[You have perfectly met all conditions.]
[You receive 200 EXP, 30 Gold, and an additional reward.]
[Calculating additional reward…]
[Congratulations! You have received a ‘Fragment of a Holy Relic’ as an additional reward!]
‘A fragment of a holy relic? Why is that dropping here?’
I couldn’t help but be shocked.
A fragment of a holy relic.
It boosts stats, strengthens gear, lets you brew potions, purify things, even forge holy swords.
One of the best all-purpose crafting materials in the game had just popped out of nowhere.
‘Even getting two of these before the end of the game is considered insanely lucky…’
And I’d just gotten one in the early game. I was starting to wonder if my luck had broken.
A few uses sprang to mind right away, but that could wait. For now, I should just keep collecting my sweet rewards.
[You have become the disciple of the Empire’s Mad Lion, ‘Lowell de Lucid’.]
[The target already has too many disciples. To receive rewards, your Reputation must reach the top 10 among her disciples.]
Lowell’s goal was to kill the Second Legion Commander.
Realizing she couldn’t do it alone, she started gathering comrades and, in the process, worked hard to build connections.
One of those efforts was taking on “disciples.”
‘Becoming the disciple of someone from a prestigious house—that alone gets your name out there.’
She might be overshadowed by Lucia and Lucas, but she was still a member of House Lucid.
Becoming Lowell’s disciple was an easy way for noble brats to advertise themselves.
Young nobles came knocking on her door almost every day, and through them Lowell built herself an absurdly wide network.
That was why she had so many disciples.
“First my sister, now me as your master? You better realize how lucky you are.”
In this game, you can have multiple masters at once.
Of course, there was a penalty.
‘Your Reputation gain gets split, for starters.’
Whenever you gain Reputation, it gets divided by the number of masters you have.
That was a bigger problem than it sounded.
You needed Reputation to earn rewards from your masters, and if that took too long…
‘You’d end up getting early-game rewards in the late game.’
Right now, even D and F-grade items still had their uses, but once you hit late game, you wouldn’t even glance at them.
No matter how special the master reward was, an ordinary A-grade late-game item would usually be better.
‘That’s the downside of the disciple system.’
Five masters at most—that was the optimal number.
‘Lucia’s Reputation requirement is too high for me to get rewards easily, and Lowell has too many disciples for me to rank in…’
Like I said, you can only have up to five master slots.
And two of mine were already taken. By masters who basically wouldn’t be giving me any rewards!
‘Lucia I can accept because her rewards are insanely good, but taking Lowell as a master is a real variable.’
Still, it wasn’t all bad.
She had so many disciples that the three of us getting added to the list wouldn’t raise any suspicions.
You could say we now had a legal way to “use” Lowell.
She was a character slated to die soon, but if I interfered, I could probably change that.
I was fiddling with the disciple token Lowell had given me when she suddenly spoke up.
“I really am curious about this. Why did you want my token so badly?”
“Keke, don’t worry. I won’t use it for anything shady.”
“You saying it like that makes it sound even shadier…”
Lowell narrowed her eyes and glared at me.
Honestly, even I had no real use for her token. If not for that damn quest, I wouldn’t have cared.
“Whatever. I’m the one who’ll regret it if I don’t mark what’s mine properly.”
Lowell flicked her hair with a prim little motion, and a system window popped up over her head.
[Lowell’s Affection toward you is beyond expectations.]
[You can learn one of Lowell’s skills.]
It was a bonus reward triggered by the Affection system.
And not just any bonus—a very useful “skill transmission” reward.
“Since you’re already marking me, why not really go all the way?”
“Huh?”
“Teach me one of your techniques, Lowell.”
“My technique? Which one are you after?”
The “skill transmission” reward let you learn one skill from your master.
‘Of course, there are limits.’
It was based on your current stats.
So under normal circumstances, you’d grind levels and stats to the max before taking the skill.
But I wouldn’t be seeing Lowell again for a while, and the next time we met, I didn’t even know if she’d still be alive.
So even if the skill wasn’t ideal, it was better to take something now while I could.
‘Let’s see…’
A list of Lowell’s skills appeared before my eyes.
Anything I couldn’t learn with my current stats was grayed out, so I automatically ignored those.
I was scanning the ones blinking in white when I noticed it.
‘…There’s one that’s worth it.’
I selected that skill and turned to Lowell.
“You have a signature technique that represents you, don’t you, Lowell?”
“Hm? Ah, you mean Ring Slash?”
Lowell, who had been idly wiggling her fingers, glanced over at me.
“You may be a genius, but… that one’s out of your league.”
“Just watching it would be educational, don’t you think?”
“Well, sure… it’s not like it’s hard for me.”
Lowell glanced around, checking the surroundings, then nodded.
“It’s too cramped here. Come on. I know a good spot.”
“Mm… this brings back some unpleasant memories.”
“Keke, this is where I knocked you down, Master.”
“Knocked me down?! I just sat down for a second, okay!?”
Lowell screeched.
That’s right. The place she had brought us to—was the bamboo forest where we’d had that bloody fight.
“Come to think of it, why did you even make that Dark Beast Squad of yours?”
“For various reasons.”
“So it’s a secret, huh? Well, considering your skill and your age, I can sort of understand…”
Skill that doesn’t fit your age always causes problems.
She probably assumed I’d created the group to hide that fact and move around more freely.
‘In reality, it all started as Luna’s prank, though.’
It might have started as a joke, but by now it had become one of the key pieces needed to clear the game.
We’d be using it a lot in the future, so keeping it secret was crucial.
“You do know you have to keep this a secret, right?”
“Hmm~ I dunno? If you don’t agree to become a retainer of my house, I’m not sure what my mouth might accidentally spill~”
“I see. I won’t stop you then. If you want the whole continent to know, ‘Mad Lion utterly crushed by a fifteen-year-old!’ who am I to object?”
“Argh! You really don’t let a single thing slide! I’m the master, you’re the disciple!”
Lowell grumbled as she kept walking.
She stopped deep inside the bamboo forest.
It was the very spot we had fought at, with shattered bamboo scattered all over the place.
“Ah, I handled what happened last time by saying I trained a bit too hard.”
The Rats who handled intelligence didn’t skip Trash Village just because it was out of the way.
They would’ve found traces of battle in Lowell’s training ground and reported it straight to Caron.
She’d brushed it off with the shameless excuse that she’d just been “training alone.”
“Keke, should I be thankful?”
“Obviously. And I’m your master now, remember? How about showing some respect?”
“I’ll try. If the technique you’re about to show me really lives up to the rumors.”
“Hmph~ fine. Watch closely. I’ll show you just how amazing your master is!”
Lowell stepped into the center of the bamboo grove.
She drew her longsword and gripped it firmly with both hands. Even held horizontally, the long blade didn’t waver in the slightest.
In the kind of silence that made you think time itself had stopped, Lowell moved.
Pouring all her strength into her waist and shoulders, she twisted her body and used her whole frame as an axis, swinging the sword in a full turn.
Lowell’s first original secret technique.
Ring Slash.
The tip of the blade drew a perfect circle in the air.
With a metallic howl, everything along that circular path was sliced through in an instant and collapsed.
Rustle…
Bamboo stalks, severed without a sound, rained down around her.
A clean clearing opened up around Lowell, a perfect circle without even a hair’s breadth of error.
“So that’s Ring Slash… the move that made your name.”
“I-It’s incredible!”
Luna and Rezé let out cries of admiration, and Lowell smiled, clearly pleased.
“Well? Think you can copy it?”
It was definitely an impressive technique. But it wasn’t the one I wanted.
“It’s amazing. But it’s not the one I asked for.”
“Huh?”
“You have an improved version of it, don’t you?”
First her eyes shot up in surprise, then her expression twisted with irritation.
“I really don’t know what to do with this cocky disciple. This one is hard enough and you’re asking for the upgraded version? That’s just greedy.”
“What’s the harm? It’s not like the technique wears out if you show it.”
Otherwise…
“Are you afraid I might copy it?”
“Ha…!”
Lowell let out a short, incredulous laugh.
Her lips twitched like she wanted to say something, then pressed shut.
She clearly wanted to curse me out, but she needed to win me over, so she couldn’t. Yet she still wanted to put me in my place.
That internal conflict was written plainly on her face.
“Fine. I like that arrogance… I’ll break it for you, so look forward to it.”
Maybe she’d made up her mind, because Lowell drove us far back.
“Farther back!”
“Is this far enough?”
“Back more! More, more, more, more!”
Only once Lowell looked finger-sized from where we stood did she signal that it was fine.
Oh, though she might’ve always been about finger-sized to begin with?
—is what I almost said.
“That should be fine! But just in case, stand up on that rock!”
We were so far away that we had to shout to hear each other.
Lowell took the same stance as before and loaded power into her legs.
The only difference was that this time, her speed was twice what it had been.
Lowell’s first original secret technique, modified.
Ring Annihilation Slash.
The very moment I felt that Lowell had completed a full 360-degree spin and returned to her starting stance—
Thud-ka-ka-boom!!
An invisible shockwave exploded outward in all directions.
“Uwah!”
“E-Eeeek!”
The shock was strong enough to send Rezé sprawling backwards.
Only after the dust settled could we see what had happened.
“The forest… is gone?”
The circle was at least ten times larger than before.
And the only thing left standing inside that massive circle was Lowell herself. Even the severed bamboo had been flung outside the boundary.
This was one of Lowell’s trump cards: [Ring Annihilation Slash].
‘It cuts down everything around the user.’
The power was impressive, but its real strength was the wide area, making it perfect for wiping out large groups of enemies.
I’d thought so in the game, but seeing it in person made it crystal clear.
It was an insanely good skill.
Lowell slung her longsword over her shoulder and walked back toward us.
“If I’d used this when we fought, you’d be dead. You get now how much I was holding back, right?”
“Keke, I can definitely see that.”
Of course, the reality was a bit different.
The reason Lowell hadn’t used [Ring Annihilation Slash] in the fight against me and Baron Kelven—was because the technique had a fatal opening.
‘In game terms, it needs a full turn of preparation.’
With [Gae Bolg] being fired nonstop, she’d never had the chance to charge it.
Lowell shrugged, soaking in the kids’ praise, then tilted her head when she saw me walking out into the clearing.
“What, you’re actually going to try it?”
“There’s value in trying, isn’t there? Training’s better done sooner rather than later.”
“Well, true. Want to borrow my sword?”
Lowell held her longsword out to me.
[Ring Annihilation Slash] was a skill that carved out a wide circular area, so it could only be used with weapons longer than two meters.
“Keke, I’m fine.”
Fwoosh—!
The ring on my finger burst into flames and transformed into a longsword.
It was [Infinite Flame], the mystery I’d gotten in the mine, capable of turning into anything.
A longsword was the most basic of basics.
“Oh, what’s that?”
“Keke, just a personal item.”
“You really have a lot of strange toys… Just how many mysteries do you own?”
I ignored Lowell’s muttering and walked toward the open space.
“Hey! Aren’t you going a bit too far?”
Her complaint echoed from far behind me.
Naturally. There was no way I could perfectly copy a technique I’d only just seen.
But again, reality was different.
‘I learned it a long time ago already.’
[You have inherited Lowell’s First Original Secret Technique (Modified) – Ring Annihilation Slash.]
[The skill’s grade is determined by your current character stats.]
[You have acquired Ring Annihilation Slash (E).]
[Once the skill’s requirements are met, you may use it freely.]
The requirements for [Ring Annihilation Slash] were 500 mana, one turn of preparation, and equipping a weapon at least two meters long.
That was it.
My mana was more than enough, I had plenty of time to prepare, and [Infinite Flame] took care of the weapon length.
‘If I’m going to show it off, I might as well do it properly.’
Fwoom—!
I activated [Darkness], and black flames burst to life along the blade.
As I triggered the skill, my body moved on its own, falling into the proper stance.
The same preparation pose Lowell had taken, sword held firmly across my body.
The smile vanished from Lowell’s face when she saw me, and at the same time, my body spun in a wide circle.
Lowell’s first original secret technique, modified.
Ring Annihilation Slash.
“…Duck!”
The very moment Lowell shoved Luna and Rezé’s heads down with both hands—a massive shockwave swept across the area.
–TL Notes–
Tired of seeing Ads? Then please support me on Patreon! Any tier of subscription will make it so you won’t get any ads!
If you want to support me or give me feedback, you can do it at patreon.com/InsanityTheGame
Join my Discord! https://discord.gg/BWaP3AHHpt
