I hate being wed in a fantasy world!

So yes, I’m in a relationship now. My girlfriend/wife is Katarine von Stolzherz, and while I usually don’t find western women attractive, she’s definitely an exception. I’m supposed to be happy, and I think there is a lot of me which wants to be happy, but unlike Rine, I can’t switch off my brain for certain matters.

“Dear, aaahn~” I guess, I agreed to try though. Second condition.

This spoon full of vegetable-squish appears almost like a poisonous snake. I mean, I let her feed me before, but I also demanded to make it as casual as possible. Now she’s playing the wife/girlfriend-part again, and I despise myself for enjoying and hating it at the same time, especially because I would have just hated it before. I guess, the acceptance of the relationship allows other feelings to surface now.

Instead of answering with an ‘ahn’, I just open my mouth. I need help with eating anyway, as I lack mobility in my torso. I can do some basic movements under pain, but neither of my arms are able to reach my mouth.

I lick the spoon inside my mouth, guiding the squish to my throat, so that it won’t get stuck in one of the holes my missing teeth left in my gums. Aside from the burning pain, getting it out of the hole would be a long-term task.

You gain 1 WP.

Having your wife feed you while being injured shows how much she cares about you and how much work she’s willing to do to ensure your well-being.

Sometimes I wonder if the curse is capable of using sarcasm or irony. Well, I guess calling me ‘injured’ is it being allusive as fuck. I’m currently a wreck, absolutely dependent on others.

Let’s just get over this meal. With me and Rine on the cart and the others next to it, this breakfast feels off enough. I’m already tired again, I wish I’d know if it’s because of the severity of my injuries and the exhaustion that comes with it, or because my hero-body decided to keep me healing up by forcing me to sleep whenever possible. Maybe a mix of both.

Rine seems to grow flowers out of her hair, that’s how happy she is, and that makes me feel kinda uneasy, as I can’t really deal with someone showing so overt affection for me. I mean, we’re now together, but that doesn’t change my personality or something.

Overall, nothing really changed despite us going out. Maybe if she just said ‘yes’ instead of the weirdness of her demands, it’d be different, but… nah, probably even then. It’s not like I suddenly became a whole new person because of having a girlfriend.

Let’s concentrate on the ‘being whole’ part though: Eat, rest, and get well enough so that Kyou-san can cast [Rejuvenate] on me.

“Whoops.” Rine catches some mush that falls out my mouth with the spoon and puts it back. I can feel a part deep inside of me cringe due to embarrassment, but the overwhelming majority of my consciousness just doesn’t care about how little I can do right now.

“Wouldn’t it be easier to just make a straw?” Ara-san wonders.

“Doesn’t he enjoy it though?” Jii-san adds with the kind of grin that makes me wish to have a functional arm again, so that I can knock out his teeth. The second I have that thought, I immediately regret it, as I now know too well how it is to miss some teeth. Still, I can have that urge, right?

“I thought about the straw, but we don’t have anything we could use to make one,” Kyou-san responds in a flat tone, sounding like her considerations were all for naught: “Also, can any of you carve? How do we do the tube? We don’t have a drill or something similar.” I can guess that she misses the modern-world convenience of just buying plastic straws in a store.

I hate this world.

“Well, then Ken-kun just needs to endure being fed by his beautiful wife. That has to be ‘real’ hard.”

OK, his amused sarcasm aside, I need to ask an important question: “Why do you call me Ken-kun!?” This world’s language and the hero-system’s translation brings up a lot of strange linguistic details, especially in terms of suffixes and prefixes. The only thing I know is that the hero-system decided to translate whatever Jii-san calls me to ‘Ken-kun’, and I take some offense with that!

“Because she told me that she has a palate for calling you ‘Kenta-kun’, so I asked for permission for this one.”

“Not palate, Grekkun, a ‘patent’. That’s something entirely different,” comes from Ara-san, who once again did a minor—yet absolutely annoying and unnecessary—act to make my life worse.

Seeing how playing pranks seems to be how alfar socialize, I should feel honored, but I really don’t. “Stop doing crap like that, Ara-san!”

She’s holding back her laughter and—why do I know that!? It’s so strange, I somehow can tell how Ara-san feels just by—by what exactly!? It’s not like her face shows that she’s glad to be able to get under my skin!

While Ara-san doesn’t seem to be remorseful at all, Jii-san utters his thoughts: “Well lad, when I call you directly, I just stick with lad, alright?”

“Phew… that also seems wrong.”

“Then tell me, what should I call you?”

…

… … …

That’s a hard one. “I guess Katsuragi or maybe, just maybe, Katsuragi-kun.” He’s older than me, after all.

“Meh, too much trouble. I also refer to the girls by first name, right Rine-kun? Kyou-kun?”

“Sure.” “Yeah, yeah.” Well, using -kun with a girl strikes the spot of being more neutral than -chan, without being formal. Just how does he call them in his native language?

“Phew… fine, fine.” I guess, while it’s much more invading than I like it to be, I can overlook it, if all the girls get a -kun as well. “Ara-san, he’ll use ‘Kenta-kun’ now.”

“But it’s my right!”

“No, it isn’t.” Why is she so vehemently defending this? Just ignore her. “Jii-san, I’m thankful for your help, but we’re not that close yet. So stick to ‘Kenta-kun’ and it’s fine. Come on, Ara-san, why are you so pissed!?”

While she’s speaking calmly and collected, I really get an angry vibe from her. “I’m the first one, who called you Kenta-kun. That’s not fair.”

“And I’m telling you-”

“SHUT UP!” It’s Kyou-san who interrupts us. Sorry Ara-san, but she’s clearly more pissed than the both of us put together: “Seriously, why don’t you just take the ‘Ken-kun’ then, I mean, you’re supposed to be his friend, so he won’t mind, right?” She glances at me, expecting an answer.

“…right…” In a sense, it’s weird that Kyou-san is the only one referring to me by nickname, despite being the girl I have the least close relationship with, as she’s a companion, while Ara-san is my friend, and Rine my girlfriend.

“Hm…” Her ears are twitching, she’s thinking about the suggestion. “Me, calling Kenta-kun now Ken-kun? It seems to be too much of an effort to change my habits.” Here she is, the Queen of Laziness.

“You know,” Kyou-san says nonchalantly while taking another slice of vegetable: “Each time you use ‘Ken-kun’, you would save the effort of saying another syllable, which will quickly add up.”

“…I never considered that… You won, Momo,” the alfr accepts readily, as the other girl quickly outmaneuvered her in this debate, using Ara-san’s personality traits against her, namely: Her sloth and her focus on statistics.

Yup, Momokawa Kyou used to be the manipulative class president back in Japan, and now she’s doing the same here.

“So…” Rine now chimes in, as she probably doesn’t know what exactly happened. “How about we repeat what we call everyone. I say who, and the person I point at says how they refer to them. First is Dear.”

She points at Kyou: “Ken.” Then Ara-san: “Ken-kun.” Then Jii-san. “Kenta-kun.” Then finally herself: “Dear.”

Yes, I’ll let her call me that, but I really don’t feel comfortable with it.

“Next is Kyou.” Why are you pointing at me? Seriously, don’t do that. “Come on, Dear! What do you call Kyou?” I stay silent. “Dear, to us, for us.”

“…for us?”

“Yes, for me, because it’d make me happy if you played along. For you, because… Tehehe.” Why do I get the vibe that you’ll seriously hurt me, if I don’t comply!? I mean, Rine wouldn’t do it. She never did use violence to force me to do what she wants, except—a lot.

“Erm… Kyou-san.” I have enough broken bones, and even if Kyou-san can fix them—if she’s willing after I brought this upon myself, that is—I can absolutely go without the pain.

“Great. Now…” She points to herself: “Kyou.”

Then her finger wanders over to Ara-san, and Jii-san: “Momo.” “Kyou-kun.”

“Now Ara. Ah, I realize, I don’t need to say what I call her, don’t I? Tehehe.”

She then points first to me, then the old order. “Ara-san.” “Arako.” “Ara-kun.”

“Now we have Grekk.”

“Jii-san.” “Grekk-san.” “Grekkun.”

“And finally me.”

“Rine.” “Rine-chan.” “Katarine-san.” “Rine-kun.”

“Alright!” Rine claps in her hand, as if we have just played a game, instead of doing a whole unnecessary routine that nobody needed. “Great work, everyone.”

She’s really a simple and stupidly cheerful girl. Just because she’s cute and innocent, she gets away with a lot, because it’s so easy to like her, despite her major flaws which can mostly be written off as adorable.

That’s my girlfriend in a nutshell.

―○●○―

I open my eyes after another nap. Do severely injured people always sleep so much? Are these the painkillers, or the hero-system? I don’t really know, but I guess I should start to use [Dormurnal] again, a skill that allows me to stay semi-conscious while being asleep. “Ara-san, when will we be back?” Given the fact that we strayed from the road and are on a trail now, I guess we’re close to the farmstead.

“I estimate another three hours,” she replies while yawning. I guess driving a cart isn’t very exciting, she’s just loosely holding the reins in her hands, after all.

“OK.” I turn my head slightly to Kyou-san, who is also sitting in the cart, most likely to keep an eye on me. “Water please.”

“Careful,” she remarks as she puts a waterskin on my lips, slowly squeezing it so that I won’t choke on it, which is especially true with all the shaking going on. Suspension on this cart would be great, but maybe the people here haven’t even figured out springs yet.

Not that I will blame them too much for it. I just recently found out that this world has a different air composition and who knows what else is different here. Maybe even gravity? What natural laws still apply here and what is basically held up by magic? This world and its lack of science and technology makes much more sense now, because I can’t expect that a basic combustion even works the same way as home, so that may be the reason why there are no steam engines or guns here. As far as I know, at least.

What I know is that a relic caused errors in the hero-system in my body and I almost suffocated because there is less oxygen in the air than at home. I guess, the hero-system just adjusts everything that would endanger my health. I mean, seeing how much it already changes our bodies it only seems logical.

“You done?” Kyou-san notices that I stopped drinking and I nod. She stows the waterskin again and looks at me, most likely using [Check-up] to look how I do. “Do you need another painkiller?”

I guess she’s referring to the pain I feel at every moment, but it’s still too weak to bother. “Nah.” I feel an urge to move my limbs, to stand up, and do something. All this sleeping and laying around with nothing to do makes me anxious. “Just bored.”

“You could read that book.” Of course she talks about that one book I borrowed from Rine weeks ago and I’m more or less crawling through. It’s more of a reading exercise at this point, as while being summoned here made me understand the language, it didn’t grant me the knowledge of how to read the letters. It’s not like I can’t read this language, I just need some more practice to do so fluently, especially given how I read a word that doesn’t match the Japanese counterpart only to get it translated a moment later.

“…not really keen on it.” Concentrating on letters and reading and such seem to be a hassle in my current condition. However, this doesn’t make me feel any less anxious, and while I really know that I should rest, my whole body begins to tingle, which is almost as agonizing as breathing. “In times like these, I miss TV.” While I barely watched any, as that would be time I would have been better spent on gaming, being able to stare absentmindedly at a screen without the need to do anything would be a blessing right now.

“Not only you. I’m missing so many episodes by now…” I guess for someone like her, it’s even worse. I guess she has something like a teenage drama show or such she used to watch. I can relate to that, I missed some game releases I was looking forward to, after all. “Let’s talk about Rine-chan.” Well, that’s a sudden jump in conversation.

However, having one member of the party go out with another changes the whole dynamic, I guess. She’s also something like a friend for Rine, though I harbor some doubts how much of it is genuine, how much is manipulation, and how much she hasn’t really figured out herself. “You know that Ara-san can listen?” I hope that will dishearten Kyou-san enough to dismiss this topic for now.

“You know that I don’t care?” She waves at Ara-san at the front of the cart and the same waves back. I’ve been set up!

“Phew…” I feel an urge to ask for some painkillers and just take another nap, but I guess avoiding this conversation won’t do any good in the moment or in the future. “Keep it short.”

“What were you thinking?”

“Particularly?”

“About asking her out. Also, the kiss.”

“Phew… Rine believed she loved me, and despite all the effort, it never really stopped. She wanted to fight Gottfried, and the only thing I could do was to motivate her. Afterwards, it was all down to whether I act like I was tricking her or to take responsibility for my actions and ask her out.”

“How is that taking responsibility, if you don’t like her!?”

“I like her. Maybe not entirely romantically, this may be the ring’s fault, but I mean, even if she drives me insane sometimes, it’s not like she’s absolutely unlikable. I mean, I would never become her friend under normal circumstances, but if being summoned into a shitty fantasy world isn’t abnormal, what else could be?”

“You’ll hurt her.”

“Probably. But didn’t you listen to her yesterday? I think she knows the risk, maybe even better than I do.” I mean, maybe I fell for her a long time ago and it’ll be me, who will be hurt, when she loses all interest in me when the curse is lifted.

“What about sex?”

…

… … …

“Why are you jumping to that!?”

“It’s important!”

“Also very private, don’t you think?”

“I don’t want you to hurt Rine-chan more than absolutely necessary. I don’t want you to hurt her feelings, I don’t want you to exploit her or the circumstances, I don’t want any of that.”

“Oh, because you have that ‘glorious’ friendship with her, right?”

“Ken, I’m serious.”

Seriously, what do you expect me to do? I mean, if Rine wants to have sex with me, how could I decline? I mean, she wants to do things that lovers do, she’s really attractive, and the mere thought of sleeping with her makes me pop a boner! “…aaa…aaa…” My widely open eyes and gaping, drooling mouth are the result of how some arousal made my sorry son want to rise, only to remind it that it belongs in a hospital. Did something tear there? It certainly feels like it!

This may be worse than getting a kick on it! And I know too well how that feels!

Kyou-san’s hardened eyes soften after a moment, after she realizes that I’m under some actual pain, then she casts a [Heal], before declaring: “We’ll continue that later.” She jumps from the wagon and joins Jii-san and Rine, who are walking in front of the cart.

“Ken-kun, you penisbreaker.”

“Hah!?”

“I know exactly what happened. The moment Momo mentioned sex, you popped a boner, the broken bone in your penis then moved, and caused you immense pain.”

I facepalm, and the pain in my right arm made me gag a moment, before I try my best to exhale all the rupturing and twitching pain I feel: “Didn’t I explain it be- wait, that wasn’t you. Ara-san, just to make sure: You know, that there is no bone in a human penis?”

“You’re the expert, not me. While some heroes have a rather active sex life, nothing I learned would give me the impression that there were any changes in their genitals by becoming heroes. Or do you have some to report?”

“Hell no!”

“So congratulations, Ken-kun: You’re an expert for the human male genital, and I have no intention to challenge that title. Would you mind telling me what you meant with ‘It wasn’t you’ though?”

“Luuto thought there was a bone inside.”

“Your penis?”

“Yes.”

“Well, stories about the raping humans tell about their hardened, club-like genitals.”

“Phew.” Here we go again. It seems that alfar in Ara-san’s homeworld have stories about humans, like my world has stories about elves. Let’s say that the human stories of the alfar tend to make us sound like a violent, greedy bunch of rapists.

“So there is no bone inside,” she mumbles deep in thought. “Ken-kun, show me your penis.”

…

… … … … …

“No?” What the fuck is she aiming at!?

“Ken-kun, considering Katarine-san’s genitals, which I saw while bathing before, and I mean, this was a sight to behold-” Her words make me imagine Rine naked for a second, which causes the natural reaction, which then caused another assaulting pain “-I mean, she has blonde hair around it, and it was pink and-”

“—aa—“ Trapped between arousal and nerve-wrenching pain, I feel my body spasm, unable to say a word and form a coherent thought for a moment.

“Oh,” she exclaims with a tinge of regret, before calling out to Kyou-san: “Momo, I think I may have overdone it and accidentally broke Ken-kun!”

After some emergency treatment and some painkillers, Ara-san seems to be apologetic: “I’m sorry, Ken-kun. I underestimated the pain this causes you.” Underestimated? So she did it on purpose! Dammit, alfr traits! “We will continue this conversation when you’re better.”

“You’re not reflecting at all!”

“I truly am. While I was alright to give you some minor physical pain, this was too much. So I will give up on the physical part of it entirely, and settle on pure mental and emotional teasing later.”

“Just forget it entirely!”

“But Ken-kun,” she cries… Well, not really, her voice has a crying undertone, while her face looks aloof as always, and her ears are rotating slightly: “now that you’ll be having sex with Katarine-san, you’ll end up spending much less evenings with me. I want our friendship to work.”

“That’s why you want to tease me more!? You know that human friendships don’t work that way.”

“But I’m an alfr, respect my culture!”

“Sure I do, whenever it’s not stupid!”

“Alright,” she suddenly switches her mood, and acts like nothing happened. I guess she’s done with getting things out of her system, and she doesn’t linger much on anything. “You seem surprised?”

“Well… something has been strange recently. How can I say it…”

“Using words help?”

“Something has been different since I woke up in the farmstead. It’s like I somehow know how you feel or something. It’s much easier to track your mood.”

“Ah, that’s because of your spirit. How can I explain it… something odd has happened to it, I’d call it ‘tuning’ for lack of a better word.”

“What do you mean?”

“Ken-kun, the spirits of people outside of alfar are strange. If I sense the spirit of an animal, I know its mood. Plants are the same, though their array of emotions is even more limited. If I feel the spirit of another alfr, it’s the same. However, a human spirit is like it’s limited to two or three expressions, and that’s still more than what I get from someone of the Folk.”

“I remember that. Basically, like I can read emotions from a human’s face, you can do something similar by reading the spirit of another alfr, right?”

“Basically. Ken-kun, your spirit now has around twenty different expressions, it’s much more nuanced than it used to be. I don’t know what the trigger was, but you’re the most expressive human I’ve ever met.”

“More than other [Rangers]?”

“Yes. It’s not a matter of mastery of [Spirit Magic], and I have never seen something like that before. I’m sure that every alfar will notice it right away, so whenever one tries to take you home, remember to tell them that you belong to Ara’ainn, the hero-sage.”

“You don’t own me!”

“Technicalities. What I want to say is that, with an extended array of expressions, you may have a better handle at reading my spirit as well, and draw conclusions from it. Let’s put it to a test.”

Nothing changes. She doesn’t change her facial expression, she doesn’t move her ears, even her two irises don’t change in width. Yet something about her seems different. “Angry.”

“Yes. Next?”

“Happy?”

“Good. Now?”

“Sad.”

After some more tries, I feel like a nursery school kid, who needs to explain emotions by pictures, looking at smiles, furrowed eyebrows and such. I can’t even say how I can tell, but I draw a conclusion about it: “So alfar can fake it, like I could fake a smile.”

“Yes. Otherwise it would be hard to prank other alfar.”

“So whatever I have won’t even help me to defend myself better from alfar pranks, and has no bearing whatsoever with any other intelligent species.”

“Unless said alfr is careless and doesn’t notice your—for humans—unusual spirit.”

“So I got an absolutely useless skill?”

“I wouldn’t say absolutely. At least I can now read some basic emotions from you and don’t need to learn your facial expressions anymore.”

“You knew 90% of what I was feeling at any given time!”

“Now we’re at 93%.”

OK, why is she my friend again? While I ponder that question, I notice her awareness, and after a quick eavesdropping, I also notice the sound coming from behind a hill, almost like a galloping. “Probably monsters.”

“Yes.” She calls out to Kyou-san again: “Momo?”

“What did you do this time!?” The same snaps back, seemingly pissed.

“I’m hearing some monsters, but if you think it’s bad to notice them and relay my knowledge, I can detain such actions in the future.” I can basically hear that rubbing into Kyou-san’s face.

“Don’t act like a child, Arako.” I guess Kyou-san’s face is made out of iron.

“Bummer.” Yep, she genuinely just dismisses her anticipation for Kyou-san’s reaction and switches her mental gears on the drop of a hat. She always proclaims that alfar aren’t primarily led by emotions and even with my better spirit reading, I can’t prove it wrong. “Who takes care of Ken-kun?”

…I hate that question. I can totally see where this is coming from, and I agree rationally, but I still hate the fact that I need a babysitter.

Well, I guess I can take control over who does it at least: “How many do you guess, Ara-san?” Her hearing is much better than mine. In general, alfr senses are bonkers, and even though their sight is like a tertiary sense, it’s still better than human’s with the exception of seeing distances.

“Five equine monsters at most. Maybe hairmares, sounds familiar.”

I heard of them, as I did some research in Aroahenn, the village Ara-san used to live, about this route. They use ram attacks with some kind of bone shell at the front of their bodies, while the rest of them is covered in long hair.

In a sense, they’re among the worst monsters for our party composition, as they’re fast and strong. With five of them, they outnumber us, as I can’t fight at all and that’s where mobility combined with power becomes nasty. “Ara-san and Kyou-san, stay with me at first. If they’re really hairmares, we need Ara-san’s magic support and Kyou-san can’t do much more than giving out healing and buffs.” She lacks the agility and combat experience to keep up, and while Ara-san has both in spades as [Acrobat], her [Druid] and especially her [Quagmire]-spell are suited for CC (crowd control), which helps more than putting her at the front line. “Rine goes to the front, you need to carry us here.” Rine is the best suited for enemies like hairmares, as she’s quicker and stronger, but she can only fight so many at once.

Now that should account for everyone… “What about me?” Ah, forgot about Jii-san.

“Erm. Try to improvise for now, I need to see what you can do.” I saw only a little, but what I saw was impressive and very non-descriptive at the same time. I saw him catching arrows that I couldn’t deflect in the past and they even bounced off his body. So I guess he’s sturdy, but that’s all I know.

Well, he said that he’s strong, but that he can barely withstand the recoil of his own attacks. Three or four are the maximum.

“I have another idea, lad,” Jii-san says while looking at where the monsters are coming. “Let me do two attacks, and when something is still standing, then the girls take the rest. That should give you an idea how to use me.”

I think about it for a second. It would help to see what we’re dealing with. I mean, I don’t expect him to be a Gottfried, but if he thinks he can beat several monsters on his own with just two attacks, then it’d make sense to use his two attacks he can make per day early in every fight.

On the other hand, each monster we heroes kill means XP, having him take the kills will hamper our progress. “Can you just incapacitate them?”

“No, can’t do.”

“Alright, this time. Jii-san, frontline. Rine makes a second line, and Ara-san and Kyou do the third. Ara-san, use [Druid] to support the second line, if needed.”

“You can’t put Grekk-san alone at the front!” Kyou-san exclaims, which is absolutely reasonable. Usually, I’d expect Rine to voice that concern, but she looks rather curious, I guess she can somehow feel how strong Jii-san is and now that Jii-san got the OK, there is something intimidating about him.

“Don’t worry, lass,” he says while rotating his shoulders. “I’m so old because nothing has been capable of killing me so far.” I’ve never heard something so ridiculously true and cringey at the same time.

All except me go into position, and in fact five green-brown hairmares run forward. The biggest one of them is at the front, and despite seeing us, they don’t change their course. The odd part is that they will probably miss us if they continue straight forward.

Yet Jii-san begins to run right into their way and the big hairmare begins to run even faster. Then it accelerates with a sudden burst, I can basically see the air drag bending around it, surrounding it. That’s a [Skill]! And it’ll connect with Jii-san!

*Snork*

With one of the strangest sounds of breaking bones I’ve ever heard—and I’ve sadly heard a lot of those by this point, including my own—the hairmare collapses after its body warped around Jii-san for a second, just a mere sack of bone, blood, and flesh, while Jii-san didn’t even move a millimeter.

Then Jii-san rips the head of the big one, rips its skull into two and throws both halves at two other hairmares. I can barely track the missile, and with a bursting sound, the two bodies are torn apart.

…this is some Gottfried-shit!

The remaining two change course, Jii-san picks up a pebble and throws it, and another head bursts like it’s nothing. The last one isn’t able to run far, as suddenly it’s cut by Rine’s [Crescent Moon], a flying sword-slash [Skill].

That was anticlimactic.

“Argh…” Jii-san holds his shoulder. “Just because I can make two attacks without much problem, it doesn’t mean that they don’t hurt.”

“[Heal]!” Kyou-san heals Jii-san up.

“Thank you. It feels better.”

“Sorry, my spells work much better on heroes.” Ah yes, that was a thing. “Don’t overexert your body, Grekk-san. Alright?”

“Too sweet.” Seeing such a delighted smile on his face feels just creepy. Especially given that he absolutely can murder each of us (except Rine perhaps) with his bare hands, whenever he feels like it. I mean, look at the corpses!

OK, honestly, there are seldom clean corpses. I mean, while I try to make quick and decisive killing blows, usually it ends up with me mauling at the body until it’s dead. Even Rine’s kills are often gruesome, it’s just…

Now that I think about it, the only thing he did that I couldn’t see Rine doing as well is how he broke a monster by letting it ram him. Seems like it doesn’t count as an attack either, or more likely, it was just too weak.

“Phew…”

“Thinking about Grekkun?” Ara-san chimes into my pondering.

“Yeah. I guess he can tank a lot, but not as much as he can dish out. Or maybe, his flesh is still stronger than his bones? Nonetheless, we have a very particular case with him.”

Kyou-san is a supporter and next to useless as something else. She can heal, has one buff, some debuffs, and less than mediocre knife skills. She can take on one monster usually, but she’s better paired with someone else.

Rine is a glass cannon. She has somewhat mastered that style, as she evades and parries attacks, instead of taking them. She’s basically our DPS (damage per second; also used to describe characters in games that focus on damage dealing; alternative term: Damage Dealers [DD]).

Ara-san is an off-DPS, but usually our CC and AoE-damage (Area of Effect).

I’m somewhat of a mess, as I usually take the tank-role without even wanting it. I want to be DPS, but with how the party works and how we pick our enemies, that’s how I recently was pushed into a tank, despite having little to support that. Well, compared to Rine, I’m shit-DPS.

How does Jii-san fit into it? He may be a better tank, but does he have anything that supports it? Tanks can grab aggro, but he seems like an alternative version of Rine, same DPS, but sturdiness instead of mobility…

Isn’t he just a better version of myself!?

“Ara-san? Who do you think is stronger? Rine or Jii-san?”

“Good question. In terms of destructive power, I think Grekkun, but in terms of overall fighting capabilities, it’s hard to tell without both facing each other.”

“Don’t do that.” That can only spell disaster. “Heck, how do Luuto and Gottfried measure up against them? I know that Gottfried has to be the strongest…”

“Hm…” While her face doesn’t tell it, her spirit somewhat gives me the impression that she’s… what exactly? I’d call it ‘experiencing several flashes of thoughtfulness and happiness’. “I will work something out, be sure to be impressed by it.”

I have no idea what she’s talking about, but I just take it.