Read Novel Full Chapter 160
Chapter 160
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TL: ALT
Chapter 160 – This Time’s Reward
“A reward?”
“Yes. I could consider your wishes, but it seems that this time, it’s almost decided.”
“What do you mean?”
“You still don’t seem to have noticed. Why don’t you take a look at your status?”
“Eh…?”
I was confused when he suddenly said that, but there was no need to go against him.
“Status open.”
Status──────────────────
Kurashiki Yuto (Domestic/ERROR! The information at the reference location is inconsistent/ Level Ranking 4)
/ERROR! This is a non-existent item/ Hero A/Demon King S/Magic Swordsman S/Usurper S/Dungeon Master S
Level 1/ERROR! Refers to the level with the higher stat/
HP 190.591/190.591/ERROR! This is defined twice/
MP 824,074/824,074/ERROR! This is defined twice/
Attack Power 472.488
Defense 102.377
Magic Power 1.782.714
Mental Strength 397.264
Agility 2.497.264
Luck 1,106,815
/ERROR! The following ability stats do not exist/
STR???
VIT???
INT???
MND???
DEX???
AGI???
LCK???
Unique Skills
Escape S.Lv3
Acquired Skills
Skill Combo 5, Reappraisal, Archive, Split 1
Equipment
(None)
────────────────────
“Whoa!
It’s full of errors!
“That’s a problem, but did you look at the job? Only the Hero is fine.”
“A-ah…”
I opened the Hero’s job status as I was told.
Job────────────────────
Hero Rank A
“All who hate evil, follow me!”
The last hope in a world on the brink of destruction, or perhaps just a clown driven by a false sense of justice…
…(omitted)…
◇Abilities
Overlimit
Explosively increases all the power of a specific job for a very short time.
Unique Skills? Escape Skill──────────────────Escape S.Lv1: Can escape from combat. S.Lv2: Can escape from reality. S.Lv3: Can escape from difficulty.────────────────────/error! The format of the ability definition is incorrect/S.Lv1: “Escape from Combat” usage conditions: Escape the combat area for (30-5×S.Lv) seconds. The range of the combat area is a room with a radius of (10 x S.Lv) meters from the center of the enemy’s starting position. Special notes: If you successfully escape, you will drop your money. The amount you drop is randomly determined within the range of ({50 – 10 x S.Lv} ± 20)% of your money. The amount you drop will never be negative. S.Lv2 “Escape from Reality” usage conditions: You must have a strong desire to escape reality for (5-S.Lv) seconds. Special notes: In the other space, you can enter using Escape from Reality; you can change the relative speed of the flow of time between reality and the other space at your discretion. The range you can change it by is up to (0-S.Lv) times. If you lose the will to return to reality, you will not be able to leave the alternate space. The longer you use it, the less you will want to return to reality. S.Lv3 “Escape from Difficulty” usage conditions: You must know in your heart that the situation you are in is completely unsolvable. Special notes: When you use “Escape from Difficulty” to travel back in time, the causal relationships that belong to you will remain in their most recent state. However, since the recognition of cause and effect is a heavy burden on the human soul, if you spend too much time going back through your cause and effect, your own cause and effect will wear away. Also, you cannot go back through your cause and effect to a point that has no direct relationship to the “difficulty” you have recognized. It is possible to escape the same difficulty over and over again, but each time you do so, you will develop a habit of losing to your soul, and your sense of self-affirmation will be damaged in the long run. Ability value compensation: The owner of “Escape” always receives the following compensation for each ability stat. HP -20% Attack Power -50% Defense -60% Mental Strength +20% Agility +200% Luck +400%].
◇Support Ability
/Error! You have not learned any abilities.
◇Unique Bonus
……
You have not yet learned the special line of magic bestowed by supernatural beings. You do not meet the definition of the “Hero” job.
……
────────────────────
“What the hell is this?”
The second ability slot for the Hero is filled with “Escape”?
“As you’ve noticed, you don’t need to go to the skill library in the skill world to use your unique skill. Your unique skill is inside you. However, in order to use skills in the job world, where the skill system doesn’t exist, it was necessary to make a kind of system-based compromise. In other words, they were forced into a place similar to the concept of unique skills.”
“I-I see.”
“Fortunately, your Hero still had an ability slot left.”
“Speaking of which, why is the Hero missing an ability slot? The Demon King had two to begin with.”
Normally, each job has only one ability slot, but the Hero and the Demon King have two.
The Demon King has Form Change and Invincible Barrier β.
The reason the support ability slot is empty is probably because of the unique bonus: “You have not yet learned a special type of magic bestowed by a supernatural being.”
I thought the second ability slot was empty for the same reason, but now that I see it’s filled, there seems to be another reason.
Splefnir smiles at my question.
“That’s an interesting point. When I gave you the trial, I made you forget your unique ability. I also made you forget your memories in the skill world, but I decided to make you forget your unique skill even more thoroughly.”
“Why go to such lengths…”
“Of course, this is your identity. The young man who set out to find the bluebird overcame many hardships along the way, but he still couldn’t find the bluebird. That’s because the bluebird was within you.”
“That is a very common story.”
“It’s just because it’s so common that it’s good. Whether or not you can regain your own identity in the midst of hardship… there is nothing more appropriate for forging the soul. It’s a universal theme that’s been played out in different ways, in different places, throughout the ages, throughout the world.”
“How does this story relate to a Hero’s abilities?”
“Oh, that’s right. I’ve decided to make you forget about Escape, but that alone may not be enough to make you remember. That’s why I decided to bind not only your unique Escape skill but also the word escape itself―and even the very idea of escape.”
“Thanks to that, I had a lot of trouble…”
Is that why I sometimes get headaches?
“However, there was an unexpected side effect. That’s the Hero’s ability, isn’t it? You might notice it if I say so much… but… what do you think?”
Splefnir says mischievously.
“Well…”
One thing that bothered me was the error in the Hero’s job description.
In the job world, it was displayed like this.
Job──────────────────
◇Abilities
Overlimit
Explosively increases all abilities of a specific job for a very short time.
/Error! The format of the ability definition is incorrect.
◇Support Abilities
/Error! The ability was not learned.
────────────────────
Why are the error messages for the second ability and the support ability different?
If it’s the same type of error, the wording should be the same.
“The format of the ability definition is incorrect… In other words, the second slot is not empty, but there is already a ‘definition’ with a different format, right?”
“Yes, yes, so what?”
“Right now, Escape has been forced into the second slot. It’s natural to think that the ‘definition’ with the wrong format is also Escape.”
Of course, there is a possibility that there was something other than Escape.
But before we make such a complex assumption, we should first consider it in a straightforward way.
“I think that’s a good deduction.”
“…But the place where the unique skill Escape would go could have been in the ability slot of another job. Even for the same job, there are individual differences in skills.”
Even for basic jobs like Swordsman or Magician, it seems that you can still find undiscovered abilities.
In that sense, you could say that abilities are the closest thing to unique skills in the skill world within the job world.
In my job… well, let’s see.
It wouldn’t have been so strange if Escape had been one of the abilities around Usurper.
“Still, why did it have to be the Hero?”
If I can think of this question, I can think of the answer.
“My Hero’s second ability slot was Escape.”
Not a unique skill but an ability.
“The performance of the unique skill Escape and the Hero’s ability Escape must have been similar enough for the system to treat them the same. The job world system mistook my unique skill for a Hero ability.”
Levels, HP, and MP, are also integrated into a single status.
The systems of the two worlds are very different, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t similarities.
As part of the complex processing that converts skills into unique bonuses and groups them together as job skills and abilities, it wouldn’t be surprising to see unique skills replaced by similar specific abilities.
“That’s a good answer. As expected.”
Splefnir nodded with a broad smile.
“I guess it also had something to do with the fact that I forgot how to use Escape.”
Just as skills in the skill world require a skill library, abilities in the job world probably require a similar library.
The Hero’s Escape, which is in an error state, was unable to reference the ability library (tentative).
Could this be the cause of the bug?
I don’t know if Hero’s Escape became usable because I remembered my unique skill, Escape, or if the ability column was updated due to a bug when I used Escape as a unique skill instead of a Hero ability.
“I never thought the Hero ability would be Escape.”
“Isn’t that appropriate? I think in your world, heroes sometimes fight and sometimes escape, don’t you?”
“I don’t know. I think in most RPGs, you just defeat the enemies you encounter and move on.
Even if you play a game with a fixed play style, you usually don’t examine the enemies in a normal play style.
If the game is balanced so that you have to run from strong enemies, most players will get frustrated.
If your party gets half-destroyed by the weak enemies along the way and you have to run, there are probably a lot of people who will restart from the save point.
“If you don’t have the guts, you can’t escape. Fighting is kind of easy. Even if you die, people will think you fought well. You don’t have to worry about shame after death. Some people think it’s better to die in vain than to live in shame.”
“Maybe so.
“A hero has to defeat the demon king, so he can’t die before defeating the demon king. Sometimes, the only way to do that is to escape. Escape, escape… as long as you win in the end, that’s all that matters. You can’t defeat the demon king if you don’t survive first. So it seems that being a hero isn’t just about fighting bravely.”
“I’m also the Demon King.”
I don’t think I’m suited for both roles to begin with.
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