Chapter 155: Fourth Gear War Boots Emerge, Combat Power Soars (Patreon)

As for Tooru Amuro...

He gave a soft snort.

"That guy looks like some kind of part-time-job warrior himself."

"This time he's probably out gathering intel on the side again."

Natsuka mulled it over, tracing the thread of clues a little further.

"Is he here for Chisato?"

The moment the thought surfaced, even he had to admit it sounded plausible.

Still, with Emi Yusa holding down the shop, as long as she didn't want to lose a job that came with room and board, a small ripple like that should be something she could handle herself.

Thinking about it, Natsuka suddenly found his own situation a little strange.

Why did this faintly smell like some late-night anime villain pulling strings from behind the scenes?

He arched an eyebrow and downed the last of the cola in his cup, the icy fizz sliding down his throat.

Then he stood, sauntered over to the stove, and leaned one hand on the edge, watching Emi Yusa.

"I'll leave this shop in your hands for now."

"Half the monthly net profit goes to you."

"Just don't disappoint me."

"If you actually run this place into the ground, we'll both end up starving together."

Hearing this, Emi Yusa's movements paused for a beat.

Instinctively she glanced down at the spot of oil on her apron from sneaking a bite earlier, quickly wiped it off, then straightened up at once and performed an extremely formal knight's bow — one so precise it looked etched into her very bones.

"Thank you very much, Boss, for putting your trust in me."

"Please rest assured and leave it to me."

Her voice was earnest, her expression solemn, but the feeling in her eyes was plain to see — impossible to hide.

Because she really had been moved.

These past few days, her lack of a proper identity had shut doors on her everywhere.

Many shops, seeing her unclear background, wouldn't even let her through the door.

Forget finding work — she hadn't even had a place to sleep.

For the last several days she'd huddled under an overpass at night, cold wind cutting through the tunnel, thick with dust, chilling her right down to the bone.

It was in that state of utter wretchedness that she'd spotted the sign outside this shop reading "Room and Board Included," and walked in on a whim, just to give it a try.

And then good fortune had arrived like something out of a dream.

Not only had she not been turned away, she'd been appointed manager on the spot.

Thinking of this, Emi Yusa felt her nose sting.

She rubbed her hands together, a faint, bashful flush rising on her cheeks.

"Um... I also wanted to ask, about the matter of my identity..."

The corner of Natsuka's mouth curved up, his tone easy.

"Amuro can take care of that for you."

"And even if it doesn't get sorted out right away, that's fine too."

"You can just stay at my place for now."

"I'm hardly ever home anyway. There are plenty of empty rooms."

Put plainly, that guy had connections running through both the light and dark sides of things.

At least a decent fake identity and basic paperwork, kept on the surface, weren't anything difficult for him.

Emi Yusa froze for a moment.

"Stay... at your place?"

A flash of surprise crossed her eyes, her whole body stiffening for an instant.

If Natsuka hadn't looked like such a young kid, she'd have almost suspected he had designs on her body.

As if oblivious to her private worries, Natsuka simply pulled a spare key and a bank card out of his pocket and held them out.

"Of course, where you stay is up to you."

"If you'd rather stay at the shop, I won't stop you."

"Also, I'll deposit the shop's operating funds into this card every month."

"Stocking up, cash flow, day-to-day expenses — use it however you see fit."

He said it all lightly, breezily, but underneath, the arrangements were meticulous.

As for the matter of money, Natsuka had already prepared for that in advance.

He'd have Sayu come check the books every month.

Trusting someone was one thing; rules were still rules.

Once these odds and ends of the Ordinary World were more or less settled, it was about time for Natsuka to cross back over and continue his adventures.

But before that, there was one more place he had to visit.

Right next door.

Agasa Hakase's house.

The doorbell rang twice, and soon the sound of slippers shuffling across the floor came from inside.

A moment later, the door swung open.

Agasa Hakase, most of his head bald, a great white mustache bristling on his lip, his round belly pushed forward, greeted him with a warm, enthusiastic smile.

"Oh, Natsu-kun."

"It really has been a while since I've seen you."

"Been busy with company matters lately?"

Standing in the doorway, Natsuka nodded along.

"It really has been a while."

"Is the thing I asked you to make finished?"

Agasa Hakase had quite the fondness for this generous big-boss neighbor of his, and practically pulled him inside on the spot.

"All done, all done."

"The new helmet is finished exactly to your specifications."

"And this — this is the [Leg Strength Enhancement Boots] you wanted."

Agasa Hakase led Natsuka straight through the living room and into his own lab.

On the workbench, a pair of combat boots sat quietly.

Their surface gleamed with a cold, hard metallic sheen, the lines sleek, the build heavy with presence — forged entirely from mithril and an ultra-hard metal, they didn't look like ordinary gear at all.

Their base was a high-grade white-tier piece of equipment Natsuka had provided earlier, a fine item Cecil had once forged with her skill.

Mithril had since been specially worked into it, leaving room for future enchantment and upgrades.

And by now, the boots were nothing like their original form.

Because Agasa Hakase had forcibly built in a [Leg Strength Enhancement Device] absolutely dripping with Conanology.

Natsuka's eyes lit up at the sight.

Almost unable to hold back his anticipation, he reached out, picked up the boots, and tried them on.

"How does the finished product perform?"

"Have you tested it?"

Agasa Hakase pushed up his glasses, his expression turning a little complicated.

"Per your request, I've split the output into four settings."

"Just twist this dial on the side, and you can adjust the ceiling on the leg-strength amplification."

At this, he paused, his expression turning hesitant.

Natsuka looked up at him.

"Just what?"

Even as he spoke he'd already finished putting the boots on, standing up to flex his ankles and knees.

The fit was extremely precise, almost as if tailor-made to the exact dimensions of his bones.

Agasa Hakase looked at him, mulling it over for a moment before continuing.

"It's just that all of this is still theoretical data."

"For a normal person's body — forget setting four, even the amplification from setting three would be hard to endure."

"At its current stage, the [Leg Strength Enhancement Boots] essentially works through electrical and magnetic stimulation of the pressure points and muscle groups in the feet, forcibly wringing the body's hidden, normally unreleasable strength out to its absolute limit."

"Strictly speaking, it's still within the bounds of science."

"At least it hasn't evolved yet to that absurd, cheat-code level of Conanology where one kick sends a soccer ball flying across half the city."

Natsuka caught the point at once.

"So you're saying it can technically still be pushed further?"

Agasa Hakase nodded.

"Theoretically, yes."

"But that would already exceed the limits a normal human body can withstand."

As he said this, his expression grew considerably more serious.

"I calculated this whole set of parameters based on a professional athlete's tolerance line."

"At setting four, even an ordinary steel prosthetic could be snapped clean off by the impact force."

"It's precisely because the material of your boots is hard enough that I dared push the efficiency all the way to setting four."

"Professional athletes in this world aren't exactly weak, physically."

But hearing all this, Natsuka didn't take it too seriously.

"Alright, that's already great."

"Keep researching."

"I'll keep funding it."

For an ordinary person, this equipment might not yet be extreme enough to let an elementary schooler instantly unleash several times their normal leg strength.

But for Natsuka, as long as it could stably double or triple his own strength, that alone was already terrifying.

Multiplier-type boosts were never a trivial thing.

Translated into game-panel terms, it meant a straight, maximum four-hundred-percent bump to his Strength stat.

Thinking of this, a rush of heat welled up inside him.

Who would have thought Agasa Hakase could actually push the multiplier cap all the way to setting four.

Afterward, the two of them went out to the backyard to test it.

The wind was a little cool, and the ground still held a trace of dampness from the night before.

Natsuka first kicked a few times with ordinary human strength, watching for changes from the [Leg Strength Enhancement Device].

In the first few tries, the effect wasn't as dramatic as he'd imagined.

Frowning, he kept testing while dialing the intensity up.

Only later, as the load and force kept climbing, did the destructive power of each kicked soccer ball begin to rise noticeably — until finally it could snap a small tree clean in half.

After several more rounds of testing, Natsuka finally arrived at a pretty critical conclusion.

This thing wasn't just crudely doubling your power on the spot.

It was more like it was squeezing out and amplifying the body's latent potential.

And as one's own "vessel" ceiling kept climbing, the burst of power it could help unleash would climb right along with it.

In other words, the stronger the foundation, the more terrifying this thing became.

Of course, a certain overly "Conanology" grim-reaper elementary schooler counted as a special sample and would be excluded from the calculation for now.

Natsuka continued the math by normal-person standards.

The result was clear.

At setting four, it could amplify Natsuka's current base stats to roughly four times their value.

In other words, not counting skills, purely in terms of raw base ability, his ceiling would be forcibly pushed up by a factor of four.

Right now, Natsuka's base Strength was only seventy-seven points.

After a fourfold multiplier, that would give him a boost of nearly two hundred eighty points.

Looking at the raw numbers, it didn't seem all that outrageous.

But with multipliers, what's genuinely terrifying is never the present.

It's the future.

Suppose that once he leveled up to Lv2, his Strength stat maxed out at its cap.

Then flipping to setting four would push it straight to S.

That would already put him within reach of Lv3's ability range.

A single burst that vaulted two whole levels of Strength growth at once — that was basically like snagging two over-the-top enhancement skills for free.

Natsuka stared at his own feet, falling silent for a full two seconds before finally choking out a single line.

"This is way too absurd..."

Truly worthy of the name Conanology.

After this experiment, for the first time, he genuinely began to take his own most basic stat growth seriously.

Cheat gear was great, of course.

But his own personal growth absolutely couldn't be neglected either.

After a few more rounds of testing, Natsuka noticed another practical problem.

For now, this piece of equipment could probably only be used by special existences like himself and Conan.

Because without extra added Endurance from skills, following an ordinary person's normal growth curve, there was simply no way to withstand the recoil from a setting-four burst.

And the higher a person's base stats, the stronger that recoil damage would be.

This was a problem with almost no solution.

Natsuka looked down at the boots on his feet and slowly let a smile curve across his lips.

"Guess for now this'll count as a Divine Item exclusive to me and Conan."

After leaving Agasa Hakase's house, Natsuka tucked the helmet away in stride.

He also gave Sayu a heads-up in advance, telling her a new employee might be moving into the house soon.

Once all of that was settled, he finally opened the Spatial Gate.

The Flying Thunder God flashed, his vision stretching as if pulled taut by a streak of golden light — and in the next instant, he was safely back in Stardust Garden.

Back in his room, Natsuka began tallying up this round's haul from the real world.

"The cursed item, Sadako."

"A bar that'll keep feeding me steady cash flow."

"A few reserve cadres worth cultivating."

"And combat boots that can push my strength up several times over."

The more he added it up, the better his mood got.

His equipment was already quite the loadout by now.

The [Leg Strength Enhancement Boots] still had room to be upgraded further down the line.

The rusted Sprite blade, slowly recovering its condition, was also still far from its limit.

On the item front, he had the Flying Thunder God Kunai, plus a ring that could unleash all sorts of curse effects.

Looking it all over, the one thing he genuinely still lacked was light armor for his body.

Thinking of this, Natsuka's train of thought drifted naturally somewhere further out.

"Once I've stockpiled enough Orichalcum, maybe I could try making a Cloth."

This wasn't just idle daydreaming.

Because he knew perfectly well that a Cloth's core material was mainly Orichalcum, along with Gammanium and Silver Star Sand.

And that hardest of metals wasn't so rare in the Dungeon as to be completely out of reach.

Not plentiful, but not scarce either.

As for Silver Star Sand, Natsuka already had something of a lead on it in his mind.

If the Ordinary World really did share a setting with a certain original work, then somewhere in the snowy mountains near Iwakuni there was said to be something called Silver Star Ore.

Maybe he could get his hands on some through Iwanaga Kotoko, via Inner World channels.

Of course, the other materials weren't necessarily something he had to gather all at once, either.

Take the Marina's Scale, for instance — it was originally forged from pure Orichalcum alone.

So Natsuka had no intention of copying a Cloth one-to-one.

"Given my current skill and Mystery rank, fully reproducing a Cloth definitely isn't realistic."

"But heading in that direction isn't hopeless."

"That whole God Cloth setup is inherently tied to things like divine blood, goddess symbols, constellation authority."

"If I made an imitation version, it might not be out of reach."

"Worst case, I could still manage something like Hestia Knife — a living armor."

But once he thought the plan through more deeply, the troubles started piling up right behind it.

The floors where the hardest metal was found were usually deep.

Never mind a normal Dungeon — even heading into an Man-Made Dungeon wouldn't matter without enough strength; it'd just be wasted effort.

Thinking of this, Natsuka's eyes grew hot with intent.

He reached out, pushed the door open, and by then his mind held only one clear thought.

He needed a faster way to raise his abilities.

Only that way could he keep his combat strength climbing steadily in the Ordinary World while also gaining solid footing on the other side.

Afterward, he contacted the goddess.

He had her prepare for the new player's descent while also asking Dekomori and Miko to help the newcomer settle in and run through the beginner's tutorial.

But right in the middle of all this, a piece of news dropped that sent the urgency in Natsuka's chest spiking straight to the top.

The message from Astraea was simple.

Minoru Kageno — all stats at SS.

His mana had even surged to SSS1887.

And he'd already leveled up to Lv2.

After leveling up, a new skill had appeared along with it.

[Mana Intensification]

Can be activated freely.

Temporarily doubles the mana usage rate.

After twenty seconds, mana is drained completely.

The multiplier and duration would keep growing along with Falna rank.

Natsuka stared at the message, his face going taut.

"That guy Shadow's gotten stronger again."

The nature of this skill was almost exactly like one of those Yu-Gi-Oh cards that dump the entire future cost for a single round of burst power.

As long as you could burn through all your mana within twenty seconds, it was basically free money — a doubled burst of combat strength for nothing.

For someone like Minoru Kageno, who naturally loved to burn everything out in one all-in gamble, this was basically a total freebie.

It was only at this point that Natsuka truly realized something.

The gap in strength between Shadow and himself was steadily shrinking.

And that also meant other travelers from the Ordinary World, once they formally began crossing over, could very likely see their combat strength balloon in an extremely short span of time too.

Take Demon Lord Satan, for example.

Once he officially became a B-rank employee at MgRonald's, the Demon Lord's subordinates from the other world would start wreaking havoc across the real world in earnest.