It’s now been six months since I started adventuring.

Since the day I started, I’ve done multiple small things here in there around several towns and made the lives of those around me better…all except me.

While I may be getting recognition in small towns, I’ve yet to even get close to gaining the attention of this world's nobles.

As the academy is a school for nobles and those of rich blood, the only way for someone like me to get in is by proving my worth as a student.

But unlike in my world where things are proven through academics to which my expanded thinking could help me out with stuff like that, this world pays more attention to brute strength and accomplishments.

That meant unless I did something big like finding ancient technology or discovering undisturbed dungeons or defeating a massive threat, I was basically a little speck the nobles didn’t even bother paying attention to.

At this point, I don’t even think they know I exist. Although, I did mention I only started this six months ago so things are bound to change in the future.

I couldn't have been more wrong.

Before I knew it, two more years passed and only two more years remained before school with the MC and the heroines would begin.

Sadly, I’d made practically no progress in drawing the attention of nobles.

I was still helping out in towns and other small areas, but when it came to getting noticed by nobles, I wasn’t even close to my goal.

I’ve already taken notice of the dire situation and have been pushing my expanded thinking into overdrive to think of a solution.

But no matter what I came up with, they all ended with less than an eight percent success rate. Not exactly great odds.

Letting out a sigh, I stood in the adventurer's guild looking up at the large selection of jobs.

If there’s one good thing that came out of these two years, it’s that I’ve leveled up as an adventurer. And I mean that quite literally.

In this game, there were eighteen levels an adventurer could reach. However, since people didn’t want to give these levels names, most just called them level 1, level 2, level 3, and so on.

The odds of going up in levels were low and very few adventurers went past level eight. Since I began, I’ve managed to get all the way up to level four. But despite that, I still appear to be lacking when it comes to making any real progress. And if I really wanna be noticed, I’d need to get much higher at a much quicker pace.

Stretching out my arms, I finished scanning the quest board and picked off one of the papers, and made my way over to the receptionist.

The woman at the receptionist's desk looked it over and put down a stamp that showed I had taken on the job. After that, I left the guild.

Today’s mission was simple. All I had to do was go into some dungeon and find something some dude accidentally dropped.

I’d only been in a few dungeons since I became an adventurer, so I’d be lying if I said things would go smoothly. But even so, I needed to get my name out there. So I sucked it up and got moving.

Dodging an acid attack from the giant scorpion in front of me, I could already feel myself growing exhausted.

Its weak spot appears to be in a small crack in its back.

With my expanded thinking giving me information, I gripped my recently acquired sword tightly while trying to come up with a way to hit that weak spot.

The monster charged at me and I barely managed to avoid its body as a bit of the scorpion's acid dropped from its mouth and onto my right arm causing a burning sensation to shoot through my nerves.

“Dammit,” I muttered under my breath as I put my left hand over my right.

“Bring forth a healing chill. Chill Patch.”

As I said those words, a small batch of cold water began covering where the acid had landed and I felt my arm beginning to cool. It still hurt like hell, but I could easily get it healed up later.

Dodging the monster's giant claws, I attempted to run behind it using a little bit of a boost from my wind magic but it quickly blocked my path. That’s something that bugs me about this world. For some reason, these guys appear to be much more intelligent than humans.

To be clear, I don’t mean they’re smarter when it comes to evolution. Rather, they’re smarter when it comes to defending themselves and their turf. They seem to understand when they have a weak point and try their best to use their abilities to cover said weak points.

For reasons like this, I try to avoid taking any jobs that require slaying too many monsters. After all, If I was actually trapped in a room with more than three or four monsters, I don’t think I’d make it out alive.

The scorpion hissed at me as it attempted to spit acid at me once more.

Holding up my sword in an attempt to block it, the acid splashed onto both my blade as well as my legs causing the latter to go numb while my sword disintegrated.

“Well damn,” I muttered before tossing my blade to the side.

This kind of stuff is why I prefer magic. It requires little effort to produce and doesn’t way enough that it ends up slowing down my movements.

I might just be making excuses for my lack of physical strength, but magic really is my only strong suit.

Dodging for what felt like the hundredth time, I didn’t know how I was supposed to beat this thing.

The smell of its acid began to make the air stink and I was beginning to wonder if the best course of action would be to run away. Sadly, that wasn’t exactly a viable option.

As I mentioned, these guys are smart when it comes to defending themselves. So by the time I got into this cave, the scorpion had already sprayed its acid across the walls and made going back an impossibility.

I glared angrily at the monster as I worked my expanded thinking as hard as I could to come up with a solution.

What if I…nah. I’d die before I realized what hit me. Then what if I…nope. That’s just plain stupid…wait! All I have to do is-!

The solution coming to my mind, I clenched my fists tightly and I began pouring magic into my feet.

“Wind boost!”

Launching forward, I used wind magic to increase my running speed which let me fly at the scorpion who seemed a little surprised by my sudden increase in speed before regaining its composure and preparing its next attack.

It brought its giant claw down on me as fast as it could. Little did it know, that was exactly what I’d thought it would do and I grabbed hold of its claw.

As it reeled back in surprise, I used its claw like a piece of parkour equipment and flipped myself onto its back.

Immediately noticing what was happening, the monster thrashed back and forth in an attempt to get me off before turning to a nearby wall and dashed towards it in hopes of smashing me into a puddle of blood.

“Like hell I’m gonna let you do that!”

As it dashed forward, I dug my hand into its weak spot, it responded to my hostility with a loud screech that echoed through the cave as I continued digging into its flesh.

It let out several more ear-piercing screeches, but I didn’t care. Taking in a deep breath, I poured my heart into my magic. Casting one spell in rapid succession.

“Fireball! Fireball! Fireball!”

As I repeatedly shot my fireball spell into the monster's flesh, the insides of the monster's body began to grow hotter as blood sputtered from its mouth.

“FIREBALL!”

Pushing out one final attack, the scorpion let out one last painful noise before collapsing to the ground.

Taking in a few heavy breaths, I removed my hand from the monster's body and put my ear on its back. Thankfully, the monster's heartbeat had completely stopped. And moments later, it vanished into pixels that floated into the sky.

With that problem over and done with, I stretched out my arms before wincing in pain from the poison burns on my arm.

Taking off the new bag I’d recently purchased from my back, I pulled out a small bottle containing a strange greenish-blue liquid and chugged down its contents.

“Bleh.”

As someone who could never get into coffee, the bitter taste of this potion never ceased to disgust me.

Slipping the empty bottle back into the bag, the wounds on my body slowly began to heal and I swung my arm around to make sure it was working properly.

“Good thing potions exist in this world. Otherwise, I would’ve been screwed a long time ago,” I muttered aloud.

Slinging the bag back over my shoulder, I let out a sigh of frustration as I looked at the tunnel I came in from.

“Looks like I won’t be going back that way. What’ll I do now?”

Maybe there’s some way out further ahead.

“Perhaps. Well, deeper in I go then.”

With another sigh, I made my way deeper into the cave.

Despite traveling deeper, I didn’t really encounter too many obstacles. Thankfully, all I found monster-wise was a slime which I took care of with relative ease.

However, upon reaching what I thought was an exit…

“A dead end…crap,” I muttered while scratching the back of my head trying to figure out what to do next.

Looking around the dead end, I attempted to find some kind of secret door or hidden puzzle. While that didn’t seem likely, I had a nagging feeling there was something I was missing here.

As I looked around the barely lit room, I suddenly noticed something sparkling somewhere in the shadows.

Moving in closer, I got down on one knee and looked down to find something sticking into the ground.

“A diamond?”

I picked up the jewel and held it in my hand.

This is probably what the person who put up the job wanted me to retrieve.

That was my initial thought. But considering how average the reward was for something like this, was this guy really willing to believe your average adventurer wouldn’t just pocket the diamond and run away with it before selling it off to live the easy life?

That may have sounded crazy, but considering how rare diamonds are, it was more likely someone would just pocket the diamond and then give it back. This dude needs to be a lot more careful.

Slipping the diamond into my bag, I got up and started leaving the dead end.

Since it appeared there wasn’t another way out, I guess all I could really do was try and make some kind of mask using air magic until I got out of the cave. But considering I’ve never tried such a thing before, I wouldn’t know if it’d actually work.

Thrusting my bag over my shoulder once more, I began making my way back to the entrance. That’s when I noticed something odd.

“Hm?”

It was hard to see because of the darkness, but near where I’d found the diamond was some form of drawing.

“Fireball.”

Making a flame appear in my hand, I leaned down and looked at the strange drawing.

However, when I scanned it over, I quickly realized what it really was.

“Is this…some kind of map?”

Etched onto the ground were three different locations.

One looked to be some kind of snowy mountain, another looked like a clock tower, and the third was…a floating island?

That was all I could really call it. For some reason, the third drawing looked fairly similar to an island I once saw in an anime where everyone lived on floating islands.

“I recognize these first two locations, but I don’t remember there being any floating islands in this game.”

Using my knowledge of this world, I immediately was able to recognize the snowy mountain as Mount Freveris. It was basically this world's version of Mount Everest.

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While not as cold, the mountain was still treacherous and couldn’t be climbed by someone who lacked the necessary equipment.

The second drawing looked almost identical to the Grand Magic Clocktower which was located within the town of Wizardo. Otherwise known as the birthplace of the creator of magic. As magic was still a fairly new thing having only been introduced around forty years ago, the young boy born in that land led generations down the path toward magic.

Despite having his name etched into the history books, the man still lives to this day and should probably be around his fifties to sixties right now.

Since he works as the head of the school where the story takes place, I’ve actually had a few run-ins with him during my first playthrough of this game. He was actually a pretty nice dude and I helped him out plenty of times as the MC.

But moving past that, the only place I wasn’t able to understand was the floating island.

While this may be a world of magic, there was never a floating island in the game. Does this mean this world isn’t completely the same?

Still confused, I pulled out some paper and ink before copying the map on said paper.

With nothing else to do there, I put the map in my bag and left the room.

Thankfully the air mask did end up working and I managed to escape without any issues.

On top of that, I’ve now created a new way to handle myself with enemies who rely on stuff like poison or sleeping gas.

But anyway, I returned to the guild and got the payment for the item before going on my way.

After that, I thought back to the strange drawings I saw.

Judging by how they were structured, it couldn't have been anything but a map. But where the heck does it lead?

As I tried to come up an answer, I went shopping and bought up some potions among other things.

Finally done for the day, I returned to the inn I was staying at and laid down on my bed before looking up at the ceiling.

After pondering about the map for a bit longer, I finally came to a decision.

Sitting up, I began making a mental list of what to do in my brain before lying down in bed and closing my eyes. I needed to get as much sleep as possible. Because where I was about to go, I’d need as much sleep as I could get.

Two more months of traveling later, I finally reached my destination.

The snow under me made a loud crunch as I pressed forward.

Looking into the sky, I saw the snowy mountain I’d been looking for far off in the distance. Mount Freveris.

This all started that night when I decided to set out and find exactly where this map was leading.

Even if someone else had already beaten me to it, I still wanted to see what it was all about.

Taking in a deep breath, I started the trek toward that mountain.

Finally reaching Mount Freveris, I looked up to try and spot the top only for my eyes to be blinded by the snow blowing past my face.

After spending almost all my money on the required equipment, I just hoped whatever that map was leading to was worth it.

As I said before, I might already be a bit late. But even so, my curiosity pushed me forward and I intended to see this through.

As the sun rose into the sky, I took in a deep breath and began making my way up the snowy mountain.

At first, things were going pretty smoothly. There wasn’t too much wind, my gear was holding up quite well, and the snow wasn’t too deep. My only real complaint was how chilly I was but that could easily be fixed up with some fire magic when I found a resting spot.

Feeling confident I could push through this, I continued forward with a small grin forming on my face.

That was two hours ago. Now, I find myself trying my hardest to keep my body from freezing. I kept a small fire in my hand in order to keep me warm, but I was still struggling to stay conscious. I knew it’d be hard to climb a mountain of snow, but I never imagined it’d be this hard.

Letting out a huff of cold air, I kept walking forward.

If I don’t find a place to use as shelter within the next twenty minutes, I’ll collapse from hypothermia.

Growling in frustration, I walked for a bit longer until my legs started shaking like crazy. There’s no way in hell I’d make it to the top in a condition like this.

Another ten minutes passed. My arms had gone completely numb and I couldn’t cast fire magic anymore because my hands wouldn’t listen.

Taking in several deep breaths, I felt like my legs were about to give up.

“Dammit! I can’t die here! I wasn’t brought to this stupid-ass world just to die!”

Running several calculations in my head with my expanded thinking, I tried coming up with solution after solution only for every single one to end in failure.

“Grrr…Dammit!”

Those were my last words before my legs gave out and I collapsed to the ground.

There I was…stuck in the snow.

I couldn’t move my body at all.

I didn’t know if my body would respond, but I wanted to clench my fists tightly.

Why….why am I in this position?

Despite knowing why, that question remained in my head as my consciousness began to slip away.

However, out of the corner of my eye, I could’ve sworn I spotted a shadow.

Looks like somebody’s found me. I just hope…they’re friendly.

With that as my last thought, I closed my eyes and fell unconscious.

I woke up about an hour later as a strange warmth enveloped my body.

Groggily opening my eyes, I noticed I was lying on some kind of couch and I thought I heard someone humming nearby.

Slowly getting up, a strangely cute voice spoke out to me.

“You should rest up a bit more. We don’t want ya collapsing a second time would we?”

Turning my head to the voice, I found a girl standing there. She looked to be around the age of twenty and had long orange hair. She seemed to be a little taller than me and wore a cozy-looking dark blue sweater and a purple skirt that went all the way down to just above her feet.

Wanting answers, I spoke up.

“Tell me. Were you the one who brought me here?”

Cutting to the chase, I waited for her response to which she smiled kindly and nodded.

“You looked like you were gonna die out there so I brought you to the cabin I rented for my week off.”

“Cabin?”

Looking around a bit, I noticed what she said was true. We appeared to be in a fairly large wooden cabin. I could even hear the cold wind blowing outside as snow flew past the windows.

“I see. When I look at this place, it seems more like a hotel than a cabin. Is anyone else staying here?”

The woman shook her head.

“Just me I’m afraid. My friends aren’t exactly fans of the cold.”

“I…see.”

I tried to respond casually, but I was too busy being put off by how close this woman was.

For some reason, while we were talking, she’d moved closer and closer and was looking me over with a curious expression on her face.

“Uh…is something wrong?”

“Hmm…Yeah. I like what I’m seeing.’

“Excuse me?”

The woman backed up with a grin on her face.

“Yep! Looks like you really do know what you’re doing! I’m happy to see it!”

“Thank…you?”

This woman seemed to be a bit weird. Does she have a screw loose or something?

It’s probably best just to roll with it right now. I don’t want her kicking me out back into the cold after all.

Having thought that, I let out a sigh and rubbed my temples.

“Anyways, is it okay if I ask for your name?”

Not wanting to refer to this woman as her or she anymore, I figured it’d be best to ask to at least know her name.

“Oh! I guess knowing the name of your savior is important! Very well! I shall give you my name!”

“Um…I appreciate it.”

Puffing out her sizeable chest, the girl smiled while resting her arms on her hips.

“My name’s Alicia Frindred! A pleasure to make your acquaintance!”

“Uh…Nice to me you…Alicia.”

I held out my hand and she shook it without a second thought before taking a few steps back.

“Now then…mind telling me your name?”

“My name?”

Oh yeah. Come to think of it, I haven’t used my name for anything in a while. Not since that god brought me here in fact. Well, unless you count putting my name down on the adventurers guild registration form. But I don’t know if that counts.

A part of me thought about using a fake name. But seeing as Alicia helped save me, that would probably be a bit rude. So, I ended up telling her the truth.

“My name’s Axel Savoncho. But you can just call me Axel.”

“Axel huh? Nice to meetcha!”

This woman was quite the strange one.

When I saw her after waking up, I thought she was a beautiful hostess who made it far in life as a model or something. But now that she seems to have shown her real personality, she feels more like a kid in the body of a woman. That was my interpretation of her at least..

“Hmm…”

Hearing her voice, I noticed she was staring directly into my eyes.

“What is it?”

“You just started staring at that blank wall. It was kinda funny how serious you looked.”

“Uh…Sorry.”

As I scratched the back of my head, Alica turned her head to a door nearby.

“You can stay here for the night if you want. No one else but me is here so don’t worry about stuff like accidentally walking in on someone changing or something like that.”

“Weird of you to specify but okay. I’ll take you up on that offer.”

Trying to shrug off her rather weird comment, I made my way over to the door she was looking at and opened it wide.

Inside was a nice fluffy bed as well as a basket that looked to be where I could put my stuff.

Dropping my stuff in the basket, I stretched out my arms and plopped onto the bed.

“Damn. If Alicia didn’t show up when she did, I would’ve been a goner,” I muttered with a sigh of relief.

I looked up at the ceiling as I thought of Alicia.

When I first looked at her, I had almost considered adding her to my harem. However, I don’t know if I could handle someone with such a strange personality.

Deciding to think about that another day, I plopped down in bed and closed my eyes. Tomorrow I’d continue climbing up the mountain. I don’t know if I’ll find anything, but I’ve already come this far so it’d be kinda dumb to turn back now.

With that last thought crossing my mind, I drifted off into a peaceful sleep.

The next morning, Alicia looked at me curiously as I put on all my equipment.

“So you’re really gonna try and keep going?”

I nodded as I continued getting ready.

“I’ve already come this far. I’d be a coward to turn back now.”

Looking a bit concerned, Alicia tried to move on by shrugging her shoulders and giving me a warm smile.

“Well, I won’t stop you. Just know that I can’t help you from here on out. I’m not planning on traveling higher than this myself after all.”

I nodded.

“Understood. See you, Alicia.”

“Take care.”

With that final goodbye, I closed the door behind me and stepped back into the frosty mountains.

I was immediately met with a cold wind that made me miss the warmth of the fire in that cabin.

But I couldn’t go back now. If I did, I’d only be intruding on Alicia more than necessary.

Taking in a deep breath, I continued making my way up the steep mountain with a small fireball in hand to keep me warm.

Before I knew it, four more hours passed by and I saw the top of the mountain off in the distance. I just had to push a little bit farther.

Ten minutes later, I was starting to get close to the top. And after another twenty minutes, I let out a sigh of relief.

I’d finally reached the top.

From what the people near the mountain said, very few ever made it this far, and the last one to do it was the creator of magic. Talk about crazy.

Well, I say crazy, but this actually is something you can do in the game when you're following one of the heroine's routes. That is…the secret heroine's route.

One huge staple in visual novels is that they love tagging on a secret character you’ll only know about if you play the game. The sixth heroine who’s also the secret one is a girl you get introduced to on campus. Although, I can’t really say I was big fan of her.

She was constantly causing problems for the MC despite always being by his side and by the end of the game, I was sick of her. That was probably why I never beat her route in the game like the others. Instead opting to simply watch another person's playthrough of her route instead.

But leaving that be for now, I decided to search around a bit for some clues that connected this place to the map I’d found.

Sadly, while I indeed had reached the top, I still hadn't found what I was looking for. And no matter where I searched, I couldn’t see anything. It’s times like these I wish whatever I had to look for was in plain sight. But if that was the case, someone else would’ve probably found it way before me so I guess I’m just gonna have to live with it.

Scanning the area for a bit longer, I finally noticed something hiding in the snow.

As I got closer, I saw that it seemed to be some form of plating.

Wiping the snow off of it, I saw some handles attached to the plating's sides and I gripped them tightly.

It took all the strength I had to lift it up a few centimeters, but I heard a small click and lowered the strange plate back onto the ground.

Upon doing so, I heard a strange rumbling sound and turned around to find a small pillar rising out of the ground.

Moving over to the pillar, I looked at what lay on it only to find a single key that seemed frozen onto the pillar.

Confused, I created a fireball and quickly began melting the ice while being cautious as to not melt the key.

Upon completion, I took the key off the stand and looked at it curiously.

“This key…is it made of obsidian?”

Obsidian here was a bit different from my old world. Here, obsidian is made by putting steel above lava for just long enough that it basically turns into a roasted marshmallow before having to be dropped into water that was around negative eighty degrees Celsius. It’s a pretty tough process to go through.

Because of this, making obsidian has almost become a lost art that pretty much everyone tries to avoid as just being near lava is dangerous much less using it to create obsidian.

Another difference with obsidian here is that it’s a very powerful type of metal unlike where I’m from where it’s more or less just a rock made from molten lava being cooled down.

Put simply, obsidian is quite a rare material in this world. Meaning it’s highly valued and can be sold for a fairly high price in the market.

And with the addition that it can make powerful weapons, this stuff becomes even more valuable. So I find myself wondering…

“...What’s such a valuable material doing out here on the top of the largest mountain in the world? And in the form of a key no less.”

As I pondered this, I slipped the key into my bag. After that, I made my way down the mountain. I’d considered taking a stop at Alecia’s place to thank her once again but ended up deciding against it as I didn’t want to impose on her any more than I needed to.

Thankfully, coming down from the mountain was much easier than walking up so I managed to make it back to the ground a little bit after midnight.

Staying at an inn nearby, I flopped down on the bed and let out a sigh.

What a strange situation I’ve found myself in. One moment I’m just doing my day-to-day job as an adventurer and the next thing I know I’m going on a treasure hunt to find something I didn’t know a thing about. Life really is strange.

So much has been happening, and I’ve barely had any time to focus on my plans for my future harem. And it’s been quite a pain to ignore the subject. But I guess that’s just what happens when you have a full plate.

Getting up, I walked over to my bag and took out the obsidian key. Looking over it for a moment.

This key’s probably connected to the next location, was all I could come up with when looking at this key.

Slipping it into my pocket, I made my way back over to my bed and flopped down onto it once more before pulling the blanket over my body.

Not wanting to think about the long journey I had ahead of me, I closed my eyes and began dreaming about the future harem I planned to create.