Chapter 362

TL Note : the words in "()" are what Fran talk with telepathy

Alistair continued to ponder on my theory that the identity of the mysterious soul might be Fenrir .

"I'm sure if we took more time, we could do a more detailed analysis..."

"How long will it take?"

"Well, if you want to find out who the mysterious soul is, it's going to take years . "

『Well, that is impossible . 』

"Hm . Impossible . "

I can't let Fran's precious early teens be wasted here .

Of course, it might be a good experience to learn a lot of things from Alistair, but I still have to let the cute child travel .

Besides, I have to return to the Kingdom of Kleinzell to participate in the auction . I also have an appointment with Gallus .

"I know . If it's not possible, I won't force it . Well, let's put a pause to all this rambling, and move on to serious restoration and refurbishment . "

"Refurbishment?"

『Isn't simply repairing enough?』

As far as I was concerned, as long as I could get back on track, it's enough .

"Yeah, I decided that as long as the residue of Cherubim wasn't working, it won't be enough . "

『It's not good enough?』

"Originally, Cherubim's remnant should have managed Master's vast array of skills and assisted him in using them, but this is not the case right now . That's probably why Master's condition had gone so awry this time . Seems like Master can't keep up with the processing power by himself . "

Apparently I'm forcing myself to do the part, even though it should have been Cherubim who should take care of it for me .

"If you simply just put it back together, it will do the same thing right away . That's why it needs to be refurbished . "

『What exactly do you mean by "refurbished"? Is it like increasing its processing power?』

"That would be impossible . There's nothing I can do to improve it any further in terms of ability . In the first place, Master is a semi-divine sword class— No, Master's body has a complicated structure that can almost be called a divine sword . It's not easy to achieve that, even for me . "

So there's nothing you can do about the hardware, the constituent parts . Then maybe the internal circuitry, the software... No, that's not going to be easy either .

To put it bluntly, there's a tremendous amount of software residing in the system, and it's a situation where the gargantuan size of the space consumed by the software is too overwhelming for the local storage . Since I can't remove that software, there will be no choice but to secure capacity in more detailed parts .

Is it because of my knowledge as an earthling that I still carry here? Surprisingly, I could easily understand Alistair's explanation . Fran, who was listening next to me, had already started to doze off, as her head tilted to one side, nodding throughout .

『Does that mean you're going to cut out the unnecessary parts of my insides somehow?』

"You sure understand quickly . That's right . To put it more bluntly, I will reduce the number of skills you have . If the remnants of the Cherubim had been there, they'd have had no problem managing the inexhaustible growth in skills . But as it is now, even if you're not using them, you're still in possession of a tremendous amount of skills, which places quite a burden on you, Master . "

In other words, the more magic stones I ate and the more skills I added, the closer I got to my processing limit . I gained a huge amount of skills, especially in the most recent fight . Right now, I should have over 200 in total, and in the worst case scenario, it might have even reached 300 .

After I explained that, Alistair murmured with an amazed expression .

"Oi, Oi, what is that about . "

"Nn . Master has lots of skills . "

"Hah . Really??? Even divine swords have at most 30 or so skills that were granted to them . If the number exceeds 50, it will malfunction, and if it goes over 100, it's no wonder the sword goes out of control . And you say you have over 200 skills? That's crazy! Normally, it would have destroyed itself already!"

『Woah-』

"How could you not feel any pain before? In fact, I'm surprised that you're able to hold on this long . "

Alistair's words made me realize how much I had been pushing myself .

If we hadn't met Alistair here, I don't know if we would have been able to repair me . Also, if the enemy hadn't left us, we would have been even more overwhelmed on top of being in a half-destroyed state . If that actually happened, what awaited us would definitely be a bleak and rough future .

As we were talking about this, Fran raised a question while tilting her head slightly .

"Hey, why would Master feel pain?"

『Hmm? As Alistair just mentioned, the overwhelming number of skills takes a toll on me, right?』

"No, that's not what Fran is trying to say, is it? You're asking how Master, who has no biological body and is not supposed to feel pain, can feel the sensation of pain, right?"

Oh, is that what she was asking about? I was actually curious about that too .

However, Alistair apparently knew what to expect .

"If Master was an artificial spirit, he wouldn't feel pain . He won't know the feeling of pain in the first place . But in Master's case, he still has a slight sense of what pain feels like when he is human . I think, because of that, Master is able to perceive occurrences that causes pain like forcing himself too hard to think or process skills, and unconsciously recreates the nonexistent pain . "

『I- I see . 』

"I think the reason why you don't feel pain when the sword part was damaged is either because you are too far removed from your human sense to feel pain, or you have a strong belief that it can't hurt because it's a sword . "

So you're saying that the pain I feel is all because I unconsciously perceive it, even though in truth it shouldn't really hurt at all .

"Well, it's a tricky one, but that's not a bad thing for the current Master . At least, he could sense his limitations without the remnants of the Cherubim from the pain he feels . "

If you ask me, that's probably right . If it weren't for the pain, I wouldn't have realized my own limits and would have destroyed myself in the fight against Myrellia and Xellos Reed .

"Now, let's talk about the refurbishment . We need to remove some unused or wasteful skills to reduce the chance of Master feeling that pain again . Just, listen properly to what I am about to say . If there were just one or two skills to discard, then it would have been easy . However, with this large number of skills, your choice is either you just discard this huge amount of skills, just delete all of them, or you can select your skills one by one and choose ones to keep and others to delete . Unfortunately, this will take years . "

『Huh? Wait a minute, that's a problem! We can't do that!』

If a useful skill I've acquired just disappeared, I'm definitely going to lose my strength in a heartbeat!

"However, it doesn't mean I'm just going to erase skills at random . Don't worry about that . "

『I don't understand what you mean?』

"Ah, hmm... how can I explain it easily? What if I told you that I could use the ability of the mystery system within Master to integrate and optimize your skills?"

『Can you interfere with the mystery system?』

"No, I can't change the main feature, but I could use the system to change things up a little bit . For example, we could combine skills of the same roots into one and evolve them into higher-level skills .

So, it seems like the problem is that I have a lot of skills that aren't too useful, and you're suggesting to lump them all together, and see if they'll evolve or not? Isn't that being too reckless?

"But we can't really control the details, so it's up to the system to choose the best option . "

『I thought so...... . 』

"Evolving will increase the capacity of individual skills, but it should be much better than being overwhelmed by the process of managing so many wasted skills . Well, I can't assure you that you might not lose some useful skills in the process . It's the first time I've ever done this after all . "

『... . . What do you think of this, Fran?』

(I'll do whatever is good for Master . )

『But the worst would be if I lose all my useful skills, like swordplay and all that . 』

(If you lose them, we can get them back . )

Fran was very casual in her responses, and that's when I made up my mind .

That's right, and even if I become weak, I can still grow stronger again . If I have something I lost, I can get it back .

"I do have one question, though . "

"What is it?"

"What happens if, after Alistair reduces Master skills this time, the number of skills increases again?"

There's that problem too . Exactly as Fran described it, isn't this just a temporary fix?

"Then come back periodically to see me . When the time comes, if you find out anything about Master, will you let me know? Hopefully I can be of more help then . "

『...Is this help just out of kindness?』

"Well, I wouldn't say I'm not interested in Master's background . "

Of course . Those are the eyes of someone who is completely engulfed by curiosity . Regardless, even for me, I wasn't planning on breaking relations with a Divine Grade blacksmith . It's really relieving to have someone offer repair assistance in an emergency .

In human terms, isn't it similar to the peace of mind one gets with being seen by an excellent doctor at any time? Anyway, with this, I can fight again with no worries .

"All right, we will definitely return . "

『Please take care of the refurbishment . 』

"Sure, leave it to me . "