I lied.

I couldn’t sleep for a single goddamn second for the entire night.

Why?

It’s simple, really. I stayed up all night trying to read up on alternative ways to level up using [Rulebook]. Ever since I arrived, I really haven’t been using this thing’s true potential. 

Or at all, really. It’s embarrassing to admit it, but I’d become so enthralled in the world that I actually forgot about abusing the system entirely.

But right now, we didn’t have forever, and Aurelia still needed to be rescued.

And besides, while killing monsters was the main method of gaining levels other than trading, I discovered that it was different for skills.

Just like stats, skill levels could actually be increased through training rather than just purchasing them through levels, though there were several conditions.

The “skill experience” gained was determined by the skill itself and the target. Using a skill against a stronger target would yield more experience, even if the skill didn’t land a killing blow.

For this reason, combat skills could be increased a lot quicker compared to skills like [Farming Expertise] since it was difficult to repeatedly farm something that was hard to cultivate, but less difficult to repeatedly use an attacking skill against a strong foe.

The most important thing that I discovered was that it didn’t matter if the skill actually dealt damage or succeeded in its attempt. It only mattered that the attempt was made against a target of sufficient difficulty, at least for combat skills.

In fact, even my [Demonic Enhancement] skill and [Devouring Healing] skill had risen after the fight with the archbishop.

This was the exact exploit that I would use to powerlevel Lucrezia to infinity.

Now, what extremely overpowered opponent would just let her repeatedly attack them until her skills reached an absolutely stupid level?

Of course, it was none other than yours truly.

With my ridiculous constitution stat, I could just let her hit me with her attacks all day until she started gaining some serious skill levels.

It’d probably hurt once she really started racking those skill levels up, but that’d also give me the bonus of being able to train my constitution even further. Besides, if I actually got hurt, I still had [Devouring Healing] to fall back on.

In other words, it was the perfect plan for the two of us.

Fufufu! I’m sure she’ll be so proud of my genius once I explain this to her!

At least, that’s what I thought.

“No. I am not shooting you and that’s the end of it!”

“Come on, Lucrezia! It’s for the sake of getting stronger and saving Aurelia! Trust me on this, okay?”

“Ryuuko has a point, My Lady.” Antenora added.

I had a sneaking suspicion that she just wanted to see me get hit by something. 

Now that I was aware of Lucrezia’s identity, she had dropped all pretense of addressing her by her first name, which I noticed put a little damper on Lucrezia’s mood.

She had probably enjoyed the feeling of having grown closer to Antenora in such a fashion, even if it was just temporary.

“Ryuuko, are you serious about this? I mean... I do want to get stronger but it feels wrong. You not only saved my life once, but twice now. I just... I just can’t attack you! Especially after our promise!”

I stared at Lucrezia for the longest time before I breathed in sharply and walked toward her. I stopped just in front of her, forcing Lucrezia to look me in the eyes.

I slipped my hands in hers, our warmth melding together in the cool air of the spring morning.

“Lucrezia.”

Her cheeks turned pink ever so slightly.

“Do you trust me?”

“O-Of course I do! You’re family now!”

“Right. Then, I need you to do this for us, alright?”

There’s a novel phrase coming from me. “For us,” huh?

I sure have come far from that wretched shell of a person I once was, and all it took was a few days with someone who actually treated me with some decency.

I mean, she did say that she hated me once, but that was kinda on me for ignoring her feelings.

That’s right.

Saving someone doesn’t give you the right to treat them however you please. Even I can confidently say these things now.

Maybe if there was just one person who was willing to stand beside me back then, I might’ve turned out differently.

Whatever. There was no point in thinking about the past now. What laid before me was the future.

Our future.

“Is something wrong, Ryuuko? I said I’d give it a shot!”

Whoops.

Looks like I’d been staring off into space.

“Ahaha, sorry about that. My mind just kind of... wandered off thinking about the past.”

Lucrezia smiled warmly. “I’d love to hear about your past.”

“I’ll tell you all about it someday, Lucrezia. It might not be the most heroic of tales, though.”

“That’s alright!”

The three of us continued to plan our route until Priya woke up, which was just enough time for us to finish up cooking breakfast. It wasn’t a gourmet meal by any chance, but it sure was better than the scraps I got back home.

That was at least one improvement I noticed since coming to this world. Plus, eating with others really did make it more enjoyable. Even the verbal barbs Antenora and I traded while we ate were enjoyable.

After packing up camp, we immediately began heading toward Juryez. It was a trading town that was located right in the middle of the desert near the Fissure. Due to its proximity to the eastern tribes, its main export was slaves, which made the place all the more distasteful.

It’d take us around five days to reach our destination, which meant that there was still a good chunk of time for me to raise everyone’s skill levels.

Surprisingly, Priya was a pretty decent combatant. She just hadn’t had any experience in fighting, so Antenora and I devised a training plan for her during our rest stops.

She probably found it quite amusing to sit next to me while Lucrezia shot icebolt after icebolt into my back while we worked it out.

Just as I thought, everyone’s skill levels were rising at a steady rate and everything was going according to plan.

That is, until the third day when we decided to stop at the small village of Yasterton.

That was when I would learn what Corruption was really about.