A lot happened over these three years.
We kept moving from town to town, and for some reason, we avoided proper roads during those travels, choosing instead to trek through treacherous, pathless wilderness.
And once we actually reached a town, Master — newly permitted to drink again — would get wasted every single night.
There wasn't a single day of physical or mental rest.
Why did we stay off the main roads?
Over these three years, I'd more or less figured out the answer.
Master is a tremendous misanthrope.
To avoid running into people, Master deliberately takes routes where no one goes.
The expression never changes, but you can just tell from the atmosphere that being around crowds puts Master in a bad mood.
Otherwise, I don't think Master would bother using magic to disguise appearance.
At some point, Master started using magic to hide how Master looks.
Since I was always there, I was late to notice — so I don't know exactly when it started.
The effect of that magic is to make anyone who sees Master perceive nothing but "white."
Unless someone is remarkably perceptive and looks very carefully, apparently the only impression they come away with is that the person looked "white."
So even when passing people in town, all anyone thinks is "that person seemed white" — no details about the face or any accompanying thoughts.
Thanks to that effect, we avoided the disaster of every single passerby staring — people just glance over and lose interest immediately.
Since I already recognize Master from the very start, the magic doesn't seem to work on me.
Master is enough of a misanthrope to use that kind of magic.
There's a strong tendency to avoid contact with people.
The exceptions are me and
More like half-ignoring Melozophis's existence, really.
Anyway, being forced down treacherous paths because of one person's personal likes and dislikes was no picnic — but trekking those rough roads did improve our physical endurance and Skills.
Master might have been aiming for that all along.
Over these three years, I'd realized that Master was trying to train me to be stronger.
I think I've gotten considerably stronger over these three years.
I say "think" because I still haven't experienced real combat, and the Skill levels and Status are just objective data.
Ariel's intimidation keeps Monsters from approaching, and bandits don't use pathless off-road routes either, so we barely encounter anyone. And if we did, Master or Ariel would deal with them immediately.
I'm aware that I've gotten stronger over these three years, but I still can't envision a scenario where I'd beat Master or Ariel.
The two of them were just that abnormally strong.
Master is a Sacred Beast, and Ariel is the Demon King.
Those titles are no exaggeration — I'd seen that demonstrated firsthand.
I think some part of me had refused to accept that fact.
But their power was real.
I had no choice but to admit it.
Even with Appraisal, I can't measure their strength.
Master shows up as "Appraisal cannot be performed," and Ariel's result is "Appraisal was obstructed."
Over these three years, I raised my Appraisal Skill level all the way to 9.
That was the result of practicing a grueling routine that Master had once let slip while drinking — permanently activating Appraisal to raise the Skill level.
Master, when drunk, sometimes gives advice or talks about the past.
Most of it is useless talk, but there are genuinely helpful pieces of advice mixed in.
Appraisal was one of those. Master said Appraisal had saved Master's life many times.
So I tried the constant-Appraisal-activation method that Master described.
I thought my head was going to split open.
The migraine was so brutal that I ultimately couldn't keep Appraisal running nonstop.
From pushing myself to the absolute limit over and over, I did manage to acquire a new Skill — Divine Domain Expansion — but at the time I was on the verge of fainting, so it was hardly the moment to celebrate.
By enduring that kind of trial, I was able to raise it to level 9 in the short span of three years.
Master supposedly got Appraisal to level 10 in less than a year, but that's a ridiculous benchmark, so I don't even bother using it as reference.
You have to take Master's past stories and advice with a grain of salt.
It's not that Master is lying — it's just that Master is so far beyond the norm that only about half of it is applicable.
What kind of person casually says things like "I took lava baths to build fire resistance" or "I kept magic active at all times to level up my Skills"?
"Just try it," Master says so lightly, but I'm pretty sure Master is the only one who could actually do that.
Apparently the Great Ello Dungeon was an absolute nightmare.
From a normal person's perspective, you'd never survive unless you did the kind of insane level-grinding that Master pulled off.
I've lost count of how many times I heard "I thought I was going to die" over drinks.
Master really must have gone through that kind of hell.
Thinking about it that way, I feel fortunate.
The fact that I'm alive is thanks to Master. Master did push me pretty hard, but because of it, I've become reasonably strong.
I can't say I'm not grateful for that.
But — but!
Please stop eating parts of my body when you're drunk off your face!
Why do I have to fight for my life every single night?!
And I lose every single time!
And to top it all off, Master cheerfully forgets about it the next morning!
Why is it that inside town, where there are no drunkards outside, I have to endure nights more dangerous than out in the wilderness?!
That's insane, isn't it?!
Ugh, I'm so done.
If it weren't for that one thing, I could honestly be grateful.
Healing magic can repair the parts that get torn off, but it can't erase the terror and pain of having it happen.
At first it was just licking. Then it gradually escalated to gentle nibbling, then the biting strength kept increasing little by little, and eventually it reached the point where actual chunks of flesh were being taken.
How did it get like this?
Nowadays, whenever Master drinks, I end up getting gnawed on somewhere, without fail.
Ariel has to put up barriers just to keep the inn from collapsing — every single night we're trapped in a battle like that.
Could this count as real combat experience too?
My level is still 1, though.
So that's how our chaotic journey has gone — and now we're about to charge straight into Demon race territory.
Talk all I want, I've decided to stick with Master and Ariel and enter Demon race territory.
Yeah, I've stopped thinking in small categories like "Human race" versus "Demon race."
I've learned firsthand that this world contains existences of unreasonable power that are beyond comprehension no matter how hard you think about it.
We've made it this far somehow, and I have a feeling we'll manage somehow in Demon race territory too.