Ten seconds had passed since Rimel opened the book's cover. When she came to, she was panting heavily.
"Tell me, little one, what is your skill? Tell me everything you see!"
"Okay, Big Bro Max, I'm telling you!"
Purify – Tier 1
– Clears one negative effect from sinners under the influence of the Fallen; the target gains immunity to all crowd control effects for the next ten seconds.
– Against Fallen of a higher level than the user, the success rate drops by 10% per level.
– Tier Two Requirement – Perform 10,000 successful purifications.
With her flushed cheeks pulling apart due to her massive smile from excitement, the young girl explained the attributes of her new skill one by one.
She wasn't the only one happy about this. After what I heard, I had to try hard not to throw myself into the Hood Zone and dance like a maniac.
"This is a really useful skill! It will allow one more of us, besides the person with immunity to the zone, to attack!"
Even if Sukrucuk didn't fully understand what was going on, he figured out from my words that things were going well. There were four zones in the village we were in, and we were together as the three people with immunities to three of them.
"Now, Sukrucuk, I'm sending you a party invite. Do you accept?"
I had been thinking about this for a long time. The party menu hadn't appeared yet, so even though I didn't know how it would work, I decided to try it this way.
"Brother Max, a text and two options just popped up in front of me, what do I do now!"
"Calm down, Big Bro, read me what it says!"
The deduction I made based on my experience was correct. I guess what appeared in front of our fierce tough guy was the party invite.
"The Sinner named Max has invited you to join a party!"
"Yes / No"
"Say yes, Big Bro!"
The request had reached Sukrucuk, he just needed to accept it.
"Yes!"
Along with his answer, a new menu opened up in front of me. This was the place where I would adjust the party settings. It was as if the options were carefully designed to awaken the devil entirely within a person because of Hell.
Loot Distribution Random / Leader Experience
Distribution Shared / Damage Proportional
Kick Sinner from Party
Disband Party
It was simple but confusing for the leader. Luckily, I was here; we would proceed by setting the loot to leader and experience to shared.
"Come on, let's go get our final member in this village!"
I was sure the sluggish bastard was waiting for us where I left him, but my teammates were hesitant about this.
"Who is this friend, Max!"
"Someone like us, he has an immunity to a zone too!"
I guess Sukrucuk was normally a somewhat cautious guy; to be fair, he had even been tense with me at first because of this.
"There are four zones around us, and there are a total of four people here, like us, who fell to The First Layer of Hell with their last sin. As a team, we first need to kill the Fallen around here, then it seems we'll need to go explore other places from here!"
These were my thoughts. First, we'd form the core team and grind for levels, then after we were done with the mobs around here, we would branch out to new places. But there was something I had forgotten.
"Rimel, you picked up something else from the ground besides the book and the money. What is it?"
That's right, going back and forth and forming the party completely slipped my mind. I hope a useful item dropped.
"Are you talking about this, Big Bro? Is this something you can even use?"
The moment the young girl finished her sentence, she let out a scream. Before I could even say 'what's going on, sweetie?', I found her crying again.
"Girl, what happened again? Don't always let yourself go!"
Sukrucuk was surprised too. We both waited together for the flood of emotions to end.
"Big Bro Max, the name of this stick is Magic Wand!"
When she finally came to, she told us the name of the straight, somewhat shapeless wooden object in her hand. This girl was a crybaby and a coward, but it seemed her luck was good.
"Little sis, can you tell me the attributes of what's in your hand, and then check your stats to see if anything has changed?"
She had literally dropped a weapon on her first mob. My only wish was for this luck of hers to spread to the whole party.
Magic Wand Level - 0
Attack Power: +1
Magic Points: +1
As an item dropped in the beginner village, it was pretty good. Looking at the current situation, it would provide a ten percent increase in the girl's most important stats.
"Big Bro Max, the parts that say Attack and Magic Points have become 11, there's no change in the rest!"
Rimel, examining the information from the screen that appeared in front of her eyes, was answering my question at the same time.
"Ahhhh! It says Purify in the Skill section, I'm so happy, so happy!"
The young girl was trying to dance with weird arm gestures on one hand and wiping her slightly watering eyes on the other. The alarm had been sounded. I couldn't handle another round of crying, so I immediately tried to change the subject.
"Come on, come on, let's go find our other friend!"
I had changed the mood of the environment and got us walking toward the Hardware Store Zone. Just when I said everything was going to be peaceful and easy, was I going to be a victim of my own jinxing?
Suddenly, the people around us started falling to the ground as if they were marionettes with cut strings. A few seconds later, when they began to vanish, I understood what was going on.
The given deadline had expired. After a one-day period, these people had set off to suffer their punishment. Following this event, my steps would quicken even more, because our Toraman was most likely among this group.
When I arrived at the place where I left him, there was no one there. He had left behind neither a trace nor his scent. For a moment, I felt the strength leave my knees. I couldn't stand against this cruel world anymore. I fell, yes, I fell.
Even if I was just on my knees, inside, in a much deeper place, I was still falling. If I had known losing someone left behind would hurt me this much, I would have hugged him, I wouldn't have let him leave my side for even a single step.
Of course, I didn't get that upset, or did you think my sarcastic thoughts just now were real?
If the sluggish tin can had listened to me, he would be wandering around with us right now, and if he had given me a bit more of a hard time, it would be this poor girl suffering instead of him. Serves him right. I hope eight hours of intensive care brings him to his senses, or else we'd be looking for another way to fend for ourselves.
"Wow, look who's here, my blood brother is here!"
While I was trolling myself, a voice echoing from afar rang out where we stood. Toraman, holding a hand-sized book, was coming right at me.
He had saved his own skin, but how? As soon as he reached us with his crazy calf running style, this was the first thing I asked him.
"Honestly, I didn't believe you, but a voice inside me kept saying, 'what if he's telling the truth?' Just in case, I went right up to the edge of the shield and sat down. I locked onto one of them and started waiting!"
While explaining the events with hand and arm gestures, the king of the sluggish bastards was practically reliving those moments.
"I heard a 'smack' sound behind me. I turned around, and people were falling over like chopped trees. At that moment, I said to myself, 'boy, run.' I landed a punch on the Thinner Sniffer I had marked earlier, and the guy was dead. As he vanished, a few coins and this book appeared in his place!"
Now, whether he arrived in Hell a bit late or hit the mob in the nick of time, I couldn't figure out, but the bottom line was Toraman had saved the day. Following that, he told us how he passed out, the words of the shapeless light, and his return.
"Do you believe me now?"
When I asked the question, I emphasized it in such a way, it was as if I was saying, "what happened now, tough guy?"