+20 affection points from Wilhelm for acting like a proper lord. 

-15 affection points from Wilhelm for making him doubt your mental health. 

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that I can also lose affection points. 

Currently, I was walking with Wilhelm in tow behind me. I still had some blood on me so I was eager to take a bath. 

Rule number 1 when killing someone, avoid the blood. 

"Say Wilhelm, do you think I went too far? That I shouldn't have executed him?"

"Far from me to have such thoughts."

I didn't have to turn to see his expression nor did I need a system to let me know that he didn't mean one lick of what he said, 

"Be honest with me Wilhelm. What bothers you the most. The fact that I killed him? The way I killed him?" 

"I believe killing a begging man was unnecessary. You could have simply put him in jail."

'Such a hypocrisy.'

"So torturing him wasn't a problem but killing him is?" 

"..." 

"Wilhelm. You may be right. Perhaps that man was really repenting. Perhaps he really never thought that my parents would get killed. Perhaps he was in truth a good man. But… So What?" 

"...!" 

"Wilhelm. I nearly died. My sister and I are now orphans. My parents who were from what I was told, very good people, died. This is a fact. His intentions didn't matter. His repentance didn't matter. What matters is that his actions and decisions brought consequences and the price he had to pay was death."

"But…"

"No buts. Perhaps you want to speak about his family? I was serious. His wife and daughter will receive enough money to never be in need of it ever again. They may grieve but they will never suffer in their lives again."

I couldn't help but let out a chuckle. 

"You know, I wouldn't have killed him had he not begged for his life."

"There's a fundamental difference between apologies and excuses. He should have begged for forgiveness and asked for an appropriate punishment. The moment he tried to use his family, it became an excuse. But I was forced to, I didn't want to, etc. Those words are meaningless."

I turned to face Wilhelm and looked up to him. His eyes bore in mine as a slight tension began to form between us. I knew that in a matter of fighting, even hundreds of me weren't enough to beat one of him. But it didn't matter. 

"Family? He had a family? But what about us? Neither Shuka nor I were born from a rock. We also had a family, and now because of him it's gone. Despite that, he had the gall to use the word family in front of me? Don't you think it's the height of irony."

I really wanted to laugh. I didn't know Shuka's parents. I didn't see them as my own either, still, they were good people. Good people who died because of the greed of servants they took very good care of. 

This wasn't about good or evil. Nor was it about justice. 

“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Do you know this quote?"

"The golden rule."

"Indeed. I have decided to live by this creed and now, it's time to bait out the true culprit. Please make an announcement. In one month, I will challenge a dungeon. A full party of twenty will be accepted, with five public spots up to bidding."

Hehe, this will be fun. I wonder, will I get killed? Or will I be able to kill them? Well, we will see. 

+10 affection points from Wilhelm for making him respect and understand your choice (though he still thinks you are crazy.)

Hum? Crazy? Me? Nah…There was no one saner than me in this world. 

----

One month to train and reach the level of an expert killer. What could go wrong? 

Nearly everything. 

Let's be honest. There was no logical way I could win a direct confrontation against such a guy. It would be faster to simply kill myself. But… 

Who said anything about fighting fair? 

Still, as so many people in Chinese novels said, "In front of absolute power, everything is fleeting."

In Darwin's game, it didn't matter what kind of power you had, you could only have that one power. 

But here it was different. 

Who knew what kind of magic Fuli could have learnt? As such making a plan based on the few information I had from the Manga would simply be suicide. 

I needed to become stronger. 

I needed to become faster. 

I needed to become more powerful. 

And how should I do it? Well..

…

… 

…

I had no fucking idea. 

I mean, I knew some way, like copying some legendary sword or such. But here's the problem. Legendary swords were legendary for a reason. 

It wasn't just about copying the structure of the sword. If I did that all I would obtain would be a rather powerful magic sword. But it would lack two essential things. 

The legend behind the sword. 

The blessings received by the sword. 

Let's take Mamako's two swords as an example. Those two swords were hero swords and had been blessed by Gaia herself. I had been given permission to try copying it and I succeeded. But the result was just two magic swords that gave a boost to water and earth spells. Nothing like the absolute control over earth and water it granted to Mamako. 

So no spamming legendary sword for now. The day I will be able to say 'I am the bone of my sword' is still far.

Now since this was a bust, what about magic? I mean I was pretty close to B rank in terms of mana. Or close to Saint class as they called it here. 

Well, my hopes were once again dashed. 

Magic was fucking hard. 

It wasn't just about chanting some spell and being done. True magic was voiceless. No. The most important in magic was math and physics. Or at least the magical equivalent of those. 

Calculating the angle, the effects, the amount of mana necessary, the direction, the target. All those actions should be done in as little time as possible. 

From what I understood, saint class spells were considered as a strategical weapons that could take tens of minutes to cast. The fastest to ever cast one took 3 minutes to finish all the calculations necessary. 

It might seem slow, but when you understood how many calculations an average mage could do, you would understand what those tens of minutes means.

In short, no OP magic spells falling on my lap. I needed to slowly study each class of spells before going to the superior level. 

Well. Seems like my rise to the top won't be without difficulty.