It's been three days since I killed that old man.
Since then, fewer people have been coming to my place.
Actually, more like they've been forbidden from coming.
Needless to say, it's because I killed the old man.
Most of the citizens seemed annoyed about it. Some people didn't even hesitate to say it was a good thing the old man was dead. Most people probably think so too, even if they don't say it out loud.
But some people still say that spider is dangerous, don't they?
Those people usually get glared at by everyone around them and quickly take back what they said.
Religion is scary.
From a human perspective, I really am a super dangerous creature, though.
And yet, this devout faith persists.
Those who believe shall be saved.
Religion is just something that's hard to understand from a Japanese person's perspective.
Well, whatever. None of that matters.
The real problem is that fewer people are coming, which means fewer tributes.
Even after being banned, some people still come. The deeply faithful, or those hoping to get their injuries or illnesses healed.
But even those visitors are sparse.
They don't come. Food doesn't come.
I don't have anything sweet.
Ugh.
This is rough.
The lost SP was fairly easy to replenish, though.
Come to think of it, the full recovery from leveling up had stopped working at some point.
Well, I can more or less guess why.
It probably exceeded the allowable recovery range.
The full recovery from leveling up originates from the Skill n% I = W. It's like a bonus feature D set up so we'd be less likely to die, but the energy for that recovery is drawn from the world.
When my stats were low, the energy drawn was small enough, but now that I've gotten so strong, the energy needed for recovery is no joke.
So either the system was set to cut off supply once you pass a certain threshold, or D tweaked the settings in real time.
Thinking about it, I hadn't been molting after level-ups lately either. My HP hadn't been dropping at the timing of level-ups recently, so I hadn't paid attention, but the recovery probably stopped around then.
Anyway, to restore the irregularly inflated SP back to max, I went looking for food.
I already had something in mind, though.
When I had free time, I'd been wandering around to fill in the map, and during one of those explorations I'd found a pretty large bandit group.
Well, more like a village they'd built.
The reason I didn't attack them back then was because it was hard to tell whether they were really bandits or just a village built in a remote area.
Most of the villagers had the Plunder skill, and they looked the part, so I was like ninety percent sure they were bandits. But still.
Now that I could understand language, I decided to confirm whether that bandit village was really a bandit village.
And sure enough — yep, they were bandits.
They turned out to be a large-scale bandit organization that operated with an almost military level of coordination, raiding nearby villages and towns as well as traveling merchants and passersby.
Once I knew that, there was no reason to hold back.
I wiped them all out and had myself a delicious meal.
For bandits, they were surprisingly tough, which meant they were tasty in terms of experience points too.
My level went up by three.
Since they'd bothered to set up a village, they kept the place reasonably clean, so the food wasn't that bad either.
So my stomach is full.
But that's a completely different matter.
Sweets are a separate stomach.
Even when your belly is full, your heart can feel empty.
Ugh.
Well, it can't be helped.
I have to tell myself that even a few offerings are better than none.
Back when I was in the dungeon, I couldn't eat anything sweet at all. Compared to that, my current life is luxurious.
Ah, once you've tasted luxury, there's no going back.
Desire is terrifying.
No use wanting what I don't have, so today I'm eavesdropping on the sounds from the city again.
Among the citizens, rumors of an actual war are starting to spread.
No way.
I really don't think there's going to be a war.
They're probably just waving that possibility around to gain leverage in negotiations.
The other side is a small nation, after all.
War has a terrible cost-to-benefit ratio, when you really think about it.
Maybe it'd be worthwhile if you had a single soldier strong enough to solo an entire army, but based on what I've seen of human strength, I doubt anyone that overpowered exists.
So it'd inevitably be a war of attrition, where soldiers get ground down. Supply lines get drained. And after winning, there's all the post-war cleanup to deal with.
Even if you win, meaningful profit is a long way off.
Oh, but wait.
This country is a theocratic state, isn't it?
If it turns into a religious war, that changes the equation.
Huh, maybe it's not impossible then.
As someone with no religion, it's hard to believe people would start a war over faith, but religious wars are common enough in Earth's history.
And I'd be the one getting used as a pretext for that war.
No thanks.
I'm not that important.
Should I say something like, "Stop, please don't fight over me"?
Whatever.
If a war breaks out, it breaks out.
The other thing I'm curious about is the vampire kid.
She's been living her days without any apparent issues.
The humans around her haven't noticed she's a vampire.
Actually, I wonder if she even knows herself?
I couldn't see my own Status until my Appraisal level went up, either.
Without Appraisal, she probably doesn't even know her own species.
Plus, thanks to the True Ancestor Title, she doesn't have any of the typical vampire weaknesses. So there might be no symptoms at all.
If that's the case, what happens when she finds out?
A noble's daughter who's a vampire.
Ugh.
That screams trouble.
What should I do when that time comes? I don't really want to get involved, but hmm...
Well, for now there doesn't seem to be anyone around with Appraisal, so it should be fine.
If someone with Appraisal were nearby, there'd already be a commotion.
Ah, I wish I could use Appraisal through my Clairvoyance.
I'd be able to check the Status of everyone around me.
My Clairvoyance evolved into Omniscient Sight.
It's basically just a massive boost to how far I can see, but that distance is insane.
Believe it or not, I can see all the way to the Great Ello Dungeon from here.
I can look at distant scenery to my heart's content without ever leaving this spot.
What an incredible Skill.
At that moment, I was too absorbed in listening to the sounds of the city.
I let my guard down. If I'd been paying proper attention, I should have been able to avoid what happened next.
My Home got blown away.
The impact was enormous.
And the fact that I couldn't sense any magical formation meant the destruction wasn't caused by magic.
A purely physical attack, or one delivered through a Skill.
"I've finally found you."
I looked at the one who had brought such devastation.
There stood the Demon King.