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Chapter 185 – Part 1

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Translation: Charlotte
Editor: Weasalopes

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The scenery around me suddenly changed.
I was in the Wind Spirit Village.
It was a very familiar sight.

I died in that cave, huh…
That would be my second time.

I decided to start by checking my own condition.
How were my Base Stats?

Base Stats
DEX　18 (-13)
AGI　18 (-13)
INT　25 (-18)
STR　18 (-13)
VIT　18 (-13)
SPI　25 (-18)

It wasn’t a pretty sight to look at.
Guess I had no choice but to keep quiet in the village for a bit.
The time was still about 4 PM.
I had a lot of time.

「What happened?」

「I died.」

「Huhhh?」

「Who died? You, Keith?」

At the usual meetup spot, I only saw Rick and Yuka.
I decided to take my seat in a chair behind the stall and calm down for the time being.

「You happen to need anything right now?」

「Ah, I’m alright」

Yep.
It wasn’t the first time I had to return by death.
Rick had to take care of the stall too.
Soon enough, I was the only person in the back of the stall.

Calm Down!
There were other things I had to check besides my Base Stats.

What about my Summoned Monsters.
I quickly looked for the list with all my Summoned Monsters.
They were all fine.
It seemed like I could summon all of them without any problems.

What about the amount of money on hand?
It dropped by quite a bit…
Oh well, thinking about it in a more positive light…
It happened just after a big shopping spree, so the damage the death did to my wallet was minimal.
Thinking about it that way made my heart feel a little bit better.
I- I wasn’t feeling sad about it at all!

Looking through my items though, I realised I did lose something worth being sad about.
I lost one of my Tonfas of Torture.
One of my Gale Tiger Push Daggers got lost too.

Ah, that sucks.
No, it was actually a quite painful loss.

But I had to think positively about this one too!
At least I didn’t lose my Tokkoshos or the Black Rope!
Yep, it’s not like I lost all my items, after all!

Muu…
Calm Down!
After a bit, I think I managed to calm down a bit.

Speaking of which…
What was it? An ambush from below the water?
I had no idea something like that was a possibility.
It was my fault for trusting too much that my Summoned Monsters would take care of any ambushes.
Oh dear…
But how could they expect me to deal with a water attack inside a cave in the mountain!?

Oh no…
Think about this calmly.
I took some breaths, and maybe managed to calm myself a bit.

I dug through my memories to remember the last time I died.
How did I manage to get over that crushing feeling then?
Yep.
I did it by getting my revenge.
Without it, I definitely won’t get to move forward.

Water, huh…
My Mermaid Nias would probably have no issues with fighting underwater.
But those Magic Waterweeds… They definitely looked like a strong enemy.
And to begin with, that underground lake meant that parts of the cave itself were submerged.
That meant that on the other side of that underground lake was definitely more of the cave.
If I couldn’t get through myself, it would be completely pointless getting Nias to sweep the lake of monsters.

Did I have any tricks up my sleeve…?

I looked through my list of learnable skills and found an answer there.
【Swim】.

What time did it become possible for me to learn this skill?
I looked closer, and noticed that the 【Swim】 skill would cost me four Bonus Points to learn.
Not bad…
I got it right away and activated it.

But would that be enough to get to the other side of the underground lake?
The answer to that question was something I didn’t really expect.
I first started by reading through Guren’s report.
Apparently there was another skill called 【Dive】!

What should I do…?
According to Guren’s report, even beginner players could get the skill in their learnable skill list from just diving a bit in a random lake.
But apparently you would need 【Swim】 to unlock it.
Also… Even getting 【Swim】 and 【Dive】 would apparently not be enough to get past the underground lake… I would have to raise those two skills to a certain level too.

It seemed like it was going to be a bother, but I really wanted to see what was beyond that underground lake.

And also…
But there was nowhere near the Wind Spirit Village where I could do some swimming.
There was a river to the south, but it was a shallow one, not suitable for swimming. I would have to watch out for monster attacks while swimming too…
Hmm… What about the Spring of Mist Area Portal?
Maybe the lake in the middle of the Crater Relay Portal?
Or maybe… I could even go to the Eastern Seas…

I didn’t know where it would be best to go…
But at least I knew what I wanted to do next, and an overarching goal over all of my next actions.
Knowing that made my heart feel a bit lighter.

Very good.
But the question still remained. What was I going to do to pass the time while my penalty was active?
I guess I could try excavating Ancient Stones.
I greeted Rick and Yuka again before leaving the place.
I wanted to excavate my Ancient Stones in a place where I wouldn’t be a bother to anyone.
Yep, my plan was starting to come together.

I moved to the part of the village where trees were being planted and pulled out a table and chair from my 《Item Box》.
I sat in the chair and settled down to do some work.
I had three Ancient Stones.
I thought with just three Ancient Stones to get through, I would be able to finish them in no time.

But it was insane!

That status penalty had a massive effect, even on simple tasks like excavating the Ancient Stone.
It was getting really hard to make fine adjustments.
And on top of that, the effects of Enchanted Weapon felt lackluster a bit.
Even the time for which Enchanted Weapon was active was very short.
It felt like it lasted only three times shorter, and I had to use three times the amount of MP.
And on top of that, I only managed to get myself some amber stones.
Is this some kind of punishment from heaven?

It was soon about to be 6 PM.
It took me way too long to do those three stones!
But after all that time, how did my Base Stats look?

Base Stats
DEX　18 (-9)
AGI　18 (-9)
INT　25 (-13)
STR　18 (-9)
VIT　18 (-9)
SPI　25 (-13)

Yep.
It’s still a complete disaster!

I could have summoned Bunraku and gotten him to prepare me a meal, but I wasn’t in the mood for something like that.
I decided to treat myself to a meal at Yuka’s place.

「I heard the news. Are you alright?」

「Yeah, I’m doing okay. Somehow.」

At the back of the stall were all the usual Production Job Players.
They were all equally surprised to hear the news of how I had to return by death.

「You were drowned, huh…」

「To think of drowning so far inland…」

「I mean, we do have rivers and lakes… But we do need some form of precaution.」

Yep.
We were so far inland that I thought getting a skill like 【Swim】 would be useless.
In fact, in Fiona’s group the only player that had the 【Swim】 skill was Shinohara.
He took the skill using his starting amount of Bonus Points too.

After I finished my meal, I decided to sell off some Amber Stones, Snow Beast Skins, and Snow Beast Bones.
I kept only one Snow Beast Bone for myself.
I wanted to eventually make it into the handle of a weapon.
While I was at it, I decided to sell off some random items I happened to have on me too.
After waiting for calculations to finish and feeling my wallet get a bit thicker, I decided to excuse myself.

It was going to cause a bit of a shift in my schedule, but I decided to log out for a bit.
Doing some woodworking while the penalty was active would be a terrible idea, no matter how I thought about it.

I set up my tent and took off my equipment, before burying myself in the blanket.
I hadn’t logged out this early in a very long time.
I could make up for it by doing some travelling right after waking up again.

《You have received some information from the GMs. Do you wish to read it? 》

When I logged in it was 1:40 AM.
Logging in so early felt very strange.

Anyway, what did the GMs have in mind?

《Regarding the Tournament Best Bout: The Second Tournament Best Bout results have been released! 》

Oh, that.
I almost forgot that something like that was a thing.
It piqued my curiosity, so I decided to check it out.

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