Goals Aside From Leveling Up

It was currently March, the time of the year when the last vestiges of snow melted away and green sprouts budded throughout the expansive fields.

Allen, now four years old, was standing in front of the tree in his yard and staring at his grimoire. Specifically, he was staring at the line written in gold on the cover that represented his year and a half of unceasing effort.

<Throwing has reached Lvl. 3.>

'It finally leveled up again!'

Allen had successfully obtained "Throwing" as a skill and raised it to Lvl. 3.

He updated the part of his memos where he had been recording the number of throws he had made.

___

Number of Throws Made (Cumulative):

10,000 times → Lvl. 1

20,000 times → Lvl. 2

120,000 times → Lvl. 3

___

'Looks like there are certain rules behind obtaining skills. These specific numbers might be unique to Throwing, but they're too perfect to be random.'

Allen continued noting down what he could derive from these three numbers.

___

- In order to obtain a skill, the associated action must be repeated a certain number of times.

- In order to reach Lvl. 2, the skill must be performed the same number of times required to obtain it in the first place.

- In order to reach Lvl. 3, the skill must be performed ten times more than the number of times required to obtain it in the first place.

___

There was now a circular area on the surface of the tree that had been chipped away after being hit with rocks a total of 120,000 times.

Allen had started out doing only a hundred throws each day, but when he reached Lvl. 2 and confirmed that the leveling system was, in fact, related to the number of repetitions, he had ramped it up to three hundred throws.

'Which means if I'd been in Normal Mode and not Hell Mode, it would've taken only a hundred throws to get.'

The description for Hell Mode had mentioned that gaining and leveling up skills would take a hundred times more effort. Allen concluded this was because the number of repeated actions required for both acquiring and leveling skills was literally a hundred times higher.

'Hmm, do I actually want to aim for Throwing Lvl. 4? It'd presumably take a million throws. Three hundred throws a day means it'd take me over nine years. But even if I quit, it's not like I'd have anything else to do. Should I continue until something else comes up? If I do 100,000 or 200,000 more throws and the skill doesn't level up, then it'd support my theory that the needed XP is indeed one million.'

While mulling over what direction to go next, Allen checked his Status.

___

Name: Allen

Age: 4

Class: Summoner

Level: 1

HP: 16 (40) + 26

MP: 1 (20)

Attack: 4 (10) + 26

Endurance: 4 (10) + 6

Agility: 10 (25) + 10

Intelligence: 12 (30) + 4

Luck: 10 (25)

Skills: Summoning {2}, Creation {3}, Synthesis {2}, Expansion {1}, Sword Mastery {2}, Throwing {3}, Deletion

XP: 0/1,000

Skill Levels

Summoning: 2 Creation: 3 Synthesis: 2

Skill Experience

Creation: 1,846/100,000

Synthesis: 1,325/10,000

Creatable Summons

Insect: G, H

Beast: G, H

Bird: G

Holder

Insect: G x 2, H x 2

Beast: G x 13

Bird: G x 2

___

Although Summoning rose to Lvl. 2 when Allen was a year and ten months old, it had not gone up since despite him now being four years and five months old. He had only been able to start training Creation Lvl. 2 and Synthesis Lvl. 1 after he turned three and his max MP increased to six. By now, however, both these skills had gone up by a level each.

'So why didn't Summoning increase to Lvl. 3 even though Creation leveled up?'

As Allen studied his status, this familiar train of thought—one he had wrestled with countless times—rose unbidden to his conscious mind. He speculated that, because Summoning had yet to level up, no new available Summons had appeared.

Considering how Bird G unlocked when he obtained Summoning Lvl. 2, he would likely need higher Summoning skill to gain access to higher-ranked Summons.

'The problem is, I have no idea how to raise my Summoning skill.'

This world had neither walkthrough sites nor online forums, meaning Allen had to figure everything out on his own. After racking his brains, he had decided to try raising Synthesis to Lvl. 3. He was hoping that raising both associated skills to Lvl. 3 would naturally cause Summoning to also become Lvl. 3.

Despite having leveled up, Synthesis still cost 5 MP to activate. It seemed likely that this was going to remain a fixed number unaffected by skill level, unlike Creation.

As for Sword Mastery... it had gone up naturally through playing knight with Krena daily. After a year and a half, it had now become Lvl. 2.

Allen had noticed this with Throwing as well, but having a skill—and what's more, having it at a higher level—made a significant difference in accuracy and power. Skills corrected the user's form so that the associated motion would become smoother and more natural.

The power of the stones he threw and the sword strikes that he dealt had both increased with each successive level up.

Although there were elements that made this world seem like a swords-and-magic video game, it was still very much real. There were no visible damage counters, so Allen had no way of knowing for sure, but he could feel the damage he was dishing out had indeed risen.

Accordingly, Allen had noted this in his grimoire.

___

Effects of Leveling Up:

- Corrects the body's posture.

- Increases the damage dealt.

___

"Allen, can you help me with lunch?" Theresia suddenly called out.

"Of course, mama."

Allen obediently headed back into the house.

He walked up to stand next to his mother, who was shouldering a toddler, and helped out where he could with the cooking.

In December of the year before last, Theresia had safely given birth to her second child. The fifteen-month-old baby was now flapping his legs vigorously, indicating that he was awake.

While handing cooked potatoes and the pestle and mortar to Allen, Theresia slowly rocked him back and said in a sing-song voice, "Mash, yum-yums will be ready soon!"

"Yaaah!" the baby replied in a drawn-out voice as saliva dribbled from his mouth. Allen's younger brother Mash had brown hair, green eyes, and features that seemed closer to Rodin's rather than Theresia's.

Once again, Rodin had been the one to decide the child's name, and he had done so basing it on another monster. His inspiration had been the murdergalsh, a creature that he described as "a lone wolf that roams the world wherever it pleases."

He had put plenty of thought into the name, and his earnest hope for his son to grow up free and unshackled came through crystal clear.

But in the same way Allen's name was supposedly derived from "albaheron," Mash's name bore little resemblance to "murdergalsh" either.

When Allen asked, he learned that the murdergalsh was a Rank B monster, two whole ranks higher than the albaheron.

Hearing this, he had turned away and muttered under his breath in a silly, villain-like voice, "Like hell a younger brother can surpass his older brother!" before chuckling a bit to himself.

Since Mash was currently being weaned, Allen diligently and thoroughly crushed the potato into a paste that his baby brother could safely eat without choking. Although he had yet to help out in the fields, he had become quite involved with the housework by now.

'Here's to hoping you eat more and grow up big and strong, little brother.'

"I'm home!" Rodin was back from the fields, so the entire family gathered around the sunken fireplace to eat lunch.

Halfway through the meal, Rodin shared, "Oh, yeah, they're naming the village 'Deboji Village' next year.

When I went to the well to refill our water jug this morning, some of the villagers told me a messenger from the feudal lord came and announced it."

Theresia did not look particularly surprised.

"So our village is finally getting a name..."

'I guess we're developed enough to no longer be "just a frontier village",' Allen thought.

This year was the ninth year since the village's founding. Both its expansion and production had largely evened out, so for its tenth anniversary, it was to be officially named.

"Yep. Makes sense that it's the village chief's name. No surprises there," Rodin chuckled.

'Oh? Our village chief's name is Deboji, huh? Wonder what he looks like.'

Allen recalled how Rodin had explained before that most frontier villages were named after the most famous person of the village. Normally, this was the first-generation village chief.

After he finished lunch, Rodin said, "Well, I'll get back to it," and stood up. Before he actually went back outside, though, he made sure to plant a kiss on Theresia's cheek. Back when Mash was still an infant, Theresia had to stay with him all day long, but now she could step out during his afternoon nap to help Rodin out a bit in the fields.

Watching his mother playfully smack his father in response, Allen thought, 'What a peaceful family.' He turned toward his younger brother, who was struggling to feed himself some mashed potatoes with a wooden spoon but was ending up with most of it on his face.

'Mash, it looks like we might be getting another sibling soon.'

A recurring thought popped up in Allen's mind then: why had he been reincarnated?

In his previous life, he had wished from the bottom of his heart for a game challenging enough that he could really dig his teeth into it. Due to this, he did not regret having come to this world of swords and magic.

Although his parents in his previous life were still alive, he was already thirty-five and had no girlfriend or spouse. He figured that the overall impact of his coming here was quite minimal.

However, during his first year or so in this world, he had wished that he had been reincarnated as an adult from the get-go instead of starting all the way from birth.

That way, he could have lived a life unbeholden to anyone and focused solely on his progress as a Summoner. Immediately upon arriving here, he could have headed to the nearest town and registered as an adventurer, then dedicated himself to increasing his levels and skills through hunting monsters. His playstyle had always been to constantly seek out the most powerful equipment and max out his levels as quickly as possible, and he had originally intended on doing the same thing here.

'But a family's pretty nice too. At the very least, I should free them all from serfdom. Though I still don't really know how to do that.'

Now that he had a younger sibling, there was more for him to consider.

He had goals aside from simply leveling up.