Chapter 10: Shared Space Reopens, How Did Another 'Me' Die Again? (Patreon)

Astraea narrowed her eyes and began using a god's wisdom to puzzle out what the Skill [Rabble] actually did.

But it was doomed to be wasted effort.

As the Skill's actual holder, even Renan hadn't truly understood what [Rabble] did until he'd been inside the shared space once.

As for anyone else, mortal or god, there was no way to pick the correct answer out of an infinite field of possibilities.

That was also why Renan dared to expose his Falna to the gods of DanMachi.

"Me as Me, Others as Me, Only Me..."

Astraea's fingers brushed lightly down Renan's back as she kept murmuring those few characters over and over.

She was a goddess, after all. Claiming she hadn't picked up on any of [Rabble]'s power would be a joke.

What was more, Renan had said that very morning that he'd 'seen' scenes of a future that hadn't happened yet.

Put that together with the description of [Rabble], and a guess surfaced easily in the brown-haired goddess's mind:

Could this Skill let Renan share the memories of his past, his future, even his selves in parallel timelines?

Or perhaps something even further...

In some respects, the gods of the DanMachi world really were a little omniscient, having lived for so long.

It was just a pity that, however sharp Astraea was, she lacked the information. She marked the range of [Rabble] as parallel timelines only, never guessing at another world that not even the gods had ever observed.

Even so, as she gazed at the black-haired boy on the bed, a dazzlingly bright light bloomed in her eyes.

'This child really is special, isn't he~'

'Oh my~ he's got me itching to step in and pull him into my Familia myself.'

With one hand cupping her cheek, the brown-haired goddess thought this to herself, then fetched a sheet of parchment and transcribed his Falna onto it in full.

"All done."

Renan sat up and pulled on his outer shirt, taking the parchment from her and looking it over.

Astraea sat down close beside him. She held out for a short while, but in the end she couldn't contain her curiosity. "Do you know exactly what [Rabble] does?"

Renan nodded. "I do." As he spoke, he glanced at the brown-haired goddess beside him. Seeing her cherry lips move, clearly wanting to say, or rather ask, something more, he added, "But I'm not going to tell you."

Hearing that, even someone as gentle as Astraea puffed out her cheeks.

"Hey, you little rascal! You use a girl up and then start putting on airs, is that it?" She rapped the boy lightly on the head twice, pretending to threaten him. "Don't you want your Falna updated in the future?"

Having said it, she was the first to burst out laughing.

"Oh, forget it, forget it. If you won't tell me, you won't. I can more or less guess. [Rabble] must have something to do with parallel timelines, or the past and future. The intel you gave me earlier came from this Skill's effect."

Renan lowered his head, neither confirming nor denying it.

Seeing that the black-haired boy on the bed still wouldn't take the bait, Astraea had no choice. Though she was dying of curiosity, she could only set the subject aside for now.

Her expression turned a little more serious. "Renan, besides [Rabble], your other Skill, [Thunder Breathing], is quite special too. Besides temporarily boosting your combat power, it comes with a body-tempering effect. That's why you've only been an adventurer for two days and already raised your total Ability stats by over a hundred points."

Renan nodded.

He had originally figured he'd be stuck at Level 1 for two or three years, like most of Orario's adventurers.

Instead, the Thunder Breathing technique he'd shared from his Demon Slayer self could speed that process up even further.

Then again, it made sense. According to his Demon Slayer self's memories, whether it was Sun Breathing at the source or the five major schools that branched out from it, the principle was the same: inhale large amounts of air, raise the oxygen concentration in the blood, and thereby strengthen the heart and lungs.

It was like aerobic exercise in his previous life, such as running or swimming. Every session strengthened the heart and lungs a little.

The Breathing Techniques simply gave a bigger boost, enough to manifest on the Falna as its own entry.

Seeing Renan sink into thought, Astraea paused for a few seconds, then asked with a flicker of anticipation in her eyes, "When are you planning to come back next?"

Renan answered without much thought. "In a week, I guess."

Now that he'd confirmed he had Level 2 combat power, the dangers he might meet in the upper floors would drop sharply.

So there was no need to stick to the original plan of visiting the Astraea Familia every other day.

Who would have thought that Astraea would clearly be displeased with his answer? She raised her jade-white right arm and held up three fingers. "Three days. Three days at the very latest, and you're coming back for a Falna update."

The gods of the DanMachi world had sealed away their divine power and come down to the lower world for one reason, when you got right down to it: boredom.

Now a gem, marked inside and out with nothing but 'unknown,' sat right in front of her. Even Astraea couldn't help wanting to enjoy the fun of nurturing and polishing it.

Renan shrugged and didn't argue. "Fine. I'll come by again in the evening three days from now."

With that, he stood up and bowed once more to the brown-haired goddess before him.

...

By the time he left the Star Hall, it was nearly one in the afternoon.

As Renan headed for the Dungeon entrance, he began running the numbers in his head.

'As long as the Astraea Familia doesn't get wiped out like in the anime, then for a good while, Falna updates shouldn't be what holds back my growth.'

'And the next time I go on an expedition with Alize and the others, I should probably have finished accumulating the great feat I need to rank up to Level 2.'

'But I need to start preparing supplies for the middle and lower floors now.'

If he was going deeper into the labyrinth, the starter set from the Guild wasn't going to cut it anymore.

'One sword, no, two one-handed swords, at least second-grade. And a set of light armor that won't get in my way.'

'Plus plenty of healing potions, antidotes, and panaceas.'

'Oh, right. Can't forget an Elven Ward Cloth and a magic sword for when monsters swarm me.'

He hadn't known until he added it up, and now the total gave him a fright.

Once he'd roughly listed everything he needed to buy, Renan's shoulders sagged.

'Even on the low end, that's 5 million Valis. If I buy better weapons, it'll probably head toward 10 million.'

'And that's only for the lower floors... No wonder the Loki Familia in the anime always looks broke. No matter how well you farm monsters for cash, it's never enough.'

After grumbling to himself, Renan raised a hand and slapped his own cheek.

'Looks like I have to push deeper from here on. I can't stay on the first few floors.'

With [Thunder Breathing], a Skill that came with a body-tempering effect, Renan could have kept hunkering down on the first five floors even with Level 2 combat power. A few months would be enough to raise every stat to the limit of his current stage.

But from the standpoint of making money, the magic stones dropped by goblins, cave lizards and the like sold for far too little at the Guild.

On top of that, Renan carried secrets and had never once considered recruiting a supporter.

To earn enough Valis for supplies before the Astraea Familia's next expedition began, he'd better keep going down, maybe even into the middle floors.

That was Renan's plan, and once inside the labyrinth, he did exactly that.

But very soon, an unexpected event threw all his arrangements into chaos.

Floor 7.

Yellow-white arcs of electricity flickered around the black-haired boy, too faint to notice unless you looked closely. A short distance ahead of him, five Killer Ants crawled across the ground at once.

The next instant, he moved.

Thunderclap and Flash: Fivefold.

The one-handed short sword, a thread of lightning dancing along its surface, swept past the joint where each Killer Ant's neck met its body, faster than a man could blink.

Half a second later, the boy came to a stop.

Then came five sounds, thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk, of something dropping onto the ground.

Renan turned around, ready to dig the magic stones out of the dead Killer Ants like he had yesterday.

But at that very moment, he let out a burp for no reason at all.

Then a vague feeling rose in his heart.

He seemed to be able to enter the shared space again.

Renan was in the Dungeon right now, and not on a safe floor. He also wasn't sure whether time in the real world would stop while he was in the shared space, or whether his body would vanish along with him.

For safety's sake, he didn't follow that feeling into the shared space right away.

Instead, he dismembered the five Killer Ants faster than usual, then took off toward the surface without a moment's hesitation.

On the way, Renan kept his senses on his surroundings to guard against monsters spawning right in his face, while sinking into thought.

'Why would the shared space open now?'

He soon reached a conclusion: 'Is it because... killing monsters met some condition?'

'The type of monster killed? No, I'd already killed a Killer Ant when I first reached Floor 7.'

'So it can't be the monster's challenge rating either.'

'Then, is it the number?'

Renan narrowed his eyes.

Yesterday in the Dungeon he'd killed 91 monsters in total, though two of them had their magic stones shatter because he'd been careless while harvesting. Today, from earlier until now, he'd killed exactly 9 more.

'So if I keep killing monsters and reach a certain count, the shared space opens once?'

'Heh, that's good news. Even if the other me who comes in is an ordinary person with no power at all, just stacking body attributes should in theory be enough to keep my combat power stably at Level 3 once I activate Thunder Breathing.'

'I just don't know how many monsters I'll need to kill before the shared space opens again. Two hundred? Three hundred? A thousand? Or ten thousand?'

Eager to reach the shared space as soon as possible, Renan found himself using Thunderclap and Flash as he ran.

On Floors 6 and 7 it was fine, since there weren't many adventurers around.

But from Floor 5 on, even along the main routes, solo adventurers and small parties passed by every so often.

Admittedly, as long as he stayed in Orario, the intel on Thunder Breathing was bound to get out eventually.

But with the mindset of hiding it as long as he could, Renan forced down his anxiety despite his impatience, stopped using the technique, and simply kept up a full sprint.

An hour later, he reached the surface.

He didn't hurry to the Guild to exchange for Valis. Instead, he ran straight to the inn where he'd stayed yesterday and paid for another day's room.

He walked in, shut the door and locked it.

Then, lying on the bed, Renan closed his eyes halfway and, following the pull in his soul, slid into the shared space.

Inside the pure-white cubic space, two figures appeared out of thin air: two black-haired boys, or more precisely, one black-haired youth and one black-haired child.

The next second, Renan opened his eyes and immediately saw the child standing across from him.

"Yo~ Hello there, other me."

As the senior in the shared space, Renan raised his right hand in greeting, his tone as gentle as could be. After all, whoever stood across from him was, in the end, another version of himself.

But, somewhat unexpectedly, the black-haired child a short distance away, wearing a black robe, gave no response.

He just stood there where he was, as though he had no consciousness at all.

"..."

A possibility flashed quietly through the back of his mind. Renan muttered, "Hey, hey, hey. Don't mess with me."

As he spoke, he crossed to the black-haired child in three quick strides.

From the stone-statue stillness of the child's face, he reached a conclusion at once: this guy was, maybe, perhaps... all right, no more lying to himself. He was dead.

"[DanMachi expletive], what's going on?"

Renan clicked his tongue and reached out to touch the other's shoulder.

He wasn't actually sure whether he could share power and memories with a dead version of himself.

But after trying, Renan found it could be done.

Because right then, the other Renan's memories turned into scene after scene of images and appeared in Renan's mind.

The black-haired child before him, like his Demon Slayer self, was also called Renan.

At five, he'd gone on a trip to England with his parents and run into a car accident. His parents died on the spot. Little Renan survived and, because of it, awakened memories of a past life. With no relatives left in China, he was sent straight to an orphanage in England.

[Author's Note: I haven't checked whether such regulations exist in reality, so let's just say that's the law in this other world.]

Life at the orphanage wasn't good. Even though little Renan was living his second life, he still couldn't withstand the bullying of the brats.

That he'd made it safely to eleven was only because he was well-behaved enough, always helping the headmistress and the caregiver aunties.

Even so, little Renan was visibly shorter than other kids his age.

If nothing unexpected had happened, he would most likely have kept growing up slowly until he could live on his own. Then he'd have found a not particularly respectable job in England that barely put food on the table, or saved up enough money to return to China.

But on little Renan's eleventh birthday, an owl with a letter in its beak suddenly flew in through the window and burst into his room.