Hazure Skill ‘Mapping’ wo Te ni Shita Ore wa, Saikyou Party to Tomo ni Dungeon ni Idomu Chapter 20

Chapter 20
Chapter 20 – ‘Stealth’ and Evasion

Translator: Mana

“Today we’ll be having you learn some new thief arts!”

That was the first thing Jin said to me upon reaching the third floor of the Dungeon of Puriff.

My heart raced a little at those words.

I had advanced pretty far with ‘Enemy Search’, ‘Trap Detect’, and ‘Trap Dismantle’ arts, if I did say so myself. But because of that, I couldn’t see myself improving anymore no matter how seriously I continued to practice the arts. That had been the root of all my worries for these past few weeks.

Jin’s suggestion was like a lifeline against that situation, and I immediately responded with my agreement. “Please do.”

“Note will be learning will be ‘Stealth’ and evasion-type arts.”

“‘Stealth’ and evasion-type…”

Jin nodded at the words I repeated, then continued talking.

“‘Stealth’ is to make it harder for Note to be targeted by monsters. There’s a limit to how many monsters the tank—Roslia—can draw away. If Note could avoid being targeted at such times we’d have considerably more leeway to focus on protecting Neme instead, since she lacks battle skills.”

“Then what are evasion-type arts?”

“They’re just in case you can’t fool enemies with ‘Stealth’ and a fireball comes hurtling your way, perhaps? It’s also the step that comes before teaching battle techniques…”

—Battle techniques. If this is not Binbogami WordPress then it is stolen!

Those words had me bursting with excitement.

Just because I had accepted that I was weak and couldn’t fight didn’t mean I was satisfied with it.

After being enchanted by Force and Jin’s fighting styles and witnessing Roslia’s overwhelming abilities first-hand, my longing for power had grown even stronger.

I wanted to become as strong as the ‘Arrivers’ members that I admired.

It almost felt like an instinct writhing within me, raging like an impulse.

But even then, I wasn’t stupid enough to learn battle techniques immediately. There was an appropriate order for everything and if the first-cla.s.s a.s.sa.s.sin Jin had determined I wasn’t ready to learn, then that was the right thing to do. Jin’s knowledgeable words had more priority over my emotions and poor experience.

Therefore, I would devote myself to learning ‘Stealth’ and evasion-type arts.

I slapped my cheeks and gathered myself together.

“I understand. Are we starting now?”

I looked around. We were right in front of the teleport crystal of the third floor. It was a safe area that no monsters approached. The other members were loitering around idly.

“Yup. First is ‘Stealth’. ‘Stealth’ is an art that hides the presence of you and anything you touch. I’m going to activate it and touch you, I want you to remember how it feels. After that, Note will practice using ‘Stealth’ by imitating that sensation inside this dungeon.”

“Is it possible to do it just by imitating the sensation?”

“I don’t think there’s any other way to teach it… Well, ‘Stealth’ is an easy to learn art since you can directly feel it being used, so it should be easier than ‘Enemy Search’. Instead, the art itself is extensive and can have terrifying potential when mastered, so it’ll be interesting to have Note, who excels at mastering arts, learn it…”

Excels at mastering arts? Me?

What are you joking about, Jin?

My ‘Enemy Search&rsqu

o; and ‘Trap Dismantle’ still had a long way to go, they were probably nothing compared to Jin.

He was probably just trying to motivate me, but hearing such blatant lies didn’t make me happy. My abilities were still lacking, and I was more than well aware than I had to keep applying myself diligently. If I took such words literally and got ahead of myself, Erin would give up on me again. I never wanted to feel like that again.

“You’re really good at flattery, Jin. Anyway, shall we get started? With the ‘Stealth’ practice!”

I forced a smile on my face. My words prompted Jin to place his hand on my shoulder.

—Suddenly, I was flooded with the sensation of my own presence weakening, as if I was detached from the world. As if I was no longer a resident of this world. My vision hadn’t changed, but it was as if a bird’s eye view of the world had spread before my eyes.

“So this is ‘Stealth’…”

“That’s right…” Read this on Binbogami WordPress for updates!

My consciousness was pulled back into reality alongside Jin’s words. ‘Stealth’ had been cancelled.

“Remember this feeling. If you forget it just let me know, I’ll do it as many times as you need so don’t worry.”

“Yes… thank you very much…”

I replied while repeating the memory of what Jin’s ‘Stealth’ felt like in my heart.

The third floor of the Dungeon of Puriff was swampland, making it a very uncomfortable place to be in.

After having Jin repeatedly teach me what ‘Stealth’ felt like, I was starting to lose focus, getting trapped in the swamp numerous times. I was thankful that Roslia went out of her way to pull me out every time.

It hurt my heart to see her beautiful and pure figure become covered in mud by pulling me out, but she just happily said “I was useful to Note!”, which made me feel twice as bad at her consideration.

Despite these troubles, the monsters that sp.a.w.ned in the dungeon were no match for the ‘Arrivers’, so we were able to progress smoothly. They were enemies that could kill me in one shot, so it really emphasised just how abnormal the other members were.

After that, we slaughtered the dungeon boss without any problems, the door to the fourth floor opened, and we returned to the town of Puriff via the teleport crystal on the fourth floor.

The party members other than me and Jin went back to the party house while we started the evasion-type arts practice.

We had come to an ordinary vacant plot of land near the dungeon.

“You watched me fight today, right?”

“Well… yes…”

“Then when I attack you, I want you to watch carefully and dodge it. Alright?”

It wasn’t alright at all… Just how reckless…

Even when we were dungeon diving I had questioned many times whether the practice routine was a little too impulsive, but I was dismissed every time.

Apparently, evasive-type arts were only learned naturally while evading. Techniques and sense for evasion were learned by oneself, only becoming an art after repeatedly evading and evading and evading.

And those techniques and senses could only be learned in an actual battle.

However, if I tried to practice evasion inside the dungeon, I’d die in an instant. For that reason, I decided to learn evasion techniques through battling with Jin. Although there was no risk of death, I had the feeling avoiding attacks from Jin was substantially more difficult than the attacks of the actual monsters in the dungeon…

“Now let’s get started.” Binboooogami.

Jin took my silence for a yes and started the battle. I quickly gathered myself and narrowed my eyes, trying not to miss a single move from Jin.

“—‘Absolute Shadow’.”

The instant I realised his mouth had moved, I was flying through the air.

Only when I hit the ground did I notice that I had been hit.

I twisted my body in an attempt to get up, coughing violently at the impact to my lungs before directing my unexpected shock at Jin.

“Did you really need to go all-out from the start?”

“The monsters in the dungeon aren’t going to go easy on you. So shouldn’t it be normal for me to give it my all…?”

Jin smiled at me boldly.

I get where he was coming from, but this was just too much…!

Shoving my frustrations deep into my heart, I gritted my teeth and somehow managed to stand up.

Fine. If that was how it was going to be, then I’m going to dodge like my life depended on it too, Jin. I was going to use everything I had to evade him, no matter what. Don’t blame me when you get humiliated by being evaded by someone like me…

In my head, I silently cursed Jin.

I could feel myself getting heated in anger at the difference in our physiques.

I had already discarded the logic that told me I couldn’t win against Jin.

I was serious. I was going to do it seriously. I was seriously going to crush Jin.

Unlike just now, I took the dagger that Erin had bought for me from my waist and held it in my right hand, bracing myself in a battle stance.

The corner of Jin’s relaxed mouth twitched up at my glares.

“Nice! Looks like Note has the potential to become strong after all. That’s right, even when you’re focusing on evasion you need to have your weapon at the ready. Even if you have no combat power, just by holding your weapon you can fool your opponent into thinking ‘Will he attack me?’…”

I didn’t care about such idle talk. Hurry up and begin already.

I urged Jin on with my eyes, and he nodded.

“‘Absolute Shadow’—”

A black shadow flashed past me.

15 battles, 0 wins. These were my battle results for today. I hadn’t been able to evade a single hit from Jin, much less win against him, and after Jin’s. .h.i.t in the 15th match I pa.s.sed out, waking up in the party house.

It seemed like Neme had used a recovery spell. I could tell the pains all over my body from the fight were receding.

Although I had once again missed the sight of Neme doing anything priestess-like, I should still extend my grat.i.tude towards her.

“Well? Be grateful!” she said smugly, causing me to twitch in irritation. But that was beside the point.

After brus.h.i.+ng Neme off (physically), I left the living room and headed towards Jin’s room. Jin immediately opened the door as if he had been waiting, and invited me into the room.

It was in order to reflect on today.

“How was it? Today’s progress?”

“Hmm. I can’t really say. It’s still the first day…”

Jin tilted head while replying, “But it wasn’t bad.”

Wasn’t bad… right…

I repeated Jin’s words in my heart.

There was no way I wasn’t bad when I hadn’t been able to avoid a single one of Jin’s attacks. Jin was just being considerate.

I was fed up with my own weaknesses always requiring other people’s consideration.

After that, I received some vague advice from Jin and left his room.

Jin’s advice was always abstract for some reason, and never really much help. I already knew that from the days of practising ‘Enemy Search’. He was probably just bad at teaching others…

Well, the meaning behind Jin’s advice was all comprehendible once I actually had some knowledge of the techniques, so it wasn’t as if it was completely wrong…

After leaving Jin’s room, I decided to head towards the bathroom to clean myself of the dirt from the dungeon.

I took off my clothes and washed my head in the shower as I replayed Jin’s fight—or rather, Jin’s one-sided ma.s.sacre—on the back of my eyelids.

Over, and over, and over again I fell. Even in my imagination, I couldn’t find a way to escape Jin’s attack.

Still, I kept replaying it over and over and over repeatedly, until I finally saw a possibility.

After repeating many sets of that until several methods were burned into my head, I finally scrubbed myself clean and submerged myself in the bathtub.

The only thing I could come up with for now was this—

To be frank, no matter how many times I evaded Jin in my imagination, there was no point if I couldn’t evade him in reality.

The rest I just had to try in practice.

With nothing left to think about, I sank further into the bathtub while letting the sensation of ‘Stealth’ seep into my body.