Because of that, in the game, orcs became a rare monster that was almost never seen in the wild. Any orcs that managed to take even a step out of their respawn points could already be considered heroes to their race.
Of course, there’d be no way they’d ever be able to attack a human village. They weren’t even allowed to group up; they’d be slaughtered and eaten as soon as they spawned.
Orcs were a monster that was so worth killing it was actually kind of sad.
For orcs to be gathered into a whole herd and attack humans...... This request is actually almost moving.
“Well, that’s because there’s no merit to it.”
“What? Orc hunting by itself should be a merit, no?”
“Well, that would be the case for you, but in this age, that’s not true. After all, even a single orc is as strong as an average veteran warrior, so having to exterminate a whole nest would be difficult and require an entire knight brigade. And even then, there’d probably be a lot of casualties. And after taking on all that, you only get 1500 el? No one would take it.”
“Times really do change, huh? ......Back then, rather than complaining about 1500 el, there’d be floods of people that would pay 15,000 to even be able to take the job.” I sighed in disappointment, exasperated at the difference to the game.
To me, hunting orcs was nothing but merit. Rather than taking money for it, I was even thinking I’d pay to be able to do it. And since I’d be getting paid on top of getting to hunt, it was as if I not only got the right to eat as much amazing steak as I wanted but was told, “If you eat steak, I’ll give you 30,000 yen.”
The deal was so good I could only assume that something was up.
“So this means......it is all right to completely destroy this orc nest?”
“Of course.”
“Right. Let us take this one. There is no way We can let this opportunity go. We can earn both money and food before going on our journey.”
“Yaayyy, so it’s back to the ice ages for orcs, huh? I probably shouldn’t be saying this since I brought you the posting myself, but I feel sorry for the orcs.”
I can get paid, get a lot of meat, and even raise my HP. If I let this go, I’m a failure of a max level player.
Without a second thought, I took the paper to the owner and told him I’d be taking the job before leaving the inn.
“Oh, yes, Dina.”
“Yes, what is it?”
The village which was supposedly near the orcs’ nest was about half a day away from Ydalir by foot.
On the way there, I started asking Dina questions to kill time.
This world had several inconsistencies with my knowledge of it. As one might expect, two hundred years was not a small amount of time, and made a lot of difference.
“Earlier, you said that power levels now are much lower than two hundred years ago. Tell us exactly how much in a way that’s easy to understand.”
Two hundred years ago......back when this was the world of the game, I was the strongest player. I was at the top of combined stat rankings, and I was confident I wouldn’t lose easily to anybody.
It wasn’t like I was far and away ahead of everyone else, though. In fact, players like me were everywhere.
If I remember right, the total number of players was around eight million...... Out of that number, about 20% of players were at max level, and being max level was the lowest requirement to be considered a high ranking player. Of course, getting to level 1000 took quite a lot of work, but still, it was something you’d eventually get to by hunting every day. Just being level 1000 wasn’t enough to be considered a high ranking player.
What was truly difficult and important came after that, when you were tested on just how efficiently you could get stat-raising items to get stronger now that your level wasn’t going anywhere. Doing just that and raising your stats stupidly high once you were max level was how players started to get famous as a high level player.
I figured...... Isn’t it just that people in this world basically don’t use stat raising items at all anymore? In other words, they stop growing once they reach max level, and that was the peak.
Isn’t that why power levels went down?
Flying in the face of that, the response Dina gave me greatly undermined my expectations.
“Uhh, let’s see...... The country that summoned you, Laevateinn, is renowned as the ‘country of swords’ but...... They have a person known as the ‘Sword Saint’ there, someone named Friedrich, who’s put on a pedestal as the best swordsman in the world. I believe he’s level 120.”
“............120?”
“Yes, 120.”
I doubted my own hearing.
Wait just a second, 120?
The world’s strongest swordsman is level 120?! That’s way too low!
What a guy, to call himself a Sword Saint.
There were a lot of beginner players in the game that got full of themselves and gave themselves a nickname or title when they passed level 100, but I always just thought of them as those kinds of people. At the very least, get to 1000 before giving yourselves a name like that or else you’ll humiliate yourself.
“That’s a joke, right? There is a limit to how low your level can be.”
“Excuse me, Miss Lufas. But the real joke was how unreal people in that age were. Please think about it; you only have one life. Normally, there wouldn’t be very many monstrously strong people who’d be able to safely get to level 1000 without losing their lives. Even more so, people fought tooth and nail every single day until they got there; they were doing preposterous things like training endlessly without rest...... That era back then was bizarre in and of itself, with how many hero-level people like that were wandering around.”
Hearing Dina’s reasoning, I was once again made to realize that my perceptions were off.
I see, so that’s how it is.
It was true that level 1000 was something you could only reach because it was a game. Even if your character died they just came back, and the player wasn’t hurt at all.
Getting there was something that was only possible because of that...... For example, if there was a rule that said, ‘If you die, you’ll never be able to log in as the same character again,’ almost no players would get to maxing out their levels.
Every day, without fail, spend the entire day in a fight to the death with monsters, and continue that for over a year without dying. Just how many people would be able to pull that off in real life?
If they could, they’d be lunatics. No doubt, they wouldn’t be normal.
In other words, thinking normally, even level 120 was an amazing feat. The person would be a superhuman that deserved a title.
I was the one that was mistaken.
“We see...... Truly, this is quite different from what We know.”
In this world, I was a lunatic and a monster. I felt like that reality was thrust in front of me, and I started feeling a little empty inside.
Aisle village.
It was a small village half a day away from the Trade City Ydalir by foot, and there was nothing special about it. In Dina’s words, ‘it’s a simple village where people live modestly.’