1.
There was no one who taught me anything.
The only people I could really call companions were Silver Wolf and the pawnshop owner.
Since they worked in different fields, there was nothing to learn from them either.
Honestly, wasn’t it impressive that I’d climbed this far with nothing at all?
I really was worse off than a street orphan.
No home.
No money.
No talent.
Nothing. Absolutely nothing! That bastard Adrian Servet had lived an even more hopeless life than I had.
Of course, those street punks had folded pretty fast under my hatchet.
But the higher I climbed, the more I felt the gap in skill, and the more I needed to learn proper combat.
The spear user I’d fought in the previous loop.
Hanabi, swinging a sword wreathed in flames.
Unlike my brute-force self, they had actual weapon technique.
No matter how much of a street-fighting master I was, the difference was like a martial arts fighter versus a special forces soldier with a knife.
Even if there was a Path of Destiny, the spear user had been strengthened through augmentation.
And Hanabi had been walking the same road as me.
In other words, this was a fever time that would never come again.
The real power-up event.
"Got any ultimate moves?"
"You’re trying to sprint before you’ve even learned to walk."
At the familiar Scrap Mountain, Asat stood with his back to a mountain of junk and looked at me.
"First, let me see what you can do. Come at me with everything you’ve got."
"If you go all-out, Sensei, I’m going to get turned into octopus stew..."
"Don’t worry. The total amount of power I can use will be the same as yours."
Um... even if the total amount of power was the same, I still didn’t think I could win.
"I can’t quit before I’ve even started. Here I come?"
"Come."
I drew my sword and took my stance.
My swordsmanship could only be described as completely ungrounded.
"Let’s see what you’ve got."
"Sky Leap."
Boom!!!
The moment Asat finished speaking, I charged in at full force, even using the fragment bait.
My opponent was clearly stronger than me.
If I ran in while trying to hide my hand, I wouldn’t get a pretty ending.
Imaginary energy colored my legs as I rushed at Asat.
And in that brief instant, what I saw was...
Asat, looking down at me from somewhere impossibly far away.
I was going to die.
I really was going to die.
This wasn’t even a fight anymore.
A baby and an adult.
A tiger and a wild dog.
The gap that made this impossible from the very start was crushing me.
Goosebumps rose all over my body, and I immediately launched a countercharge.
The moment I tried to flee after charging in like I was about to devour him, Asat reached out toward me.
Snap!
I heard the familiar sound of a finger snap.
Asat’s body split into dozens of afterimages.
Then those afterimages disappeared one by one, leaving only the path that would let him beat me most efficiently.
"You son of a...!"
Thud!
A punch slammed into my abdomen before I could even think to block it.
My body crumpled and flew back like I’d been hit by a dump truck.
"Kheh..."
Rolling across the ground, I finally slammed into the junk pile and stopped.
I touched the spot where Asat’s fist had landed.
"If you’d put just a little more force into that, I think I’d have died."
"...Hmm. I’m pretty sure I told you to give it your all."
"Sky Leap is my full power!!!"
Just a jumping one-trick pony.
A useless idiot with no attack skills at all.
That was me.
"No, you still haven’t even grasped your own potential."
"I appreciate you believing in me so much, but I’m really just a jump one-trick pony...?"
"You’ll get your head on straight once death comes close."
"Ah, damn it!!!"
I knew that bastard with the dice for a head was smiling in that infuriatingly subtle way.
Right now, I would die if I failed to meet Asat’s expectations.
"Hah!! Leap!!"
Three minutes remained.
Before the fragment bait ran out, I had to show him something or I’d die.
I bounced up like a rabbit and threw the dice.
The die rolled across the ground.
Before I even had time to check the result, I drew my sword to face Asat.
[Destruction] [12]
The die had been cast.
"Step on the sky."
The moment I saw the number 12, my body was overwhelmingly strengthened.
I used a technique I hadn’t been able to activate before because my proficiency was too low.
I stepped on the sky as if there were a wall there. Standing on empty air, I watched Asat with interest.
My body bounced around like a rubber ball, just like when Hanabi had delivered her final blow.
"...Where did he go?"
I’d tried to blind him with movement and strike.
Just as I was about to swing my sword, I turned my eyes to search for the vanished Asat.
"Past Sight!!!"
A chill ran down my spine.
Even as I endured the pain in my eyes and looked through the blurry afterimage of the past, I saw it.
"Where do you think you’re looking?"
"Holy shit!"
Asat had already moved behind me and was staring at me.
Instead of a punch, a kick slammed heavily into my side.
I swung my sword at the same moment he kicked, but it didn’t land.
Asat vanished like an afterimage, dodging my attack without even taking his hand out of his pocket.
"Kyaaaaaaah!!!"
I rolled across the ground with a scream.
The absurd sight of me being unable to land a hit while Asat kept beating me senseless.
If my body hadn’t been strengthened by the dice, I would’ve been flattened and counted out as K.O. already.
Amid the terrifying barrage of blows, I forced my body to keep moving.
It was like I was being attacked by the senior soldier who’d beaten me up the worst in my life...!
I got absolutely wrecked in a relentless rhythm.
And even if I widened my eyes and tried to follow with Past Sight, Asat’s response was faster.
"...This is bad."
Three minutes ended.
Then ten minutes ended.
The die’s duration ended, the fragment bait’s duration ended, and I lay sprawled on the ground.
This made no sense.
Wasn’t that just a 12?
"I think I’ve found your problem."
"I don’t know what you’re talking about."
"You’ve rushed through the stages too quickly."
"...?"
I bawled my eyes out. Lying on the ground and staring up at the sky, I watched Asat lean down and look at me.
"How long have you been walking the Path?"
"Come to think of it, maybe not even a month...?"
"That’s the problem. You lack willpower, and you lack the body to support it. The only thing ahead of you is technique."
He was saying that after seeing my pathetic swordsmanship?
"I’m not talking about your swordsmanship. I’m talking about your technique. The techniques you use through the Path."
"...The dice throw and Sky Leap?"
"I’m not exactly sure what you mean by Sky Leap, but it seems to be some kind of acrobatic technique."
Come to think of it...
I only started walking the Path when I was right on the brink of death.
I did it because I was about to die and gritted my teeth through it.
There was probably also the effect of me forcibly dragging my future self by the collar.
"Don’t you have some stupidly easy, overpowered click-to-win skill? Like domain expansion or a personal barrier?"
"I know what you’re talking about."
"Wait, there really is a domain expansion!?"
Not a domain expansion, exactly, but Asat said there was a technique called [Boundary].
It manifested the landscape of one’s own mind into reality.
Apparently only those among Path-walkers who satisfied very special conditions could use it.
"I’m suddenly getting the urge to learn."
"Forget the urge to learn. You’ve got a lot to fix first. If you fix your weaknesses, you’ll be able to go further."
My weaknesses.
I had so many there wasn’t even time to list them all.
"Especially your swordsmanship and hand-to-hand combat. Is that really what you call martial arts?"
"I taught myself as an orphan, okay?"
"If you didn’t like it, you shouldn’t have been born an orphan."
"That’s too harsh..."
And on top of that, Asat’s merciless insults wounded my pure heart.
My only real strength was one thing.
I’d just walked the Path a little more than most people.
That was it.
"Then you’ll teach me hand-to-hand combat, Sensei. What about swordsmanship?"
"...Wait here."
He made a call to somewhere and started talking.
"It’s me. If you have time, can you come over for a bit?"
"What? Stop posting pictures of your daughter in the work room? And you’re the one who only sends six dots as a reply?"
"...I found something interesting. It might help you too."
After that brief conversation, Asat ended the call and came back to me.
"I found a swordsmanship teacher."
"Wow, your network is insane."
"He’s a madman, so try not to get involved with him if you can help it."
As light and casual as Asat looked right now, I couldn’t afford to underestimate him.
He was the kind of man who could kill me any time his interest ran out.
Maybe the best choice from the start would’ve been not getting involved with him at all.
"From now on, you’ve got one month."
"No!!!"
"...Do you really need to shout?"
It would take a month to turn me from a rice bug into a human.
And if I used up a whole month, time would be over, which was absolutely not okay.
I didn’t have any choices, but I couldn’t give this up. I refused to die after learning all this and never getting to use it.
After getting beaten by Asat some more, I somehow negotiated the training period down to one week and four days.
He told me I had to brace myself and face it head-on within that time.
I couldn’t stay any longer either.
Asat was busy, but he was only here for a short while because this land called Punklorde was within Aha’s domain.
He also had to go on business trips for other work.
I had no idea what kind of job sent him on interplanetary business trips.
"Asat, Sensei, question."
"Go ahead."
"Am I at least somewhat decent?"
"No. Cosmically speaking, you’re a rabbit that can kick."
Damn it, that was a weird metaphor, but it was so apt I could understand it perfectly.
"And one more thing. Why are you teaching me?"
"Because it’s fun. And because I’m looking forward to the waves you’ll make later."
"Would you forgive me if I stabbed you in the back later?"
"..."
"Aaaagh!!! I’m joking!!! Joking!!! It was a joke!!!!"
I nearly got a hole punched through my solar plexus and got donut’d like some manga character.
He just silently lifted his hand, and it was terrifying as hell.
To sum it up:
Eleven days to shore up my lacking hand-to-hand combat.
Psychological warfare, after being told I was hopelessly bad at it.
And finally, a special swordsmanship teacher coming to teach me swordsmanship.
"It all shows on your face."
"I was famous for having a great poker face when I was active!"
"It didn’t work at all when you were fighting."
After that, what made my heart race the most was...
"I’ll teach you one technique."
"Huh? You said if I learned more here, I’d just end up with a bunch of random junk."
"This one is special. Only a tiny number of people can learn it."
"Saying that is making my heart pound."
It was Asat’s finger snapping.
The crisp sound of a finger snap rang out.
"You don’t know it yet, but if you can see the past, you can also see the future."
"My God."
"That’s why it’s a technique you can learn. If the prerequisites aren’t met, you can’t learn it."
The trump card I’d learn last, to uncover the secrets of the ringmaster and Hanabi.
Its name was...
"...Probability Manipulation."
Damn.
I’m so excited.
Comments (0)
Please log in to leave a comment. Login or Register