The Road To One Day Be The Strongest Volume 1 Chapter 4

A hallucination? Although it definitely felt as though I had heard it. My body going rigid, I cast my gaze around for the source of the voice.

“Uhm, c can you hear me?”

The Lolita voice rang out once again. I looked around half expecting to find an amazing voice actor, the voice was so adorable that it couldn't have come from anywhere else. In spite of that the booked seemed to just exist there on the ground. A dazzling book, painted black with golden fittings and a strange chain, before my eyes it gave a telling shake.

“Uhm, can you say something? It feels like I'm talking to myself here.”

The book talked. Should I say something, I mean the book just talked? 

“Uh, so………what?”

What came before me is the number one fantasy item. More so than the status, being a vampire, the blessing, the grim reapers coat, more so than any of it and only happening in rare cases. In front of it I was stunned my eyes glued to the book. From which came a slightly troubled voice. (Although it seemed to be missing a mouth.)

“So~…..are you ok?”

“Huh?!”

Those words finally brought me back to reality. And I began to speak in earnest, my eyes roaming over the book in excitement as I asked. 

“What are you?”

Seemingly relieved, happy even, to finally receive a proper answer, the book excitedly revealed its own ident.i.ty.

“N, Nice to meet you! I'm the reasoning book, a divine treasure crafted by the G.o.ds. I'm going to be your a.s.sistant this time around!”

And thus, deep in a cave, a divine treasure created by the G.o.ds and an unnamed vampire had a fateful encounter.

***

The reasoning book. Quality: error.

A book capable of understanding the entire world. A divine treasure. As the owner grows, it's content and abilities are released. 

Capable of conversation. Indestructible.

Recording.(can record audio, video, etc.)

Owner= to be decided.

The appraisal results on the book.

Speaking of….. according to the voice it should be a girl. I sat down, a troubled look on my face and began talking to her again.

“So, what is this place, what does this mean?”

“Uh~m…. There are a lot of things I want to explain but for now, is it ok if I ask a question?”

She answered a question with a question. Ordinarily that's probably not ok but, being the type of guy that doesn't really care, I nod and she asks a question that's straight to the point.

“How much do you remember?”

How much do I remember? Most likely the things missing from my memory are just my name and what happened before I got here.

“I can't remember what happened before I woke up here and I'm not real clear on my name either.”

“Aaahh…. I see, so that's how it is.”

Somehow it sounded as though she was giving her consent to the situation. Which is all well and good but, I had a question that remained unanswered.

“Uh, Miss divine treasure, if you're done with the questions do you mind if I take over now? I asked this before but what exactly is this?”

‘This', of course referring to my current situation. Memory loss, the fact I'd become a vampire, as well as this cave I knew nothing about. She spoke to me as if she knew all this in advance.

“To put it simply, this is a different world.”

―A different world.

Once again I was confronted by this fact, she went on to explain what had happened to me.

“First off, you probably remember falling asleep in your apartment right? What happened after is rather easy to explain, a fire broke out and before you got caught up in it you were rescued by a strange power and brought here.”

“I have no idea what you're talking about.”

I answered immediately, I mean what the….

The only things I could barely understand was that I got caught in a fire. I was then somehow rescued and brought here. 

“Well, your doubt is understandable. Honestly, the details are kinda difficult to understand since they brought you here all w.i.l.l.y-nilly but, when the fire broke out you were seriously injured. In order to heal that injury, your body was transformed into a vampire giving you the power of self recovery.” 

A serious injury huh.

As I thought about it I felt my face begin to cramp up. Was my face seriously injured too? Could this be some kind of after shock from the injury? 

“…….well, seeing as this is a fantasy setting, there should be at least one or two types of recovery magic right?”

“While I sympathize with you, that's probably something you're better off asking after traversing around here a bit. As it stands now, I've already told you everything I could.”

To be honest, I still don't understand.

Well, since she is a divine treasure, the G.o.ds are  more or less probably involved as well. But I can't imagine how. Anyway―

“You said traverse right?”

―inevitably, that word caught my attention. I mean, traversing around here; here is a cave. Now, I don't know much about this kind of thing, but normally, wouldn't someone exit the cave and say something like: “Look out world! Right here! Right now! This is where my adventure begins!” Comparatively, doesn't ‘traverse' sound kind of lame? In response to my question she started to explain about the world, albeit dispa.s.sionately.

“The continent that we're probably going to now is shaped like a diamond. In the north is the demon country h.e.l.lsheim ruled by the demon king, to the east is the Grants empire ruled by the beast king, the south contains the Mirage theocracy governed by Her holiness. Finally in the center the mixed race kingdom of Hermes. Incidentally the west is undeveloped land and has not been explored. There is also of course smaller countries mixed in wherever they find s.p.a.ce."

"What do you mean by 'probably'?"

"Oh yeah, there's also something you should know about vampires."

I asked a question in the spur of the moment but she forced her way past and ignored it.

"Such as in the before mentioned Mirage theocracy and other such places, vampires are targets for persecution. However, excluding G.o.ds and demons, they are immortals that possess the second most extraordinary power out of all the races. Honestly, it's a cheat race. Even though your status had been dragged down a little bit from j.a.pan its still strong in its own way. As it is now, a new life in a parallel world filled with endless cheats is waiting for you!"

She seemed to have gotten excited but inside me a bad premonition had been born. Prefaced by her "I'll explain in detail later." the premonition had become belief as I gave voice to it.

"No, there's no transition or reincarnation to a new world that's as simple as that, and things like unconditional cheats, just thinking normally that's impossible right?"

Faced with these words, there was no reply.