FULL NOVELXO Chapter 15: Explorer
Explorer
I turn in my key, and leave the inn.
I look out at the city, and then head towards the castle gate.
There are still no guards at the castle gates.
I leave the gate and make my way towards the forest.
The Labyrinth should be just inside the forest I was told.
I head through the field.
Just before entering the forest, a black wall appears to my left.
What’s that?
As I wonder about it, a person comes out through the wall.
Adventurer Lv 19
Knight Lv14
Swordsman Lv42
Explorer Lv 41
Shinto Priest Lv39
Wizard Lv40
Oh! It’s a Wizard! A Wizard!
Is that traveling magic?
Amazing.
I want to use it.
Are these six people a party?
“It’s here.”
“I see.”
The adventurer speaks, then the knight nods and they enter the forest.
The knight looks rather pompous.
Even though he’s the lowest level.
I follow the six people. They go to a place with a small hill that sticks up from the ground. There are black walls similar to the one from earlier surrounding the hill.
Is that the entrance to the Labyrinth?
Instead of felling like a hill, it’s more like a Kamakura made out of soil. Did only this part appear and the rest is underground? [TN Kamakura: Mid-January festival where children make snow huts to play in.]
A single person stands near the entrance.
Explorer Lv18
“How far are you going?”
“Three floors in, since it just appeared.”
The two explorers spoke.
The one being asked is the explorer who just arrived.
“What do you want to do?”
“We’ll start with the first floor, and see how we go.”
The explorer asks the night, and the knight issues instructions.
The knight seems to be the party leader.
They approach a black wall, and disappear through it.
Is this where you get in?
Should I go too?
I bring up my character stats, and move my points from discount to weapons 6.
I put a bonus point into shortening incantations.
It’s hard to recite them while fighting.
After putting a point into incantation shortening, the skill changes to incantation omission.
It’s good that it doesn’t decrease 10% at a time.
Should I put a point into increased critical chance?
I put a point in there, and the skill changes to a 10% rise.
I put the rest of my points in it, and get it up to 30%.
I finish changing my character stats.
I hang durandal at my waist, and approach the entrance.
The explorer near the entrance doesn’t say anything to me as I pass.
Timidly I walked into the black wall.
It let me through without trouble.
For a moment I pass through a pitch-black area, and then I find myself in the Labyrinth.
I find myself in a small cave-like room.
It’s around a 4-5 meter square room.
The room is dimly lit up.
Paths lead from the small room.
One straight ahead, one to the left, and one to the right.
There is a black wall behind me.
It’s the “door” that I have entered through.
The paths leading from this room are dark tunnels.
They are relatively small, with a width of about three meters.
It’s too dark to see the end.
The path straight ahead turns into a crossroad straight away.
Looks like this will be complicated.
I haven’t prepared anything for mapping. Will I be alright?
Is it going to be dark in the rest of the Labyrinth?
Those six people didn’t look to be carrying lights.
Maybe the Wizard used some kind of light magic.
For now, I’ll try always sticking to the left wall so I don’t have to worry about mapping.
When you enter a maze you won’t get lost if you stay along one wall.
I head down the path to the left.
The left path soon splits into two paths.
The walls and floor all feel reasonably solid.
When I step on the floor, the part I step on gives off some dim light.
The light isn’t much, and I’m worried it might make me easier to find by demons.
After walking a little, I hear a noise behind me.
I turn to look back at the previous room and see a group there.
Six people, five Knights and an explorer.
They walk into the black wall and disappear.
It seems the black wall still connects to the exit.
I check my job settings.
I’ve entered a Labyrinth, so maybe I got something?
Explorer Lv1
Effect: Small strength rise, Skill: Item box, party organization, dungeon walk.
It’s there.
Is an explorer a person who finds Labyrinths?
I seem to have gotten it from entering the Labyrinth.
I fiddle with my jobs, but can only put Villager Lv3 or Thief Lv3 in the first spot.
It’s the same as before, maybe because I used a bonus point.
If I consider the intelligence card, I should not put thief as my first job.
The first job seems to be shown on the intelligence card when people look at it, so it would cause trouble if people saw my job was thief.
I leave Villager Lv3 as the first job.
Hero Lv1 has a large effect, and I leave it as the 2nd job.
I set the third job to Explorer Lv1.
I try to use the new skill.
“Item box!”
Before I finish speaking, some kind of box appears in my hand.
Well, it’s more like the entrance to a box. Looking at it from the side it has no depth, it’s just a doorway.
Is this space magic?
It came out halfway through trying to activate the skill.
The incantation shortening skill probably caused it.
What happens if I talk about the item box in a conversation?
It feels like I’ve just discovered a weakness to the skill.
I don’t have to pray for it to appear the way I do with stats, though it’s possible it won’t appear if it’s just part of conversation.
I take the scimitar from my waist, and place it in the box.
There was no problem putting it in, despite it’s length.
After taking my hand away, the entrance vanishes.
After saying “item box” again, the box reappeared.
The scimitar is in the box.
Somehow I get the impression that the item box is full with one scimitar in it.
I want to try out various things on it, but I shouldn’t be fooling around in a Labyrinth.
It’s possible I’ll be surprised by a demon.
I take my hand away, and the item box vanishes. I want to try out my next skill.
Party organization. Well, I guess there is no point when there is just one person.
“Dungeon walk.”
When I use this skill, I get an understanding that it wants more information from my thoughts.
Information on where I want to go.
I imagine the small room I first appeared in.
A black wall appears near me.
I walk into the black wall.
The place that I appeared is the small room from a little while ago. There is the black wall ahead of me which is the exit from the dungeon.
The black wall behind me disappears as soon as I step out.
Nice.
It seems I can teleport to places I can remember.
Judging by the name of the skill, this only applies to places in the dungeon.
No, I watched the party from before come from a black wall before I entered the dungeon.
The wall that the party of six people came from.
“Dungeon walk”
I recite the skill while thinking of the trees in the forest.
A black wall appears, but I am not able to enter it.
Is it useless if it’s not in the dungeon?
Well, it’s not something to worry about.
Mapping might be unnecessary now too.
“Dungeon walk.”
I use the skill again to return to where I was a short while ago.
A black wall appears….
But I wasn’t able to enter it.
What happened?
Why?
Lack of MP?
That shouldn’t be it. The black wall appeared.
Maybe the places I can go are limited?
Maybe to just small rooms like this one, or places with a door?
There seems to be no other way, so I go on foot.
Next, I’ll try Overwhelming, the hero skill.
Though, I think I can probably only try out this skill during combat. Is that right?
I don’t really have a basis for that thought.
It’s possible it’s a passive skill I’ve been using all the time already.
No, that’s probably wrong. It has an incantation.
I continue on.
Something is moving further into the Labyrinth.
Needle Wood Lv1
It’s a humanoid demon with a green head and a brown body.
It’s not very big, and quite thin.
How will things go with durandal?
I draw the sword and rush forward.
“Overwhelming!”
I shout out, and swing my sword down on it’s left shoulder, cutting straight through it.
It’s brown body falls to the ground.
Ah.
A single blow.
I wonder if I look cool?
It looks like my finishing move has been decided.
I imagine myself defeating the strongest demon with this technique.
Though, durandal is the reason for doing this in a single blow.
Nothing happened.
Nothing changed.
No, it’s different.
I don’t have enough MP.
The skill didn’t work because I don’t have enough MP.
Since I get the Skill: Overwhelming at Hero Lv1, I should be able to use it with the MP of Hero Lv1.
But my MP was insufficient, so I wasn’t able to use the skill even though I remembered the incantation.
Maybe I used too much MP trying the dungeon walk? This is the second time I haven’t been able to use it.
Branch.
When the Needle Wood disappears, there is a tree branch remaining.contemporary romance
I try to put it in the item box, but it doesn’t work.
The item box is full with just my scimitar in it.
Well, that’s how it is.
There’s no helping it, so I put the branch into my rucksack.
It’s a ten centimeter long branch. Will it be used for firewood?
I don’t think it will sell well.
I start looking for my next target.
My MP has probably recovered because of durandals MP absorption, but I’ll hunt another two to be sure.
It’s annoying that I can’t work out how much MP I have.
Needle Wood Lv1
I head towards the demon that appeared.
As I approach, the Needle Wood raises his left branch. He looks like he’s attacking.
But, my attack is faster.
From his right shoulder to his left side I cut straight through him with one swing of the sword.
The Needle Wood becomes smoke and disappears. It leaves a branch.
I put it in the rucksack, and continue on.
I killed another, and then head left at the next split in the path.
There’s another party up ahead.
All the members are surrounding a Needle Wood.
There isn’t any way past them, they are straight ahead.
I got here by walking along the left wall to stay safe.
I have dungeon walk though, so I should be able to get back to the first room from anywhere.
I turned back to the last fork, and took the other route.
There’s something up ahead.
Needle Wood Lv1
The slight glow from the ground at my feet is a disadvantage.
I have to be careful not to be hit by a surprise attack.
I don’t know if the demons move around relying on their sight.
“Overwhelming!”
I run towards the demon, and recite the skill.
Nothing happens.
Wait, no, something is different.
The demons movement has gotten slower.
It’s like the demon is moving in slow motion.
I approach the demon in the meanwhile.
I have an idea that I want to watch it a bit longer, but I ignore it and raise the durandal.
Is the demons movement slow?
Or is my movement fast?
I swing the durandal through the Needle Wood that didn’t even get a chance to be ready to attack.
It becomes smoke and disappears. It feels like I’ve calmed down a bit too.
The effect of the skill appears to be acceleration, or maybe a boost in agility.
It will be a very useful skill if it lets me out maneuver an enemy.
I’m feeling a bit depressed, maybe because of the MP use?
When my MP starts running low I start feeling rather bad.
The skill must take all of my MP, though some will have recovered from durandals MP absorption.
The wave of depression goes up and down like a roller coaster.
I have a strong mind, but I could get quite sick if I repeat this.
I won’t be able to use it much until I have more MP.
I try to calm down a bit, and check my stats.
Kaga Michion: Male, 17 years old. Villager Lv4, Hero Lv1, Explorer Lv1.
Equipment: Sandals, Leather armor, durandal.
My level has gone up, but only for Villager.
Hero, and Explorer’s levels did not change.
I’ve defeated four Needle Woods.
If I only need 1/5th of the required experience to level up, and I’m also getting 5x more experience than normal, I should be leveling 25x as quick so it’s like 100 Needle Woods worth of experience was hunted.
Is it really quite hard to level up?
The levels of people in this world give an impression of not being very high.
It’s different from a game, it might take me dozens of years if I keep working steadily.
The level hasn’t gone up after hunting 100, so for a Lv1 Explorer, if he hunts one every day for three months it won’t be enough for him to get to Lv2.
That seems quite slow.
Or, maybe my experience bonus doesn’t work?
Is Explorer harder than normal to increase? Hero didn’t become Lv2 either, and Villager went from Lv2-Lv4. Different jobs might need different experience levels.
And what is my experience distribution like with three jobs?
I thought it would have been 1/3 each for three jobs.
Oh, I want a walkthrough.
I checked my character stats.
Since Villager increased by one level, I have another bonus point.
I removed my points from increased critical strike, and got incantation omission.
I’ve only attacked four times, if my crit rate is 5% then it probably hasn’t even happened once yet. [TN not sure why it’s 5%, probably some translator fail here]
Since I’m killing things in one shot, there is no point even if it works.
There are now two more points in incantation omission, and it’s become blurred out.
Is the skill complete with only 3 points?
That’s pretty good.
Even if it’s just a percentage shorter I’d be happy.
When I used incantation shortening, I only had to recite the name, and not the incantation.
With omission, will I just have to think about it?
To test it out, I think about the item box and the entrance to it appears in my hand.
done.co