"You really have the nerve to say something like that..."
Shiro gave the trickster god in front of him a complicated look.
Why was Orario called the center of the world?
Whether they were gods or adventurers, there was really only one reason so many of them chose to settle here.
The Dungeon stood at the center of Orario.
Without the Dungeon, Orario might not even compare to the distant Sword City Zolingham.
In the eyes of the gods, Orario was practically a city built entirely around the Dungeon.
If Shiro tried to bring the entire Dungeon under the Authority of his Divinity, it would be no different from throwing the gods' most precious possession onto the ground and grinding it beneath his heel.
The gods might seem easygoing most of the time, but once their interests were truly threatened, only a tiny handful with exceptionally strong morals would remain friendly.
And it would not just be the gods.
The adventurers who depended on monster drops for their livelihoods would absolutely try to stop him as well.
"If I really try to bring the Dungeon under my Divinity's Authority, those entertainment-obsessed gods and adventurers definitely won't agree. At that point, all of Orario might become my enemy."
"But even knowing that, you still haven't said no."
Loki grinned, immediately pointing out that Shiro was already tempted.
She was right.
Even if the process would be extremely difficult, Shiro had no intention of giving up such a rare opportunity.
Ever since merging with that damaged Divinity, he had vaguely sensed something.
If he could completely repair it, he might gain the qualifications necessary to become a Star Spirit.
There was even a chance he could directly become a Demi-Star Spirit.
That possibility alone was enough to justify taking the risk.
Besides, there was something else important he needed to accomplish while everything was in chaos.
"Seriously... I came back planning to rest for a while. Why does it feel like I'm about to start causing trouble instead?"
Shiro sighed under his breath.
Going against gods was no small matter.
Even with three gods standing on his side, he would not dare claim victory was guaranteed.
No one knew whether the personalities those ancient monsters had displayed over hundreds of millions of years were genuine or merely an act.
If that really was their true nature, then fine.
What worried Shiro was the possibility that some gods enjoyed pretending to be harmless while hiding what they were truly capable of.
He had no intention of being caught off guard by something like that at a critical moment.
Unable to think of a good solution for now, Shiro turned toward Loki.
"Forget it. Level me up first. We can deal with the rest later."
"Gotcha."
Loki placed her wine glass on the table and resumed updating his Falna.
"Let's see... The new Development Abilities available this time are Mystery and Chain Attack. Which one do you want? Personally, I'd recommend Mystery. It's ridiculously rare, after all."
"Then I'll take Mystery."
Between Mystery and Chain Attack, Shiro chose the former without hesitation.
It was not even a question of how much Chain Attack could improve his fighting ability.
The moment Mystery appeared as an option, Chain Attack had already lost.
[Mystery].
Just as its name suggested, this Development Ability itself represented something miraculous.
There was an old legend in Orario.
Long ago, a Sage from a certain Familia raised the Mystery Development Ability to its absolute limit and eventually succeeded in creating an item known as the [Philosopher's Stone].
The effect of the [Philosopher's Stone] was brutally simple.
It granted eternal life, allowing a person to reach the realm of ageless immortality.
That Sage never managed to create a second [Philosopher's Stone], but that single achievement alone was enough to demonstrate just how extraordinary Mystery could become.
"Then it's settled. Still, Level 6... I can't believe you've already caught up to Ais-tan and the others before even a year passed. Even from a god's perspective, that's way too fast."
"A year is only how much time passed from your perspective. I've experienced almost two years myself."
"You children in the Lower World really do experience time differently from us gods. One year or two years doesn't make much difference to us."
Loki continued working on the Falna on Shiro's back.
"I once saw a patron god chase one of his children through several reincarnations just because he wanted to see that kid finally reach Level 2."
As Loki continued, the divine markings across Shiro's back gradually began to glow.
When the light became bright enough to illuminate the entire divine room, the level-up was complete.
Then...
"HAAAAH?!!!!"
Loki's scream echoed throughout Twilight Manor.
[Torajirou Shiro - Lv. 7]
[Strength: I0] [Endurance: I0] [Dexterity: I0] [Agility: I0] [Magic: I0]
[Development Abilities] [Hunter: E] [Abnormal Resistance: B] [Magic Resistance: C] [Mystery: I]
[Magic] [Device] [Unbound] [Life Creation]
[Skills] [Desperado] [Celestial Star Spirit's Protection] [Intuition] [Companion's Bond] [Witch Factor: Inactive]
Shiro stared blankly at the new parchment in his hands.
Everything else looked perfectly normal.
Mystery had started at the lowest rank, I, just as expected.
The only truly shocking part was his level.
"Hah? What the hell happened to my level? Falna can skip levels?! How come you've never mentioned that before?"
According to the Falna's normal mechanics, an adventurer needed all of their basic stats to reach D and also accumulate enough Great Feats before they could level up.
That was exactly where the problem lay.
After leveling up, an adventurer's basic stats were reset to the lowest rank, I.
That meant they immediately stopped satisfying the requirement of having their stats at D, making another level up impossible.
Shiro had never even considered that skipping a level might be possible.
So he could only turn toward Loki for help.
Unfortunately, she looked just as close to losing her mind as he was.
"How should I know?!"
Even Loki, a god who had once participated in creating the Falna system, had no idea what had happened.
She stared at Shiro's back and checked the Falna over and over again, refusing to believe what she was seeing.
Eventually, her shoulders sagged helplessly.
"I've been in the Lower World for almost twenty years, and I've never once heard of a child jumping two levels at once."
"Do you think it's possible that Falna can keep accumulating growth even after the stats hit their limit?"
Shiro suddenly proposed a theory.
"Maybe no one ever discovered it because everyone levels up as soon as they can. Nobody would waste years just to squeeze out a few more points."
Improving one's stats through Falna was somewhat similar to training the human body.
For an ordinary person, improving their hundred-meter sprint from twenty seconds to fourteen seconds was relatively straightforward.
As long as they trained consistently, progress would come.
But the human body had limits.
The closer someone approached those limits, the harder further improvement became.
Near the very end, shaving off even a fraction of a second might require more effort than everything they had done before combined.
Falna worked in much the same way.
The higher a stat climbed, the harder it became to improve.
However, Falna was far more forgiving than ordinary physical training. It was a system created by the gods, after all.
Once an adventurer realized that gaining a single stat point might take an entire year, they could stop trying to push their current limits and instead expand their body's "vessel" by leveling up.
After that, the gap between their current abilities and their new limits would widen again, making stat growth much easier.
Over time, naturally, almost nobody would spend an entire year training just for one or two extra points.
In the same amount of time, they might already gain one or two hundred points after reaching the next level.
Shiro's situation, however, was different.
Because of the differences in the flow of time between worlds, he had probably maxed out his Level 5 stats long ago and accumulated more than enough Great Feats to level up.
But because Loki had never been able to update his Falna, all the training that exceeded the limits of his current "vessel" might have continued being recorded by the Falna.
Then, the instant he became Level 6, that accumulated growth could have been used to raise his new stats immediately.
Once those stats reached the required threshold, the conditions for yet another level up were satisfied.
"That might explain the stats, but what about the Great Feats?"
Loki frowned.
"Can those things carry over across levels too?"
"...You're the god. Why are you asking me?"
Shiro and Loki stared at each other for a moment.
Then, with perfect mutual understanding, they decided to stop discussing the subject.
…