"Mmm, this stuff is really delicious, even though we don't have salt," Mino exclaimed as he filled his mouth with soup.
"Hahahaha, Kali knows how to cook tasteless food. It feels like it came right out of the royal palace!" Boriat added as he wolfed down his food quickly.
"Hey, eat slowly, the food is going nowher-" As Kali was about to scold the two men, she suddenly heard loud coughing from her side.
"*Cough* *Cough* Wa… ter…" Ani was on the ground struggling for her life as she held her throat.
"Hey! You! Here, drink quickly!" Kali quickly gave her the flask of water which Ani chugged down quickly.
"Hah… Hah… I almost thought I was going to die!" Exhaling a sigh of relief, Ani smiled innocently. "That was a good save, Kali!"
*BONK*
"Ouch! What was that for?!" Ani grabbed her head in pain as she screamed.
"Don't give me that crap and eat properly. You could've suffocated."
"Hehehe, I can just revive myself if that happens," Ani replied.
"Yeah sure, Miss Mage." Kali rolled her eyes.
Meanwhile, Mino and Boriat laughed at their interaction as they continued eating. Arthur also shared the food with them. He did indeed find it rather bad, but since he saw their happiness with this saltless food, he could only enjoy it too.
After all, the atmosphere around the campfire was just great.
As he was like that, he suddenly heard a loud booming sound coming from above them followed by a bang of something hitting the ground.
"The castle is still crumbling?" He murmured as he looked up.
"Yeah, it has been sustained by the demon king's power so now that he's gone, it will soon completely crumble," Mino replied.
"Won't the rocks fall on us?" Arthur asked. Their current position was directly under the castle so he wondered if they were at risk of getting smashed by one of these gigantic boulders.
"Hahaha, you're such a worrywart, Arthur. Ani has already cast a barrier on top of our heads so no worries, we're safe."
"Oh, I see…"
"You're really lacking in magic knowledge, Arthur. You should've focused more when we were studying magic back at the academy." Ani pointed at him and laughed mockingly.
"Hey! I'm an assassin, I don't need to learn that crap." Arthur replied.
'Huh? Why did I feel offended by her words? Is it this body's feelings reacting again?' He thought to himself. His feelings seemed to have been incorporated into that of the original owner of the body.
Arthur didn't know whether his appearance was still the same or not since he didn't have a mirror he could look into but he was at least certain that his height, muscles, and strength were all still there which was a relief.
"Hehehehe, I remember when Arthur tried to cast a simple fireball during our practices only to end up making it explode into his face! His hair caught on fire and he started running around crying for help! Hahahahah!" Ani grinned as she told an old story.
"Hahaha, Yeah, I remember that one. We had to keep running after him since he was too fast!" Mino added as he exploded into laughter.
Kali and Boriat followed suit which made Arthur even more confused. "Hey! I'm not a mage!" He jokingly protested.
"Yeah, sure, sure. Don't get angry now." Kali patted his shoulder gently. "Arthur is the best assassin in the world. You have the record for the most kills amongst us, no?"
"Yeah, he does. Especially when he uses his shadow step. It's just the end for any target he aims at."
'Shadow step?' Arthur raised an eyebrow. Now that he remembered, what were his powers as an assassin to begin with? The other hero party members seemed to have some kind of superpower of sorts so he naturally expected to be the same.
His answer didn't take long to arrive.
[Ding!]
[Host's character information updated!]
[Character status has been created!]
[Ding!]
[You have unlocked the first skill: Shadow Step!]
As Arthur was about to speak, his mind was struck out of nowhere by a load of information he didn't even know existed. The hit was so strong that Arthur almost lost balance because of it. Tons and tons of information were forcefully injected into his head.
'Ugh, what the fuck is going on?! My head! It hurts!!!' Holding his forehead, Arthur tried to not show any signs of pain on his face and instead focused on the information in his head. It mainly consisted of things related to the character he was in, his training, and the skills he used. Also, he learned about the weapons that he uses in fights and how to handle them.
All these years and years of training were now in Arthur's head again. Luckily, the pain swiftly subsided when the injection of info stopped. Finally, the boy exhaled a long breath before he looked up.
'Why the fuck would info dumping be done in this way?! I almost felt like my head would explode!'
He was certain that what happened now was most certainly MangaVerse giving him the necessary information he needed for the plot. He didn't know why it took such a long time for MangaVerse to finally give it to him but he was still glad that it arrived.
'Let's see what we got…'
First, Arthur went through the new information in his head to see what he got. The first thing he quickly noticed was that in this information, there was not even a single thing that mentioned his past or his background. It only contained combat knowledge and nothing else.
So, in a sense, Arthur was still clueless about what happened throughout this character's life, or any character's life for that matter.
'Tsk, ah well, I at least gained an incredible amount of knowledge about fighting!' Arthur smiled inwardly when went through the most important information.
A second ago, he was completely clueless about how to fight in general, let alone fight as an assassin in a fantasy world. But, now, he could say that he had the knowledge of a skilled assassin, the best in the world!
'Holy shit this is good and hella overpowered!'
Arthur couldn't contain his happiness. He just gained a powerful tool for his future fights.
'Hmm, it did say that it created a character status sheet.' Arthur thought to himself.
He didn't specify whether this world has a system-based power system or not and most likely it didn't so a character sheet was definitely not related to the power system itself and more for information purposes.
[Name: Arthur.]
[Race: Human.]
[Class: Assassin.]
[Affiliations: The Hero Mino's party.]
[Skills: Shadow Step (Active skill): Using it, you will be able to move from one shadow to another instantaneously. (More Skills will be unlocked according to the course of the story.)]
'Will you look at that, I'm human. Who would've thought?' Arthur hummed quietly as he read the character sheet.
The information was rather simple but it was still very useful for Arthur since he needed to at least know what hand of cards he was dealt. And, purely from what he can see now and some assumptions, his situation was actually not completely bad. Especially the skill he was given, Shadow Step.
Its description just screamed 'Powerful' without the need to even use it.
'Hahaha, I even still have more skills I would unlock.'
As he was laughing to himself in clear triumph, suddenly, the group heard a loud rustle coming from nearby. Immediately, everyone looked in that direction and picked up their weapons.
[Ding!]
[Objectives have been updated!]
'Shit, I celebrated too early!!'