Leave a comment

In the past… maybe six years ago, I once asked Ayumu, who was at that time constantly playing video games, the following question:

“Hey, tell me… Why do you keep goin’ through the same place over and over again? Sure, there are rare drops, but… from how it looks, you already got everythin’ to fully clear the game… At your level, you can probably even beat the secret boss.”

With an enraptured expression on his face, he replied to my question.

“My plan is to reach the level cap here. Wouldn’t it be awesome… if I can kill even the secret boss in a single hit? Besides, finding a method to keep leveling up… this feels exciting, you see.”

At the time, I couldn’t understand him.

In the end, Ayumu went through that dungeon more than 1000 times and defeated thousands of monsters. I simply couldn’t comprehend the source of his joy and tenacity.

Now, however, I did. I did, but… I still was no match for him.

____
__
_

“Master, this was the 14th time we used Reincarnation!”

Rir and I were taking a break. It was the third night since we discovered the dungeon, and all we had left to do was taking care of our stats before going to sleep.

“Woof… woof~… The number next to the level… went up again¹…”
“Yep, it sure did.”

We had gone through the dungeon more than 140 times. If this was a game… it probably wouldn’t be much of an issue, but, unfortunately, this was reality. It was tough.

Besides, once we went home, we’d have so much stuff to sell, we could live without ever doing any work for generations to come.

“Rir… Tomorrow… let’s finish it up. Once we’re awake, we’ll go and defeat the dungeon’s true boss.”
“Yeah… let’s do that.”

Ever since reincarnating for the fifth time, Rir and I had almost never opened our status screens, except to press the Reincarnation button. Taking care of our stats each time was a huge bother.

Still… It was now time to do that.

I had created eight SS-Rank skills, while Rir made three. We sure had to rack our brains during skill synthesis… It also was a lot of fun, but we gradually got to the point where we had nothing to use our SKP and magic cores on…

Rir and I opened our status screens.

I probably didn’t need to say it again. It was clear as day that we’d become powerful.
We shouldn’t allocate any more SKP since we were still in a crisis situation. So, we’ll only use our STP.

“Rir, let’s only invest STP and then go to sleep already.”
“Alright!”

Though even saying that… I’ve already mostly decided on the allocation. I have 855’000 points, so let’s put 270’000 each into A, W, and S… Nah, make that 200’000 each in A and W, and then 400’000 for S.

Of the remaining 55’000, I allocated 45’000 to C, 5000 to MP and 5000 to HP.

Rir had 171’000 points, of which she put 50’000 each into A and S. Then 11’000 into MP, 25’000 into C and W each, and 5000 into D and HP. She put some points into W, since her axe summon apparently relied on it⁵, and since she had also learned all the basic magic skills.

“Alright, let’s go to sleep.”
“Phew… Yeah, let’s…”

Rir and I lay down next to each other.
To be honest, I’m still not used to that… But it makes Rir happy, so it’s fine, I guess.

____
___
__

It was the next morning, and both Rir and I were up.

“Once we’ve eaten breakfast… we’ll fight the boss,” I announced.
“Alright!”

We ate the extremely delicious soup and then got ready. Though there wasn’t much to do other than tidying up.

“Then, I’ll go get a key box! Rir, you can wait in another room.”
“Woof!”

I melted the floor in the center of the room and descended into the hole.
I’ve gone down there more than 140 times. This’ll also come to an end now.

I arrived at the orange orb I had seen way too many times, and, after a bit of thinking decided to shoot a… Water Ball at it.
If I don’t hold back like that, I won’t be able to hit legend level and miss out on that key box.

Great, managed to get it.

I went to the large gate, where Rir was already waiting.

“Woof! Let’s go all out, Master!”
“Even if we don’t, I get the feelin’ we’ll manage somehow…”
“That’s for sure.”

I held out the key box towards the door. Maybe in reaction to that, the gate, which had opened after clearing all the other rooms, closed again. Finally, the gem at the gate’s center lit up… and, while emitting magic power that was on a different level than before, the doorway opened again.

Without any hesitation, Rir and I entered what lay beyond…

Athor’s note:
Stats of Shuu and Rir at the end of the chapter:

For comparison, these were Alim’s stats on his final status screen:

TL notes:
And this is it for Shuu’s and Rir’s leveling adventure (at least for now). There won’t be any more stat screens for them, and next time they’ll finally be facing the boss (who at this point is probably as threatening as an ant).

Also, 8 SS-Rank skills and not a single one with sub-rank 21? Shame on you, Shuu.

1. This might also just be “The level… went up…”. It might imply that even she’s tired of all the dungeon crawling at this point.
2. The original is 巨炎神剣ムースペル. ムースペル is likely from ムスペルヘイム (Muspelheimr), the realm of fire from Norse mythology. It is the home of the fire giants and ruled over by Surtr, the largest among them. Yes, this is literally Surtr’s sword, I’m sure this won’t cause any issues in the future.
3. The original is ウェルカーナリア (werukaanaria). It’s about creation, so the first part might be the German “Werk” (“work” or “factory” in English). No clue about the second part, at least it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with Norse Mythology.
4. The original is 魔闇地這斧ヨルムンガンド. Jörmungandr is another name for the world serpent from Norse mythology.
   The other part might also be something like “Dark Earth Creeping Demon Axe”, it’s such a jumble of kanji that I have no clue what it’s really supposed to mean.
5. Called it.
6. Going for a glass-cannon build, I see.