Chapter 30
“What sort of advancements are there for this class?”
I’ll try asking the priest, but since this is such an uncommon class, I doubt he’d know much about it either.
“Hmm... there are not many details in this tome. However, Alchemist and Physician... might be possible options, as they would be available to Chemists. Another deviation seems to be Elementalist.”
“There seems to be quite a bit of potential.”
“Indeed... normally, Chemists are similar to Swordsman, a deviation of Warrior. The possibilities should be plenty. However, finding out all possibilities would be difficult, I believe.”
To make it simple, why don’t we try the predecessor of Chemist, the Thaumaturge?
“Since we have the option to, why don’t we try it out? I think it’d be good to experience everything.”
I think this is possible only because of me.
But I mean, it’s not like it’s a bad choice, since we can capitalize her talent with magic.
“If you say so, Yukihisa... then let’s try it out.”
Arleaf decides on Thaumaturge.
Mm. This way, if she finds out that I’m a wanted man and hates me for it, she could always go back and be a Chemist.
A soft light radiates from Arleaf.
It seems like there’s no problems on her end.
Arleaf checks her new Senses and other changes.
“Umm... my Magic Sense evolved to Plant Magic Sense. And... Medical Sense became Doctor Sense.”
“Kinda the same as Chemist, then?”
“Not quite... I have also gained Enhanced Lung Capacity. I believe it’s usually a skill that Anglers have for better underwater combat...”
Arleaf nods at the priest, asking for confirmation.
“That is correct. And it would be quite useful against the miasma around here as well. It seems like quite the handy class you have found.”
“Yes!”
“Then let us conclude the ceremony.”
The priest rings a bell, signaling the end of Arleaf’s job change.
“And now... do you also need a job change as well, Cohgray?”
“No, I’m good.”
I check my status and “Job change available” doesn’t appear.
I can’t go up or back down to a Poison Earth either.
No choice but to keep going.
How about you, Muu?
I turn over to look at him.
“Muu, muu.”
He waves his hand. Guess that he doesn’t need it either.
“Thank you for using our services today. Please come back anytime you wish. I look forward to seeing you two flourish.”
Nothing about the gods, eh?
That’s kinda different than what I would expect from a game.
“Thank you very much.”
Arleaf expresses her gratitude towards the priest.
She goes back to her status screen and seems to be lost in thought.
Since it’s an ancient and rare class, she’s probably thinking about what to do with it.
‘Let me bestow upon thee a present to celebrate the job change. Perhaps this is becoming a tradition of ours.’
You sure?
If I hand her anything out of place, she might get suspicious of me.
‘Thou could claim that it is equipment you possess. Well, we know not of what will happen if thou give the young girl something valuable. Perhaps the gift of knowledge is more suitable.’
Veno starts muttering to himself.
‘Give this to her.’
A piece of parchment appears before me... this is parchment made from skin.
There’s a bunch of stuff written on it.
“Yukihisa?”
‘Plant magic. It is likely a type of magic that controls flora. This spell should be useful then.’
Hey... did you forget that Poison-Wielder isn’t a magic-based class?
Why would I have something like this? This pretty much screams that I know everything about magic. She’s definitely going to suspect something.
‘Use me again then. Claim it is something thy mentor passed down to you.’
Damn it... I wouldn’t be able to answer anything if she were to ask me questions.
If that happens, read me the script.
‘Fine. All I have to do is to make it easy for thee to pronounce the words.’
I inadvertently let out a sigh and brace myself. I hand over the parchment to Arleaf.
“What is this...?”
“Since you deal with plant-based magic now, this might come in handy, I thought. It’s something my mentor wrote for me.”
“I-I see.”
Arleaf takes a look at the words written on the parchment.
“This is amazing. Not only are these skills very easy to understand, but practical and easy for beginners to use as well!”
I can tell that Arleaf is devouringly and thoroughly reading the parchment.
Is this really that amazing?
“Yukihisa, you are a disciple of such an impressive person!”
Well, not exactly person, but... ehh, whatever.
‘By the way, what is written down is Binding Whip, Leaf Shot, and Aroma Heal which are beginner spells that use plants as a medium.’
Veno explains the details.
Binding Whip, a spell that uses vines to restrain enemies.
Leaf Shot, an offensive spell that hurls razor-like leaves to cut through opponents.
And Aroma Heal uses the power of plants to invigorate and revitalize.
‘I would recommend Aroma Heal. If used in conjunction with the fertilizer, Muu should be able to be healed for quite a bit. It would also benefit us as well.’
“Muu?”
Oh, right.
I’m not sure if I can remember all of that right now though.
“Please hold on. I don’t think I’ll be able to use these skills any time soon.”
“Don’t worry about it. We’ve finished hunting already anyway. Maybe we should split up for the day then.”
“Won’t you check on the adventurers that passed by us in front of the dungeon?”
“Oh, yeah. In that case, I’ll head to the tavern on the way to take a look, so don’t worry about that either. I’m sure you have lots to speak to your dad about as well.”
It really seems like he’s fixed on marrying his daughter to me.
They should really talk about it some more.
Like, seriously.
“... okay. Then I’ll go sell what we’ve collected today.”
After sensing my intentions, she leaves to battle the one who can be considered her archenemy—her father.
I head to the tavern right away and speak to the barkeep. He recalls seeing those adventurers but heard nothing in particular about them.
Perhaps they went and stayed under the radar after retreating to the village to heal.
After that, I finished up a good day of hunting and partying with Arleaf.
Under a deep layer of dirt, the being whose point of view I am looking through begins to awaken.
It slowly eases its stiffened body and takes a breath, as if to replenish all the mana it has lost.
Though unable to fully rid of the sluggishness, the being whose point of view I am looking through starts to dig with its claws, like swimming towards the surface.
It knows not of how many years or decades have passed since that incident.
Even then, the fighting should already be over.
The being whose point of view I am looking through remembers the dream it had before waking up, painting in his mind a picture of the future that is now.
It keeps digging until its face peeks above the ground.
Only to find... ruins and what seems to be the epicenter of an explosion.
“...”
Not a piece of the kingdom he imagined remains.
It breathes in.
There is a faint odor in the air.
Its lungs will with ash. It quickly realizes why as he sees the hideously burnt creatures.
The world tree that it grew with care is nowhere to be seen.
Only corpses remain.
The dragon unleashes a thundering roar.
He stares into the distance and the polluted air condenses, taking form as a monster.
“... what happened...?”
Troubled, the being whose point of view I am looking through extends his wings to look from above.
The remains and ruins of human civilization lie scattered.
The hill still stands, the one from the dream where the man who spoke of dreams of reclamation and his comrades shared a drink together.
The dragon conspicuously lands in a town square. It looks around to find ruined statues.
The statues of dragon-like beings and the men who were worshipped as heroes are in pieces.
“How long... had I been asleep for?”
There was no way the dragon had been asleep for that long. It loiters in a daze.
Though they discussed for so long and vowed to aim for an everlasting peace, what remains Is so little...
It spreads its wings again to fly elsewhere.
The dragon needed time to comprehend the situation.
It flies towards clearer air and draws near a human settlement.
“Ahhhh!”
“I-It’s a dragon! The evil dragon who sullied the world tree has appeared!”
Suddenly, countless soldiers and adventurers circle the dragon for a preemptive strike.
“H-Hold your swords! Hey. I am not here to fight thee. Listen to me!”
“Be careful! Don’t listen to its trickery!”
“The dragon took the world tree, wrested for power, and then the world tree vanished! What are you scheming this time?”
Et cetera.
The humans, wielding weapons and magic, begin their assault.
“Will thou not listen?! What happened to him... and the kingdom?!”
His question fell on deaf ears, forcing it to retreat.
After, he heard from humans and monsters that the man who spoke of dreams of reclamation had perished decades ago.
They were using magic and science to build a better world, along with strengthening the world tree. However, the world tree was stolen by an evil, parasitic dragon, destroying the system and connection between the kingdom and the tree.
It polluted the air as it left.
This was all while that dragon feigned to be an ally to the humans.
There was yet more story to be told.
The dragon, shouldering the burden of sins it did not commit, was left with naught but despair.
The humans, without the world tree, lost their magic and technology... with the current state further behind than before.
“Hah... I suppose I expected too much of humans after all.”
Blame thy decline, strength, and failure on me. On me, who was not present.
I shall make for a good scapegoat.
The humans learned not from the foolish mistakes of the elves who had destroyed themselves by abusing the world tree. The humans are likely to be guilty of the same foolishness.
“My dreams were foolish too. There is no chance for this world to be any better.”
Betrayed by his own expectations, the being whose point of view I am looking through flies again towards the skies.
Nothing changed. Nothing will.
The creatures of this world heads only towards more foolishness. The being whose point of view I am looking through becomes a spectator in this world where the miasma chokes harder and harder.
Ah, what a bore.
Falling into the delusion of a promising future may perhaps even be better.
But... if that is what I think, then perhaps I should have been a spectator that time as well.
The being whose point of view I am looking through heaves a heavy sigh.
Perhaps it is carelessness. Perhaps the gods who they worshipped had forsaken them. Perhaps not even their own comrades can be trusted. But even their methods of slaying monsters had changed.
Hearing the humans chant their spell of Forced Possession Summoning disgusts me.
It seems they are unable of proper, legitimate fighting and must rely on blasphemous techniques.
There is little I can do about them abusing ancient magics to summon a being from another world...
Well... the humans will be engulfed in the ever-growing miasma and disappear from the face of this world.
How foolish it is to be destroyed by the polluted air that they created themselves.
They are no different than elves.
After the humans are wiped out, I wonder what creatures will be next to strut around as if they owned the world.
I shall not lend my strength next time.
I vow...
Three days have gone by since then.
We’ve been training by slaying monsters and it’s been going smoothly.
You wouldn’t believe how easy it is for me to fight them one by one in swamp water.
Arleaf was able to use the magic the day after she received the parchment.
We’ve only become more efficient and effective since then.
Vines crawl out of the ground to trap our enemies, then a flurry of leaves shoot out like shuriken to slice the monsters to pieces.
Aroma Heal refills the stamina used by Muu’s Self-Regeneration.
Plus, when she level’s up, Arleaf’s Extended Lung Capacity also gets stronger, enabling us to fight in heavy miasma without so much a hitch.
They say you have to be a pretty experienced adventurer to fight in areas with thick miasma, so you could say Thaumaturges are good against the toxic gas.
She seems to be have mastered the spells already... it might not be so bad for us to try our luck in the underground dungeon.
Oh, by the way, after leveling a bit in the swamp, we went to a rocky mountain on the opposite side where the air wasn’t toxic.
I’ve always wanted to try fighting out of the swamp too.
And as I thought, fighting in clean air certainly makes me weaker.
I really can’t take where I fight too lightly.
Not to mention that I was fighting with the buffs from Arleaf’s cooking.
“We fought with ease today, hey?”
“Yeah. Couldn’t have done it without you, Arleaf. I feel bad, but I’d like to see if you can cook up something even stronger.”
“O-Okay. I don’t know how to feel about that, but I’ll do my best.”
Well, it’s alright, since we both know how your food tastes. So, never mind that and make me something even more impressive.
Though it certainly wouldn’t make her feel any better if I told her that.
But it’s true, isn’t it?
Since I can stomach it all, why not experiment and try to make something even more effective?
Plus, I’ve gotta learn the limits of my Poison Absorption and play within it.
I have to find the line where it’s too toxic for me to eat. That way, I know what I’m able to withstand.
I think I can use Arleaf’s Poison Cooking to get a rough estimate. But I’ll keep that fact to myself.
I see great potential in her Poison Cooking.
“Mu...”
Muu looks over here with a very troubled face.
It’s baring his teeth, much like a cat.
You hate her cooking that much?
Now then, it’s not just Arleaf who grew in the past three days.
Muu seems like it did too.
Let me check our statuses just in case.
Yukihisa Kogure
Poison-Wielder
Level 31
Acquired skills: Spirit Link, Poison Absorption, Poison Release, Synthesize Poison, Detect Poison, Poison Enchantment, Hunting Sense, Hunting Mastery IV, Aiming Shot, Trap Mastery II, Call Fungus, Critical Eye, Footwork
Muu
Mutated Myconid
Warrior
Level 23
Acquired Skills: Spore Scatter, Self-Regeneration, Stamina Recovery Rate Increase (Medium), Toughness, Subordinate of Poison-Wielder, Class change available, Warrior Sense, War Cry, Axe Mastery III, Hatchet Crash III, Tornado Strike II
Not only did our stats go up, so did the number of acquired skills.
Though there are many of them that you don’t get just by leveling up, but by training.
In my case, it’s the poisons that I can create. Stuff like Mild Paralysis Poison and Moderate Paralysis Poison.
With Trap Mastery and Poison Release, I can make better pitfall traps and fill it with poison more potent.
Recently, I’ve learned how to make Charm Poison. It’s like a mixture of hallucinogen and narcotic. It naturally draws monsters, making it easy to lead them to traps.
Charm Poison... it’s great when used with a pitfall, but it’s got a tricky side to it as well.
It stimulates the target and increases their strength.
So, if you mess up using it, it won’t turn out too great.
Muu got pretty badly hurt because of me.
Parts of his cap got torn off. It looked extremely painful.
... though a few hours later after using Self-Regeneration, it’s as if nothing ever happened.
Critical Eye gets used pretty often when I’m in close-quarter combat. I feel like it increases my ability to dodge enemy monsters’ attacks.
Well... I also have Veno’s knowledge on how to dodge the enemy attacks as well. He’s saved my skin quite a bit.
When I activate Footwork while dodging enemy attacks, it makes me feel a little nimbler.
It’s surprising how different it is to properly learn a skill.
That’s it for me... next up is Muu. It’s still a Warrior focused on the frontline.
Axe Mastery makes him more familiar with his weapon.
And... the other two weren’t naturally learned.
The proprietress of the inn taught Muu them.
“Muu.”
“That’s it... now bring your axe down, just like splitting wood!”
The ground tremors with a loud thunk!
“Wh-What the?!”
I ran off to see what had happened...
“Oh, what’s up, Cohgray?”
“Nothing... I heard a loud noise to I came over to check...”
The ground at the back of the inn had been cleaved open.
Splinters were strewn about everywhere.
What kind of herculean strength did you swing your axe with?
‘Aye... that would even hurt me if aimed well.’
I feel it too.
How did you turn from small frail thing to an Amazon warrior?
“Lil’ Muu-Muu here is quick at learnin’.”
“Mu.”
Muu swings its arms, copying the proprietress’ actions.
That’s how he learned Hatchet Crash.
According to Veno, it’s especially effective against plant monsters.
And turn that vicious axe swing sideways, you’ve got a skill called Tornado Swing that sends its axe flying.
It’s handy... but I haven’t the faintest idea about the person who taught Muu those skills.
Exactly what kind of person is the proprietress?
‘Calm down and carefully think about it. She has the guts to deal with hot-blooded adventurers. It would not be unreasonable to expect her to have her fair share of experience.’
Veno’s got a point.
I don’t think I’d wanna piss her off then.