NOVEL NEXT Three years later (1)
Chapter 8
Title: Three years later (1)
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The periwinkle-haired mature woman, Gara was sipping tea, a drink she liked more than coffee – unlike her soul mate. With a book on her lap, she was smiling and looking at the floor where her two children were playing.
Nejire and Neji. Her 6-year-old daughter and 4-year-old son, who unlocked his Quirk this morning – the reason she didn’t go to her work today. Such an achievement was too important for her to care about her work, and besides, it didn’t matter much with her subordinates working on the projects already.
She stared ahead as Nejire pointed her finger towards the outside, Neji’s gaze following soon after.
"Neji, Neji, where is your quirk?? Come on, show me!" Her energetic daughter asked excitedly, as her son nodded and pointed his hands towards the open window in the distance.
Normally, other parents would stop their children from using their quirks inside their house, but Gara didn't mind as long as her children were happy, not that a little damage even mattered. Looking as two golden spiral waves left Neji's hands, going forward and out of the window, she whistled in awe, impressed. She didn't expect her son to have such accuracy.
"Oh-oh! It really is my quirk!" Nejire blurted out, bringing the little boy in a hug. "I heard you named it "Surge" just like mine?! Did you deliberately match it with your sister? Oh Neji, you are so cute!"
A soft giggle left Gara’s lips seeing her daughter rub her cheeks against Neji, as she waited for Neji’s reaction. This little guy is cute, just like Nejire said, and all his reactions were cute too.
“Mhhm, of course,” Neji said, hugging her back. “The world’s cutest sister deserves the most love, so I wanted to show my love by doing this. Do you like it?”
While Gara listened to her son’s words amusingly, Nejire pulled her face backwards, looking at his face with glittering eyes. “I like it, I like it very much, Otouto!” Nejire then leaned forward to his face before surprising Gara by starting to kiss him on his left cheek, then going for his right. But just as she brought her face closer to his lips, a finger came in between their two lips.
“Aha, nope,” Gara said, her finger stopping their lips from touching. “No kissing on the lips, kids. It’s bad.”
Immediately, Nejire released the hug and looked at Gara, confused, her head tilting. "But you and daddy do that all the time."
Gara flinched hearing this. She then somehow managed to release a fake cough. "Ahem — it's normal for couples to kiss on the lips. You two are siblings, so you can't do that."
A few seconds later, while Nejire nodded reluctantly, Neji shrugged.
-
‘Of course, incest is bad. Who would have thought?’ Neji sighed under his breath as he recalled an incident from his past life. ‘Not me, since losing my virginity to my 16-years-old cousin at the age of 9 apparently messed with my mind.’
If not for the internet, he might have always believed it’s normal to have such relationships with family members. Luckily he didn’t have any trauma, at least not one he was aware of. ‘Either way, mom is right. I am not desperate for Nejire to share a romantic relationship with me, I am fine as things are. Though… if she really wants, I won’t refuse. She is cute after all.’
Anyway, “Mommy, I am sleepy.” With his stamina bar resting at [10/110], Neji could only yawn as Gara got up from her seat and picked him up in her embrace, kissing him on the forehead.
“Of course baby, your quirk should have the same weakness as Nejire, the stamina exhaustion. In fact, I am surprised you haven’t gone unconscious after using the shockwave for more than 10 times already.”
Neji nodded. It takes 10 SP each time he releases a wave, and the power can be boosted by pouring more stamina into it. Nejire went unconscious because her childish mind couldn't control the output.
“Bye Neji, wake up early, we will play!” Nejire waved her hands as Gara left through the door.
-
Gara then brought Neji to his room, placing him in the bed and closing the door, after she left, Neji stared at the ceiling, thinking, ‘Theoretically, I should be able to replicate mana, or at least something similar (Qi maybe?) after levelling up and evolving my quirk. So my main focus would be to boost my DEX for SP boost. STR and END should also be my worry, but for now, let’s focus on LUC and DEX.’ he decided what is needed to do, ‘Most importantly though, I should get strong enough to survive inside a <Dungeon> so that I can use the ‘Dungeon Traversal’ skill already.’
His current levelling up speed was too slow, but it's a given considering he didn't do many special things to level up, just doing certain workouts and completing small quests like—
"Hey, Neji, don't sleep yet, I brought milk." Gara's voice interrupted Neji from his thoughts as she walked inside the room and handed him a glass of fresh milk.
'Like this quest.'
[Ding! A new quest has been generated!]
[Quest: Drink milk.
Details: Your mother wants you to drink milk. Drink it and be a good boy.
Reward: 20 exp.
Penalty: None.
Y/N]
This is a daily quest, so he gets more or less 100 exp every day from doing whatever quest is thrown at him, one of his only way to level up these days. Neji nodded and poured the milk down his throat immediately, making Gara smile.
Gara patted his head. "Good boy, now go to sleep."
With an internal shake of the head, Neji nodded and jumped on the bed. And as Gara left the room, turning off the lights, finally, Neji yawned as sleep slowly took over him.
—
-
—
|A few days later|
Apparently, the update wasn't only about my Quirk alone, because I am sure something like this wasn't here before.
Looking at the giant tree split it two while an ominous purple light was coming out of it, I realised my life wasn't supposed to end at the hands of Gods.
[Dungeon No.699 – Skeleton Dungeon]
It was a fucking dungeon! A place to grind! Most importantly, a real dungeon in the middle of the school park?!
No, wait, why is everyone acting like they can't see it? It's exclusive to me, huh?
I quickly opened my map and noticed something unusual. Those weren't there before… or were they? I actually have no idea, I don't check my map every now and then, I only check the mini-map in the corner of my eyes, only rarely opening it fully. Wait… I remember, there wasn't something like this before.
On the map, there were thousands of key symbols (🗝) spread throughout Japan. Outside Japan, the area is greyed out (I most likely need to visit those countries to unlock those areas), so I don't know if there are key symbols there too. As for what those symbols were, it's pretty easy to guess those were dungeons.
I don't have mana, so I have no way to unlock ID Creation skill… so I assumed I would have to level up by normal means all my life. But this is good, I can work with it. I remember reading some fics on ff.net that uses this worldwide dungeon system, it seems my system is inspired by that. Thank God- no, wait. Fuck God.
Um… System, Game Master, Gaia, thank you(?).
And… no response. Fuck. My system isn't dead. It responds to my questions every now and then, but it's mostly silent. Must be busy blocking the curse… poor guy.
I exchanged looks with my mom who smiled at me. She forcefully brought me here to 'make friends' and I am grateful for that. I am sure, without her bringing me, it would have taken a few more years for me to find out about the dungeons. I mean why would I even check the map when I spend all my time in my house? That's dumb.
Alright… since it's pretty clear that's my grindhouse, I need to check it out… later. I am too weak right now, no need to get myself killed. Let's wait… three more years? Yeah, that sounds about right. I would probably have stats more than a normal human adult anyway, so I should be safe.
Thanks to whoever updated the game, let's see how strong I can get.
«…★...»
|Three years later|
"Phew…" While he was floating in the air, spiralling energy leaving out of his feet, Neji released a relieved breath looking below.
A typical park for children, slides and toys, but they all looked old and the rides were broken, old. There were some rusty cars in the far and even the skyscrapers in the far were old and breaking slowly… the most distinguishable thing was the living bones walking around with weapons in their hands.
It was the same park from 3 years ago, and no, it's not an apocalypse. It's inside the dungeon. Minutes ago, Neji had walked into the purple light, the dungeon, and after everything went bright, he noticed the terrain change. Everything now looked broken and old, with no people around and Skeletons roaming everywhere.
His mom must be freaking out right now, looking for him as he disappeared, but it's her fault that she doesn't let him move an inch away from her. Too overprotective, but Neji liked it most of the time.
'Anyway, focus.' Neji slapped his cheeks and looked down again, as he realised the skeletons can't notice him from up here.
<Skeleton Soldier — LVL 15>
It seemed the normal skeletons were only 5 levels above him, with him being level 10. 'That level would soon increase, yay.'
Silently cheering for himself, he made a plan. In the minimap on the left corner of his eye, he could see dozens of red dots, showing the locations of the skeletons. After counting, it seemed there were 40 skeletons around the park and the neighbourhood.
'Okay, I can't hunt them all down with my quirk alone. And although my stats might be high enough to take them down with the hammer I bought, I would rather put hand-to-hand combat in the worst-case scenario.' Neji contemplated, scratching his head. 'The best thing I can do is – lure as many skeletons as possible to an alley and as they ambush me through the tunnel, I surge my wave and kill them.'
And although it would take his best shot to take them all down, meaning pouring his all SP out, he would most likely level up, and from what he knew, levelling up makes his HP and SP meter go full automatically.
Nodding to himself, Neji then chose a route as he slowly started to fly down. Flying is something he learned pretty badly, but it was easy after trying few times, like learning how to ride a bike. And most importantly, although he had fallen from meters above, and his bones broke, he healed after sleeping for a few hours. ‘Apparently because of Gamer’s Body.’
"Alright, let's start."
Thud.
Dropping on the ground with a thud sound, the skeletons turned their heads towards him. Frighteningly, the skeletons weren’t unarmed, they had shields and swords equipped on them.
"KreAcH!" One of the skeletons yelled on top of its lungs(?), and dashed forward, swinging its sword around. Getting closer to the small Neji, its left arm whipped, blurring as its sword went to thrash into Neji's head.
However, having a small stature, Neji easily dodged the blow by ducking. Then grabbing the hand hammer out of his inventory, he swung it at the skeleton’s neck, breaking it.
[Ding! You have killed an LVL 15 – Skeleton Soldier! 1300 exp gained!]
[You have defeated an enemy higher than your level! All exp gained would be increased by 1.5 times!]
'Even though I wanted to avoid fighting hand-to-hand…' A soft chuckle left Neji's lips, he realised not everything goes according to the plan.
Then initiating his plan, he dodged a few skeletons by ducking and went past them, running out of the park. Dodging more enemies, and jumping up a few trash cans, Neji dashed towards the alleyway he targeted previously. As the skeletons kreached, running behind him, Neji avoided a few enemies on his way. After reaching a dead-end, he jumped on a wall and changed his path, then climbing a pillar to reveal his location to the skeletons, Neji jumped from there, gliding them to the alley.
-
Being cornered at the alley wasn't a good feeling. Even though he did plan this on his own, he was a little scared knowing what would happen if he fails – though he was fairly confident that he would not fail.
"Roar!" A voice deeper than the other skeletons resounded as the sound of metal clashing with each other can be heard. He soon saw the owner of the voice, a giant skeleton, walking within the crowd, towards him while wearing heavy armour.
<Skeleton General – Level 20>
It was an opponent 10 levels higher than him. Neji chuckled nervously. Half of the skeleton present in the dungeon had surrounded him, and even the boss monster was here. Still, he wasn't that worried.
Taking a deep breath and pointing his hands forward, as the Skeleton General raised its axe in the air, Neji's hands shined with golden light.
He didn't know why, but he felt like yelling his move's name right now: "<Output level 100: Gring Flood>!"
Fzzz…
His charged golden energy left his hands in a spiral motion and caught the skeleton general off guard, slamming into its chest and throwing it flying in the air, crashing onto the skeletons behind it and crushing them under its giant body.
[Ding! You have defeated the Skeleton General! 3000 exp gained!]
[You have levelled up!]
[You have defeated a Skeleton Soldier! 1300 exp gained!]
[You have defeated a Skeleton Soldier! 1300 exp gained!]
[You have defeated a Skeleton Soldier! 1300 exp gained!]
.
.
.
[You have defeated enemies higher than your level! All exp gained would be increased by 1.5 times!]
[You have levelled up!]
[You have levelled up!]
[Your Quirk; "Surge" has levelled up!]
Neji looked at the destruction in front of him with a soft laugh.
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