4.7

When I arrived at another wider cavern the only way I could choose was the one leading straight ahead. Right now I have ventured quite far to this floor's left side, but there is absolutely no cause for concern, since I can always use Dungeon Walker to go back to the starting point.

In the next four caverns I also had no choice but to go straight ahead, until I happened upon another enemy. I was hoping to get a surprise attack at it, but unfortunately the mechanic of the floor shining with every step gave my position away too early. It's not that big of a problem, but I'll have to take that into consideration the next time I'll come to the bigger area. Also, it would be good if I could determine if the monsters in here move and hunt by relying primarily on their sight, or if they use other senses to determine the location of the potential prey. But that will come later. For now…

「Overwhelming!」

Since I should have enough MP recovered, I tried casting the Hero Job's Skill one more time. At first I thought that nothing has happened, just like last time. But this time something about the enemy has visibly changed. The Needlewood's movements became much slower, as if he was moving in slow motion. He was slowed to such a degree that I thought he was going to freeze in place any minute now.

In the meantime, I have approached it and positioned myself behind it. Due to the slow effect, it didn't even shift its head in my direction. For a second I thought about leaving it alone since there was no way that it would be able to hurt me in its current condition, but I discarded that thought almost immediately. This is a monster, and I am an Adventurer. This world operates on a very simple principal of [kill or be killed] where one wrong move equaled death. I didn't have to worry about it in my old world, but right now I have to keep telling myself that I am no longer an ordinary, powerless citizen. I am a warrior, and if I have the strength to fight, I might as well use it against anything which seeks to inflict harm upon me, no matter how defenseless it might seem! So sorry buddy, but I won't be risking letting you go so you could call the rest of your friends in an attempt to overwhelm me with your numbers!

I raised Durandal into the air and swung it down, cleaving the slowed Needle Wood before me in half.

There! How do you like that, you wooden dick?!

Based on my observations, I can tell that the slow effect lasts for some time, but I'll have to confirm if it is the same for every enemy who'll be slashed by Overwhelming, or does it differ from enemy to enemy.

I exhaled deeply and placed Durandal back at my waist as the monster, who probably didn't even realize what was going on until it was too late disappeared in a puff of green smoke. My own feelings have also calmed down sufficiently for me to analyze how exactly the effect of Overwhelm worked. Was it really slowing down whoever was cut by my weapon? Or was it actually accelerating my own movement speed, making me see everything around me as moving extremely slowly? Or perhaps it's just increasing my Agility? Either way, to put it in the simplest way possible, it is a Skill which manipulates time. If it can really allow me to move faster than my enemies, than that is going to give me a tremendous advantage in battle. However, there is still one issue that I have to address.

The negative effect that the loss of MP has on my mental state.

After using Dungeon Walker too much, I have exhausted almost all of my MP, and as a result of that, my head was gradually being filled with gloomy, depressing thoughts which made me quite angry and irritated, and that anger and irritation reached their peak when I used Overwhelm to kill that Needle Wood whom I first wanted to spare. But after I slayed it and the MP recovery effect kicked in, I gradually started feeling better, as if something has chased away the dark clouds looming over my mind.

Does my mental well-being really have something to do with how filled my MP bar is? Because I remember that something like that has happened to me before, when I used the Skill of the Flame Rapier, only then I simply felt extremely mentally exhausted. So if we assume that expending MP worsens my psychological state and recovering MP improves it, then that would mean that the more Skills I use in battle, the wilder of an emotional roller coaster ride I'm going to go through.

Great, that is simply wonderful. Here I was, thinking that this adventure is going to be just like your regular RPG kind, but now I feel like I have just discovered the existence of a hidden Sanity statistic, just like in those Call of Cthulhu games. And that means that if I want to avoid the scenario in which I'm going to either go insane or so depressed that I'm going to kill myself for real this time. So until I'll be able to afford using Skills without having my MP drop to zero almost immediately, I think it would be best to avoid spamming them left and right unless the situation really calls for it.

Okay, after all these battles I think it's high time for another appraisal of my levels. I looked at my own hand and used Identify.

Kaga Michio (Male, 17 years old)

Villager Lv4 Hero Lv1 Explorer Lv1 Thief Lv3

Equipment: Durandal Leather Armor Sandals

The only Job whose level went up was the Villager. Hero and explorer stayed exactly the same as they were.

Exactly how many Needle Woods have I defeated so far? I don't know the exact number, but it must be approaching a hundred, and yet even with the two of my Bonus Skills, 1/5th Experience Required and 5 x Experience Earned the only Job to gain a level was Villager? Just how many EXP does the Hero Job needs to level up?! And don't get me started about the Explorer, my newly acquired Job! Is obtaining levels for anything that isn't your main Job really that difficult?!

To begin with, I don't think that the actual level cap in this world is very high, probably because this is a reality, not a game that can be cleared in just a few days if you spend all of your time grinding and power-leveling. The denizens of this world can't do that, hence they have to amass experience gradually over the course of their entire lives, so it should come to me as no surprise that killing close to 100 monsters was still not enough for more than one Job to level up. Or maybe the Bonus Skills are not working as they should be working? Honestly, I don't even know anymore. Maybe by obtaining more Jobs the value got reduced to 1/3rd? Or perhaps the rest of the Jobs do get the EXP points, but not the entirety, but only a small portion of it? That would explain why did the Villager Job's level went up from 3 to 4, but the level of Hero and Explorer stayed the same.

Ugh, at times like these I would really like to have some kinda strategy guide with me. Or a cheat compendium.

Since my business with that monster is done, there's nothing left to do but to pack the branches he left behind and be on my way.

Or maybe I should do another Character Reset?

Since the Villager has leveled up, I should have one more Bonus Point. That is one thing which is totally praiseworthy: a system in which the total number of your Bonus Points increases as the level of your first assigned Job increases. With that said, I removed the Critical Strike Chance Increase and replaced it with Skill Cast Time Reduction. I feel like it might be of better use to me, because further down the line I will probably obtain much more MP, to the point where I will be able to spam Skills without running the risk of damaging my mentality, so it would be nice to have something that would allow me to fire those Skills off that much faster. As for the Critical Strike Chance, I think investing my Bonus Points into it might have been a mistake, because let's face it, with my current equipment I will probably never even get the chance to use it in an actual combat since I one-shot every enemy that is stupid enough to face me, and even if I didn't do that, 10% Critical Strike Chance is still a pretty low number, so it can go fuck itself for all I care.