Chapter Four #2
People back on Earth often criticized scythes for being unrealistic weapons. Of course, those same people were typically spear simps who couldn’t shut the fuck up for the love of god about how superior their pointy sticks were. But here? A scythe was just as legitimate as any other weapon.
I could take a scythe and kick the ass of anyone who dared point a spear at me.
The only problem with that was—
“Hey, you alive in there?” Rosie asked, waving her hand in front of my face.
“Sorry, was thinking about the future,” I replied. “I realized what class I want to go for.”
“Considering your past and knowledge… I’m curious what you’re picking.”
“Reaper.”
“… Reaper? Is that even a class?”
“Well, there’s only one canon Reaper aside from the player character potentially becoming one, and he was a Reaper/Assassin serial killer… huh, I guess I should probably defeat him. And a bunch of other villains.”
“I’m once again being assaulted with knowledge that feels like it should be forbidden.”
“Anyways, it’s a class that most people don’t even know exists since it has an unlock condition related to a level fifty dungeon, so anyone who actually learns about it typically only gets it as a sub-class long after they’ve picked a primary class.
Since you can’t go past level fifteen without having a primary class, that means I’ll have to enter a level fifty dungeon while only level fifteen at the most to get it. ”
“So, you want to commit suicide.”
“It’s not suicide if I win. Besides, even if I lose, it’s still not suicide. It’s being violently murdered.”
“I thought I was the one who got hit in the head, but did a snail drop on you when I wasn’t looking?”
“Don’t worry. For better or for worse, I’ve always been this way.”
“Wouldn’t it be better to get another class first?”
“No way. Besides, I already know what sub-class I want to go for.”
“Do I even want to know?”
“Chronomancer. I’m going to go Reaper/Chronomancer since I’ve theorized about a fun DoT build using them before.”
“Okay, at least I’ve heard about Chronomancers before, but isn’t that another class that requires a strong dungeon to get?”
I gave Rosie a wink and a thumbs up. “You’ve got it. So, if I want that combination, the only way I’m getting it is to go get one of them while being severely under-leveled. Then the other will be easy.”
“I’m guessing that this ‘Reaper’ class must be a pretty strong DoT class if you’re taking Chronomancer with it. I mean, you said a DoT build, and Chronomancer isn’t known for its DoTs.”
“Chronomancer has a bunch of skills I would love to use, but you’re right. Only two of its abilities are useful for a DoT build. Everything else is filler.”
“Picking a class just for two skills is a bit…”
“It’s going to be so cool.”
“If you say so.”
With the explanation over, I walked up to the chest, reached in to activate its menu, and moved my new weapon into my inventory.
//Iron Sickle
//Type: Weapon [Sickle] (Common)
//Requirements: Level 1
//6 – 8 Damage (Slashing)
//Even the smallest of farmers’ tools can be used as weapons.
It was already time to retire Rusty.
Thank you for your service, Rusty.
The sword held in my right hand disappeared and was replaced by the sickle. It really was a tool meant for farmers rather than battle, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t still be deadly in the right hands.
And it was, in fact, held in my right hand.
“You want some of these healing potions?” Rosie asked me.
“You can hold onto them,” I answered. “You’re the tank right now anyways, so you need them more than me.”
“You sure you don’t even want one?”
“If I end up needing one, it means I’m not doing a good enough job of showing off.”
“Said the old man to the ‘basically a child.’”
“One, I’m not that old. Two, I already took back what I said.”
“Don’t worry.” Rosie winked. “I won’t forget what you said.”
“You said that with far too evil of a smirk.”
She showed me another smug smile before turning away. “Ready to go to the next floor? Actually… if you’re as much of a gaming addict as you claim, you probably have this place memorized, don’t you?”
“That’s right, and that includes having all the secret passages memorized.”
“Secret passages?”
“We won’t be worrying about those yet since they’re full of mid-difficulty monsters. But, if you’re feeling up to challenging some level forties, we can—”
“I take back what I asked.”
“Let the forbidden knowledge flow into you, Rosie.” I wiggled my fingers toward her in a manner most menacing. “Think of all the spoilers I could tell you.”
“Gah!” Rosie brought her hands up to her fluffy, elongated ears and smooshed them against her head to try and block out my voice. “I don’t want to hear any spoilers! It’s going to take the fun of exploring dungeons on my own away!”
“Don’t worry. I—” I stopped when I saw that her eyes were shut and her ears were still covered.
I poked her nose to get her attention, causing her to jump and let go of her ears.
“Don’t worry. I won’t spoil anything. Honestly, I love the spirit of preferring to find things out on your own.
I always discouraged people from following guides to discover things on their own, and I’ll be happy to take a backseat and let you lead so that you still get to figure things out yourself. ”
Rosie let out another one of her sighs. “You know, you’re making it sound like we’re going to be sticking together from now on.”
“Only if you’ll have me.”
“Do you think I’m stupid enough to not stick by a literal isekai protagonist? Only idiots leave those protagonists… well, unless it’s one of those dark stories where everyone suffers the whole time.”
“I guess this world has got its own share of isekai stories.”
“I mean, it is the most popular genre.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah. Is that surprising?”
“Isekai was a niche genre only for nerdy guys back on Earth, basically. The most popular genre was romance.”
“I see, that’s pretty crazy. I mean, what is there not to love about isekai?
Anyways, we can talk more about that later—wait.
” Rosie looked deep into my eyes. “If you’re from a whole other world…
then you could steal all the popular stories you read and publish them here as your own, and then we can make a ton of money from that, right? ”
“And here I thought your character was all about being kind and always doing the right thing.”
“You can’t commit intellectual property theft against people from another universe!”
“You’ve got a point there. Unfortunately for you, I used all my braincells on memorizing this game inside and out, so I won’t be able to steal any stories I read.”
“Guh… so much for that plan. Oh well.” Rosie perked right up. “Let’s keep going!”
“Right behind you.”
Rosie had no control back in the game. Ultimately, she was only a companion to the player under their full control. So, for the first time, I got to really see how she was as a leader choosing where to go and which enemies to engage.
She turned out to be a grinder at heart. All the more reason to like her.
We fought every single monster we came across.
The more we fought, the more experience we gained, the more we leveled up.
Though, we barely got experience from the snails now.
Enemies gave drastically less experience once they were three levels beneath the character’s level.
Both of us were level four, so combine that with the exponential increase in experience needed to level up, and a single snail only gave us about 2% experience when they used to give around 20%.
But we still killed enough of them, and a couple more scorpions, to reach level five after another hour of exploring.
I also killed enough of them while using the sickle, even with its ineffective damage type, to get the Strong Slash skill, which was just the slashing equivalent of Power Bash that scaled with dexterity instead of strength.
“That’s… the boss, right?” Rosie asked.
“Bosses are always behind white fog,” I answered.
Rosie gulped. “Even though I’m confident we can win… I still feel a little nervous.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that. There’d probably be something wrong with you if you didn’t feel nervous.”
“What about you? Are you nervous?”
“My existence is something wrong, so no.”
“Heh. That makes me feel a little better. Just so you know, I have no idea what to expect. I purposely shut my ears every time I heard people talk about the monsters here. Even when my big sis tried giving me advice, I covered my ears and ran away.”
“Then I won’t say a single thing. Want me to hold back until you figure things out?”
“Give me… thirty seconds. Then you can join in.”
“Got it. But just so you know, when it comes to any dangerous monsters or bosses later on that have a serious potential of killing you, I’m going to spoil them for you whether you like it or not. Avoiding spoilers isn’t worth dying to avoidable mistakes.”
“I can accept that.”
“Of course, you could still die even in this fight, but you’d have to suffer from serious skill issue to die here.”
“You know, lots of people have died in here.”
I almost said, “Skill issue,” right away, but I resisted.
It wasn’t right to talk of real people like that.
No matter how much the world felt like a game, it wasn’t one.
“Be careful and you’ll be fine,” I said.
“I will be,” Rosie said. “You ready?”
“Ready.”
She took a deep breath and readied her mace and shield. “Okay, let’s go.”
So, we traversed the fog.
A somber melody began to play as soon as we did. It was the start of the boss’s theme song.
Oh, right. Music had been playing the entire time, but it was the kind of ambient music specifically designed to be background noise that was easy to ignore, so I completely forgot it was there.
It felt so natural that I didn’t even notice how strange it was to passively hear background music playing without any instruments or speakers nearby.
Seth must not have wanted his music to go to waste.
[Scarred Olm]
[Level 5 | Boss]