Disclaimer: I don't own Arifureta Shokugyou de Sekaisaikyou just like Isekai manga/light novels.
I didn't write this story alone. I posted it on my Google Docs to work on it with another fanfiction author but I don't recall his/her name. If you find a fanfiction on here that's word for word in the chapters please tell me so I can delete this story and let that author finish it for me. Thank you.
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Razi could remember the times he was reading a book or eating dinner and his father would excuse himself to go to the bathroom… the weeping sounds of his tears echoing through the household, the mulling sound of a man who couldn't keep his heart calm and was flooded with emotions.
That was the sound of a man who was grieving for the loss of his own parents, both mother and father dead-his mother dead before Razi was born and his father died five years ago his wife popped out what looked like Hajime, an alien.
With each day he grieved, Razi would be there to stroke his back and blow into his ear trying to calm him down-by the next day he was back to the manly woodsman who provided for his family. Now it was Razi's turn to grieve in that room and he was...alone. No one to cheer him up, or make him laugh.
This emptiness he felt, it filled his mind. He could no longer feel the sadness he had moments ago. Even the growing anger he felt, it was now gone, too. There was nothing left for him to feel. He had been broken.
"How do you plan on beating him?" A voice spoke in his mind.
Razi looked around, but there was no one. There should be from the lack of security left after one-eyed and his harem of man killers stormed in and disintegrated most of them except his father.
Even if this question was a hallucination due to his unchecked emptiness, he was going to answer it:
"I'll find the one who did this, make a poison for him to ingest, and watch as he dies slowly and painfully!" He shouted for only his empty house to hear.
"Good plan except there's two things that prevent that from happening: this murderer you seek has a healing tonic called Ambrosia that can neutralize any poison and heal life threatening wounds, and eating monster meat has given him a resistance to poison. No, no, no, and did I forget something...NO! You want to beat this tough guy, you'll need to transform into a tough guy...one who can even kill a god."
Razi was completely confused by this revelation. "A god? No mortal person can kill a god."
"Out of dumb luck or killing any piece of being human left inside his very heart, this lucky bastard managed to kill one. He's an alpha personality, can sense anyone who comes for him, and you only get one chance to kill him for he has no mercy to his enemies. Your only chance you foolish boy… is to find something even more dangerous than a labyrinth and you clear it."
"What's more dangerous than a labyrinth?" Razi asked this voice, thrice feeling like a schizophrenic fool.
"How about the heart of a divine creature. Eat four of those hearts and you'll be the strongest human around...if you can survive eating one, that is. However, you don't just walk into a divine creatures threshold, you need to level yourself up by completing feats most weaklings can't."
"Like what?" Razi spit back at the voice presumably in his head. "If by 'weaklings', you mean normal people, I don't stand much of a chance." Razi had never really done anything to raise his level. Sure, he leveled up every so often due to helping his father every so often, but his level's only 5, and his stats are only about 20.
"Well, you could begin by slaying weak monsters to level up, then taking on tougher ones. Repeat this process, and eventually you'll be able to handle the threshold." The voice was seemingly smirking, despite only being a voice. "Or, you could try to beat a really strong one and eat it. Break your limits like he did."
"Eating monsters kills people. The only reason he didn't die was because of his 'Ambrosia' or whatever you call it. Where am I supposed to get that?"
As if to respond to the question, a vial appeared in front of him. Inside it was a blue liquid, it looked extremely pure. Razi reached out to drink it, but a mysterious force smacked his hand.
"It's not bottoms up until you've dined on a grotesque big slab of monster meat. Good luck, my new friend."
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Hajime warmed up seeing little children reunited with their parents. The father is at least fifteen years older than his wife with a bald head and a goatee while the mother is still young and pretty enough to wear an apron around her waist and hair while still having a face of a model back on Earth. She reached down and hugged her boy really hard.
Hajime was the only one out of the five not smiling, but not because they were all women and he was the only guy. He was just pondering what he had to go through to get the boy back, all the crying and begging he had to get past to reach him-usually he was in a labyrinth or a crevice full of monsters to face, and sometimes they were just a shithead who were too sadistic for their very small brains.
They were paid by the father; someone who was an accountant at a very important store that had nothing Hajime was looking for, but he guessed Tio would like it being...Tio. For now, he was going to get home and check on Myu as well as his other wives so they could go out to a big family brunch.
"Hajime-kun, I'm worried about that boy from before." Kaori suddenly spoke up.
"Oh yeah, him. I don't think it's anything to worry about. I mean, his father is the one who made himself my enemy. And while his mother wasn't intentional, there's nothing we can do to change that now. And I can't find a reason to restore her body, even if we could save her."
"Not unless you could find a way to go back in time and stop Tio from using too much fire." Yue said, blatantly as to mock this conversation. "But if that could happen...I would have gone back 300 years and convinced the ones who betrayed me that I'm strong enough now that I didn't need their protection."
"I would have brought a better weapon so you and Hajime couldn't push me around as much as you did when we first met." Shea said, her ears perked up with a confident smile on her face.
"And I would go back to before my dear master entered that labyrinth so I could make him my sadistic master back when he wasn't so rough...not that I don't like him rough now." Tio swooned, red cheeks and hand on her warm cheeks.
Kaori wondered what she would wish for...maybe be around Hajime more back when he was on Earth and still an otaku so he wouldn't be so happy to leave his school life behind and open the gate that brought her here. Although she was glad to be not just a class idol and became Hajime's wife...being only one wife in a harem of seven including one being her best friend was a little...too much.
"Well, I doubt it'll matter, anyways. So, let's go back." Hajime opened a gate back home, and walked through. The rest of them followed though, though Kaori was still worried about the boy from before. It was only in her nature.
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Razi was currently on his way to find a strong monster. The voice in his head had told him to find a labyrinth, or at least something strong enough to give him a big head start.
"So, who are you?" Razi talked, seemingly to no one, but in truth, he was speaking to the voice in his head.
"That's a good question. Who am I? Am I a manifestation of your madness? Am I the god that was killed by that bastard you're after? Or am I someone else, who's using you for my entertainment? What do you think I am?"
"Don't be so amused, given that I know my own head. You're someone out there trying to get me to do your dirty work. Well, at least you've saved me from certain death-poison, what was I thinking?"
Razi still had a trick he wanted to try with the detached blade of his father's axe. He used a piece of wood from the mast now sawed off, used the drill machine for making wooden barrels to put a hole through the wood, carved a ring of wood that was made into a strap that could be put on his arm, used the staple machine to attach the strap to the mast, and attached the blade through the hole.
It was made, an axe blade he could swing just by moving his arm. One of his main weapons had to be an axe, to make everyone see who his family were and why this quest was so important to him. As for his second weapon, the one he actually had to grasp with his fingers, he picked a bow and arrow.
Before Razi could go out to slay a monster, he had to practice on shooting his arrow through the hearts of wildlife far away. His first target, a very crafty deer with three horns.
It wasn't far to get there just by walking through town, but Razi didn't trust towns because of humans and a human being the one who was in his house-odds were he would run into that murderer and he would finish him off there.
Almost as if reading his mind, the voice spoke up. "I'm not too sure if he's human, anyways. I mean, he can control mana directly. I haven't seen too many humans do that. Granted, it isn't impossible, but the chances of that are less than 1%. So, at best, he's part human. At worst, he's a monster in human shape."
"I don't care. I'm staying away from towns, I'd rather not run into him until I can kill him. So, for now, why don't you help me kill this deer?"
"... Turn your bow a bit to the left. After that, pull back on the string a bit more, and release." Razi did as he was told, and the arrow flew in a large arc. It struck the deer hard enough to kill it in a single hit.
"Whether or not you're real...thank you." Razi said looking up at the sky, because he didn't know where he was supposed to look.
"If you can't carry this deer back to your fortress with your own hands, you won't be able to do much against this bastard you seek."
Razi shook his head slowly making his way to the deer's carcass. However, the sound of hoofs galloping through the dirt could be heard. Razi didn't move for anyone who moves on horses isn't someone you point a weapon towards.
Turns out the one on the horse was a knight in slim red paladin armor with a pointy nose on her facial mask with a blonde mare both on its fur and on the tuft of its hair. The horse was galloping like its life depended on it, the knight huffing as if the horses' life was dependent on hers, and it soon became clear why.
Behind them was something Razi wasn't ready for, a hobgoblin. This wasn't just some big green fatso holding a club like the ones far from here or an orc; it was a chaser hobgoblin. It was tall like one but its legs were far more muscular, its nose long but slantily thin, long strands of hair flowing down its hazel green scalp, and four strong incisors sticking out...hungry for human meat.
Razi knew he couldn't handle a Chaser Hobgoblin, but for some godly reason, his arms pulled back the arrow, and he landed a shot where the beast's temple was. Unfortunately, this wasn't enough to kill it. The beast stopped chasing the Paladin, and focused on Razi. Razi began to run towards it, and slid under the beast while cutting into the left leg with his arm axe.
"Child, you need to run! There's no way two people can so easily handle a Chaser such as this one!" The Paladin's voice fell upon deaf ears, however, as Razi continued to face off the beast.
Razi was being chased by the Chaser, until he somehow flipped off a tree and landed another shot against the Chaser's head.
Razi wasn't sure how it happened, but that shot to the head wasn't a fluke. In no time the arrow struck through its skull and then it collapsed on the ground, dead.
The chaos was over in a very anticlimactic way. A level 5 defeated a beast even level 21 fighters would put their lives on the line to defeat. Now, he contemplated eating the hobgoblin, but how could he when there was a person looking in plain sight. She would judge him and be disgusted by that choice of action. Not to mention the stupidity in one to eat a monster.
"I-I can't believe it, you won." She stammered before shouting out what was on her mind.
"Yeah, not bad for a forest bumpkin." Razi replied.
"Stay right there."
Her horse galloped a few paces in Razi's direction until she pulled on the reins to make it neigh its hooves up before staying still and letting her climb down. She pulled out a knife from her red metallic leg.
For a second Razi thought she was as crazy as the voices in his head, and she was going to peel off hobgoblin skin in order to eat it. It was much to his surprise she used the knife to push away the fingers of the monster revealing a locket that was clutched in its meaty arms.
"Please don't break." She said to herself.
Razi felt his body be pushed forward again, as he grabbed an arrow. He sliced into the dead Chaser, and dug his hand in there for a few seconds, until he grabbed a fist sized gem. It was the monster's core. He cleaned it off, and gave it to the Paladin. "I think this is also yours."
The paladin stared at him, before she giggled a bit and pushed it back to Razi. "You were the one to defeat the beast, so the core is yours. Thank you. For your help in defeating it, and for saving me."
Razi felt a little warm through that emptiness, but it was hard to feel true warmth when the person he saved didn't even show her face. Maybe she was cute or maybe she looked like a hobgoblin herself. All he knew was that she didn't waste much time sticking around, she climbed back on her horse and whipped its reins to get the mare moving.
"In case we meet again, please refer to me as Paladin Tomochi, ranked II of the Crimson Flags."
Razi saluated her the way he was taught how, putting his axe hand over his left shoulder and smiling directly at her, a phony beam because the emptiness in his chest made it hard to show anything resembling honor.
"And my name is Razi Seani, the son who will follow in his father's footsteps after he completes one...adventure."
She nodded before zipping off. To make their meeting even more pointless, as she was riding facing away from him, she removed her helmet to let her dark blue wavy hair flow in the breeze. Why she didn't let him see her face was just salting the wound he probably didn't know if the Chaser gave him.
Now no one was watching him...and the corpse of the beast was looking pretty appetizing.
"Heads up, monster meat tastes like crap. I wouldn't say it's very appetizing, if I were you. But this is necessary."
"Fine. By the way, was that you making me move like that earlier?" Razi pointed at the arrows in the head.
"Maybe. I don't see why I can't help every so often. Besides, it makes things easier for us." The voice was giggling like a child.
It was easy to take some meat off the bone of the Chaser, just pull on the meat from the incision part of the leg he made. He only wanted to take a little piece, but the voice wouldn't let him take a small piece. Soon, he had the entire cast of his leg in his hands.
Razi wanted to have a small taste of it by sticking out his tongue and licking the exposed insides. The voice was right, every part of it was the worst kind of crap he's ever had on his tongue. So revolting and gagging it almost made him puke. What helped him go through with it was the attention the paladin gave him. If a noble knight could see him as someone tough maybe soon so would the enemy.
He chomped on over half of the meat in one bite. He tore it from the other half and started chewing it down like a bird. He thought it would be easier to swallow it instead of chewing it, but choking down monster meat was the same as any kind of meat, only more quantity meant faster chances of buying.
"Hurry up and swallow the medicine I gave you!" The voice yelled. "If you don't, you'll be deader than the Hobgoblin you just ate!"
Razi responded in kind, instantly drinking the whole vial. What happened next would make him regret listening to the voice.
He felt an immense pain running through him, surging through his veins and pulsating like it was alive. The pain only grew stronger, until it faded. It then came back, even more painful than last time.
He wasn't dead which was all he cared about despite that pain still coursing through him. After feeling that pain in his stomach he just wanted to stand up again, eat something not so terrible. For now, he had to check his stats. He didn't even realize how much his body changed, minus the hair and eyes.
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Hajime surprisingly got along well with Myu's mom despite only marrying her so Myu could be his actual daughter and not just something he called her due to her affection for him.
Whenever Myu was on his lap, which was right now at the restaurant table, Myu's mother would be sitting in the spot Yue usually sits in. Yue wasn't even on his right side this time, it was Tio of all people.
Where was Yue? She was sitting in between Shizuku and Shea, the place Remia usually sits. Not only was this a terrible place to sit, but the food was also not cooked very well for her tonight; and being a bloodsucking vampire didn't help either.
Yue was once the only woman who Hajime called his lover. Now she was one of several lovers with the women who once didn't hold a candle to what she and him felt for each other. She really missed being cradled in his one working arm with that blood splotches on his now unworking right eye. She missed living alone with him in the Labyrinth, and having him to herself. Sure, she was still the most important girl to him, but he still cared for the others. Shea was a close second, and the others weren't far behind.
The whole group was having a relaxing brunch, living life like they didn't just kill several people.
Kaori still seemed distracted by what happened. Hajime had kept telling her not to worry, but she couldn't help it. She knew she'd be upset if her parents had been taken away so unfairly. She wouldn't blame the boy if they hated them for the rest of his life.
