The Hero’s Party Members Treat Me Well for Some Reason

3 – This is Impossible

Leveling up in “Demon Lord and Hero Party” belongs to the realm of difficulty. Firstly, because the maximum level is only 100.

Moreover, even reaching that level of 100 was not intended.

For example, I have never reached level 100 even once while trying 999 tries.

No, I couldn’t even reach the early stages of level 90, if anything.

Even the final boss of this game, the Demon Lord, wasn’t level 100.

On top of the highest difficulty, even unlocking the Demon Lord’s seal, level 100 was unattainable.

At best, it would be around the late 90s.

Leveling up in this game was that difficult.

Thanks to that, I could now say with certainty.

“It’s impossible.”

Early in the morning, in the back alley of a tavern.

Sitting in a place filled with dirty garbage, I mumbled like that.

It was the conclusion I had reached after agonizing over it all night.

No matter what hidden piece I obtained or what unknown dungeon I discovered.

Reaching level 70 in just two weeks is an absolute impossibility.

Even if I had fallen from being a human who has tried 999 tries to being a wretched beggar who has tried 9999 tries, that wouldn’t change.

“It makes no sense to begin with.”

Level 70 was almost the level of the top player.

Do you know how much of a level difference there is here?

Level 10 is at the level of an average person.

Around level 20, they are treated as slightly strong soldiers.

At level 30, you can obtain a suitable knight rank. By level 40 or 50, you could become an elite knight or even the guild master of a reputable mercenary guild.

Receiving this kind of treatment is only possible at level 50.

Going further, the inflation becomes much worse.

At around level 60, you can even reach a position like a martial arts master.

At level 70, you can aspire to become the strongest in a small country.

Level 70 is the level of that stature.

“But to achieve that…”

Are you telling me to achieve that?

In just two weeks?

It’s impossible. That’s crazy.

At the very least, even if my current level was higher, I wouldn’t know… My current level is a pure Lv1, completely inexperienced.

I’m so pure that I’m a joke.

How on earth am I supposed to get started?

In the original game, the minimum level starts at 10.

“…Well, I guess I’ll give it a try.”

But even as I complained, I had no choice but to stand up from my seat.

Staying like this wouldn’t improve anything, after all.

And at least, to my knowledge, [Demon King and Hero Party] doesn’t present impossible problems.

Although it may seem impossible at first glance, upon closer inspection, there were holes to dig into.

And honestly, I had a rough idea of how to dig into them.

“Status window.”

As I silently spoke, a translucent window appeared in front of me.

A presence that is usually included as a basic option when being transferred to a game world. Fortunately, it existed here as well.

But [Demon King and Hero Party] had a somewhat special system.

———-

Name: Luke

Level: 1

[Skills]

The Power of Sacrifice Level MAX

———-

Without any details like stats or abilities, it was a simplified status window consisting only of name, level, and skills.

It looked exactly like the status window I usually check in games.

Here, stats are not displayed separately.

Because here, the level itself is the measure of strength.

The level represents the accumulated experience and history of that person, so there is no need to separately indicate stats······.

That was the game developer’s response.

But in reality, they just didn’t want to show it.

Even though the level is considered a measure of strength, there are clearly differences in compatibility.

For example, a magician may have high magical power, while a warrior may have high stamina, and so on.

Such obvious stat differences exist.

But just casually saying “Judge by the level” was really annoying.

Well, anyway, I could see that the status window was just like the one I knew.

“The name seems to be set as Luke.”

This is not such an important detail, so let’s skip it for now.

The important thing was the skill named “The Power of Sacrifice” attached to it.

A skill with a name I’ve never seen before. The only benefit I gained from choosing the hidden route and landing here.

As I carefully looked at it, the status window suddenly started changing randomly and magnified the “The Power of Sacrifice.”

+

[The Power of Sacrifice Level MAX]

An ability that embodies the favor of the gods.

When you fervently express your will, the world will empathize and willingly fulfill it.

Of course, it’s not for free.

Anything you offer, you will be paid the appropriate price.

+

And upon seeing that, I immediately frowned.

“What a sh*tty skill.”

At first glance, it looked like a good skill.

Well, it certainly should be a good skill.

Even though the explanation was somewhat vague, it said that there is a price to pay every time something is offered. In terms of versatility, it would be tremendous.

However, it wasn’t a skill that I particularly wanted to use.

“Why do I have to offer something?”

What harm would it do to just give?

If that’s the case, it would have been better to just receive skills like “Eternal Flame” or “Clear Breeze Swordsmanship,” familiar skills like a bowl of rice.

With those, I could smoothly get through the early stages.

“Tsk.”

Well, even though I gained something, it was a skill that couldn’t be wasted.

I should at least give the test a try.

“Will you offer?”

I raised my voice and stated what I would offer and what I would gain.

What I would offer was my lifespan.

Lifespan was a fairly good sacrificial method.

It wasn’t visible, it wasn’t keenly felt, and even if it disappeared, there wouldn’t be any noticeable immediate losses.

It was suitable for experimental offering.

Of course, it wasn’t something to be thrown away, but in the current situation, there was no choice.

“I offer five years of my lifespan to increase my level.”

And in that moment.

…!!

A very unpleasant sensation seized my body.

It felt as if the scythe of a grim reaper momentarily passed through my throat. A sense of fierce emptiness, as if a part of my soul had been torn out, overwhelmed my entire body.

But even that was temporary.

“Your level has increased!”

“Your level has increased!”

“Your level has increased!”

…

…

…

Straight away, this system alarm goes off, filling my vision. It felt like a holy congregation was surrounding me.

I jumped up by 14 levels in a single go, extending my lifespan to 5 years.

I had gained the experience from childhood to adulthood almost instantly.

It was undoubtedly a tremendous growth, but… all I could do was to force a bitter smile.

“Is this… something to be happy about or not?”

It was a bit unclear due to the cost-effectiveness.

Lifespan belongs to the category of precious resources. Even though it has no tangible form and can’t be seen, lifespan was undeniably important.

I had just sacrificed a limited resource known as vitality. In a wuxia-style analogy, I had used my innate true energy.

Yet, I had only reached level 13.

Even though it was a low-level range where high leaps were possible.

“Tsk.”

I was mistaken.

With this method, it remained uncertain whether I could reach level 70 even if I dedicated my entire lifespan to it.

From the beginning, breaking quests by sacrificing my lifespan was too inefficient, and I didn’t want to experience that damn feeling again.

“I need to find another way.”

With that thought in mind, I walked down the alley.

Now that I had confirmed my skills, it was time to explore everywhere and make a diligent effort.

Killing monsters, searching for mysteries, or training, among other things.

At least one of them should yield an answer.

And so, my life for the sake of leveling up began.

* * *

…I’ll start with the conclusion.

I failed. And it was a terrible failure at that.

I roamed around for ten days, and during that time, I only managed to raise my level to a mere Lv10.

That was all I accomplished in over a week.

Even though I had sacrificed an additional 5 years of my lifespan, the progress was minimal…

It was truly a dismal outcome.

There were three reasons for why even a level 999 hardcore player like me couldn’t achieve better results.

First of all, it seemed like I lacked talent.

First of all, I swung my sword every day for ten days without missing a single day.

This is because training, including swordsmanship, is substituted as a form of experience points.

Thanks to this, there were individuals who achieved the position of a knight-Commander solely through training with exceptional talent.

But I couldn’t level up at all during those ten days of training.

Of course, it was only ten days, but still, even as a candidate for a hero… not being able to level up even once was disappointing.

I couldn’t help but feel amazed.

Still, I was able to acquire one skill…

+

[Sword Swing Lv.1]

The swing becomes slightly more stable when swung recklessly like a beast.

Literally, just a little bit.

+

It was an ability that seemed completely useless at first glance.

I frowned.

“Who would make fun of this…”

Anyway, the first reason was that I lacked talent.

The second reason was that I couldn’t obtain Hidden Pieces.

I roughly knew the positions of Hidden Pieces that could be obtained early on.

The problem was that now, I couldn’t obtain most of them under the current conditions.

Most of them required a lot of money, had powerful monsters inside, or were too far away.

It would be impossible to spend about two weeks of time just for one Hidden Piece.

At least the starting point being a city in the Empire was a good thing.

Unfortunately, I barely had any money to pay for transportation.

Therefore, I was in a state where I hadn’t obtained any Hidden Pieces.

Lastly, the third reason.

“The monsters are too strong…”

Even though this place is considered a safe city, there are weak monsters in the outskirts.

I planned to level up by defeating these monsters, but they were stronger than I thought.

Of course, there may be some that I cannot fight, but… this was more significant.

[Caution! The difficulty of the monsters has increased significantly!]

Before I arrived in this place, I vaguely saw system messages. This world was faithfully carrying out those words.

Even the monsters I knew were at least level 1 or 2 higher than usual··· so they couldn’t be easily defeated.

There wasn’t much to do in this world with just around level 20.

Thanks to that, I even found myself saying, “Should I just give up?”

The quest seemed impossible from the start.

To achieve the position of the strongest with nothing but a barehanded start.

It was a quest that didn’t show any answers and made one lose their mind in confusion.

In the first place, I thought I would just play games in my room.

Who would have expected to suddenly fall into the real world?

So it would be okay to give up. Eventually, the world would be destroyed, but what could I do about it?

It was a level where the answer couldn’t be seen from the beginning.

However, even though my heart leaned towards giving up, there was one thing that bothered me.

‘But what about them, the heroines?’

If I couldn’t clear the quest, what would happen to the heroines of this place?

When I thought about their future, I couldn’t help but hesitate······.

I was gradually sinking deeper into the swamp of worries. At that moment, a voice rang out from behind me.

“Hey, mister. Do you know whose territory this is and who you are just coming in like that?”

The tone of voice was as if it had been drawn in a painting.

When I turned around to find the source of the voice, there were four men who looked quite rough staring at me.

Among them, one man who was particularly burly spoke.

“If you just came in without permission, you should pay the toll.”

As he said that, he smirked with a face covered in dirt, a typical street thug.

I let out a sigh at the sight.

“Sigh···”

Really, everything sticks to you when things don’t go well.