Chapter 362

Editor Makoto

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

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

Im sure if we took more time, we could do a more detailed a.n.a.lysis

How long will it take?

Well, if you want to find out who the mysterious soul is, its going to take years .

Well, that is impossible .

Hm . Impossible .

I cant let Frans 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 partic.i.p.ate in the auction . I also have an appointment with Gallus .

I know . If its not possible, I wont force it . Well, lets put a pause to all this rambling, and move on to serious restoration and refurbishment .

Refurbishment?

Isnt simply repairing enough?

As far as I was concerned, as long as I could get back on track, its enough .

Yeah, I decided that as long as the residue of Cherubim wasnt working, it wont be enough .

Its not good enough?

Originally, Cherubims remnant should have managed Masters vast array of skills and a.s.sisted him in using them, but this is not the case right now . Thats probably why Masters condition had gone so awry this time . Seems like Master cant keep up with the processing power by himself .

Apparently Im 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 . Thats why it needs to be refurbished .

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

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

So theres nothing you can do about the hardware, the const.i.tuent parts . Then maybe the internal circuitry, the software No, thats not going to be easy either .

To put it bluntly, theres a tremendous amount of software residing in the system, and its a situation where the gargantuan size of the s.p.a.ce consumed by the software is too overwhelming for the local storage . Since I cant 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 Alistairs 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 youre going to cut out the unnecessary parts of my insides somehow?

You sure understand quickly . Thats right . To put it more bluntly, I will reduce the number of skills you have . If the remnants of the Cherubim had been there, theyd have had no problem managing the inexhaustible growth in skills . But as it is now, even if youre not using them, youre 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, its no wonder the sword goes out of control . And you say you have over 200 skills? Thats crazy! Normally, it would have destroyed itself already!

Woah

How could you not feel any pain before? In fact, Im surprised that youre able to hold on this long .

Alistairs words made me realize how much I had been pus.h.i.+ng myself .

If we hadnt met Alistair here, I dont know if we would have been able to repair me . Also, if the enemy hadnt 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, thats not what Fran is trying to say, is it? Youre 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 wouldnt feel pain . He wont know the feeling of pain in the first place . But in Masters 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 dont 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 cant hurt because its a sword .

So youre saying that the pain I feel is all because I unconsciously perceive it, even though in truth it shouldnt really hurt at all .

Well, its a tricky one, but thats 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, thats probably right . If it werent for the pain, I wouldnt have realized my own limits and would have destroyed myself in the fight against Myrellia and Xellos Reed .

Now, lets 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, thats a problem! We cant do that!

If a useful skill Ive acquired just disappeared, Im definitely going to lose my strength in a heartbeat!

However, it doesnt mean Im just going to erase skills at random . Dont worry about that .

I dont 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 cant 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 arent too useful, and youre suggesting to lump them all together, and see if theyll evolve or not? Isnt that being too reckless?

But we cant really control the details, so its 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 cant a.s.sure you that you might not lose some useful skills in the process . Its the first time Ive ever done this after all .

. . What do you think of this, Fran?

(Ill 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 thats when I made up my mind .

Thats 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?

Theres that problem too . Exactly as Fran described it, isnt 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 wouldnt say Im not interested in Masters background .

Of course . Those are the eyes of someone who is completely engulfed by curiosity . Regardless, even for me, I wasnt planning on breaking relations with a Divine Grade blacksmith . Its really relieving to have someone offer repair a.s.sistance in an emergency .

In human terms, isnt 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 .