章 10: Nanami, Romulus!

'They will definitely be the ones to get me the Demon King's Lamp! I will finally have three of my wishes granted by the Absolute Primordial God of this world!'

King Eldric's fatty face contorted in pleasure as he watched every single Hero conjure up their Unique Skills. By the end of this little fiasco, he said, "I see that you Brave Heroes have become a little accustomed to your new abilities! But would you not like to head over to the Training Grounds and test out our state-of-the-art training dummies!? Your skills will be put to the test, and you can fight to your heart's content! Most of all, you will become stronger!"

Nanami's expression hardened. "Become stronger," she echoed silently. "I will become stronger — for my sister. I will make it back to her."

As her resolve was ignited to an unbelievable level, she called for her system interface, making sure to engrave the starting point of her journey into every fiber of her mind.

BLING!

—-------------

[Name: Nanami] — [Level: 1]

[Job: S-Rank Hero]

[Title: None]

[MP: 100]

[BP: 0]

|Strength: 97| |Defense: 95|

|Intelligence: 99| |Agility: 96|

—-------------

The difference between her and Toriyama's original system interface was like the difference between heaven and earth, and she would only grow exponentially stronger from this point onward. In comparison to the other S-Rank Heroes, however, her system interface was around the same, if not just a tad bit better.

For Heroes, their ranks were highly dependent on their starting stats, otherwise seen as the stats they possess at level 1. For S-Rank, that range varied between 81-100, putting Nanami on the high end of the scale. A-Rank, on the other hand, had a stat range of 61-80. B-Rank was 51-60, C-Rank was 41-50, D-Rank was 21-40, E-Rank was 11-20, and F-Rank was 1-10. In other words, Toriyama was on the extremely low end, even among the F-Rank.

However, as long as one had a decent enough Unique Skill, they could make up for their pitiful initial stats and lacking stat acquisition per level up. But for Toriyama, he didn't even receive that much…

—------------

As the Heroes were escorted to the Valerian Kingdom Training Grounds, eager to try out their Unique Skills, a busybody truck sat top the corpse of a large eight-legged monstrous creature. As his razor-sharp illusory sword plunged deeper and deeper into the skull of this monster, a sudden coldness emerged from within his gaze. "This D-Rank Pearlescent Cleaver Skill is a lot better than I thought it would be," he said, his eyes drifting from the shimmering edge of the magic blade to the incoming system notifications.

[Ding! You have killed a Lvl 16 Building Crawler and received 3,800 EXP!]

[Ding! You have leveled up!]

[Ding! You have reached Level 15!]

[You obtained 2 Stat points in all of your main attributes!]

[You obtained 2 BP!]

Romulus's brows furrowed. "It seems that I now obtain 2 Stat points per level up," he mused, his eyes focusing on his improved system interface.

BLING!

—-------------

[Name: Romulus] — [Level: 15]

[Job: None]

[Title: None]

[MP: 110]

[BP: 8]

|Strength: 26 (130) | Defense: 25 (250)|

|Intelligence: 18 (90) | Agility: 27 (135)|

Skills: [EX-Rank Truck-kun's Retribution], [D-Rank Pearlescent Cleaver (Lvl 2)], [E-Rank Frost (Lvl 3)], [F-Rank Roll (Lvl 4)]

—-------------

After looking over his system interface, Romulus realized something monumental. Something that could affect his entire life. "My name," he murmured. "I need to understand what it is... Again."

He was no longer the same person as before; therefore, it was pointless to retain a name that he should've abandoned the moment he left the prison within his mind. But then again, it was more about the principle and not actually the name, so he would keep his name but give it a rebirth, just as he had been rebirthed.

A name was something fundamental for signifying the existence of a being; it also served as proof of that organism's existence. For the first time in his life, he felt something call out to him.

Something inside the core of his being — it resonated with every fiber of his existence.

His transcendental irises swirled. "My name is…" he paused. "Romulus!"

OUNG!

The universe rang out in divine harmony as the air around Romulus violently vibrated and trembled. It recognized the birth of the most unique being in all existence. The very world itself realized that change was bound to happen.

Now, where this change would originate from or lead to was something yet to be seen…

While clenching and unclenching his fists, Romulus felt he had fully shed his previous life of confinement. He was now Romulus, the unknown traveler from faraway lands. A traveler who wished to survive — someone who wanted to understand more about the world — about the vast expanse of space and matter that he never was able to experience.

"Time to embark on a journey of change," he said as he looked down and saw a small hill of corpses. He had been killing for a few minutes now, but the nightmarish monsters just never stopped coming.

Crick, Crack. Crick, Crack.

Speaking of the devil, from behind a collapsed brick wall emerged a humanoid figure with rotting skin. One of its eyeballs dangled outside of its eye socket, a few of its ribs protruded out of its torn-up clothes, and its eyes glowed a dangerous red. Neither heartbeat nor empathy were present in this being—only hunger. Its avarice was so great that as soon as it saw the emotionless raven-haired man, it lost all sense of reason and leaped at him with savage fervor!

Romulus's eyes narrowed. His grip on the brightly shimmering longsword tightened as he took it out of the Building Crawler's head. He heaved it over his shoulder, intently watching the rotting corpse claw its way up the hill of corpses.

With its speed and ferocity, it reached him within a couple seconds and immediately jumped at him with its mouth wide open, ready to take a bite!

…