“Jayce, are you feeling alright? You look pretty pale.”

Jayce turned to Lucas who was sitting beside him and flashed the boy a weak smile.

“I’m fine.”

When he had entered the bathhouse, he coincidentally ran into Lucas. This was a stroke of luck, but it also prevented him from running away when he saw the cleaner shrimps. By talking to Marin’s younger brother, Jayce learned about the cleaner shrimps and why the blue-furred race favored bathhouses over personal baths. Of course, he didn’t only talk about bathing. Now that he wasn’t being scrutinized under Marin’s protective glare, Jayce was able to ask a lot more questions about the village.

“In Snowdrift, the strongest person is the village head. Dad said he opened the third gate over ten years ago. There are only three villagers who’ve opened the third gate, and the other two are close friends of the head.”

‘At least one of those three will likely be leading the expedition today.’ Jayce thought. At the same time, he felt it was strange. Mize had told him there were nine gates, not counting the nebulous supreme beings, but the strongest people here had only reached the third gate as old men. This village wasn’t large, but Jayce estimated it had over 1,000 people. He wondered if opening gates was really that difficult. It sounded like someone would have to be a rare genius just to reach the fourth gate before their life expired.

“Generally, how long does it take your people to open each gate?”

“Uh, about six months to open the first gate is a good pace. Three to five years for the second gate, or possibly even longer. The three elders who opened the third gate did it in their fifties, but most people give up before that.”

Jayce blinked slowly. From his experience, it was possible to open the first gate in less than a month.

“How do you level up?”

“By training. In the early morning and late afternoon, people in the village gather to train and spar with each other. It’s fun, and a lot of people come because raising your life order makes you healthier and live longer.”

“…”

Jayce never expected that the path to godhood would be treated like a fitness routine. Though, it did explain why they leveled up so slowly.

“Why don’t you fight monsters?”

“Fighting them means risking our lives.” Raising two fingers, Lucas started speaking in a dull tone. It sounded like he was repeating a lecture from his parents. “If villagers kept fighting monsters, Snowdrift would shrink until it eventually disappeared. There are only two places to find monsters around here. The first is the Frozen Expanse, which is very dangerous. The second is the wilderness around our village, which is extremely dangerous.”

“The wilderness is more dangerous than a dungeon?”

“In the wilderness, there are exiles from the jotun kingdom who form bandit groups. Everyone says they’re the most dangerous thing in this area.”

“Jotun, hmm?”

Naturally, the topic of how Marin had accidentally bought Jayce came up while he was eating with her family. There were too many things that Jayce wanted to learn about, and so he hadn’t asked much about the jotun race at that time. Jayce got a basic description of the four-armed giants from Lucas, but the boy didn’t know much. Aside from their physical appearance, he only mentioned that male jotun were extremely aggressive and should be avoided.

“Heh, you think we’re pretty lame, right?” Lucas asked while striking the air above the bath water with a steady fist. “That we’re too afraid of monsters? Actually, there have always been people who sneak into the dungeon to hunt. The successful ones level up quickly and end up leaving the village. When I come of age, I’m going to make Marin take me into the dungeon. Then, I’ll leave too and conquer the world with my fists!”

“Marin hunts in the dungeon?”

Lucas’s excited expression faded and there was a noticeable pause before he replied, “She used to.”

“With other people?” Jayce had no idea why he was prying this much, but he would be lying if he said he wasn’t curious.

“No, never.” Lucas answered confidently. “Most people sneak in as a group, but Marin’s always hunted alone. She’s super strong, though. She killed several dungeon monsters just a few days after her baptism. Some of them were over level 20.”

“What the hell? She killed monsters at the first gate when she was only sixteen? Then shouldn’t she be close to the third gate by now?”

Lucas shook his head. “She’s only opened the first gate.”

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Sighing, Jayce decided to leave it at that. This really wasn’t his business.

Bathing like this was strangely comfortable, but Jayce felt like he’d lose something important if he admitted it. After saying goodbye to Lucas, Jayce stood up to leave. Most of the cleaner shrimp had started to ignore him, since they felt he had lost his value as a meal, but one clung stubbornly to his shoulder. Jayce tried to brush it off, but it wouldn’t come loose. Noticing this, one of the workers who was idling called out to him.

“Hey, black-haired stranger, use more force. That little dude’s already dead.”

If it was anyone else, the worker might have pried the shrimp off himself, but everyone was a bit wary of Jayce. Still, most of them assumed Jayce was a mutant from their race, so they didn’t treat him badly. While walking through the streets, Jayce had even noticed people glancing at him with undisguised pity—the way one might look at a man in a wheelchair.

“Already dead?” Jayce felt his skin crawl. Suddenly, his eyes lit up. “Would you mind if I kept the body?”

“Go ahead, I guess. A word of advice, those things might look tasty, but they are not good eating.”

‘Never once did I think they looked tasty.’ Jayce retorted inwardly before thanking the man, collecting his clothes, and leaving.

Hiding the tiny shrimp in his hands, Jayce wandered through the village streets until he found a secluded alley. Since he just happened to get his hands on a dead monster, Jayce decided to take this opportunity to use Soul-Guided Forging.

The shrimp’s life order and level were both pitifully low, so Jayce barely had to use any mental energy to make its soul submit. With the soul wrapped in his mental energy, Jayce once again felt that compelling feeling of inspiration. Surrendering himself, Jayce tried to carefully observe everything that his body did under the system’s control.

When he came to, Jayce sighed in frustration. Even though he was mentally prepared this time, his memories just wouldn’t stick. Jayce realized that, without a teacher, he might need to use this skill hundreds or even thousands of times before he could replicate every step of the forging process while conscious.

‘Well, with a dungeon full of monsters, I guess that isn’t impossible…’

Shaking his head, Jayce looked at his newest abomination. The shrimp in his hands had vanished and in its place was a tiny white crustacean’s claw.

Cleansing Charm (Shoddy)

Energy Requirement: Below First Gate

A charm whose creation was inspired by a cleaner shrimp’s lingering desire to cleanse the world of filth. Activating it will provide a not-so-powerful cleansing effect to the target of your choice.

Note: As a shoddy product, this charm will break upon use.

It was another one-use charm and its effects seemed even weaker than the last one. Jayce idly wondered if he could sell these charms if he branded them as handicraft products and not artifacts.

“If I threaded a string through it, it might make a nice…” Jayce trailed off as he looked up.

The sun had already left the horizon and established itself in the sky. Jayce had spent a while in the bathhouse grilling Lucas, but there had still been plenty of time before the expedition. Now, it seemed like he was either late or nearly late.

Jayce slapped his forehead and cursed his own stupidity. Because of his lost memories, he didn’t know how long it took to use Soul-Guided Forging. Back at Stout and Lyra’s house, he had assumed the process only lasted a few minutes. In reality, it seemed that forging even a small artifact from scratch took at least half an hour.

After running back to the main square to get his bearings, he rushed towards the highest hill in the relatively flat village.

Standing atop that hill was the village chief’s estate and behind it was a pathway that led further underground. The fact that the village contained a natural cave connecting to the Frozen Expanse was clearly not a coincidence. As a stopover point for travelers heading to the dangerous Life Stealing Pass, it was natural to think that visitors might want to spend some time in the region’s main dungeon. Even for the villagers, a place where one could get stronger quickly was an enticing thing, despite the risk.

The natural tunnel had been heavily remodeled with metal supports, solid flooring, and glow stones. As Jayce jogged into it, he heard sounds of an argument bouncing off the cave walls. The tunnel opened into a wide room whose centerpiece was a large mechanically driven steel door that clearly led to the dungeon. There were two groups standing before that door.

The first was a mix of teens and adults of the blue-furred race, along with one notable exception. Jayce had never heard of any sentient non-humanoid races—aside from Quint’s sphynx—but there was a giant insect who was clearly mixed in with the younger blue-furred people. Before he could get a better look at the creature, a loud rebuttal came from the second party in the room.

“How dare you treat us like extortionists! We’re doing you weaklings a favor.”

“The village is perfectly capable of handling its own matters. I don’t even want to let your people in here and you have the gall to ask to be paid?”

Standing opposite the villagers was a group of jotun. Jayce had never seen these people before, but he knew of them. It could be said that he owed these people his life. Though, they hadn’t saved him on purpose, so Jayce mostly just felt wary towards them. Since they were able to travel through the wilderness, risking attacks from monsters and bandits, they had to be strong.

There were six jotun in the group and each was around three meters tall with two legs and four muscular arms. Two were males with rust red hair and glowing red veins. The other four were amazoness-like women with frosty blue hair and glowing blue veins. Interestingly, out of all the races he’d seen, these jotun wore the most modern-looking clothes. Their clothes were form-fitting while being soft and warm on the inside and sleek like fish scales on the outside. Overall, it looked like they were wearing skiing gear. Their jackets and pants even had a variety of zippered pockets. One particularly tall woman with a crew cut was clearly the group’s leader and she was the one arguing with an elder from the village.

The two leaders turned when they noticed Jayce enter the cave. The others followed their gaze, leading to them also staring curiously at the newcomer. Feeling stifled under their scrutiny, Jayce forced a welcoming smile and walked towards the village elder. The elder’s wary gaze relaxed when he recognized Jayce from Stout’s description.

What worried Jayce was the jotun who were looking at him with undisguised interest. The two males watched him like dogs eyeing a new chew toy, which wasn’t a pleasant experience. Even so, Jayce was more alarmed by their leader’s calculating gaze. In the instant their eyes met, Jayce had a strong premonition that this woman was not to be trusted.