15 The truth comes out

...

-Sigh...-

Damn, I think I'm rather tired today... Probably only mentally though. My body's as energetic as it could ever be.

After the whole ordeal with the pirate had ended, Vivi and Pell left for somewhere to talk about something in secret, telling me to wait for them for a bit.

It was probably some royalty stuff, so I didn't want to meddle in with my presence... Besides, in the best case, they were probably discussing how to deal with that Osamu guy... He was quite dangerous after all, and I had honestly no idea of how to defeat him yet.

"Whatever, I'll just wait I guess..."

Leaning against a wall, I sat on the ground, and calmly stretched my legs in exhaustion. The battle today had been exhausting in many senses, and I had even discovered that I had yet to be the strongest man in the world...

It was really enlightening in a sense, but also quite discouraging knowing that I was actually so far from becoming the actual strongest...

'I wonder just how much difference is between the strongest person in the world and me...?'

"Ouch...?! What in the world?"

Suddenly, as I was still lost in my thoughts, a sharp pain assaulted my knees and made me let out a loud groan in surprise.

"Why did they hurt so suddenly?" My eyes immediately turned wide open as I glanced at my knees in confusion... Not because the pain I felt was horrible, but rather because this was the first time I had felt any kind of pain ever since I discovered the amazing abilities of the screen...

My defense stat made my body incredibly sturdy after all.

But why did it hurt so suddenly...?

The pain was similar to those times when I would push my body to its limits back then during those times when I was still unaware of the screen's abilities... But... when did I even reach my limits today? There was no way I had reached my current limits as strong as I was nowadays... Even less considering the fact that I didn't even move around that much...

The only thing that I did today that could be considered extenuating... was the jump that I performed to escape from the pirates after I increased my strength to 600 points...

Wait...

Suddenly, as I was massaging my knees with a pained expression on my face, the possibility of my strength being too much for my body to bear appeared on my mind.

Weeks ago, when I had just increased my strength to 30 points... I remember that my hand hurt a lot after I punched that Kuno guy... I didn't think much about it at that time, as I thought that it was normal for my hand to hurt after punching someone so much... But now...

There was the possibility of it being much more than that...

'... I think that such a thing called for a little experiment...'

-Rustle...-

"This might hurt... But I'm getting really curious now..."

Standing up while ignoring the pain in my knees, I let out a breath of air before I took a punching stance and looked firmly at the front.

Whether my theory was right or not... I needed to know. Otherwise, there was a possibility that this would end up in a horrible accident later in a fight against someone as strong as that Osamu guy...

-Crackle!-

Tightening my fist, I closed my eyes for a second, before I moved my fist back and prepared to swing it at full strength.

Sensing my muscles tightening to their limit, soon, as if feeling the perfect moment, my eyes opened abruptly and my body moved instantaneously.

'Alright!!'

In the blink of an eye, I rotated my waist and launched my punch forward with a ferocious force that stirred violently the air in front of me, creating a fierce gust of wind that erected a lot of dust from the ground in the process.

-Booom!!-

-Thud...!-

The punch was so powerful in fact, that it even created a small shockwave in front of me that made me fall backward unable to hold my balance... However, at that moment, my balance was the least of the things I was worried about.

"Ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch! What happened to my arm?!"

My shoulder and my elbow were hurting like hell at that moment, it was as if my arm wasn't able to endure the full power of the punch right now and ended up dislocating... Fortunately, it wasn't something that could make me roll on the floor with tears coming out of my eyes, so I was still able to think clearly.

Well, partially clearly...

"Damnit... Now how am I supposed to fix my arm? It won't fall apart or explode now that it is like this, right?"

Massaging my arm while gritting my teeth, I gulped in nervousness at not knowing what to do now that my arm was dislocated, and then massaged my temples in frustration.

'As expected... If my strength is too high, my body won't be able to endure the power behind it and will start hurting each time I go all out... So, I guess that means that I will need to upgrade my defense as well...'

In the jump that I did before when we were surrounded by pirates, I didn't exactly use all my power... However, I still used a considerable amount, which should be why my knees weren't hurting as much as my arm right now.

My strength was twice as high as my defense was right now... Which made me wonder... What would have happened if I had my current strength, but only with 10 points in defense?

The image of me throwing a punch, and my arm tearing apart soon reached my mind, making me gulp unconsciously the saliva that I had in my mouth in fright.

-Fuuuuh~-

Letting out a breath of relief, I sat on the ground and looked at the sky with peaceful eyes.

"It really was a good thing that I kept increasing my defense and my strength to be on par with each other during all this time... Otherwise..."

Gulping in nervousness, I glanced at my fist before I closed my eyes and sighed once again.

'Otherwise ...My arm might not have made it back then. It was really a miracle that nothing bad happened during those times when I only increased my strength alone...'

Damn.

Looking at my own fist again, I sighed in relief, before I winced at the pain that my arm was experiencing and ended up groaning in annoyance. At that moment, I immediately felt the necessity of increasing my defense... And my healing speed as well.

I didn't really want to stay with this pain for many days, after all.

Without thinking it twice, I rapidly opened my status window and increased my defense to 600 just like my strength, spending three thousand status points in the process.

Then, of course, I increased my healing speed which was only at level 1, and rose it to level 7, using six thousand status points to do it...

Even though I couldn't feel that much of a change in my body at that moment, hopefully, the increase in the level would speed up a lot the healing speed of my arm and knee for the next days few days.

Though, seeing how I had spent most of my status points in just one moment... It made me quite sad.

-Sigh...-

I was poor once again...

Though, knowing that I could probably recover all of it in just a few days made me feel better.

▽

Status points remaining: [1,524.1]

△

'I wonder what should I increase next...?'

-Tap-

-Tap-

-Tap-

It was then, suddenly the sounds of two people approaching me reached my ears, and made me turn my head to look at them.

As I supposed, Vivi and Pell were back from their conversation. However, their expression wasn't looking so good.

Pell looked extremely serious, and Vivi seemed to be acting all nervous for some reason.

'What's up with them?'

Suddenly, as I was about to ask them if anything was wrong, Vivi stepped up and grabbed her own wrist in nervousness before turning her head to the side, as if not being able to look at me, and opened her mouth.

"Farid... There's something I have to tell you" Her voice seemed to hold complicated feelings as she spoke, it seemed like she was about to tell me something incredibly important.

I see, so it had come to this, huh?

Sighing in frustration, I shook my head and looked at Vivi with a complicated expression on my face.

Well... There was nothing I could do to stop it... In the end, it seems like it was inevitable...

Yes, probably, no matter what I did, in the end, it would all end the same... The fact that she is... She is...!

-Sigh...-

... She is probably confessing to me.

I mean, who couldn't? I'm just so awesome!

But man, I didn't expect this to happen so suddenly... Maybe I look better than I thought? No, the girls back at the orphanage don't even glance at me... So I don't think so...

Is it my incredibly muscular body?

Wait, no, I'm still as skinny as ever... The system only grants me strength but not muscles.

Then I guess it's my awesomeness.

Either way, no matter what the reason is, I'll have to refuse her. After all [The most awesome man in the world can't be bound by any woman]

I heard those wise words from the wise old man that always passes next to the orphanage singing funny songs with a funny tone and stumbling every now and then.

-Sigh...-

I could just hope we would continue being friends after this...

"Listen Vivi, I..."

However, as I was about to answer her, Vivi cut me off in the middle of my refusal and spoke in a loud voice while shutting her eyes.

"I'm the princess!!"

...

Huh...?

...

...Damn, and here I was getting nervous.

Scratching the back of my head while sighing in relief, I looked back at her with a bored look and replied to her in a short manner.

"I know"

This time, it was her turn to be bewildered.

"Huh? You knew?" Vivi opened her eyes abruptly and looked at me dumbfounded... For some reason, it seemed like she really didn't expect that I would notice her identity.

For some reason that annoyed me a lot, though...

However, before I was even able to answer her, she suddenly grabbed my shoulders and looked me straight in the eyes with a beautiful smile on her face.

"Then come with me to the palace!"

...

Say what?

...

-To be continued...-