Chapter Two

  It's already been a week since I was sent to Vendae.

  Just kill me now.

  I’ve been training nonstop the last week to get my stats and skills up to snuff.

  I can’t feel my arms and legs.

  The knights have been putting me through the gauntlet.

  On my second day, I had to run five miles with two three-hundred-pound weights attached to me.

  That was already hard for me, but to make it worse, I wasn’t allowed to stop. If I did, I had to restart.

  I may be the hero, but I'm still only human!

  Did the other knights have to go through this hellish training? Surely not?

  I'm guessing that they’re putting me through this training because I'm the hero. They need me as strong as possible and then some if I'm to defeat the demon lord.

  But seriously, did they need to tie the weights to my neck?

  Thats right.

  The weights were tied to my neck, choking me the whole time.

  There is no way that this is training. This has got to be a punishment.

  I know not what crime I committed, but I swear I'm innocent.

  Anyway, that hell- I mean, “training” started on Thursday and ended today on Wednesday.

  A lot of the knights found it impressive that it only took me a week to complete it.

  They are right to be impressed. I am pretty awesome.

  It took a lot of effort, but I managed to overcome that trial because of how great I am.

  Ok, so I cheated.

  But can you blame me? There is no way any normal person should be able to do that.

  I stayed up late one night and was experimenting with my skills. The one, to be exact.

  I noticed while using appraisal on others that how magic works is that instead of just being able to use magic, you have to have that skill.

  If someone wants to use water magic, they have to have .

  Its the same with the other magics as well.

  But my was kinda vague and broad as I intended.

  Because of that, I can use most magics, but as a slight drawback, I need to understand how the spell works.

  I can’t just imagine a fire spell so powerful that it consumes the entire world.

  I need to think about how it would work, and I have to have the MP required for such a spell.

  So I used magic to make the weights lighter.

  Then I used magic to increase my endurance.

  The knights were real shocked after I completed it so easily after struggling with it for the last week.

  The only one that wasn’t so surprised was Ms. Knight.

  I'm afraid that it might have looked too suspicious.

  But hey, that's kinda the plan.

  I figured that what they were putting me through wasn’t training, but a test.

  I'm a hero sent from another world by angels. It would be odd if I were lacking in abilities.

  I'm sure that they were putting me through that test to see how I would handle it.

  Would I power through with strength?

  Would I use magic to make it easier?

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  My guess is that they were trying to deduce my abilities.

  Why not just ask me?

  Well, apparently, appraisal is a really rare skill. Only one in five hundred million people have it.

  In the 1500s, Europe only had about eighty-two million people in the whole continent, and the Kingdom of Silivius is only one nation.

  And they don’t dare ask me what my skills were.

  I found this out from the princess, Marin, but apparently, there is a history of demons pretending to be angels and tricking people.

  They think that I could potentially be a demon, and with no appraisal, they have no full proof way of thinking otherwise.

  I'm the hero meant to defeat the demon lord, but only a week in, and I'm suspected of being a demon.

  How fantastic!

  They’ve even sent someone to watch me.

  Using my im able to send out a wave like a vibration and feel it bounce back like an echo location.

  Using that, I’ve figured out that they have someone with an invisibility skill following me.

  Like, I get it, but still. Leave a guy be.

  I have nothing I need to hide, but I'd rather not show all my cards.

  I have read many isekai novels, and rarely is the kingdom ever good.

  Shield hero for example, spoiler warning, he was betrayed by Bitch and accused of rape.

  And Trash treated him like shit just because he disliked the previous shield hero.

  I'm not saying that the Kingdom of Silivius is evil or bad just because a few books have similar tropes, but I think it's best to be on the side of caution here.

  If I die again, I won’t get a third chance.

  Knock, knock.

  Someone knocks at the door, but I'm not able to tell who it is with my echo location.

  My echo location is unable to travel through solid objects. All it can really do is give me 360 vision and let me see things that are invisible.

  I can make a guess as to who the person is, though.

  It sounded like the knock came from about the 65% point of the door’s height, meaning the person must be between 1.55 meters and 1.70 meters.

  Out of all the people who would see me at this time, there are only three.

  Marin Silivius, first princess of the Silivius Kingdom, Loen Silivius, second prince of the Silivius Kingdom, or a maid bringing my dinner.

  The door swings open and hits the wall, and in walks Leon Silivius.

  “How dare you not open the door immediately!”

  Oh great. It's this asshole.

  Loen Silivius is the stereotypical royal who is arrogant and looks down on everybody.

  The type that talks a big game, but when faced with a real threat, will piss his pants and run.

  Sigh, I was hoping that it would be the maid with my dinner.

  “Don’t you dare ignore me! I am Prince Loen Silivius! If I so decided, I could have you executed for your disrespect, hero or not!”

  You say that, but I don’t think the kingdom will execute me now.

  They’re unsure if I'm a demon or not. They likely fear doing anything bad to me, just in case I drop the act and decide to kill everyone.

  And just in case I'm actually the hero, they won't kill me; they will at most send me off on my journey to defeat the demon king ahead of schedule.

  “Yes, I'm sorry for my failure as a hero, your majesty.”

  With that, I quickly rise and give a deep bow.

  Even though I could get away with anything doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be beneficial to lick his boots.

  Sending me off to fight the demons now would cause only trouble for me.

  See, next week me, Marin, and Loen will be sent to enroll at the Silivius hero academy.

  I can use that chance to deepen my understanding of this world and expand my skills.

  I also have something crucial to test there. Something that will affect the rest of my life.

  So I’ll suck it up and bark if I'm told to.

  “There we go. Looks like this dog has learned his place.”

  I really want to punch him in his plump face. I'm sure if I punch him hard enough, it might fix how he looks.

  Why is he even here again?

  You know what? I don't care.

  “Wha?! Guah?!”

  What a sight. Seeing this annoying bastard confused and flustered.

  See, what happened was that his clothes suddenly were torn to shreds.

  More accurately, cut.

  I'm sure he had nothing important to say or do, so I used to tear up his clothes.

  Anyone who just had the clothes they were wearing suddenly and mysteriously shredded like that would inevitably panic and stop what they were doing to get more clothes.

  And just like that, Loen Silivius runs right out the door.

  Yeah, I'm sure he had no important reason to come here.

  Probably just getting him established as a character that will be a minor antagonist that will likely be used by a bigger antagonist.

  Anyway, I’ve done great experimenting with .

  Turns out it works just as I figured.

  If I want to cut something, I can, but it's a bit more complicated than that.

  Say I want to cut cloth, just like Leon’s clothes, its real easy.

  I was able to cut it to shreds because of that. I didn’t need much cutting power to cut cloth and was able to make many cuts.

  If I wanted to cut stone, that's a bit more difficult.

  I would have to focus it on one spot, and depending on things like how thick, dense, and the material the stone is will affect how it will cut.

  I also only have two ways of cutting at the moment.

  Just like with , I need to understand how it works to use it.

  I have scissor, and sword.

  Scissor is a more precise but low-power cut. Sword is less precise but has high offensive power.

  Scissor is good for more general and everyday use. It's what I used to cut up Leon’s clothes.

  Sword is what I would use for combat if I get into one. If I tried to use it on Loen to cut his clothes, I probably would have killed him.

  I'm not a cool anime swordsman who can take the wings off a butterfly without damaging the main body. I'm not that cool.

  I get up to close the door so that the spy they put on me won't be able to sneak in so easily.

  I have all the windows shut and using I’ve put up a form of barrier.

  Using a similar technique to my echo location, I set up a vibration to cover the walls.

  If someone were to try to listen in, they would hear nothing, at most a buzz.

  I wouldn’t be able to stop them if they could see through the walls, though, sigh.

  I look down at my hand and appraise myself.

  Name: Rentaro Sasajima

  Title: Hero

  Hp: 50/50

  MP: 40/70

  SP: 10/40

  Skills:

  I assume that the MX stands for max, as in max level.

  I have no idea about the OSMX, though.

  I think the MX still means max level, but what could the OS mean?

  Knock, Knock.

  I get up to open the door again.

  If it's Loen, maybe he did have something important to say.

  When I open the door, I don’t see a plump, Blonde man. I see a maid wheeling a cart with a tray of delicious food.

  Ahh, my dinner.