'Maybe I took this joke too far...' Nate thought as he watched how everybody look at him in horror. Women screamed and ran off to tell the others as men fell on their asses, pissing their pants in the process.

When he saw someone get into a spear-throwing stance, Nate finally decided to stop fooling around. He dispersed the illusion he'd made with Black Magic then raised his arms in the air as he dropped everything he was holding except for the amulet.

"Guys! It was a joke! I'm not being possessed by an evil spirit!" Nate called out to those around him.

"That's what someone who's being possessed by an evil spirit would say!" The man in the throwing stance shouted back. "Die, demon!"

'Ah, shit.' Nate easily dodged the spear that was thrown from about a dozen meters away. 'That was a good throw. Maybe do it from closer up next time.'

Nate sighed as his shoulders drooped. His excitement over obtaining magic had put him in a good mood. A mood good enough to play a little prank using his newly obtained magic.

He didn't know it would get such an excessive reaction.

'I need some help to calm the people down...' Nate looked towards where Harold had been standing, then saw the man's back as he ran away without looking back. 'Useless!'

"N-Nate!? I heard you were possessed...!?" When Nate turned around, Miyu was racing in his direction, looking terrified. Ayumi and Ming, as well as a few others, were following along behind her.

'Excellent. Someone useful came.'

Nate took a deep breath as he prepared to give an explanation.

"So you're not being haunted by some malignant yokai?" Miyu tilted her head after hearing Nate's account of what happened.

"Yes. As you can see," Nate held up his right palm, making it radiate with pitch-black colored energy. "It's magic."

Miyu, Ayumi, Ming, and all the curious onlookers looked on in wonder at Nate's hand in awe.

"You said you made illusions with magic...?" Ming raised an eyebrow inquisitively.

"Yep." Since he was in a good mood, Nate was fine with humoring their curiosity. He clenched his fist as the smoke expanded outwards from him, obscuring his form.

"Wah!" Miyu was startled.

"Woah~!" Ayumi exclaimed as she looked on with wide eyes.

"..." Ming silently stepped back as he eyed Nate warily.

The reactions of the bystanders were similar to theirs. Either shock, wonder, or caution. Or a combination of two or three.

Soon, the mass of black smoke solidified into the form of a black-skinned orc.

"Like this," Nate said, from behind the Miyu. "Pretty nice, huh?"

Miyu's shoulders jumped for a moment, but she turned around with an aggrieved expression on her face as she asked, "How did you get there...?"

"I just used the illusion as a distraction to sneak up behind you. It helped that I can momentarily turn invisible, too." Nate explained. He'd wanted to be invisible for longer, but he could only maintain it for five seconds at his current skill level. He would improve with practice, but it wasn't bad. He then pointed toward the black-skinned orc. "As for that, it can't really do anything except look scary. Oh, and maybe grunt and shout."

"That seems really useful though..." Ming muttered as he watched the orc illusion flex its muscles while making bodybuilder poses. "How'd you get it?"

"Paid massive moolah for it." Nate smiled wryly. "Also, it seems you gotta have Magic Aptitude, otherwise, you can't even see the options."

"So you can't just buy it." Ming clicked his tongue. "How much was it?"

"Mine was twelve thousand. Though, there was magic priced at ten."

"Twelve thousand!?" Ming's eyes threatened to pop out of their sockets as he fell into hysterics. "Jesus Christ! Even after that stuff yesterday and the day before, I've only earned around two!"

"Thought so." Nate nodded in understanding. When Nate just arrived in the village, he'd had around three thousand points, which he'd used to exchange for the best breastplate available. He was able to buy a one-thousand-point helmet just from his first day of fighting. He was always someone who fought more than Ming, so it would've been weird if Ming's points surpassed his.

"Twelve... wow. My breastplate cost 1500 points. Magic is worth three of these...?" Miyu thought out loud, amazed at the astounding price.

"Yeah, but didn't you get a bunch of points for the orc too?" Ayumi asked.

"Mm. I got fifteen thousand from it." Miyu nodded.

'Fifteen!?' Nate was inwardly shocked at how much more she got than him. 'Was the killing blow worth that much...? I got the amulet, which is supposed to be something only the MVP gets, but she got more points than me!'

Nate wasn't hung up on the points, but rather on the strangeness of the point allocation. On that note, he still didn't know why he had three thousand points upon arrival. All he did was walk around and get his foot stuck in rabbit holes. Although he did fight the occasional wolf pack and killed some vipers, Nate was sure that those weren't the reason for his bloated point count.

'There's some other way to get points than killing things... Nobody just knows it yet.'

"Ah!" Nate was snapped out of his musings by Miyu's exclamation. He looked over and saw her palm on the stone slab.

"What's up?" he asked.

"I can learn magic too!" Miyu turned toward him and beamed. "There's also this amulet thingy."

'Oh, so there can be multiple MVPs...?' Nate felt his head aching. He didn't understand this place at all. But then he mused that the orc was ridiculously strong. If he didn't have his power, he definitely wouldn't have faced it alone. Hell, he couldn't even manage to kill it alone even with his superpower. 'I guess that monster was supposed to be a raid boss-like monster that you face with dozens of people...? So there are more MVP spots. I dunno, I don't want to think about this anymore.'

Nate decided to stop thinking about the intricacies of the point system. In any case, he didn't need to fully understand it. He just had to use it to get what he needed to get back home.

"Should I also choose Black Magic...? I don't really want to risk getting something useless by picking the others. Also, since it's more expensive..." Miyu hesitated.

"Yeah... oh, wait." Nate planned to let Miyu choose whatever she wanted since it was her points anyway. But then he remembered her vision. If they did the same things, they would just reach the same future. Nate felt like now was an opportunity to make a change. "Why don't you pick something else? Like maybe Blue Magic. I think that has something to do with water, which we're lacking. It'd be nice to be able to bathe any time, right?"

"Oh! Maybe you're right!" Miyu's eyes widened in realization. "That would also give me enough points for this lantern."

"Oh. Yeah, that." Nate scratched his cheek awkwardly. He'd also thought the lantern would be useful, but he'd opted for the magic instead. A testament to his selfishness. "But it's 4500 points y'know? You won't be able to buy the amulet."

"It's fine. It only costs a thousand points, I can just buy it some other day." Miyu smiled as she closed her eyes. A moment later, a lantern appeared on the floor beside her as she doubled over in pain just like Nate had.

"Miyu!" Ayumi worriedly went over to her friend.

"Ah, don't worry. That happened to me too." Nate offered.

"Yeah, you coulda told us that!" Ayumi retorted in annoyance.

They all silently waited for Miyu, with Ayumi rubbing the back of her trembling friend. After about a minute, Miyu finally stopped and looked up.

"I... I did it." Miyu forced a smile, as she made an orb of water appear on her hand. "Finally... a proper shower..."

"Ah... ahaha." Nate chuckled wryly, wondering if that was really the most important thing at the moment.

"Yay! You'll let me use your water too, right Miyu?" Ayumi pestered her friend, all concern thrown into the wind.

"What else can it do?" Nate asked Miyu with curiosity.

"Oh, uhm. I think this magic excels in hindering foes. Like, I can freeze parts of them, or make obstacles out of ice. Oh, I can also shoot shards of ice that are harder than normal." she answered.

As if to demonstrate, she snapped her fingers, making a shard of ice the length of a dagger appear and float in front of her. After a moment, the ice shard shot forth with the speed of a bullet, embedding itself into the ground.

"Woah..." Nate's breath caught in his throat. He knew he wouldn't be able to dodge that ice shard. A kick to the shard proved that it was harder than ordinary ice. "That's way faster than what I can do..."

Nate riled up the magic power within him, forming a dagger of darkness. With a single command, it was sent flying to the spot right next to the ice shard. Its speed wasn't something he would be able to dodge either, but it was significantly slower than Miyu's projectile. His eyes could still somewhat follow the black dagger's trajectory, on the other hand, the ice shard looked like it teleported.

"Oh! I can also make illusions. Though, they don't look as vivid as Nate's..." Miyu then conjured white mist around her, which spread out to create the illusion that they were in the valley again. From the mist, obscure figures that resembled goblins appeared.

'What the hell? Why is mine more expensive then...? Does Black Magic have something else I'm not understanding yet...?" Nate mused. Then he remembered a certain type of Black Mage. 'Do I need a corpse?'

Then he thought back to the orc's remains.

The orc's remains that were still in the valley.

"I have some business to attend to." Nate hastily wore the amulet and equipped his newly repaired breastplate. After making sure everything was okay, he briskly started walking in the direction of the valley.

"Eh? Ah, where are you going...?" Miyu dispersed the mist as she followed after him while carrying the lantern.

"..." Nate hesitated over whether to tell her, but he ultimately decided to do so. "I'm going back to the orc corpse."

"Huh? Why?"

"Just a feeling."

"A feeling...?" Miyu's eyes furrowed in confusion. "Uhm, alone?"

"Yeah. I'll be fine. I'll just make some illusions as decoys so I don't get attacked." Nate answered as he created illusions of twenty men walking in front of him.

"But even so... you can't maintain that all the time, can you? You should know that we need mana to use our magic." Miyu's face was rife with worry. "You'd run out of mana quite fast if you maintained that for too long..."

"Don't worry," Nate smirked. "My superpower restores my mana too."

"Wha...!?"

"I just found out as I was joking around pretending to be possessed," Nate explained. "My mana just kept refilling. That's why I was able to maintain it for so long. I wish I could maintain invisibility for longer too, but that seems to need more concentration than normal illusions, so I can only do it for five or so seconds."

"I-I see..." Miyu smiled wryly. "Your power is really versatile."

"I know right?" Nate sighed. "I still died though."

"Ahaha..."

"Anyways, don't worry. I won't go in too deep. I just want to get to the orc corpse and test something out."

"I'm coming too." Miyu insisted. "I'm already fully equipped anyway. Also, this lantern might come in handy!"

Nate glanced behind him and gave the lantern a look. It looked just like an ordinary oil lantern you would see in movies, except it was the size of a fist and that it lit up with blue light. If its name could be trusted, it would disperse the mist in the valley. It would certainly be of great help.

"Fine." he reluctantly agreed.

"Great!" Miyu beamed as she turned around for a moment and made an okay sign towards Ayumi and Ming, who'd been left behind in front of the stone slab. "Let's go!"

"Yeah." Nate shook his head in exasperation as he returned his gaze to the front.

'Please let the corpse still be there...' Nate pleaded in his mind. 'And please let my thoughts be correct.'

The moment the pair walked into the valley, there was a visible change.

"Well, I guess the lantern's legit," Nate remarked as he watched the mist recede. About a hundred-meter radius around Miyu was entirely free of the thick fog that normally plagued every corner of the valley. They could even see the walls from either side if they walked down the middle of the path.

"Mm. It was a good buy." Miyu smiled as she raised the lantern above her head, inspecting its mysterious light. "The light's pretty too."

"Yep," Nate answered noncommittally. He made his illusions walk forward as he urged his partner. "We should hurry. I don't want us to make this trip then come back empty-handed."

"Okay." Miyu nodded. She hung the lantern on her belt and followed after Nate.

Nate and Miyu did not face any goblins or hobgoblins on their way to the orc corpse. However, they did notice something strange about the walls.

There would occasionally be tiny caves along the walls that appeared to be so narrow, that only a child could pass through.

"Obviously, that's where the goblins came from," Nate remarked matter-of-factly.

"Obviously." Miyu nodded in agreement. "But where did the hobgoblins come from? They can't fit in those passages."

'Actually, I kinda thought they just spawned and respawned. Like in games.' Nate mused. 'I guess this means that the strategy of making frequent short trips to the valley is viable. We can just gradually whittle down the number of monsters in the valley. But that would take way too much time.'

"Maybe they came from farther into the valley?" he replied. Then he sent a look at the object radiating blue light on Miyu's hip. "That's nice, though. Because of the lantern, we won't be ambushed anymore."

"Mm." Miyu nodded, then she smirked evilly. "Why didn't you buy it by the way?"

"Cuz I'm selfish. And I really wanted the magic and the amulet." Nate admitted immediately.

"Oh." Miyu halted, a bit put off by the instant reply. "I didn't expect you to own up to it like that."

Nate shrugged. "It was obvious. Everybody there must've realized too. Just that nobody was willing to call me out on it, since I'm the leader and I have magic that can easily kill them."

"You say that so easily..." Miyu shook her head in exasperation.

"Oh. I see it now." Nate squinted to get a better look at the distant orc body. He heaved a long sigh of relief that it wasn't taken away and eaten by goblins or whatever it was that ate corpses in this valley. "Hurry!"

"Ah, wait for me!" Miyu called out to Nate, who'd started sprinting forward.

Eventually, Nate was near enough to the corpse to confirm his suspicions.

"Hehe..." he couldn't help but laugh as he gathered black mana into his palm.

"What are you doing?" Miyu, who'd just caught up in time to see Nate send the mana to the middle of the orc's chest.

"You'll see," Nate answered as he closed his eyes and made the mana he sent into the carcass spread out. After a few dozen seconds of this, Nate's smirk grew wider. "It's done."

"What's do--" Miyu stopped talking as she noticed the corpse's arm twitch, then start trembling. Soon, the quivering spread to its legs, then to its other arm, until the entire corpse was shaking violently. "What..."

"..." Nate stayed silent, ignoring Miyu's question as he willed the orc corpse to stand up. With some difficulty, the orc sat up on the ground, then used its still unstable arms to help himself up, standing on wobbly legs. "It's a little rough, but I just need to inject it with more power..."

Hearing his mutter, Miyu finally realized what Nate had just done. She dabbled in otaku culture, but she wasn't too deep into it. That's why it took her a while to associate what Nate was doing with a term that she only heard a few times.

"Necromancy...?"

"Yep." Nate nodded. "It isn't knowledge that I got from the stone slab, but when I looked at that thing, I just kinda knew that I could do it, y'know? I'm gonna suck at it though, but at least it's easier to maintain than invisibility."

"Uh... huh." Miyu just nodded along, still shocked by the revelation.

Nate just smirked at Miyu's lackluster reaction. He gazed at his new undead servant, as he threw the Dane ax that it used while it was still alive.

The orc's eyes shined as it beheld the ax, its unstable limbs surged with power as it bent to pick up the weapon from the ground.

"Uwooaaah!" The orc howled as it raised its weapon.

"Fuck..." Nate hadn't expected his servant to just suddenly start yelling, so his eardrums throbbed from pain. But he still smirked as he looked upon his new, reliable meat shield. "Calling you orc corpse is going to be a pain, so I'll just name you Pig. That's your name now. Alright? Pig."

"Rah!" The orc, Pig, grunted.

"Guess you can't talk..." Nate mused, but he still somewhat understood Pig's intentions. Perhaps it was because of their master-servant relationship? Nate didn't know or care. In any case, he now had a loyal servant that was stronger than him and was disposable. "Oh, I wonder how strong you actually are?"

Nate mentally commanded Pig to display its strength somehow. Pig just stood there, unmoving.

"Hey?" Nate raised an eyebrow, but then it occurred to him that the order may have been too abstract. He picked up a rock, squeezed it to make sure that it was as hard as he expected, then gave it to Pig. He then mentally commanded Pig to crush it with just two fingers.

This time, Pig obeyed. The orc turned the rock to dust with ease, using only his thumb and forefinger. Nate gulped at the sight as his grin grew even wider.

"Black magic is great!"