33 - The Dream Has Come True

I knew about a few cheats in this world.

The first was game knowledge. Anyone who'd completed a playthrough of The Conquest knew a reasonable amount about the dungeon, items, weapons, skills, the school, and the other students. Overall, they could tell the future because they considered possible game events that hadn't occurred yet. Game knowledge was the most robust cheat available here.

Another cheat besides that existed. The fact that I'd have |Jester| available to access the |Weaponmaster| job was proof former game players could use the skills from their most recent game characters.

Afterward, I'd experimented with |Jester|. My initial hypothesis had been that I could only use |Weaponmaster| skills, until I discovered that I could activate any skill that my last character had known.

Since I'd taken on that role and saved many useful skills from other jobs in my skill slots, I'd tested to realize they all worked. Although I was only a [Novice] and had two skills in my skill slots, I had access to plenty of powerful skills.

A few catches endured, though. For some skills, my low stats and cheap weapons wouldn't be enough.

Offensive skills often fell prey to this flaw.

Passive skills would also be permanently active, and these had too many drawbacks to be practical. I was aware of some passive skills like |Seeing Eye|, which increased my vision to the max, and |Eye of Judgment|, which revealed the qualities of items, the strength of opponents, and their registered skills. Because I didn't have these in my skill slots, there wouldn't be a way to activate them using manual activation or any other way that I knew of from the game.

However, some skills I'd known would be helpful despite my current stats.

"Tck, |Jester|" I said as I activated |Jester|.

Then I drew a complex magic circle in the air with rapid movements of my hands to manually activate a skill. The circle initially shone with a pure white light, but the color became a dark purple as the symbol pulsed.

"|Enroachment|."

I activated |Enroachment|, a healing skill I'd picked up from the expert job [Demon King]. In exchange for ninety-nine percent of my maximum mana and slowly changing my personality into more cunning the longer I use it

But hey, this skill would increase my HP regeneration¹!

Since it was a regeneration skill from an expert job, the healing effects were immense. The skill would regrow my arm in less than a minute if I lost one, but it wouldn't heal me if I sustained enough damage at once to kill me. Due to the mana consumption and healing effects, gamers had called it a must-have for tanks.

The moment I activated the skill, a burning pain crawled over every bit of skin on my body, and I could feel the neurons in my brain rearranging. I immediately chugged the first of the «Small Potions of Mana» and drew my next magic circle.

"Oh, I'm not done yet!" I said, then yelled. "|Shadowstep|"

The dark lines that formed the geometric patterns inscribed in the magic circle began to suck in the nearby light once the skill activated, darkening the room. Afterimages flickered by my feet.

|Shadowstep| was a skill Grimshade also used. Although it only belonged to an advanced job, hardcore gamers favored the agility boosts, movement speed, and evasion chance that it provided. I was no exception, as I'd learned it to fight against other players. The agility boost was percentage-based rather than additive, but my agility wouldn't increase much since my stats were low.

I prepared for a final skill I hadn't tested because of the risks involved. Yet I downed the next «Small Potion of Mana» because I would play every card in my hand.

"And then, |Overdrive|!"

|Overdrive| was the signature extra skill of the expert job Weaponmaster.

For the next five minutes, my attack power and hit chance with every close-combat weapon and martial art would skyrocket. My weapon proficiency, reaction time, and vision would all increase massively. The buff to my stats was multiplicative and additive, meaning I'd reap huge bonuses even with my low stats.

When I activated the skill, my bones cracked and fractured as they healed themselves due to the effect of |Enroachment|.

The pain was like blades slicing through me, like arms twisting and bending me.

My mind struggled to think because of the agony and the |Enroachment|, but I gritted my teeth and focused on the monster in front of me. Veins burst on my forehead as blood ran down my face, painting a red filter over my vision.

'Ah hell... This is worse than I thought...'

The energy was rapidly draining from every part of my body. Although I'd tested |Enroachment| and |Shadowstep|, the strain |Overdrive| put on me was more severe than either of those. I probably would've spewed blood and instantly died if I tried to use it without a regeneration skill active.

'Ha ha, the fight's not even begun, and I'm already half-dead.'

Sophia watched what was happening to me. Her mouth was hanging open, her face distorted with sadness.

"B-Bro... that skill... are you okay...?"

"Would be a lie if say yes," I said, panting. "But hey, you're gonna...get to see your big brother play as hero."

Despite bursting several blood vessels and bleeding a bit, this combination of buffs from the best jobs in the game provided me with a far greater amount of power than what I could muster normally.

There might be consequences for my body after this, but I couldn't care less. I wasn't going to second-guess myself. I needed to defeat the monster facing us, or there'd be no tomorrow for me and Sophia.

I swung my weapon to get a feel for it, gripping the hatchet too tightly while bending its handle. But I needed to loosen my grip or I might break my weapon. I stepped forward, noticing how the stone floor cracked under my feet as portions of it pulverized.

"Ha ha, I might be the actual protagonist now..."

Grimshade retreated a few paces back, seemingly shocked and wary of me. What sort of undead monster behaved like that?

"What now, scared?" I taunted. "Calm down now would ya? I'll promise to be gentle don't I?"

We paused for a few seconds, observing one another. As we marched forth, both of us activated |Shadowstep| and instantly shrank the distance between us.

"Guooooooh!!!" the monster roared.

His falchion and my hatchet clashed, and the huge kinetic energy of our weapons converted to sound. While kinetic energy was usually proportional to mass and speed, it was also a function of magic and aura inside a magic field. As such, the power of our attacks was greater than it appeared.

'I've got just as much power as him,' I thought. 'The clashing of our weapons makes it obvious. But...'

That single clash of our weapons had sent a shock wave throughout my body like I'd swung and hit a heavy metal ball that traveled hundreds of kilometers an hour with all my strength. |Enroachment| healed my bones and muscles but couldn't help with the mental fatigue. It wouldn't last long, and my body would implode when the effects wore off. I needed to finish the fight quickly.

"Guoooooh!!!" Grimshade roared again.

Our weapons rushed through the air when we clashed blows at close range, stirring up the air and ringing out with a clang. Every blow was an uncompromising fatal strike that would lead to a pitiful death if it landed. The battle was a contest of strength far beyond the realm of possibility for ordinary humans.

The slightest grazes tore gashes in my skin as each blow I caught with my weapon chipped away at my HP, which regenerated. Our surroundings crumbled, and my steel hatchet gradually lost its shape.

My weapon wouldn't last as long as I'd hoped. Steel wasn't strong enough to endure the amount of power Grimshade exerted.

"Sophia!" I cried out. "Throw me your daggers!"

"Catch, bro!" responded Sophia, sliding both daggers along the floor toward me before I'd finished making my request. She must've seen that the hatchet was ready to break.

Grimshade took full advantage of the opening that I presented when I tried to pick up the daggers, and he activated a skill.

"Motherf–"

|Slice Edge|.

He'd used a sword skill that required a dagger or a one-handed sword to activate. His downward slash abruptly changed trajectory and moved horizontally. I'd seen this skill many times in the game and knew that the blade would always move to the right, so dodging was simple.

I twisted my upper body to evade the slash and stepped back while picking up the daggers. Next, I drank the last of the small mana potions and could no longer restore my mana.

The fight had lasted for less than twenty seconds. Yet the ground beneath us had become a mess of rubble from the high-speed |Shadowstep| movement, and deep scratches covered the walls. The red tint on my vision grew worse. More capillaries had succumbed to the burden of the strengthening skills and ruptured. The blood that trickled down blew off my face and was scattered into the wind by the powerful aura I exuded. I felt searing pain that told me I was overworking my muscles. Perhaps I was shaving off years of my life in exchange for the power I was wielding and could turn into a husk and die.

As I observed the monster, I knew he wanted Sophia's life and mine. A filthy black |Aura| shrouded the monster and made it seem like the embodiment of death.

'I used to dream of getting to experience a fight like this,' I thought.

The life I had in my previous world wasn't an unhappy one. I had a job that, even if I could have been better at it, satisfied me. I'd taken on my first subordinate, and I wanted to do well.

And yet, I had dreamed of being in a world I loved standing in a fight to the death against a ruthless monster.

Now, that dream has come true.

Despite the severity of the situation, a smile formed on my lips. Dungeon Explorer Chronicle had infected me with a maddened passion long ago. Unfortunately, I wouldn't be able to savor the feeling. A few more minutes, and I'd either live or die.

My |Aura| burst forth once more, dyed black purple by |Enroachment| going wild to heal me. Volgemurt fortified his black Aura in response, and we slowly advanced toward each other.

"I think we are done with the foreplay."

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Regeneration¹

Regeneration is a term used to refer to the continuous application of healing magic over a fixed period.