I come to only a few seconds later, or so I assume from the fact that Jorgenson is still running towards me. I feel an unbearable itching over my whole body, my injuries seem mostly healed already. [What type of powerful potion did Sir Lector give me? No wonder he remarked as to its price; this must have cost a fortune!]
Realizing that I am still lying in a puddle of acid that is quite painfully counteracting the potion's effects, I quickly get to my feet. I stumble a few steps away from the puddle, and the dead scorpion, before falling back to the ground due to the still-healing wounds in my legs. Still, I feel almost fully healed by the time Jorgenson reaches me.
Seeing that I am perfectly fine, Jorgenson lets out a sigh. [Hey, that better have been a sigh of relief!]
"Thank goodness, I thought you were a goner! I literally saw you melting away under that venom, skin and blood pouring down your body! That must have been a very expensive potion, where did you get it from?"
[Well, I would have preferred if no one saw the potion, but I guess there's really nothing I can do about it,] I think, as I go pull the sword from the scorpion's body, avoiding the puddles of acid and blood.
"Well, it's nice to hear that someone was worried about me, I guess. As for the potion, well my master gave it to me for use in emergencies. He said that it was very expensive, so I would have preferred not to use it. However, if anything is an emergency, that situation was it."
"So you had a healing potion the whole time? Well, I guess it's a good thing that you didn't use it on anyone else, consider the situation that you got yourself into there at the end, eh? I probably would have used it on the first mortally injured person I saw, and ended up dying. While I'd like to think that personal a strength, in a cruel world such as this is can only be considered foolishness." He then laughs bitterly at his own expense.
"Well, at least you see the potential drawbacks of blindly sacrificing for others. The true issue comes in when a foolish pursuer of righteousness gets himself killed for nothing."
"True enough, I suppose, though I would much prefer to have the strength to save everyone [and] myself."
At this I laugh. "Who wouldn't?" I then ask. "However, given the choice to save myself or to save another, I would always prioritize myself. You are perhaps different in this regard, maybe you would place another's life above your own. Some would see that as righteousness; others, as foolishness. However, so long as you can see potential flaws in your mindset and work around them, you should always be fine. I, for one, was drawn to you due to your unique mindset. In this world where cruelty and selfishness are the norm, it is always a surprise to see a truly righteous individual."
"Thank you for… your insights, I suppose," he says with a chuckle.
While talking, we walk back to where the other soldiers and Reinhart are waiting. I hand Reinhart's sword back to him, and in response he gives out the first compliment that I have yet heard come from his mouth.
"You did well," he says, leaving me a bit shocked. He then turns to the others, adding "all of you displayed impressive bravery on the field, and a few of you even showed passable swordsmanship ability. We are not responsible for hauling the scorpion corpses back to the city, the city has already mobilized laborers for that task. Now, let us head back."
"With all respect sir, what about the corpses of our comrades?"
"They will be brought back to the training compound. Like the scorpions, we do not need to worry about them."
To this, the questioner only nods. We then set off as a group, heading back towards the city with less than half the force that we departed with. We had set off with 15 soldiers in addition to Reinhart, and we are now returning with only six soldiers and our commander, a loss of close to two-thirds of our fighting force.
That said, after undergoing the fighting, I can kind of see why Reinhart isn't fired immediately. If the goal of this military is to develop quality at the cost of quantity, this method is certainly effective. In addition to various random skills leveling, my crucial elemental manipulation skill had reached 'moderate' in level. Furthermore, I had acquired four new skills! I acquired Lesser Venom Resistance Lvl.1, Lesser Poison Resistance Lvl.3, and Moderate Acid Resistance Lvl.2 from my fight with the elder scorpion, in addition to Lesser Venom Lvl.1, a skill which I have no idea how to use. Oh, yeah, and my level reached level 36. 36! I know that I have a general leveling bonus, but come on! My level had more than doubled over the course of an hour long fight, for goodness' sake! And honestly, from what I'd heard from Sir Lector, my other skills (even the ones for which I have no proficiency) seem to be leveling up far faster than average.
Like, think about it for a moment. If skills were really so easy to level up as mine have been proving to be, what excuse would the people of this world have for not being absurdly powerful? I understand that not everyone in a society can single mindedly pursue power, but at least the soldiers and nobles should be absurdly powerful. Perhaps they are, and I have just not seen it yet, but to me it seems more likely that I am having an easier time with this skill leveling system than average.
And why would this be the case? The only answer that comes to mind, as absurd as it is, is that this may be my overpowered other world cheat ability! I mean, a general leveling bonus was already quite frankly overpowered, but if my hypothesis is correct and I am somehow receiving another, hidden, bonus to my skill leveling… well, I might be able to set a more aspiring goal than merely surviving!
No no no! Best not to fall down into that fallacy, the belief that I am the protagonist. Such beliefs will only lead to my downfall. Furthermore, that is only one possible solution to the question of why I am leveling so quickly. Of course, it [is] a question worth asking: if everyone could gain, say, acid resistance so easily, why wouldn't a wealthy person submerge themselves in a tank of acid while quaffing health potions for example? This is a world that clearly respects power, and it certainly would be an extremely efficient mode of increasing power.
Then yet again, maybe that [is] happening. Perhaps I just have yet to see the power of someone who devotes their life to pursuing it? It may not be likely, but it is certainly possible. Of course, it is also possible that I could have a hidden general [skill] proficiency bonus, though whether that means that I am anything particularly special is a completely different matter.
Well, whatever the reason may be, it is certainly the case that I had great gains during that battle. The levels, which allowed me to pass the critical level 25, the skill upgrades, which will certainly be useful, and the new skills, three of which improve my survivability and the fourth of which does… something.
Remembering then the ability to read more into skills in my stats menu (an ability that I admittedly rarely use), I look into what my new Lesser Venom skill does. Description: allows the user to instill piercing attacks with venom.
Yeah, that doesn't really help. While perhaps sounding fancy, that description doesn't tell me anything about how the attack actually works or is even used. Based on the fact that I have both venom and poison resistances, I can infer that the system treats them differently.
If they are different, and my skill is only in venom, and not poison, how am I actually supposed to use the attack? If the skill was for poison, I could probably put it on the tip or edge of my sword and poison my enemies when stabbed. However, venom would have to come from inside of me to actually [be] venom, right? Perhaps the skill could be made to apply to someone if I were to bite them? However, my teeth are solid, there is nowhere to store venom in them to use in a biting attack.
Honestly, I can't help but feel that this skill isn't really intended for humans. Unless I can come up with some spot to make it in my body, and then bring it out to use as poison… but would it even work then? My skill is in venom, not in poison, and it seems like it would be smart enough to not have a loophole like that… right?
Deciding to test it, I activate the skill. I'm not particularly surprised when nothing happens. Again, if the skill were in poison or something then I could imagine it welling up in my mouth or gathering in my skin… but with venom, there is really no place on the human body that comes to mind as being able to force venom into another creature.
I deactivate the skill and add asking Sir Lector about it to the list of things that I am sure to forget to talk with him about.
I spend the rest of the walk back to the city investigating each of my new skills. To be honest, there isn't much to find out; their effects are all pretty obvious based on the skill names. Lesser poison resistance and lesser venom resistance provide a slight resistance to poison and venom respectively, whereas moderate acid resistance provides… well, moderate resistance to acid. Seems simple enough, until you realize that none of these skills are very specific in what 'lesser' or 'moderate' resistance even means.
Well, it is the case that my Lesser Analysis skill is only level 1, so perhaps it will be more useful if I level it more? Of course, the description of that spell doesn't really help me figure out how to do that: 'slight proficiency in analyzing things.' Seriously, whoever designed this must have a strange sense of humor.
We arrive at the inner city, and the guards, which are the same as were here earlier this morning, eye our group with confusion. Unlike this morning, they stop us. I am not sure of the reason until one of them asks Reinhart: "Do we need to send out a party to hunt down deserters?"
"No, there is no need for that. We simply lost a fair few of our soldiers while fulfilling our monster fighting objective."
"Well, I'll say!" he replies with evident shock. "I didn't count your soldiers when you left, but unless I'm misremembering, less than half survived! Did you encounter unexpected trouble?"
"No, nothing unexpected."
"Oh," he says after a moment of silence, rather confused. "Well, in any case, I assume that you were successful?"
"Yes, all of the scorpion beasts have been defeated."
"That's great to hear, at least. My condolences to you all for your lost comrades," he adds, turning to us at the end.
"So, can we enter?" Reinhart then asks, a trace of irritation evident in his voice.
"Of course! My apologies for the trouble," he answers, motioning for the gate to be opened.