To Remington County (2)
The armor that the fight with the Crimson Bear had reduced to rags was discarded.
Plenty of time still remained, so I headed straight for the forge to obtain a new set of armor.
“…You want spikes attached to the armor, young master?”
The blacksmith stared at me as if he could not quite believe what he had heard, then his gaze dropped to the back of my right hand and a thoughtful look settled over his face.
Unlike other blessings, the Guardian possessed no skills with any real killing power. So was the young master trying, by any means necessary, to scrape together some attack force? That seemed to be the conclusion he had reached.
“Rather than the armor, wouldn’t it be better to mount the spikes in the center of a kite shield? That would be far more practical.”
Spikes on armor would snag and catch every time you swung a weapon. The drawbacks outweighed any advantage, so he was telling me to put them on the shield instead. It was the sound judgment of a man who had swung a hammer for thirty years as the blacksmith of a viscount’s house.
“No. I want the spikes attached on the inside, like this.”
I ran my hand along the inner face of the iron breastplate.
“…Young master?”
There are times when the small must be sacrificed for the sake of the great. Strange rumors might well start circulating around the forge, but time would wash them away on its own. I could not afford to fuss over every single egg.
This is the place.
I had come to a habitat in the Revan viscountcy’s hunting grounds where a particularly dangerous frog-type monster called the Gorreuk made its home.
“Gorreuk, gorreurrk.”
“Gorreuk, gorreurrrk.”
From a distance came a sound like the dying gurgle of a goblin about to drown. Creeping closer, I found a frog with blood-red eyes whose body alone must have measured a good thirty centimeters. One glance was enough to know the thing reeked of danger.
Paralysis poison. A real nuisance.
Recommended level: a full 3. That meant a single one of these frogs was roughly equal to a Crimson Bear—and this pond held seven more of the vicious creatures. If I fought them now, I would die for certain.
By drowning, to be precise.
The name Gorreuk came not only from its croak, but from the way it paralyzed its prey, drowned them in the pond, and then tore into the bloated flesh. It was not a recommended-level-3 monster for nothing.
None of that mattered. I had not come here to fight in the first place.
“Uwaaaaah—!!!”
I bellowed a battle cry. The frogs startled and leapt high into the air. Without the slightest hesitation I charged in, flung the large sack I had prepared, and succeeded in bagging one of them. Then I turned my back on their habitat without a second thought and ran until the sweat poured from my feet.
My destination was a clearing a short distance past the entrance to the hunting grounds—ground where no monsters appeared.
“Huff… huff… huff…”
They were genuinely dangerous, but their running speed was nothing to write home about. I had chosen this method precisely because I knew that.
“Whew.”
Sticky, ominous oil spilled from the mouth of the large sack.
“Gorreuk, gorreurrrk!!!”
It was the paralysis poison the frog was spewing.
Ah. This is it.
I spread the armor I had prepared—spikes fixed on the inside—across the ground, then thoroughly smeared the thick frog oil from the sack over every surface.
“Ugh…”
When I pulled on the armor whose blunt spikes would nonetheless hurt with absolute certainty, a nauseating stickiness and a sharp stinging sensation washed over me together. Before long the sting was drowned beneath a spreading numbness and vanished. Paralysis poison.
Even trying to take a step made my body tremble and cold sweat break out.
“Huff… huff…”
As expected, the poison of a frog ranked equal to a Crimson Bear was fierce.
“Huff! Huff!”
I crawled slowly across the dirt, drawing deep, measured breaths. The spikes driven into my flesh damaged my body, and the barrier spread across it was shaved away by degrees.
How long had I been crawling? The moment I began to imagine a sweet taste rising in my mouth—
“Haah… haah…”
—a crackling sound announced the barrier’s collapse. I stayed exactly where I was and simply caught my breath. I needed to wait until the barrier recovered.
If I had to name it, I suppose I could call this Slug Grinding…
Anyone watching might have thought it the most idiotic stunt imaginable, but for a Guardian—whatever other classes might do—this was the correct method.
Because the unique skill was never normal to begin with.
Other classes also begin with a core skill comparable to the Guardian’s Shield of Faith (LV.1). The difference is that theirs actually help in a fight right away. Most classes simply use their unique skills, simply beat monsters, simply level up, and that is the end of it. Skill-proficiency grinding happens on its own; the whole thing is designed so you grow stronger without trouble. More demanding conditions appear later, and some builds require events or special items, of course—but the Guardian is different.
The complete absence of attack power in the early active skills is the hint. From the very start, the Guardian is a blessing built on the premise of taking hits. It follows the life of the Immortal Cretus, who began as a slave gladiator in the arena and rose to become a legendary fighter called Immortal.
Take enough hits and you learn to block efficiently. Block efficiently long enough and you learn how to counter. Hurt enough that the barrier shatters and you grow used to pain. Languish under poison long enough and the next time you languish a little less.
In the game’s early days there had been no proper guides at all, so the community had even used the phrase “a blessing for advanced players who perfectly understand the game” as pure mockery.
It isn’t wrong.
When everyone else strides ahead, anxiety sets in. You have no attack skills, yet you scramble to catch up even if it means riding the bus. Somehow you raise your level—and then the massive wall called level 10 is waiting. From that point on, without proper attack skills, most monsters simply refuse to take damage even when you land a hit. Even in a party you must meet a minimum ten-percent contribution, and with zero attack power a Guardian cannot even ride the bus.
Forcing your way up by bus only creates another problem.
If the Guardian’s core skill does not rise, there is no answer.
Even if you drag your level upward by force, if the rank of the core skill Shield of Faith does not rise with it, a Guardian is nothing more than a slightly harder meat shield. Even in the game it had taken ages for a viable build to be discovered. A blessing that collective intelligence itself needed a long time to crack—and you are going to stake your life in reality and invent the build from scratch, bare-handed?
That is the work of a madman.
“Gorreuk, gorreurrrk!!!”
Today’s goal was to walk back to the manor on my own two feet while still under the frog’s poison. If I could move upright under my own power, it would mean the status-ailment-resistance passive had formed. Poison was far too dangerous to handle without a blessing, so I had no idea how long it would take, but it ought to be finished before the sun set.
Finish this grinding first, then raise Shield of Faith.
A Guardian must learn seven active skills in total—Shout, Battle Cry, Endure, Defensive Stance, Parry, Shield Bash, and Tackle—before Shield of Faith rises to level 2. From that point a Guardian can finally deal real damage, so the usual approach is to push the skill to level 2 first and only then resume other proficiency grinding.
But the game and reality are not the same. Bury yourself in game knowledge and sooner or later you will pay a heavy price—exactly as I had when I met the Crimson Bear. Even if it felt like a long detour now, learning the passives for pain tolerance and status-ailment resistance first was the right call.
It shouldn’t be a major problem.
The plan might slip by a week, two at the outside—but sometimes the long way around turns out to be the shortcut.
Thinking that, I began the proficiency grinding. Two weeks later, a letter arrived at the manor denouncing my actions and demanding compensation for damages.
A missive from the House of Remington.
Summarized, it amounted to: a backwoods country bumpkin had behaved with unforgivable rudeness, and an apology was required.
Tsk. I need to hurry.
As planned I had acquired status-ailment resistance and pain tolerance, and I had also raised Shield of Faith to level 2. My current level was 5. The original goal had been to hit level 10 before leaving for the Remington count’s territory, but leveling on the road itself should be more than possible.
The problem is pain tolerance.
Even after the passive is obtained, pain tolerance continues to improve. I needed to keep grinding it—but under the present circumstances there was no leisure for a slow climb. Running it in parallel with leveling was also difficult; deliberately allowing hits mid-combat was both extremely dangerous and time-consuming.
I needed to change the plan.
“I knew it would turn out like this the moment I chose Guardian.”
Father, as head of the house, could not leave the manor, so my older brother would accompany me as his proxy. Aren was already a busy man—learning the duties of a lord while also handling local security and monster hunting as a knight. Being dropped into this mess left him looking thoroughly put out.
“Yeah?”
“Of course. Rena expressed concern as well.”
“Tell sister-in-law I’m sorry too. It wasn’t intentional.”
“You haven’t even held the wedding yet. Why do you keep calling her sister-in-law?”
It’s soon enough anyway.
My brother Aren bore a scar running from forehead to cheek as if an animal had raked him—a wound he had taken protecting her when she visited the territory. She had fallen for him completely that day, and he had melted just as completely under her affection. Not calling her sister-in-law would have been the greater rudeness.
“Ahem. Anyway—you took down a Crimson Bear without even clearing the trials? I only managed it after three of them.”
As the formal heir of the Revan family who had also been trained in swordsmanship, he ought to be able to solo a Crimson Bear of recommended level 3–5. Even so, by this world’s standards I could tell he had accepted a real risk.
“Wasn’t that reckless?”
“I have to be strong if the people of the territory are to feel secure. We are a knightly house before we are nobles.”
Father had always spoken to us of a noble’s duty. Clearly I was not the only one who had taken those words to heart.
“Are the preparations finished?”
“Of course.”
Answering my brother, I tied a sturdy rope around my waist—two of them, in fact, both made this year and extremely solid.
“Why are you tying a rope around your waist?”
“Warrior is a blessing that grows stronger the more you fight, brother.”
“You’re stating the obvious.”
“And Guardian is a blessing that grows stronger the more you get hit.”
“Hm?”
“Meaning I’m going to do this.”
A new form of proficiency grinding possible only because this was reality, not a game. If I had to give it a name, I would call it Hector Training.
In a world where monsters roamed freely, traveling alone as a merchant was extremely dangerous. Therefore merchants who moved from city to city by carriage formed caravans. They hired mercenaries confident in their skill, followed roads the local lord had already cleared of monsters, and paid the required tolls. As a result they rarely found themselves in genuine peril.
Spring was especially safe—the season when monsters woke weak from hibernation and lords slaughtered them wholesale. So Bayson, leader of the merchant band, drove his carriage without a care in the world.
“…Hey. Dust cloud over there.”
Then, in the distance, he saw noise and a rising plume of dirt. Noise and dust of that magnitude meant someone was galloping hard. Draft horses used for cargo grew large and strong but never ran well. Anything that ran like that was usually a warhorse.
A knight?
They needed to stay alert. Remington County still lay some distance ahead. For a warhorse to come thundering out of nowhere, kicking up dust on this empty backwater road… something about it smelled dangerous.
Everyone tensed—until two warhorses simply thundered past the caravan and raced on toward Remington County.
The man in the saddle rode as if he and the horse were a single creature, his horsemanship flawless. The armor he wore was a polished masterpiece, and the sharp atmosphere around him was that of a knight through and through.
But what in the world was the thing beside him?
“Uwaaargh, kuhuk, kieeeek!!!”
A man tied to the horse was being dragged along the ground.
“Uwaaargh, kuhuk, kieeeerk!!!”
He was tall, handsome, and clad from head to toe in sturdy armor. Yet the sight of him being hauled behind a galloping horse while screaming in agony was bizarre beyond description.
The biggest problem of all—
Why does he look like he’s enjoying it?
Even as he howled in pain, the corners of his mouth were unmistakably curved upward.
Bayson felt the hair on the back of his neck stand on end.
I hope we never get involved with that…
Fifteen years since he had first set out as a traveling merchant by carriage. To think he would live to witness something this grotesque. Life truly was a thing you never quite understood.