“Welcome to our village, Lady Valkyrie. Please, make yourself at home. If you have anything you need, please ask, and we’ll do our best to provide it.”

Uh. That was unexpected. I mean, I had wondered whether the Pixies would be friendly, but I certainly hadn’t been expected to be received like a guest of honour. For that matter, I certainly wasn’t expecting to be greeted by rows upon rows of Pixies, bowing before me. Their appearance as tiny, winged, beautiful girls matched my image of a Pixie. The maid outfits didn’t. I blinked for several seconds, unable to comprehend the situation. The front-most Pixie tilted her head in confusion.

“Um, pardon my insolence, but Milady seems distressed. Is something the matter?”

“Ah, no, just – I’m wondering why you’re treating me so well when I just waltzed into your village.”

“Hm? Milady is a Valkyrie. A shieldmaiden of the gods. What more reason would we require? It is an honour to welcome you into our halls.”

Still a little confused, I focused my attention on the Pixie. A prompt appeared.

High Pixie

Level: 18

HP: 6000/6000

A servant of the gods. Pixies act as maids and groundskeepers for the gods – service is the calling of their life, and nothing makes them happier than to fulfil their duties. They show great contempt to most others, but will speak to those affiliated to the gods with reverence and admiration. The High Pixie acts as a head maid of sorts within an enclave of Pixies.

Ah. That explains it. Pixies were maids for the gods, and Valkyries were basically higher ranked. So my class had saved me the trouble of fighting through a village of Pixies. I had mixed feelings about that. I decided to make use of the offered hospitality.

“Would it be possible to get a drink and some food? I’ve a long journey ahead.”

The Pixie bowed.

“Certainly, we can arrange for the water immediately. Regrettably, we are unable to provide the food immediately – we were just about to go on the hunt when we sensed Milady’s presence. If you would be willing to wait for about an hour, we would be able to procure some boar meat and prepare it for you.”

Boars, huh? I had really only asked for the food on a whim, but I was getting rather hungry. If I was going to have to wait anyway, it was more efficient to use the opportunity to try out my abilities in combat.

“About the boars – is there an area to hunt them nearby? I’d like to try my hand at it.”

…

The Pixies led me a little East, opening into a clearing where four large boars were grazing. I focused on one of them.

Forest Boar

Level: 4

HP: 300/300

Unlike with the High Pixie, the prompt for the Forest Boar only showed its level, HP and nothing else.

Eh? What’s with this different treatment?

Ah, it’s that, probably – the High Pixie deferred to me as a higher being and let me know its information, while the boar didn’t give me that permission. I see. Well, it’s a bit inconvenient, but nothing serious.

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The boars were covered in a glistening coat of fur, with two long, swordlike tusks aligned with their mouths. They were grazing peacefully, but the moment we stepped into the clearing, they stiffened and looked at me. The High Pixie floated in front of me and took a battle stance midair, both hands in front of her as preparation for casting magic.

“Milady, please allow us to handle this rabble, which dared to raise their heads in your presence. We shall teach them their place.”

The other Pixies held out their hands in a similar fashion, but I raised my hand to stop them and shook my head.

“Stand down. I want to fight them.”

“As you desire.”

The host of Pixies immediately lowered their hands and fell back, hovering behind me.

Well then, let’s see how this goes. First off, let’s make things a little quicker. I held out [Sibylline].

“[Haste].”

[Sibylline] glowed and opened, its pages flipping of their own volition to one of the pages within the book. I felt a slight drain as my MP bar fell by a miniscule amount. Nothing dramatic happened – the world didn’t suddenly start moving in slow motion – but I felt a lot faster. I opened my status window and confirmed that my Agility had doubled. I took one step forward. Immediately, the boar closest to me turned towards me and charged. It was moving at an incredible speed, but somehow I was able to follow its movements – likely because my Agility had increased.

“[Slow].”

I targeted the boar with the spell and watched as it slowed down. It was still moving, but to me, it was like looking at a still image, even as it charged toward me – I had those two images in my mind simultaneously. It was like looking at a single object through two lenses with different configurations, one where it was normal speed, and another where it was slowed down. It should have been confusing, but somehow I managed to process that information without any trouble.

I glanced at my MP – it had decreased by 20, but was quickly being refilled by [Small MP Recovery]. Between that and [Auto HPMP Recovery], I could maintain [Haste] and [Slow] indefinitely.

So now I was fast and the boar was slow. If I wanted to, I could walk up to it and hit it. The problem, though, was what I was going to hit it with. I still had no weapon other than [Sibylline], and that was hardly a weapon designed for physical combat.

Well, for the time being, I guess I’ll try to punch it?

I strolled up next to the charging boar and drew back my fist.

“Hiyaaaaa!”

I drove my fist into the boar’s abdomen, yelling out a battle cry. The boar was knocked out of its charge, but its HP only dropped by 11 – less than half of my Strength value. A prompt appeared.

Unarmed Penalty

Warning: You are attacking an opponent unarmed – your attacks will have a 0.5x modifier.

…What’s with this discrimination against fighting barehanded? Isn’t this a little unfair? I mean, it’s not like I have a weapon other than [Sibylline].

The book does have a physical attack stat… I guess it couldn’t hurt to try using it as a blunt weapon?

I turned my gaze down to the book in my left hand and sighed. Then I snapped it shut and dashed toward the boar, transferring the book to my right hand. I brought it up, then slammed it into the boar’s flank.

…eh? What? Seriously?

The boar got sent flying just from a single strike from a book?

It’s not even that heavy.

…Eh?

Confused, I checked the boar’s status.

Wait, that attack did 155 damage?! What’s with that ridiculous difference?! It’s a book, you know? A book!

Wait. The book has a “Physical Attack” stat of 5. Don’t tell me… that’s a multiplier? My Strength stat is 32, so multiplying it by 5 would give me a total of 160… Assuming that the missing 5 damage is from the boar’s Endurance stat, the numbers check out.

In that case, the “Magical Attack” stat of 20 would let me offensive magic hit for 20 times my Magic stat.

Isn’t that way too high? Even at my current level, that means that using an offensive magic would deal 640 damage. More than enough to overkill the boar.

…Actually, isn’t my offensive magic capability somehow super amazing?

I don’t have any offensive magic though.

As I wasted my time thinking about silly things like that, another boar charged me. This one wasn’t affected by [Delay], so it was still running at a reasonably fast speed. I would be able to avoid it if I wanted to, but I wanted to test my defences. So I just stood there.

The boar crashed into my body from the side… and was repelled, landing a short distance away.

…Eh?

I checked my HP. No change. The boar’s attack had done no damage.

…No way. Isn’t that a little ridiculous? I mean, the boar is 3 levels higher than me, you know. Even though I have 56 Endurance because of the [Valkyrie] class, it should at least be doing some damage, right?

While I marvelled at how tanky my class made me, the other two boars also charged at me, swinging their tusks wildly. Zero damage.

It began to sink in – I could hurt these boars, they couldn’t do anything to me. A grin spread across my face. I hefted my book with a feeling of anticipation. A rampage of helpless boars getting their heads smashed in by a magical tome was about to start.

Please become my EXP and food. Let the hunt begin.