Chapter 40: Can’t Be Unfair To Himself
Mangir mountain range. The camp at the foot of the mountain.
When Shien returned, the only one there at the camp was Vivian sitting by herself next to the campfire.
"Back now?"
Seeing Shien's return, Vivian stood up.
"Sorry, were you waiting for me the whole time?" Shien looked at Vivian who relaxed after seeing him and was a bit moved. He moved towards her and spoke with a bit of apology in his voice, "Where's everyone else?"
"Lumia and Melika have already retired. I'm here alone as the night watch. We'll be switching shifts for the later half of the night later." Vivian gave a smile, "As for Diere, she should be patrolling nearby, checking for any demonic beasts that might have come down from the mountain to near here."
Vivian was still watching Shien as she said that, and she followed up in concern, "Well? Are you fine now?"
"Of course I'm fine."
Shien immediately replied.
"Is that so?" Vivian was finally relieved, "It looks like you've thought things through."
Shien scratched his head at that.
Thought things through huh?
Putting it that way made it seem like Shien wasn't able to think things through a bit ago.
"You actually don't need to worry so much." Shien spoke as if embarrassed, "Although I did find some thing unexpected, but it's nowhere near that degree."
That's the truth.
Like Leisha had thought, Shien might be worried over the matter of the Hero summoning and the Demon King already having been defeated, but he himself wasn't that much at a loss.
The reason Shien responded to his mission of defeating the Demon King was for the pure sake of equivalent exchange.
Nien had resurrected him who already died once and gave him a second life. His payment for that was to defeat the Demon King. That's all it was.
In such a case, then even if the Demon King had already been defeated, Shien wouldn't feel troubled about it at all.
What he really is troubled about, given the current situation, is his own identity as the Hero.
If this identity was exposed, then it would definitely end up affecting the whole world. That's something definite.
As for whether or not if there's some kind of insider details behind all that, that's not something that Shien should worry over.
Of course, Shien understands too. Perhaps he had already become the center of whatever conspiracy this is, and chances are that he's already been pulled into whatever dark plot involved.
However, that's not enough to make Shien lose himself.
(I've been blasted with so many similar stories in my past life, so at this point, how could I not know what to do?)
Right now, what Shien should be doing is one thing alone.
And that is, to raise his own power.
"No matter what kind of conspiracy I end up encountering, so long as I'm strong enough, then I'd be able to deal with it when it happens."
Shien spoke out his inner thoughts without realizing it.
"Therefore, I'll just work hard to improve myself."
That's what Shien should be doing next. There's no need for any hesitation.
Shien's plan now is to just constantly improve his abilities and slowly collect information so as to better understand this world.
That way, when the mystery finally makes contact with him who is at the center, he'd have the ability to resolve it.
"First, let's just make the goal to become a proper adventurer."
With an identity as an adventurer and the guild as an information source to understand the world with, Shien could then slowly solve the questions in his mind.
That's not mentioning the fact that the adventurer's guild is a power spread out all over the world, so it would definitely let him come in contact with all kinds of people, which would be helpful to increasing Shien's own power too.
If he wants to get stronger, Shien has two ways.
One is to raise his levels.
The other is to learn skills.
For the former, due to the fact that leveling is easier the more one fight against opponents of similar strength, and yet it's harder the more one easily one-shots their opponents. Thus, to Shien who has the Holy Sword and various maxed out skills, it's not actually the most effect method.
Thus, Shien was prepared to focus more on the latter. He'll use various adventuring activities to make contact with all kinds of people, and learn new skills from those meetings or have other people teach him new skills.
With his [Heavenly Grace] unique skill, Shien believes hat he'll definitely be able to quickly learn all kinds of skills, and he'd be able to instantly max them out the moment he gets them.
That's definitely a way to drastically raise his power. Compared to laboring hard to level up, this is unquestionably more efficient.
At the very least, Shien doesn't plan on taking things like certain novels and, for the sake of power, end up acting like a hermetic sage and secluding himself in a forest full of demonic beasts until he became OP.
That's not only super hard, but it would also leave him out of contact with the outside world without any information sources. When the situation suddenly changes, he'd have a hard time dealing with it.
Back when he read that kind of stories in his previous life, Shien had thought more than once that if those protagonists end up closing them off so long, then aren't they afraid of loosing connection to the outside world or even end up with communication issues, and end up being unable to follow the times?
It must be said. Reality isn't as gentle and cute as the background in novels. If you only consider yourself, then you'd definitely get their teeth beaten in by society itself.
Beside, he himself already has such a huge cheat. Even if he doesn't end up swaggering himself, at the very least he can't be unfair to himself either right?
As he thought back to his ten days in the forest of demonic beasts, Shien's expression turned dark.
"I'll definitely become an adventurer!"
Following that, Shien made such a firm oath.
That made Vivian, who had no idea of Shien's thoughts, show a proud expression.
"I'm really happy that you can think that." Vivian spoke gently, "If you end up meeting any kind of difficulty and need my help, then don't hold back. Just go ahead and ask."
"Thanks." Shien spoke his gratitude from the heart, "If I really do need it, then please allow me to do so."
In reality, Vivian really could help Shien out in a lot of places.
At the very least, Shien wants Vivian to tell him more about this world and allow him to better understand the current situation with the world.
In that case, Shien won't hold back out of pride.
"Do your best."
Vivian gave Shien a pat on the shoulder as encouragement.
A little while later, a small figure quietly returned from the same direction as where Shien returned from.
That was of course Diere.
"You've worked hard."
Vivian turned towards Diere and smiled at her.
Diere nodded her head, gave Shien a glance, and headed towards the tents.
Shien blinked at that.
He didn't know if it was just his imagination, but Shien vaguely felt as if, just now, the glance that Diere gave him seemed quite complicated.
"It should just be my imagination, right?"
Shien muttered to himself.
Thus, Shien kept the watch along with Vivian.
During that time, Shien also asked Vivian about a number of things. Only when the latter half of the night came and Lumia and Melika came out to change shifts did Shien finally stop disappointingly and returned to his tent to sleep.
As an aside, there were three tents in total. Vivian and Diere shared one. Lumia and Melika shared another, and the final one Shien used by himself. That particular tent was for some reason placed a certain distance from the other two, so it had to be said, that was something rather sorrowful.