Tenshi Translations

Volume 2 Chapter 1 Part 3

 

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After a while, both of them regained some sense of composure, and returned their letters to their real forms for confirmation.

 

“To think that you were also a letter bearer.”
“Same for you, too.”

 

Shin replied with a wry smile to Wilhelm, who now looked like all the tension had drained from his body.
Despite the fact that it was Millie who had orchestrated their meeting, Shin had remained slightly wary of Wilhelm due to his character, and Wilhelm had remained wary of Shin’s unknown strength. Though they had no troubles on the surface, a slight sense of distrust had lingered in some corner of their minds. But all that was completely dispelled by the letters in their respective hands.

 

“There is no greater proof of trust in this world. No wonder you brought up Schnee Raizar.”
“In my case, it was Tiera who had given me the letter. Did you get yours from Schnee?”
“I got her to do some sparring with me. Well, I say sparring, but it was more like I just got one-sidedly beaten up.”
“Aah ...... she does have a really serious streak, that one.”

 

It was Shin who had written that trait into her settings, but he had done so with a very broad stroke, giving her space to determine the finer details herself. It wouldn’t be strange for Schnee’s personality to have undergone some changes ever since the game era, but Shin felt from Wilhelm’s story that she had pretty much remained the same. But now that she was not an AI anymore, the various experiences that she’s had so far must have left some effect on her, so Shin’s mental image of her probably needed some updating.

 

“Alright, Rashia’s going to arrive soon, so we’d best get going. We can continue this conversation while on the road.”
“Oh, it’s already this late?”

 

After glancing at the clock on the wall, Wilhelm stood up. He had not planned on staying here long in the first place, but the unanticipated discovery that Shin was also a letter bearer had caused them to stay longer than he had expected. However, he considered it time well-spent, as he had been able to converse with Shin at length, so he was now feeling very satisfied.
Every single person who had a letter of introduction from Tsuki no Hokora had some extraordinary power of other, but none of them had ever turned out to be morally corrupt. Wilhelm got a distinct feeling that with Shin on his side, all the troublesome things burdening the church could be dealt away with in one go.

 

“I’ll ask this now that we know we can trust each other: Are you also a Chosen One?”
“I don’t really plan on hiding it at this point, but what makes you think so? Not every Rank A adventurer is a Chosen One.”
“Nah, it’s because of the weapon that you’re holding. Normal people wouldn’t be able to use it. They would get rejected. The moment I saw you holding it like it was nothing, I knew that you were someone special.”
“Hah! So that’s how it is. No wonder you were so insistent on the appraiser and his skill level. You knew what it was from the very start.”

 

What Wilhelm wielded was the Legend grade Demon Spear『Venom』.
This weapon could not be equipped if the user did not have at least 500 STR. This was the reason why the weapon had caught Shin’s eye the first time he met Wilhelm.
Normally, Legend grade weapons only required 350 in certain stats. In comparison, the requirements for『Venom』are abnormally high. However, there is a proper reason behind it, and it was not a bug.

 

“I couldn’t very well talk about it in front of such a large number of people. Also, just now you pulled that card out of nowhere. Does that mean that you can use an inventory? I’ve heard that people who can do so aren’t that common.”
“Aah, what I have is just something that looks like it. I use an item called『Enlargement Kit』, which suffices as a sort of pseudo-inventory, but the capacity is pretty low. Of course, not everyone has it.”
“Heh~, I see.”

 

Shin made the appropriate noises to continue the conversation while thinking “So that function remains after all.” It was a function that was often used to have support characters or partner monsters help with carrying large loads. With it, players could give their followers almost as much inventory space as an actual player. Most people, though, only expanded their follower’s inventory once or twice, which was enough space to store things like potions and other recovery items for emergencies.
In Shin’s case, though, he had expanded the inventories of all of his support characters to the max. There was no particular reason for it, it was just him being fastidious about that sort of thing.

 

“Anyways, weren’t you using it too?”
“In my case, I’ve been able to use it from the very start.”
“So you are a Chosen One after all.”
“Mumu, at this point let’s just run with that.”

 

Without requesting any further details, it looked like Wilhelm was satisfied with thinking that Shin was a Chosen One, so Shin decided to just let him continue to think that. If he tried to go over each and every setting one by one, he might contradict himself somewhere, so he decided right there and then to pass himself off as a Chosen One.

While continuing their conversation, they eventually returned to the road that they had come from. When the two of them approached the eastern gate, they saw Rashia restlessly looking around for them.

 

“Ah, you stop right there, Wil! Where on earth did you go after pushing all the shopping onto me?!”
“My bad, my bad. I had other things to take care of.”
“Or so you say, but you were visiting an indecent shop again, were you?”
“Like I would! You better not be still half-asleep.”
“Shin-san. Even if Wil invites you, don’t follow him, alright? The occasional cold shoulder is good enough for this guy.”
“Listen to me, dammit! More like, stop saying things that could be easily misunderstood!!”
“For now, how about both of you just calm down.”

 

After Shin calmed down the two who had spontaneously started something like a lover’s quarrel, they all set off. Secretly, Shin was a bit jealous of how they were so close that they could freely say everything on their mind to each other.

 

Their method of transportation this time was by horse. Wilhelm had apparently rented them from the guild. One of the horses was even the guild’s best horse, and it had such a magnificent physique and a beautiful chestnut coat that even Shin, who knew nothing about horses, was impressed. When the horse saw Yuzuha, it stopped in its tracks, but after a soft bark from Yuzuha, it neighed softly and calmed down. Some kind of conversation that Shin and company did not understand had probably just taken place.

 

Wilhelm and Rashia rode together on one horse, and Shin and Yuzuha rode together on the other one. It was the first time that Shin had ridden a real horse, but somehow the【Riding】skill was still working, so he was able to ride without any problems. Back during the game, there were many chances to ride not just horses, but also things like griffons and dragons, so his Riding level was quite high.

 

Wilhelm had said that it would take five to six days by carriage, but Shin thought that their current speed would allow them to arrive faster than that. Of course, Shin could run a lot faster than the horses, but it would be awkward to carry Rashia the whole way, so he didn’t bring it up.

 

Stopping every now and then to let their horses rest, their journey was otherwise quite smooth, and no significant problems came up. Both Shin and Wilhelm could use their inventories, so they pretty much had no luggage to carry, and thus they were able to cover that much more distance. Furthermore, since they had all sorts of cookery and cutlery on them, even when they camped outside they had a varied menu instead of just wretched preserved foods. As they had overcome the problem of cooking, which was one of the biggest issues with traveling, the journey was not very taxing even on Rashia, who was new to it.

 

The horses ran for 4 days, and in that time Shin grew close enough to Wilhelm and Rashia to drop all honorifics. They arrived at the Wraith Plains before noon.
Though the sun was still high in the sky, the area did not look very bright. At the clear divide between the forest and the plains, there seemed to be an invisible wall that was blocking off some of the sunlight. And if they strained their eyes a bit, they could see a thick purple miasma welling up from the ground. It covered the surface of the entirety of the Plains, and stopped abruptly at the invisible wall.
When Shin checked the miasma with【Analyze】, nothing worthy of note came up. Based on that, they at least knew that the miasma did not cause any negative effects.

 

“There’s no response even when I try touching it. Which means that this is unmistakably the boundary line.”
“You’re right. Also, if you cross the line, those mobs can’t follow you over. They can only exist beyond the barrier.”
“Is that how it is?”
“I’ve tried luring them before. It might have been because it was daytime, but when they crossed over, even their armor and weapons crumbled along with them.”
“Let’s make it so that we can easily run outside the barrier if needed.”

 

The aim was to make sure that there was an escape route for Rashia to use in the event of any unforeseen circumstances. Unlike Shin and Wilhelm, Rasha was nowhere near strong enough to handle the upcoming enemies even on a one-on-one basis.

 

“For starters, let’s build a base so that we all know where to head to if something happens. Also, this is the『Sacred Orb of Prayer』. There would be no point to all this if you didn’t hold onto it. And also use this. It can repel even dragon breath.”
“U-Understood! Dhan- ...... oww ......”

 

She could not be faulted for being nervous at the cold air wafting over from the Wraith Plains. During the trip, Wilhelm had snapped at her many times for her habit of accidentally biting herself when she was nervous, but Shin suspected that it might have become the way Rashia unconsciously tried to distract herself from worrying.
What Shin had handed over along with the『Sacred Orb of Prayer』was a bracelet type magic item that would negate a certain amount of damage from each blow. Shin had made it himself, and the threshold for its negation was so high that it could completely cancel out even a direct punch from a King class Skull Face. Its durability was guaranteed. With this item, their worries could even be considered excessive. However, there’s no point in merely using words to convince Rashia, who was not used to this kind of fighting. The only way was to have her learn to get used to it.
Incidentally, the reason why Rashia was still using honorifics and polite speech was because of habit. The only person that she used casual speech with was Wilhelm, but that was apparently because the two of them had grown up together.

 

“(Yuzuha, if you would.)”
“Kuu.”

 

Shin sent a telepathic message to Yuzuha. They had become able to do that right after forming the contract. Yuzuha could pick up on messages that Shin mentally sent over, and Shin could pick up Yuzuha’s agreement or disagreement and mood.

 

Having received Shin’s message, Yuzuha came down off of Shin’s head, jumped over onto Rashia’s shoulder, and began rubbing against her face.

 

“Wai, wait a moment, Yuu-chan! That tickles.”
“Kuu~”
“Its telling you to lighten up and that you can do it.”
“Ah ...... Yuu-chan, thank you.”
“Kuu!”

 

Yuzuha seemed to have succeeded in lifting Rashia’s spirits at least a bit, as Rashia had started to smile, though the smile was understandably still a little stiff. When Shin was sending Yuzuha a thank-you telepathy for doing what he had wanted it to, Wilhelm’s figure reappeared from the thicket.

 

“How’s the base coming along?”
“I did set up the things around the tent like you asked, but what exactly are those?”

 

Wilhelm jerked his thumb at a spot beyond the forest. It was not visible from where the three of them currently stood, but over there was a tent surrounded by on all four sides by jewels about 10 cemels in size. Though monsters couldn’t leave the Plains, the tent had been erected a slight distance away just in case.

 

“Just a little something in the way of interception. It would attack any monsters that get close. With a barrier like that, there’s not much else you can ask for from a makeshift base, right?”
“What the heck, I’ve never heard of such an item.”

 

To be honest, just setting up Barrier would be enough, but Shin expected that even Chosen Ones have limits, so he opted to use items instead. Though the claim of being a Chosen One gave him a lot more leeway in how much power he could display and could serve as an excuse for the things that he did differently from ‘normal’ people, he figured that there was still a limit to how far he could push it. It was a problem, though, that he didn’t know exactly where that limit was.
With all that said, it didn’t hurt to set up Barrier and Wall anyways. It was partly preparation for the one in a million chance of something going wrong, but also partly because there was no guarantee that monsters will be the only thing that poses a danger to them.

 

“I’m afraid you’ll just have to believe me as a fellow Chosen One.”
“You sure picked up quickly how to use that title conveniently, seriously.”
“Eh? Shin-san is also a Chosen One?!”

 

Apparently, Rashia also knew about Chosen Ones. She had most likely heard it from Wilhelm.

 

“Hmm? You didn’t tell her?”
“I didn’t have solid proof yet.”
“Was the reason why the two of you went off the first day to confirm it?”
“Yep.”
“You guys should have told me from the very start!”

 

Feeling like the odd one, Rashia pouted.

 

“I thought you’d at least had an inkling. The aim of this trip being as demanding as it is.”
“I thought that if Wil could do it, most people could too.”
“No way that’s true.”
“B-but Wil is the only adventurer I know! I know that Wil is strong, but I didn’t know exactly how strong he is because I don’t have anyone else to compare him to.”

 

Wilhelm was left speechless in front of Rashia, who was tilting her head. It would be very hard to understand how strong the existences called Chosen Ones were without seeing it firsthand. In the first place, there was no way that Wilhelm would bring Rashia to a place where he would have to get serious.

 

“O~i, I’m sorry to interrupt, but should we get started soon? To my understanding, we don’t exactly have time to take things leisurely.”
“Good point. Come on, let’s go. You’ve calmed down a bit, right?”
“Eh? Ah, wait for me!”

 

Shin had been looking on while waiting for an appropriate time to speak up. He understood that it was to calm Rashia’s nerves, so he picked a suitable time before cutting in.

 

“Well then, I wonder what’s going to greet us first.”
“Since it’s still daytime, it’ll probably be Skull Face, Bio Hound, or Mad Zombie. When the sun’s still up, only the ones with a physical body are able to move around.”
“As I thought, nighttime would suit our purpose better. Oh well, we can work on getting Rashia used to fighting first before finding a good time to let up and wait for nighttime to get serious.”
“Yep, and we can decide the pacing afterwards based on Rashia’s condition. Well then, here they come.”

 

Shin and Wilhelm turned to look at the shadows that were approaching from behind Rashia. Visibility was reduced quite significantly by the miasma fog, but it was not a problem for the two of them and their senses.

 

What eventually emerged from the fog were two Jack class Skull Faces and three Bio Hounds. Rashia could not help pressing her hand against her mouth at the sight of the Bio Hounds with rotten flesh falling off from half of their bodies. Seeing them in real life made them that much harder to look at.

 

“This is about so-so as warm-up.”
“The Bio Hounds are just in the goddamn way, though.”

 

Shin drew the katana at his waist, and Wilhelm readied his grip on Venom. Though Rashia’s face was a bit pale, she also held out her staff and began chanting.

 

The Bio Hounds, which had greater speed, reached them first.
Probably due to their lack of intelligence, the Bio Hounds charged straight in from the front. Shin stepped up, thrust out a hand, and activated the God-style Skill【Ichiyou no Misogi (Purification Ceremony of a Single Leaf)】.

 

At the same time, a half-transparent wall appeared in front of him. The Bio Hounds were not able to dodge in time, and ended up falling to the ground after crashing into the wall with a “gusha” sound.
Many God-type skills are effective against the undead, and that effectiveness also extends to protective skills. This fact, coupled with the Bio Hounds’ suicidal move of running into the wall, brought the Bio Hounds’ HP bars down to the red zone in one fell blow. Of course, there was no way that Shin would overlook this.
He immediately dispelled the wall and shot Rashia instructions.

 

“Attack the Bio Hounds!”
“Roger!”

 

Having finished chanting, Rashia complied by immediately activating her Arts.
A white light shot out from the staff that she was holding aloft and fell upon the Bio Hounds. What she had used was the God-type Arts【Heal】. It did not have as much power as a God-type Skill, but recovery magic in general was a very good way to deal damage to undead monsters. With their remaining HP gone, the Bio Hounds’ corpses disappeared into thin air.
At this sight, Shin confirmed that the rule that monsters inside dungeons don’t leave behind a corpse when they die was still in effect. Apparently, the entire Wraith Plains zone was being treated as a dungeon.

 

“The others are coming!”

 

At Wilhelm’s shout, Shin temporarily stopped observing the entire field as a whole, and readied himself to intercept. With the sound of pieces of their armor scraping against each other, the two Skull Faces charged straight in, just like the Bio Hounds did. However, they did so while firmly holding shields in front.

 

“【Shield Bash】, I would assume.”
“Oi, can you stop them with the wall thing from just now?”
“Leave it to me. You’re not going to tell me that you can’t at least cut off their hands and legs even when I create an opening, right?”
“Hah! Who do you think you’re talking to?”

 

After returning Wilhelm’s question with a confidence response, Shin cast【Ichiyou no Misogi】again. Though the Skull Faces did crash into the wall, unlike the Bio Hounds, they had shields in front, so they took no damage. However, although the Skull Faces had seen the wall withstand the Bio Hounds’ body slam, they did not expect it to be durable enough to withstand even【Shield Bash】, and thus lost their balance as a result of the collision. Confirming that the Skull Faces had indeed lost their balance, Shin dispelled the wall. In that instant, Wilhelm dashed in between with his demon spear at the ready.

 

“Tsuaraaa!”

 

He drew a huge arc in the air with the Spear-type Martial Skill【Senka (Flash Blossom)】.
The attack sliced through the air and ground the two Skull Faces’ feet to dust, leaving behind a crimson trail in midair.
He was not done yet.
Without killing the momentum from his attack, Wilhelm quickly turned around. Relying on the centrifugal force generated by this movement, he sent the sword and shield of the left Skull Face flying. The Skull Face that had lost both legs and its weapons fell to the ground.

 

“You’re pretty good.”

 

While watching Wilhelm’s movements, Shin had also destroyed both arms of the Skull Face on the right using the Sword-type Martial Skill【Seijin (Blade Crusher)】. What he had in his hands was a new katana.
It was a Legend grade katana with a crimson blade,『Akechidori (Crimson Thousand Birds)』. Its cutting strength and durability were both far above the『Suda』that he was using before, and it also dealt lightning elemental damage.

 

The Skull Face that was now reduced to merely a head and torso had not received much damage to its core, but its HP was being steadily shaved off every time it was run through by the red lightning jumping off of the blade. The additional lightning elemental damage was helpful in lowering the Skull Face’s HP without Shin having to directly destroy its core. This kind of attack was very effective against monsters like Skull Faces who only receive damage when their cores are destroyed. This was the reason why Shin chose『Akechidori』.

 

“Rashia! Focus your Heals on the one in front of me!!”
“R-Roger!”

 

Noting from the corner of his eye that Wilhelm had broken both arms of the Skull Face that had lost its equipment, Shin gave instructions to Rashia, who had finished chanting.
While holding down the Skull Face that was still struggling despite only having a head and torso, Shin reached out with his senses. Though he couldn’t confirm things by sight due to the fog,【Sense Presence】informed him of several monsters that were now heading towards them, having perhaps been drawn by the sound of fighting.

 

“More are coming! Please pick up the pace.”
“I can’t go any faster than this!!”

 

As can be expected, it was taking Rashia quite some time to use only Arts to wear down the HP of monsters more than 100 levels above her own.

 

“So this is all the【Heal】Arts can do. Oi, Shin! Is it possible to hold off the enemy with that wall thing and attack them from this side?”
“That’s impossible. Even if it is possible, I don’t know how.”

 

It would be great if they could attack from behind the invisible wall like Wilhelm was saying, but barrier type skills effectively cut off the two sides of the barrier. As a result, it was not possible to one-sidedly bombard an enemy on the other side while hiding behind a barrier. The rules that govern how skills could be used seem to be more flexible in this world than back in the game, so Shin could not say for certain that this idea could not be done. However, even there was a way that it could be done, Shin did not know it.

 

“Tsk, no helping it then. Guess we have no choice but to just quickly beat them up.”
“Since our roles are not to actually kill them, that’s the only thing we can do.”
“Wait a sec! I’m working so frantically over here, so how come you two still sound so composed?!”

 

Though it might already be obvious, pinning down monsters instead of killing them outright was a considerably harder task. It would take a normal adventurer all he had to manage it, but the way Shin and Wilhelm were talking revealed that the only consternation that this was causing them was merely on the level of “now that we’re really doing this, it’s just troublesome.” Only one of them was complaining, but even that complaint sounded more annoyed than distressed. They were wielding their weapons with only a moderate amount of tension.

 

“As we thought, the levels of the monsters are this low because we’re still only on the edge of the Plains.”
“We will most likely need to go in deeper. But with that said, we’ve no choice but to wait a while for Rashia to get stronger first.”
“She started at level 10, so it’s going up quite quickly. She’s level 24 now. The Bio Hounds were somewhere around level 60. Oh, she suddenly shot up to level 40. With a difference of more than a hundred levels, she’s getting quite a bit of XP just from finishing them off.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The way they were helping her powerlevel seemed almost to trample the earnest efforts of adventurers who steadily work on leveling themselves, but they could not afford to put in several months to reach the same results, and thus continued regardless.
Though she was being protected, each and every monster was strong enough to kill her off with a single blow, and all of them were pouring out all the blood thirst that they had, so Rashia could not take it easy. It was no different to being under constant exposure to the fear of death. This fear is especially more potent on normal people who do not make a living out of fighting like adventurers do. If there was a way to quantify stress, Rashia’s current numbers would be through the roof. Seeing how she was raising her voice and trembling while endlessly casting【Heal】, one would be hard pressed to say that she was being shown partiality. The situation was such that any other normal person in the same position could only either give up or run away without wasting time looking to the side.

 

“But she seems to be reaching the limits of her mental strength. Her MP——magical power seems to be running dry too. Maybe Bio Hounds were a bit much right off the bat.”

 

Shin had accidentally said ‘MP,’ but quickly tried to cover it up by rewording it as ‘magical power.’ At the very last second, he remembered that though he had heard people in this world say ‘magical power,’ he had never heard anyone say ‘MP.’

 

“They’re all really grotesque, too. I guess we should commend her for not fainting.”

 

Fortunately, Wilhelm did not seem to have noticed Shin’s verbal gaffe.

 

“It would all come to naught if she collapsed here. Alright, let’s just clean up the ones that are already here and take a break.”
“Yea, let’s do that. Just because her level is shooting up, it doesn’t mean that her magical power is being recovered, too.”

 

They did not intend to jump right into the nighttime part without pause, so a temporary retreat to their base was in order.
Leveling up was supposed to completely restore all HP and MP, but apparently that was not how it was in this world. Shin’s original plan to powerlevel Rashia had hinged on the full recovery from leveling up, but all that was out the window now.

 

(This means that we need to properly plan time for recovery too. The fact that she doesn’t get a full recovery when she levels up means that we will need to keep an eye on her MP reserves.)

 

They couldn’t very well chug Ethers (T/N: mana potions) the whole time, so waiting to naturally recover was the only way. While mowing down the rest of the monsters, Shin thought about how this was going to take longer than he had expected and began making his plans anew.

 

 

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