Five hundred?! That’s 100% Utilization!

“SUCH NUMBERS WOULD BE WITHIN YOUR REACH IF YOU SIMPLY EMBRACED MY POWER.”

Yeah, after I [SACRIFICE] my body and let you give Ares my soul.

“Er… You were supposed to say something.” the man said, a comically uncomfortable look falling on his face.

I adjusted myself. “It’s your level, sorry. You don’t see max level fighters every day.”

“There’s no such thing as ‘max level’, but I appreciate the compliment. Also, who says I’m a fighter? I’m more of a lover.”

“...That isn’t why you stopped me is it?”

The man laughed loud enough to draw eyes from people in the alleyway before responding with a simple, “No.”

“Then why did you stop me, mister…?”

“Yugo! Sorry, I probably should’ve led with that. Anyway, I’m here to talk about you!” Before I could ask what he wanted to know, the man leaned a bit too close and whispered, “I watched your fight earlier.”

I stepped back, tension redoubling. Truthfully, I’d been tense from the moment I saw him. Someone as strong as Yugo stopping a Curse User on the street wasn’t a good sign. Who's to say he won’t just kill me for the risk Fallen Star poses? Hell, he could kill me just for looking at him funny, and I wouldn’t be strong enough to do anything about it. Even if I suddenly decided to be Fallen Star’s best friend and sacrificed everything I had, there was nothing I could do to close the gap between myself and this Yugo.

The more I thought about this being the sudden, abrupt end of my journey, the angrier I got. This couldn’t be where it ended. I hadn’t even started.

“YOU’RE NOT BLOODY ENOUGH.”

Fallen Star’s words echoed in my mind as I awaited Yugo’s next words.

I stepped back from the man and placed a hand on the sword holstered at my waist, preparing to slash at the man despite my nerves. Before I could attack, though, my entire body was swallowed up by a white light. When my vision returned, I was on a rooftop standing above the very alleyway I’d been in. Yugo stood to my right, looking down at the alleyway watching as people glanced around at the spot we’d vanished from with visible confusion.

“Now we can talk freely!” Yugo said. “I had to get us out of–”

I slashed at the man’s torso, but I may as well have hit a tree with a stick. The man looked down at my sword, then at me, gave me a pitying smile, then delicately pushed the sword away.

“I had to get us out of there. If I started talking about your Curse around a bunch of civilians they might’ve raised a stink.”

“Who are you?!” I shouted. “What do you want with me!”

Yugo softened a bit, that pitying smile still plastered across his face. “I’m getting to that! Look, if I wanted to hurt you it would’ve been done by now. I’m not your enemy, uhhh…”

“Rui.”

“Rui. Trust me Rui, I have no bad intentions. I truly just wanna talk about your Curse a bit!”

I still didn’t trust him, but I relaxed a bit. The only people in my life I’d ever met who were as strong as Yugo were the leaders of the Fallen Star Cult. The Horsemen. This was the level of strength I needed to reach if I wanted a shot at killing them, and now that my head was level I had an idea where this conversation was going. And if I was right…

“Fine,” I said, sheathing my sword and chinning at Yugo. “You wanted to know about my Curse, right? What did you want to know about it?”

Yugo smiled more earnestly, sitting cross-legged on the rooftop as he began to speak. “I want to know how you managed to get so good at controlling it. Curses are usually the Rogues people like the Galeroses end up having to kill because of how wild they are. For you to not only be Contracted to one but to be able to wield that Curse is beyond impressive! Do you know how common it is for people to become slaves to their Contracted Curses?”

“I’ve been told.”

“Well, did you know that the same can happen to Myth Users? It’s quite common for Myth Users above Level 100, actually! People don’t normally reach the heights that people like the Galerose higher-ups and myself have.”

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

“There a reason you’re telling me this?”

Yugo turned to me, his face conspiratorial. “I’m saying you could surpass all of us if you use that Curse of yours well enough.”

”No,” I said immediately. “My power is my own, and I want to grow that. I’ve been looking for ways to get rid of Fallen Star, not embrace it.”

“And how well has that been going?”

I flinched, though I did my best not to show it. My pride wouldn’t let me admit that the answer to that question was nowhere.

“...Once I prove to Fallen Star that I don’t need it, it’ll go away,” I finally answered. It sounded weaker out loud than it did in my head. Like I was trying to convince myself that would work.

“That can work, but I’m gonna go out on a… uh,” Yugo turned away from me, scratching his neck. “I’m gonna guess that Fallen Star isn’t your bosom buddy or anything.”

“No, he isn’t.”

“Alright, so convincing it to leave won’t work. That leaves one last option: Defeat it in battle!”

I gave him an incredulous look. “That’s it? That’s how I get rid of Fallen Star? Beat it up?”

Yugo stood to his full height. “Yup! That’s it!”

I stood there, dumbfounded. Surely there was some sort of catch? I’d verbally gone back and forth with Fallen Star more times than I could count, but the thought of fighting it had never once occurred to me. Well, that was a bit of a lie. I’d thought about killing it many times, but it’d existed in my mind as a fantasy, not a possibility.

You have a habit of overlooking the obvious, Fallen Star.

I tensed at the recollection of Ares’ words. Yugo stepped towards me as I found myself lost in thoughts I’d pushed to the very depths of my mind. Once again, Yugo stood a few feet away from me. His expression softened as he looked at me for some reason, only for it to be replaced by the familiar look of mischief mixed with determination.

“It’s called the ‘Contract Termination Ritual’. To start it, you need to enter your Mindspace and let your Contracted Rogue know you aren’t fond of it anymore! They say things, you say things back, and eventually, you two get into a fight! If your Myth is a Fairy or a Kappa or something, it’s a cakewalk. Now if you're Contracted to a powerhouse like Kirin or Typhon or,” He looked me up and down. “A terrifying Curse with a seemingly endless pool of Cursed Aura… you’re gonna have a bad time. That is unless you’re strong enough to hold your own!”

With that, my suspicions were confirmed. It made sense why this max level Myth User was going out of his way to speak to me. Averyl had warned me that something like this would happen, and she’d told me to go to her the moment it did so she could vet whoever tried this.

“So that’s what you want. You’re trying to recruit me for something.”

“See! And they all said you were dumb!”

“Who’s they?”

He never answered. Instead. Yugo gave me the sales pitch for his Rogue Hunting team known as the “Seekers”. According to him, high-level Rogues were popping up in all three regions of Minashire and Yugo wanted to make a team capable of taking them all down with him. When I asked why they weren’t here fighting the Jikininki, he’d said that this was a Galerose Family issue and that they weren’t needed. Another thing he mentioned was that he already had two members of the Seekers that were around my age, so I “wouldn’t have to worry about being lonely”.

As he spoke, one thing became clear: we both needed each other. Yugo needed trainable allies while I needed enough strength to get rid of Fallen Star and the Horsemen. I had my reservations about Yugo as a person, but if he could get me to Level 500 – because Max Level didn’t exist according to him – then I’d be more than capable of getting rid of them all. I’d asked about the paradox associated with that, as I’d need to use Fallen Star’s power to get strong enough to remove it. Yugo didn’t try to answer that question for me – instead saying that it was something only I could answer in time. Still, he seemed confident that I’d not only be able to answer it but that I’d be at Level 500 before the end of the year if I joined him. Surely he was just trying to sell the idea of joining the Seekers to me, though. There was no way I’d–

Sirens blared from the south side of Miyafokuu where I’d been fighting the Jikininki. In the alleyway below, people filed away deeper into the city away from the sirens as Galerose soldiers began to lead people away from the Rogues destroying the south side of the city.

“Seems those Jikininki don’t like getting killed for profit,” Yugo mused. He stood at the edge of the rooftop, preparing to jump down to the alleyway below. “Guess that means we’re up.”

“We?”

“I eavesdropped on your conversation with Averyl! Well, only bits of it. Those illusions of hers are a challenge to navigate! She wasn’t very happy with me trying to listen in. Anyway, there’s a healthy amount of those Jiki-whatever things piling up back there. If they’re worth $2k, you could easily end the day with five figures! You can’t afford to not go!”

I put my hand in my pocket, revealing Averyl’s referral to Dr. Morgan. “Won’t be making anything with one arm.”

“Oh, yeah. I meant to do that earlier. Come here!” Yugo said, beckoning to me like a child with a secret.

I approached him with caution rather than curiosity, only to be left in awe at what he did. Yugo reached out to the space where my missing arm was as a bright light similar to the one I’d seen when he zapped us to the top of the roof enveloped my stump. I felt bone reconstruct, muscles form, and skin return. It felt disgusting, but the discomfort was nothing in place of a new arm. After looking through my Skill Codex, I was surprised to find that [FIRE MANIPULATION] was still there, though I could feel that it was going to vanish within the hour.

“Thank you!” I said honestly, making no effort to hide my gratitude.

“Don’t mention it. I take care of my recruits!”