Cutting Off NTR Before It Starts 3
Job: Swordsman (Lv. 1).
After I’d swung the sword thousands of times with the exact same stance, the Swordsman job finally opened up.
This is harder than I expected.
Normally, it supposedly took more than a year’s worth of experience to raise a job by one level.
That time could be shortened if you had a great mentor or exceptional talent, but unfortunately I had neither.
If I hadn’t known the little shortcut for leveling jobs faster, it would have taken me several more years to open this one from scratch.
Come to think of it, Ian’s job level is high for his age.
“Hunter (Lv. 10)”
“You can use the skill Search.”
“Your senses sharpen.”
“Senses +10, Mind +10”
He’s twenty-five years old and has ten years of experience? Just what the hell kind of brutal life has he lived?
When a job level reached 10, you learned a skill, and by that point you were classified as a master in your field.
In other words, Ian had become a master at the tender age of twenty-five.
“That’s actually kind of admirable.”
As practice, I tried using a hunter’s skill for the first time, and suddenly I could perceive the beings within a radius around me, centered on myself, inside my head.
No wonder hunter was considered a specialized profession.
Reyna
Human female
Human female
Human female
Is the range about ten meters per point of mana? It’s not much different from the game.
If I had to find a difference, using the skill gave me a pretty nasty headache.
I’ll get used to it if I keep at it.
After killing time with that little diversion, I started swinging my sword again.
At the very least, I planned to reach Swordsman (Lv. 2) tonight.
I’ll need at least level 3 to be safe.
To obtain Great Root Herb, I had to wipe out a goblin pack.
Goblins might have been the weakest monsters, but in this world, letting your guard down could still get you killed in an instant.
It wouldn’t hurt to get used to the sword before I had to face them for real.
This is damn exhausting.
Of course, the whole process was grueling and tiring, but I endured it without complaint.
This is a one-coin game. I have to prepare thoroughly and work like hell.
I couldn’t forget that.
Ian might be the protagonist, but he was an NTR protagonist.
I couldn’t put him on the same level as those other leads who got covered head to toe in lucky breaks and miracle encounters.
Maybe he’s even more miserable than a supporting character.
I had to assume there would be no unexpected good fortune for me.
So I had to harden my heart.
Otherwise, everything would be taken from me.
Job: Swordsman (Lv. 2).
Job: Swordsman (Lv. 3).
Job: Swordsman (Lv. 4).
“Huh?”
But the job was growing much faster than I’d expected.
“Am I maybe a genius?”
. . .
Job: Swordsman (Lv. 5)
— Understanding of swordsmanship has increased.
— Agility +5, Senses +5
That was the job level I reached after swinging a sword for an entire half-day.
“Wow—five years’ worth of experience crushed in just six hours!”
There was no other way to describe it than genius-level brilliance, and at this rate I could honestly be compared to a hero.
But unfortunately, I wasn’t a genius, and this body belonged to Ian to begin with.
Then why?
I came up with two hypotheses right away.
One was that Ian had actually been a genius from the start.
If I’d possessed a genius body, then it wouldn’t be strange for me to achieve genius-level results as well.
But he doesn’t exactly feel like a genius.
I’d never sensed any especially genius-like intuition, and even in the game Ian never showed anything that made him stand out as one.
Of course, since he was still an NTR protagonist, he did have moments of competence in the game, but those were simply the result of Ian’s painstaking effort paying off.
That pushed the other hypothesis to the forefront.
Ian already had swordsmanship above the level of a level 5 Swordsman.
If you were a hunter, you were supposed to know how to handle both a sword and a bow.
Ian was an exceptional hunter, so his swordsmanship had probably been top-notch as well.
It was just that, like me, he couldn’t open a job, so he couldn’t raise the job level; his skill had simply been accumulating all that time.
And after I possessed him and opened the job, the level grew rapidly to match Ian’s original standard.
That’s the most plausible explanation.
My eyes moved to the bow.
Ian’s archery in The Circumstances of a Country Village had been incredible, after all.
Maybe it even exceeded his swordsmanship.
Wasn’t the condition for opening Archer hitting a living target ten times?
I wanted to go to the forest right this second and unlock the Archer job, but it was already dark, and I couldn’t just start firing arrows recklessly.
Well, trying it tomorrow morning won’t be too late.
Once the Swordsman level showed no sign of climbing any further, I left the prayer room at once.
I was about to move on to the next item on my plan, but then I made eye contact with Reyna, who had been waiting outside.
“Have you really been waiting for me all this time?”
“Of course. It’s our duty as nuns to guide the lambs of the flock.”
Reyna answered with a bright smile, and there was something genuinely holy in the way she looked.
I almost doubted that this was the same complete pervert of a nun who used to stroll around the church naked.
Well, Reyna may be a freak, but before she fell, she did fulfill her duties as a nun properly.
She hadn’t risen to the rank of saintess candidate for nothing.
“Brother, as I said earlier, you mustn’t stare at my face too much~”
“I’m sorry. I know that in my head, but it’s not easy.”
“I’ll forgive you just this once… oh?”
Reyna looked at my chest, and then her expression changed in surprise.
“Brother, I can feel the goddess’s divinity from you.”
“Yes. Lady Helia answered my prayer.”
“It’s not easy to receive a goddess’s oracle through prayer alone. Your devotion is admirable, Brother.”
“I’m merely grateful to Lady Helia.”
Apparently pleased with my answer, Reyna gave me a radiant smile.
“People with strong faith like you are always welcome, so please keep visiting the church often.”
“I’ll come by often, if only to see you, Sister.”
“You mustn’t come because of me.”
“I see. I’ve made another mistake.”
“Hehe. Then be more careful next time.”
After exchanging farewells with Reyna, I stepped out of the church at once.
It was already pitch dark outside.
As expected of a rural village, once the sun went down, night arrived almost immediately.
And in a night like this, secret things always slipped through the darkness.
If things are following the scenario, those two should be meeting by now.
To confirm it, I headed straight for the in-laws’ house.
Then I used the hunter’s skill once more.
Adelia
Isabel
Just as I thought.
Isolde wasn’t home.
Where had a full-grown woman gone at this hour of the night?
It definitely should’ve been this way.
I followed the riverbank toward the mill.
Since ancient times, the mill in a country village had been where secret meetings were arranged.
And secret meetings were usually between a man and a woman.
Isolde
Human male
There they are.
From the mill, I could hear Isolde raising her voice at a human man.
I leaned in and listened, eavesdropping on their conversation.
“John, how long are you going to make me wait? At this rate I really will get married off somewhere else.”
“Just wait a little longer. I’ll talk to my father.”
“Your father was the one who brought that man here!”
Annoyed by Isolde’s tone, the man called John clicked his tongue.
Then, as if nothing had happened, he replied in a warm, affectionate voice.
“My father just doesn’t know any better. Once I explain it to him, things will be fine, so don’t worry about it.”
“Do you really intend to marry me, John?”
“Of course. Every night I dream about married life with Isolde. So don’t worry—just trust me and wait. You do trust me, don’t you, Isolde?”
“...Of course I do.”
Unlike her usual tyrannical self, Isolde was showing a weak side, like a girl completely in love with a man.
She’s fallen hard.
John was the village chief’s son, and a famous handsome man to boot.
He was also the village chief’s only son, which meant that if the chief died, John could seize all of his inheritance for himself.
Of course, he was in no way comparable to Ian, an ugly man with no footing in the village whatsoever.
So what? He’s going to use her and toss her aside anyway.
They acted like they couldn’t live without each other, but in truth John had no intention of marrying Isolde, no matter how romantic his words sounded.
Why?
Because of her personality.
John’s temperament wasn’t broad enough to put up with a hysterical woman who couldn’t even do housework, unlike Ian.
On the surface, he might act as though he wanted to marry Isolde, but in the end John would marry a woman who obeyed him obediently, not Isolde.
To him, Isolde was nothing more than an easy woman he could screw whenever he felt like it.
Seeing this, the two of them really are a match made in hell.
Isolde, who had abandoned her husband to cheat with John, and John, who used another man’s wife like she was his personal toy.
Ian was just the fool they’d use and discard between them.
That’s why you can’t let them run wild. Guess I’ll have to lend a hand.
Tonight, I was planning to be Cupid for those two.
Of course, how their relationship would end in disaster was none of my concern.