Apinsig
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Chapter 278 Homesteading in a fantasy world
🕑 Added 2023-07-21 12:53:48 +0000 UTC"Well, to understand me, you'll need to know a bit more about my background. While everything I've told you about myself is true, there's a quite important fact that I haven't mentioned. A large portion of me isn't from this world." Upon hearing my words, Luana let out a sigh of relief. I guess she knew about it but kept it a secret, probably because she didn’t think I wanted anyone else to know. But honestly, I wouldn’t have cared if she had told.
Arabella looked at me, wanting more answers, so I explained things a bit more. Everyone found it quite confusing that I technically was just a skill that combined with the consciousness of a boy from this world. "Unfortunately, the part from the other world was a lot larger and mentally stronger than the young boy who had basically just died." They tried to ask more questions after that, but all I could do was shrug my shoulders as I had no more answers to give on that front.
"Like I said before, I am very similar to Arabella, but I have actually fought in a large war where I was hailed as a hero for quite a while by the people around me and afterward by the rest of them who were saved by the war I fought in. During that time, I was surrounded by a lot of soldiers, so believe me when I say that the reason I could so easily read you is because I’ve seen plenty of people like you before and seen what breaks them." I fell silent, lost in thought as my words brought back many memories and faces of people long dead.
"How to start... I was just a nobody, but unlike many others, I didn’t die. It gave me an opportunity to find out that I’m really good at violence. It didn’t take long until I was leading a small group of men that eventually turned into a large group.”
“I was their hero, the person that led them through fight after fight. But unfortunately, the fighting never ended, and because of my success, harder and harder missions were given, which of course led to many losses."
I was brought back to reality when Horus coughed lightly to get my attention. It appears that I had sunk into memories and was watching the flames with vacant eyes. "Sorry about that.”
“I saw as the people who called me hero died or were broken, and eventually, I was no longer called that. The first chance I got to move up in leadership, I took it. It changed the casualties from people I knew and depended on me to numbers, which, while still hard to handle, helped mend a little bit of the broken self I was.”
“Unfortunately, while that did help, it was only for a while. I once again excelled at my tasks, and soon I was responsible for so many more than I ever had before. The reality of that war was that 500 casualties per hour was something you celebrated. Thinking back on it, it's still an absurd thing to celebrate - only 500 casualties an hour, what luck are we having today?”
"That was what shattered me. My combination of beliefs and the strength of my will is the only thing that has kept me going and will unfortunately keep doing so until something finally kills me. You know, everything related to that war, I am actually proud of one award that I had gotten. It was after the war that I took upon myself to help as many veterans as I could who were no longer capable of handling a life without war. I did so voluntarily, and without my knowledge, I had helped many people. When I received the award, it was the proudest I’ve been.
"Over 1000 veterans were helped by me personally. It was a number that shocked me when I first heard it just before I got the reward. The only thing that I regretted was that I wasn’t able to help all of them. So, to sum it up, I am one of Arabella’s possible futures, one of the worst ones. But just to make it clear, the only good outcome for people like me and Arabella is to die when we have accomplished our duty." I lifted my eyes from the flames to find sadness staring back at me.
"You can't change the past; you can just continue living. I think it's a good time to have a competition. Let's see who can tell the worst jokes. Allow me to start. Why don’t eggs tell each other jokes? They might crack up!" The groan I got from Adam was magnificent. And so, we spent the rest of the day telling jokes and funny stories until we all went to sleep. After which, we all felt a lot more refreshed and ready to dive deeper into the dungeon.
As soon as we had stepped onto the 50th floor, I felt that same feeling I felt back on the 25th floor, just having to agree, and I would be teleported out. Looking around, I didn’t see anyone disappearing, so we got into formation and started to figure out our surroundings and what we might face. It looked like quite a common ruin type. An open, old stone town that nature had reclaimed.
The first run in with the type of enemy we would be facing came in the form of an ambush from the top of the ruins and the trees. Seven flying squirrels, the size of large dogs, flew towards us. But it seems that their ability to control air was at an incredible level. None of our longer-ranged attacks landed, and only Arabella was able to do any damage or even attack a second time as the rest of us weren’t as fast as she was.
"You flying rats should have stayed in your homes so you could continue to suck your mother’s milk." My taunt worked like it always did, and every single one of them focused on me. They didn’t come into melee range, but they were close enough that I could jump and attack them, which led to their first casualty before they could even do anything serious to us.
With their focus on me, the fight was over quickly enough as their strongest move of trying to lift me up high with their air manipulation and then attack or drop me didn’t work as I just made myself too heavy.
Now a lot more cautious, we were ready to quickly move through these ruins and find our way down, but after killing two more groups, we happened to find the boss room to take us downwards. That was incredibly lucky as we hadn't even spent half an hour on this floor.
Our opponent was the same kind of flying squirrel, except it was ten times bigger. At first, we thought that this was going to be a long fight, wounding it enough to kill it would be difficult if it also had the same air manipulation, but things turned out to be different.
It somehow split into hundreds of smaller, incredibly agile and fast flying squirrels. This fight could have been incredibly dangerous, but my taunt once again worked as intended. So all I had to do was strengthen my defenses and let Luana cast fire spells on top of me whenever a large group of them flew towards me to try to damage me.
It was a boring and slow fight, and in the end, trying to find the few smaller flying squirrels that were still alive was troublesome, but overall this was still our fastest floor. After a short rest, we once again went deeper, but our minds were all on the loot that we got from the last boss. It looked incredibly interesting and felt powerful, but unfortunately, none of us were specialized in identifying it, so we didn't know what it could possibly do.
