Chapter 66: If You Marry Rozz, Doesn't That Make Me the Other Woman? (Please Subscribe) (Patreon)

Looking at it from an average Adventurer's perspective—by current standards, his stats would probably rank as passable, nothing more.

"A true master always keeps the heart of an apprentice."

Not to mention…

Rozz figured he still had a long way to go before reaching "master" level. All he could do was stay grounded, avoid arrogance, and steadily build his strength.

Maxing out his stats certainly wasn't the problem.

As long as his raw power was high enough, even a civilian-grade dual vector foil could be tossed around like a Frisbee—that was the kind of possibility he'd glimpsed since becoming an Adventurer!

But through his fight with Zanis—

and that dream, where he'd faced nearly ten Lv2 Adventurers closing in on him at once, he'd come to understand just how much technique mattered too.

Trading raw stats head-on wasn't wrong, exactly.

But among the countless Adventurers of Orario, he'd inevitably run into opponents his stats alone couldn't crush. So what then?

"Come to think of it…"

"According to Hestia, the way Skills and magic work under Orario's Falna system is pretty idealist at its core."

"Both Skills and magic can be acquired through what you experience while exploring."

Rozz frowned, turning the thought over in his head. If that's the logic, then why do I feel like Myriad Phenomena has so much room left to grow?

A pure copy-type magic.

Honestly,

he genuinely felt it didn't live up to the name "Myriad Phenomena." In a situation like this, what he needed was to keep pushing his imagination further.

And as it happened—

as a transmigrator with his JM account maxed to Gold-tier and countless titles under his belt, imagination was the one thing Rozz figured he'd never run short of!

Whether he could actually pull it off, though, was a whole different question…

After all, he'd worked hard to transmigrate into a world of superhuman power in the first place—who wouldn't be dying to become a grandmaster of that whole field?

Fighting—

that's what got the blood pumping! Domination! Exhilaration!!

On his way to the Dungeon, Rozz kept mulling it over, thinking back to the hit anime of his past life—Naruto, the Fate/Grand Order series.

If you wanted to hax the system, the Mangekyou Sharingan was standard equipment.

And in TYPE-MOON's works, with all their flashy special effects, things like an Excalibur or an everlastingly distant utopia all required you to hold a Noble Phantasm first.

Then release its True Name.

So there was the problem—Orario simply didn't have anything like that. No matter how far he pushed his imagination, he was missing the prerequisites.

"Fine, I'll settle for second best."

"When I use Cinder Ella, I can feel the mana surging inside me. What if I just changed how I output it?"

"Could I pull off the same kind of Mana Burst effect TYPE-MOON characters use?"

TYPE-MOON's Mana Burst.

It could reinforce your own body and weapon. If he could jury-rig something like it, it would be an absolute game-changer down in the Dungeon.

Brimming with expectation,

Rozz made his way to the seventh floor. The monsters on the earlier floors were either too easy to be worth testing against, or came in numbers too large to control.

Neither gave him the right conditions to experiment with a homemade Skill.

Before starting his experiment, he put away his Adventurer's Shortsword and drew out the katana Hephaestus had gifted him the day before.

Back in Takemikazuchi's training sessions,

Rozz had already learned how to handle it. He gripped the hilt with both hands and called back the sensation of unleashing Cinder Ella.

"…What's wrong?"

Noticing something off about the boy beside her,

Lili looked ahead and found no trace of any monster in the cave passage, a flicker of confusion crossing her light brown eyes.

But remembering their earlier exploration,

the Supporter girl's hand instinctively closed around the dwarven crossbow slung on her back. "Is it you… sensing monsters nearby?"

"No."

Rozz held his breath, focusing his mind.

But no matter how hard he concentrated, he couldn't feel… whatever mana was supposed to be inside him, let alone call on it.

Was his whole premise wrong from the start?

No way!

He stared at the freshly-spawned War Shadow drawn in by the sound of their footsteps, and kept building the Skill's effect in his mind.

"Magic in Orario…"

"basically all needs an incantation to trigger, so am I stuck on that part? But then again, Mana Burst doesn't have an incantation either."

"Surely I don't need some grand, over-the-top attack-naming routine—like reciting a whole menu—before every fight?"

"…"

What is this guy spacing out for?!

Lili noticed the War Shadow not far ahead and frowned, then caught sight of Rozz's profile, lost in thought.

Exhausting…

What kind of Dungeon expedition needs the Supporter to fight?!

Still, she pulled the dwarven crossbow from her back, just in case something went wrong down here. But right at that moment—

Even as the monster closed in,

Rozz still hadn't made a single move to fight. Then, along with a soft murmur, a torrent of mana surged out from deep within him.

The wildly churning mana whipped his robes into a snapping flutter.

The full Mana Burst effect Rozz had envisioned was successfully triggered through his Myriad Phenomena magic.

"Myriad Phenomena!"

"…"

The mana pouring out of him turned into a pale blue sheen of light that wrapped around his entire body—his weapon included.

He could feel it clearly:

under the Mana Burst effect, all his stats had climbed evenly higher. He fixed his eyes on the monster now just ten meters away.

Rozz dropped low, gathering the explosive power already packed into his legs, stacking it on top of the Mana Burst amplification.

In an instant—

his figure vanished from where he stood, leaving only a pale blue arc of mana light streaking toward the War Shadow, thrusting and slashing.

"Fwoosh~"

A dazzling flash of blade-light followed.

The War Shadow before him crumbled into black-gray dust in an instant, leaving only the crisp clatter of a Magic Stones hitting the ground.

Rozz turned around.

He glanced at the monster he'd just wiped out, then looked down and noticed the pale blue Mana Burst still coating his body.

Thud-thud-thud—

In the quiet of the Dungeon, Rozz could actually hear his own heart pounding, an indescribable rush of feeling flooding his head.

He'd actually pulled it off…

This full-body rush was nothing short of Columbus discovering the New World, or that guy from Huludao Prison discovering the honey mini-burger!

Lifting his head again,

Rozz looked toward Lili—she'd just witnessed his homemade Skill in action, after all—and he couldn't keep the excitement out of his voice.

"Lili, was that badass or what?"

"…"

So—

unless her eyes had deceived her, he'd muttered something like "Myriad Phenomena" just now. And the moment those words left his mouth—

he'd been engulfed completely in that outpouring mana.

As for the combat strength he'd just shown, Lili was certain of one thing: it was leagues beyond what she'd seen in their previous expeditions.

Magic.

To pull off something on that level, the Supporter girl could only assume it was magic. But if she remembered their heart-to-heart from that night correctly—

Rozz's magic was supposed to just copy other people's magic, wasn't it?

Lili raised her head again, her eyes brimming with shock. "How did you do that…? Or is this a whole different kind of magic you've mastered?"

"There's no way magic is that easy to master…"

As far as Lili went,

Rozz didn't feel any need to hide it from her. Besides, the Mana Burst effect only boosted his stats for a short window anyway.

And as a Supporter—

if she ever got surrounded by monsters in the Dungeon while he couldn't help, this magic might just be able to give Lili's strength a boost too.

He explained with a grin, "Honestly, the principle behind the Skill is dead simple—I just call on Mana Burst to temporarily reinforce my body and weapon."

"…?"

How is that simple?!

Lili's mouth twitched. For an Adventurer to even have a mana stat, the prerequisite was mastering magic in the first place, and that alone—

among the countless Adventurers of Orario, only a handful could manage!

Not to mention someone like Rozz, who could summon and channel mana to boost his strength at will—that was a pure freak of nature!

"Say…"

"Is it possible that the only person in Orario who's ever developed a single spell into multiple different effects is the strongest mage of them all, Nine Hell?"

Magic was cast according to its effect, bound to its incantation.

No matter what you did, you couldn't break free of that original effect. Even Riveria only ever cast hers at different tiers of the same spell.

So how in the world was this guy pulling it off?

There was no doubting Rozz's talent as an Adventurer, but at this point, "monster" honestly seemed like the only word that fit.

Lili raised her head, and when she came back to her senses, her voice was thick with mixed feelings. "Why are you explaining all this to me?"

"Hm."

"I figured, since you're the Supporter, if I ever got swarmed and you ended up in danger, you'd have some way to protect yourself."

Rozz wasn't holding anything back.

He could feel the mana still flowing steadily out of him, and every swing of the katana carved a brilliant arc of light through the dim passage.

The effect was pretty cool, if he did say so himself!

Noticing the Supporter girl had gone quiet, Rozz—still fishing for a compliment—asked again, "Lili, come on, wasn't that badass?"

"…"

Really…

Lili had never felt this kind of warmth before. And it was exactly because of that warmth… that she was terrified it might all just be a bubble, gone the instant she reached for it.

Facing Rozz's question,

the girl's face went red. Steeling herself, she managed an answer: "If you want someone to look at… that, maybe you should wait till we're home, somewhere with no one around…"

"I mean… I wouldn't mind looking."

"…?"

Maybe it was because of Rozz's Hero Cloud-Raising Plan, or maybe it was the guilt buried deep inside her toward Hestia.

Right.

Hephaestus kept feeling like her bottom line with this guy just kept slipping lower.

As long as he wasn't blatantly slacking off, she'd let it slide—and besides, running a Familia like his cost a lot of money…

"I might as well find an excuse to give her a raise while I'm at it."

"At least that way Rozz's expedition conditions will improve a bit, and the Hero Cloud-Raising Plan will keep feeding me more surprises!"

That was how Hephaestus reasoned it out to herself.

Once she finished handling her Familia's business for the day, she couldn't wait to pull up the Hero Cloud-Raising Plan and take a good look.

Thanks to the weapon she'd gifted him yesterday,

Rozz's Affection toward her had smoothly climbed to 30, unlocking a brand-new Affection stage and, with it, the Exploration Log feature.

"Going by the description…

this thing should let me track Rozz's movements down in the Dungeon. There's no telling how many gods out there…

wouldn't even dare dream of something like this!"

Curiosity got the better of her.

The red-haired goddess pulled up the new panel without hesitation, and a notification bar promptly appeared before her.

She lounged lazily in her armchair, her white blouse straining tight over her ample chest.

Hephaestus's long, fair legs were flawless from top to bottom, the black stockings wrapped around them showing off every curve to perfection.

[Hephaestus (bonus art).jpg]

"You have a new character Exploration Log."

"Rozz has begun today's Dungeon exploration."

"Through the Dream Training Plan, he realized that, given his current strength, he had zero chance of winning against a siege of nearly ten Lv2 Adventurers.

No matter how high his stats climbed, he'd still need technique to back them up."

"…?"

By the time Hephaestus read this far, even her brow had furrowed. If she remembered correctly… Rozz was only Lv1.

Right.

What the hell did "zero chance against nearly ten Lv2 Adventurers" even mean?!

And that wasn't all—

she also picked up on the hidden implication in that line: this "Dream Training Plan" was very likely… a feature she hadn't unlocked yet.

If she just built up enough Affection, she could unlock it too!

"And so—

Rozz began drawing on his own imagination, attempting to discharge the mana within him to temporarily reinforce his body and weapon.

He succeeded.

Drawing on the creative potential of his Myriad Phenomena magic, Rozz worked out exactly the effect he needed in his mind, then successfully put it to the test.

Rozz has unlocked a new Skill."

[Mana Burst: Lv1]

"…?"

The only person Hephaestus could think of who'd ever pushed magic to that kind of extreme was that elf royal in the Loki Familia.

Nine Hell.

Riveria Ljos Alf.

The title came from how she'd taken three types of magic—attack, defense, and recovery—and developed each into different tiers within their base framework.

Nine spells in total, all chained together through incantation.

Hephaestus stared at the Exploration Log, her expression growing steadily more serious—proof enough of just how shaken she was.

Because—

she realized Rozz's case was completely different. Riveria had only ever developed three spells into different tiers of the same effect.

But this guy?

The red-haired goddess had the distinct feeling he was actually creating new magic through Myriad Phenomena—though without a detailed look at his Falna stats,

Hephaestus couldn't say for certain, not on her own.

"If Rozz's talent for magic really is what I think it is… why does it feel even more absurd than Nine Hell's?"

No wonder…

this guy got called someone with "Hero Potential." At least from where she stood now, Rozz more than qualified.

She had to find some way to get her hands on his Falna information.

But right at that moment—

the office door burst open. The instant she saw it was Hestia, Hephaestus's gaze started darting away.

Wasn't spying on Rozz's secrets basically a betrayal of her friend, one way or another?

The goddess snapped the translucent Hero Cloud-Raising Plan screen shut. Even so, her voice clearly lacked its usual confidence as she spoke to her best friend.

"What's going on?"

"Don't tell me it's something about Rozz again… something you need my help with, huh? Well… as long as it's not too much trouble, I'll try to make it work."

"…"

Somehow Hephaestus seemed unusually easy to talk to today!

But after considering that, as things stood, her own Rozz didn't seem to need anything on that front, the young goddess shook her head firmly.

This time, coming to see her best friend…

was mostly because Hestia desperately wanted a straight answer, and out of everyone in Orario, Hephaestus was the only one she could ask.

Looking at Hephaestus,

the young goddess's expression grew steadily more serious. "I just wanted to ask—has there ever been a case in Orario of a god marrying one of their own Familia members?"

"You know, our Rozz really is amazing… and I like him a lot too. So I want to marry him."

Realizing the Hero Cloud-Raising Plan hadn't been exposed,

Hephaestus finally let out a breath of relief. But the moment she heard Hestia's wishful-thinking little fantasy, she looked up and refused out of pure habit.

"Absolutely not!"

If you go and marry Rozz, then what does that make me?

[Author's Note: PS: I swear I'm not slacking off. I meant to rest for just two hours, but somehow seven alarms in a row couldn't wake me up.]