5. Oracle and Rank

 "Right, let's stop by the oracle."

"Oracle?"

"Yeah, that temple-like place over there. We should be able to find out our classes."

Even when buying equipment, the appropriate weapon changes depending on your class. Well, for armor, it's probably just hard leather armor.

"Is it okay to touch this?"

A small stone temple, with a large granite stone placed inside.

When Seki touched it, ripples spread across the polished stone, and soon a display appeared.

『Seki Midori Age: 16 Class: Priest Warrior Rank: Newbie Acrobat Rank: Newbie Priest Rank: Novice Magician Rank: Newbie』

Seki was a priest. It was a lower-tier class, but a pretty good one.

Warrior rank was easy to train, and having mana from the start was a good thing. For equipment, a bludgeoning weapon like a mace would be suitable.

Next, I held my hand over it to check myself.

『Shinjo Wataru Age: 16 Class: Mid-Fighter Warrior Rank: Apprentice Acrobat Rank: Newbie Priest Rank: Newbie Magician Rank: Newbie』

Mid-Fighter, huh? It was a lower-tier class, but balanced and not bad. However, the fact that both magic-related ranks were zero was concerning.

I held the flask and chanted as if praying, "Elementary Low Stamina (den)." It was the simplest way to make a recovery potion.

"Alright, that helped."

A little bit of yellow liquid accumulated at the bottom of the flask.

It seemed I had a tiny bit of mana. If I had even a little mana, I could quickly raise my ranks by continuing to replenish it with jewels.

Mid-Fighters and Heavy Warriors could sometimes have zero mana. Considering that, I was lucky.

If my maximum mana was zero, I would have had to wear equipment that increased my maximum mana and raise my rank.

Since those kinds of amulets weren't sold in stores, I would have had to fight while holding a magician's wand, which wasn't my forte, to recover mana.

Constantly switching weapons to recover mana would have been a hassle and a waste of time from the beginning.

"Eh, Shinjo-kun. What's that?"

"Ah, this? It's a recovery spell. If you chant according to this scroll, you can make a recovery potion in the flask. The one I just made was a stamina potion. Literally, a fatigue recovery medicine."

I gave Seki the scroll I had bought at the general store earlier. By the way, I had only bought it as an excuse; I had memorized all the spells.

Well, even if you knew the spells, you couldn't use them without mana, and you would fail if your rank wasn't high enough, but we could work on raising those gradually.

"Wow, 'Elementary Low Health (lis)'. It's true, a blue potion appeared in the flask!"

"That's right. That's a health potion. If you successfully cast spells like that and gradually raise your rank, the ranks you saw earlier will also go up."

By the way, the class ranks went up like this: Newbie, Novice, Apprentice, Journeyman, Craftsman, Artisan, Adept.

Above Adept was the Master rank.

It continued with Expert, Low Master, but it would take a considerable amount of time to reach that level, so there was no need to explain it now.

If you just wanted to clear the game, it would be manageable if each person raised their best rank to Expert, for example.

In other words, anything above that was a matter of personal preference.

That was what made 'Genocide Reality' interesting. It was a high-difficulty game with various restrictions, but warrior-types could train and become magicians, or evolve into all-rounders.

By continuously raising all ranks and making your character the strongest, you could even go on adventures alone.

No, rather, it could be said that it was a game that recommended 'adventuring alone'.

The masterpiece RPG 'Genocide Reality' was created by the genius game creator, the noble Lord Knight.

Using such a ridiculous pseudonym, this masked writer, who never gave any interviews, loved solitude.

That's why I think he locked himself in a cold stone labyrinth alone and created a game you could play forever.

I, who had gotten hooked on the game Genoria and even created a攻略 site, was deeply impressed by the noble Lord Knight. I felt like I understood his feelings.

Instead of being guaranteed food, clothing, and shelter by my parents, I had to go to a school I didn't want to go to and do things I didn't want to do.

Until I graduated high school, it was like an eighteen-year prison sentence. I had endured it all, constantly telling myself it was just patience until I could live properly on my own. My only escape was in games.

And now, I had been freed from that gloomy reality and shown the possibility of living in the game world. There was no way I wouldn't be happy.

I didn't care why I had been transferred. I was freed from my chains. In this frantically beloved, desolate death game world, I could live freely all alone.

"Um, Shinjo-kun. We're going shopping, right?"

"Ah, that's right. We need to buy clothes and equipment."

I would soon set off on a journey alone. Without being bound by anything, I would descend into the dark underground all by myself.

But I would think about my only friend, who had been my salvation in my gloomy student life. I had to at least teach Seki how to survive in this harsh world.

"For armor, hard leather armor for everyone. Pants and shirts for everyone. And let's buy leather knee pads, cloaks, and boots too."

When I entered the armor shop, there were no detailed sizes at all.

It probably meant you had to fit the equipment to your body. Since I had to buy for five people, it was incredibly heavy.

But I couldn't complain. I equipped my own and somehow carried the girls' share by tying the ropes around them like a pack.

Next was weapons.

"For weapons, I'll take a samurai blade, Seki can have a holy mace, and Kumiko said a spear was good, so a long spear should be fine."

I thought about getting weapons for that big-breasted glasses girl, Sashiki, and that bob-haired girl, Tachibana, but I stopped myself. It would be overweight.

My rank was still low, so if it was too heavy, I wouldn't be able to move. Carrying them back and forth would also be a pain, and if I gave them money, they could buy what they liked later.

"But I have to buy a scramasax at least."

It was a heavy, cheap sword of the type that chopped more with its weight than its sharpness.

Frankly speaking, it was the worst weapon, but there was a reason for buying it.

"It's kind of big, and it's a strangely shaped sword."

"Seki, you can hold onto that for now."

"Is this weapon strong?"

"It's a primitive sword, the heaviest and dullest you can buy in the store. Haha, don't make that face. Frankly, it's a trash weapon, but it has its uses."

I would explain later. When I returned to the inn with Seki carrying the heavy luggage, Kumiko and the others had just gotten out of the bath.

They weren't stark naked... they were properly wearing white gowns, and probably underwear too.

However, there was an indescribable sweet scent of young girls after a bath.

I wasn't so thoughtless as to attack them because of that, but I could understand why Seki had hesitated to share a room.

Even with thin gowns, the scent rising from the wet hair of girls after a bath, their raw cleavage, and the slender bare legs of high school girls were irresistible to young men.

It was better not to think too deeply about it. Getting deeply involved with unfamiliar women would only increase unnecessary trouble.

Sure, in this situation, if you were kind to girls and protected them, they might fall for you easily, but that was something for guys who were good at that sort of thing to do.

I was bad with women, and the thrilling adventure game was more attractive to me than any cute girl.

"Next, the bath is ready."

"Ah, I'll leave your equipment here. There's enough for everyone, so rest as much as you like and take it with you when you're ready. I don't need the money, so divide it among yourselves."

"Wataru-kun, you're generous, aren't you?"

"I've just bought everything I needed. Even if I had money left over, it would just be luggage, and since you guys are going to stay in the safe town, you should never have enough money."

That's right, you needed money to live in town.

It was safe here, but we couldn't stay holed up forever. At the very least, we would have to earn money in the first level.

Regarding that, that game otaku with the frizzy hair (what was his name again?) seemed to be already spreading攻略 information, so it would probably work out somehow.

What happened to the others was none of my business, though.

"Hey, Shinjo-kun. I was wondering if it was okay to ask you something."

"What is it, Seki?"

"Shinjo-kun, you know a lot about this world, don't you?"

"Ah, this world... what was it called? 'Genocide Reality', right? It's like that game world. That guy with the frizzy hair..."

"Mikagami Ryuji-kun?"

"That's right, Ryuji. I heard him talking about it in class a while ago."

Mikagami Ryuji, that frizzy-haired guy had such a cool name?

Since he was going around boasting about knowing about this world, it would be fine to just blame everything on the frizzy-haired guy.

"I see, you're in the same class, after all."

"That's right, I do talk to people other than Seki, you know."

That was a lie... I was isolated even in Class F, and Seki was the only person I talked to.

I had never talked to that frizzy-haired guy, Mikagami Ryuji, even though we were in the same class. Maybe he had talked to me unilaterally, but I could hardly remember the faces of the people in my class.

The fact that the frizzy-haired guy was in the same class was something I only remembered now that Seki had mentioned it.

I had thought that everyone other than Seki was boring.

No, maybe I had just convinced myself of that.

If that frizzy-haired guy was a retro gamer like me and had played Genoria, I should have talked to him a little.

Maybe we would have gotten along. We might have been able to excitedly talk about retro games together.

It was really too late now. I was the one who hadn't tried to associate with others.

"Well then, Seki, let's go take a bath too."

"Eh... um, okay."

I entered the changing room with Seki, but he didn't take off his clothes easily and didn't come into the bath.

He was embarrassed. Even though we were both guys, it was fine.

"Hey Seki, hurry up and take them off..."

"Don't look at me, go on ahead!"

There was no point in waiting, so I quickly went into the bathroom.

The large bath was unbelievably luxurious considering it was attached to a six-person room. It was a large public bath.

The bathtub in the back was a rock bath, and as expected, you could look down at the vast ocean through the glass.

The time was just around sunset, and it was a truly beautiful view.

"Haaah, this is amazing."

I had been thinking that they should have made the room bigger instead of taking up so much space, butやっぱり a big bath was better.

Soaking in the rock bath and watching the sunset sink into the sea, I felt like my mental fatigue was being washed away.

I had thought about quickly taking a shower and going on an adventure right away, but it was better that I had taken my time.

When I got tired of adventuring, it might be nice to come back and enjoy this bath again. It was that magnificent of a view.

"This is a really amazing bath."

Seki, still wrapped in a large bath towel, entered the bathtub.

I wondered if it was okay to soak the towel in the hot water, but I decided not to say anything. After all, it was the last bath for us after we got in.

"Seki and the others will probably run out of money soon, so you might have to put up with cheaper rooms."

"Wataru-kun, aren't you staying in town?"

Suddenly becoming serious, Seki looked at me with a slightly sad expression.

He had somehow understood that I was going to go alone without me even saying it.

"I'm thinking of going down further alone."

"Isn't it dangerous? Should I come with you?"

You were truly a loyal friend, even though you had been so scared.

"No, it's okay. I'll bring back plenty of money for Seki too. I might ask for your help when you get stronger, though."

"If this is a game world, then all we have to do is level up, right?"

That was true for normal games, but...

This was Genoria, so things were a little different.

"I'll teach you about training methods tomorrow."

"O-okay..."

When I stood up from the bathtub, intending to wash my body, Seki turned his face away with a pui.

His cheeks were bright red. Surely, he wasn't embarrassed to see a man's body... no, that couldn't be it.

The small and cute Seki had androgynous features and slender shoulders, making him look exactly like a beautiful girl, which made me feel strange.

Frankly, just based on looks, I preferred Seki over Kumiko. But I wasn't gay, so I wouldn't attack a guy...

No, I really wasn't interested in boys!

"Aren't you getting too hot, Seki? You should get out and wash your body soon too."

"No, no, I'm going to soak a little longer, so go on ahead!"

Was he still embarrassed? Even though this was a rare chance for naked camaraderie between men.

I quickly washed my body and then slipped back into the bathtub.

Then, Seki got out of the bath to wash his body, so I quietly peeked at his front from behind.

Hmm...

"I can't believe it, but it's there, huh."

When I muttered disappointedly, Seki covered his body with a towel and shouted with a bright red face.

His shout and his embarrassed demeanor were unbelievably cute, which was a shame.

"Hyaaah, what's supposed to be there on me?!"

What was there? Well, that thing, you know.

It would have been a happy ending if Seki was actually a girl, but this wasn't a light novel, and the world wasn't that convenient.

Since it had suddenly become a fantasy RPG, it would be a lie to say that I had absolutely no expectations of such a miracle happening.

However, reality was harsh.

"I see, so you're a boy..."

"Shinjo-kun, if you do that again, I'm breaking off our friendship!"

I apologized to Seki, who was genuinely angry, and then enjoyed the rock bath once more, warming my body while gazing at the large ocean spreading out below.

Then, after enjoying the last rest to my heart's content, I got out of the bath feeling refreshed.