With Enoch's permission granted, I returned to my room and let out a sigh heavy enough to reach the floor.
Not out of frustration, but out of relief.
Then a question followed naturally.
'Why did that man accept?'
He was a man who had never once spoken to me first, not since picking me up as a newborn.
He was also a bastard insensitive enough to leave a six-year-old in a mansion and stay away for ten years.
"Ah, whatever."
But I dropped that worry after only a moment.
Because that wasn't what mattered.
"Right now, first……."
[KP Held: 100,091]
It was time to spend this.
***
Compared to its simple story, Dimension Contender is a game with considerable depth in character building.
At the heart of it sits the .
Otherwise known as the tree of the mind.
Put simply, you could think of it as a "skill window" or a "trait window."
And now, the Mind Tree was spread out before me.
'Still small.'
Before the regression, my tree of the mind had been enormous, as though it had lived for centuries.
But after the regression.
As if following my body, which had become a newborn's, the Mind Tree too had shrunk to the size of a sapling.
'Well, the fact that it hasn't grown until now was my own doing.'
But that ended today.
Today I intended to pour a nutrient supplement worth a hundred thousand KP into this sapling.
I selected the several traits I'd had in mind.
[Trait Understanding: Growth speed of held traits increased by 10%. (Grade F)]
[Required KP: 800]
[Diversified Gaze: Repeating an action similar to a held trait grants a new trait. (Grade F)]
[Required KP: 1200]
[Learning Ability: Periodically observing another's trait grants a subordinate trait of it. (Grade F)]
[Required KP: 700]
[Comprehension: Analytical ability increases. (Grade F)]
[Required KP: 500]
Each time I purchased a trait, a vivid blue leaf bloomed on the Mind Tree.
Four traits to start.
But this was only the start.
[Trait Synthesis: Synthesizes traits of similar categories to bloom a new trait. (Grade F)]
[Required KP : 800]
A portion of the KP I held drained away.
With it, a piece of the soul that filled me slowly scattered.
It turned into platinum-colored powder and was absorbed back into the Mind Tree.
'I've bought everything I need.'
What remained now was.
[Trait Growth]
[KP currently invested: 0]
Growing the traits I had just selected.
This wasn't a method with good fuel economy.
Traits grow naturally the more I use them, and this was forcing that growth along.
'But for me right now, the act of spending KP matters more than anything.'
Out of the corner of my eye I looked over the Mind Tree, which still hadn't fully outgrown the sapling stage.
Then I dumped KP into the purchased traits all at once.
[Trait Understanding Grade F → Grade A]
[Diversified Gaze Grade F → Grade A]
[Learning Ability Grade F → Grade A]
[Comprehension Grade F → Grade A]
A slight dizziness washed over me.
The price for spending the karma piled in my soul all in one go.
As a result, the KP left to me now was.
[KP Held: 16,091]
Before I knew it, the Mind Tree had left the sapling stage entirely and become an enormous tree.
Countless leaves swayed among the thickly spread branches.
Every single one of those leaves was a possibility.
Possibilities newly split off from among the four traits I had just learned.
If I spent additional KP on them, a possibility would become a branch and grow into a new trait.
'Not something to concern myself with now, though.'
I immediately chose the next option.
[Trait Synthesis]
[Synthesize 'Trait Understanding' and 'Diversified Gaze'? Required KP: 3,000]
[Synthesize 'Learning Ability' and 'Comprehension'? Required KP: 3,000]
Two traits were born of pressing Yes.
And then I merged even those two together again.
The KP spent to combine two higher traits came to ten thousand.
In other words.
I spent every point but 91 KP.
And from my Mind Tree, which had absorbed a hundred thousand KP in an instant, a light it couldn't bear began to pour out.
Then, as if in warning, a red system window appeared and blocked my view.
DING!
[The Mind Tree can no longer withstand the sudden growth!]
[Diverting part of the growth elsewhere to resolve the problem!]
Platinum-colored energy began to leak from the Mind Tree, which had been achieving immense growth.
It was the KP I'd been investing until moments ago.
If I left it alone, the KP I'd hoarded so preciously was about to disintegrate into thin air like some junk coin.
But I stayed calm.
'A hidden piece I found while doing a concept run.'
Dimension Contender encouraged multiple playthroughs.
By then I had already cleared it several times, and since I was getting bored, I decided to play with a single concept in mind.
The concept was to hoard every bit of KP I earned during the playthrough and spend it all at once when facing the final boss.
And that was how I stumbled onto a hidden piece.
Just like now, KP that the Mind Tree failed to absorb would, right before it vanished, force its way into any space where it could be used.
For example.
Something like the trait synthesis currently in progress.
WHIRRRRRR—!!
An immense amount of KP began pouring into the synthesis of the two traits I'd been attempting.
The trait synthesis window shook as though it were being run to its limit, then spat out the result in a tremendous flash of light.
[Synthesis complete.]
[You have acquired a new trait.]
[Existence Analysis]
"……It worked."
The highest grade a trait can reach through the experiential growth method I mentioned earlier is A.
But by spending KP to force the growth, as I had just done, even Grade S is possible.
And if you add an extremely rare limit-break material on top of that, you can aim for Grade SS.
Normally, that's where it ends.
But.
If the hidden piece I'd just used was added on.
"Grade SSS……."
A grade that was as good as the end point.
The only method that can overload the Mind Tree and force it to grow.
And at the same time, the reason I'd gathered as much KP as I could over the past sixteen years.
[Existence Analysis]
[Analyzes every target that exists in reality. (Grade SSS)]
An utterly simple description for a trait of no less than Grade SSS.
But only I knew how broken it was.
That was literally an ability that amounted to a trait copier.
'In the game it was only possible if you saved KP right up until you stood before the Demon God.'
But in the game it was a trait that was hard to put to proper use.
By the time you made it, the final battle with the final boss, the Demon God, was right in front of you.
The me of now, however, was different.
'The Demon Realm is full of natives with abilities on par with superpowers.'
I knew, having run into countless ones before the regression.
And how much hardship they'd put me through.
Handling water like an extension of their bodies, bodies made of flame, or possessing eternal youth and immortality.
And if not that, there were bastards who peered into the future or the past.
No matter how well I knew their traits from game knowledge, having to run into them with my own body was another story.
But now it was different.
The abilities of the bastards who had tormented me so in my past life would now serve as a trait vending machine for me.
So first of all, right now.
'Let's copy the Demon God…… no, Demon King Enoch's traits first.'
That was why I'd asked Enoch for help.
***
The magic power control problem I'd raised as a pretext for talking to Enoch.
In fact, it was a problem I really was having.
It was all because of the magic power that had begun piling up on its own since my newborn days.
That might have been due to an infant's innate capacity for absorption.
But I suspected the larger factor was that my soul had remained unchanged despite the time regression.
The Holy Sigil I'd received as proof of the Hero was still engraved on my soul, after all.
So from before the regression…… more precisely, from just before I died.
The magic power I'd gained from the Demon God's blood serum had likely soaked into my soul as well.
'Maybe that's why Enoch took me in as his adopted son.'
Anyway, for those reasons, the magic power that had begun accumulating in my body was still utterly unfamiliar sixteen years on.
Unlike mana, which was as docile as a lamb, magic power was nothing less than a wild horse.
Open a road for it and it would run along the road, but that was all.
So the only ability I knew how to use was "eruption."
And even that was only possible thanks to my "experience" from before the regression.
'But that alone isn't enough.'
I needed to learn magic power itself as a trait.
Traits were the only way I could grow strong faster than anyone else.
"But then……."
I'd made that request of Enoch in order to grow strong quickly.
"Dumping me in a place like this out of nowhere is a bit much."
A plain filled in every direction with monsters eroded by Void parasites.
About half a month ago, I had been abandoned here by Enoch.
***
"Like an Outan."
Before the training began in earnest.
Enoch said he would take a look at my skill and pointed at a demonic beast that happened to pass by.
That remark was the impression he spat out after mumbling for about a minute once I'd taken the beast down.
'An Outan is basically the Demon Realm version of an ogre.'
Seriously, is he mocking me?
But Enoch's expression was endlessly serious.
That solemn face was absurd, but I forced the feeling down and asked.
"Then what should I do?"
"About what."
"Magic power control."
"Is it truly necessary?"
This man really brings out my temper.
But patience was the very thing I'd been learning these past sixteen years, wasn't it?
I cooled my boiling head and thought over his words for a moment.
'He isn't saying that just to screw me over.'
He was the bastard who had picked me up as a newborn and raised me himself, and who had saved me when I nearly died from the magic power rampage.
He wouldn't go out of his way to say something useless.
I was thinking it over further when.
"Have you ever used magic power eruption to your limit?"
"……No?"
My days had been busy just clearing quests one after another.
I hadn't done that kind of training separately.
"Then try it."
And the result.
I was abruptly dumped on some plain.
"This is maddening."
I'd come so far out that I didn't even know the way back.
On top of that, the demonic beasts seemed to have some kind of human detector, forever finding wherever I was and lunging at me.
As a result, night or day, I couldn't even eat properly, let alone rest.
Sleep came in ten-minute scraps, snatched whenever there was a gap.
"Damn it."
But it wasn't as if there had been no harvest at all.
[Monstrous Strength (Grade F)]
[Regeneration (Grade F)]
[Beast's Heart (Grade F)]
[Efficient Body (Grade F)]
[Night Vision (Grade F)]
[Pathfinder (Grade F)]
[Steel Hide (Grade F)]
Traits acquired from all sorts of demonic beasts through [Existence Analysis].
Merely by looking at them.
And by fighting them with my life on the line.
Grade SSS [Existence Analysis] handed me new gifts.
'I can't gorge on all of them like a pig, though.'
They all had a use later on.
But right now, first…….
"I'll have to deal with this damned test."
A massive monster gradually revealing itself among the demonic beasts.
The one reigning as leader among these Void parasites had come all the way out here in person.
The opponent Enoch had spoken of, the one to "erupt magic power to my limit" against, had appeared.