Author’s corner: HELLO HELLO! A simple chapter just to enjoy! And a bit of nostalgia too!

ANYWAY, A fairly short 3.6k words chapter with a bit of reminiscing from the olden days, where Insania wasn’t as insane as today? (Or was it?) not much, though…

ALSO, for some reason I was sure that I had Evelyn tell Gon to come back at level 30, but well, she never did. So, I decided to put the blame into Gon for thinking so! This way the story does makes sense! Hooray! Totally not my fault!

Have a good read!

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“So, do we go for my teacher or yours?” I asked Yuu when we separated from the others. Yuu blinked surprised before making a pensive pose.

“Shishou’s might be better.” She told me after some time. I was confused for some time, so I stared at her, she gave a small smile and said in a slightly awkward tone. “I don’t think that my sensei will be at home right now.” I nodded at her words.

Taking a quick look at the in-game time, I saw that it was around early afternoon in here. Thinking of the distance and our speed with the skill we had, I thought that it would take us around twelve hours to go back and forth to Evelyn’s house in the middle of nowhere.

This would mean that we would be back by the middle of the night. Would she be able to meet her sensei like that? While harboring such a doubt, another thought passed through my mind.

He’s sensei, I’m shishou. I’m more important.

Grinning to myself for absolutely no reason, I nodded satisfied and turned towards the edge of the city. Yuu blinked surprised for a moment before blinking and nodding to herself. Aura and Lieutenant already understood my idea so simply followed us, while for Crys and Rio, this didn’t make much of a difference.

Accessing my inventory and quickly taking out one of the five special phials I had stored in there. After looking down and making sure that this was the correct side, I took some distance and jumped, the others quickly following me suit.

What? Jumping is the fastest way down!

When I calculated that we were only a few seconds away from being splattered to death, I threw down the phial so that it crashed on the ground and expanded into a thick foam that softened our fall.

I wonder if Yami would fall for this gag if did this with her… But then, she might have witnessed it when I did it for the first time, so she probably wouldn’t be surprised.

Anyway, about the phials, I had Sol teach me the recipe on how to make them, but since they required a few very rare ingredients, I didn’t manage to produce all that much of it. I also had to use some of Sol’s instruments, as the basic kit she gave me when I started training alchemy doesn’t have everything I might need.

But when I don’t feel like waiting for the elevators, they are a much better choice to rely upon.

After a few seconds, the foam scattered and dissolved, leaving us upon the untouched ground. We quickly got up and dusted off the bits of ground that stuck to our clothes, meanwhile I also waved playfully at the people on the nearby street.

Some of them stared at me for quite some time in shock, while others, those who had watched the scene twice or thrice already, simply had wry smiles or were completely indifferent. After making sure that I had filled some people daily dosage of weirdness, we all turned away from the city and started making our way towards Evelyn’s house.

As before, we had to cross the plains and the forest, but thanks to the movement skill, we crossed the whole area at  an incomparable pace to before.

However, Lieutenant did ask for a stop when we reached the boars, and after playing rodeo with one of them for some time, he finished the boar off and walked back to me with a satisfied smile in his face.

I smiled a bit awkwardly at the scene but gave him a high five once he reached us. I asked him why he did that. His response was that it is fun to tease weaker monsters.

I had no right to deny that.

After that, we quickly crossed the river and reached the forest where there were the squirrel-wolf thingies…

Seriously, I need to find these guy’s real name, I just keep ignoring them over and over. They still had a really delicious meat, though.

While passing the meat to Crys so that she could store it in her inventory, I couldn’t help but think so. Shaking my head to clear my thoughts, I too a brief look at Yuu, seeing as she waited patiently in a meditative position.

I once asked her about it and she said that it’s a routine that her grandfather taught her that allows her to calm down and focus with more ease. In-game, however, granted her both a passive as well as an active mana regen method. By now she was almost putting the skill on intermediate, as she did it mostly when I was skinning.

Nodding to myself after finishing my butcher of the last squirrel-wolf thingy, I took a peek at Crys, who was also finishing with hers. Thankfully, she also learned skinning, or else I would still be troubled on how to process more than half of my hunts.

Yuu noticed my movement and took a deep breath before opening her eyes. With a swift movement she soon put herself up and stretched a bit.

“Muu… Shishou is faster now.” She said with a light frown.

“What do you mean?” I asked confused.

“You are skinning with greater speed compared to before.”

“Isn’t that because Crys was helping me?”

“I did not mean that…” Yuu shook her head. “When you skin the animals, you take less time than when you did at the lynxes forest.”

I blinked surprised for a moment before nodding. Now that she said about it, I do seem to be finishing my job a fair bit faster than before, the ten or so bodies I skinned myself in this half hour kind of proved that.

It’s probably even faster than what a person does in real life, but I could blame a bit of system assist in this. Still, my skinning speed is a lot faster than before, and this I can’t really deny it.

Looking at the scene around me for a moment, I couldn’t help but feel that this scene was oddly familiar, so a small smile started to form on my face for a brief moment. Yuu didn’t seem to miss this, because she stared at me curious for a moment. Smiling a bit awkwardly I quickly told her what I thought.

“Doesn’t this remind you of when we met?” I said with a smirk. “The two of us, in a forest where I would stop to skin half of the enemies while you meditated.”

“Now that you say it…” She said with a surprised face. “it is just like the time I met shishou.” She said with a nod and a smile.

Seeing her tail wag cheerfully, I couldn’t help but start petting her gently. This made her close her eyes in pleasure, but it didn’t really last long, because soon enough there was a certain blue furred fox pressing her head against me slightly annoyed.

Seeing that she wouldn’t be happy until I also spoiled her a bit, so I rested my hand upon her head and started caressing her gently.

“Rio also wants petting!” The little white dragon complained while landing on the fox’s back.

Feeling a bit awkward, I took my hand off from Yuu's head and put it on the wyvern, who soon started purring cheerfully.

“I also want some petting!!” Crys said while floating in front of me with a pouting tone.

But at the same time, Yuu put on a sad face that left me speechless, so I felt a bit at loss on what to do.

“Nyaa-ny-naa!” Lieutenant approached while taking out his hat.

“Don’t even start! You never cared for it before!” I said while kicking the cat away.

He made a sequential meowing sound that I had no doubt was a snicker.

Meanwhile I had to please the four others with pettings.

…

“…Were you always this weary whenever you got here?” The succubus asked with a worried tone as she looked at me.

“I had to please four different girls at the same time when only having two hands. Do you have any idea how difficult it is?” I said while staring at her exhausted.

She simply looked at me with a slightly surprised tone while widening her eyes. It took me a moment to understand her surprise, but after some time I simply shook my head while waving my hand, telling her that it was not it.

“That sounded a lot more mature than it should, so no. You are wrong.” I said briefly while shaking my head. She smiled a bit awkwardly before nodding and inviting us in.

“So, did you get to level fifty already?” She asked me while setting a table down for us, with some tea and bread. “And I see that you got a new friend too.” She smiled at Rio, who smiled back at the succubus.

“Nah… The reason for the visit is a bit different.” I said with a sigh. “You told me to come back once I reached level thirty, so i…”

“I did?” She interrupted me surprised.

“You did… Didn’t you?” I asked confused, and she stopped to think for a moment before shaking her head.

“No. I said for you to come back on level fifty, not thirty.” She told me seriously.

There was the loud sound of something hitting something else made of wood. For those of you who are more curious, it was basically the sound of my face hitting the table with enough strength to take out ten points of my health.

Surprisingly, the table looked pretty much intact.

“I suddenly feel like a retard…” I said with my voice muffled by the table. “Oh well, I guess I can take advantage of this, anyway.” After a long sigh I twisted my head so that I would face forward. “Well, I’ll be leaving for Sandroze soon, so I guess I can say that I won’t visit so soon.” I told the succubus, who blinked surprised.

“Sandroze? What are you going to do so far away?”

“I heard there are strong monsters there!” I said with shining eyes. “And being a desert, they probably have carapaces, so I should get some good materials for armor and weapons! Maybe even make myself a plate set!”

Evelyn looked at me surprised for a moment before giggling slightly in a lovely manner. While grinning back at her, I suddenly felt as something Cold, stabby and hurty hit my feet and legs.

For some reason, Yuu’s smile started to scare me, Aura stared coldly at me and Crys had her eyes slightly closed. Gulping down in worry, I quickly cleared my throat so that I could somehow change the topic before my HP started to drop too fast.

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“So, where’s your husband? I don’t see him scowling at me…” I said while looking around.

“Logan left some time ago to make a round around the forest.” She replied with a smile. “Usual Druidic routine, talking to trees and so on.”

“…I feel obligated to add a tree-hugging joke here, but out of respect for your husband, I won’t do it.” I said in my best dead-pan face while implicitly making the joke anyway.

This time even Yuu and Crys giggled, while Aura simply shook her head. After stopping her giggling, Evelyn cleared her throat slightly while blushing, probably trying to recover a bit more of her tutor appearance.

“Well, since you’ll leave for so long, maybe I should tell you anyway.” She said after some thought. I raised my eyebrows at her but she simply smiled. “You see, you asked me about a way to remove the experience penalty, remember?”

“Oh yeah… I did, didn’t I?” I said with a nod.

“Well, I do have an idea of a skill that might do that.” She said with a long sigh. “But I can’t guarantee that it will work, just that it might.”

“You have my attention.” I said while raising my head from the table and supporting it on my hands in the classing anime villain pose.

“You see, when you defeat… Sentient beings, of level fifty or higher, there is a small chance that once you reclaim their bodies, you might receive a skill book.” She looked hesitant for a moment before nodding. “This book is a variation from the strategist skill, and it revolves around covering the weakness of a team instead of simply allowing you to create strategies on the go… A passive skill.”

“Let me guess, I’d have to hunt bandits for the skill?” I said with a heavy sigh, and she nodded. I Really didn’t feel like hunting bandits, but it seems that I might not get a chance to think better about it. “And why do you say that it MIGHT work?” I asked curious.

“Because it’s a class skill.” She said with a wry smile.

I raised an eyebrow at her confused, and when she looked surprised, it was Crys who took over explaining to me.

“Master, class skill can only be obtained hereditarily from certain classes.” She said in an explanatory tone. “It usually relates to Class trees, but sometimes are limited to individual classes.”

“So, if I don’t have the class, I can’t get it?” I asked confused, but she shook her head.

“No. Technically, you can get any skill from Insania, independent of class. However, you need to create that skill yourself. Similarly to how you created your roll and petting skill.” She explained to me, and I couldn’t help but feel impressed.

Creating skills from scratch like roll and the Petting mastery is surprisingly difficult, this is something I noticed, because in both situations, it took me a long time doing a continuous exercise to get the skill I wanted.

“You… Have a petting skill?” Evelyn asked with a face full of disbelief.

“Huuuh… Yeah?” I said a bit awkwardly.

The succubus stared at me for some time before starting to laugh loudly, I felt my smile stiffening up and a dry laugh escape from my lips, but there wasn’t much I could do to something like this. After Evelyn finally calmed down, she turned to me while telling me that she was sorry… In a surprisingly fake way, because she still snickered from time to time.

“So, what does a petting skill do?” She asked me curious.

I couldn’t help but feel surprisingly irritated at how insincere. However, I hid my annoyance behind a smile and made a signal for her to approach. Then, I put my hand on her head…

…

“What the hell is happening here?” The satyr asked as he entered the house.

“Yo Logan! Back from hugging trees?” I asked cheerfully.

“Dear! He’s being mean with me!” The succubus said with teary eyes.

“What the hell did you do with Evelyn?” He looked at me confused, because Evelyn was kneeling on the ground three meters away from me as I sat on the chair in a triumphant manner.

“I’m punishing her for mocking me.” I replied briefly while turning my gaze to the succubus on the ground. Even with teary eyes like that, I had trained myself with Yuu and Aura, so I built up a sizeable tolerance to such attacks.

“… And how did she even get that desperate?” He asked me confused.

“Well…” I rolled my eyes as I chose my words, before finally sighing and deciding to go with the truth. “I have a skill that makes people addicted to my petting for some time. So after using it once I stopped.”

“How the hell did you even get such a skill?” The satyr asked me suspiciously before turning back to Evelyn. “And for how long will she stay like that?”

“Should be over soon.” I said after some thought. “It lasts around six minutes with her.” I shrugged.

“…How many times did you use it on her?”

“This is the fourth.” I replied with a smile while seeing Evelyn looking at me with teary eyes. I smiled wickedly back at her. “Aren’t you mad with me for doing this with her?” I asked after some thought.

“Well, it’s not permanent and fairly harmless.” He said with a shrug while looking at her again. “So… Think you can teach me the skill?” He said in a slightly sneaky way.

I had to hold back myself to not start laughing loudly. During this, I noticed as Evelyn suddenly blinked and her meek appearance disappeared, overthrown by one that was a fair mix of embarrassment and anger.

She quickly scrambled up to her feet and opened her mouth to scold me, but the moment she opened it, she closed, probably due to the lack of words she could say. The scene repeated twice before she finally stopped and grimaced.

“Sorry…” She muttered.

“Apologies accepted.” I said with a smirk.

I may have gone a bit too far with the punishment, though. It would be better to keep this to myself, though.

“Well, I can’t really do that…” I told the Satyr with a slight smile. He raised an eyebrow at me and I quickly explained. “The skill is only level two, so I can’t pass it ahead.”

“I see…” The satyr nodded.

“When I increase its level I can pass you, though.” I told him with a smile. Evelyn paled at the scene and almost fell to her knees imploring for me to not do that.

After that, we enjoyed a dinner prepared by Crys and Evelyn. Logan, the satyr, spend most of his time talking with Rio, whom he looked with nothing short of admiration.

During dinner, Evelyn told me a bit more about the skill I would need to get. Firstly, the enemy I kill must be at least level fifty, and he also must have the strategist skill if I want a certified chance of getting it. However, there’s also the chance that I might get it if I kill someone affected by the strategist skill, however the chance is much lower.

Although I had hunted bandits before, all I did was capture them, together with Arcus and Elraira, so I never killed them. Becoming a bit worried, I asked Evelyn if there was anything I needed to know about killing bandits, but she shook her head.

“Bandits are treated just like monsters and animals. After reclaiming their body, you get a reward from the goddess. However, if they wield a particularly exquisite piece of equipment, there’s a chance the goddess might leave it for you.”

“…When you said they are treated just like monsters, I kind of expected that you would tell me that they revive even when killed.” I said with a wry smile.

“Well, under normal circumstances, no…” She replied to me, but her tone was serious. “But I heard that some cursed grounds might have bandits in them. Although the strongest are trapped within, the weaker can go out and hunt for their masters. These are said to revive with their memories wiped up to the point of the time they were first cursed.”

It took me a moment to understand her words. Basically, isn’t that something just like a dungeon? Thinking about it, it would make sense to say that their memories were wiped clean, as this meant that they would always keep using the same strategies and so on.

While thinking so, I couldn’t help but send a brief glance at the elemental eating cheerfully besides me. She blinked under my attention and smiled briefly before going back to eating.

Shrugging, I decided to not worry too much about it and went back into eating.

After finishing, I gave my goodbyes to Evelyn and Logan and left the house. However, instead of simply going straight back to Eldor, me and Yuu decided to log out and go enjoy our lunch in real life instead, as it was about time for it. I sent Lieutenant and Rio ahead since neither liked to stand around while I was off, then I logged out.

Waking up in my room, I felt as my senses slowly went back to my body before raising up. Stretching slightly as I sat down, I quickly jumped out of bed and made my way to my wardrobe and changed into something to use outside.

Afterwards, I went to the girl’s apartment and knocked on the door.

It didn’t take long before Yuu opened the door, wearing the same white hakama she wore earlier. She blinked surprised at me and then at what I was wearing. Finally she asked.

“Are you going to eat out, Shishou?”

“Not really.” I said with a shrug. “Did Maya prepare some food or was she playing all along?”

“We didn’t really have time…” Yuu replied wryly, and I nodded. I thought that was the case.

“Then I’m going to buy food from a restaurant nearby. They have a pre-made dish that’s fairly cheap besides being a fairly brazilianesque meal.” I said while pointing down the corridor. “I was going to buy one of those for myself, then come back to eat here. But I thought it would be a good idea to ask if you also wanted one.”

Yuu made a thinking pose for some time before nodding.

“Then I will just change into something a bit better.” She told me while making way for me. “Do you mind waiting for a bit?”

I shook my head, and she nodded briefly before darting towards her room. I sat down on the sofa while patiently waiting for her to come back.