Stories were something Gin had become familiar with over the past month.
Prompted by his newfound interest in literature and reinforced by Ais's demand for bedtime entertainment, he had read plenty of stories from different genres.
Be it legends of past heroes, folktales from surrounding countries, or even graphic romance novels, he was pretty receptive to all of them.
The thing he learned from the countless stories he'd read was that the protagonist of a story will always be suitable for the genre they were in.
Of course they would be
The world in the story was made for them. It wouldn't be a mistake to say that the world in the story revolved around the protagonist.
The protagonist's existence could sometimes even influence the genre of the story they were in.
For example, if Argonaut's personality and actions weren't those of a clown, his story would be considered an epic rather than a comedy.
"People are the protagonists of their own lives."
That was a quote he remembered reading from a book filled with self-help nonsense.
If that statement was true, then he was also the protagonist of his own story.
If he was the protagonist, then what would his story be about? He had wondered about that before.
Would it be an epic about a modest hunter who becomes a hero, or perhaps a romance about a mortal stealing the heart of a goddess?
Well, his past self had been wrong.
If his life was a story where he was the protagonist...
Then it would be a tragedy!
...
"Why do people keep making mistakes?" Gin whispered listlessly.
"We do things that hurt ourselves fully knowing the consequences. Regretting it as soon as the dust settles, we curse and blame the past. What idiocy." He sighed in self-derision.
Ah, he felt a haiku coming on!
"The black dragon falls / The wind whispers quietly / Unending regret."
"Stop being so melodramatic, you fool."
Gin looked up from the pillow he had submerged his face in.
Riveria's scolding look entered his view.
"I know defeating such a strong enemy and gaining nothing in return is upsetting. The fact that you showed such a powerful skill to people outside of your familia is not helping either, but it has been a week since then."
Hah… it had been a week? Time really flew by when you questioned the meaning of your existence.
Life was not fair.
This lesson had been beaten into his mind as soon as he became free from Niflheim's effects.
Both he and Ais had been affected by it, but the two of them received completely different results.
Ais had leveled up.
She happily informed him as soon as her status update was done.
Loki was really proud of her too, since Ais had actually broken the record for the quickest level up.
He knew that all of Orario was talking about it.
An eight-year-old girl rising to Level 2 in a single year. That was bound to make headlines.
If that wasn't enough, she had awakened a new skill as well.
Ais herself had shown him her status after getting permission from the executives.
Ais Wallenstein
Level 2
Str I 0
End I 0
Dex I 0
Agi I 0
Mag I 0
Magic: Ariel
Skill: Avenger, Vorpal Alice
Her first skill was the cause of her monstrous power despite only being a Level 1.
It reinforced her status when facing monsters, and edgily enough, it powered up the more she hated the enemies.
Her new skill… It affected both her and her weapon.
Vorpal Alice was a unique skill that imbued her sword with anti-dragon properties along with reinforcing Ais herself.
Not only that, the longer she used the same sword, the stronger the strengthening effect would be.
She leveled up and got a potentially broken skill!
Ais had received the best possible result.
Then how about him?
Let's begin with the positives.
His Agility had increased as a result of blitzing through the city and the dungeon—from Agi G 210 to G 238, to be precise.
Other than that?
Str: None.
He didn't move a muscle to defeat any enemies. Riveria and Ais did all of that.
End: None. He didn't get hit at all.
Dex: None. He didn't even take out his knives.
Mag: None. Niflheim wasn't magic.
It was the bane of his existence!
Level up? No.
He did next to nothing other than sacrifice his soul to that stupid skill.
Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch.
He ain't got squat.
No, scratch that. He lost a lot of things. It wasn't a zero. It was a minus.
He lost his dignity as a human being, for starters.
Using that skill in front of Ais and Riveria was a mistake.
He had never imagined that Niflheim would run wild when used on others!
Not only that…
"Ohhh~ Gin~!"
The singsong voice of the devil echoed outside his room.
Not a moment later, the noise of his door being knocked mockingly entered his ears.
"Do you want to level up now~? There's lots of monsters there~ You never go out anymore~ You stay indoors~ Brooding like a bitch~"
Her singing pierced his ears!
'How many times does this make!? That damn trickster!' His kokoro couldn't take this shit anymore!
"Is that Loki?" Riveria asked from outside of his blanket. The only answer Gin could muster was a sorrowful wail.
"You can go to the dungeon~ With Ais too~ Just go out and strike some pose~ Do you want to level up now?~ You might even level up now~"
Gin had had enough.
Time to destroy her with facts and logic.
"At least Ais likes me more than you!"
"…"
Did that get her?
"Nyr Nibelung~"
"YAMEROOOO!" He got destroyed instead. He couldn't take this anymore!
"Help me! Hel-sama!" he cried out.
"Wha-!? Oi Gin, that's playing dirty, you bastard!" Judging by how panicked Loki's voice sounded, his goddess really had come.
"Ei."
"Gaaggh! My eye~!" Her painful cry was music to his ears.
A moment later, he heard the door open and small, familiar footsteps drew closer.
Gin quietly peeked from the safety of his blanket and found his goddess standing beside his bed.
"Goddess Hel." Riveria bowed to her. "I apologize for Loki's demeanor. I will not let her bother Gin again."
"Umu, I shall leave it to you, Queen of Nine Mystics." Hel nodded. "You have done enough. Please leave my champion to me."
"Of course. Gin, I will expect your presence at our next study session. Do not be late." Riveria gave him a single pat on the head through the blanket and left the room.
Now only he and Hel were left.
"Thank you for your assistance, My Goddess." Gin got out from under the blanket and sat up properly on the edge of the bed.
Hel quietly occupied the spot beside him. "Loki has been bothering me for a while now. I am at a loss on how to handle her."
"Umu, that menace is not something a single mortal could triumph over on his own. Be not ashamed of your decision to lean on my support, my champion," Hel replied sagely. "The blinding might of my fingers shall make way for darkness to strike her once more if you ever need it."
Ah, so his goddess did an eye-poke attack on Loki. She was merciless as usual.
"My champion, I have held myself back from inquiring about a certain matter, but I believe this is the right time to ask you of it."
"A certain matter?"
"Umu, I felt a familiar divinity at work during the trial you underwent a week ago."
A familiar divinity? His mind quickly turned to that creepy Evilus god back in the dungeon.
"I see that you have an inkling as to what I speak of."
"Uh, yeah. One week ago, back in the dungeon, there was this evil god that tried to recruit Ais. I don't know who he is, but he did mention your name, My Goddess."
"…I see." Hel adopted an introspective look.
"Do you have an idea as to who he is, My Goddess?"
"…Umu," Hel nodded. "I did not fraternize with a lot of others back in heaven. His divinity is not dissimilar to mine, my champion. For he is one who rules upon the same aspect as myself."
"A god of death?" Gin instinctively refused to accept the fact that the creep was one of his goddess's associates.
"Most likely. Gods that reign over the circle of reincarnation are not plenty. Those who would speak of my name, even less so," Hel said. "Tell me, my champion, do you have a word that would help to paint his image?"
He wanted to crush the bastard's image by tattling on his preference for big boobs, but decided against it.
"He uses fancy words when he solicits Ais, but after she refuses to follow him he turns kind of… lazy, like he couldn't care less. Feels like the latter is his actual personality," Gin recounted.
"Umu, then it is him." Hel sounded disappointed. "It is a hard reality to find one of my ilk making a poor choice in this war, but it is of no matter."
Hel turned to him. "My champion, the god you met is Thanatos. He is a god that worked alongside me in heaven."
"I see." Hel knew of him.
No, by her choice of words, Thanatos might be someone she saw as a friend.
She might even respect him for all he knew.
How should he deal with him then? He knew what his preferred method was—a method involving honey, milk, and two boats—but he was Hel's champion.
His feelings on the matter came second to her decision.
"Then what is your order, My Goddess?" Gin asked her.
"Devour him," she answered simply.
He could feel cold anger radiating from her.
"To stand against you is not an action I will tolerate. I have no mercy to give toward fools who bare their fangs against our familia."
Hel stood up and turned to him. "Thus, I shall hand you a decree, my champion."
Gin immediately got off the bed and knelt in front of her, patiently waiting for her next words.
"Grow stronger. More than the Little Tempest. More than the Fae Queen. More than the Pallum Hero. More than the Vanadis Boar. The time of waiting has ended. Hasten your stride and reach for your next awakening, my champion."
Next awakening.
In other words, a level up.
Hel ordered it like it was an easy thing to do. It was not. Half of Orario's adventurers were Level 1.
It wasn't a guarantee that one would level up just by continuing to adventure.
Leveling up wasn't something he could do just because someone ordered him to… But it couldn't be helped.
Answering her trust in him was in his job description anyway.
"By your divine will, My Goddess." Gin placed a hand over his heart.
Damn, how could he feel so cool just by kneeling and saying words like this?
"Umu. I shall eagerly wait for your evolution, my champion," Hel said. "Rest assured, I have a number of designations at the ready for the occasion."
Ah, right. Level up -> New Alias -> Brand new mental burden!
"…Please take it easy, My Goddess."
...
"You want to level up?" Riveria narrowed her eyes.
The two of them were sitting across from each other, sipping tea in a gazebo in the manor's courtyard.
"Truthfully speaking, it is too soon for you, Gin."
"I know, Teach. I know. I don't mean right now or in the near future," Gin clarified defensively. "It's more like a resolution. I am not in any rush to accomplish it or anything. I just want to act while keeping that goal in mind."
"That is well. I do not need you to run off and imitate Ais's recklessness."
He rolled his eyes at that.
Imitating Ais? Not in a gazillion years!
No responsible adult would do anything remotely like that.
"Give me some credit, Teach. I am not that smart, but I am not that stupid."
"That is true." He pressed his lips together at her amused chuckle. "Then let's talk about it. You are aware of the conditions for a level up, I assume?"
"Having at least a D in one of my stats and accomplishing a feat that will impress the gods," Gin replied. At this point, these were no more than common knowledge to him.
"I already got the first one done, the problem is the latter one."
"The 'great feat' is as vague as they come. Even accomplishing the same feat as someone who already leveled up is not a guarantee," she went on, leveling a stern look at him. "I will warn you that trying to fight an opponent who outclasses you by a mile is no different than suicide. You need to assess your opponent's strength along with your own."
"Basically, the thing I need is a hard challenge which is still just right for my current abilities, right?"
"Correct." She nodded. "You will certainly level up if you manage to defeat the Goliath with your bare hands, but trying to do so will assuredly leave you very much dead."
"With that being said, do you have a plan of action at the ready?" she asked.
"I am not sure about the feat that I need to accomplish, so the only thing I can do right now is pretty much get as strong as I possibly can," Gin answered. "The one method at the top of my head is mastering concurrent chanting."
Concurrent chanting.
It was an advanced technique for mages.
Normally, people couldn't move in any way when chanting magic. Once they started their chant, mages were pretty much sitting ducks.
That was not the case for people who mastered concurrent chanting.
Mastering concurrent chanting meant being able to chant even when on the move.
The day he could use concurrent chanting was the day he graduated from being his enemies' punching bag when using Ginnungagap.
"Good. It is a feasible enough goal for you, and the technique will serve you even far into the future," Riveria approved.
"Very well. We will focus on learning it from our next session onward."
"About that, Teach, can we add extra lessons for that?" Gin scratched his head. "I am not in any rush, but it's better to learn something as useful as that as soon as possible, right?"
"Hmm… I don't mind personally, but there will be instances where I am not available to teach you." She thought for a while. "Gin, you are well-acquainted with the members of the Astraea Familia, correct?"
"Kind of," Gin shrugged.
"Very well. In case I am not available, I will enlist one of my elf sisters to help you out."
Elf sister? Riveria didn't have sisters, obviously.
Elves just had this habit of calling their fellow elves their brothers and sisters.
But a female elf in the Astraea Familia?
Yep. He knew the person.
Somewhere in Orario, Gin knew that Ryuu Lion was probably getting the worst shiver of her life!