Chapter 10
First, stay calm.
Let me go over the skills I have.
One. D-rank, Cyclops's Dexterity.
At first, it was useful for earning a living doing manual labor, but now it only leaves me a little less tired when typing.
Two. C-rank. Hermes's Persuasion.
It's been pretty useful when Roselyn came in looking to kill me, and whenever negotiations are needed in all sorts of everyday situations.
Three. C-rank. Hercules's Staff Technique.
I haven't used it much except for the time I almost got shaken down by thugs, but it was a pretty dependable combat skill.
Lastly, the B-rank skill I just obtained: Hector's Courage.
According to the description... it says you can keep your composure in any situation, and especially when facing someone one-on-one, you can display abilities beyond your own potential.
And then, the skill synthesis system.
Just like in a typical RPG...
It was intuitive.
If you combine two low-rank skills, there's a chance you'll get a higher-rank skill.
Naturally, if it fails, both disappear, and you're said to obtain some kind of mysterious points.
A pity system... maybe?
Since I'd never obtained any points before, I still couldn't check the explanation related to them.
"Isn't the risk a little too high?"
If I were some skill-rich guy carrying dozens of skills, maybe I'd think differently.
But I'm just a baby who has barely learned to walk, so is there any need to force the issue here?
And besides, if switching is possible, then like setting presets in an RPG, it would be better to first set up basic loadouts for writing, daily life, combat, whatever──
『Fight back. Are you a coward?』
"......"
When did this thing even add urban legends to its training data?
But.
It wasn't wrong.
Isn't there such a saying?
If you quote an Eastern classic, success makes you king, failure makes you a rebel.
And as one of history's state-power-level demagogues once said, 'We will go down in history as the greatest politicians of all time. Or as the most vile criminals in history.'
...Of course, that state-power-level demagogue fled to hell hand in hand with his friend, a failed art-school applicant.
Anyway.
Let's give it a try before the beta male in me gets scared.
"Assuming I can combine two skills, which skill and which skill would be best to combine?"
『The most interesting and strategic combination to try would be as follows. First, to lay a stable foundation……』
HistoriE's opinion was also similar to mine.
My only B-rank skill feels a little too awkward to tinker with.
Persuasion is also useful for survival in many different ways.
There are exactly two candidates left.
Cyclops's Dexterity and Hercules's Staff Technique.
Well, as a shut-in writer, how much fighting could I possibly end up doing from here on out?
It's not like anyone's going to tell me to be a hero.
"Haha."
It was a stupid joke even by my own standards.
[Skill Synthesis]
[Target 1: [D-rank] Cyclops's Dexterity]
[Target 2: [C-rank] Hercules's Staff Technique]
[Expected Result]
[A-rank appearance rate 2% / B-rank appearance rate 8% / C-rank appearance rate 20% / D-rank appearance rate 30% / Failure rate 40%]
"......"
Statistically,
it was close to a total loss.
Wasn't the probability way too cruel for the equivalent of investing two skills?
10% gain, 20% break-even, 70% bust.
It's irrational.
Clearly... irrational, but.
[Synthesis begins.]
"Let's goooo!"
After all, gambling is supposed to be irrational...!
I felt a bizarre sensation, as if the soul of Marine Son, along with the aura of the 99-strong ash-wood club, were floating out of my body.
And before my eyes, multicolored lights sparkled and shimmered.
"It's not even a gacha animation or anything; what the..."
B-rank, C-rank, D-rank, Failure—the letters spun round and round like a roulette wheel.
It was moving too fast to see properly, but the names of the skills were also flashing by beside the ranks.
But once the word failure kept showing up more often...
I'm scared.
Very scared...!
At times like this, let's recite the spell of courage.
"This is a golden opportunity!"
Pennywise-sama!
Please give me strength!
With a bundle of balloons in my heart, I focused my mind on the wildly shaking roulette, waiting for the feeling of simply floating up.
Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick──
The roulette's speed gradually slowed.
The skills I could obtain started to become visible.
[Failure - 5 points]
[B-rank] [Calliope's Oratory]
[Failure – 3 points]
[Failure - 10 points]
[C-rank] [Atalanta's Archery]
[Failure - 5 points]
[D-rank] [Britomartis's Fishing Rod]
[C-rank] [Cadmus's Spartoi]
Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick──
And then…….
Pampakapam!
Along with a sound effect that seemed to ring like a hallucination.
Fate was decided.
"Haha, hahahaha...!"
The moment I saw the result, I couldn't hold back my laughter.
Had I lost my mind over the bad result...
Not a chance.
"Now, it's time to rise...!"
Pennywise's investment strategy is god-tier and invincible!
[Synthesis Result]
[A-rank] [Pygmalion's Determination] [One-time use]
[Pygmalion was a man who fell in love with the statue he made, cherished the statue as if it were a person, and even offered sacrifices to the goddess and prayed, eventually succeeding in turning the statue into a real person. Like him, you can, just once, bestow life upon anything you wish.]
For just a moment, I savored the insane dopamine flooding in from having pulled an A-rank skill against those slim 2% odds.
It was my first A-rank skill, and it was even a near-godlike power of bestowing life... but...
"...So, what am I supposed to use this for?"
I had no choice but to ask the essential question.
* * *
"I'm a little dissatisfied with this installment's direction... The next one should be fine, right?"
The clan of the great gold dragon.
The noble one, the golden flash, glory praised through every possible epithet.
Esthea was once again sitting in her study today, flapping her tail as she read the humans' newspapers that had come out over the past week.
Because this was a world where magitech had developed, getting them was easy even if she sent someone out on an errand.
Using the power of draconic speech, getting her hands on the newspaper she wanted every day would have been simple enough.
"After all, novels are best when you binge them."
The most useful thing made by lowly humans.
Because Esthea tended to get a little too immersed when reading novels, bingeing them like this put her at ease.
Of course, she was a dragon with an exceptionally refined aesthetic sense.
"How could a dragon possibly fall in love with some lowly human? That's impossible."
Esthea devoured several novels today as well, while voicing sharp criticism about the parts that didn't line up with the facts.
And she didn't stop at just leaving her opinions with her mouth.
Swish, swish, swish──
[Est-chan: Where do you live, writer? There's no way a great and noble dragon would do perverted stuff like being a simp for humans, right?]
She didn't forget to send off proper criticism as a reader, either.
Of course, sometimes, perhaps because of problems in the delivery process, her lofty opinions didn't make it into the reader comment box.
Still, healthy feedback as a reader, along with enlightening the uncivilized humans as a great dragon, was important.
"Lemme seee, what should I read this time!"
Even though she left harsh reviews, they were still fun to read.
Esthea's tail flapped energetically.
And what she opened next was.
"Hmm...."
It was the Truth Daily.
Since she couldn't really remember the last time she'd read anything fun in the Truth Daily, Esthea briefly wondered if she should fold it up neatly and set it aside for later.
Twitch──
The moment she saw the word 'new work,'
her ears twitched instantly.
"A fallen noble is good at politics...?"
What on earth was that supposed to mean as a title?
When it comes to titles,
Flowers beneath the moon fade away in vain.
After ruin comes the sunset glow of glory.
Wasn't that the sort of sentimental title that was all the rage?
"Well, this title is so blatant..."
But.
The naming sense of 21st-century web novels scratched a satisfying itch deep in Esthea's thrill-starved heart.
Before she knew it, she had shoved aside all the novels she had been reading and started devouring the new one.
A brand-new work that was already up to chapter 5.
And then.
- I will not divorce my wife.
"Here... he won't divorce her? Why?"
- We have to change our strategy now.
"He had his estate confiscated and his title stripped away... and yet there's some new strategy?"
- The female priests. I'm going to use them.
"Why would priests side with a fallen noble? Why?"
A devilish talent.
That classic writing technique of daily serial novels, the one later dubbed 'cliffhanger technique,'
Esthea's brain gradually began to be overtaken by dopamine.
And then.
- Your position was stripped away? Doesn't matter. In fact, that's a good thing for me. If that's the case, then I...
"No! Wha—what's so good about that, aaah! Next chapter! I need the next chapter!"
Her emotions had been completely taken over as well.
"Hey!"
"You called, noble being."
"Truth Daily! Bring it every day starting tomorrow!"
"Understood, noble being."
Bang, bang, bang!
Esthea's flapping tail kept beating the floor without rest.
Her dragon-unique vertically slit pupils narrowed even further.
"Should I just kidnap it?"
Her dissatisfaction with the human newspaper system, which only pumped out one chapter a day, slowly began to fester in her chest.
Why do writers only write one chapter a day?
If they wrote three chapters a day, wouldn't both the writer and the readers be happy?
It was an arrogant, dragon-like idea that failed to understand that human brains have limits to their creativity.
She genuinely thought it might be a good idea and mulled it over while wagging her tail.
At the end of her gaze.
[A fallen noble is good at politics]
[Author: Ulysses]
The pen name Ulysses lingered in her mind for a long time.