Translator: P411

Editor: Evelet

Read at Watashi Wa Sugoi Desu!

Chapter 074 – Not Enough Firepower

The effect of the [ Growth Activator ] had already worn off by Tuesday. 

Alrighty!

I shoveled all my potions into my inventory and decided to leave the workshop. 

In order to set foot in the elf village, I would need to seriously start raising my level from now on.

Then, I would for sure uncover all those unknown and mysterious materials and move forward in my journey in ADO. 

Although, I had gone as far as Sette. I had been to Sei once, but the center of the city was surrounded by castle walls and I couldn’t go any further. They said something like the city center was only for aristocrats, and I sadly had to return.

The gatekeepers guarding those castle walls weren’t friendly like those at the city gate. Their cold gazes pierced me from several angles and I wasn’t courageous enough to pass by them, so I made a U-turn, raising my white flag. 

But there was a limit to leveling up alone, so for the time being, I had already planned to stick with Yuuta’s group.

I felt like my body was fully healed, so starting today, I would work hard to level up.

Our rendezvous point was Crash’s store because there were shortages in some of my materials. 

“Yoohoo, Crash~”

In a carefree mood, I went into his shop. 

As soon as Crash saw me, he looked surprised and walked quickly toward me. 

“Hey, Mac! You’re late! What have you been up to until now?! I was worried sick about you! All I’ve heard from Vidello was that you’re having a good time with him! At least drop by here, you know!”

“Oh, sorry…”

Ah, right! I was thrown into all that commotion and I hadn’t shown my face here since that quest. I hadn’t visited Kyle-san’s place either. Next time, I’ll visit him and buy some herbs from him.

“You little! Sheesh! You’ve been to my mother’s place, but you haven’t set foot in mine. Such a heartless guy. What kind of friend are you?”

“That’s why I’m telling you I’m sorry. Can I wait here for a bit? I made an appointment with Takahashi’s group to meet here.”

“Don’t make my place your meeting spot.”

“I have things to do here. I need 20 soap seeds and Kira bees’ poison needles.”

“Thanks for your patronage. Come to think of it, I haven’t said thanks to [Takahashi and his Merry Men] and they rarely drop by here.”

As soon as I was about to tell him that the group would be dropping by here today, the shop door opened and Yuuta came in.

“Mac, are you there? Mr. Shopkeeper, hi!”

When Yuuta saw Crash, he just casually greeted him, waving his hand.

The other members came in one after another, but as usual, when Yui saw me, her face became bright red and she immediately looked away. Hey, hey, wasn’t it about time she stopped doing that? 

“Takahashi, thank you for saving me back then. I’ve been wanting to thank you.”

“Ah, I’ve already planned to get my reward from Mac so no worries. What was more shocking to me was the fact that you’re acquainted with Sage-san.” 

Yuuta threw a question at Crash that had been on his mind for some time while rummaging through the potion counter. 

“Ah, Sage-san is an acquaintance of my mother and they are very close. He showed his face here sometimes, but he told me he was heading to the frontier city for the time being. The leader of that frontier, he was the leader of the party my mother was a part of in the past. He was called a ‘Hero’ or something.”

“…”

Ah?! Just now I felt like a huge bomb had been dropped with those few casual sentences.

The leader of the frontier city was the ‘Hero’.

The opening scene of ADO, where the red-haired man roared when he defeated the Demon King, was now replaying in my mind. That person was still alive…

“…The Hero, huh? So then, I was given a mission to run an errand for that amazing person by the shopkeeper from the Quattro magic shop…” said Yuuta in admiration.

It looked like the same scene was also running in Yuuta’s head.

“Oh, you’ve been given a request from Regalo-san. The street there is complicated, so you must have had a hard time finding the shop.”

“Mac and gatekeeper-san led us there so it’s okay,” said Yuuta.

Hearing that from Yuuta, Crash shot a quick glance at me. 

He had a face as if he wanted to say something to me, so I quickly looked away. 

“Mac… so you didn’t come here and instead you went on a date with Vidello, huh? I’m here worried sick about you. I’ve prepared the ancient language book for you to learn and I’ve been waiting for you since then, you know.”

“Ahaha… I’m sorry.”

I couldn’t say I had completely forgotten about it. Well, I sometimes remembered it, but you know I had other priorities.

As I was about to make an excuse, Crash let out a sigh and gave a bitter smile. 

“Well, Mac’s world rotates around Vidello, so it can’t be helped. He is a ‘special’ existence, so oh well…”

“Ah, uh. It’s true that Vidello-san is a special existence to me. I’m really sorry, so I’ll give you 50 high potions as an apology, so please forgive me with this.”

“Ah, no, I didn’t mean ‘special’ in that sense, but well, I’ll leave it. Hmm, also add 50 magic high potions and I’ll forgive you. Also, you must learn the ancient magic language diligently.”

“Ok, ok, I’ll add them and drop by also. Fuu, I’m glad.”

Sighing with relief, I piled the counter with potions.

“That’s why I’ve been telling you not to take them all out like this!”

“It’s because your reaction is quite funny.”

“Sheesh.”

Laughing at Crash, who was desperately collecting the potions in a sulky manner, I thought about learning the ancient magic language. 

I was pretty bad at English and studying in general. Yuuta was quite smart even if he was like this, but for me, one could easily guess. 

“What’s that ancient language?”

“It’s a language that is used as the foundation for summoning circles,” Crash explained it to Yuuta, who was catching up with our conversation. 

“If I learn it, can I also use that summoning circle?”

“Yes, that is, if you construct it correctly.”

“Construct?” Yuuta asked.

“Yes, if you construct it poorly, you’ll only get a half-assed summoning circle with low output, but with a high magic consumption. So you have to be good at constructing the circle correctly.”

The knowledge of summoning circles was quite profound. But for now, there was already a high wall of ancient language towering in front of me. 

“Teach me slowly next time,” I requested.

“You’ll have to come here more often then,” Crash chided.

“I know, I know.”

Crash saw us off with his glare, following us as we left the shop. 

Our destination this time was a desert dungeon recommended by Yuuta.

So there was a dungeon in the desert region.

Just when I thought things were going smoothly, Yuuta asked me, “Who do you want to ride behind?”

The four of them were lined up in a row looking down at me from horseback. 

It looked like we needed to ride horses to get there and the only one who couldn’t ride was me. 

But to ride behind Yui, my insignificant amount of pride as a man took damage. As for Kairi, she might have been Masuda, a man, inside, but appearance-wise, she was completely a woman and it was a bit complicated. As for Brave, he was ‘she’ inside and this made things more and more complicated.

Well, I did understand that if we walked there, it would take too much of our time. I knew, but!

“Takahashi is my only option…”

“I see. Then ride behind me.”

Even if he told me to mount up, I couldn’t.

Just as he instructed, I timidly grabbed the horse, put my feet in the stirrups, and with all my fighting spirit, I jumped. 

“Oof!”

On the second attempt, I was able to get astride the horse. For my first attempt, I was too far toward the horse’s butt, so I slipped and fell. 

And, of course, I thus became a laughingstock.

Damn! Alright, I’ll laugh along with you all!

As we passed through the gate, Vidello-san bade me farewell with a heavy heart. 

“Be careful out there.”

Then we went straight ahead to our destination. 

---

As soon as we entered the desert, we headed in the opposite direction of the desert city. 

After some time, sparse, thorny grass began to appear along the way along with withered trees here and there. As we went further, a small mountain could be seen in the distance. 

Then, among the withered trees, a large rock appeared and when we turned around, to my surprise, there was the entrance to a cave. 

We quickly put on our equipment and stepped into the dungeon. 

I thought it would be filled with sand as the dungeon was under a sandy area but, contrary to my expectations, there were only rocks. 

There was quicksand streaming down along the path in front of us, meaning there might be a layer of the dungeon beneath us. I took a peek into this abyss and the neverending stream of sand flowing down into the depths gave me a vision that it could be really bad if we fell down from here.

Feeling chills, I quickly stepped away from the spot, then Yuuta called me with a carefree voice, “Mac, someone’s welcoming ahead of us.”

I knew—

I had been using my [ Detection ] skill the moment we entered the dungeon.

I took out all those paralytic potions and checked my sword at my waist. 

Alright.

Then, I threw the paralytic potion in the direction of the monster. 

Attacking an immobilized monster might look like a boring repetitive job.

But a weakling like me needed to attack over and over again just to defeat it. Defeating a single monster took nearly all of my stamina. It was because all the monsters here were tanky. 

I could feel its sturdiness vibrate through my hand whenever I attacked it and the amount of HP I could shrug off was so small that I could say it was insignificant. 

“I wish you had more power…” Yuuta muttered, looking at my fight. 

I wanted more power too, but as they all knew, I wasn’t a combat class. As for my sword, I had this one from the very start of the game, so I went along using this. 

I put the sword in the scabbard and shook off my numb hand.

Seeing my action, Yuuta nodded and told me, “Alright. Mac, you know what, you’ve been desperately struggling, so it’s better for you to learn that summoning circle.”

“Eh—!! How did you come to that conclusion?!”

“Just look at Sage-san’s attack power. If you become skilled enough, you could produce a strong attack like him and, if that’s the case, you won’t need a sword.”

I knew well that the power output from Sage-san’s summoning circle was strong. If I had to learn it, I would have to remember all those elements as skills from scratch. And, as my learning progresses, my skill list would become so long. In addition, each skill had a level attached to it, so, in order to raise their level, the whole process would consume too much time and effort. I was hoping the summoning circle would be done with just learning [Ancient Language] and [Summoning Circle]. 

But I was the one who had to learn all these, so… 

As I was groaning, Yuuta baited me, saying, “Don’t you want to go to the elf village?”

I wanted to go! I wanted to go further with knowledge in alchemy! Anyway, all I needed to do was quickly raise my level here and then go to study at Crash’s place! Ok, all was good now! 

Ugh, I hated studying… 

As I crouched down, biting my lips, Yui and Brave came crouching next to me. 

“Mac-kun, my teacher told me that you came to hate studying because you thought of the whole process simply as studying. Just change your perspective a little and think of the whole thing as acquiring new knowledge.”

Right. “Knowledge is power. You’re acquiring all this knowledge from your teacher every day at school. You should treasure all of it,” said my homeroom teacher. “This isn’t studying. This is the process of acquiring knowledge and power, and, yes, lifelong treasure. All these things might be useful in the future in any circumstances. So work hard!”

Wow, such an amazing teacher. I could feel the charisma that my homeroom teacher lacked. 

But, to think of acquiring knowledge and not studying. This didn’t sound as bad as learning an ancient language…

“Mac, you’re too easy to persuade.”

Those few words from Yuuta struck down the tiny bit of motivation I had gathered so far. Such a critical hit.¹