The Girl With the Blackwings 4

There was a town named Trade City Ydalir. It was to the east of the country of Laevateinn, and was an independent city that didn't belong to any country. It was perfectly placed, right in the middle of all the most influential countries, and, thanks to that, lots of merchants and travelers gathered within its walls, making it a city where money rained from the skies. Adventurers weren't an exception to this, and, to be honest, this city was where all new characters spawned.

This world was one thousand years after the game I knew, but it seemed that Ydalir never changed, at least in its liveliness. I was just a little relieved that a place I knew still existed.

Yeah, I feel like I can get pretty familiar with this place.

"...Orange, it is very hard to move."

"Please bear with it. You're famous. You don't want to draw too much attention, right?"

I was wandering around the familiar city with a cloak hiding my entire body in a style that could only be described as that of a suspicious person with the dubiousness factor in full force. I wrapped my wings, which were in the way, around my body and had the cloak worn over that so as to forcefully hide my identity. The idea was proposed by Orange. On top of that, the cloak that I was wearing—the one that I came back to this world with—was conveniently equipped with a hood.

Yeah, uh, it's true that this hides my identity. But you know, looking like this just makes me seem even more suspicious and draws more attention. And my wings are getting in the way of my body, so I basically can't move my arms at all.

What the hell is this? Some kind of new kink?

"Now then, Big Sis. You said you wanted to earn money for your travels first, but honestly speaking, this is going to be really difficult. After all, your face is too well-known, so it'll be hard to find work. There really aren't any people that would consider hiring the Black Empress."

"...That was a thousand years ago. There should not be that many that still remember our face; this world does not even have photographs."

"That's far too naive, Big Sis! This trade city is a place where many countries and people gather. Among those are elves, with their extremely long life spans. People like that still remember you clearly."

I nodded in understanding in response to Orange's statement.

Now that she mentions it, there were races like that in this world. Or rather, I myself am like that, a cheater creature with a huge life span, most of which is considered the prime of my life.

In the first place, the flugels are said to be a race derived from angels, who were god's messengers. I don't know if it's because of that, but our lives are long, with the average life span being a ridiculous 15000 years. The fact that I still look the same after one thousand years is because of that.

By the way, in flavor Haru was 275 years old when she was beaten, so now I'm 1275. In human years, I was 14 when I was sealed, and now I'm 24. ...On the outside, I look like a 15-17 year old girl, though.

"Especially those black wings. Even those who don't know about you know what black wings mean. It's the worst, forbidden color to the flugels, after all."

"Having black wings is still within the realm of normal, no? In fact, they should be considered rather plain."

I'll repeat, the flugels are said to be descendants of angels. Even the race themselves believe this, and because of that they pride themselves on clean, pure-white wings.

It was even said that pure-white wings were proof of being flugel, and among said race attractiveness is actually decided based on the color of a person's wings rather than their face or body. In fact, courting between men and women starts with showing each other their wings.

Speaking honestly, even a complete fatass uggo with acne all over and the fattest lips with smelly breath and wearing an anime girl t-shirt would be considered a hot guy if he had pure-white wings. But on the opposite side, even somebody with a perfect body and face would be considered ugly if their wings weren't white enough.

My pitch-black wings immediately place me out of the question. They completely blow away any consideration of my other features; I'd just be treated as a monster.

In human terms… let's see. It's like if someone had green skin, no eyebrows, and antennae or feelers coming out of their forehead. Something like that.

It wasn't even a matter of looks anymore; they won't even look at you as a member of the same race. Of course, I knew that already, and made Haru with black wings with full knowledge.

The reason was simple. "Isn't it cool to have forbidden wings?" ...That was it.

Of course, there was a mountain of other players who felt the same way, and pitch-black wings weren't uncommon at all in the game. In fact, black wings were actually downright decent compared to some other designs such as golden wings, or a set where each wing was a different color. The worst ones even had each feather a different color. And once you consider all that… well, black wings just weren't that conspicuous anymore.

If I stand out badly, then what if there was one with rainbow-colored wings here? That's what I start thinking.

"It's not normal at all! I'm begging you, realize how special you are already!"

"Ahhh, okay okay. We understand, so don't yell." Orange got mad, so I shrugged.

Oh man, so I guess, unlike in the game, black wings are really that different, huh? This is probably going to get pretty inconvenient.

"Geez... Then, getting back on topic, there is just one job that will hire even you without questions."

"Indeed. That would be adventuring—or in other words, selling your life, right?"

"Yes. That won't require any sort of standing. As long as you have your body, anybody can become one."

Adventurers, people who sold their life for bargain-bin prices. You didn't need anything special to start being one. Neither money nor status mattered, and even villains or slaves could get jobs.

In exchange, there was absolutely no guarantee of safety. If something were to happen, even if you were to lose your arms or legs or even die, neither your employers nor the organization would take any responsibility.

And on top of that, you'd be considered the lowest in social castes. It was a job for homeless people with nowhere to go or jobless people with nothing to do. A job for the weakest in society, for the people who don't even know if they'll be able to eat tomorrow. Those people all started with dreams of making it big in one stroke before meeting their ends instead and dying like dogs.

Adventuring was just that kind of job.

In the game it was easy to do since you'd just revive right afterwards, and such a dark background was just that, background. In fact, almost all players started off making money by being an adventurer, and the number of adventurers easily exceeded tens or even hundreds of thousands.

What about being the lowest caste of society, you say? ...Well, NPCs will curse you out a little. So what? But this is reality. Dying is the end, and cruel situations that don't occur in the game will probably happen here.

...Will I be fine? This body is Haru Heartfilia's, so I don't think I'll die, even if I play around a little. But will I be able to stand the sight of blood myself? Will I, who can't even look at a cat or crow that's been run over, be able to fight? To be honest, I'm nothing but worried.

"We're here."

Urged on by Orange, I entered the building.

It was a slightly dirty bar, and the entire building was made of wood. The first floor was a cafeteria, and there were several tables installed. There were people sitting here and there who I could tell were clearly thugs just from a glance at their ugly mugs.

When we entered, all the men focused their beast-like gazes on Orange. They were probably wary of the suspicious intruder right next to her (me), so no one approached us, though.

"Hm, this air that is the very definition of a cesspool... How nostalgic."

"Now that you mention it, you were an adventurer before founding your country, weren't you, Big Sis?"

—Hm? Didn't I say something weird just now, as if it was natural? Nostalgic... No, well, it's true this is probably nostalgic...

As I said before, most players started off as adventurers. I wasn't an exception, and I fulfilled several quests in my time.

But… right, 'I've' never been to this bar. But I still feel like it's nostalgic.

Oh no, as I thought, my memories and Haru's memories are mixing together a little.

"Welcome. What'll it be? Or do you want a room?"

"We want an adventuring job."

"...You for real, girl?" The owner of the place, an inhospitable-looking bald guy, looked at Orange in doubt.

She was clearly thin and didn't look the least bit suited for violence. It's true that if she said that she'd be an adventurer, the first thing you'd do is doubt her sanity. But Orange cheerfully laughed in the face of that reaction and said it was fine.

"I'm not the one who will be taking the job, this person will."

"Hmmm, this goldenmantle over here? ...Well, that's probably fine. Then for now, come to the back, why don't you? I want to see how good you are."

Adventurers were people who could die at any moment. Still, if everyone died without completing the job, the one who gave them the job in the first place would have their reputation plummet. Once rumors started going around saying things like, "Don't post any requests you have at that inn there, you won't get anyone good," you'd stop getting any business. That's why the agent tested your ability like this.

...Or, that's what Orange whispered into my ear.

When I came to the back of the inn like I was told to do, the owner was there with several stone statues. Each of the statues looked the same: a nice guy with a beard.

That's a stone golem made by an Alchemist, right?

Alchemist was a class that allowed you to spend materials to make a lot of different gear and tools, of which golems were one. They were NPCs that could fight on their own and were reliable friends to those who traveled solo. Their strength depended on the materials used and the skill level of the maker, and they'd turn out exactly the same given the same conditions.

There was also no way to recover their HP outside of an Alchemist's "Repair" skill, and once the golem was destroyed, it was over for that golem.

On top of that, there was a problem where the AI picked its targets on its own, so it could end up attacking something you didn't want to attack. They were convenient, but not something to be used frequently until higher levels.

I also made a lot of golems to inflate my armies during that final battle, but I remembered them being torn apart like paper by the other high level players.

"I'll have you fight these golems here. I'll be judging your skills based on how many you beat and how long it takes."

"Hm, that sounds fine," I replied and took a step forward.

On top of it being hard to move because of the cloak, my wings were wrapped over my arms, so I couldn't use them. To be honest, it was quite the handicap, but… well, it's probably fine.

In the worst case, I can just let my level difference speak for me and use Pressure, but most likely, I should be able to get through with just kicks.

"You ready?"

"You may start any time."

"Right. Then I'll turn them on," the owner said, and the golems' eyes lit up.

At the same time, I activated a Ranger skill, "Observing Eye." It was a simple but convenient skill that allowed me to see the opponent's level and remaining HP. And if the level difference was large enough, I could also see their stats.

The golems' stats were revealed, and they were:

[Stone Golem]

[Level]: 5

[Race]: Artificial Life Form

[HP]: 68

[SP]: 0

[STR (Strength)]: 73

[DEX (Dexterity)]: 36

[VIT (Vitality)]: 80

[INT (Intelligence)]: 5

[AGI (Agility)]: 27

[MND (Mind)]: 5

[LUK (Luck)]: 40

Hm, well it's a small fry, just like it looks.

With this level, even adventurers just starting the game can easily beat it after leveling for about thirty minutes. It's not hard to get stronger than it in even just one battle if a high level player is helping you fight a strong monster.

And there's five of them... It does seem like there's no point to these golems other than helping measure one's ability.

In fact, it'd probably be better to quit the game if you lose to these.

… Ahh, I should check my stats too, just in case.

To be honest, the level difference is so high it's hard to tell how far I should hold back.

[Haru Heartfilia]

[Level]: 1000

[Race]: Flugel

[Class Levels]

・Warrior: 100

・Swordmaster: 100

・Grappler: 100

・Champion: 100

・Monster Tamer: 100

・Alchemist: 100

・Ranger: 100

・Strider: 100

・Acolyte: 100

・Priest: 50

・Esper: 50

[HP]: 335000

[SP]: 17430

[STR (Strength)]: 9200

[DEX (Dexterity)]: 8750

[VIT (Vitality)]: 10300

[INT (Intelligence)]: 8300

[AGI (Agility)]: 10778

[MND (Mind)]: 9550

[LUK (Luck)]: 9280

[Equipment]:

[Head]: —

[Right arm]: —

[Left arm]: —

[Body]: Bird of Sovereignty's Dress

・Status condition nullification

・HP regeneration

[Legs]: Swift Horse Boots

・Field movement speed up

[Other]: Cloak of Seven Days

・Halve all elemental damage

Yeah, this is just bullying the weak at this point.

By the way, you're not imagining that my stats are weird.

Levels themselves are maxed out at 1000, but stats have no limit. In other words, you can raise your stats as high as you want with doping items. They're all rare items, but outside of a small portion of them, they're not that impossible to get. Especially the HP stat item. Thanks to that one being relatively easy to get, my HP is pretty high.

I digress, but for flugel, without doping items but with the same class levels, at level 1000 they'd be at around 70,000 HP. Now that you know that, you should be able to tell just how far I boosted my HP.

Of course, it's not quite at the level of bosses you'd be expected to fight at max level, but I know it's higher than most bosses you'll find out in the world. Being called "The Wild Last Boss" definitely wasn't for show.

While we're on the subject, I'll explain about "Levels" and "Class Levels" too. "Levels" are just what it says on the tin. They're a stat that's already a given in RPGs, and they're raised by fighting to gain a certain amount of experience. The max level is 1000, and it's impossible to go further than that. Even boss characters adhere to this absolute rule of Xgate.

Next are "Class Levels." These indicate the levels in a class you've acquired, and classes go up to 100. Raising class levels happens at the same time as regular levels. The class you have at the moment you level up is the one that's raised, and it affects the stats you get for leveling up, so it's pretty important.

For example, if you want to play a front line character, but you spend all your time in rear line character classes, before long your stats will be far and away from being suited to being on the front line. That kind of situation is quite possible.

I feel like that part of the game is a lot like a tabletop RPG. You can really tell that the previous game of the line was a TRPG.

And once you reach the maximum level of 100 in a class, you'll get a message saying, "Your class level is 100. Please change classes." And from then on, until you change classes, you won't gain any levels no matter how much you fight.

There's two ways around that.

The first is to do as the message says and change classes. By repeating this, the player will eventually get to level 1000, and with ten classes under their belt, their character will be complete.

Of course, there's no need to follow the same class until level 100. For example, I've only raised my Priest and Esper levels to 50 each, forcing my number of classes to 11.

The other method is to pay for it. By paying real money, you can raise a class's max level to 200 and can keep leveling that class as is. However, in exchange, there'll be basically no new skills to learn. Most skills for a class are learned by level 100, so basically the only merit of continuing in the same class is stat gains.

For example, staying as a Swordmaster or a Grappler for the whole 200 levels will get your attack and HP stats higher than most other front liners, which is the biggest reason to pay. Also, some skills scale with class level, so there are a lot of people that pay to get to 200 because of that.

Other than that, let's see… some classes will unlock a secret class or skill by getting it to level 200, it seems, but most of them haven't been discovered. People say that, most likely, you won't find that stuff unless you level your character pretty stupidly.

Anyway, that doesn't matter right now. For now, it's time for my first fight since I found myself in this body. I see no reason for this fight to be any trouble, but for now let's try some stuff out.

One of the golems swung its arm at me.

—I was at max wariness, wondering what kind of attack would be coming, but I lost a lot of my tension seeing the speed of the attack.

—It's slow. No, it's way too slow.

What the hell? Is this like a bald hero's punch from a certain manga that came out a while back? This is exactly what people mean when they say time stops. With how slow things are, I feel like time is stopped, and I can do anything.

What's with these sluggish, unmotivated movements? ...Am I being underestimated?

"What dull golems."

I couldn't stop myself from voicing my displeasure, and with a light jump I got on top of the golem. Then, with about 10% of my power, I stomped on it.

When it died, the golem was crushed flat like it was made of paper and completely lost its previous form.

... S-So brittle. Way too brittle. A cardboard box is harder than that.

I pulled out my leg, which was buried in the ground up to the knee, and glanced at the owner.

...I don't really care, but isn't this ground too soft?

"Owner. There is no need to hold back. Can you not make these things move even a little more realistically?"

"...Huh? Wha-, huh...? N-no way... The g-golem was squished in an instant? W-What just happened...?"

"...Could it be, you didn't see what happened?"

I thought that the golem was slow and brittle. But from the way the owner reacted, it appears that I'm wrong.

Ahh, I see. I am wrong.

It's not that the golems were too slow or too brittle. It's just that once I start concentrating for battle, I'm too strong and too fast. Our perceptions of time were far too different.

"We see… in other words, that was their all?"

Those golems were level 5. And level 5's were newbie adventurers… or in this world, just strong enough to live on their own.

On the other hand, I'm level 1000. And I'm especially confident in my speed.

In the end, their fastest just looked slow to me, and the difference in perception of time was enough that it was actually hard to try to get hit on purpose. It was the same in the game, where, if the difference in speed was too much, even just standing there like a log will cause attacks to miss.

The fight between me and the golem was just like that.

"This won't do at all."

I lightly kicked the second golem apart. It felt like I was kicking tofu. They fell apart so easily it was actually hard to tell if I defeated them or not.

—Ahh, this is… this isn't a fight anymore. It's just a match of attrition I'm guaranteed to win. This is just a farce that gives me no sense of accomplishment, like accidentally walking over a bug.

But still, this is a test, so I have to do it.

I had no idea what, if anything, could be measured by me doing this work that just involved wastefully breaking things, but I still kicked apart the remaining three golems.

I only moved leisurely and listlessly, like kicking a stone on the side of the road, but even then the golems didn't even manage to look like they were trying to dodge and broke disappointingly, without any form of resistance.

Before, I was thinking of this as 'my first battle in this body,' but let me correct that now. I still haven't 'fought' in this body at all.

"T-Too quick… too strong… Y-You, just what..." The owner, in shock, shot me a look filled with fear.

Oh no, looks like I made a mistake. It's not good that I garnered this much attention to myself right now... Oh well, it's already done. Let's take this as a lesson and be more careful next time.

"Wait a second, Big Sis, that was too much! Unlike a thousand years ago, power levels are a lot lower, so you'll just scare people if you don't hold back more!" Orange ran over and whispered her complaints into my ear.

Actually, this is the first I'm hearing of levels being a lot lower than thousand years ago.

Wouldn't that be something you tell me earlier, usually?

"Ahh, sorry about that, Orange. It really does seem that We have lost some of our instincts in these one thousand years. We made a mistake on how much to hold back."

"Geez, be more careful next time."

I should have used only around 10% of my power, but apparently even that was too much. I guess I should settle it with a flick to the forehead next time for opponents like that. Ah, but I can't move my arms right now, so that won't work. …I guess I just have to move as slow as I can and kick as lightly as possible.

Still, it's weird.

It's not like I see people moving that slowly normally. But it becomes like that the moment I start thinking of things as a battle. In other words, I'm smoothly transitioning between normal operation and battle mode, but is that really something I can do myself? Could it be… I'm being helped by Haru's instincts?

"So, how is it, owner? I think her abilities are more than enough."

"Ah, yeah… you're right. You'll be able to take on any job without a problem. Jobs are posted up in the bar so just take what you like."

Now that we'd gotten permission from the owner, Orange and I went back inside. And we took a look at the jobs that were posted on the wall, but none of them really stood out to me. To put it bluntly, I didn't feel like doing too many of these jobs. I wanted one where I could make a lot of money in a single go.

I wanted to hurry up and get to Svel.

The best one would be an escort request from here to Svel or something similar. That way we could get to Svel while actually earning money.

I could just fly there by myself, but if I did that I'd leave Orange behind. But with a carriage, even she could be easily carted around.

… or that's what I thought.

"There's nothing good."

"Nothing."

There were escort jobs on carriages, but they all went to Laevateinn. Far from going to Svel, it was in the opposite direction.

Unfortunately, there weren't any jobs like what I was hoping for.

"Ah, Big Sis. What about this one?"

"Hm?" Orange was holding a piece of paper, so I looked at it.

[Request: Finding a cat]

[Difficulty]: ☆☆

[Reward]: 100 el 

[My beloved cat Tora disappeared. Please find him!] 

"It's 1200 el just for finding a cat! It's a steal!"

"Ahh, yeah, it certainly is a good deal..." 1200 el for being decent at finding cats…. it was true that that was a good deal.

El was the name of the currency in this world, and, translated to Japanese yen, a single el would be 200 yen. In other words, completing this would net us 240,000 yen.

They must either really love cats or be nobles with the money to spare. Either way, I'm jealous of how much they have to spend.

In addition, although I said that one el was the equivalent of 200 yen, that was just in-game fluff. In actuality, it was very much the opposite.

This was completely natural, as comparing game money to real money would obviously result in real money winning. Between an item a player paid 10,000 el for and one that cost 500 yen, the latter would always be clearly stronger.

The world is a tough place.

"Let's not. We are not good at searching for things. That is the realm of beastmen."

"Th-then how about this one?"

[Request: Orc Slaying]

[Difficulty]: ☆☆☆☆

[Reward]: 1500 el

[An orc nest was built near our village, and they're causing problems, doing as they please. Please help us.]

"Oh? This one is pretty nice. Strange that no one has taken it yet." My voice filled with excitement, seeing the request that Orange had brought me.

Even if it wasn't a job, I'd want to hunt orcs. After all, these orcs have a high 3% chance of dropping the HP boosting item "orc meat."

Orcs—better known as pork bowls.

In the game, to players, they existed only to be eaten. They were literally pork.

Especially for those of us with maxed out levels, they were a safe and easy way of getting HP-up items, and we'd hunt orcs basically every day. It was just daily routine to destroy whole nests. There would even be people camped out by orc spawn points just waiting patiently for more to respawn.

Because of that, in the game, orcs became a rare monster that was almost never seen in the wild. Any orcs that managed to take even a step out of their respawn points could already be considered heroes to their race.

Of course, there'd be no way they'd ever be able to attack a human village. They weren't even allowed to group up; they'd be slaughtered and eaten as soon as they spawned.

Orcs were a monster that was so worth killing it was actually kind of sad.

For orcs to be gathered into a whole herd and attack humans... This request is actually almost moving.

"Well, that's because there's no merit to it."

"What? Orc hunting by itself should be a merit, no?"

"Well, that would be the case for you, but in this age, that's not true. After all, even a single orc is as strong as an average veteran warrior, so having to exterminate a whole nest would be difficult and require an entire knight brigade. And even then, there'd probably be a lot of casualties. And after taking on all that, you only get 1500 el? No one would take it."

"Times really do change, huh? ...Back then, rather than complaining about 1500 el, there'd be floods of people that would pay 15,000 to even be able to take the job." I sighed in disappointment, exasperated at the difference to the game.

To me, hunting orcs was nothing but merit. Rather than taking money for it, I was even thinking I'd pay to be able to do it. And since I'd be getting paid on top of getting to hunt, it was as if I not only got the right to eat as much amazing steak as I wanted but was told, "If you eat steak, I'll give you 30,000 yen."

The deal was so good I could only assume that something was up.

"So this means… it is all right to completely destroy this orc nest?"

"Of course."

"Right. Let us take this one. There is no way We can let this opportunity go. We can earn both money and food before going on our journey."

"Yaayyy, so it's back to the ice ages for orcs, huh? I probably shouldn't be saying this since I brought you the posting myself, but I feel sorry for the orcs."

I can get paid, get a lot of meat, and even raise my HP. If I let this go, I'm a failure of a max level player.

Without a second thought, I took the paper to the owner and told him I'd be taking the job before leaving the inn.