The real difficulty of the Idle system

...

"Now, you won't be having dinner for a week until you learn the lesson, Farid!"

-Bam!!-

Slamming the door in my face, sister Elena left the room, leaving me alone to "reflect" on my actions today.

I thought that I would only be punished for a few days after what I did. However, probably because I was too concentrated on the screen, my expression didn't change too much while she was berating me... Which may have made her even angrier than before... Thus, extending my punishment to a whole week.

Maybe I should act a little bit more scared next time...

Sighing exhaustingly, I walked towards my bed and rapidly threw myself at it... She may have not noticed, but I was actually pretty hurt right now. There were quite a lot of scratches on my stomach and chest, I got thrown pretty badly towards the ground after all...

Fortunately, it didn't seem to be that much.

Furthermore... I almost shat on my pants right then and there... I got too scared seeing that guy try to attack me...

Now I don't know whether there will be guys like that every time I go outside... Why did it try to attack me in the first place? I didn't do anything to him.

However, if I want to become the strongest in the future, I will have to get accustomed to dealing with scary guys like that... Moreover, even if he was scary, I still defeated him easy peasy with my super strong punches!

However, maybe there will be even stronger and scarier guys than him around the world... So even my strength might not be enough.

"Hmm... Maybe staying inside this room for a week won't be that bad, after all, I can continue gathering status points and becoming stronger without problems! Hmm... And now that I mention that..."

Suddenly, a memory came back to my mind... Something that I had yet to do.

Indeed, now that I had gotten stronger, it was time for me to deal with the fake Rayhan for once and for all, and increase my status points' collecting speed!

And this time I could make sure to end the fight in just one second!

"Huh?"

However, my plans soon went to a halt as soon as I noticed a very particular change in the status window.

"What...?"

▽

Status points remaining: [1.2]

...

☠ [Selected oponent] ☠

▸[Human: Rayhan Shieda] Gives 0.01~0.1 status points every [32 seconds...]

『Opponent [Human: Kuno Weber] is now available in the list of opponents!』

『Do you wish to try and set a new record for your current opponent? Or do you wish to change it?』

『Set a new record』『Change current opponent』

'Who's this?'

Not giving it much thought, I touched the name of the new opponent, and soon a new screen appeared in front of me, much to my surprise.

▸[Human: Kuno Weber] Status points given = 0.1~0.3

...

△

"No way...!"

It was unbelievable.

During all this time that I've been using the screen, I had somewhat learned what the strange numbers meant. Thus, it was completely normal for me to feel baffled when I saw the enormous rewards that this new opponent would give me once I defeated him.

The fake Rayhan only gave me a tenth of the status points that this new guy gave me!

But...

How strong is he?

Depending on how strong this new opponent was, the speed of my status points collecting would be greatly affected.

If this guy was too strong, then even if he gave me ten times more status points than the fake Rayhan, it wouldn't matter.

"However..."

There was an old saying that I heard one time from sister Elena...

"Nothing ventured, nothing gained..."

Not hesitating anymore, my finger moved rapidly towards the option of changing my opponent and tapped it, and as expected, soon my environment turned once again into the white space where I had fought the fake Rayhan many times before.

When I turned to look at the appearance of my new opponent, I couldn't help but let out a shriek of surprise as I unconsciously took a step back because of the shock.

The one in front of me was no one else but the man that had attacked me today in the city!

However, unlike the guy from the city I had met, this one, just like the fake Rayhan, was completely emotionless and only stood idly looking at me without showing any expression in particular.

The other guy was scary because of his intimidating aura and his vicious expression... He looked like a man who would kill you if you looked at him in the eyes. On the other hand, the clone in front of me simply looked like a man who didn't care about anything or anyone, simply thinking about his own things silently.

But why was he here? No, why had the screen selected him in the first place?

Indeed, I thought about such a thing before, but I didn't really care about it after that... Why was Rayhan on the screen as well...?

What made them different from the others so that they would be included in my list of opponents?

And finally, why had this guy only appeared on the list today? Coincidentally being the same day that I met him and defeated him.

My head was thinking of very fast speeds while trying to figure out the reason why this guy was in front of me... However, despite how curious I was, I also knew that this wasn't exactly the best place to start pondering something...

『Beginning battle』

As soon as that message reached my eyes, my mind disposed of any inner doubts and started concentrating on the incoming fight with all its might. The real guy who attacked me in the city was nothing special, and I defeated him rather easily, so this one should be practically the same.

『3...』

『2...』

『1...』

'I just need to strike first and I will win!'

Thinking such, I strengthened the power in my fist, and rapidly locked onto my target with my eyesight, ready to pounce at him right away.

-Huff...-

Taking a deep breath, I concentrated for the last time and waited for the sound of the start of the battle to reach my ears, beads of sweat falling from my forehead because of the nervousness I was feeling with each millisecond that passed.

『Begin』

However, as soon as the [Begin] sound reached me, my blood boiled with a furious rage and my body reacted as if lightning had struck it.

"Hyaaa!!"

Letting out an invigorating roar, I kicked the ground and launched myself at him. Soon, seeing that I was within the range of attack of the guy, I raised my fist and prepared myself to punch him with all my might, hoping to finish the fight in one strike.

"Take... thi-!"

-Bam!!-

However, much to my shock and worry, I was not the first to land a strike, but he.

When I was just about to launch my punch at him, he rapidly moved his fist and struck my face with his own punch, knocking me away immediately.

I couldn't react nor dodge in the slightest.

-Tap tap tap!-

Before I was even able to understand how had the situation come to this, the clone of the man rapidly ran towards me and kicked me in the stomach, making me cough uncontrollably because of the force behind his kick.

'What is happening...? The real guy didn't fight this well...'

-Bam!!-

Receiving another kick without being able to do anything, I rolled through the floor and coughed saliva violently before I turned to look at the approaching figure of the man's clone running towards me menacingly.

For some reason, despite being a clone... Now he looked dozens of times scarier than the real one...

"Why is it so different...?"

...

°

°

°

|A few minutes later...|

-Huff... Puff...-

『You have successfully defeated your opponent in [2 minute and 25 seconds...]』

『The system will now start collecting status points from [Human: Kuno Weber] every 2 minutes and 25 seconds』

『Leaving the Battle-simulating stage』

"Goddamn it... I almost died there..."

Currently, I was lying on the floor completely exhausted and covered in bruises all over my body.

During the fight, I somewhat figured out why the clone was so much harder to fight than the real Kuno Weber or whatever.

The clone was a being without feelings only created to fight me. Thus, it couldn't underestimate me, as the real one had done, nor have his emotions rush to his head, being able to be calm at all times during a battle.

The clone also seemed to be able to use the full fighting knowledge of the original without problem, as it used some rather amazing attacks while beating me up. So, in a certain sense, the clones were a lot stronger than the real ones.

The fake Rayhan was just the clone of a child, so while he was calm at all times, it didn't really compensate for his lack of strength and knowledge in fighting, making him have basically the same strength as the real one.

However, this Kuno guy seemed to actually know his fair share of how to fight, and his strength wasn't something that I was accustomed to dealing with, thus, the difficulty was a lot higher than what I was thinking in a beginning.

Furthermore, I defeated the real Kuno by taking him by surprise with my superhuman strength. He, who was an already ass-grown adult, could have never expected the kid he had thrown to the ground so easily would have such strength in his punches, which in the end made him break his wrist when clashing fists with me. If I had fought him head to head, I don't know how difficult it would have really been.

However, the clone of this Kuno guy was a being created to fight me, so it was prepared to fight at full power from the very start.

It didn't underestimate me, so it didn't let its guard down at any moment, and it had no mercy on me, attacking me at all times when I was unable to fight back.

Fortunately, during one of his attacks, I managed to grab his arm, which ended in me punching with all my might his whole body while not letting him go.

Just like the real Kuno guy, my fists were enough to take him down quite fast. And in the end, after bleeding a lot through my head, I managed to take the clone down and won the fight.

Though, the result was less than pleasant.

Making a few calculations... My current gain of status points was a lot slower than with the fake Rayhan, whom I could defeat in just a few seconds, unlike this Kuno guy.

-Sigh...-

Releasing a tired sigh for the day, I opened the opponent selector once again and selected Rayhan's clone as my opponent once again.

"I guess I'm still too weak to fight this Kuno guy. Maybe I should try to increase my defense as well, or else I'm gonna suffer a lot with his punches when I have my rematch with him... Hmm... Now that I think about it, receiving a full-powered punch head-on and not receiving any damage is kind of badass as well... Right?"

...

"Hahaha, very well, I will from now on become the strongest and the toughest man in the world!!"

Laughing like a madman, I soon winced in pain at the damage that Kuno's clone had inflicted on my body and sighed while trying to calm myself a bit.

Not prolonging the matter any longer, I touched the option for establishing a new record with Rayhan's clone, and immediately got transported to the white world for the second time on this day.

While fighting that Kuno guy's clone was too hard for the time being, it would only be a matter of time before I would be able to defeat him with ease...

『Opponent [Human: Rayhan Shieda] Has been created』

『Beginning battle』

『3...』

『2...』

『1...』

『Begin』

... And for the time being, I would make sure to shorten that time.

...

-To be continued-