4

Kappas are annoying little buggers whose entire species is in dire need of exterminatus. They are a bitch to fight and always aimed for your ass if you gave them a chance.

No better way to develop a hate towards a monster than facing one who keeps trying to finger you.

The one I was fighting now was particularly annoying, mostly because it had wised up after a few bats to the face and was fighting carefully rather than the reckless abandon of the others of his species.

I was circling around it, moving my bat to one hand from another, trying to confuse and lead it to a mistake. Then I shifted my body to the side and threw my weight into a swing.

The yokai saw it coming and parried the hit with the swing of its own arm. It was sent back with a shrieked in pain due to my superior strength anyway, but the damage wasn't enough to kill it.

Ranma clicked his tongue loudly.

"You're holding your breath again! Stop holding your breath, idiot! You have to time it with your movement!"

"Easier said than done!" I bit back without looking at him. I'd learn that doing that opens me to an attack and makes Ranma laugh his ass off when it hits.

"No, I'm pretty sure saying is harder. I could do that since I was three!" The bastard was sitting on the teacher's desk of the classroom that we were in, spitting watermelon seeds on the mist-shape students loitering around in the mirror lunchtime.

"You were a red belt when you were three!" I protested, parrying the strike of the increasingly desperate yokai.

"That sounds more like a you problem, rather than a me problem— Posture! Watch your posture! How the hell you're not tripping over your own feet!?"

I groaned. Ranma may be a martial art genius, but he's definitely not a teacher. Most of his 'tips' consisted of barely explained instructions and vague directions without any visual representation whatsoever. He just drops those on my lap and goes off to do his own thing. Then he comes back later to give insults/criticisms while laughing at my failures.

I should have expected that, honestly, Ranma could be a cocky bastard sometimes.

… But it is working; from a practical standpoint, it meant I was getting hit less and landing hits more often. The progress was very subtle, so much so that I don't think I'd ever notice if I wasn't getting visual feedback from my gamer system.

Whenever I follow Ranma's instructions, the attributes bonus happens more often, and because of his help and the way he directed me to fight, I had managed to unlock the Brawling Mastery skill, which was currently on level 2, and the Blunt Weapon Mastery skill, which was on level 01. Basically, I'm definitely—

The Kappa leaped towards me, grubby claws first. I sidestepped beside his trajectory and brought my bat down before it could do anything.

+ 1 Str.

Blunt Weapon Mastery leveled up!

—Getting stronger!

I let out a deep breath, watching the body of my fifteenths Kappa fade and then pop into a smoke.

This wasn't the body of an infant Kappa at level 01 anymore, no; it was an adolescent Kappa at level 05. A clear sign of my progress.

"Finally!" Ranma bit the last of his watermelon and quickly spat the last stream of seeds over the unsuspecting ghosts.

"How did it go on your end?" I asked, seeing him jump from the desk. Ranma wasn't having the explosive results I was, of course, but the attrition with the mobs had quietly bumped him up a level. I doubt he even noticed.

The Martial Artist gave me a cheeky grin and waved a victoriously full money pouch, one of the many I had brought when it became clear that our pockets and individual wallets alone weren't going to cut it. "There are also some of the gross parts that you're into." He finished throwing me a tied-up bundle of Kappa fingers.

Yeah, money isn't the only loot the Kappas left. I imagine it's for a still unknown alchemical system or something like that, for now, though, I don't know for what they served so I was keeping a Witcher 3 mindset and storing them for later if I had space. The fact there were only fingers told me that Ranma left the bloody hearts and eyes that also usually appears behind.

"Lunch's gonna end soon." Ranma commented, stretching his back, "Mannn, today was fun! Those guys are much stronger than the tinier versions."

"I leveled up my Id creation skill one level since yesterday, that puts it on level 4." I had explained part of how my power worked to Ranma when he insisted. As expected, he didn't get most of it, not much of a gamer this one. But he did get that level up means getting stronger.

"Uh-huh." He mumbled, and then he frowned a little. "But I was serious about what I said you'know? Your footwork really needs some work. I mean, it's not horrible, but it's far from being good."

I sighed; Yeah, I got to put a stop to that. "Ok… so how!?" I ask, putting hard emphasis on the question.

He sent me a confused look.

Wait, is he really…

"Ranma." I began slowly. "I don't know if you noticed, but I'm not a martial artist. I don't know anything about martial art beyond some books I read, and putting knowledge of a page to practice in the middle of a fight is really hard. So yeah, when you say I have to improve my footwork, or work on my balance, or to watch my breaths, I literally don't know how, because I don't know what you're talking about."

It was not… exactly like that, because I've been trying to use the advice he was giving me to the things I read/absorbed. But my point still stands.

Ranma looked directly at me for a couple of long seconds. I could see gears turning behind his blue eyes.

"Oh!" He exclaimed, then raised a hand and started scratching the back of his head. "You're like, a complete amateur, um, sorry about that. It's not often I get to meet one of you."

I was about to retort when I paused and thought about it, most of everybody Ranma knows or even will know is involved with martial arts in some way or another… Holy shit! I'm as close he has to a normie friend!

"Ok, so like…" Gone was the direct, sure direction, and instructions; he seems to be struggling with what to say. "No, maybe, hold on…" It was so unlike Ranma that I couldn't help it but stare.

"Maybe the basics?" I suggested.

"Basics? Yeah, like, the very basic, that could work."

Ranma stepped closer, standing right beside me in a distance that was ease to see him even in the thick fog— The fog as been getting thicker with each raised level; the ghost images of the people are also becoming less human-like, just vague shapes in the mist— He spread his legs, lowered his hips and slowly rotated his arms into a stance while keeping his back straight.

"Watch. Keep your eyes on my feet."

Then he started moving, and frankly, it was like seeing a well-oiled machine.

It was like… he was transitioning between a series of poses: his feet twisted around the place, his legs roamed, his arms rotated and thrust with his hand clenched in fists or relaxed, and so he went, pose 1, pose 2, pose 3, pose 4 and so on. There wasn't any power or speed on it, just a fluid, continuing motion that seems almost natural to him.

It was damn impressive, I mean, I've seen him doing some impressive shit before, but it was away at highs speeds or higher up, this time he deliberately slowed down for me to see. And I'd managed to recognize some from the books I read, it was still a bit different than the images there, but I asked anyway.

"Is that Aikido?"

"Aikido… Tàijí quán, Bak Mei, some Karate..." Ranma continued to move while he talked, he didn't spare a glare towards me. "Now, you try."

With some hesitation, I move to the first position, Ranma also did so too and allowed me to copy him. I tried my best to continue to copy him while we started to move.

In the third position, I lost my balance and fell on my ass, causing Ranma to snigger.

"Man, you really suck Hiroshi."

"Shut up!" I said while getting back up.

We continued like that until I managed to make rough imitations of the seven katas Ranma showed me. Then he stopped and gestured me to go on.

I did much, much worse without him to copy on my side, and he made sure to insult, belittle, and laugh at all my many mistakes. When I finally managed to do a much rougher imitation of the seven, he nodded.

"Alright, stop."

"What, now!?" I couldn't help it but to fume, in my defense, he did nothing but laugh at me this entire time, shit like that wore out someone.

He didn't even register my mood. Instead, he moved into the first three stances and told me to follow.

I did, and he told me to do it again. On the third time, he nodded.

"Do this all the time until you can do it without thinking. After that, find a fence or something and do it on top of it. Don't forget to breathe like I showed you to."

It was my time to nod and finally relax; I noticed then the faint layer of sweat that seems to have gathered over my skin.

I pushed the beginning of a giggle fit to the back of my mind; this was the first real martial art lesson I'd ever received and from Saotome Ranma of all people. Before anything could show on my face, however, I changed the subject.

"So, was that a mishmash of many martial art styles?"

Ranma leaned back on one of the chairs. By the way the ghosts were moving. I'd said we only have a couple of minutes to get back to class.

"Kinda. It's only the basics, which are similar no matter the art. They are like foundations, but each is built for their individual styles and have their own quirks. What I showed you was a blend of various, taking the parts that would have geared it toward one style in particular and substituting with motions that left it open for different ones, so you don't create bad habits that hinge your learning towards… Am I making sense?"

…

"Ranma… You almost look smart right now."

He laughed and threw the rest of his uneaten watermelon at my face.

I dodged and continued. "So that was some type of super foundation exercise."

Ranma nodded. "You got to get it right and make it like, part of you. A lot of people think that foundations are important, they are not just important; they are everything. You got to have your foundations right, if anything, Hiroshi."

I blinked at the strange intensity he said this "And then?"

He sent me a cheesy grin.

"Anything Goes."

Woah… Wait a second— "…Oh, come on! You baited me to say that!"

The foggy air was filled by Ranma's sniggers.

He didn't laugh for long, however, as something dropped from the ceiling and splashed on his naked arm.

"Agh!" His shout was more of surprise than pain.

Ranma wiped the gelatinous green goop off himself and sidestepped away. He'd managed to get it out before it could do more than irritate his skin. "Oh hell no! These things again!"

It was my turn to laugh. Those were the second species monster that spawned from this ID level, and the first one that didn't match the yokai theme that had been going on: it was a slime, the classic mob monster from too many games. And Ranma was quick to develop a healthy distaste for the species as a whole.

To begin with, they were utterly immune to physical attacks, which meant that Ranma's attempts, while often devastating to whatever the slime was standing on, did jack shit to the monster itself. The best he could do was get his skin red and raw due to the thing's acidic jello bodies, something that annoyed the martial artist to no end. But what I think really pissed him off was the tendency the monster has to cling in his clothes if he was female. And that was something that always happened: whenever Ranma was in his female form in Illusion barrier with slime monsters in it, one of the fuckers would get in his clothes and melt the fabric away.

Weirdly enough, this didn't happen when he was male. The monsters seem to target the skin rather than the clothes when he was in his male form. I shelved that under anime tropes.

"What's wrong, Ranma? Scared of a little Jello?" I said in a mocking tone.

"Shut up!" The slime leaped towards him, and memories of afternoons in only his boxers made him jump onto one of the tables. "Just kill it already!"

Chuckling, I raised my arm and triggered my spell, a handy trick that I created myself and gave it the unimaginative name of Mana Bolt. The game system made it so the magic would happen automatically, I intuitively knew there was a chance of failure but it was so microscopically small it barely registered. At that very moment, I could decide to pour in more Mp to make the spell larger or take manual control from the game system to shape mana under my own skill, but that would raise the chance of failure and bump the casting time to a few seconds.

On 'default' as it is— with most of the blunt work handled by the game system— it took a fraction of a moment for a baseball size sphere of mana geared towards destruction to appear in my hand. The following bust of will to launch it was trivial.

The brilliant ball crossed the air in a second and yanked all the creature's Hp in a single hit. It's Jello body turned liquid and splashed around the fist-size hole and cracks that the spell had opened on the floor.

"And once again, the great Hiroshi-sama saved his loyal squire from the clutches of the jelly terror." I mocked.

"Yeah? Let me bring some twenty fishfaces here and let's see who'd be saving who." Ranma mumbled angrily as he descends back down.

I continued to laugh at his insecurities, but then a rather ominous sound echoed across the room. We both looked at the mist, and considering that this is a standard classroom, it must have come from the direction of the door.

There was a rattler and a crash, and something began hissing.

"Oi, what was that?" Ranma began, but my mind was only on one thing.

I've read the webcomic where my powers come from, many things were different there, but some things, like my ID Create skill, worked remarkably similar to what it was shown, so I had no reason to doubt it wouldn't continue to do so.

And among the functions of the skill, there is one that hasn't appeared to me yet. It had created pocket dimensions outside of the normal reality, it had created a series of monsters to populate this pocket dimension, but until now it hadn't thrown any boss at us yet.

I think… I think that changes today…

A wriggling mass of greenish-gray goo appeared at once, like a moving wave that crushed and absorbed the chairs and tables on its way. I blinked at the sight of the gigantic fucking— Wait a second…

"Oh, come on!" Ranma threw his hands to the air in frustration at the sight of a giant version of his hated enemy.

Except… it wasn't, not to the Gamer at least; instead of a single tag declaring the name of a terrible monster with an overpowered level, there are tags everywhere across its length reporting multiple Slimes from various levels.

This isn't a boss this is a—

"A bunch of slimes fused together!" I finished out loud, holy shit; I didn't know they could do that.

Turning an accusatory eye towards Ranma, I asked. "Ranma, did you just aggro all the slimes in the map to our location!?" because he sure as hell couldn't kill them.

He picked up a chair and threw it to the mass, watching it sink inside and start to dissolve. "I have no idea of what you're talking about!" He shouted, and I believed him. He couldn't catch a gamer reference to save his life.

Ok then, if it was not a boss, then there was no problem: the exit was only an ID Erase away… But I got to be honest; I kinda wanna see how I fare against this thing.

I raised my arm towards it and my other one to steady it while I prepare a Mana Bolt with as much Mp I dared to—

Then there was a pull the back of my uniform, and I was suddenly off my feet and falling a three stories high fall.

"WHATTHEFUCK!" Was my calm and collected response to being an unwilling participant on the act of jumping off a building. Right before I splashed into the waters of the pool and my scream became a gurgling.

"Way to ruin the mood, Ranma." I said after reorient myself and get out of the pool, "I totally could have handled it!"

"Oh, shut up! Haven't you seen the way that thing just ate through that chair!?" Argued Ranma, now a hot red-head with wet clothes crouching at my side to catch her breath. "That thing's acid is way stronger than the smaller ones, and it was coming at us fast and in all directions. You avoid the wall of acid coming in your direction, Hiroshi, not try to blow it up!"

… Okay, she does have a point… but still, I could put a hole of my size in concrete walls with the amount I was putting behind my Mana Bolt, so I don't think it would be that badly… Eh, whatever, it's the past now, and it was a good point.

"Wow, careful there, you'll actually make me believe you're smart."

"Oh please, I'mma genius."

Can I just say that Ranma's sass sounds way better when she is female?

She rose up a hand and flexed her fingers. "Now, warm water, gimme gimme."

The kettle of warm water I kept in my inventory quickly multiplied to three, then to five over these last couple of days. You'd be amazed how many times Ranma unwillingly turns into a girl on a daily basis, and even more amazed by the silliness of the events that usually led to this result. The anime illustrated well enough, but there were some days that cold water just seems to really follow him. Frankly, I don't know how the hell the school's still in the dark about his curse considering how often it triggers around here.

On the plus side though, hanging around with me and having easy access to warm water had lessened the anger he felt at being suddenly transformed, now he mostly grumps and looks annoyed rather than letting out screams of frustration like before.

While Ranma changed into her less attractive form, I turned around and activated my ID Erase skill, with a snap of my fingers for flair. The gray, misty world broke away around us to reveal clear blue skies and a wave of noise.

"Well. Now we are well and truly late." I said with my hands on my hips, watching the desert hallways from the building's windows. "Can't be helped then."

"Want to push this thing to after school?" the now male Ranma suggested/asked. "No, wait. If we do this after school my old man and Tendo-san will nag me for letting Akane go home alone." Ranma grimaced and scratched his head. "I'mma let this whole engagement thing blow over first."

Oh, poor dude, he is under the impression he can just square his shoulders and weather the storm until it passes. He has no idea what's waiting for him.

I open my mouth to reply and maybe give him some idea of what's in his future when a dull thud that sounded distinctly like a broom or a wooden sword hitting the ground echoed behind us.

I sighed, someone had seen us, not really a big deal giving the craziness of this place; if the student body here can accept martial arts right out of wuxia movies than they can accept two guys appearing out of nowhere—

The tall, kendogi-wearing form of Kuno Tatewaki greeted us with a wide, shocked stare.

He very slowly closed his eyes. Bringing a trembling fist up and starting letting out barely restrained sounds of pure anger.

"As I live and breathe… Black Wizardry at my school! Damn you, Saotome Ranma, how low can you get!? I, KUNO TATEWAKI, FURINKAN'S AZURE TORNADO, WILL NOT LET YOU AND YOUR FOUL SORCERER GO UNPUNISHED!!"

And that was my first meeting with Kuno. Not with words, but with terrifying bokken's swings that shattered the ground, trees, and every construction close by.

Me and Ranma totally kicked his ass though.

-0-0-0-​

I went to my apartment early today.

Part of me was hoping…

When I reached the top of the stairs, I sighed. No homeless dressing hentai ninja on my doorsteps.

She wasn't in my apartment, and she wasn't in her apartment, either—She'd given me the key to it so I could get her prone body inside a few days ago— I looked around the clean space that before was a mess of trash and half-eaten junk food but found nothing; Uehara Rin was nowhere to be seen.

After our encounter with that… Orc, I managed to drag the paralyzed taimanin back to my apartment so we could recuperate. On the next morning, we had a talk… well, I talked, she just kind of stuttered.

It was surprisingly unproductive because it skidded around topic she very obviously wasn't allowed to tell me. On her turn to questions, I used her reluctance to share what was obviously her governmental involvement and her status as a taimanin as an excuse to keep some secrets of my own, going with the scenario that I was a fledgling mage who just awoken to his powers, which wasn't far from the truth.

By the end, the only thing we managed to gather was that both of us knew about the supernatural, not very useful considering I already knew about that. And, even if Uehara was very, very thankful, I realized quickly that she literally couldn't tell me much without having to kill me or something similar. By that point, the clock was ticking, and the Japanese part of my brain was demanding me to go to school, so I postponed the rest of the conversation for later, but not before yanking a promise that she would keep my abilities a secret for now.

She was gone when I got back.

It has been five days.

I panicked, of course, thinking more Orcs had come and taken her away, I look around for a good while, but there was no lead, no signs of struggle, and no pop up wisdom giving me a quest related to it, so in the end I just…

… Well. No use moping around, I guess, there is still some daytime to burn, and I didn't want to lazy around and watch crappy tv shows.

I want to get stronger.

Pulling a deep breath and pushing my worries away. I locked the door to Uehara's apartment behind me and went on to do some solo magical training.

No way I'm facing an overpowered monster with my pants down ever again.

-0-0-0-​

"MINON!"

Minotauron

Cardian of The Strength

Level 24.

… Ok, in my defense, it wasn't with my pants down… kinda.