Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody, Vol. 2 (light novel)

by Hiro Ainana

  Hmm, so that’s different, too.

  In my case, I learned skills just by performing a related action. Although they didn’t learn them quite as absurdly easily as I did, the beastfolk girls seemed to acquire them in a similar fashion.

  Without mentioning my own situation, I commented experimentally that the way the beastfolk girls acquired skills seemed to be different from Arisa’s method, but she simply responded that there were special systems for transferences and transmigrations.

  Although we’d gotten a bit off topic, I listened to the rest of Arisa’s explanation.

  “‘Self-Status Check’ is just what it sounds like: a skill that lets me review my own status. It gives much more information than a Yamato stone. Most importantly, it lets me manage my stats, like STR and INT, and choose how to allocate skill points.”

  Apparently, it was this skill that allowed her to select what skill to learn from a list when she leveled up.

  But she could choose how her attribute values were allotted, too? My menu didn’t have that feature.

  I got the feeling that my menu was like a subset of what Arisa had described.

  “‘Hide Skills’ allows me to conceal information about the skills I have. Once it’s been used, my skills will appear as ‘none,’ even to Yamato stones and ‘Analyze,’ until I deactivate it.”

  Did the fact that her skills appeared as “Unknown” in my menu mean I had a different kind of analyzing skill?

  “‘Status Check’ lets me view the status of others. To be honest, ‘Analyze’ would’ve been better, but I didn’t have enough transmigration bonus points.”

  To test it out, I let her try to read my status, but she got only the information from my networking profile, just like a Yamato stone.

  Arisa explained that “Analyze” was an analysis-type skill like “Status Check” but more comprehensive, though for looking at statuses, it wasn’t much stronger than “Status Check.”

  Incidentally, a god gave Arisa’s “Hide Skills” to her, so even people with any analysis-type skills couldn’t see through it, she said.

  I guess that was why it showed up as “Unknown” even in my display, too.

  Normally, once “Hide Skills” was learned, the other person just had to have a “Status Check” skill level higher than the level of the “Hide Skills” being used.

  But my networking menu, where I could edit the profile that others saw, was even more flexible than Arisa’s “Hide Skills.”

  “‘Item Box’ is just as the name implies. It’s an item-storing system like the kind in a lot of games. Unlike the unlimited inventory that’s standard for heroes, it has a limited amount of space, but it doesn’t get bulky or heavy, so it’s still very useful.”

  When I asked about the limitations, she explained that she could carry up to one hundred different kinds of items, with the same kind of item stackable up to one hundred units each. A very gamelike system.

  For amorphous items, like water, one unit was apparently equal to about one liter.

  Arisa proudly noted that she’d discovered a loophole where she could pack a lot of small items into a bag before storing them to get the same effect, counting by volume rather than amount.

  My Storage system was more like the unlimited inventory that she mentioned.

  I didn’t know if there was any difference other than the name, but it was useful either way, so I didn’t think it mattered.

  “I’m getting thirsty from all this talking.”

  Since Arisa was coughing a bit and holding her throat, I started to get up to bring her some water, but she stopped me with her free hand.

  Instead, she suggested a demonstration of her Item Box, so I told her to go ahead.

  “Item Box, open.”

  Arisa chanted in a whisper and waved her hand theatrically, and a flat black hole opened up in front of her.

  Is that the Item Box?

  I didn’t get any black holes or fancy effects when I moved things into or out of Storage.

  Arisa put her hands inside the black hole and promptly pulled out a jug of water. She brought it to her lips and drank straight from the container; her face in profile looked very proud.

  Some water spilled over her lips and onto her bare chest. Even the way she drank water was too risqué for a girl her age.

  How old was she on the inside, really?

  “At least use a cup,” I said, wishing she would mind her manners, but she informed me that she tried to keep her usage of the box to a minimum, since each item taken out or put away cost her some MP.

  She needed magic just for storing stuff? That was different from Storage, too.

  Arisa finished drinking and started to put away the water jug, so I asked her to let me try doing it. It was sort of like putting something into a black case in which I could faintly see the outlines of other items.

  > Skill Acquired: “Item Box”

  I didn’t really need a skill that was just an inferior version of Storage, but all right…

  More importantly, I was curious whether one of her remaining abilities, Never Give Up or Over Boost, had allowed her Psychic Magic to affect me despite our three-hundred-level difference in power.

  Arisa chuckled. “Well. You got a good deal, didn’t you? Not many people can say they have a slave with a skill like that!”

  “What else’ve you got?”

  “Urgh…”

  Arisa grumbled something about my greed, making a show of being reluctant before dramatically throwing up her hands in an “I give up” pose like foreigners do.

  It was a little much, so I dealt her a light chop to the top of her head.

  Of course, I made sure to go easy on her so that I wouldn’t hurt her by mistake.

  “How rude! I happen to have two Unique Skills, thank you very much!”

  Now she was striking a triumphant “Aren’t I amazing?” pose, so I ruffled her hair a little more roughly than necessary. She seemed pleased about that, despite her protests that I would mess up her hair.

  But why did she refer to them as “Unique Skills” and not abilities, like her status screen had said?

  Cutting off this line of thought, Arisa began her explanation.

  “Even Lulu doesn’t know about these. The first one is called Over Boost. It uses up all my magic and stamina to increase the effect of a single skill or spell many times over! Isn’t that incredible? A skill befitting a heroine!”

  Actually, it sounded more like a one-shot cannon.

  “The other one is called Never Give Up. It’s a power that lets me carry on no matter how strong the opponent! Specifically, no matter how much higher the enemy’s defense or level might be, it gives my magic and attacks at least a ten percent chance of affecting them! Amazing, isn’t it?”

  That one was amazing, I had to admit. This must have been how she was able to break through my magic resistance before. There were a lot of lines in my log that said —magic resisted, so there was no other explanation.

  “However, I can only use it up to three times. I do recover one use per month, though. Since my magic wasn’t working very well on you, master, I ended up blowing through all three uses earlier.”

  What a bothersome skill. I guess I was lucky I wasn’t her enemy.

  Later, she explained to me that even when the skill was activated, it was no use against an enemy that had a complete resistance to something. For example, there would be no point in trying to use “Flamethrower” against a firedrake that wasn’t affected by fire attacks.

  “By the way, master, how many Unique Skills do you have?”

  “You just want to know how many? Not what they are?”

  “That’s right. Honestly, Unique Skills are our trump cards, so it’s best not to tell anyone what yours are.”

  I was sure she was going to come at me with all kinds of questions, but surprisingly, she warned me firmly not to talk about it.

  However, either way, I didn’t even have anything called a Unique Skill
in the first place.

  Maybe the menu itself or the Meteor Shower spell I started with could be considered Unique Skills, but how would I find that out?

  Looking at each tab of the menu, I noticed an inconspicuous option labeled Abilities in the Settings tab.

  When I selected it, four names appeared.

  “I have four.”

  “Oh my, that’s remarkable. According to the god I met, the more skills a person has, the greater the caliber of their soul.”

  Caliber? I doubted a middle-class commoner like me had a particularly impressive soul.

  Incidentally, my four abilities turned out to be Menu, Unit Creation, Unit Deployment, and Immortality.

  So this menu of mine is an ability, huh? It did seem to follow a similar framework to Arisa’s Unique Skills, so I guess I might as well think of it as that instead to keep things from getting too complicated.

  The fact that my Storage, radar, map, and so on weren’t displayed in my Unique Skills must have meant they were all part of my “Menu” skill.

  When I first got here, I might have thought that was pretty lame, but I definitely didn’t feel that way after experiencing the usefulness of the menu firsthand in the labyrinth.

  The two unit-related skills sounded like something out of a strategy game, but they were grayed out and couldn’t be selected. “Immortality” was, too, so I had to assume that some kind of condition needed to be met for them to be activated.

  My best guess was that Immortality was the ability to revive in a church or something after being killed, like in a game. Did that mean the release condition for that skill was dying? I’d rather not test that out, so if that was the case, I’d imagine it wouldn’t be activated for a long time.

  At any rate, there was no point in wasting precious brainpower on something I couldn’t figure out the answer to with logic alone, so I put that thought aside.

  “There are a few things I want to know more about.”

  “Go right ahead.”

  “How are you able to use Psychic Magic without a chant?”

  She had definitely used it in front of the inn before, but I didn’t see her chant anything.

  “Well…it’s kind of a hidden feature of Self-Status Check. Once I’ve learned a spell, I only have to think of the final command word in my head to use it.”

  I got my hopes up for a second, but apparently, you did have to use the chant once to learn a spell.

  I guess the only way around learning a difficult chant was by using a magic scroll.

  Well, I had plenty of funds, so I could ask Zena or someone where to find a magic shop where I could buy more scrolls.

  “Does that mean you can’t use magic, master?”

  “I have a hard time with the chants…”

  That wasn’t a lie. There were three spells that I could use, but those were special cases.

  “Oh, of course. I almost gave up on it myself when I first heard someone else chanting a spell, too. It ended up taking me about a year to learn.”

  “That’s fair. I only tried for about two days…or I guess two hours, really.”

  “What? That’s no time at all! If it was that easy to learn, there would be a lot more sorcerers here.”

  I didn’t have a comeback for that.

  Taking advantage of my momentary silence, Arisa complained that she was getting cold and started to cling to me. Peeling her off lightly, I picked up her clothes and blanket from next to the bed and pushed them onto her.

  “Next—tell me what you have inside your Item Box. I don’t want you pulling out a knife or poison or something and killing me in my sleep.”

  Judging by our interactions so far, she didn’t seem to have any malicious intent toward me, but her “love at first sight” story was pretty ridiculous, so I figured it was better not to let my guard down for now.

  “Let’s see…I have five magic books, mostly about Psychic Magic.”

  Arisa piled some heavy-looking leather-bound books on top of the bed. The faint scent of ancient pages from bygone eras filled the air.

  According to my “Estimation” skill, these books were worth far more than what I’d paid for Arisa and Lulu.

  “If you sold these, couldn’t you buy your own freedom?”

  “If a slave has such belongings, people will simply take them away, not buy them. And if someone with purple hair like mine was to pull out a book on a detested subject like Psychic Magic…there’s no telling what would happen to me.”

  I guess with a name like “Psychic Magic,” people were bound to be afraid of brainwashing and mind control and such.

  “Then shouldn’t you have studied a different kind of magic that you wouldn’t be persecuted for knowing?”

  “This is all I could get my hands on. I wanted to learn magic, so I taught myself with these.”

  Well, I definitely understood the feeling of wanting to use magic.

  More importantly…

  “Is purple hair a bad omen?”

  “It’s considered an ill omen as both a hair color and an eye color. Few people know the reason why that is, but whenever something bad happens, it’s always blamed on my hair color.”

  Come to think of it, the slave merchant Nidoren had said something along those lines, too.

  “That’s too bad. It’s the kind of color a stylish grandma would dye her hair.”

  “Wh-why would you choose to compare me to that of all things…?”

  Looking tired and crestfallen, Arisa leaned back on the bed, her lovely violet hair shifting. It was a shame that such a pretty color was seen as abhorrent for no apparent reason.

  Whoops, we got off topic again. Let me get back to the main point.

  “Is that all you have in the Item Box?”

  “There’s also the water jug I had before and a few changes of clothes. Should I take them out?”

  “Yeah, please do. You can leave the water jug in there.”

  Looking at the clothes Arisa took out made my head start to hurt. A yukata, a sailor suit, a half-finished maid outfit… All of them seemed to be handmade. Arisa didn’t have the “Sewing” skill, but she’d apparently been good at it before she was reincarnated.

  I made a note of the titles of the magic books, too, then had her return everything to the Item Box.

  “You’re not going to take them away?”

  Arisa had tilted her head anxiously, so I made my response clear.

  “I’ll probably have you show me the books sometime, but no, I don’t see why I would take them.”

  People would think I was some kind of pervert if I was carrying around child-size sailor suits and maid outfits, anyway.

  “Oh, I know. Put this in the Item Box, too.”

  I pulled out a small pouch from Storage under cover of the pillow, then handed it to Arisa.

  “It’s heavy. May I look inside?”

  “Sure, go ahead. There should be ten gold coins in all. Don’t hesitate to use them if there’s an emergency.”

  Aside from Shigan currency, I had put in some coins from the Saga Kingdom as well.

  This was a dangerous world, where just going on a date in the city could get you dragged into riots and dungeons that appeared beneath your feet. I thought it would be best to give her a bit of money, just in case anything happened.

  “You’re giving gold to a slave…? Master, are you very rich?”

  “I just happened to have a bit of a windfall, that’s all.”

  Arisa’s eyes widened when she saw the contents of the purse.

  I had intended for it to be a small amount, but I found out later that a commoner’s monthly wages amounted to less than one gold coin. The cost of living was clearly different here, so I couldn’t say for sure, but my impression was that one gold coin was comparable to somewhere between fifty and a hundred thousand yen… That didn’t seem like much to live on.

  “I’m sure you know this, but don’t use it unless it’s an emergency, all right?”

  “Of
course!”

  There was an ambiguity in Arisa’s answer that I didn’t like, but there was no one else I could entrust the money to, so I pretended not to notice.

  I did have the “Sewing” skill, so maybe I could make amulets for the other kids with a gold coin sewn inside.

  “Arisa, I have one last question.”

  “Okay, let ’er rip!”

  Arisa’s jovial reply made her sound like a baseball player.

  “May I ask how you became a slave? This one isn’t an order. It’s all right if you don’t want to talk about it.”

  Arisa was hesitant for a moment, then slowly started to speak.

  “I tried to use my knowledge from my previous life to make my hometown prosper…but I failed. I was a princess then, you know,” she added lightly. “It went well at first, but then I met with failure so unnatural that the kingdom fell to civil war, and in the end a neighboring country captured me.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Just normal agrarian reform. As the basis of my reign, I showed them how to use humus, fertilizer, four-field crop rotation, and other basic hacks.”

  I’d never heard the term hacks applied to domestic policy before. I assumed that meant she’d used her advanced knowledge to improve the agriculture of the kingdom.

  “But how could that have failed so badly that the whole kingdom fell apart?”

  “That’s why I called it an ‘unnatural’ failure. All the crops we planted in the humus-rich topsoil failed. The fertilizer that was in the decomposing process was suddenly infested with bug-type monsters, and the fallow fields that were recovering their fertility with clovers and turnips failed and became barren… That sort of thing.”

  That certainly sounded like the kind of phenomenon you’d find in a fantasy world, but since she’d appended the word unnatural…

  “Did somebody cause all that?”

  “Yes, but I didn’t know that until much later. At the time, I felt terrible, convinced it was because of differences between the soil in this world and the one we came from. They started calling me names like ‘Witch of the Lost Kingdom’ and ‘Mad Princess.’”