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“Woof… woof, woof, woof… Awooh~~!”
“Calm down a bit.”

Rir and I had just checked our status screens, where we, to our surprise, found that we reached the level cap. We had gained a total of 9.2 million exp, plus a huge amount of stat- and skillpoints.

“After all, we reached it, Master! A level cap… There is a level cap, an end to leveling up! Hah~… that’s incredible, isn’t it? A level cap…”
“R-Right, that’s true.”

Rir’s excitement from earlier probably still hasn’t settled down, but… she’s way too hyped up. Still, the people of this world bein’ so ignorant about levels. That’s just as incredible, if you ask me.

As for me… I was more shocked by Rir’s extreme reaction.

“Even SSS-Rankers… probably didn’t reach this realm, right? Master, we might just have made history¹…!”
“Maybe… Still, there’s more, y’know? That ‘Reincarnation’ thingy.”

A Reincarnation command had shown up on our status screens. Earlier, a message had suddenly appeared in our minds, informing us about the Apex title and the Reincarnation system.

“This ‘Reincarnation’. I wonder what this is about?” Rir mused.
“Was that a god? The one who sent the explanation?”
“Maybe. Still… it’s a bit frightening. That explanation was all well and good, but…”
“You think so? I don’t think it’ll cause any issues.”

For her, it probably felt scary, since it was unknown territory where her common sense no longer applied. I, on the other hand, constantly encountered things unknown to me, so I could simply think about it in a “Well, that’s probably how it works” manner.

“Well, imma give this Reincarnation a try. What ’bout you, Rir?”
“Woof~… If you use it, Master…! I’m your girlfriend, so I’ll do the same.”

I don’t think her bein’ my girlfriend means she needs to join me in doin’ crazy stuff…

For the time being, we both used Reincarnation.

“Kinda feels like I lost my strength…” I mumbled.
“That’s true.”

It felt as if all the power I had amassed up to this point was pulled out of my body. However, when I checked my stat screen, I still had all my STP and SKP, just as the explanation had said.

“Woof… I’m back at level 1.”
“Same for me… But we still have all the points we gained before.”
“You’re right!”

Afterwards, since we had a bunch of stuff to take care of… and hadn’t rested properly for several days, which obviously meant that we were exhausted, we decided to put off allocating our stats for tomorrow. It’d be better to regain our composure in both mind and body, first.

We just have to do another round to secure a place to sleep.

I also gotta calculate how much STP and SKP you get from level 1 to the cap, before we gain any more exp. Other than that… I should check how much exp a single round of this dungeon gives us. Knowing that’ll be handy when we use Reincarnation again.

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“Master, despite being at level 1, you are so strong…!”

It took some time, but we managed to finish our round without any big issues. Having invested a pile of STP into Spellpower, and God of Fire boosting my firepower helped a lot at that time.

I also learned that a single round resulted in 920’000 experience points. So, it’d take exactly 10 rounds to reach level 255.

Then, I calculated the STP (or SKP since you obtained equal amounts of both) before the new level-ups, by adding up the points I had allocated and those I hadn’t, which gave a total of 95’000. For Rir, it apparently was 19’000.

“Alright… Let’s call it a day. For once, we’ll get some good sleep, with no one having to keep watch.”

Rir and I were getting ready to eat in the room where the iffy-colored version of the Misery Bird… the Disaster Bird² had been.
I’m the one makin’ dinner. It’s almost done already.

“Rir, it’s finished.”
“Woof~!”

Well… not like I have much more than simple spices and fruits for flavoring, so it ain’t that extravagant.

This time, I made roast beef with dragon meat.
Guess that would be called “Roast Dragon”.

Indeed, just as obtaining True Cooking turned Rir into an expert chef, it was the same for me. I got super-skilled at it. To celebrate Rir’s wounds being healed, we also ate bread and vegetables for the first time in several days.

Now, next would’ve been wiping off our bodies, but…

“Master! As a matter of fact, I’ve been crafting a wooden tub we can use as a bath. While you were cooking, I made the final adjustments in the room to the left,” Rir announced, as she pulled out a container, which looked like a barrel-bathtub, from the magic bag with limitless capacity we had obtained earlier.

It’s pretty wide, I can stretch out my legs in there.

“…Isn’t this great?”
“Yep, it’s awesome. You wanna use it first? Since you went through all that trouble.”
“We can go in together… but I guess we’re not at this point, yet…?”
“You’re right, let’s not take things too quickly.”
“You should go in first, then, Master…” she suggested, with her ears flopping down.

You couldn’t see it much when she only had one ear, but ever since she has both of ’em, they show her emotions an awful lot…

I took the wooden bath and went into the room to the right. There, I filled it with Water Magic, and then used a combination of Fire, Wind, and Wood³ Magic to get it to a nice temperature, and make sure it’d stay that way.

Outside, it got pretty cold, so the warmth felt nice. It was great to have a bath again after all this time⁴.

There ain’t any magic beasts around us who’d attack, so I can take my time, can’t I? Luckily, we even have soap.

I got out of the bath and cleaned up the tub by using Fire Magic to evaporate the water and grime. Once I’d filled it with new water, I was done.

“Rir, you can use it, now!”
“Understood, Master.”

We switched places, with Rir entering the arena that had been turned into a bathroom.

By the way, I wonder what we should do with those Momentary Imperceptibility and Great Clairvoyance skills?

The former was an invisibility skill, which made it so that you couldn’t be perceived, seen, or recognized by anyone for a fixed time span (the maximum was 10 seconds).
Feels like it’d fit Rir better than me, so I’ll give it to her later.

Then, there was Great Clairvoyance.
Rir said… she doesn’t want me to use it, didn’t she? Would I use it like that…? Hm~… I 100% wouldn’t, y’know. I dunno, can’t say what’ll happen in the future. My personality might change, so… Guess I’ll let her take it.

As I was entertaining these thoughts and putting our luggage in order, Rir returned.

“The hot water felt nice. Once we’ve brushed our teeth, we can go to sleep.”
“Right, let’s do that.”

We brushed our teeth right away, but once we spread out our sleeping bags…

“Rir… You’re going to sleep right next to me!?”
“Can’t I…? Is it too early for this, too?” she asked me, looking up⁵ from her crouching position from placing down her sleeping bag.

Right… well… guess it can’t be helped…
If I’m not wrong, I have a good sleeping posture.

“A-Alright. Till now, I’ve been playin’ it by feel⁶. My bad… I’m fine with it.”
“Awooh~~!”

For that reason, we ended up sleeping in a manner that came close to using the same bed. It had been one hour since we lay down… and I was still trying to fall asleep, as my girlfriend, the very first I ever had, and who I’d met in another world, was sleeping next to me.

…This is a good thing, ain’t it?
Though somehow… I feel more embarrassed than happy…

TL notes:
And we’re back to Shuu and Rir who, predictably enough, reached the level cap.

The main issue I see with Rir being used to show how an Anazuman native would think, is that her life wasn’t exactly normal, and you’d expect her to have more knowledge gaps than other people (plus a very warped common sense from being a former slave).

This chapter also confirms that Reincarnation is something every person in Anazumu can use. Up to this point, there was the possibility that it was limited to reincarnators or summoned people.

1. Even ignoring cases like Alim, Mika, Kanata, and Sakura, who managed it before them, from what the author wrote in chapter 24, SS-Rank magic beasts give several million exp. SS- and SSS-Rankers kill these often enough to reach the level cap. Of course, it’s possible they consider the drawbacks of reincarnation too big to use it.
2. The original is グレートフォーガ (gureetofooga), likely Greatvogel, meaning “great bird”. I opted to instead translate it as a stronger version of “misery bird”.
3. This confirms that Shuu missing Wood (and Illusion) Magic on his stat screen is an error.
4. Dude, it’s only been two days. Alim managed for 13 days back in Pipi-Forest.
5. The dreaded puppy-dog eyes (from an actual puppy girl).
6. The original is 今までの感覚でいた (“exist by way of feeling up to now”). Thanks to Kemm for explaining what it means.