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TL: ALT
Chapter 156 – Escape Skill Level 3
When I thought to myself, “I will escape from this difficulty,” my vision darkened.
At first, it seemed pitch black, but when I looked closely, I could see countless stars twinkling.
The stars became clearer and clearer, and a galaxy began to unfold before my eyes.
The galaxy stretches out like a tree or a road, branching out from right in front of me.
I can also see branches in the opposite direction, so the image is probably closer to the neural circuits of the brain.
Countless images have appeared along this path.
The one closest to me is the fight from earlier.
The image plays backward at high speed and loops as it rewinds to the beginning of the battle.
Further back was a reverse playback of my strategy on the fourth floor.
Even further back, there was a reverse playback of the peaceful scene from Saber Saber’s summer trip.
Looking further back, I saw scenes from the party, the scene from the coffee shop, and the scene where I soloed the third and second floors, etc., all lined up in reverse chronological order.
Looking closely, I noticed that the pop-ups only appeared on one of the paths that branched off the main path.
There were no pop-ups on the other paths that branched off from this one.
“So this is the path I’ve been on so far?”
The branches could be the past or the future…
There are countless forks, but it seems that the thickness of each branch is different.
Some branches have separated from the trunk, become thin, and disappear.
I don’t know if that means there is nothing beyond them or if there really is something there, but I can’t see it.
Even branches that have separated from the trunk often wander around for a while and then return to the trunk.
“So even if I branch off, I can often return to the original flow later.”
If philosophers, science fiction writers, or religious people saw this, they might get some kind of inspiration.
Unfortunately, my body doesn’t seem to be in this space, so I can’t take a picture of this scene with my smartphone.
There’s also the question of whether it will show up on the camera at all.
“So… what do I do with this?”
The skill description says I can go back in time.
I guess that means I can go back along the path I’ve taken so far and return to any point in time.
“Isn’t this skill a little too dangerous?”
The point is that I can go back to any time I want.
Skill──────────────────
Escape
S.Lv1: Allows you to escape from battle.
S.Lv2: Allows you to escape from reality.
【NEW!】S.Lv3: Allows you to escape from difficulties.
【NEW!】S.Lv3 “Escape from Difficulty”
Conditions for use:
You must realize from the bottom of your heart that the situation you are in is completely unsolvable.
Special Notes:
When you use the Escape from Difficulty skill to travel back in time, the causal links that belong to you will remain in their most recent state.
However, since the recognition of causal links is a heavy burden on the human soul, if you spend too much time traveling back in time, the causal links that belong to you will wear out.
Also, it is not possible to go back in time to a point that is not directly related to the “difficulty” you have recognized.
It is possible to escape the same difficulty repeatedly, but each time you do so, you will develop a habit of losing your soul, and your sense of self-affirmation will permanently decrease. The only way to restore a diminished sense of self-affirmation is to overcome the same kind of difficulty.
────────────────────
…With effects like this, I can understand why the side effects are so dangerous.
“Let’s make a quick decision. It seems like it’s going to be bad if I take my time.”
My eyes follow the pop-ups floating in the branching galaxy.
The images are all reversed.
The deadly battle with the three-level floor boss Little Red Riding Hood.
The long and painful journey through the third floor to increase my Demon King job rank.
The secret dungeon visits and activities in Saber, Saber, and the repetition of everyday life at high school.
At the coffee shop, Sayuki was suspicious of me, and before that, everyone in Saber Saber was discussing the summer project.
“By that time, the three of them had already known about me for a while.”
Maybe Sayuki’s suspicion of me here was the opportunity for me to reveal my secret.
As someone with poor communication skills, I just let the ball drop.
Well, I’m not sure I was ready to tell them the truth at that point.
My father was transferred to North America in June with a big smile on his face.
Before that, I was struggling with the Grim Reaper on the second floor.
The rainy season sky is seen in the classroom.
I collected items from the skill world in the Dungeon Master’s Item Box.
From the scene where I defeated Shadow Roper, countless Trehobis decreased, and Shadow Roper’s clone increased.
I noticed that my unique bonus increased during the first stage.
The “I don’t care about experience points, I’m making money, I feel EEEE!” is also playing backward.
At the time, I wondered, “Why did I feel a sense of liberation from not having to worry about experience points?”
But that question soon slipped from my mind.
“Looking back now, I was trying to avoid increasing my level in the skill world.”
In the job world, it was the opposite.
I tried to raise my level to 9999 to improve my ranking.
The fact that I wanted to be strong without thinking about the consequences is very much like me as a high school student.
It’s a world away from the former shut-in who tended to keep a low profile so people wouldn’t pay attention to him.
I even felt a sense of nostalgia when I thought about the scene where I realized the possibility of having five jobs and got excited.
“But I can’t just sit back and relax!”
I accelerate my progress through the pop-ups.
After consulting with God at the shrine (rewinding to the beginning), I begin to think about the jobs in this world.
Before that, I saw my black history on the school’s roof and exclaimed smugly, “I realized this was an illusion!”
I was shocked when I met Sayuki again.
The scene of me walking to school with Honoka-chan.
The morning, I woke up as “me” at my parents’ house.
The night before (actually, it was the same day, but it was after midnight), before I fell asleep, I felt something strange about my supposedly high-tech smartphone, and the face of my mother sleeping in the living room looked younger…
I pulled my bike out of the parking space behind my house, put it in reverse, turned the pedals in the opposite direction, and rode my bike backward down the national highway in the middle of the night.
Somewhere along the way, I must have switched from being a high school student to being a member of the skill world, but I was unable to recognize the transition.
I got off my bike at the Black Swan Forest Water Park Dungeon (Skill World) and then did a backflip off the moonwalk into the Karakuri UFO and flew backward through the air.
I fell asleep in the UFO.
I had a brief phone call with Serika.
The UFO descended into the mountains near the Okutama Lake Dungeon.
I ran backward through the mountains and the crater that used to be the Okutama Lake reservoir.
When I jumped into the portal at the exit of the dungeon from behind, I appeared in a black-and-white room.
In front of me was a God who kept tilting her head.
――This is it.
The part just before that scene is the problematic part.
When I asked for a skill that would allow me to integrate skills, God said, “That’s impossible,” and offered to build me a training dungeon instead.
It seems that the God of the skill world built a training dungeon for Honoka-chan and the others to gain the power to stop me.
The God of the skill world said that she would do the same for me.
But then something unexpected happened… or so it seems.
It couldn’t have been a simple mistake on the part of God.
If the God of the job world could do it, then the God of the skill world should be able to do it, too.
It seems that the God of the Job world had more followers, but the skill world was the one where the scale of the dungeon collapse was greater.
The amount that could be used was greater in the skill world.
The fact that the God of the skill world herself clearly stated that she could do it, but then failed to do it, is already strange.
She said that it was impossible to create a skill that integrated skills, so if it was impossible to create a training dungeon, she would have said the same thing.
So, something unexpected probably happened to God at that time.
I want to take a good look at this. As I was thinking about this, the reverse playback speed slowed down.
“Hmm? It looks like this is going to take longer than I thought. I can’t say that I’m used to being treated like this… Is this it?”
Although it was in reverse, I could strangely understand the content of the dialogue.
The God frowned and tilted his head.
What had just happened was not in my memory.
However, the causal retroactive pop-up of “Escaping from Difficulty” clearly showed that moment.
The God with the tilted head was suddenly covered in white light.
“You seem like a very kind God… but this is too lukewarm.
A voice I hadn’t heard before suddenly rang out in my mind.
Just before that, God had a panicked look on her face and said
“Hmm, what is this? Not good, Yuto! Hurry――”
It has a white noise like the static on old televisions.
The training dungeon that God was making was being violently disturbed.
The scene before that was God working on the world rift and trying to make a dungeon for me.
I remember that scene clearly.
It’s hard to understand because it’s reversed, but I think it goes something like this.
・God is trying to make a training dungeon.
・The training dungeon is disturbed like a sandstorm.
・God senses something and warns me.
・I heard the words of someone whose identity was unknown in my head.
・ My field of vision became completely white.
・ God tilted her head in confusion because the dungeon wasn’t being created as she had hoped.
・I left the dungeon through the portal God had created.
・I landed in the Black Swan Forest Water Park in a Karakuri UFO and cycled home along the National Highway.
・Before I knew it, I had found myself in the world of work.
What’s strange here is God’s reaction after my vision turned completely white.
Just before that, God was trying to warn me about something.
And yet, after the whiteout, God completely forgot about it.
Not only God, but also me.
The answer that can be drawn from this is
“The owner of that mysterious voice interfered with God’s unfinished dungeon and sent me to the working world…”
The mysterious voice suddenly interrupted me, but I had an idea who it was.
But it’s just a simple process of elimination.
“…Is this where I should go back to?”
Before God explained to me why it was impossible to integrate skills.
Right before I said, “Give me a skill that integrates skills.”
This is a candidate.
“There is also the possibility of going back even further.”
If I could go back to before the dungeon collapsed―to the point where I missed my chance to finish Clovis, for example―then I could make it seem like the Okutama Lake dungeon never collapsed in the first place.
I could also make it seem like I never made that self-destructive confession to Serika.
But,
“I can’t go back any further than this.”
The rewind stopped just before “Give me the skill to integrate skills.”
When I look down at the causality galaxy, the silver road continues before that, too.
But the silver road before that point is usually gray and dark.
It’s like saying, “You can’t choose from here.”
“Ah, I see. That’s the one from the description.”
That’s what the description of Escape from Difficulty said.
“It is not possible to trace the cause and effect back to a point that has no direct relationship to the recognized ‘difficulty.'”
“So this is as far back as I can go with my current ‘difficulty.'”
On the other hand, if I can trace this far back, that means there is a way to escape from my current difficulty.
I looked at the side of the pop-up that had accidentally stopped and saw that another branch of causality was growing from there.
I couldn’t see the end of the branch, but it was quite wide, and it was also very bright.
If this were an adventure game, this would be a scene where you have to make an important choice.
This is probably the correct answer.
“Apparently, if you spend too much time on it, ‘your own karma will wear off.'”
I steel myself and reach for the paused pop-up.
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