Black hair, determined brown eyes and a clenched fist.

The boy in front of me is the hero I helped to summon yesterday.

For some reason, he declared that he would protect me.

But from what or whom?

...The god?

That makes no sense...

But what else could he mean...?

"...from what?"

"H-huh?"

"Protect...from what?"

"U-umm...from the people who are oppressing you!"

"Who is...?"

"...err...well...everyone?"

"They are calling you a monster and avoiding you..."

...

Isn't that because they are scared of me?

What does discrimination have to do with anything?

...

Maybe he misunderstood?

Or maybe he knows something more?

I turn around and head to the door while gesturing at Dan with my hand.

"Come..."

"E-eh...?"

After opening it, I find the princess still standing there...

Or rather, I think I heard some light step sounds before I opened it.

She was probably listening to us.

Well...that's perfect.

When I look straight into her eyes, she starts shivering.

"...you heard us."

"N-no...I was just..."

I wave my hand to stop her and then turn around at Dan.

We both exit the room and close the door.

"Tell us both..."

"Why is everyone...avoiding me?"

"E-eh...?"

"Umm...well..."

"It's because...miss Reiza is scary..."

"Eh? Scary?"

Dan voices his surprise.

So he really was just misunderstanding things?

How bothersome...

"Of course...I told you she is a monster, right?"

"Hey, I told you it's rude to call someone a monster!"

"...no...as I was saying..."

...

Well, I think I get it now...

"...you."

I point at the princess and she stiffens.

"Lead us to some place...where I can show him why you call me a monster."

""Eh?""

Why are they both surprised...

"O-okay...I get it..."

The princess promptly recovered after a few seconds.

We then followed her to the outside part of the castle.

There were several knights sparring with each other on the right.

And some magicians firing spells at target dummies on the other side.

There was also a particular man in the middle overseeing the others.

I recognize some of the people here from my first audience with the king.

As soon as we were noticed, everyone stopped whatever they were doing and bowed down to the princess.

The man in the middle walked forward as the representative and made a graceful bow himself.

"Greetings princess."

"May I know the reason why you decided to grace us with your presence?"

"Oh Maestus...err it's a little complicated..."

The man notices me and a drop of sweat appears on his forehead.

"Greetings to you as well, miss Reiza..."

He makes a light bow to me.

Then he looks at the hero and raises his eyebrows.

"And...could this boy be the hero that was summoned?"

"Ah hello...my name is Dan."

"Greetings, my name is Maestus Medulon."

"I'm the captain of the royal guard."

He smiles and then turns his attention to the princess, as if expecting an answer.

"Sorry Maestus, could we take over this place for a bit?"

"Miss Reiza wanted to...show the hero something."

His momentarily furrows his brows before looking at me.

"Could it be...a mock battle?"

"I thought the hero hasn't been trained yet."

"Ah no, nothing like that."

"It's just...showing off her abilities I guess?"

"Hmmm, in that case..."

"What would you say about a spar with my men?"

His men?

When I look over, they are all shaking in fear.

I'm not too sure how strong these armored guys are.

But the magicians have only about one fourth of Belion's total mana each.

And compared to Sophia it's only about one fifth.

"...I'm bad at holding back."

"I think it will be fine as long as they don't die."

Hmm...

These guys are probably considered pretty strong by 'normal' people.

If I were to defeat all of them with no problem that would make me 'abnormal', right?

"...alright."

I walk forward toward the forty or so people.

I'm about to bring out the sword I got from the king, but I reconsider.

That thing is quite heavy and a swing from it is quite powerful.

If I were to swing it at them, they are very likely to die from a single hit.

Hmm...

[Phantom mimic: sword]

My mana forms an iron sword and solidifies in my hand.

"...how did..."

"Never mind..."

The captain seemed to be surprised for a bit.

But he quickly accepted it and then walked forward to face his men.

"Alright, it's your lucky day you guys!"

"Today's training will be a mock battle against miss Reiza!"

"She said she is bad at holding back so do your best to not die!"

"""EEHH?!"""

They are overreacting...

Hmm?

Isn't that the girl I tried to approach yesterday in the library?

So she was part of the royal guard, huh?

I walk to the middle and wait for the others to get ready.

After a few minutes we begin.

...

And a several more minutes later, it ends.

Since I took our about five people in my first dash, I tried to ease up even more.

I kept getting more and more relaxed with my attacks and eventually I just stopped attacking.

At that point, just the girl from yesterday and two sword wielding men were remaining.

I was just fending off their attacks, but I felt like they were getting stronger over time.

Eventually I got bored and defeated those three as well.

Looking around now, it's like there are corpses all around me.

But they are all alive, just exhausted.

"Thank you for this."

"That should have been a good training session for them."

I walk past Maestus, their captain, and head to where Dan and the princess are.

"I GREATLY APOLOGIZE!"

...

Dan is making an exaggerated bow, while apologizing.

"I'm really sorry...I just..."

"Rudely assumed things and thought everyone was just being racist."

Racist?

"But I see now..."

"You are just too amazing for a normal person to bear."

"And that's why everyone tries to avoid you."

...amazing?

He still doesn't call me a monster.

And instead says I'm amazing?

"But I still think that calling you a monster is exaggerated."

"It's just that you are really good with a sword!"

...

Ah that's right.

I didn't use any magic in that mock battle back there.

He probably thinks that's all I can do.

"...I'm a magician."

"...eh?"

"I couldn't get serious...so I didn't use magic."

"...if I did...they would probably die."

...

He fell silent all of a sudden.

Well, I guess I can show him real quick.

I turn around at the target dummies over to the side.

Then I aim my hand.

And fire.

[Fire lance]

[Fire lance]

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[Fire lance]

I shoot three fire lances in quick succession at the targets.

All of them hit right in the middle of the targets and a scorched hole appears in each one them before they explode.

After turning back to Dan, he is gazing to where the targets used to be with slightly opened mouth.

...

"O-okay...I see..."

"...But that's still not a reason to call you a monster."

"You just have a really high level right?..."

Hmm, I remember hearing that the average level for a human is below 100.

And mine is...

What was it again?

Status screen: open.

"I'm level 4623."

...he went silent with a blank look on his face again.

"Those with level above a thousand are officially classified as ancient monsters."

"It's not like we are calling her a monster to insult her."

The princess spoke to the hero, who still remained in daze.

After a few seconds he finally snapped out of it.

"H...how...?"

"Wouldn't that...take ages to reach...?"

It sure did...

I can't even remember the beginning of it all.

Sometimes I wonder just how long I have been in that dungeon?

"I'm really sorry..."

"I was really insensitive...and acted like I knew everything..."

"But I'm still just someone from a different world..."

"I'm completely ignorant to this world's ways..."

Now he is avoiding eye contact while frowning.

Why does he change moods so quickly?

One time he is all enthusiastic, then he acts all depressed.

Is everyone from his world like that?

What even is his world like?

After all of this, we all silently went our own way.

I personally stayed on the training grounds and practiced ice magic I learned about yesterday.

|= A week later =|

My ice magic is starting to become viable in combat.

Of course, it's still useless compared to my other magic, but it's getting there.

Every day, I went outside to practice it and then headed to the library to read more about it.

The people there got kind of used to me and I could talk to them without them nearly fainting or running away.

I also sparred with them one more time after the first time.

Apparently, the people I fought the first time leveled up several times just by fighting me.

The most levels were gained by the three, who remained at the end.

They said they got almost twenty levels or so.

And speaking of levels, it seems that Dan leveled up a few times when I used phantom presence on him.

He has been joining the knights to train along with them since then.

He got a lot stronger in a short time.

It's still nowhere close to any of the knights, but if he keeps it up, it won't take too long.

Hmm, a status of a hero is amazing after all.

But for that entire week, Dan hasn't approached me at all.

I saw him in a hallway or at the training grounds several times.

And it doesn't look like he is avoiding me because of fear like everyone else.

It's more like he feels apologetic.

But it's not like he did something serious to me, right?

Why is he acting like that?

Well, other than that, the days have been the same.

Nobody ever approached me on their own again.

Until today.

"Miss Reiza, can I talk to you for a moment?"

It's the prince...not the stupid one.

What was his name again?

I think it was...Gelvin?

"...what do you need?"

"W-well, you said you need to leave in several days."

"I'm sure it will be in about thirty days or something?"

...I totally forgot I still need to return.

What's wrong with me?

I don't want to get punished by that god after all...

...

So how many days was it?

Status screen: open.

"...I need to return within thirty days."

"I see..."

"So you need to depart several days earlier I take it?"

"...yeah."

How much time will I need?

From that island to Henduria it took a day or two.

And from Henduria here, it took three days or so.

So I guess I will need five days at least.

But that's only if I travel at the same speed.

If I run at full speed all the way, it might take less time.

...

Well all in all, I guess I will depart when I have five or six days left.

So in about...24 days.

"...I will depart in about...24 days."

"I see..."

"Well, I wanted to offer you a ride in one of our carriages."

"But of course, you are free to refuse if you want to go alone."

Hmm...

It's true that going on foot would be faster.

But I kind of liked traveling with others last time.

"I accept."

30 days left to return.

----------------------------------------

Bonus:

If Reiza is so worried about poison in her food, why doesn't she purify it like she did in the dungeon of endless suffering?

Also, can she develop a poison resistance?

Does she even really need to with the amount of health she has?

Questions by Micha247.

Truth be told, the strongest poison humans can get their hands on probably can't even come close to what the spiders back in the dungeon produced.

That poison from back there could kill her in a few minutes if not treated.

The best poison humans have access to, would probably take an hour or two to kill her from full hp.

But she doesn't know that...

And why didn't she just cleanse the food?

She has a lot of experience eating food that has been cleansed of poison.

The spider meat, even when cleansed of poison, was horrendous.

That's why she prefers to eat food, which never was poisoned in the first place.

Lastly, resistance to poison can be developed only for certain poisons.

The body can get used to certain toxins and learn how to dispose of them.

Of course, that would mean ingesting a decent amount of them and not dying.

Unfortunately the spider poison isn't one of those you can develop resistance against.

"Ahh man..."

"Why did I give her so much free time?"

"She keeps doing boring things out there."

"I want her to return and jump into the second extra stage!"

Why did you even give her any free time at all?

"Well, I needed some time to create the-"

"Err...I mean I wanted her to relax a bit."

...

What was that?

Needed some time to create the other stages?

Didn't you proudly declare you have four extra stages prepared?

"Err...well..."

"I didn't expect her to beat that dragon so fast!"

"She caught me off guard!"

What?

Oh I get it.

No wonder the first extra stage felt so half baked.

It was something you randomly thought of on the spot.

...

And all four of the portals lead to the same thing, didn't it?

"M-maybe?"

And what do you mean caught you off guard?

Why didn't you just let her go?

"Wha...how could I just let go off the perfect betatester?"

She already tested your stupid game, didn't she?

"Well yeah...but...I just...wanted to keep her you know?"

...

Professional stalkers would be creeped out by you.