Chapter 45
“This True Ancestor shall always be with you.”
I copied and spat out a line from some cool words I heard somewhere.
However, the effect of those words was far more incredible than I expected.
“Ah, my Liege…!”
Katarina suddenly burst into tears and wailed.
“Even if this body dies and dies again, a hundred times over, until my white bones turn to dust and dirt, I shall pledge my loyalty to my Liege for all eternity!”
“Master. Just your words that you will always be with us make me fear nothing anymore.”
Even Si-Yeon, who rarely showed any emotional changes, had moist eyes.
“Yeah, Master! Riri will stay with Master my whole life too!”
Even Riri shouted in her own determined tone.
They were all genuinely moved.
[Phew. Looks like I somehow smoothed things over.]
I secretly breathed a sigh of relief.
I wasn’t sure if I spoke well or if my Retainers were just nice.
It seemed I had somehow managed to nicely package the fact that I caused an area-of-effect nuisance due to my poor Skill control.
My conscience was pricked a little.
But it wasn’t like I told a complete lie.
[…I really am always with them, right?]
To begin with, I spent most of my time rolling around in my Home Base, so I was always with the kids at home.
Even if the kids went out for errands or to a gate, I could always share their vision by turning on [Sight Sharing].
So it was true that we were together anytime, anywhere.
Of course.
It was the exact opposite of the usual meaning implied by such lines, which was “I will reliably protect and take care of you!”.
The problem was that the one receiving care and protection wasn’t the Retainers, but me.
[S-still, I have my own uses now…!]
I was no longer just a piece of luggage.
[Book of the Dead] and [Divine Artifact: Death Scythe].
There was a buff Skill that raised the Retainers' stats by 50 percent.
There was also an Area-of-Effect Attack capable of a One-Shot Kill on even an S-rank Monster.
With this much, I was pulling my own weight.
Of course, it was all power coming from item effects.
[Item effects are strictly a factor of Skill too.]
Isn’t it common sense that the most important content in an RPG Game is itemization?
There is an old saying that a Craftsman doesn’t blame their tools.
I do blame my tools.
Why?
I am not a Craftsman, but a True Ancestor.
I will gather even more Overpowered items in the future and escape being a scrub!
I burned with determination.
* * *
The remaining Cooldown to enter the Nightmare 5th Floor of the Tower of Trials again was two weeks.
During that time, I did various things inside my Neo Home Base - my Territory.
For instance,
“Nom. This congealed blood is quite edible too.”
Eating congealed blood deliciously.
“I shall definitely reach Platinum this time!”
I am playing angry solo queue.
“Yaaawn… For some reason, my sleep has increased too much since I became this body…”
I am sleeping for 10 hours a day.
Besides that, I am refreshing and lurking on the Hunter Gallery and Climber Community, etc.
…Huh?
I definitely thought I lived a very hard and busy life.
Looking back like this, I just played around completely.
Still, to clarify, I didn’t just play around; I did quite a few productive things in my own way.
First, as I had planned, I bought this entire building where my Territory is located.
I have now become a real Building Owner.
And I also conducted research on my newly acquired weapon, the Death Scythe.
There was a restriction that [Life Harvest] had a Cooldown of 24 Hours, so I could only use it exactly once a day, but I stopped by the Special Training Ground every day and steadily repeated my experiments.
[The pain I had to endure during that time!]
Pouring out my maximum Blood Power of 190 every day and swinging the scythe while groaning was no small hardship.
Thanks to that effort, I was able to obtain quite meaningful information.
The first piece of information obtained that way was this:
It was the specific power and Range of [Life Harvest].
When I activated the Skill by consuming all 190 Blood Power, I could defeat exactly two Lachesis.
That meant I could turn up to two S-rank Monsters to dust with a single strike.
Just in case, I summoned three and tried using them, but three Lachesis were too much.
Only two turned into ashes, and the remaining one survived perfectly fine.
The Range was also quite wide.
It seemed that all enemies within a 100-meter radius entered the firing Range based on the direction the scythe was swung.
It was at this level then, and it would probably get stronger later if I raised my Blood Power again.
And the second piece of information.
Increasing my Strength Stat did not make the weight of the scythe lighter.
Among the miscellaneous items I had obtained as a Tower of Trials climbing reward in the past, there was a potion that temporarily increased the Strength Stat significantly for 10 minutes.
I drank that and tried lifting the Death Scythe in a state where my strength was inflated, but it was still heavy.
[Was the Strength Stat not what mattered?]
This was quite unexpected.
To think! It wasn’t heavy just because my stats were trash.
Then what should I do to make it lighter?
I felt like I needed to think about this a bit more.
And.
The third most important piece of information.
It was a fact I found out by chance while experimenting with this and that…
Surprisingly, I could use the Death Scythe’s Skill while [Sight Sharing] was turned on!
What this meant was that if my main body swung the scythe in my Home Base, the attack would go out at the scene where my Retainer’s vision lingered.
[Isn’t this seriously Overpowered?!]
To be able to safely grind enemies remotely from home.
Safety First. Self-Preservation.
For me, who took “outside the house is dangerous” as a creed, it was a function that couldn’t be more perfect.
Of course, despite not having to go to the scene, the fact that I had to heave and swing the heavy scythe myself at home remained the same.
In addition, there was one more fatal flaw in this remote activation.
Since I was using the Skill from a long distance with a Retainer as a medium, the power was greatly halved compared to when my main body swung the scythe directly.
I actually tried using the Skill at full power through my Retainer’s vision on the Lachesis summoned in the Training Ground, but it only staggered slightly and didn’t disappear into dust.
It was definitely going out as a much-degraded version of using it directly.
Still, it was a powerful attack that could sweep away most enemies, and above all, the merit of a remote snipe that guaranteed absolute safety was too great.
There was one more very attractive advantage to this, which was that I could Level Up.
Originally, I could only Level Up as a reward in the Tower of Trials.
The gates I dispatched my Retainers to were purely for the Retainers' leveling up or Blood Farming.
However, if I landed the last hit on a monster with this remote Skill, it was judged that I had defeated the monster directly, and the experience points came to me!
So, in actual combat, it would look roughly like this.
There was a B-rank Gate with swamp terrain that had opened in the provinces.
“Roaaaar!”
A crocodile demonic beast the size of a house emerged from the mud.
A B-rank Boss Monster, the Giant Alligator.
The guy was roaring and charging toward my Retainers.
At that moment.
Making eye contact with the guy through Si-Yeon’s vision, I gripped the Death Scythe tightly in My Room.
[Here I go! [Life Harvest]!]
I swung the scythe vigorously.
The Skill activated immediately at the scene hundreds of kilometers away.
Thud, splat - !
Before it could even fully open its massive jaws, the guy turned into a completely dehydrated mummy and collapsed onto the mud Field.
Soon, even that turned to dust, leaving no trace of its form as it vanished into thin air.
It was a perfect instant kill.
[Life has been harvested.]
[Your level has increased by 1!]
[You have reached level 33.]
[Nice. Another Level Up!]
In this way, I was able to raise my level by a total of 3 in just two weeks.
My goal is to slaughter monsters and gain experience points from inside my house.
If it were this kind of Easy Hunting, I felt like I could do it for the rest of my life.
However, to properly use this Remote Hunting in actual combat, I had to pay close attention to managing my Blood Power.
[Life Harvest] had a Payback Mechanism where the consumed Blood Power would refill if I killed a living target and harvested its life Force.
The problem was that this Blood Power recovery amount was proportional to the number of heads killed.
Sweeping away multiple mob enemies with an Area-of-Effect Attack recovered quite a lot of Blood Power.
Focusing fire and killing a single strong guy only raised my Blood Power a little.
Currently, my maximum Blood Power is 190.
An Area-of-Effect Attack recovered quite a lot of Blood Power.
Currently, my maximum Blood Power is 190.
The Blood Power required to turn on [Book of the Dead], a buff Skill that strengthened Undead Retainers, was 120.
If I used the Book of the Dead, the Blood Power left to me would be a mere 70.
If I held the Death Scythe, 120 was required to turn on [Book of the Dead], a buff Skill that strengthened Undead Retainers.
If I used the Book of the Dead, the Blood Power left to me would be a mere 70.
If I held the Death Scythe directly at the scene, I could easily Cut Down an A-rank Monster with just 70 Blood Power.
But in the remote mode, which went out as a degraded version, 70 Blood Power wasn’t even close to enough.
It was at a level where I had to fill it to its full power of 190 and fire it to safely erase a single A-rank Monster.
But if I slammed all 190 into defeating a single strong mob, the Blood Power recovery amount would be small, meaning I wouldn’t have the Blood Power to turn on the Book of the Dead this time, right?
Conversely, if I used it as an Area-of-Effect Attack on multiple mob enemies, my Blood Power would fill right up, so I could use the Book of the Dead without any issues.
In other words, it meant I had to make choices and focus in actual combat.
The choice is whether to sweep the mob enemies with an Area-of-Effect Attack and Cast the Book of the Dead buff on my Retainers using the ample Blood Power.
Or whether to give up the buff and instead fire a full-power remote Ultimate Skill to reliably assassinate a single strong enemy.
I had to choose my cards well according to the situation.
Anyway, as I spent my time like that, the two weeks flew by before I knew it.
And finally.
The time had arrived to enter the 5th Floor of the Tower of Trials, marking the second chapter.