Okano The Unwanted Undead Adventurer: Volume 1

1. Auflage 2018
ISBN: 978-1-7183-2100-7
Verlag: J-Novel Club
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, Band 1, 250 Seiten

Reihe: The Unwanted Undead Adventurer

Rentt Faina, a twenty-five-year-old adventurer, has been hacking away at monsters for a decade. However, without much talent for the job, Rentt finds himself stuck hunting slimes and goblins for meager amounts of coin every day. Little does he know, all this is about to change when he comes across a seemingly undiscovered path in the Water Moon Dungeon.
What awaits him at the end of the path, however, is neither treasure nor riches, but a legendary dragon that wastes no time swallowing him whole! Waking up a short time later, Rentt finds himself not quite dead, but not very alive either- He is nothing more than a pile of bones! Armed with nothing but his trusty sword, tool belt, and ghoulish new looks, Rentt sets off on his quest as a newly reborn skeleton to achieve Existential Evolution, hoping to one day return to civilization with a more human form.
Will Rentt succeed, or will the dungeon consume him for the rest of his un-death...?

Autoren/Hrsg.

Okano, Yu

Weitere Mitwirkende

Jaian

Yeung, Shirley

Leseproben

Chapter 1: A Grasp of the Situation and Existential Evolution

I found myself at a complete loss. My first thought—

For starters, it would be fair to say that I had definitely been eaten by the dragon. I supposed I should be grateful, even if I were alive in a somewhat non-human form.

Well, no. I could not be sure of that... Was I even alive in the first place? Skeletons were a type of undead monster, creatures that have already died once. As such, it would be easy for bishops and priests of the church to exorcise them with simple cleansing magic. If anything, they were exceptionally weak monsters.

The explanation behind cleansing skeletons was simple. Being a sack of walking bones, they were creatures brought forth against the divine logic of the gods. Other explanations included the more simple “they are dead and, as such, cannot exist on this world.” Succinct, but true. This continued defiance of the divine rules of life and death was apparently the prime reason for their weakness to said magic.

Personally, I had no idea if any of this held water. In the first place, I wasn’t a bishop or priest. However, the general argument for it seemed sound, and for myself at this point in time, it was a critically important piece of information. Plainly put, if I were to expand upon that logic, I was definitely very, very dead. More accurately, I was existing in the world as a dead pile of bones. This was a very bad thing indeed.

As I mentioned before, the fact that a dead being continued to exist apparently flaunted some severe laws of the divine nature. If I were to simply saunter back into town and enter a tavern as if nothing had happened, it would not end well. No matter how much I would claim that I was Rentt Faina, some no-good priest who spent all his time in the tavern from morning to night would chance upon me and then promptly get rid of me with his stave. If this were to come to pass, my existence would simply be erased. This was something I definitely wanted to avoid.

Such were the bones of the situation. On the bright side, I was still alive. Even if I were to exist as a skeleton and defy the laws of life and death, as far as I was concerned, my consciousness was intact; I was still very much alive. This was precisely why I could not simply skip back to town and carelessly get myself killed.

Well, then, what should I do? That was the burning question.

This was the Water Moon Dungeon; adventurers would certainly make their way to the dungeon as they always had, merrily killing what monsters they found along the way. Even for a relatively beginner-oriented dungeon populated by weaker monsters, adventurers stronger than myself often made their way here. If I appeared before such individuals, I would certainly be killed—for good this time.

Whatever, then, should I do...?

As I continued to think, a few strings of thought connected in my mind. It was perhaps safe to assume that I was now a monster of some sort. There’s a certain mysterious aspect to monsters: older and more experienced monsters tended to evolve into more powerful versions of themselves. This phenomenon was commonly referred to as “Existential Evolution.” Although I was not absolutely sure if I was a monster to begin with, I seemed to be some sort of walking skeleton at a glance. If that really were the case, then wouldn’t this concept apply to me, as well?

—The whole “Existential Evolution” thing, I mean. After all, having knowledge of monsters was sort of an occupational requirement for adventurers. If memory served, skeletons could apparently evolve into flesh-eating ghouls—at least, that’s what I remembered reading in a book about monsters some time ago.

Although ghouls were also a type of undead monster, and hence also went against the divine laws governing life and death, they at the very least had a more humanoid appearance than a skeleton did. Rotted and dried out though it may be, a ghoul even had flesh. With a robe and mask, I could perhaps pass for a human—those were my thoughts on the matter.

If I did this, I would be able to sneak into town rather uneventfully, and I would finally get the chance to explain the nature of this situation to my friends and compatriots. I was, of course, very much aware of the absurd nature of my plan. If anything, it was not very well thought-out. However, this was all I had to work with at this point.

I made a decision—

I would aim to somehow trigger this Existential Evolution. I, Rentt Faina, would evolve into a ghoul in the Water Moon Dungeon.

?????

The Existential Evolution from skeleton to ghoul was the first thing I had to address. Although I had already decided on that course of action, I was unsure of the extent of my combat abilities. I was only a low-ranked Bronze-class adventurer, near the bottom rungs of the guild. I did, however, fare better than Iron-class adventurers, who were the newest of the new. If I were to objectively state my combat prowess, I would say that taking down one or two goblins and skeletons was doable and well within safe limits. I could do at least that much—

Although I probably would not come out of it unscathed.

If there were three enemies, it would perhaps be a little more difficult, but I would still be able to win, somehow. If there were four enemies, I would definitely run; if there were five, I would be done for. That was how it looked at this point in time.

It would not be fair, however, to call me weak. I didn’t have much say in the matter to begin with, having begun my journey as an adventurer only a decade ago, but I had been training hard for almost 20 years. In fact, I would actually like some empathy here—I had trained for that long, but I could only do this much.

If one were to ask why I had spent that much time and effort training only to have nothing much to show for it, the answer was very simple: I didn’t have enough reserves of mana, spirit, or divinity. In addition, I didn’t have many of the abilities required to adequately control my already meager reserves of power. It could be said that this was a more-than-fatal issue for any budding adventurer.

Frankly speaking, I would actually appreciate some praise for having made it thus far.

I suppose I haven’t explained what magic, spirit, and divinity are. Let us talk about the nature of mana, to start. Mana is a required prerequisite for the casting of magical spells—the font of mysterious magical energy that some rare individuals are born with. If one were to put it simply, those blessed with mana at birth are able to conjure flames and wind without the use of any tools, to cause water to flow freely from nowhere, and to persuade the earth itself to move beneath their feet. In more ways than one, magic is a very convenient skill.

Although the ratios differed between the various races of sentient beings that populated these lands, one in approximately every 50 humans was born with mana in their being. This was no small number. However, only one in a thousand had enough mana and aptitude to actually become successful mages—such was the rarity of this blessing. As long as the user possessed a certain amount of mana, however, simple spells like the venerable Foteia Borivaas fireball, or the Gie Vieros earthen arrow, could be cast without too much trouble. Though, to proceed beyond rudimentary attack spells, one would require the aforementioned combination of mana and aptitude, which was available only to one in a thousand humans on average.

It’s perhaps worth mentioning that, while I did have some mana reserves at birth, they were pathetically low—hardly a fraction of what one would need to become a powerful mage. After all, I hadn’t been able to cast any low-level attack spells despite my long periods of training. My lack of talent in this field was painfully apparent.

I could, however, conjure water for drinking and embers to light campfires with. For that, I was grateful, even if said blessings were small ones. Yet it was extremely regrettable that I couldn’t use magic in combat.

Next, an explanation of spirit would perhaps be in order. Often referred to by a plethora of other names, such as “Chakra” or “Prana,” spirit is the life force of all living things.

Unlike magic, spirit is the root of all life, and as such is available to any and all living persons. If one were to use it well, one could strengthen their own body, augment their attacks, and even obtain stamina way above that of an average human. However, as most individuals subconsciously used spirit as a means of staying alive, few come to realize its true potential. On the other hand, even if one were to become aware of one’s own spirit, a significant amount of training was required to use it adequately, in addition to requiring a natural aptitude for channeling one’s life force.

In my case, I didn’t have enough command over my spirit reserves to actually utilize it effectively, even though I’d become aware of its existence. But even so, I did come up with the ability to amplify the force of a single attack by 1.5 times once in a single day—personally, I considered that ability my trump card. But although the augmented attack did carry a significant amount of force, it would certainly be seen as child’s play to an actual practitioner of the spirit arts.

Last but not least would be an explanation of divinity. I suppose you could say it is even rarer than the blessing of...