Tenshi Translations

Volume 1 Chapter 1 Part 3

 

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After that, aside from the Gifts, Shin also thoroughly went through his skills and magics, and even activated a few for verification. Fortunately, there wasn’t anything nearby which would have been problematic if destroyed, so he was able to freely test the power of his skills and magic to some degree.

 

After creating many large craters around himself, he learned two main things: that the paralysis penalty and cooldown times for Martial Skills were both gone, and that it was now possible to directly control the strength of his magic.

 

Although it was natural to have paralysis penalty and cooldown times when it was still a game, it wouldn’t make sense to still have those around in reality so it was a great help that they were gone. With that said, though, he realized that it wasn’t possible to keep on endlessly spamming those Martial Skills whenever he wanted.

 

The flip side of the game characteristics being gone was that now his tendons could get torn, his joints could get dislocated, and he can generally get injured. Well, if this was reality, then it makes sense. At any rate, Shin was no longer inside the game world. If he took an enemy’s attack, it would no longer be a matter of merely having his HP bar go down. If he didn’t think carefully about how to move, it could be possible that he wouldn’t know how to when he really needed to.

 

Shin reminded himself once again that this was no longer a game.

 

He used to confuse the real world with the game world, but now he was confusing the game world with the real world. While thinking such thoughts, Shin mused on when it was that he had started to think of the virtual world of THE NEW GATE as a second reality.
“Then perhaps I should think of this place as a third reality?” thought Shin with a wry smile.
It took quite a while for the second reality (game world) to start feeling real, but he was adapting much faster to the third reality. As though the exhaustion from a short while ago was a lie, he was surprised at how easily he was now moving about.

 

“Well then, it’s about time to get moving.”

 

So saying, Shin took out a bookmark from his inventory. He lifted this normal-looking bookmark above.

 

“Go home!”

 

When Shin chanted this, light immediately gathered around the bookmark into roughly the shape and size of a baseball. It then changed into the shape of a falcon.
 

The falcon made of light floated in the air a set distance away from Shin’s head, pointing in a specific direction.

 

What Shin had used was an item called【Guide】, which would guide the user to a previously registered location. It was usually used to mark the locations of safe spots on hunting fields, but a few players like Shin used it to mark their home instead.

 

Shin didn’t know where he was due to not being able to call up the map. Then he saw【Guide】on his items list, and since the only location that he’d registered was Home, he decided to go check that out first.

 

Incidentally, the light being in the shape of a falcon was merely due to Shin’s preference. Players could freely alter the shape of the light from this item.

 

“Here I come, my home!”

 

Shin started to run in the direction of his house. When he was selecting the destination, the item had indicated that it was about 67 kemels away. 1 kemel is around the same distance as 1 km, which means that his house was about 67 km away.

 

It would have taken quite a while to walk that distance for a normal person, but Shin’s stamina and leg strength was on a different level completely beyond the norm. Even while sauntering he could cover ground quite quickly.
His running speed, though, could go up to 70 km/h. Moreover, he was not riding a vehicle, so he was able to travel through any terrain, be it dense forest, scraggy underbrush, or wasteland littered with rocks.

 

“Yaaaaahhhoooooo~~!!”

 

It felt so good to run into the wind with all abandon that he also shouted at the top of his lungs. It felt like all of the murky gloomy feelings that had accumulated in his chest ever since he woke up would be cleansed and dispelled. He was in a bit of a runner’s high.
Although he didn’t know how long his stamina would last, it didn’t really feel like it was going down much at all, so he just kept on running without stopping for any rest.

 

Along the way, he saw Tetra Grizzlies (four-armed bears), Twin-Head Snakes (snakes with two heads), and Flame Boars (boars with a fire-like mane). As a further test of his own strength, he picked fights with every single mob he encountered. The levels of the bears, snakes, and boars were respectively 87, 68, and 79.
There was no mistaking their levels because he got that information from【Analyze X】. (T/N: Analyze level 10, not Analyze ‘x’.)

 

They were all monsters with fixed attack patterns that beginners farmed often. At Shin’s level, he could easily handle all of them barehanded, but he felt a slight chill when he glimpsed the monsters’ spontaneity and willingness to do whatever it took to survive.

 

He then thought to himself that it wasn’t good to waste time fighting with these monsters, so he decided to focus on only running.

 

He continued running over meadows, leaping over rocks, and dashing through forests for about an hour. When he found a huge castle wall in front and drew closer, the falcon of light started to flicker, indicating that he was getting close to his destination.

 

He slowed down, then came to a complete stop. The falcon was pointing in a direction that was slightly off from the castle walls. Apparently, it was somewhere in the forest spread out in front of the castle walls. Shin was pretty sure that there were no cities with a wall anywhere near where his home was, though.

 

“When did that get built?”

 

He muttered with a sigh while looking at the castle walls.
The walls were about as high as a six-story building. It appeared to have been made of cut stone, and exuded a dignified atmosphere.

 

He wasn’t sure if the scratches and splinter parts were from monsters or war.

 

Shin had fought in many large scale wars inside the game, so he had a lot of experience with castle sieges as well. He determined that this castle would be hard to breach, sensing that enchantments like monster repellent, fortification, and magic resistance had been cast on it. And they were all close to upper class in strength.

 

From his current position, Shin couldn’t see any gates, so he didn’t think that it was a town behind the walls, but he couldn’t be sure until he actually went over it. However, it didn’t make sense to have walls around an empty wasteland, so he decided to check it out later.

 

For now, he had no business with the wall, so he turned his gaze back to the forest, and resumed walking in the direction that the falcon was pointing to.

 

After walking about 100 mels, he suddenly found himself in a clearing with markedly different vegetation. The trees that he had passed so far were generally 30 to 40 cemels in width, but this area was enclosed by gigantic trees that were more than 1 mel in width.
(T/N: mel = meter and cemel = centimeter)

 

In the middle of the clearing stood a building that matched perfectly with his memory.

 

Its appearance was that of a single house built from stone and wood. Inside the game, it had served as both a shop and his house.
The entrance of the shop side had the noren out and a large sign on top that read『Yorozuya Tsuki no Hokora』.
(T/N: Noren is the cloth hung at head level in front of the door of Japanese restaurants. There is no English equivalent word. Also, Yorozuya means ‘general merchant,’ and Tsuki no Hokora roughly translates to Shrine of the Moon, but as I said I’ll leave Japanese names in Japanese.)

 

“The appearance hasn’t really changed much, huh.”

 

Without a doubt, it looked exactly like it did before the decisive battle against Origin. Shin felt a sense of reassurance from seeing his home still safe and sound.

 

When Shin had run the shop inside the game,『Yorozuya Tsuki no Hokora』had dealt with a large range of goods, ranging from weapons to equips to items. Generally, he was selling drops that he had picked up around in fields or dungeons and things that he had made himself when he felt like it.

 

The places that Shin visited were mostly fields or dungeons where high level monsters roamed so he frequently got his hands on rare items or materials, which he would then sell in his shop. Tsuki no Hokora was a well-hidden shop that had gained quite a reputation among high level players. The things that he sold, being what they were, usually came with a pretty hefty price, so high level players made up the majority of his customer base.

 

While reminiscing about his thriving business (in truth, it was only rarely that busy), Shin flipped the noren and opened the door. He entered the shop while wondering what had become of the store with only goods lined up and an empty counter.

 

Inside the shop were a number of men and women wearing formal armor with cloaks. A few of them noticed Shin coming in, and two of them came towards him.

 

“Apologies, but we’re a bit busy right now. Would you mind coming again later?”

 

The one who said this was a blond young man wearing splendidly decorated armor. He was roughly the same height as Shin, but he obviously had been training regularly, seeing how thick his arms and legs were.

 

“What’s happening here?”
“We told you to get out!”

 

When he tried to ask about the situation, he was roughly ordered out by the brown haired young man who’d come over together with the blond one. He was also wearing heavily decorated armor. He was a head taller than Shin and had a well-proportioned, firmly built body.

 

“I also have things I need to get done by today.”
“Shut up. A lowly adventurer like you doesn’t have the right to talk back!”
“Oi, stop it, Iran!”

 

Iran was probably the name of the brown haired young man. Judging that speaking formally would be wasted on him, Shin protested in casual speech.

 

Seeing that Shin had no intention of backing off, Iran decided to push him out with brute force. Aiming to send Shin flying, Iran thrust his palms at Shin’s solar plexus. When Shin failed to react, Iran smirked.

 

“Uoh!”

 

However, when his hand touched Shin, not only did Shin not budge, the reaction force from his own push was reflected back at him, causing him to lose his balance and fall on his butt. When the armor collided with the floor, a disproportionately loud sound echoed around the room. Everyone around turned to look at the two of them.
Iran was on the floor, unable to understand what had just happened, while Shin just stood there and looked innocent.

 

“Ku, you bastard—!”
“What are you guys making a ruckus about!”
“... tch!!”

 

In a frenzy, Iran reached for his sword. At the same time, a loud voice rang from inside the shop, causing Iran to immediately shrink in on himself.
Thinking that things were going to get troublesome, Shin sighed in his mind.

 

The crowd spontaneously parted, revealing a man with a great figure with blond hair and blue eyes who was also wearing unnecessarily decorated armor. He glared at the two of them.
Unlike a moment ago, Iran remained very quiet.
Seeing the man part the crowd, Shin muttered, “Are you Moses?” while feeling like he couldn’t care less.

 

“Didn’t I say to not let anyone enter?”
“My deepest apologies, Loost-sama!”

 

Iran bowed down without a moment’s delay. Seeing how he was acting, Shin guessed that this Loost person must be of a pretty high status.
Without sparing even a glance for the Iran who was now prostrating himself, Loost came towards Shin. His eyes were totally looking down on Shin.

 

(Uwah, another annoying person is coming over here.)

 

Not knowing what Shin was thinking, Loost clunked over with heavy steps and stopped in front of Shin.

 

“...............”
“?”
“Oi! What are you doing, standing in Loost-sama’s way without even naming yourself!!”

 

Maintaining his silence, Loost suddenly tilted his head at Shin, prompting Iran to raise his voice in anger. Apparently, Loost had been staring at Shin this whole time waiting for him to introduce himself.

 

“Ah, please excuse me. I’m Shin, a wanderer.”

 

It would be just lead to more trouble if he acted all cocky and got on the bad side of someone important enough to merit a -sama after his name, so Shin also bowed while naming himself. He knew from experience that this kind of person would generally overlook quite a lot as long as you acted subservient, even if it was just going through the forms.

 

“Hmph, it appears that you don’t know etiquette. Well, that’s fine, wanderers must not have a very thorough education.”

 

Loost nodded arrogantly at Shin’s lowered head. Shin was not bothered at all and noted that these kinds of tactics worked in this world too.

 

“Our business is finished. We’re leaving.”

 

So saying, Loost immediately started walking straight ahead. Noticing this, Shin quickly scooted to the left.
The blond young man and a few others who saw Shin’s movement narrowed their eyes.

 

“Tch.”

 

It was Iran who had clicked his tongue while walking past. Everyone else who had been in the store quickly exited after Loost. Before they knew it, including the blond young man there were only three people left.

 

“Iran shouldn’t have done what he did. Allow me to apologize on his behalf.”

 

The one who said this was the blond young man. The two other people also had an apologetic expression on their faces.

 

“Don’t worry about it. It’s not like he actually did anything much.”
“We are thankful that you would take it this way. My name is Aldi. It’s Aldi Sheil. If you ever have any need of the Knights Order, please come visit me.”
“I’m Shin. If I ever have the opportunity to do so, I will take you up on that offer.”

 

Shin answered while extending his right hand in response to the right hand that Aldi was offering.
It appears that the group just now were knights. Shin thought that they had rather big attitudes for being knights, but seeing Aldi and the other two Shin decided that not all of them were so.

 

As Aldi left the shop, briefly nodded to Shin before also leaving. Those two were probably Aldi’s subordinates.

 

After all of the knights left, the store now felt very spacious. Shin saw the shelves and the products on the shelves that he couldn’t see before.

 

(The weapons are mainly bronze or iron, silver at best. The equips are mostly made of leather. The items are mostly low rank potions and ether, and there are a few pills for curing debuffs. There are no raw materials being sold.)
(T/N: Potions are for HP recovery and ethers are for MP recovery.)

Shin was despondent after seeing how low level all of the goods were, especially in comparison to when he had been running the store. Almost everything here were things for beginners to use.

 

(It doesn’t look like the shop is doing any better than when I was running it...)

 

Shin became worried about the state the shop was in.

 

“What have you been muttering about for all this time?”
“Eh?”

 

Having been suddenly talked to, Shin’s lackluster response slipped out automatically. It appears that he had been unconsciously muttering his thoughts out loud. Turning towards the direction of the voice, Shin found himself staring into a pair of golden eyes with golden pupils.

 

Shin saw a young, black haired, golden eyed elf girl behind the counter. He was pretty sure that she was an elf due to the sharp ears sticking out from her silky, glossy black hair.
Although most elves were beautiful, her beauty was such that if ten people saw her, undoubtedly all ten would have been charmed. She was roughly a head shorter than Shin at 160 cemels. Her skin was a healthy white, her figure was slender and well-proportioned, and her chest very much made its own existence known.
She looked 17 or 18 at first glance, but since elves were long-lived, it was hard to tell their real age from their appearance. Even though she looked so young, it was a real possibility that she was actually several hundred years old, so he made a mental note to be aware of that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Ahh, I was just checking out the goods on display.”
“Is that so? I kind of feel like the look in your eyes is a bit sharp considering.”
“I had no such intentions, though.”
“Well, that’s fine. The nuisances are gone, so feel free to look around as much as you want.”

 

So saying, the elf girl grabbed a chair from behind the counter and sat on it.

 

“By ‘nuisances’ you mean the guys just now?”
“They come by all the time to bug me about when Master is going to come back. There’s a limit to how annoying one can be!”

 

It appears that they come really frequently. Shin could feel how fed up the girl was from her tone.

 

“That sounds really rough. Ah, I haven’t introduced myself yet. I’m Shin. As you can see, I’m a wanderer.”

“Even bothering to introduce yourself to an ordinary salesclerk, you must be a really a very serious person. Tiera Lucent is my name. Just ‘Tiera’ is fine. I’m apprenticing under the Acting Owner and working as the salesclerk here at the same time. If you bring any good items or raw materials here we’d be happy to buy it from you.”
“Ahhh, I’ll look forward to it. By the way, having the knights come over so often to look for her, is your Master that incredible of a person?”
“What are you saying? Even children nowadays know the Acting Owner of Tsuki no Hokora, Schnee Raizar.”
“Ahhh, she’s that famous, huh. Wait a second, ‘Acting’?”
“She herself insists on that title. She claims that the real owner is still out there.”
“So there’s someone above even someone that famous, huh ...”

 

Shin felt a bit reassured in regards to the management of the shop after hearing that there was someone even higher up than such a famous person. For some reason, though, that Acting Owner’s name seemed to tug at something in his memory.

 

“Schnee Raizar ... Schnee Raizar ... Schnee ... Schnee RaizaaAAAHHHH!?!?”
“Wh-what! What happened?!”

 

Tiera jumped at Shin’s sudden shout. Standing up so suddenly made the chair fall over and hit the ground with a “gashan!” sound.

 

“I’m sorry, it’s just that I got a bit of a shock.”

 

Shin apologized after the sound of the chair brought him back to his senses. He had felt like the name was a bit familiar, but of course it should! In the game, he had left the care of the shop to one of the support characters that he had created. That character’s name was Schnee Raizar.

 

“I’m sorry for bothering you but may I confirm some things with you about your Master?”
“Su-Sure! I’ll answer any questions within the limit of what I know.”

 

Tiera drew back slightly as Shin’s face adopted a menacing look. However, Shin was busy feeling surprised at Tiera’s unexpected cooperation and therefore failed to notice Tiera’s body language.

 

“This Schnee Raizar person belongs to the High Elf race, has silver hair that reaches all the way down to her waist, very pale blue eyes, a height of 166 cemels, and an excellent figure on top of all that?”

“Indeed all of that is true, but ... wait, what? Are you one of Master’s fans?”

 

By now Tiera had pulled back from Shin to a relatively significant distance, but as expected, he remained unaware.

 

“I see, so that’s how it is. I mean, we did know each other from before (since I was the Store Owner and she was working under me).”
“You’re one of Master’s acquaintances? Is that really true?”
“Well, I’m not sure if she still remembers me or not though.”

 

Perhaps due to the look that she had seen on his face earlier, Tiera was now looking at Shin with lots of doubt in her eyes.
For his part, Shin also understood that it would be hard to believe someone who suddenly visited and declared himself a close acquaintance of the owner of the store. There was a real possibility that Schnee had forgotten about him, which would leave him the only person who knew that he was the real Owner. Therefore, he decided to cover up his outburst by changing the topic of the conversation.

 

“By the way, where is Schnee right now? Judging from the conversation so far, it seems that she’s been away for quite a while?”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you that. If I didn’t tell the Knights Order then there’s no way that I would tell you, right?”
“....... you have a point.”

 

Shin wasn’t clear on the hierarchy of this world yet, but from what he’d seen just now with Aldi, he understood that the knights were somewhere pretty high on the ladder. Realizing that wanderers as a group didn’t have a lot of credibility, Shin dropped his shoulders.

 

“Well at least if you want to leave a message for her, I can help convey it to her. More like, half of my job is to bring messages to her anyways.”
“Half of your ... how many messages do you even get?”
“They’re mostly from governments or upper echelons of the guilds. Though I say ‘messages,’ they’re actually usually requests. It’s supposed to be a secret that different countries come to seek her but by now it’s more like an open secret.”
“How do I put it ... your Master is pretty amazing, huh?”

 

Shin thought, “What kind of person has Schnee become such that even countries would come asking for her?”

 

“She rarely accepts those requests, though. So, what shall it be? Would you like to leave a message for her?”
“Let’s see, I guess I’ll leave one for now.”
“The message referral is 10 bronze coins, 1000 Juls.”
“Oh, you charge for this? Umm, wait, sorry, what’s a ‘Jul’?”

 

Shin tilted his head in confusion at the mention of this monetary denomination that he’d never heard of before. Back in THE NEW GATE, the currency had been Geyls.

 

“Are you seriously asking me that? How can you travel without knowing the currencies?”
“It’s not my fault that the currency is now different from what we were using before!”
“Different from before? It’s been more than 400 years since we started using this currency. May I have a look?”

 

400 years. Shin froze at hearing that. He suddenly felt like he’d become Urashima Tarou.

 

“This is what I have ...”

 

Shin took out 1 Geyl from his inventory and put it on the counter. Geyls were gold coins roughly 3 cemels in diameter embossed with the image of an eight-winged dragon holding a girl in its arms.

 

“..... Hey, just now, where did you pull this out of?”

 

Tiera’s eyes were as wide as saucers from seeing Shin pull the coin out from what looked to her like thin air.

 

“Even if you ask me ‘where’ ... I just took it out from my inventory.”
“Inven ... tory ...”

 

It appears that Tiera was even more shocked at hearing that word than when she saw Shin pull out the coin.

 

“Tiera?”
“Ah, eh, what?”
“Nothing, it’s just that you look really shocked right now. Is something the matter?”
“Don’t ‘is something the matter’ me! Anyone would be shocked if they heard you had an inventory!”
“? Why is that?”
“You ...”

 

Tiera exhaled heavily and dropped her shoulders. Shin had no idea why Tiera was so surprised.

 

“In this day and age, the only people who can access their inventory are the elders among the royalty of long-lived races like High Lords, High Elves, and High Pixies. In the first place, the rest of us don’t even have an inventory. But when you just randomly show up here and use it in front of me like it’s nothing, of course I’d be shocked. You’re not going to tell me now that you actually are royalty, right?”
“Yea, nope. I’m definitely not royalty.”

 

It was Shin’s turn to be surprised. It hadn’t even crossed his mind that the inventory that had been so natural for players was now only usable by such a select group of important individuals.
By the way, the ‘High’ in front of race names indicates someone of that race who has reincarnated at least 10 times. There are fundamentally 7 races in THE NEW GATE: Human, Beast, Dragnil, Dwarf, Elf, Lord, and Pixie. Humans are humans, Beasts are beast people, Dragnils are dragon people, Lords are demon people, and Pixies are fairies.
(T/N: About the reincarnation, think Ragnarok Online. It’s not being revived after dying, it’s restarting your character again after reaching max level.You start off with higher stats and it takes longer to level up.)

 

“I thought it was pretty natural to use it.”
“There’s nothing ‘natural’ about using it. Speaking of which, what’s your race? You look human but there are so many different magical powers mixed up inside of you that I can’t really tell. Are you elf? Lord? Dragnil? Some other race?”
“I’m not so sure either. For now I guess I’m a high human.”

 

Shin was pretty sure that that was his race, as his Character window said so too. High humans are a race with amplified resistance to debuffs and magical attacks. As a race whose focus is on balance, high humans have the lowest attribute points, so nobody ever actually chose this class.

 

According to the backstory of THE NEW GATE, humans were the last species to come into being. By then, the atmosphere was full of magic. Having absorbed a lot of that magic, humans gained a higher resistance to magical attacks and debuffs. If that was all, then humans would have been a really good anti-magic race. However, the story continues and says that this resistance is using up so much of their energy that they are unable to fully develop any other powers.

 

This setting clinched the bottom place of the list of races for humans. One way to fight as a human character was to further enhance magical resistance and then rush up to enemy mages, but if the other side also had a non-human melee fighter then you’d still lose. Human mages could not match up with elves or pixies in terms of MP and INT, and would lose in a straight up magical dogfight against even Lords, which was a race that also focused on balance.
In the end, the only ways to play a human character was to be a bandit relying heavily on curses or a hunter.

 

(Well, they were all pros for me, though.)

 

Shin liked this race precisely because it required so much more effort to build his character up. Obviously, the number of people who thought the same way were an extreme minority.

 

“High ... human ... ?”
“Nn? Yes, that’s what I said.”

 

Shin was suddenly flooded with memories of the stigma against humans and how he sent flying everyone who mocked him. Tiera replied in a daze.
What Tiera said next struck Shin dumbfounded.

 

“The race of high humans ... is extinct ...”
“Ahh, extinct ... wait, EXTINCT?!”

 

 

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