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162 Intersections and Inquiries

「Comrades, huh.」

Things were getting a little too sentimental, so I steered the conversation back to Shizuku. The power of [Garou] was still growing at an accelerating rate.

What puzzled me more than that was how Shizuku pressed forward through the dungeon without the slightest hesitation or doubt. Even though we were deep in an illusory forest with poor visibility.

「Shizuku, do you know the way?」

「I do. I can sense which direction strengthens my power and where its source lies. The farther I go, the more clearly I feel it. Maybe you and the others can’t see it, but to me, it’s a light so strong I wouldn’t lose sight of it even with my eyes closed.」

「That strong, huh. That’s… still strange.」

「Is something bothering you, Skill Lender-san?」

「There’s something that’s been on my mind for a while now. About skills.」

Since we had nothing to do but wait, I decided to speak aloud a question that had always lingered at the back of my thoughts. The one sitting in front of me—Angelina—might have an answer.

That question was this:

Maybe it was because I myself held a Unique Skill like [Skill Lender], but I couldn’t shake the feeling that skills were somehow… foreign to this world.

「Foreign? They are mysterious powers, but…」

「For example, Angelina, why are skills managed with numbers?」

「You mean skill points?」

「Yeah. This world has all kinds of forces—gravity that pulls objects, magnetism from magnets, mana that produces magic. Humans might assign numbers to those things after the fact for study, but skills are the only thing already quantified from the outset using skill points.」

「That’s true. It’s why a skill like [Skill Lender] that loans points can even exist.」

「Don’t you think that’s… oddly convenient for humans?」

There’s a concept called selective breeding.

It’s the process of crossbreeding slightly different strains of livestock or crops to deliberately produce breeds more suited to human needs. Cows that produce more milk. Dragon species that are obedient. Roses with large, colorful blooms. These things didn’t arise naturally—they were created over time. Even the rice cultivated in our village didn’t exist in nature in its current form.

Skills gave off the same unnatural impression. Like an ornamental rose inexplicably blooming in an untouched field.

「If skills weren’t so user-friendly, humanity wouldn’t be able to conquer dungeons. They’d have long perished in one of the many recurring Dungeon Breaks. And the kicker is the endemic skills. Whenever a dungeon too powerful for humans appears, beastkin emerge nearby with skills that grow stronger the deeper you go, assisting in the dungeon’s conquest. Is that really just nature’s coincidence?」

「It does seem a little too convenient, but… thanks to those skills, humanity has flourished. That’s why Gelli’s here too. Wondering what’d happen if they didn’t exist—that’s the kind of thing best left to playwrights.」

She dismissed my doubts with a light wave, but then added:

「Still, if skills were part of some system created by someone, and endemic skills and beastkin were designed as humanity’s trump card against ultra-S-class dungeons…」

「If so, then what?」

「Then the humans who tried to destroy the beastkin out of petty prejudice—Gelli included—would be super dumb, wouldn’t they?」

「…Yeah. They really would be.」

What if the beastkin had been wiped out, just as some humans had wanted?

When the Womb of the Star finally ushered in another Dungeon Break, would there be a single human adventurer capable of stopping it? Could the crisis be repelled by human hands alone?

「Removing the beastkin and making humanity overestimate its own strength… that could actually be the real plan to wipe out the human race. Would make a nice story twist, huh? But that’s a novelist’s job.」

For Angelina, this wasn’t just idle speculation.

The Emesmes family had devoted over a thousand years to building a human-led countermeasure. And yet now it was hinted that maybe, just maybe, it was the Dwarves—not them—who were the true protagonists of the grand design. How must the 50th head of the family have felt upon realizing that?

The ‘King’ of a massive dungeon was always monstrously strong. As we stood on the cusp of such a battle, mental instability or doubt could become fatal. Perhaps it was time to consider having Angelina fall back.

I looked toward the girl ahead, only to find her waving her small hands back and forth.

「Well, dwelling on the past isn’t fun, so let’s just leave that discussion somewhere around Shizuku-chan’s tail and move on, okay?」

If you can just leave it there, that’s for the best.

「If we take the perspective that skills were artificially created… then isn’t [Skill Lender] the most unnatural one of all?」

「How do you mean?」

「Skill Lender-san, you’ve been careful with how you use it, but if you went full throttle, you’d be strong enough to not need endemic skills anymore. Actually, you already are. It’s like you’re the only one not bound by any balance at all.」

Angelina glanced around the area. I followed suit. The snowy scenery that sliced through the blizzard and stretched out in pristine white reminded me of the protected zone.

An immense area, the end of which was still nowhere in sight. A harshness stripped from nature’s most unforgiving traits. Telling humans to take care of something like this alone was, by all accounts, an impossible demand.

「Even the Golden Land of Crimson Luxury and The Vigil’s End—without [Skill Lender], you’d have to line up a full party of beastkin with endemic skills to maybe stand a chance. Or spend a millennium preparing, like Gelli’s family. Otherwise, nope-nope, no way around, impossible.」

「Then… the fact that I can manage it solo…」

「Clearly broken. If skills really were made by someone, then maybe your [Skill Lender] has some kind of special role in the grand scheme. Not that Gelli knows what that is.」