An old Chinese saying that means that girls and boys at the age of seven have already formed their own consciousness about their respective genders, and as such should start doing things separately.
Emotional Resistance Skill/Mental Resistance Skill is the same. It just means defense against intangible painful stuff.
Volume 3 Chapter 29
The sun was beginning to set by the time we finished preparing our camp.
“Should be about time for the undead to come out.” [Rheinbach]
“Yeah… they should be coming any moment now.” [Remiri]
Said Remiri-san as she caressed my sleeping bag. I guess she really likes it.
“Hmm… This is a really good mattress.” [Remiri]
“I could make one for you if you want.” [Ryouma]
“Really? Then please.” [Remiri]
“Sure.” [Ryouma]
She’s teaching me magic after all, so this could be as thanks. But just a mattress doesn’t seem to be enough, I wonder if there’s anything else I could do for her.
As I thought that to myself, I entered my ‘Dimension Home’, and began making a new mattress.
Carefully sewing the sheets together, I created a sack. Positioning and repositioning the sheets over and over, sewing even the ends, filling up the mattress with fluff equally, and taking measurements repeatedly. Doing all this by myself would take a lot of time, but I had the metal slimes’ help, so I was able to finish quickly.
While I was creating a new bedding in the past, the metal slimes suddenly learned the sewing skill.
The metal slimes would extend their bodies, turning the extended portion into a needle. And after inserting a thread into that needle, they would pierce it into the cloth. The needle would exit, and then enters, delivering the thread. Exiting, and entering, the process would repeat itself over and over resembling a wave.
Naturally, surprise took me when I first saw that scene, but brushing that shock away, I taught the slimes many things. And nowadays, the metal slimes can backstitch or even do a loop stitch. And through the help of such metal slimes, I was able to quickly complete the fluff slime’s fluff mattress.
However, I found myself with too many fluffs, so I made some mattresses for the other as well. Unfortunately, the materials weren’t enough for all four, so three was the most I could make.
As soon as I finished, I left the ‘Dimension Home’. When I got out, I noticed that there were now undead outside the holy space.
Looks like the undead have finally started coming out, I thought. But powerless, the undead could only stare at us as from a meter away, unable to enter the area of the holy space.
Staring blankly at the undead, I heard Remiri-san call out to me, so I turned towards the voice. There, I saw them drinking tea peacefully.
“Ah, Ryouma-chan. Did you finish making the mattress?” [Remiri]
“Yes. I also had more materials than expected, and I was able to make two more on top of yours.” [Ryouma]
“Two more?” [Remiri]
“I thought to make one for everyone, but unfortunately, I didn’t have enough materials.” [Ryouma]
Although I was talking with Remiri-san, I couldn’t help but look back to the surrounding undead.
“Are you worried about the undead?” [Shiva]
“Yes, I haven’t had much opportunities to drink tea with monsters nearby who aren’t slave demons.” [Ryouma]
“I guess it can’t be helped then. But still… do try not to worry yourself too much. It won’t be good for your health, you know?” [Rheinbach]
After Rheinbach-sama said that, Remiri-san suddenly burst out loud, saying,
“Exactly!” [Remiri]
“What is it all of the sudden?” [Ryouma]
When I asked that, Remiri-san laughed loudly as if she’d just thought of something good. Then she puffed her chest out, and said,
“Since we’re lacking a mattress, Ryouma-kun, you should share a mattress with me and sleep with me instead!” [Remiri]
…Haah!?
“What do you mean?” [Ryouma]
“You don’t have enough mattresses for everyone, right? Well it’s not very nice to leave one of our friends without that comfy mattress of yours, so in order for us all to have a good night’s rest, Ryouma-kun and I should sleep together!” [Remiri]
Wait, wait… That might be true, but…
“If I recall correctly, there’s an old saying that goes, ‘girls and boys at the age of seven shouldn’t sit on the same chair’ right?” [Ryouma]
“No problem!” [Remiri]
“What do you mean, no problem!?” [Ryouma]
This isn’t working… Someone please help me, I thought, sending a glance at the others as I did. But to my dismay, the other three only quietly shook their heads.
“Ryouma-kun, Remiri sometimes acts like this, and it’s a little difficult finding out whether she’s serious or not… She seemed to be joking this afternoon, so I stopped her. But she looks to be serious this time around, so unfortunately, we won’t be able to stop her… sorry.” [Rheinbach]
“Just sleeping together shouldn’t be that embarrassing though, so isn’t it fine?” [Shiva]
But that puts me at a bad spot… In my past life, I had little interaction with women apart from my mother and the women in the office. There weren’t any beauties on the level of Remiri-san either. It’s not like I’ve had zero interactions with the female workers in the office, but they didn’t really like me either, so the most interaction I’ve had with them was the absolute minimum when we had to communicate for work.
In my private life, the only contact I had was my mother. I’ve never had any relations with the women in my office either. So naturally, I’ve never had any experience sleeping with women. And of course, that includes just sleeping together. I’ve never even dated… Actually, forget dating, I haven’t even so much as held a girl’s hand. Ah, actually I think there were one or two times back in elementary school because of an event, but the girls hated it so much, I can still remember the look of unwillingness on their faces.
While I was caught in my own thoughts, thinking of stuff like that, Remiri-san suddenly proposed this.
“No matter how much you dislike the idea my decision stands… But alright how about this then? More undead will be coming out of the labyrinth soon, so how about we compete in who kills more undead? And naturally, should I win, we sleep together. Alright?” [Remiri]
Somehow the discussion’s finally progressing… Although I’m not really that against it. It’s just that stimulation I’m not used to will cause unnecessary burden on my mind, so… Sigh… I’m supposed to have an emotional resistance skill, but it’s not doing its job at all, is it? Even though this situation is something I would normally be happy about when thinking of…
Wait! This isn’t the time to be thinking of stuff like that! Aren’t I the one in a disadvantage in a magic showdown!? Remiri-san can wipe out the undead in one shot!
“Isn’t this duel too favorable for Remiri-san?” [Ryouma]
“Then let’s decide on a rule. How about we both only limit ourselves to using ‘Light Ball’ in this fight? This way there won’t be that big of a difference between us.
And then let’s add a time limit as well. You have too much of an upper hand if we make it until we run out of magic power, and the opposite would be true if we limited the number of shots we could make as I have more experience than you. So a time limit would be the fairest, right?” [Remiri]
“True, that’s definitely the fairest.” [Ryouma]
“Good. As for the referees, Sebasu-san and the others will be the ones to count how many undead we’ve each killed.” [Remiri]
Ah! Did I end up agreeing to her!?
Like this, I was partly-forced to enter a match with Remiri-san.
We needed to wait for the undead to gather first, so we sat there in the holy space, drinking tea peacefully. One hour passed, and Sebasu-san mentioned that there were enough undead.
We will be fighting the undead from inside the holy space. Currently, there are zombies and skeletons in every direction, while souls and semi-transparent human-shaped bodies and mist-like bodies could be seen floating in the air.
The balls of flame floating are known as wisps, and the mist-like and human-like bodies are called wraiths. They’re both weak to light magic, but the wraiths can attack mentally and haunt and possess humans.
“Are you ready?” [Remiri]
“Yes, I’m ready anytime.” [Ryouma]
“OK, let’s go.” [Remiri]
“The time limit is 10 minutes. Start!” [Sebasu]
The operation to defeat undead began. This is going to be a war of attrition so I fired a ‘Light Ball’ to the skeleton right in front of me.
“ ‘Light Ball’ “ [Ryouma]
The ‘Light Ball’ I fired went straight for the head of the skeleton, extinguishing it. But the light ball didn’t disperse there as it continued to fly in a straight line, piercing through a number of undead, and extinguishing them. The undead tend to crowd together, so it’s not that weird. I ‘ve also done it a number of times in the past.
“’Light Ball’ ‘Light Ball’” [Remiri]
“What is that!?” [Ryouma]
Remiri-san, who was behind me, chanted only once, yet immediately 10 balls of light were summoned. And she shot those 10 balls of light with deadly accuracy, destroying the heads of the undead.
“This is a technique called, Parallel Casting. Using a lot of magic power, and the right image, I can cast the same spell several times with one chant of ‘Light Ball’. But being able to do something like this takes a bit of practice.” [Remiri]
Remiri-san continued to fire off her spells while explaining, not even stopping once. And after finishing her explanation, she showed me a smile that seemed to say she’s won.
And it was then that I realized it. Could it be that the reason there’s no limit in the shots taken… was for this!?
Seeing my expression, Remiri-san spoke, saying,
“A bit too late to realize it now, ‘Light ball’.” [Remiri]
I knew it! Now that it’s come to this, I don’t have any choice but to use parallel casting as well. Remiri-san did teach me how to use it just now after all. Most likely because she thinks she’s won already.
“’Light Ball’ … ‘Light Ball’ ‘Light Ball’ “ [Ryouma]
Or so I thought… But what is this? It’s ridiculously difficult.
The first time I tried it, I used a lot of magic, and I was able to cast the magic several times. But the most I was able to make were five balls. Anymore and I couldn’t maintain the spell.
The second time, I went ahead with just the five balls, but I couldn’t move the balls in different direction, and they all attacked the same spot.
The third time, I only made two balls, and I was able to move them in two different directions, but it was hard to aim. One failed to kill the undead, and the other actually missed. It’s like writing with both hands at the same time. Remiri-san mentioned it herself too, but this really isn’t something I can do right away.
Since parallel casting won’t work, there was nothing else I could do but just cast the normal light ball. I’m able to kill the undead fairly fast with this method, but the difference in our scores just keep increasing.
Remiri-san fires 10 shots in one chant, but the most I can do in that time is fire two or three shots… I know there’s no point asking for it, but it would be great if I could sweep the surrounding area quickly… Isn’t there any way?
While thinking of that, I kept firing the light balls.
There’s no problem hitting with the light balls accurately while deep in thought.
After all, it’s safe since the undead can’t enter the holy space even if they tried. Then with my alertness lowered to the minimum, I ended up likening the situation to them time when I was playing in the arcades back in my previous life. And since the zombies aren’t even attacking, it’s as if we’re playing super easy mode.
What if I tried doing this like I was playing super easy mode? …Nah, that would just end up like those target shooting in festivals.
Ah… speaking of which, I haven’t played any games since coming to this world, huh? I wonder what happened to that series.
There was a point in time when I got into it quite a bit… But I didn’t have any money, so I couldn’t go to the arcade much. But there were some times when I really wanted to shoot at some zombies, so I would go there for just one round. If I recall correctly, it was important to choose the appropriate ammo for each area. I was bad at it, so I don’t know that much about the game, but I’m sure there was an explosive shell, a machine gun, and a shotgun…
My thoughts were getting further and further, but it was here that I suddenly thought of it. And I thought to myself, why not improve the light ball spell and turn it into a bullet?
Immediately I tried it out… I don’t understand the explosive shells much, and the machine gun would drain my magic power quickly, so… I guess shotgun would be for the best? The shotgun’s shells fires buckshot. Its small shell supposedly releases its contents in a scattered manner… So with that in mind, I visualized the image of the light ball into a small bullet that scatters itself…
“ ‘Light Ball’ “ [Ryouma]
The light ball scattered exactly as I had visualized it, but the damage was weak. The zombie in front of me was wounded, but it didn’t die. Apparently, I spread the light ball too much, causing the damage of every individual shot to weaken.
Since that’s how it is, I put 10 times more magic power into light ball than normal, and fired it. The result? Not only were the zombies in fan-shaped spread in front of me killed, even the wraiths in the air died. Since it’s not really needed for the light ball to spread even in the air, I guess 10 times is a bit too much.
I have enough magic power, but this time I decided to compact the area affected. As a result, the power required was reduced to half of the last shot, requiring only five times as much magic power as a normal shot. Then adding to that, I thought of how the shotgun shells also had different sizes for the shots inside it. Visualizing that, I visualized the essentials of holy space into each of those shots, distributing magic power at the same time… as a result, I was able to equally divided the five times of magic power into 50 different shots. Then I fired it.
“ ‘Light Ball’ … Ku” [Ryouma]
Not good, the magic power is hard to control, I thought. And just as the fired light ball shot towards the target, it dispersed before even hitting it. As a result, only two zombies were killed. Focusing, I tried one more time.
The match continued, as I continued to focus on my control, honing the new magic as I killed more and more zombies. Soon Remiri-san began to panic a little at my light ball’s newfound power as she would throw glances at me from time to time, checking up on me.
But then Sebasu-san’s countdown began.
“10, 9, 8, 7, 6…” [Sebasu]
It’s almost over! Then in that case, I’ll have to fire this new magic, ‘Lightshot’, now! Visualizing the image… I fired it! Fire!
“’Lightshot’” [Ryouma]
That last cast was the normal five times more magic power than normal, but all the zombies within 3m area in front were filled with holes, and exterminated. The power’s much lower, but having decreased the consumption to half, it’s not so bad.
“Stop casting!!” [Sebasu]
At Sebasu-san’s words, the match ended. And the result…
I lost.
I was able to take back the loss from the start of the match with the improved light ball, but, the last shot was a foul. I kept improving my light ball, and in the end, that last shot that I made was good, but at that moment, I called it ‘Lightshot’…
Rule 1: The use of magic other than ‘Light Ball’ is prohibited.
I thought it was fine at first since I was just improving light ball, and actually, Sebasu-san thought so as well. But at the last moment I called it a different name, so in the end it became a foul.
In other words, I lost because I lost myself in focusing too much in improving the new magic that I ended up forgetting the rules.
“I started to panic halfway through, but in the end, it’s my win! I didn’t expect you to come up with a new magic in this short time though.” [Remiri]
Said Remiri-san with a laugh. After that, she asked me how I did it, and I explained it to her. Having aroused her curiosity, Remiri-san tried it herself, and she understood. Then with a serious face, she said this,
“Ryouma-san, this magic is amazing. 100 magic power for one cast of ‘Light Ball’ is 500 for ‘Light Shot’, but although it’s only an elementary magic, it can actually affect a bigger area than the intermediate magic, ‘Exorcism’. It’s an extremely useful magic when fighting undead. But I think it’d be better if you don’t teach this to other people so freely.” [Remiri]
Why?
“Is there a problem? Like with the improvements I made?” [Ryouma]
“Nope, this magic is well-made. The problem isn’t the result, rather it’s the fact that it’s too difficult.” [Remiri]
“You mean just like how there are few people who can use advanced light magic?” [Ryouma]
After nodding once, Remiri-san explained. Light shot is a magic that requires high control of magic power. And because it’s a spell that tries to bring out much power at the cost of little magic power, only those that can use light magic at an advanced level will truly be able to bring out its power.
But because there are few people who can use light magic up to the advanced level, there are very few who would be able to learn the magic. And the people who can’t learn the magic won’t be satisfied with just accepting their own incompetence.
In other words, they will start blaming me, saying that I’m a bad teacher. They might also accuse me of hiding some secret that’s causing them to be unable to use the magic correctly. Apparently, this is something that commonly happens when trying to teach advanced magic to others.
Hiding the secrets behind a spell I made myself isn’t really something that would get me in trouble, but it’s still better to just keep quiet, and not risk causing trouble, so Remiri-san asked me not to teach it so freely.
At the same time, Sebasu-san, who was listening, also asked me to keep quiet about it.
Apparently, Sebasu-san has also experienced something similar in the past, causing his words to be heavy with emotion, and he said that depending on the person he’d rather not teach dimension magic. It’s rare seeing Sebasu-san show such negative emotions… actually, it’s my first time, so I couldn’t help but be shocked.
Anyway, let’s keep their warning in mind.
And then evening came.
We decided to take turns sleeping. And so me and Remiri-san entered the mattress to sleep. And since I lost, naturally, I had to sleep with her.
But… I can’t sleep…
The mattress is big enough so that there’s room even if I turn around, but I ended up becoming Remiri-san’s pillow. And because of the height difference, there are two soft things on top of my head right now.
Let me say it again. It’s time to sleep, and yet… I can’t sleep!
Seeing me like that, Remiri-san called out to me.
“Can’t sleep?” [Remiri]
“Y-Yeah…” [Ryouma]
As I said that, Remiri-san began to rub my head.
“What are you doing…?” [Ryouma]
“Mn? I used to this a lot for my younger brother before when he couldn’t sleep. And right after, he’d fall asleep immediately.” [Remiri]
“You had a younger brother?” [Ryouma]
As I asked that, Remiri-san replied.
Apparently, Remiri-san has a younger brother whose much younger than her. She hasn’t met him since leaving the dark elf village, but during that time, her younger brother’s height was around mine. And apparently he was also good at magic. I resembled him a lot, she said.
After that, I asked her what dark elf life was like.
The dark elves are few in number, but they live in villages. Amongst the dark elves, there are also those who cultivate land, and those that live as nomads. And although the actual frequency differs from each village, there are many villages that move every year.
When I asked her why they won’t settle down, she mentioned that cultivating and travelling are for the sake of teaching their children how to live. As for cultivating the land, it depends on the villages, but there are many reasons such as to make money or as trade in order to get something they need.
In Remiri-san’s village, they’re doing it both as training and a way to make money, but the villagers in her village are eccentrics, and they find satisfaction in cultivating lands that are difficult to cultivate. A village full of cultivation enthusiasts in other words.
Apparently, the dark elves are famous for cultivating lands. Be it asking them to cultivate one, or for advice.
Incidentally, the elves pass on their lands in the forest for generations, protecting their land as they live on it. The opposite of the dark elves. But of course there are exceptions for both, and there are those that leave their respective villages to become adventurers, and those that choose a place they like to settle down in.
As for Remiri-san, she became an adventurer, and because of her achievements, she was asked by the previous king to work for the kingdom. As a result, she became a royal court magician, but now that her contract has ended, she’s currently a freelancer, and is at a loss whether to go back to adventurer work or go back to her family.
As Remiri-san continued to talk like that, she fell asleep.
But I still can’t sleep. Why? Because the one thing keeping me from sleeping is still here.
Even if I’m like this, I’m a guy. On top of that I’m an old uncle, so this situation is quite difficult for me for various reasons.
For the meantime, I closed my eyes, enduring the softness behind me, and the almost painful beating of my heart. Like this I quietly waited, without waking Remiri-san, for the time to switch with someone else.
When the time to switch finally came, I killed lots of undead, and drove away all of my worldly desires. I managed to subjugate over half of the undead coming out of the labyrinth, but in the end, I couldn’t get a wink of sleep. I’m used to all-nighters back in my previous life, and I have sleep resistance, so it’s not really a problem, but if I were a normal child, I’d be tottering by now.
And then, dawn came. After breakfast, I took a peek at my status board, and I noticed that a new skill was there.
Charm Resistance Lv1
It’s the proof that I overcame last night’s trial.
