Lv1 Skeleton

“Master I think that there are only 10,000 left.”

Melpomene swiftly cut her own carotid artery once more after informing me. We had managed to achieve 1,000 deaths per day, for a total of 90,000 deaths in 90 days. I was now spending more than half of my day, about 15 hours, repeating this process of death and resurrection.

At first our excuse was that Melpomene also wanted to have a child, but now it was getting harder and harder to explain. Thanks to this my odd titles had all reached maximum and most people around me took me for a lecherous pervert.

I now only took about 50 to 55 seconds to complete the cycle of Melpomene’s death and resurrection. Due to this extreme repetition my Resurrection Song skill hit max.

On Melpomene’s end it was simply dying over and over again, with hardly any time for words in between. After having repeated it for over 90,000 times, it had become like a mechanical process, and the boundaries between life and death seemed nonexistent.

Death, resurrection and then death once more.

An endless cycle which neither took into account the respect for life or the solemness of death.

After undergoing such a unique experience, I began to question my beliefs.

‘What is is death? What is life? Just what is the meaning behind them if one can so easily be resurrected. Is there no soul? Why is it that in a world where Gods are actually present that there is no mention of the soul?’

As I was pondering these questions Melpomene died a few more times.

“Master, after all these deaths it seems that you’re still overthinking things.”

She didn’t forget to immediately off herself after finishing her sentence. She had truly mastered the art of suicide. At first I was the one to do it, but she quickly took over as she was more efficient and ruthless towards herself.

Due to this she gained the title [Suicide Addict LvMax]. Although I would previously be affected to a certain extent with the death of a sentient being, after being exposed to so many deaths, I no longer felt so touched.

I had also discovered a truly interesting fact. If one were to die, but then be resurrected, they would suffer a penalty. This penalty would also occur at any subsequent revivals. Of course this wasn’t unexpected, after all there had to be some kind of balance for a cheat ability such as Resurrection. Still, even stranger was that if you killed yourself, you could gain some experience. At first these two seemed to balance each other out, but while the penalty was linear, the experience gained was exponential. So by your second suicide you’d receive twice as much experience and then four times as much for the third. It came out to quite an impressive figure.

Due to this, Melpomene was able to evolve several times. From High Elf to Royal High Elf. then on to Arch Elf and finally Demi Elf. She was now just a step away from Godhood.

Nevertheless her curse had yet to disappear. Perhaps it was so strong that it would only disappear once she became a God.

The time it took me to think of this Melpomene had already died another 10 times, and in this manner we passed our entire night, up until the early morning.

“Melpomene, let’s stop here for now.”

“There are only about 9,000 times left, don’t you want to regain your necklace as soon as possible?”

“It’s fine, I’m not in much of a hurry.”

“Then please go back first, Master. I’ll stay back and clean up the blood.”

“Okay.”

I left her behind in the lab, with the task of cleaning up the monstrous amount of blood which had spilled on the floor.

“Lena… the morning sunlight is a bit too bright.”

“Johra that isn’t my doing, it’s….”

“Dad!”

“Ugh! Vez!”

She rushed into my embrace my and I was hit with a bright golden light. Vez had already grown to the size of junior high schooler and would emit different colours depending on her mood.

Her present golden light represented great joy.

“Dad! Dad! I finally won a game versus sister.”

Over the last 3 months she had developed a liking for the game of chess. Of course at first she wasn’t close to being a difficult opponent, but she learned quickly and just one month ago she overcame Jillian, and today she finally beat Jerna.

“Congrats Vez! Jerna is very strong at chess.

“Isn’t she just average though? Dad’s chess ability is the best in the world right?”

“Well… about that….”

I felt a bit bad about the deception.

“Johra you know that someday you’ll have to come clean about it….”

Lena spoke to me covertly, but I simply ignored her.

For a little while longer I wanted to keep up the appearance of a super dad.

“Even in chess there is a luck factor, so don’t get too ahead of yourself after just one win. There is always a stronger opponent waiting for you out there.”

“Yup, you are so right. Even princess Mayardus is much stronger than Jerna, I have no chance against her.”

“Yeah, the princess is good at chess.”

“By the way, who is Lilinor? I heard about this mysterious sister who is even stronger in chess.”

“Oh… she’s a friend of your dad’s, but we haven’t seen each other in quite some time.”

“Ah, I hope that I can meet her some day!”

“Sure.”

“Truly?”

“Yes, I promise.”

In the past I would hold in contempt those fathers which were unable to refuse any of their daughter’s requests, but it appears that I had somehow joined their ranks.

“Dad will you be going to bed now?”

“I guess….”

“It feels like you spend your entire days playing with big sister Melpomene, you should rest more often.”

“Yes, I’ll do that.”

Allowing Vez to lead me to our bedroom, I walked in to join Viezda who was resting after her morning exercises.

“Johra are you tired?”

Biezda stared into my eyes lovingly.

“I’m sorry about all this Viezda.”

“No, not at all.”

“You see….”

“I just hope that this remains a phase and that it doesn’t last too long.”

It was terrible misunderstanding, but I decided to let it rest for now. Still I knew that I would have to soon explain myself to her so that she wouldn’t feel too sad.

“It should be ending shortly.”

I was running out of good excuses, but luckily she didn’t press the issue.

I took a short three hour nap to catch up on some much needed rest, before getting up and preparing myself to attack the Killion dungeon with my party members.

At this point we had already reached the 30th floor in the dungeon and had left a teleportation array there during our last visit. We continued to search in areas which had yet to be mapped out by other adventurers.

“Master you said we’d be looking for a Gargoyle creature with crimson wings?”

“Yes, I saw it the other time, it was holding what looked like a grimoire in its hand.”

“Then if we catch him can we take the book and learn more magic from it?”

Jerna asked curiously.

I nodded back and answered.

“It should be the case, but it’s rather hard to locate. Still, there have been several sighting of it over time, so if we take our time to explore carefully and our patient we should encounter it in the end.”

Everyone nodded back and continued their hunting.

Naturally Jillian had already followed in my footsteps as a Meta Human and Jerna had become a High Human. Both of their levels had also increased considerably. On the Princess’ side she had become a Nosferatu. Unfortunately they suffered from the same leveling penalty which I had experienced as a Demi Lich, so despite the thousands of monsters we had slain, her experience was slightly lower than the other two.

To a certain extent it made a lot of sense seeing as she was now an immortal being, she would have a lot more time to level up compared to humans, so a certain balance was justified. It seemed that this sort of balancing act only appeared as one progressed in the higher tier evolutions.

[Level has reached the Maximum]

[Evolution is now Possible]

Finally my long awaited evolution arrived

As a Meta Human the last few levels were truly demanding, and it ended taking me a whole year and nine months before maxing out.

“Huh… so is it finally time to evolve?”

“Master did you manage to max out your level?”

Once Jillian evolved into a Meta Human he had gained the ability to fly and control fire. According to Lena it matched the abilities of the superhero Human Torch. However it seems like he had gained an additional super hearing ability, as seen by the fact that he heard me murmuring to myself while in the midst of fighting a monster.

“Finally!”

“What’s your evolution Johra?”

Jerna and Mayardus walked over after clearing the nearby monsters and asked curiously.

“Just give me a break would you….”

★

Name: Chompy (Johra)

Gender: Male

Status: Normal

Race: Meta-Human

Class: Warrior/ Priest/ Mage

Rank: B

Level: 999/999

HP: 999,999/999,999

MP: 222,222/222,222

Attack: 7,777 (+99)

Defense: 222,222 (+99)

Agility: 77,777

Intelligence: 33,333

? Unique Skills

[Water Creation LvMax] [Lesser Healing LvMax] [Magic Chanting LvMax] [Poison Fog LvMax] [Decoy LvMax(Inactive)] [Spider Sense LvMax] [Web Shot LvMax] [Nano Spike Lv8]

[Danger Premonition Lv5] [Extreme Reflexes Lv2] [Danger Sensing Lv3] [Insta-Kill Poison Needle Lv5] [Viscous Spider Web Lv3]

? (Hidden) Unique Skills

[Night Vision Lv1] [Resurrection Song LvMax]

? (Hidden) Titles (Active)

[Wizard of the Pit] [Master of Magma Hall] [Guardian of Corruption]

? (Hidden) Titles (Inactive)

[Rat Trapper] [Hit-and-Run] [Savior Lv4] [Coldhearted LvMax] [Dragon Slayer Lv1] [Ant Exterminator Lv14] [Spider’s Bane Lv3] [Giant Killer Lv2] [Scuttles’ Grief LvMax] [Goblin’s Slaughterer Lv8] [Valenor’s Husband] [Pervert LvMax] [Stud-Horse LvMax] [Researcher of Sex Lv7] [Sadist LvMax] [Masochist LvMax] [Justicar of Death LvMax] [Cheat Death Lv. Max] [Slave’s Husband]

? (Hidden) Modifications

[Avatar Lv1] [Creation Magic Lv1] [Resurrection Song Lv1]

? (Hidden) Creation Magic

[Hidden Status] [Species Conversion(Human)] [Material Creation Lv8]

?Evolution Choice

[Demi Human] [Leader of the Fallen] [Revenant]

★

“Huh, what the hell?”

‘Demi Human is easy enough to guess. It’s probably the same meaning as Demi Lich which means it’s just one step away from becoming a God. But what is this Leader of the Fallen? Sounds like some childish title, and what about Revenant?’

“I can evolve into a Demi Human.”

I didn’t announce my other choices. I didn’t want to say anything before fully understanding what these options meant.

“Then will you evolve?”

“If you choose to evolve I will protect you Johra!”

“Yeah, you can count on me too!”

Jillian and Jerna seemed super motivated but I simply shook my head.

“Let’s head back for now, I’m pretty tired.” f𝐫ee𝘄ℯ𝚋no𝐯𝐞l.c𝘰m

“What happened you didn’t sleep well last night?”

Following Jerna’s question, princess Mayardus sported her crooked smile. This was certainly another one of those misunderstandings.

“I guess so….”

Unwilling to explain I simply sigh in despair and activate the teleportation magic.

I’ll go rest so you guys take the chance to further your studies with Lena.

The three of them gave me a knowing smile as I headed back to the bedroom.

‘So it’s between a Demi Human and two unknowns like Leader of the Fallen and Revenant, how troublesome.’