In the end, Cid had no choice but to advance to Level 3.
He did not gain any new spells or skills this time, but all five of his basic attributes had risen to fairly high values before the level-up.
Before advancing, Cid's public status had been:
Strength: C601Endurance: A802Dexterity: C603Agility: C604Magic: S905
This was the status sheet Cid had arranged by using Raul's numbers as a reference.
As an ordinary adventurer, Raul had advanced to Level 2 with four attributes a little over 600, while his Magic had remained at 0.
Cid's Magic was naturally high because his spells were too strong to suppress.
The same went for Endurance. That stat was fated to remain a full tier above the other three, and there was not much Cid could do about it.
After all, he had spent so much time with a shield in hand, blocking the bombardment of Level 5 dragon-type monsters.
Granted, most of that had been the effect of the divine shield itself, but even the aftershocks were enough to raise the Endurance of someone who was supposed to be only Level 2.
Of course, those "fairly high" numbers were only high compared to ordinary adventurers.
A truly top-tier adventurer usually had two or three attributes in the S rank.
As for Cid's real status now, he had naturally already reached Level 7.
Cid Rofail
Level 7
Strength: SSS1999-10Endurance: SSS1999-10Dexterity: SSS1999-10Agility: SSS1999-10Magic: SSS1999-10
Development Abilities:Mystery DMage BSmithing CHealing CRadiant Supremacy FBoundary I
Magic:Mana CompressionSimulated Nuclear BlastInfernal Peerless Scorching Blast Wave Cannon
Skills:ShadowUniversal MasteryBalance Breaker???
Among the newly available Development Abilities, Cid had chosen one called Boundary.
Even now, though, he still did not fully understand what it actually did.
From his own testing, all he could tell was that he had become more sensitive to space itself.
If he continued developing this ability, it seemed possible that he might eventually create a teleportation spell.
Boundary was already powerful enough on its own, but what really mattered was the completely unreadable new skill.
Cid could read sacred script, but he could not decipher the wording of that newly appeared skill at all.
"Hestia, do you know what these characters mean?"
After getting dressed, Cid copied down the symbols he had seen and showed them to her.
"This is sacred script? Why does it look so strange?"
Hestia took the paper, then stared at it in bafflement.
She recognized every single character on its own, but when they were placed together like this, she could not understand them at all.
It felt like trying to read some dense philosophical treatise.
"Is this part of someone's Falna skill? Maybe it hasn't fully awakened yet? By the way, Cid, where did you see these characters?"
Even Hestia was not entirely sure.
"Secret."
Cid did not lie. He simply refused to answer.
Hestia did not press the matter.
Everyone had their secrets, and she was not the sort who needed to pry into every last one of them.
"All right, and the Denatus is in a couple of days. I'll make sure to win you a good title, Cid!"
Cid had worked very hard to reach Level 3, and next would come her battle.
"The Denatus, huh."
Cid, too, was looking forward to it.
On that day, the Guild would announce the existence of Shadow Garden to the gods of Orario.
Everything had already been prepared.
Of course, that was something for Shadow to deal with.
As for Cid the background character, there was still something else he needed to do.
Early the next morning, Cid headed for the Astraea Familia.
Bell was still too young to go into the Dungeon, so there was no need for him, as captain, to lead her anywhere.
Besides, Cid had no time for that right now. He had accepted the task of infiltrating the Pleasure Quarter.
As a dedicated performer of background roles, Cid always committed fully to the part.
The Ishtar Familia was strong. Even if Cid had publicly become Level 3, it was not certain he could return from that place unharmed.
To make his actions look more convincing, he intended to first gather information about Daedalus Street.
From the perspective of a proper background character, this was simple preparation: if things went wrong with the Ishtar Familia, he could flee into Daedalus Street and hide there.
And as it happened, there was exactly one member of the Astraea Familia who had been born in Daedalus Street: Iska.
Iska was an orphan from that district. At first, she began fighting for the sake of other orphaned children like herself.
Later, those children noticed how battered she looked every time she came back from a fight, so Iska started learning makeup so they would not worry.
After every battle, the first thing she would do was wash herself up and make herself look pretty again.
For an Amazon to be unusually skilled with cosmetics, that was the reason why.
So when it came to Daedalus Street, Cid figured he only needed to ask Iska directly.
"Why do I have such a bad feeling? Am I forgetting something?"
Cid stopped at the door of the Astraea Familia. His instincts were warning him.
Do not go any farther. Hell lies ahead.
Cid pushed the door open and walked right in without even knocking.
What a joke. As Shadow, how could he possibly fear unknown danger?
Once inside the main hall, he saw only one goddess and two people.
Everyone else seemed to be out.
The goddess was naturally Astraea.
As for the other two, they gave him a strange sense of familiar unfamiliarity.
Cid could feel his body react.
After probing further, he realized it was the skill he had gained upon reaching Level 7 reacting.
Recalling Hestia's words that the skill had not fully awakened yet, he looked at the two women again.
Sensing his arrival, all three turned toward him at once.
One of them had white hair and red eyes and looked very much like Bell's older sister.
The other had short green hair, wore a mask much like Ryuu's, and her eyes looked exactly the same as Ryuu's.
Come to think of it, Cid found those eyes oddly nostalgic.
Back when Ryuu had been pretending to oppose him, she would look at him like that.
"Astraea, who are these two?"
Curious about their identities, Cid asked.
Instead of answering him, Astraea introduced Cid to the two women first.
"You can't recognize me? That's just cruel!"
Ryuu glared at him in visible annoyance.
As the boyfriend in this version of the world, the fact that Cid could not even recognize her made him utterly unqualified.
"Exactly! Totally cruel!"
Bell chimed in from the side.
Ordinary people failing to recognize them was one thing, but Mister Cid had no excuse.
Astraea offered no explanation at all. She simply stood there smiling as she watched.
The scene was rather amusing.
"It's not like I couldn't recognize you at all. You're Ryuu, right?"
Cid was still not entirely certain.
The woman before him had the same face and eyes as Ryuu, but her overall bearing was completely different. She looked reliable.
Since when had Ryuu ever had an air that dependable?
"Oh! Miss Ryuu got recognized!"
Bell cried out excitedly.
For him to recognize her under these circumstances, this really was love.
"…Are you some kind of pervert? You could still recognize me like this?"
Ryuu flushed in embarrassment and hurriedly stepped back.
"If you don't recognize her, she gets angry. If you do recognize her, she gets even angrier. This really is Ryuu."
Cid nodded inwardly. Yes, this was exactly Ryuu. The authentic article.
Thinking of his newly awakened Development Ability and skill, Cid arrived at a bold guess.
"You two… are people from the future, aren't you?"
....
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