...hmmm...


　I crouched in a corner of the forest in the brilliant sunlight, picking the grasses at hand while thinking.

　The herbs I'm gathering now are not so much medicinal herbs as they are fragrant, and when added to a dish they have a refreshing taste. It is recommended for use in oil or salty soups.

　It is a rare herb, and the reward set by the guild is high. That herb grows in clusters, it is indeed the depths of Titis.

　I can see other plants and trees that I know here and there. If it was me a month ago, I would have been collecting them all with a different color of my eyes.

　I don't make a living gathering medicinal herbs now, so I don't need to be that obsessed. I don't need to be so attached to it, but I've been picking weeds quietly for a long time, or maybe it's just a longstanding habit, and my heart was naturally lifted.



　It was not good. I tried to calm down and think for a while, but before I knew it, I was absorbed in gathering medicinal herbs.

　What I was thinking about was the question that had been bubbling up in my mind while I was repeating the "experiment" with Miroslav.

　In other words--.


Isn't it weird how strong I am?


　Isn't he too strong, frankly?

　As much as I would like to say "You're getting cocky," that's not the case.

　The first thing I wondered about was what happened on the way to take Miroslav to the nest.

　At that time, I was able to withstand Miroslav's magic "Flame Princess" with only the defense of Jing Jing Jing. It's not that I was able to endure it, I mean I didn't even get a scratch on it.

　It's a very good idea to have a good idea of what you're looking for.

　I had never even used the jujin before, so to speak, I was a beginner at jujin. It's a good thing that I've learned how to use the jujin itself, but it doesn't mean that my technique has improved dramatically.

　I'm sure you'll be able to find a way to make your life easier with the magic of Miroslav's renowned adventurer and magician. I'm not sure I'm going to be able to do that.




　Yes, speaking of levels, this was also a question.

　I haven't leveled up since I leveled up in the brothel the other day.

　In the past month, I've defeated several forest demons while I was preparing, and I've been eating Miroslav's soul every day for the past seven days or so, but I still didn't raise my level.

　Miroslav's soul is thicker than that of the brothel's, perhaps partly because of the level, but it is thicker than that of the brothel's. It's not surprising that the level of the brothel was raised in one night in the brothel, so it's not surprising that the level of the brothel was raised after 7 days.

　Of course, I know that leveling up becomes more and more difficult as you go up a level. If this was a level 20 or 30, I wouldn't have questioned it so much.

　But I'm still level six.


I thought souls are an incredibly high-purity experience, but even I can't level up this much, so how are the rest of you guys going to be able to level up?


　If you convert the souls I've eaten in the past week into the experience of others, it should be a ridiculous number. It's hard to imagine that the other level six adventurers are acquiring this without laboring.

　It was definitely not a difference that could be cleared up in one word: individual differences.



　I'm sure that the experience value required to level up is much higher than others.

　That's exactly what I need more than 10,000 where most people can get away with a hundred.

　If that's the case, then it's like a dragon raising the bar, not a human anymore.


''No way, I don't think so...''


　However, when I think about what happened when I acquired the mind-dressing, I don't think I was wrong.

　My homogenous existence (anima) was a dragon. If that's the case, then I myself have some sort of dragon factor in me.

　And if this idea is correct, then the question I've been asking myself for years is resolved.

　Why didn't my level rise to the top from scratch?


　One of the common beliefs about leveling up--even if you defeat a demon weaker than you hundreds or thousands of times, your level will not increase.


　........Compared to a dragon, every demon would be a small fish. As long as you don't defeat any of the illusory species, they won't be able to add to your experience level.

　If that's the case, it's only natural that human training and the monsters that fledgling adventurers defeat didn't raise their levels.


　Another reasoning to be drawn from this.

　If the experience value required to level up is different, then the increase in ability that comes with leveling up should also be different.

　Maybe my level and others' levels are fundamentally different.


'Absolutely... anyway, it would be better if we could look at experience level and ability, not just level numbers.


　If possible, it would be even better if there was a description of your profession. If my status was marked "Dragon Warrior Level 1", my time on the island would be much different.

　Well, it's too late to say that now.

　Besides, since the path to strength has been opened up like this, those days were meaningful.



　The current me is able to fight to some extent even after returning to the island. Considering the strength of the demons on the island, I'm sure it's worth the effort.

　It's about my father. He wouldn't make me back as a trueborn son, but if he judged me to be an asset, he could well think of assigning me to a lower-ranking squad member.



　The Mitsurugi family defends Onigashima, and the eight squadrons that serve as its hands and feet.

　Flying the flag of the Hoshin (Plating), they were the island's guardians, from the captain above to the Taira's soldiers below, all of whom operated the Illusionary One-Dimensional Style.

　They are known as the Seirin Hakki.



　All of the island's children adored Seirin Hakki. My classmates are probably in the top ranks of the team by now.

　As to be expected, they have not yet become captains. Laguna and Ayaka may have become vice-captains, though.

　By the way, "Seirin" is the ancient name of Onigashima. Or rather, it's still the official name of the island. Most people only call it "Onigashima" anymore, but the island's elders still call it "Seirindo".

　In the past, before the establishment of the demon gate, Onigashima was a scenic island lined with lush trees. Well, that was over three hundred years ago, so even the old timers had never seen it with their own eyes.



　The blue team cloak of the eight banners of the Blue Forest is a symbol of strength for me. It was a dream of mine to wear it.

　Now I can make that dream come true if I want to.

　It was also about fulfilling the vow I made when I left the island.



I'll come back to you. I will come back with the ability to fight on this island.



　I remember the disappointment of that time as if it were yesterday.

　On the island, there is a lot of know-how on the mind suit. If you can come into contact with it, you will be able to use it even better than now. I thought so.


　But I didn't want to go home.

　I'm sure that if I went back now, even if I were to be relieved of my exile, at best I'd be a hired gunman of the Taira.

　It's better than the weaknesses of the past, but I don't want to imagine being bossed around by my father, Laguna, Ayaka, my classmates, and my brothers and sisters from Goz and Cecil.


　At the time, I thought I'd be able to make the people of the island acknowledge me, but...well, now that I think about it, it's not that I wanted them to acknowledge me. But now that I think about it, it's not so much that I wanted their approval, it's just that I wanted to show them the favor.

　I wanted to show them that I was stronger than they were and that I had seen what they were capable of.

　I wanted to show them that they were wrong about me.



　But I'm not ready for that.

　I can still be strong.

　Eat Miroslav, eat the Falcon Blade, eat the guild, and become stronger and stronger.

　And when I've eaten as much as I can - let's go home to that island. Let's go home and prove it. I've surpassed you all.

　That's the way the sword is supposed to be.

　It's not what I once dreamed of, but it can't be helped now. I have no sympathy for such ideals as salvation and protection of the people.



　It's not that I've forgotten about them in the past. But now, here and now, I have to take it to heart once again.

　To be honest, I've been on a bit of a roll since I acquired the mind outfit!

　I didn't think I could go back to the beginning by collecting medicinal herbs. From now on, when I'm lost in something, I should pick medicinal herbs. In a meditative sense.



　I thought to myself and looked around.

　I noticed that there was a pile of medicinal herbs I had picked around me.

　That's when I grimaced at the fact.

　The ground shook so much that my body lifted up.



◆◆◆



　At first, I thought it was an earthquake.

　But after hearing multiple, possibly demonic beasts' roars and the sound of a fierce battle, I had an idea that it was a battle between large demonic beasts.

　One could tell just from the sounds that could be heard that it was quite a fierce battle. Judging from the number of voices, there seemed to be more than ten demonic beasts lightly gathered together.

　However, most of them seemed to be of the same species, so the battle might be taking place in a many-on-one fashion.



　Probably, these monster beasts that hunt in packs are trying to kill their large prey.

　If that's the case, I thought, I'll just let them go. It doesn't matter how the two hexenbiests squash each other.

　There is no doubt that there is a way to take advantage of this, but it would be foolish to take on more than ten unknown monsters on your own. I'm sure they're in a good mood after having just hunted their prey, and it's not like I was attacked.


　I begin to pack up the herbs I've picked to return to the nest.

　But there was an extraordinarily loud roar, as if to thwart my intentions.

　From the sound of its voice, it was not the "many" one, but the "one" one. In other words, I'm the one being hunted.

　Probably with its last strength, the demonic beast flapped its wings hard and flew up into the sky - unable to do so, and fell to the ground again.

　If it had jumped up and fallen on the spot, there would have been no problem, but it seemed to have flown at an angle and at an angle, so the place of its fall was way off.

　In short, the winged beast slipped into my field of vision with a zig-zagging motion.


　It was a two-legged dragon with indigo scales that were bright to the eye.

　It was a magical beast called the Indigo Wyvern.　


　And the one that emerged after the wyvern--

'Shushissi!　Strange. There is a human being in such a place.

　It was a man-eating demonic beast (man-eater) manticore with the face of an old man, the body of a lion, and a scorpion's tail.