(I"m sure【Asobit Plateau】 is just east from here.)

Hiiro started walking towards the plateau while retaining a mental image of the 《Lottery Herb》he was shown. After walking for a while, he found it rather easily. It looked exactly like the picture he saw in the reference book.

It had something similar to a small white bud on its tip and was growing all around the area Hiiro was in.

"This quest is much simpler than I expected."

It was close to the city and wasn"t all that difficult to find as it grew in abundance around this area. It was such an easy task and even beginners could enjoy it.

(There"s no one around here.)

He double checked the surrounding area to make sure that no one was there and then recited 《Status》.

Hiiro looked at the column where 《Word Magic》 was written and lightly touched it with his finger. As soon as he touched it, the panel changed and showed an explanation about 《Word Magic》.

(So help does show up after all if I click on something. This is really just like a game.)

Hiiro didn"t want to just read the help explanation, he also wanted to try the magic here.

If possible, he didn"t want anyone to see him use his unique magic.

He feared that it would make him stand out and lead to being summoned by the King. It was fine for him to ignore the King"s summons but it was a pain to stand out.

(Well, that depends on what kind of magic is it though.)

If all unique magic was indeed powerful, it was quite possible for his fear to come true.

Besides like the old woman had told him earlier, it was necessary for him to understand magic in order to understand himself.

Since there was something known as 《Rebound》 in this world, Hiiro didn"t intent to be reckless with his magic. He didn"t want to die, he only wanted to know what his magic was.

Imagine magic power gathering in your finger and draw a word. An effect in accordance with the meaning of the word is brought forth. It is a unique magic with phenomenal power to apprehend and contort the underlying principles. This magic was once ?%&GR!&*…

For some reason the last part was corrupted and unreadable. He was quite bothered by this but he somewhat understood this magic.

Still Hiiro wouldn"t know if he was right or not unless he tried it out. By the way, 《Single Chain Release》 signifies the possible number of characters that can be written. (TN: Well… He is writing all his word magic in Kanji…)

(《Word Magic》…I guess I"ll give it a try.)

With that in mind, he took a deep breath and just like he had done when he was with the fortune-teller, he concentrated his magic power onto his fingertips. It took him awhile to accomplish this before but on his second try, his fingertip lit up with magic power rather smoothly.

(A character, huh… Will anything do? But since it"s using my imagination to manifest the word…)

While thinking that he drew on the ground. Then after he finished tracing the character on the ground it glowed a blueish-white light. He had written the character for 『Hard (硬) 』 and imagined the ground hardening. It was easier to imagine things with kanji.

Then he muttered "《Word Magic》, activate". In that moment, the magic power in the word flowed into the ground while sparking and zapping like an electrical discharge.

(Did that do it…?)

Hiiro knocked on the ground. It was hard. Incredibly hard. However moments ago, without a doubt, the ground had been soft.

"Whoa!" He unexpectedly said in an impressed voice. He walked around the area to check the range of the effect.

*Clonk clonk clonk…thud*

The hardened ground in the area was roughly 6.5m2 [TN: 4 tatami mats] wide. No matter how long Hiiro waited, the ground didn"t return to its original state.

The glowing characters had vanished. It was quite convenient that it left no traces behind since it lowered the likelihood of his magic getting exposed. Hiiro wrote 『Origin (元) 』on the ground to check whether or not it would revert back.

Once again it activated like an electrical charge and the ground returned to its original state. The meaning of the characters were accurately produced.

"This is… More of a cheat than I thought."

Hiiro realized how terrifying his magic was. A magic to apprehend and contort the underlying principles meant that he could affect everything around him with just one character.

For example, if he wrote the character 『Wither (枯) 』on the 《Lottery Herbs》, then they would wither. If he wrote the character 『Split (枯) 』onto the rock, then it would break into two.

(It was, undoubtedly, possible to change all kinds of phenomenon… And…)

With that in mind, he once again concentrated magic power into his finger and wrote another character on the ground.

Then suddenly a fire busted out from the ground and scorched the gra.s.sland. The character that Hiiro had written was 『Fire (炎) 』. But this time, the fire was extinguished in one minute.

(Creating something from nothing… Looks like I got my hands on some incredible magic.)

He sighed in awe realizing that unique magic held far greater power than he had imagined.

Still he was happy about the usefulness of his magic. He should be able to live in this world without any problems. Having omnipotent magic will surely come in handy.

(This magic still contains many mysteries and the corrupted text doesn"t help. Moreover, using this kind of magic probably came with many risks.)

The reason he thought that was because his body felt heavy. For some reason, he felt mentally exhausted so he recited 《Status》to check.

(I knew it, it costs quite a bit of MP.)

His MP ought to be 120 when it was full and now it was down to 30. He had used word magic three times. He couldn"t compare it to other magic but the consumption rate was most likely quite high. Hiiro"s MP was higher compared to other people; this seems to be a benefit of being from another world.

A three-digit MP number was unthinkable for a normal level one. It should usually be around the same amount as HP and the consumption for magic that beginners could use should correspond with that.

In all the games that he had played so far, there had never been a spell that would cost 30 MP right from the beginning. It was a fact that the strength of magic and likewise its MP cost, increased as one raised their level.

(I can only use it four times with my current max MP. I"ve got to level up quickly.)

After all, the number of time one can use their magic was already determined. Even more so for omnipotent magic like 《Word Magic》.

(Since I"ve got magic down, it"s time to bring this stuff back.)

Hiiro returned to town with the bag filled with 《Lottery Herb》.

In games, it would be common to get attacked by nearby monsters, but lucky for him, he reached town without any incidents. Hiiro felt that this was definitely reality.

He headed to the Guild to report his completed quest.

"Allow me to verify the details of your request, Hero Okamura-sama. You accepted the F rank quest, 《Lottery Herb Harvest》. Please show me your loot."

Hiiro place the 《Lottery Herb》onto a big scale like he was told to by the receptionist.

"… Okay, that makes 22 bundles. Your rewards comes to 7,700 rigin. Please present your guild card."

When he handed the card over to her, she took it and left for somewhere. After a while she came back and returned his card.

Hiiro looked at the currency column of the card, the earlier value of 0 had turned into 7,700.

"The quest has now been completed. Thank you for your hard work."

She bowed her head politely and showed him a professional smile like always. He gave her a small nod and left the Guild.

(Well then, I finally have money. Guess I"ll go eat. I still haven"t eaten anything since coming here.)

Asking the villagers, he went to look for a restaurant. 【Victorias】was established as a large citadel and was divided into four districts: commercial, industrial, entertainment and residential. Many people lived in this large town. Each district was rather large and was structured as if many towns had been merged together.

Hiiro headed towards the commercial district to look for a restaurant and entered one that he had found on the way. It seems that this restaurant served delicious fish cuisines. Since he liked to eat fish, he decided to stay and checked out the menu.

But as expected, all the dish names meant nothing to him. He ordered the dish of the day since he had no clue what the other dishes were. The meal was also reasonably priced.

"Ok~ay, one serving of 『Addictive Seafood Noodles』. Please wait a moment!" The waitress cheerfully took his order. While waiting for the food, he checked his 《Status》.

There he noticed that his MP had recovered to 40 after being sunk down to 30 from using 《Word Magic》 three times.

It most likely recovered over time when he rested, just like HP. It had been an over an hour since he had used magic and it had only recovered by 10 MP, so he couldn"t say that the recovery rate was particularly good.

(Well, rather than resting, all I did was walk around town without using MP.)

If he had rested in the true sense of the word, the recovery amount would be different. As he pondered over it, his steamy food was served.

The bowl was filled with different types of seafood: there was a large quant.i.ty of things that resembled salmon roe, shrimp, kelp and seaweed. Hiiro took his chopsticks and stirred it into the bowl.

By doing so, an exquisite aroma of seafood tickled his nasal cavities and his stomach began to growl as to demand the food at once. He bit into something exotic like shark fin.

"Whoa!" He couldn"t hold back his voice. The fin was steeped with flavour and spread throughout his mouth. It tasted so good that he couldn"t help but crave for more.

Then he picked up the spoon to taste the soup. It was good enough to be served as a separate dish on the menu.

The broth of the seafood was so addicting that if he wasn"t careful, he would gulp it all down in one go. It was such a perfect dish.

Next, Hiiro tried the noodles. On a closer, he could see something that looked like small grains needed into the noodles. With just a bite, his taste buds were a.s.saulted with the taste of the sea.

There was mashed fish kneaded into the noodles. This was truly seafood noodles.

(Now I see. Adding addictive to the name of this this dish wasn"t just for show.)

He finished his meal in a matter of minutes and could go for another round or two but he resisted the temptation because he was tight on money. Still 450 Rigin was quite cheap for the meal.

Hiiro"s body somehow felt lighter. It appears that MP also recovered after eating food and the same goes for HP.

(Indeed, delicious food is justice.)

He let the satisfied feeling linger for a bit before heading out to look for an inn. Starting from tomorrow, Hiiro planned to focus on acquiring money and levelling up for a while.

The next day, Hiiro woke up early and headed to the Guild. When he got there, he picked out a request.

Kill 10 goblins in Creel Forest.

Reward: 35,000 Rigin

He had already checked out this request yesterday, it was reasonable for beginners and also yielded quite the reward.

Originally, he had thought of levelling up first before doing this quest but decided that he could level up en route. He also wanted to test his magic more.

Receptionist: "Goblins are the weakest monsters but they attack in groups, so please be careful."

"Okay." He answered bluntly to the receptionist and left the guild. Hiiro had wanted to leave town right away but he had things to buy, so he headed towards the commercial district.

He visited the weapons shop and brought himself a solid knife as it was reasonability priced. Hiiro brooded over what to do about armour. He considered getting a s.h.i.+eld but he speculated that should something happen, he could just use 《Word Magic》.

Hiiro left the town and headed west to 【Creel Forest】. He could reach the forest by following a straight path called the 【Toll Road】.

During his search for an inn yesterday, he had stopped by a general store and brought five 《Crispy Beans》for HP Recovery, three 《Honey Toffee》for MP Recovery along with a map of this world.

Even if they were considered necessary expenses, the knife had been more expensive than Hiiro had expected and his purchases had completely emptied out his wallet.

He had to complete this request by all means or he would have to camp outside tonight. Camping outside sounded fun but he wanted to avoid suddenly having a hobo lifestyle.

On the way to his destination, he spotted something strange in front of him.

(What"s that…?)

The thing that was blocking his path was as big as a volleyball and light blue. However it didn"t have a fixed shape and looked squishy and winding.

(Wait, could it be…?)

The famous monster for levelling up as a beginner in RPG games…

"A slime!" Hiiro"s voice somewhat filled with excitement. Then the slime who was startled by his voice, charged at him.

"Oi oi, a battle out of nowhere?!"

He drew his solid knife from the scabbard. The slime was slow but Hiiro got chills when he thought about getting hit by such a disgusting substance.

He swung his knife down at the slime the moment it jumped up. *Slash* There was no resistance and the slime was cut in half but the two parts still moved windingly. It was clearly disgusting.

"Don"t tell me it multiplied by being cut in half."

In that case, a blade would be useless, as he was pondering over what to do, the monster writhed painfully on the ground and stopped moving before long.

Hiiro timidly poked it with his knife. It"s not moving…

(Wait, there"s faster way to do this!)

He opened his 《Status》. The NEXT (required experience points until level up) column had been 10 but now it turned into 8.

The fact that he had received experiences points meant that the monster was defeated.

"Oh ~. It"s a monster after all. I bet it"s a weak one like the goblin since it only gave out 2 EXP."

The feeling of winning his first battle was somewhat satisfying. He had thought that if he killed something his heart would ache but surprisingly he was fine.

(… Still feels like a game… Or rather, it feels like someone else is doing this and not him.)

While Hiiro was calmly a.n.a.lysing, he heard another rustling sound from behind. He turned around and there were more slimes; three this time.

"This is ideal for levelling up. But I wished there were four of them."

Then he could have levelled up. He clicked his tongue and three more slimes appeared from behind him as if to mock him. Hiiro was completely surrounded.

"Oi, oi, a pincer attack on a beginner?"

While he grumbled bitterly, he focused on defeating the three slimes in front of him first. After he cut down the first and second one, a smacking impact hit his back.

It seems that a slime had charge attacked him.

"d.a.m.n it… It surprisingly hurts…"

It felt as if he had just been hit by someone. He distanced himself a little and checked his 《Status》 and saw that his HP had decreased by 3.

"This isn"t the time for me to be foolishly play around."

Bracing himself once more, he took a stance with his knife. Two slimes attacked him simultaneously, he dodged them and cut one down immediately. But two more were coming from behind.

"Spare me the pain!"

By swinging his knife around, he managed to cut down two slimes at once. There was just one more slime left. Hiiro killed it by plunging himself at it.

Then inside his head, he heard a *pipipinnng* sound and he opened 《Status》.

He thought that it might have been the sound of him levelling up and it turned out that he was right. He was now level 2.

"Figures. The sound from before was for levelling up. Anyway, the rate at which my MP increases is amazing. It had increased by 25 in just one level. Well, it"s not like I"m complaining."

However, Hiiro was curious about how the standard levelling up system in this world worked.

According to the King"s explanation, it seems that the 《Status》system was made by the G.o.d who created this world.

"The King said he didn"t really understand it very well. I don"t even know if the existence called G.o.d really exists. Ah well, it"s not like it really matters right now anyways."

He defeated all the slimes that showed up on his way to 【Creel Forest】.

Why do I always get sick after everyone gets better!? >__< just="" got="" a wisdom="" tooth="" removed…="" and="" oh="" the="" pain="">

Hope you enjoyed Part 4 ♡. One more part and chapter 1 is complete! Hooray ^^

As always comment any mistakes you might pick up ^^