It was now the morning of the last day… Tomorrow will be the day of baptism, when the plot of this world will finally start. Victor sighed before he stretched his back on his bed.
For now, he just wanted to take it easy… It was unfortunate that there was no shower or bath, because he felt scurf accumulating on his head, and it was annoying. Well, the faster he could get money, the faster he can buy a bath where he can clean his body and his clothes. For the moment, it would be better changing his clothes though, since they start to stink.
But first…
"...Hmm, 800 Gold Coins." Soon he will approach the target for the gun. Now it's time to make some upgrades though…
[Current Production: 102 Gold/Hour]
[Basic Production: 93 Gold/Hour]
[Current Multiplier: 1.1x]
[Automatic Wood Cutter: (1 Gold/Hour)]
[Automatic Stone Retriever: (2 Gold/Hour)]
[Coal Mine: (5 Gold/Hour)]
[Copper Mine: (10 Gold/Hour)]
[Iron Mine: (15 Gold/Hour)]
[Steel Mine: 500 Gold]
[Silver Mine: (1 Gold/Minute)]
[Gold Mine: 1'000 Gold]
[Platinum Mine: 2'000 Gold]
"...Maybe I should buy the Silver Mine instead of the Steel Mine, for more efficiency. I can buy the Steel Mine later." Victor decided and bought the Silver Mine first, bringing his current currency back to 10. However, his income became 102 in return, which was great. In mere five hours, he can buy the Steel Mine.
Victor decided to check over his Info Screen, as it has been a while since he did that.
[Name: Victor]
[Surname: Luis]
[Age: 17-04-02]
[Gender: Male]
[Race: Human]
[Magic Tier: F]
[Body Tier: F]
[Spirit Tier: F]
[Mind Tier: E]
These parameters… What do they mean? What are the values that split off the rankings? What is the limit? Is there a way to increase them without genetic modification? Too many questions, but no answer back to him.
Everything will come with time… Anyway, there is nothing else to do here except waiting for breakfast.
…
Fortunately for his heart, Victor passed his time relaxing on his bed without anything weird happening in the incoming hours. For the first time after a long time, Victor felt that weird wish of walking around, and it was weird for someone as lazy as him.
Well, without a phone, he really can't do anything in the near time except getting bored to death…
It seemed like God was viewing him on his good side this time, because it quickly got night. He obtained a total of 1'463 Gold Coins in these next 12 hours, which he used to obtain the Steel Mine and the Polisher, turning his production into this.
[Current Production: 141 Gold/Hour]
[Basic Production: 123 Gold/Hour]
[Current Multiplier: 1.15x]
[Automatic Wood Cutter: (1 Gold/Hour)]
[Automatic Stone Retriever: (2 Gold/Hour)]
[Coal Mine: (5 Gold/Hour)]
[Copper Mine: (10 Gold/Hour)]
[Iron Mine: (15 Gold/Hour)]
[Steel Mine: (30 Gold/Hour)]
[Silver Mine: (1 Gold/Minute)]
[Gold Mine: 1'000 Gold]
[Platinum Mine: 2'000 Gold]
[Cleaner: (+0,05x multiplier)]
[Purifier: (+0,05x multiplier)]
[Polisher: (+0,05x multiplier)]
[Refiner: 1'000 Gold]
He had spent 1'000 Gold Coins to get the two things, leaving him with 463 Gold Coins that he used to buy a new set of clothes.
Since now he had a wider set of choices, he bought clothes that he actually liked at the cheap price of 50-90 Gold Coins for each item.
At the moment, he is wearing a black shirt with a long red sentence printed on the front saying: 'Violence is not the answer. Violence is the question, and the answer is yes.' Meanwhile, he started to wear a more comfortable set of jeans, and a pair of sportive grey and black Jordans on his feet.
He used the last Gold Coins to buy himself a cushion for him to sit on while being on the wheelchair, knocking him back to the red. Anyway, he will get more coins after sleeping, so he can buy all he needs to live the best of his life away from everything here until he can find what path he will take for the future after fixing his legs.
It would be a shame enjoying his last day here like this, so he decided to go outside for the moment, to enjoy the night like other people would...
Victor wheeled outside of the inn, and surprisingly found Luka holding an iron sword with a length perfect for someone of his short size, swinging it around with large and weird arcs.
"Yo." Victor called out, attracting Luka's attention. Luka stopped swinging his sword and turned at Victor.
"Oh, good evening Victor." Luka greeted Victor as the latter wheeled out. "What are you doing at this hour?"
"Meh, I just wanted to look around since tomorrow things will change. I heard about people relaxing while looking at nature, so I wanted to try that out by myself. But…" Victor trailed off as he stopped on his spot and looked past the trees of the forest surrounding Ilias Village, seeing a moon coming out little by little.
"...I can't really see what's good about it." After a dozen of seconds of staring at the moon, Victor finished his sentence.
"You think so?" Luka asked back before he turned towards the moon. He paused as he stared at the half-moon floating in the sky, and replied. "I think that it's calming looking at the moon now. No one is here to make noise, and there is nothing that can be called annoying around here."
"Hmm, sounds like my daily life." Victor replied before silence reigned on the area once again. "...So, tomorrow will be your great day."
"Yeah, that's right." Luka nodded. "Tomorrow I will get baptized at noon and then I will pass around the village to salute everyone else, before I head out. I'll go to Iliasburg, equip myself, find new companions, solve problems along the way, and then return here after defeating the Monster Lord and achieving coexistence between monsters and humans."
"...You do realize that it's not that easy to achieve that, right?" Victor asked, and Luka nodded again.
"Yes, the Monster Lord is powerful, I know."
"No, you don't know shit." Victor sighed and shook his head. "First of all, with those sloppy movements of yours, you couldn't stand a chance against tricky monsters around Iliasburg. If it wasn't for my left leg, I could easily have pushed you on the ground and punched you until you fell unconscious."
"What? How could it be?" Luka asked with a surprised expression. "I trained for more than 5 years, with the help of various Hero Apprentices who stopped at my inn and some real Heroes who passed by! I was able to make an original style that is mine alone!"
"No, you did not, and let me tell you why. First of all, Hero Apprentices… Really? You would ask newbies of your current age how to fight? This is not a fantasy world where people can ascend to godhood through willpower alone. There are no special abilities spread everywhere, there is no such thing as Cultivation, and more than half of the monsters here are looking for a husband.
It was a good decision asking real Heroes about their experiences, as they certainly fought at least one fight to death in their lives either at north of Ilias Continent or Sentora, but Hero Apprentices? They don't know anything of what they are dealing with. I have been walking for 17 years, but you don't see me pull some mysterious footwork now, do you?"
"Really? What was wrong with my moves then?"
"You are a newbie, you don't have nearly enough experience to understand how to properly fight yourself. Though, I am not someone to judge as I am as inept as you with the sword, since I never trained myself in it.
Don't wind up large attacks; in real fights, you don't have the privilege of using strong attacks unless your opponent is down. As long as you can make them bleed, you have done enough. You have a sword, not a club, use its edge to hurt your opponents.
Think of it as you are hammering someone. You don't use all of your strength when you wield your hammer, right? You just hit the nail with the metallic part of the hammer, and the weight behind that hit will do its job."
"That makes sense…" Luka commented as he stared at the sharp edge of his sword and calmly swung it like he was testing it. However, he looked back at Victor after a couple of swings and replied. "It kind of feels empty, though…"
"That depends on the point of view of people. You know Granberia, right? The Heavenly Knight of Fire."
"Of course. There is no person who has picked up the sword that didn't hear of her." Luka nodded in confirmation.
"What would you think her swordplay looks like? She could slice apart a mountain, annihilate armies by herself, and she can also use the power of fire along with her sword."
"If you put it in that way, she sounds really awesome."
Victor nodded, already guessing his answer, and asked again. "What would you think she thinks about her swordplay?"
"Umm… How am I supposed to know that?"
"And that's what happens when you stay holed up in this village listening to bullshit 24/7. How about I tell you how she would feel? Granberia would be extremely bored."
"Huh?" Luka blinked in surprise at Victor's blunt words.
"Think of it in this way. Her swordsmanship reached levels that could be comparable to that of Heinrich, the Hero you look up so much. She has the strength of a massive dragon pumped up with any kind of steroid existing inside her human-sized body, and she clearly demonstrated her strength to be extremely high if she, someone who isn't part of any kind of royalty or has some strange powerful bloodline compared to her peers, is acknowledged as one of the Four Heavenly Knights.
God knows how much potential she still has to convert into her own strength, but here she is, standing on the peak with only four other people around her same level. I don't know much of this, but I doubt she is leisurely passing her days drinking a lemonade on some random beach. She is doing her best so she can catch up with the other three Heavenly Knights, who are the Queens of their respective races, and also the Monster Lord herself."
Seeing that Luka was still wearing a blank expression, Victor continued to elaborate. "You know about Ilias Kreuz, right?"
"Umm, yeah, of course." Luka nodded. "Why?"
"What do you know about them?"
"They are a terrorist organization founded and led by two people, and they take the Goddess' teachings to the extreme. To solve the problem of intercourse the monsters, they decided to exterminate them all and assault their settlements with explosives or armies."
"However, if you were the Monster Lord, you could have simply ordered Granberia to go there and 'Poof', they are gone along with their base and maybe half of Gold Port. They want to eliminate every trace of monster blood in the world? Just one Heavenly Knight, only Granberia is enough to slaughter all of them, and they won't be able to resist a single swing of her sword.
You are at the very bottom, with many people and monsters being stronger than you. However, for someone like that monster, it would be as clear as crystal that she was at the top of the hierarchical scale. And then? Where do you aim for? You have reached the top of your mountain, there is nothing else in front of you. If you take a step forward, you will simply go forward, not up.
It won't be now, and it won't be for the next half a year. But you, one day, will follow her in the same way, walking forward trying to find a 'path' to walk into. For someone like her, there are a lot of things that she won't know. How many things has she experienced? Has she ever felt tragedy? She only has such a great strength that it is even capable of stealing her own dreams. She reached the peak of the path of the sword, what else does she need to do?"
Finally, the realization came up to Luka. For a moment, he glanced at his sword and asked more at himself rather than Victor.
"...So everything I do will end up being boring? ...That is terrible…"
"Indeed it is. Once you have gained the strength you wanted… Wealth, fame, position, women… Everything is already within your grasp, you simply need to pull it in your direction. Still, there is some good news… Can you tell me what it is?"
"...I don't know."
"Achievement. Even if it will ultimately lead to boredom, you will not give up on that road. Why? That is because you currently need to go through that path. Only when you will walk in that path, will you see more goals other than defeating the Monster Lord and achieving coexistence between humans and monsters.
Will you be able to surpass Heinrich's legend with your sword? Will you be able to claim the title of the strongest swordsman in the world away from Granberia's hands? The best part of following a path is not the end, but what stands before that end. Only then you will feel the glory of achieving the result you always wanted to reach. The rush of feeling like you can reach the end of that path is unlike any other."
Victor paused before he sighed and shook his head. "Oh fuck, I really rambled too much… Anyway, you don't have to bother if your attacks look normal, as long as they can do what you wanted them to do. You want to be a swordsman, not a clown. If you want a flashy move, go to the circus."
"..." Luka remained silent and stared at Victor. Victor didn't know what his rambling really caused inside Luka, as the latter felt like he became a better swordsman just by listening to Victor.
"...By the way, you seem to know a lot about Granberia. Do you perhaps know each other?"
Victor raised an eyebrow at Luka's question and remained silent for around 5 seconds, before he shrugged. "It's more of a one sided thing, she doesn't know I even exist. You can even personally ask her if you get in the Monster Lord's castle… Anyway, where were we?"
"...You were speaking of how bad my moves looked like?" Luka suggested, but Victor shook his head.
"No, before that."
"You were telling me about the difficulties of achieving my goal…"
"Right." Victor nodded. "So, the first one is your shitty swordplay. As for the second one, it's the actual level you have to reach to be able to defeat the Monster Lord. Even if your swordsmanship reached the realm where Granberia and Heinrich are, or even surpassed them, you can't do anything if you lack the power.
First of all, you might as well put back that sword of yours once you have reached Sentora, as it would snap apart before you could get inside the skin of your target. Second, even with the sharpest sword in the world, and the greatest technique you can learn, you will not even be able to touch your target if you are too slow to use that technique. You will have to take serious dopings for that."
"But Heinrich could do it…"
"Heinrich also had help, where have you ever seen humans reach that kind of crazy level?" Victor rebuked.
Luka stared at Victor in surprise and asked. "He had some help? Who helped him?"
"That will come at the right time, you will not understand now even if I told you. Anyway, you will never reach the level necessary to defeat the Monster Lord alone without serious changes of heart. As for the third part, it will be what comes after."
"Huh?"
Victor sighed and elaborated. "The Monster Lord doesn't represent the will of the monster species… Well, it kind of does, but her authoritative power is not as great as you imagine. She is only the strongest Monster Lord, there is no democracy when one decides the successor of the throne."
"Oh, I see… You know a lot of things, though." Luka commented with a tone filled with wonder. It felt like his eyes were suddenly opened.
"Yeah, but do not lose focus. The problem is that when the Monster Lord is defeated, the monsters in the world will not stop what they were doing: Some will eat people, others will rape them, and some will fear you or try to stop you. There might even be some that will try to reclaim the throne of Monster Lord for themselves.
Anyway, your dream does not stop at the defeat of the Monster Lord, but it will continue all the way until the end. Even a human life might not be enough to complete this kind of dream. And besides, even if the monsters will accept to coexist with humans, the humankind will be the one to decide if they prefer to accept their offer or not. And with the Goddess' commandments standing as high as ever, it will be more likely that humanity will prove arbor at the idea of coexisting with monsters."
"Eh? Why would the Goddess… Oh… Wait, won't it extinguish the monster race with the third commandment?"
The third commandment was to not have intercourse with monsters, and Luka was actually right. If people stopped having sex with monsters, the monster race would stop existing by now.
"Yeah, it would. However, not only are there monsters who are still raping men to continue their descendence, but there are also men who don't give two fucks about Ilias' commandments. What you have to do is change the people with a hard head, like the ones in Ilias Village."
"Oh… That's a fair point." Luka commented. "...What else is there?"
"I will leave it as a surprise. You will also find out soon enough the last problem, anyway." Victor stopped and relaxed on his chair with a long sigh.
The two remained silent for a dozen of seconds before Luka asked with curiosity. "Where will you go once I leave Ilias Village? I don't think I can really keep my inn open just for you alone. Besides… It will be hard cleaning around for you."
Victor shrugged. "Meh, I'll camp somewhere and gather enough money to buy myself a house and some servants. I don't really need anything much, as long as I have something to repair my head with and somewhere to sleep comfortably. As for food, I can work that out somehow."
"I see… If you want, you can sleep for this night in my inn, too. I will leave by the afternoon of tomorrow anyway, there is enough time for you to rest before I ultimately close the inn."
Victor raised an eyebrow and shrugged. "If you say so, I'll accept your request… Since you are offering me that opportunity, I'll start sleeping now." Victor turned his wheelchair around and started to wheel back in the inn.
"Good night." Luka said, and Victor simply waved back at him without turning back.
Luka turned around and looked at his sword once again. "...So I have to simply cut with my sword instead of attacking as hard as I can…"
…
Victor Luis' (future) Trivia Book: Four Heavenly Knights
The Four Heavenly Knights are four different people holding special characteristics of their own species that made them so much powerful and also different from the rest in some way. The book explains about biology, but this time I'll explain the hierarchical pyramid instead.
They are the enforcers of the 16th Monster Lord, holding supreme power among their species, and also capable of standing shoulder to shoulder with the Monster Lord herself. They are:
Alma Elma, the current Queen Succubus, a whimsical person who has no problem with almost anything. She is shown as a great master of wind magic and the greatest sexual artist in the world at the moment.
(Next two Paragraphs are censored by the author under Alma Elma's request)
However, behind her carefree personality, she is surprisingly an all-rounder in many kinds of subjects:
She is a Martial Master who challenged many different dojos back in her younger years and won; she goes under the name of Kyuba, the champion of Grand Noah's Queen Cup; she goes under the name of Fir'Almo, painter of the famous Smiling Lady and Scarlet Femme Fatale; she goes under the name of Luv Manita, a musician that composed many famous songs, such as Night; she also goes under the name of Arumaru, the author of the seven-volumes series 'The Days of Love and Misfortune'.
Tamamo, the immortal Queen Kitsune who was said to be the mother of all kitsunes currently alive. Only very few monsters know about her past, and they are all ancient entities who were alive back in the days of the Great Monster War. She is playful in nature and mastered the magic of earth to perfection; she is also famous for being the tutor of 8 different Monster Lords. However, even with the many children she has, she expressed disfavority on holding her own personal child for an unknown reason.
(Next two Paragraph is censored by the author under Tamamo-no-Mae's request)
However, what almost no one knows is that her real name is Tamamo-no-Mae, lesser-known as the legendary mother of all beasts, one of the mythical Six Ancestors whose traces have completely disappeared from the world. Without her, beast-related monsters would have not existed.
Her power is unimaginable, being able to match that of Seraph Eden. She is more than 10 times stronger than her normal self when she turns into her true form, and still displays a great loyalty for the Dark Goddess Alipheese.
Erubetie, the Queen Slime with thousands of lives inside her malicious jelly body. She is as stoic as water, and despite being entirely made of clean liquid, nothing seemed to be reflected back on her eyes: She is the Apathy incarnated.
She was once a monster who loathed human species, not hesitating to blow herself up to annihilate the entire Hellgondo just so she could put down a single human. But fortunately the others changed her mind before she could do so. However, she made a drastic change and is now leading a movement to stop humanity and monsterkind to pollute nature, allied with the current Queen Alraune and various monsters who require a purified environment to live in.
Granberia, the only member of the Four Heavenly Knights who don't belong to any royalty. However, that is only because dragons never accepted the presence of a queen as their leader, because they are little in numbers and also extremely prideful. But, if there ever was a tournament to decide who will be the leader of the Dragon race, then Granberia would certainly win.
She is famously-known as the dragon swordswoman, with the greatest swordplay in the world and master of the Cursed Sword Style. Unlike her peers, not only did she master the fire element, but she is also extremely proficient in using the other three elements. In her mind there is only the sword, and she will acknowledge only the strong and the fair.
These four monsters were picked up during the coronation of the Monster Lord, the 16th Monster Lord was able to come out victorious out of this deathmatch and appointed these four monsters as her personal knights.