Chapter 11
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The laws of the Otherworld work differently from those of the Material Realm.
All it takes is offering a single serving of food as a burnt offering, and somehow the humans here can do all the work themselves.
“Ah... I’m getting pleasantly tipsy...”
“This is nice. Got a lovely buzz going...”
“...”
Looking at the angels sprawled across the floor with flushed faces, I had to suppress a sigh.
They might not look it, but once they manifest in the Material Realm, each one of them has the strength of an entire army. There’s no need to do anything disrespectful.
Still, seeing every last one of them give off the vibe of a foreman at a day-labor office was a sight in its own right.
“Hey, thanks for the meal.”
Then the reddest-faced angel among those sprawled on the floor sat up and said that.
I think... they were a Chief Angel. They were definitely the highest-ranking being among the angels here.
“Thanks to you, I got to enjoy a real treat in the middle of work. I’ve lost track of how long it’s been since I last ate anything.”
“They work you like this and don’t even feed you?”
“What food could there be in the Otherworld? We don’t even have bodily needs.”
“...Do they at least provide anything else?”
“Look at us. What do you think?”
“...”
Good heavens.
So, basically, they have to serve in the military forever, working full-time without pay?
According to the setting, this race is effectively immortal in the Otherworld.
How are these angels? They’re just winged slaves.
“Don’t waste time thinking about that. Hand it over.”
As I gave the Chief Angel a look full of sympathy, they chuckled and pointed at something.
It was Ultima, still billowing incense beside me.
“Yes?”
“You came to see us because you wanted something from us anyway. I’ll give you a blessing, so go ahead and ask.”
Cheers of “Damn, the company commander doesn’t mess around!” and “He’s still got it!” rose from the angels nearby.
The angels’ tongues seemed so twisted they could barely pronounce their words. It was a little disorienting.
“...”
Well, they weren’t wrong.
The reason Ultima is classified as a ‘survival’ item, even though its only function is to reveal the forms of beings from the Otherworld, is that in the game, if you meet them, they always imbue it with a blessing.
“Just tell me what you want. I’ll give you the closest thing I can.”
But I hadn’t expected them to offer it on their own before I even had a chance to negotiate.
I came prepared with dozens of bargaining chips that I thought might work on these guys, too.
As I blinked in a daze at how smoothly things were going for me, the Chief Angel continued, their face still flushed.
“You’re wondering why I’d give so much to a nobody like me, right? Judging by the way you’re acting, you even know something about the angels’ precepts and laws.”
“...Honestly, yes.”
“I can see it all.”
As they said it, the Chief Angel’s eyes flashed with a myriad of colors.
I knew that ability, too.
The Insight Eye.
The ability to grasp a target’s ‘essence’ just by looking at them. You could say it let you read someone’s status screen in incredible detail.
“You’re going to make something of yourself. Think of this as an early investment. It’ll all come back to me eventually.”
“...”
“You’ve got potential. I can see it. It looks like you haven’t even awakened a speck of your abilities yet, though.”
One of the other angels lying nearby chimed in with something like, “Why’d you have to go and tell him all that, sir?”
It was such an absurdly high opinion of me that I couldn’t help wondering what was going on.
‘This has to be...’
It had to be about my Gift.
‘Loved by Villains,’ the ability that makes bad people love me.
When it came to my potential, I couldn’t think of anything else it could be.
“That’s a much more powerful talent than you think. How you use it is up to you, though.”
The angel chuckled as they said that.
What they said next, however, was anything but lighthearted.
“It doesn’t have only good points, either.”
“Pardon?”
“You got something nasty latched onto you. I can’t even make out its shape, but I can tell it’s fucking horrifying. Looks like it latched on because of your ability.”
What was that supposed to mean?
As I blinked at them, the Chief Angel scratched their head and continued.
“But here’s the funny thing. It’s fucking horrifying, but it doesn’t seem all that dangerous.”
“...What exactly are you talking about?”
“It gives off an unusually friendly vibe. At least, it doesn’t feel like it wants to hurt you. If anything, it seems like it wants to help.”
“...”
What was that supposed to be?
“You can’t see its form right now, so it won’t have any direct effect on you. But be ready to get involved with it before long.”
As I blinked at them, they added that.
“Let me give you one piece of advice. If it’s a way for you to survive, you’re planning to take even things that aren’t yours, right? That incense burner was supposed to go to someone else, too.”
“...You knew?”
“I told you. I can see everything.”
The angel chuckled again as they answered.
“I’m not going to interfere. If anything, I’d encourage it. I wouldn’t say this to just anyone, but I approve of you.”
“Pardon?”
“Take all of it. Anything you can use, gather every means at your disposal. If you’ve gotten involved with something that vile, just staying alive is going to be a struggle.”
Their words carried a heavy weight.
The words that followed, however, were spoken lightly.
“Still, honestly, I’m not too worried.”
“What? You’ve been saying nothing but heavy stuff until now.”
“I can tell just by looking at your face. The humans I’ve seen usually get scared the moment they hear something like that.”
A fierce smile crossed their face.
“But a guy like you, who hears that and immediately starts calmly planning how to survive, usually has a long life ahead of him.”
“...”
“Trust me. Most people can’t do that. I’m telling you, you’ve got the makings of someone great.”
Again, all that was was an embarrassingly high opinion of me.
I’m just trying my best because I don’t want to die.
It was an angel’s warning, no less, so I should take it seriously. It might be pretty important—
“Hey, Company Commander, you’ve had your fill of the good stuff. You still talking nonsense?”
“Get over here and grab a shovel, you hear?”
“You little shits! Tell us what year you ascended, you bastards—”
“...”
It would be important.
Probably.
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‘Well, this is excellent.’
Thinking that, I looked at the incense burner in my hand.
The blessing I’d received from the angels lay safely nestled inside it.
< Item Info >
[ Ultima of Divinity ] [ Item Grade: C+ ]
[ An incense burner used in rituals for many years. Influenced by divine beings in the Otherworld, it has gained special powers. ]
◎ Built-in Skills ◎
■ [ Penance ] [ Skill Grade: C ]
[ Temporarily converts all bonus stats into ‘Durability’. ]
[ Consumes a small amount of mana. ]
※ [ This skill can evolve! ]
When evolved, the skill changes to [ Proof of Faith ]!
■ [ Guardian Shield ] [ Skill Grade: C ]
[ Creates a protective barrier that deflects an opponent’s attack once. ]
[ Consumes a small amount of mana. ]
[ The barrier’s strength is affected by the ‘Durability’ stat. ]
[ Has a 20-second cooldown. ]
※ [ This skill can evolve! ]
When evolved, the skill changes to [ Stigmata ]!
Even just the effects I can use right away are pretty good.
Among the stats, ‘Durability’ mainly relates to health. You can think of it as governing recovery, vitality, stamina, and so on. It has the most direct impact on survival.
The higher it is, the more it squares the effects of armor and defensive abilities.
And since I can massively boost my stats in a life-or-death situation, having a skill that converts all of them into ‘Durability,’ along with a barrier strengthened by that stat, will be an incredible help to my survival right now.
‘And...’
The key point is that it can evolve.
The only way to evolve it is to use it as much as possible and raise its proficiency, so it’ll take some time. Even so, being able to keep growing an ability like this is definitely an advantage.
Everything that can ‘grow’ in the world of Sera gets dramatically stronger with each stage.
Getting something like this so early in the story is a huge boon.
It really was the Chief Angel’s blessing. I’m glad I accepted it.
‘Isn’t this a blessing I’d normally get much later on?’
Of course, meeting an angel at all is something that only becomes possible after Chapter Two, and directly interacting with a Chief Angel is something that happens much later still.
Getting a blessing for free from a being like that was a huge deal all on its own.
But there was this problem.
[ Consumes a small amount of mana. ]
I looked gloomily over the sentence in the skill window.
In general, abilities involving mana, spiritual power, or divine power are skills you can only use after learning the relevant traits.
Since I don’t have a single related trait, even something this good is currently out of my reach.
The problem is that by the time you’re an Elphante student, these are things you’re expected to have learned since childhood, so the academy doesn’t teach them separately.
“...”
That’s why I’m here right now. If I can’t learn mana just yet, I need to find some way to make use of this, even as a temporary solution.
I probably won’t be able to get it right here, but I can at least get a ‘lead.’
“Come one, come all! This is a magic gun just forged by the Firearms Division of the Crafting Department! Stop by now and get ten bullets made from ground spirit stones to fire for free! Hit the target and win a prize!”
“The Alchemy Division of the Magecraft Department is recruiting new students! We’re giving away our own homemade reagents during orientation week only, so come on over!”
Those kinds of shouts could be heard all around me.
The orientation event was where the departments tried to recruit students before they chose their majors at the freshman welcome party a few days later.
They were selling the idea that their department was fun and useful.
And that was the thing about these events. They’d have you do some trivial task, then shower you with things while saying, ‘Wow, you did great!’
It was a desperate attempt to recruit freshmen—in other words, slaves who’d handle odd jobs for them.
The seniors smiling brightly and luring the freshmen with carrots were hiding malice as black as night in their hearts.
Inexperienced chicks who knew nothing about the world were likely to fall for it completely. They’d chirp away, then get gobbled up whole.
“...”
What I wanted was one of the things they were handing out, too.
I was at the Magical Beast Studies booth in the Knight Department.
It was far emptier than the other booths, but that was because the task they’d set was unusually demanding for an orientation event.
A mock battle against dummy monsters made from bundles of magical-engineering fibers that perfectly recreated the feel of real magical beasts, inside a long dungeon course prepared by the department itself.
Who would want to do something that intense at an orientation event?
‘There’s one person here who would.’
Since they made you do such hard work, the rewards they handed out here were extraordinary, too.
Considering how difficult it was to get the item normally, you could say they were practically giving it away.
I almost felt sorry for the other freshmen who were missing out on this gold mine.
“Is getting distracted your specialty?”
“No, I was listening to everything.”
“Really? Then what did I just say?”
“You told us to form teams of two and wait, didn’t you?”
“...”
At my answer, the senior standing in front of me crossed their arms with an annoyed look.
“You know what ‘teams of two’ means, don’t you? Where’s your partner?”
“They’ll be here soon.”
“Who’d come to an unpopular department like this? You’re lying, aren’t you?”
Judging by their self-deprecating tone, they seemed to know that their department was especially unpopular even within the Knight Department.
Among the Empire’s main military forces, the knight orders carried the most prestige, so it was true that becoming a regular knight was greatly admired.
But the odds of becoming a regular knight from the Magical Beast Studies program were exceptionally low. Getting an office job was about as well as things could go.
‘Once you get to know them, the people here are some of the easiest to get along with.’
As the name suggested, their work involved documenting magical beasts’ weaknesses, studying their ecology, and establishing general ‘strategies’ for defeating them.
They tended to be looked down on because their work wasn’t flashy at all, but the information they gathered about magical beasts could make a huge difference later on in the scenario.
They’d be a tremendous help from the very first chapter of the scenario.
Of course, right now they looked dejected because they were an unpopular department and couldn’t attract any freshmen. Maybe I should encourage them a little.
“I’m not lying about my partner coming. This place is going to get really crowded soon.”
“...What?”
“The person who’s coming is no ordinary name.”
As I said that, I checked my magitech wristwatch.
In other words, it was about time for them to arrive.
A ‘seasoned’ freshman who knew that this field of study might seem modest, but was tremendously helpful in actual combat.
“Hello! Is this the Magical Beast Studies program...?”
The voice of the person coming through the booth’s tent grew quieter and quieter.
Probably because they’d spotted me.
I gave them a friendly wave.
“Hi.”
Actually, under normal circumstances, I would’ve preferred not to get involved with this person.
But lately, I’d changed my mind.
Especially after hearing the advice from those angelic old-timers, I’d decided to change my whole approach.
“Is that offer to get to know each other still open?”
Elijah Crisanax looked utterly flustered by my question.
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