Transition to Another World, Land Mines Included. 033

Transition to Another World, Land Mines Included.

ACT 2: UNION
033: Return Part 2

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“Huh? Character Level? Is there such a thing…?”

Tohya seemed puzzled by Yuki’s innocent question.

“Well, actually, there is such a thing as Character Level…” Haruka interjected.

“Huh, really?”

“Yes, really.”

Whaaaaat!!? Didn’t she tell us before that there wasn’t anything like that? Wait, or did she just conveniently not tell us that it existed?

“Ooh! So this is like a game, after all!”

“You’ve never told us about this, Haruka-san.”

“Nope, I haven’t.”

“Why not?”

Yeah, why not…?

“Remember how we talked about EXP points during our discussion of Skills? That’s sort of it.”

I tried to recall what we’d talked about back then. Oh, I see… I guess that was why she’d kept this from us.

“What’s all this about?”

Haruka sighed at Yuki’s question.

“If I’d told Nao and Tohya about Character Levels, their gamer instincts would definitely take over. And it would be so much trouble to stop them.”

There it was again, Haruka’s harsh judgement, but it was painful to admit that she was right. There was truth to the phrase, ignorance is bliss.

“I thought I’d get a better chance to explain once we met up with you girls… But yeah, sorry for keeping it a secret till now.”

“Erm, no need to apologize. I mean, no harm done, right?”

“I guess, especially for Tohya’s sake.”

“Huh, me?”

Why did he look so shocked? He should know his own personality best.

“I mean, you’re always begging us to take on subjugation missions. Imagine if Haruka had told you about Levels, you’ll surely start grinding,” I explained.

“…Well, you’re not wrong.”

Tohya looked slightly sheepish. In fact, I guess I wasn’t much better myself, and would have done the same thing.

“Well, now that we’re on the topic, can you tell us more about Character Levels?” Natsuki chimed in.

It seemed like she had no idea, so I was glad that she asked the question for us. I could make a rough guess, since Tohya and I were gamers. Haruka and Yuki had Otherworldly Sense so they would know too, which left Natsuki as the only truly clueless one.

“Yuki, didn’t you tell Natsuki about this?”

“Oh, no. I mean, we didn’t have any chance to go outside the city, anyway.”

“I see, let’s use this chance to clear things up, then. Character Levels… The people of this world don’t call it that, but I’m just using the term for convenience sake. I’m sure everyone already knows that it’s not something that can be checked on our Status displays?”

“Yep.”

The Status display only showed us information regarding our name, race, age, condition, plus Skills and their levels. Compared to regular citizens of this world, having such a display did seem like a cheat, but there was definitely nothing about Character Levels on there.

“Basically, we can’t say that it doesn’t exist…”

“So it does exist?”

“…Actually, we don’t know.”

“Huh?”

The conversation didn’t seem to be going anywhere. Faced with all our confused expressions, Haruka looked a little panicked as she waved her hands and continued hurriedly.

“We don’t know officially, that is. I mean, there is enough circumstantial evidence to hint that it exists, but no concrete way to prove it.”

For example, hunting a demon versus a regular animal might seem similar, but doing the former made us much stronger at a faster rate.

“Hmm. So, if I feel much stronger despite my body remaining the same physically, it’s because I’ve managed to increase some unseen parameter?” I mused.

Let’s say I could carry weights of 100kg. It would not be strange that, compared to me, a huge macho dude could carry up to 300kg. In contrast, if I could also lift 3-400kg in weight, then something was definitely up.

“Actually, it’s much easier than that. For example, imagine Nao getting stabbed by a girl with a knife. What do you think will happen?”

“Huh? I’ll be hurt? Anyway, what kind of example is that…!?”

Seriously, was this something to be joked about?

“Well, under normal circumstances, you may die. However, if you were a high-ranking adventurer, you’ll magically avoid being stabbed.”

“Huh? So, you mean I don’t even have to duck or avoid the knife? Wait, that just sounds too weird!?”

“Hmm… I guess you can imagine it as some sort of invisible metal armor?”

“But that’s nothing special. I mean, I’m usually already dressed in armor.”

“Ooh, I get it! It’s like wearing an additional layer of chain mail under that!”

“I see. So if someone’s rank is high enough, they won’t need to worry about being stabbed by girls?”

It sounded good on paper, but I bet some slimy guys would try to use that to their advantage.

“It’s like Nao hiding manga under his clothes so no one would see them,” Haruka teased.

“Hey! Anyway, I’m not really gonna get stabbed, right?”

I stared at the others, but none of them would meet my eye. Hey! What was happening here?

“Well, let’s just leave it at that…”

Huh? What was all this about? I wanted to pursue the topic further, but I would probably not get any answers anyway. I decided to change the topic.

“So this inability to get stabbed has nothing to do with armor. Also, even if I was careless and got hurt, it won’t be a fatal injury. In other words, it’s like having a barrier around my body.”

“Like training your physical body so much that you generate some sort of other dimension.”

“What a funny world, where we can use muscles to repel injury.”

But if all this was true, did that mean that our chances of getting hurt would decrease once we increased our Character Levels? …That sounded really good. With our current physical strength, it would normally be impossible to take on enemies such as Vype Bears, since they could probably kill us with one hit.

“Well, that was just a simple example. Anyway, just remember that our physical ability can increase, regardless of muscle mass, because there is some unknown parameter that’s different from the usual Skill levels that we can see and train for.”

“So, assuming it’s something that can be leveled up, can we do so by training? Maybe by killing demons, as Yuki suggested just now?”

“Yes, subjugating demons is a good way to train for that. On the other hand, killing normal beasts or humans won’t contribute to it at all.”

However, since it wasn’t something we could measure, there was no concrete way to try to prove it using experiments or trial and error. I guess the fact that subjugating demons worked came from experience.

“Maybe it’s because demons possess a Mana Stone…?”

“Who knows? It could be effective because demons are evil beings that go against the will of God?”

What? Will of God? The whole thing just became even more unbelievable.

“God?? I was an atheist before, but after meeting that guy, I’m sure there’s some kind of divine existence, unless all of this is some sort of twisted dream,” Tohya said.

“What, so I’m part of your dream? Anyway, the people of this world do believe in gods, so things such as oracles and ideas like the Last Judgement do exist, though I’m not sure if they’re real or made up by people,” Haruka explained.

So it was different from our previous world, where religion was quite an ambiguous concept. In this world, it seemed that they did have a solid record of divine happenings to make gods believable to most people.

“But if gods really exist, then won’t there be war?”

“It depends. Wars in this world are less about wiping out demons, but more about personal gains between kingdoms… Basically, just humans being humans.”

“Huh? So people here don’t respect the gods?”

“No, most people do, but that’s not the issue.”

“Yeah. Even back on Earth, many people went to war in the name of God, and the religious often justified their wars as the will of God.”

“I guess that’s the difference. Whether oracles really do exist, or if people claim they do,” Yuki concluded with a bitter smile and shrug.

While events such as the Last Judgement couldn’t be faked, I guess divine messages came from oracles kept locked up in temples, making it impossible for the general public to judge whether they were real or not. As such, temples used to be important because they housed these oracles, even if it was no longer the case in recent times.

“Wait. If gods really exist, does it mean divine punishment exists as well?”

“Maybe, since people believe that natural disasters are a form of divine punishment, though I personally believe that God doesn’t meddle in the lives of mortals. I mean, look at how we transitioned into this world.”

“Huh? What’s all this got to do with our transition?”

“Remember the evil god saying that helping us to transition was going against some rule? Despite that, we’re still alive here, unpunished by the other gods. In other words, if our transitioning went against a rule but we aren’t punished, then why would gods bother to intervene and punish mortals for going to war?”

“Hmm… I guess that makes sense.”

If something as irregular as beings from another world transitioning here could be forgiven, then I guess the gods didn’t really care much about mortals or what we got up to. In that case, should we even believe that the gods would bother with things like oracles and the Last Judgement? Did that mean phenomenon like religious trances could just be ignored?

“Either way, defeating demons will make us stronger. Shall we just leave it at that for now?”

“I agree, since there’s no way regular people like us will get caught up in political or religious wars,” Natsuki said.

“Whoa, Natsuki. Don’t jinx it!” Yuki exclaimed.

“Huh? But we’re not particularly powerful nor famous, are we?” Natsuki asked, puzzled.

She was right, and I hoped it would remain that way.

“As long as we remain regular people, nope, but we’ll still have to deal with people like our former classmates.”

Exactly. There were plenty of land mine Skills out there that could drag us into trouble.

“Well, we’ll just have to avoid them at all costs,” Natsuki said with determination.

All of us nodded in agreement.

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