Monster-Like Intelligence
The weekend was over. The Catel Marquisate had treated me like royalty. They prepared a lavish dinner that practically broke the table legs, and they even handed me a fat pouch of gold coins to use as allowance. My wallet had grown a little thin after spending heavily on crafting materials to clear Amelia Catel, so the timely refill felt perfect. As expected from a wealthy noble family.
After receiving everything there was to receive and hearing all their words of gratitude, Sunday evening arrived. It was time to return to the academy.
“Take care on your way back.”
“Rachel. He is our family’s benefactor. You must treat him with the utmost respect.”
“Yes!”
We had arrived by carriage on the way here because I was broke, but the return trip was via the teleport station. In a flash, we were back at the Imperial Academy.
“Let’s head back now.”
“Okay.”
My chest swelled with excitement at the thought of returning to my dorm. I had nearly four hundred thousand experience points to spend, and my head was spinning with ideas on how to utilize the new legendary-grade divine artifact I’d obtained. Yet the muscle-brained girl beside me simply followed along with a bright, sunny smile.
“What are you doing?”
Rachel was trying to follow me all the way into my dorm room. I turned to her in surprise.
“You’re just a friend, right?”
“Then?”
“You’re my very best friend!!!!”
Right. I’d forgotten about you for a moment. Even though I never wanted it, the capture had somehow happened on its own, hadn’t it? Her favorability had exceeded the maximum and entered some kind of obsession state.
‘If only I had experience capturing heroines. What the hell does an obsession state even mean…?’
As I’ve said before, I wasn’t particularly fond of 19+ mindless sex scenes or heroine capture routes. So I had absolutely no idea what kind of state this was. Roughly speaking, did it mean she liked me a ridiculous amount?
“For now, I need to go into my room, practice some things, and figure out what classes I have tomorrow. So go back. I’m going to shower.”
“I’ll wash you.”
“No. I can shower by myself just fine. So……”
At those words, Rachel seriously grabbed my hand.
“I want to wash you. When Mom washed me, it felt really good. I want to wash you too.”
This was driving me crazy. It wasn’t exactly unpleasant to have a beautiful girl saying things like this. But as you can see, the Evil Dragons were preparing for their revival, and the Evil Dragon Cult bastards were running around like frantic wild boars with their feet on fire, causing all sorts of trouble. I didn’t have time for this.
“No. It’s fine, Rachel. I want to be alone. So please stop bothering me.”
I spoke clearly, intending to be firm. The moment I did, Rachel’s face crumpled as if she’d been struck by sudden terror, and she began to sob.
“You…… hate me?”
“No, it’s not that I hate you……”
“Don’t hate me. Let me stay with you. Please.”
She blurted the words out desperately.
“I-I’ll even clean your room if you want.”
“Are you good at cleaning?”
“The maids at the estate told me never to touch cleaning again.”
“………”
“B-but I’ll learn and clean for you! I’ll cook too!!”
“Are you good at cooking?”
“I like meat the most. I’ll bring meat and grill it for you.”
Just hearing that made me worry about what kind of disaster she might cause. Rachel noticed my growing irritation and suddenly dropped to her knees with a thud. A few seventh-year students who had been heading back to their dorms stared at us in shock. It seemed this was the first time they’d seen the usually expressionless, doll-like Rachel break down and beg like this.
“Please don’t abandon me!!! Let me stay with you!!! I like you!!! Let me stay with you!!”
No!! Saying it like that makes me sound like a total scumbag!!!
Rachel refused to be separated from me. She was whining like a puppy with separation anxiety. So this was the legendary regret-inducing, miserable, obsessive state. Though it felt a bit weird that the entire buildup had been skipped and we’d jumped straight into yandere mode.
But this muscle-brained girl was clinging desperately to my pants leg. It didn’t seem like I could shake her off. And honestly, I didn’t dislike Rachel. She was a bit eccentric and seemed to have a few screws loose, but her heart was kind, and what guy would turn down a girl this pretty who said she liked him?
Besides, with the Catel Marquisate now acting as my guardian, I couldn’t just keep pushing away their daughter because she was annoying. My rotten-player brain began spinning at full speed.
Since things had come to this, I might as well make use of my current relationship with Rachel. Soon enough, a pretty good idea came to mind.
“Come inside for now.”
I led Rachel, who was still kneeling and clutching my pants, into the room. Then I gently stroked her head as she darted her eyes around nervously, afraid I might abandon her.
“From now on, don’t kneel in front of other people like that. Understand? Protect your pride.”
“I’m more scared of being apart from you than losing my pride.”
“I’m not leaving. I’m not leaving, but I still need my own personal space. Rachel, we can’t always be together. You can understand that, right?”
Rachel nodded gloomily at my words.
“I understand.”
“Good girl. Thank you for understanding.”
Her gloomy expression brightened instantly at the praise. Was she a dog or a cat? The line was getting blurrier by the minute.
“Instead, let’s find things we can do together. How about taking classes together and sparring with me in the training room?”
“Sparring?”
That’s right. Practicing skills against training dummies in the training room wasn’t bad, but since Rachel was going to follow me around anyway, using her as a sparring partner to train my skills and sharpen my combat sense seemed like an even better choice.
Rachel would grow stronger through fighting, and I could raise my skill proficiency much faster. It was a win-win situation. Rachel would continue to be my reliable ally.
Up until now, I had preferred playing solo without making any allies, smashing through every event alone. But this was a new difficulty, and a single mistake could mean permanent death. Having allies as insurance didn’t seem like a bad idea.
“Yeah. It means we’ll grow together by testing our martial skills and combat abilities without trying to kill each other. How’s that sound?”
As expected, humans feel happiest when they have something to do together. Rachel beamed at my suggestion.
“I love it!!!”
“Good. Then let’s do that.”
“Let’s eat together too!!”
“Sure, sure. Let’s do that, Rachel.”
“Let’s go on walks and to festivals together!!”
“Alright. I got it. Let’s do that.”
“Let’s sleep together too!!”
Um. That suddenly took a weird turn?
“No. That one’s a bit difficult.”
“Why?”
“We’re not lovers. Sleeping together would be a little strange.”
“Then let’s be lovers.”
My head was starting to hurt. I tried explaining multiple times why we couldn’t sleep together, but Rachel just wouldn’t get it. She was completely stubborn.
“I’ll wash you! Let’s sleep together!! Let’s bathe together and sleep together!!”
She was so stubborn that I had to desperately persuade her. After a long negotiation, I finally had to compromise.
“……Fine. We can sleep together only on weekends. But bathroom and bathing are separate. Got it?”
“Yes!!!”
Marquis Catel. I’m sorry. I couldn’t stop her. I can’t exactly push your daughter away, can I?
Still, the silver lining was that she didn’t seem to see me in a sexual way. It felt more like she viewed me as some kind of beloved stuffed doll.
After barely finishing negotiations with her, I sent Rachel back to her dorm with the promise that we’d only sleep together on weekends starting next week. She looked quite disappointed, but what could I do? I also needed to level up and practice with my newly acquired divine artifact.
◈ Type: Whip Sword
◈ Minimum Requirements: Strength 100, Agility 400, Technique 1200
◈ A whip sword once used by an unknown swordsman. Having drunk the vengeful blood of countless humans, its blade glows crimson and its tip is saturated with endlessly rising poison.
◈ Properties: Critical damage x5 on vital strikes. Inflicts poison after landing 3 or more hits on an enemy.
“This is the best.”
A sword that could never be obtained in hardcore difficulty or below under normal circumstances. It was the kind of weapon you could only briefly use during the final boss fight of the Evil Dragon event as a special reward. To think I could carry it with me at all times.
If the Iron Lion's Greatsword was a weapon specialized in overwhelming single-hit damage that pierced through defenses, then this was a weapon specialized in one-versus-many and assassination. And as a whip sword, it was also the fastest among all weapon types.
The Iron Lion's Greatsword for defense and one-shot nuking. The Blood Thread's Poison Fang for dealing with mobs or assassinations. Perfect division of roles.
I tested ejecting the blade stored inside the hilt. The red blade shot out like a bullet. I extended it to its maximum length and examined it.
“The maximum length is about seven meters.”
It was an incredibly long blade. Normal whip swords weren’t this long. Because whip swords were meant to be swung like whips, making them the same length as regular swords drastically reduced their power. They were usually made between 1.5 to 2 meters. The longer the blade, the more exponentially its power and speed increased, but controlling it became extremely difficult. That was why a reasonable compromise had been made at that length.
But this weapon had gone all-in at seven meters. There was a reason the minimum technique stat requirement exceeded one thousand. It showed just how monstrous Amelia Catel must have been to wield this thing freely.
However, I could handle this weapon far more freely than even she could. Even though the character Asbel had zero technique stat, there was no problem at all.
“The reason whip swords are hard to handle is because when you swing them by hand, you have to control that flimsy, cloth-like blade at maximum speed, right?”
The whip sword rapidly retracted into the hilt according to my control, then shot out again at blinding speed. It flew forward, then suddenly bent at ninety degrees, one hundred eighty degrees, changing direction three or four times. It even bent at physically impossible angles when retracting and extending. It moved through the air like a living snake, completely free.
Of course, if you tried to swing it by hand, such movements would be physically impossible. Even Amelia Catel probably couldn’t have utilized the whip sword’s characteristics to two hundred percent like this.
This was precisely why the Contractor of Divine Artifacts and whip swords were said to have perfect compatibility.
“That’s more than enough.”
After spending nearly thirty minutes testing the whip sword and confirming that all the techniques I’d practiced worked, I smiled and ended the training.
I had acquired two weapon skills good for the early game—spear and greatsword. Originally I had planned to get a skill specialized in curved swords for slashing, but since the Rachel event had given me the Blood Thread's Poison Fang, it was time to revise the plan.
“I should take a class on whip swords. If nothing else, I need to obtain Sonic Sword, the signature skill of the whip sword tree.”
A skill that used the relatively long length and flexible bending property to swing the tip like a whip at speeds exceeding the speed of sound. The difference between having this skill and not having it was enormous.
“Alright, that’s settled. And then……”
I opened my status window and looked at the four hundred thousand points I hadn’t used yet.
“Originally I would have invested in mana. Greatswords and straight swords consume quite a bit of mana to wield.”
But now that I had a whip sword instead, things had changed. Precision control was extremely important for whip swords. In that case, investing in the stat that helped with precise control—intelligence—was the right choice.
All points invested into Intelligence.
Intelligence stat has grown to 231!
“Considering that the average intelligence stat for students in the academy’s magic department is just over one hundred fifty, this is an incredible number for a knight.”
I had obtained a monster-like intelligence stat for a knight.