Novel Bin Chapter 518 - Breakthrough
Chapter 518: Breakthrough
“You’re still worried about that? Why overthink things? Just accept your fate like a man.”
“Accept what? A bloody end or a gruesome death? If they come, I’m in great trouble, but if they don’t come, the undead will be quite difficult to deal with. This is basically a bad ending no matter what happens. Isn’t there a good ending option?”
“Actually, you should change your way of thinking. If they come, you’ll have reinforcements. If they don’t come, you’ll escape their wrath. Then doesn’t that mean you win either way?”
“…I’m truly impressed with your optimism. Give that memory crystal to me and I can guarantee that everything will be fine.”
The sky had just started lighting up. I went to a random restaurant and ordered some breakfast while sitting at a window seat. Although the food hadn’t arrived yet, the silly cat was adding to my troubles while perched on my shoulder.
But, I no longer had the time and energy to joke around with Harloys, since we were still in a damned battle.
It was said that you could determine a city’s economic and political situation by looking at its streets during breakfast time. The morning was the critical moment when any city would start becoming busy. The number of people and their morale determined the prosperity of a city. The merchants and residences on the streets were the best determiners of a town’s economy. I deeply agreed with such a way of conducting analysis.
Starwood City was only a small city to begin with. Most of the people on the streets were local farmers and merchants. But today, most residences and stores had their windows and doors barred. The only people on the streets were fully armed. They were either adventurers temporarily hired to defend the city, or the local warriors.
All the adventurers that had come to Starwood City in hopes of obtaining treasure had unintentionally done a good deed. Starwood City should have had insufficient combat strength, but it had an actual capable fighting force now.
“Not bad.”
Judging by the current situation that I could see, ordinary citizens as well as warriors seemed to have good morale. Perhaps it was yesterday’s victory that helped lift their spirits, or maybe the sight of the undead vanguard being incinerated by the Holy Light explosion had given the people here courage. Or, maybe it was simply because the undead’s main forces had yet to arrive. At least for the time being, their morale was quite high. Some of the young novice soldiers even had expectant looks as if they were hoping for glory and honor after their victory.
“They look forward to battle? Young people are so naïve that it’s cute.”
“…Having the pure desire for glory after battle and thinking about honor and victory before battle instead of praying to the heavens to survive? Isn’t that the special right of all novices? I personally hope that they can still be in such high spirits when tomorrow comes. At least, they look much better this way rather than cowardly hiding when the going gets tough.”
“I think that’s expecting too much of them. Novice warriors who rush with excitement into battle are the ones most likely to become dead cannon fodder in the first round of battle. You never know what overly excited novices will do. The most troublesome are the novices that fantasize about defeating one thousand as one. They always believe that they’re the legendary main character of a novel, but don’t realize that so-called main characters and heroes are just the lucky ones that managed to survive when countless others have died. Ninety-nine percent of novices like this will die within three months.”
“How about we have a bet?”
“A bet on whether he lives or dies? There’s no way to have a bet. Would you bet on him surviving? And if we bet on how many days he lives, that seems a little cruel.”
The freckled flax-haired young man walking down the street had no clue that while he was patrolling the streets with a serious attitude, two shameless seniors were discussing how likely it was that he would die.
However, this wasn’t our fault for being too bored or anything like that. When you had been on too many battlefields like us, and seen too many allies suddenly dying in battle, you would also become numb to it all.
“Allies? Only if you survive three battles are you my ally. Until you prove that you’re worthy of me needing to remember your name, I have no need to learn your name.”
A certain major emperor had said such a classical phrase back when he was only a sergeant in the army. Although his words were cruel, many people actually agreed with them.
“Is it about time?”
The silly cat suddenly asked this question, to which I nodded yes. The time was ripe, but I was the one who had been stalling. It seemed that it was now time to proceed with our breakthrough.
I lightly tapped my fingers on the table, making a clear sound. My heartbeat also followed this rhythm, and what I saw suddenly changed. The air itself slowed down as everything slowed to the point where people had their mouths open but weren’t making any sound. In fact, I could even see the moisture in the air clearly.
This mysterious sensation made me feel like I controlled the entire world. In my vision, the entire restaurant seemed to stand still. And, what made me rather displeased was that I sensed that my breakfast was about to be spilled on the ground.
Not far away, a waiter with his hands holding plates filled with food was obviously paying no attention to his feet. He was about to step on the tail of a dog that had sneaked into the restaurant. This waiter just happened to have the beef stew I’d ordered in his left hand and the silly cat’s fried fish in his right hand. And as for that freckled novice on the street, an adventurer thief was currently stealing his wallet. Rather than worrying about the freckled novice dying in battle, perhaps the novice would have to first worry about not starving to death due to being penniless.
“Honestly, at such an important time…”
And so, as I complained, I casually tossed out a copper coin. And at this moment, everything returned to normal, with all preparations complete.
That coin landed right under that waiter’s foot. He slipped on it and almost fell over, but managed to stand up straight again while also dodging the stray dog waiting under the table for an opportunity to steal my breakfast.
Right after that, the coin was kicked away in a perfect trajectory to land right on the freckled novice’s head. No matter how dense he was, now he suddenly noticed that his wallet was being stolen. Of course, he knew how to react to that.
*Clang!*
Just as I expected, this one small coin was majorly useful. The waiter managed to dodge the dog, and I smiled as I watched the novice angrily running after the thief.
“So this is Saint rank?”
That was so; when Harloys asked if it was about time, she was referring to about time for me to breakthrough to Saint rank. Perhaps for others, making a breakthrough here would be an impossible bottleneck, but it was only natural for me as I had so much accumulated experience.
“Oof!”
However, an unexpected accident made this breakthrough not as perfect as it could have been.
“Yep, this is Saint rank, having much stronger control over the world and the self. That’s the foundational difference between Saint and Legend ranks, hee…”
The silly cat kept licking a plate of milk while looking at me and trying to hold in her smile.
“Just laugh if you want. It’s bad for you to hold it in.”
My anger meter was filled as I removed the fried fish from my head and wiped my angry face with a towel.
“Haha! Do you know how ridiculous it looked when you were pretending to be cool by saying ‘this is Saint rank’ right as the fried fish flew over and fell on your face? And, you even caused it to happen yourself!”
I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry here. The silly cat was correct. Even though I used a coin to save my beef stew breakfast, the waiter still tossed the fried fish in his other hand into the air. And, out of so many people in the restaurant, the fish just happened to hit me in the face. Perhaps I really needed to go make an offering to the Goddess of Misfortune.
“…Wait a minute, why was it the fried fish that flew away? You must have done it intentionally, saving your beef stew but making him throw away my fried fish breakfast.”
“…Let’s not worry about the small details. This was simply an accident.”
Alright then, I was now wearing a nostalgic cat for a hat. I would have to think about what food to order to make the silly cat stop biting my head.
“Meow, a fried fish flavored head tastes pretty good.”
“Silly cat, if you don’t get off my head, I’m going to contact Beifeng!”
“Ptui! I’m not afraid of that threat of yours anymore. I’m now capable of taking human form.”
After the chaos from the flying fried fish died down, I finally had the spare time to organize and analyze the harvest I’d just obtained.
I had been preparing to break through to Saint rank for a long time now. I actually had plenty of accumulated experience already, and could have done this earlier. But, since the highest peak of all was my ultimate goal, it would have been better to have more foundational strength. I had originally intended on waiting even more before making the breakthrough to Saint rank, but with the undead army at Starwood City’s doorstep and almost about to arrive, having some more strength would be the most practical. That was why I decided to make a breakthrough here.
“Other main characters that suddenly make a breakthrough will suddenly counterattack and win while they’re losing, or shine brightly and make a big show. No matter what, those main characters get to act cool, with so many commentators acting as the narrator. Why is it that my style is so wrong…”
“Didn’t you get to act cool? You were actually quite creative, honest. If only the fried fish didn’t fall right on your face… Hahahaha!”
The silly cat who had been pretending to be nice could no longer take it. She directly started laughing and rolling around on the table. And so, I unhesitatingly picked up the silly cat, and tossed her at the stray dog who was still looking for food under the table.
“Go, Tom, have fun with your friend Spike 1 !”