*Pu!*
A soft, womanly body suddenly collided with his, throwing him a bit off guard. Curious, Cassius looked down, only to see the reddened ears of a ravishing blonde beauty. "D-Don't leave me again… Please… I don't want to be alone…"
An invisible force tugged at Cassius's lips as he softly patted the head of the girl who was acting uncharacteristically meek and timid. 'I guess anyone has the potential to change… That much I should know very well…'
'I think I understand why the system keeps insisting on Character Development, though I still don't know what its purpose for guiding me is… Well, I don't think any protagonist in the novels I used to read ever knew what the intentions of their systems were…'
After a few more moments of idle thinking, Cassius once again pushed away the unusually clingy girl, this time catching an accidental glimpse of her towel slipping down her alluring curves. "Here, your clothes," he said, averting his eyes out of respect for her privacy.
Realizing why he was acting that way, Aya furiously blushed before nodding like a bunny rabbit. She snatched up the clothes, also noticing that he had grabbed a pair of her more risqué underwear, which only made the blush on her beautiful face even more prominent.
"M-Make sure… t-to not look," Aya murmured softly, yet with an adorable fierceness in her voice.
Cassius nodded.
A lovely smile formed on Aya's face upon seeing how considerate he was.
As she made enticing sounds while sliding on her clothes, she reflected on her past actions, a tinge of regret streaking across her face. 'I must've just misunderstood him before… He's such a nice person; he even saved me…! And yet I… said all those mean things about him… Things that I hated more than anything when I was in a similar situation as him…'
The silhouette of a larger, less attractive, and more rotund girl seemed to overlap with Aya's changing figure, sending wave after wave of regret and self-hate washing over her.
After finishing putting on her clothes, Aya whipped around to Cassius, prepared to do whatever it took to apologize for all that she had done to him. Yet, as if he already knew what she was about to say, he cut her off.
"It's fine, Aya. The past can remain the past. I know you are not a bad person."
"B-But I—"
"I already said it's fine," Cassius interrupted. "Just try to find some better friends. You are too sweet and beautiful to settle for terrible characters as the people you hang around."
Aya's face colored red, yet she still shyly nodded. Then she remembered what she had been meaning to ask earlier. "Your power; have you somehow awakened…?"
Firmly denying such a claim, Cassius shook his head. "I have not awakened, but I have come across a stroke of… good fortune that enabled me to gain some power." Remembering all that the Idle Evolution System had put him through made him reconsider its presumed goodwill. But there was no denying that its methods had made him stronger, which was something virtually impossible among Hunters.
A Hunter could increase their skill proficiencies and gain more experience, but obtaining greater base power was not possible. Unlike Cassius, who had a sadistic system, people in this world awakened, and that was it. What they got was what they got. Of course, there were differences in skills among Hunters, yet even those were designated upon awakening and capped at Level 9.
It was rumored that a powerful S-Rank Hunter from Japan, who specialized in the katana, had once achieved the peak Level 9 of his Quick Sheath skill. With his power, he had slashed out at an Overlord S-Rank Monster that had escaped a Purple-ranked Gate, bringing the entire country to its knees. The incident had happened a little over ten years ago, but those present could still vividly recall the immensity of that man's single slash.
An entire evacuated prefecture had been reduced to ash. Gone, obliterated, desolated.
Yet, even in spite of the Japanese man's accomplishments in singlehandedly clearing a Purple-ranked Gate outbreak, he wore a soured look on his face. In the country's greatest time of need, his power had reached its pinnacle, yet he could instinctively feel that he could progress no further in his life's joy—his Quick Sheath S-Rank skill. In his frustrations, he hadn't even stayed behind to receive his medal and the appreciation of the country. He left, never to be seen again, rumored to have become obsessed with something that would never grace his skill with the blade.
This was the fate of most who refused to accept that they could progress no further. Their stats were set, their skills were designated, and those same skills had upper limits—what was even the point of it all? They worked arduously for their entire lives as Hunters, only to find that some mysterious force prevented them from continuing to progress!
'Everything truly is about the luck of the pull,' Cassius thought with a hint of melancholy. 'Even I, with a system, pulled one of the shorter strings among those who obtain systems in web novels.'
'Typically, their lives are smooth sailing right after acquiring their systems, with them barely having to exert any real effort. Yet I am worked, sometimes beaten to the bone, by my system… All under the pretense of 'Building Character'...'