split-second judgment, and so on. Overall growth in my abilities.
4. Basic stat growth.
5. Increase my aura capacity.
Numbers 1 and 2 were things I could do just by roaming around.
So I set out from the base camp I had made in the Demon Realm to handle those first, but I nearly got into serious trouble after going too far in my investigation.
If I had to pick the most representative common point among the old tales of every nation, it would definitely be, “When night falls, monsters will eat you!”
That story serves to stop children from doing foolish things or wandering around at dangerous times of night,
but it is also simply a fact passed down by our ancestors about the common nature of all monsters.
When night falls, the ferocity, aggression, and activity range of monsters increase explosively.
The Demon Realm in particular had a higher concentration of demonic energy than other places, so there were rumors that wandering around at night there was more suicidal than anywhere else.
If a wise, cautious, and experienced mercenary had heard this, he would probably have spent a day or so from morning until night in a safe place before moving.
But despite my suspiciously good intuition telling me that night was about to fall, I made the rational judgment of, “The sun is still high in the sky, so what’s wrong with me?” and went far too deep on the very first day.
That day, I got to witness the sun, which had been floating there perfectly fine, not slowly descending as the moon rose, but suddenly vanishing from where it was as the moon popped into existence.
“Graaaah!!!! Fuck!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
There I was, using up stamina I should have been conserving while chanting magic spells to deal with the swarms of demon beasts rushing toward me.
Once again, thanks to my suspiciously good intuition, I somehow felt like I knew how to deal with them and managed to cut down all the monsters, but I still think I seriously almost died.
It felt like I had blocked about half a Dungeon Break all by myself.
Thanks to that, it became efficient practical training that took care of goals 3 and 4 at once, but I never wanted to go through anything like that again.
……
“Ha, sh—.”
That was what I intended.
But this damn intuition, this damn feeling, kept insisting that this method was right.
Ever since I woke up on Mount Tusnis, there had been many times when ignoring my intuition led to even worse trouble.
As if the unconscious parts of my brain and body knew something, they kept guiding me toward the correct choice.
‘I’ll trust you just this once. If doing this insane bullshit doesn’t help my skills improve even one bit, I’m quitting right aw—’
—Whoosh.
“Kerrrk!”
“Oink!!!”
“Kik! Kik!”
“Kuoong!!!”
I improved.
From basic physical stats like reflexes and stamina,
to the precision and speed of my swordsmanship.
My adaptability and hand-to-hand combat.
The quantity and quality of my aura, and even how I used it.
In every aspect, I could say with certainty that it would have been impossible to grow this quickly through any other method.
And as an aside, while I kept doing this kind of perverted nonsense, I realized something…
‘Why do I hate monkeys so much?’
I had an almost monkey-hater level of aversion toward monkey-type demon beasts.
No matter how bizarre and fucked up the patterns of other monsters were, I just killed them while thinking, Of course monsters are like this.
But whenever I encountered the ones I had named ghost monkeys, I wanted to wipe them out completely.
‘If you fight them at night, you can’t see them at all, those vicious, cowardly, petty, parentless—’
Whoa, whoa…!
Let’s stop there.
Anyway, two weeks after I continued training in this manner,
with the help of the decision to bring emergency rations and water, which would remain one of the best choices of my life, I was barely able to return to Rotten.
“E… Evan, what the hell happened to you?”
James stared at me in horror, asking what on earth I had done for my appearance to change so much.
I told him it was nothing and that I was tired, so he should just let me through quickly.
“Uh, uh… Got it. Looks like you really do need to go in and rest. I almost thought you were undead and was about to ring the bell, close the gate, and sprinkle holy water on you.”
“What the hell kind of thing is that to say to a living person? Isn’t that too much?”
“Sorry, sorry, hahaha.”
Like the close friends we were, we chatted for a bit, then waved and parted ways with smiles.
As soon as I entered the lodging, I washed up briefly and immediately fell into a deep sleep.
After waking up, I went around the forests near Rotten, beating down monsters.
Sometimes I even subjugated monsters that my former coworkers were supposed to take down,
and I went around saving merchants and all sorts of other people who had fallen into danger.
“Thank you. Thank you.”
“It’s all right. Please get going. Time is money, after all. If you keep going straight for another thirty minutes, you’ll reach Rotten.”
And now.
Today as well, I was repeating my usual routine and roaming the nearby forest.
“Haa… hoo……”
I was sitting on the corpse of a monster I had subjugated, catching my breath for a moment,
—Rustle. Rustle.
when I heard the bushes right in front of me shaking.
—Shk.
I held my breath and drew the iron sword I had used back in my mercenary days.
Ever since I killed the mutated boar, I had not once used the sword I had drawn from Mount Tusnis.
Partly because it was too much of a fine blade… but also because I felt some kind of resistance toward using it.
Anyway, just as my tension was reaching its peak.
…
……
………!
“Ow.”
A young woman popped out from between the bushes.
At first, seeing her brown hair, I thought she was Marie, but she was not.
In the first place, there was no reason for Marie to be here.
Looking closer, her hairstyle was clearly different too.
Marie simply had a bob, but this girl had long straight hair braided in a half-up style.
Looking at her face, she also had freckles across the bridge of her nose.
She was practically the model of a plain country girl.
“Haa…”
—Shrrng. Tap.
I relaxed and sheathed my sword again.
Then I spoke to the girl in as gentle a voice as I could.
“I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to threaten you, but given the location, I was a little tense.”
Of course, even as I said that, I still had not fully let my guard down.
There was a reason people said to be careful of children, women, and the elderly on the battlefield.
Don’t ask why or argue about it.
When it comes to matters involving your life, if the adults say so, it is usually a rule written in blood.
But,
“Hehe… No, it’s all right. It’s my fault for coming out of a place like that!”
when the woman spoke with a bright smile, my tension instantly melted away.
And at the same time,
‘Urgh.’
My head began to hurt unbearably.
It was a level of pain I truly felt for the first time in my life.
A passing,
nonexistent memory.
Hair the color of golden fields, eyes that seemed to contain the blue of an autumn sky.
A woman was walking with her hands behind her back when she suddenly turned around and asked me,
‘Do you like flames?’
***
“Urgh…”
—Shhh. Shhh.
I heard the sound of leaves gently swaying in the wind.
When I struggled to open my eyes, there was a massive shadow above me…
“Huh? You’re awake!”
Ah.
“!!!!!”
I hurriedly pulled away from the woman.
‘Holy shit…’
When I first met her, I had only been looking at her eyes, hands, and feet, saying I would stay wary and assess her,
so I never imagined she had something that enormous attached to her torso.
It was not, like, unbelievably huge! or anything, but it was certainly large enough to make one wonder whether walking around with something like that was inconvenient.
I expressed my gratitude to the woman who had given me a lap pillow while I was unconscious.
“Thank you. You must have had your own plans, yet you stayed by my side.”
At that, the woman waved her hands and replied,
“It’s all right! I wasn’t particularly busy…”
“Then what brought you here…?”
The woman thought for a moment, then said,
“Ah… um… Herbs! I came to gather medicinal herbs!”
She answered that she had come outside the village to pick medicinal herbs.
“Ah… That makes sense. They wouldn’t be near villages or cities. Shall I help you look?”
“I’d be grateful if you did!”
And so, in order to repay the woman who had helped me, I searched for herbs with her.
Thanks to the nature of my occupation as a mercenary, I was able to find medicinal herbs without much difficulty and hand them to her.
“Wow… This many…”
“Is this enough?”
“Yes! More than enough!”
When the woman smiled brightly, I felt my own mood lifting along with hers.
The woman and I walked side by side, returning to Rotten.
She said she had been planning to sell the herbs in Rotten anyway,
so luckily, our destination was the same.
“May I ask your name?”
Normally, I would not have asked such a question.
It was not as if I was crazy about women, and I had never particularly wanted to date anyone in my day-to-day life.
But it was strange.
There was something about this woman that seemed to draw me in.
“Mm…”
The woman hesitated slightly.
No, she was thinking… no, surely not.
“Belle.”
The woman carefully murmured her name.
“Please call me Belle.”
When the woman said that with a hint of shyness, I felt an even stronger sense of déjà vu than before.
In the end, I could not hold back and asked her,
“Have we… met before?”