shouldn’t tell such dangerous lies.”
Motoyasu spoke out to silence Itsuki.
“No! It never fails!”
Wait, so there was no risk of failure? What was the truth?
“What are you talking about? You don’t use ores to power up anything.”
“You better stop calling me a liar! What about you, Ren? How do you power things up?”
“Me? Good question. I don’t want to see Naofumi get all confused by your lies, so I guess I should step in and tell him the truth.”
Why did he need to call me out by name? Whatever, he was right that I was getting confused.
“This world is all about your level. There might be other things to worry about, but in the end it all comes down to whether you have leveled up enough.”
“Another liar.”
“You! You think you can lie all you want if you keep your face all cool and aloof!”
What was going on here?
“Naofumi, apparently both of these guys are planning to lie their way to the end of this meeting. I guess it’s up to me to tell you the truth. If you want to power up your weapon, it’s all about skill mastery.”
“Skill mastery?”
“Exactly. The more you use a weapon, the stronger that weapon will get. The important part is that when it’s time to switch weapons, you have to turn that weapon’s accumulated skill mastery into energy. Then you add that energy to your new weapon, and that will unlock the new weapon’s hidden powers.”
“That’s one of the more impressive lies I’ve heard yet.”
“Don’t worry about him. You just need to keep increasing the rarity of your weapons. You may fail or you lose a weapon, but our legendary weapons are safe.”
All of their stories made it sound so simple. But none of the things they mentioned could be found anywhere in the help menus.
I didn’t know who to believe. Were Ren and Itsuki lying?
“Just listen to yourself, lying with a straight face like that. You’re no better than Naofumi.”
Motoyasu brushed Ren off.
“What was that?!”
“He’s right, you shouldn’t listen to him—he’s lying.”
“You’re all crazy. Who is he supposed to believe? And I am NOT lying!”
“See for yourself. Open up your skill tree and look at a weapon you use a lot. You can check its skill mastery right there.”
I did like Motoyasu said and opened my menu, then looked for the Chimera Shield.
But when I got the menu for the shield open, it just displayed the status like it always did.
He said I should check something? It was looking like a lie.
I reached a finger out to touch it but nothing happened.
“Nothing happened.”
I should have known it was a lie. I knew enough not to believe them from the start of this, but I was surprised that they would lie to my face when I could check the veracity of their claims.
If that was a lie, then their claims about the weapon copy system were probably lies too.
“I am not lying! You’re just trying to ruin my reputation!”
“I can’t do it either.”
“Me neither. That option just isn’t in the help menu.”
“Ugh! Whatever! I was stupid for trying to help you in the first place!”
Ren got very upset at each of Itsuki’s and Motoyasu’s explanations, sighing and crossing his arms angrily. He slumped down in his seat.
Ren was normally so cool and collected. In fact, I don't think I’d ever seen him so upset. Still, both of the other heroes insisted that he was lying, and a quick look through my own help menu seemed to verify as much.
“I wasn’t finished. There is another way to power up your weapon. You have to take the energy out of another item and use it to enchant the weapon. If you do it will increase the power of the item by a certain percentage.”
“You mean like raising the attack power by 10 percent?”
“Yes, but there is a significant risk. If you fail, then the value falls to zero.”
“Another lie. Stop telling Naofumi about some other game.”
“I’m telling the truth! This is how I’ve gotten stronger—by using the energy
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