小嫂子的味道

I took a sip of my coffee while I sat on the window frame of my room, watching the sunrise before me. Currently it was five in the morning, the classes at Silver Garden Academy started at seven but I\'d woken up early. 

To be honest, it wasn\'t much of a surprise. There were so many things going on all at the same time that it made it almost impossible for me to relax. 

"Honestly, these things never end," I said to myself while gazing at the scenery outside. 

There were a lot of things I had to deal with. Firstly, I wanted to get my parents into a good house so I needed money for that. However, I didn\'t really have any idea where I would get that money. 

I could try robbing a bank or something like a heist but that had more cons than it had benefits. Plus, doing something like that alone could prove to be a little rough. 

I needed something that was more reliable and efficient. But no matter how hard I tried I couldn\'t think of anything at the moment, therefore I decided to put this on hold for a bit. 

However, this was not all that I had to do. Fighting against the demon beasts had made me realize that I was nowhere near strong enough to survive in the post-calamity world. 

Sure my Foresight skill had leveled up and my status had increased too, but other than that there was nothing else I had.

There was the Maelstrom series that I\'d developed but that was basically my elemental magic. Normally, I used my elemental magic in more of a free-style way but that consumed more mana and time, and the result wasn\'t hundred percent accurate either. 

That\'s why I made the Maelstrom series. In a nutshell, the Maelstrom attacks were attacks that were preprogrammed in my mind and the only thing I had to do was put my mana in it. 

This was different than usual since normally while using I had to decide all sorts of things like the speed of the attack, its distance, accuracy, area of effect, the damage it would deal, etc. before I could cast the spell. 

But with the attacks in the Maelstrom series, those things were already decided, which made the attack faster and more efficient. 

However—and a big HOWEVER—it still wasn\'t enough. These attacks didn\'t carry much firepower since they were more focused on accuracy. And the one that dealt heavy damage—Maelstrom Purple—ended up damaging me as well upon casting. 

Anyone could tell that it wasn\'t a good thing. After all, you aren\'t supposed to take any damage from your own magic. Yet I did, which meant that I didn\'t have enough control over my magic. 

If I sum this all up in a single sentence it would be that I needed to get stronger. Much more stronger than what I was now. 

Originally I had planned to train with Req when I got the time but since she was out of mana right now, that option wasn\'t available. 

There were a few other ways I\'d thought up that would increase my strength exponentially, but none of them could be done right away. 

I needed more time, and perhaps…more people. I wasn\'t sure about this idea but since the scale of things had increased doing things all by myself was getting harder and harder. 

\'But well, I don\'t have any friends or comrades so getting more people is totally out of the question,\' I thought to myself. 

I couldn\'t get the help of other people, if I was going to do something I had to do it by myself. That was something I shouldn\'t forget, and I didn\'t plan to. 

I just needed to expand my capabilities. Up until now, I was in a comfort zone since I knew what was going to happen and my power level was enough to make me be able to control the things around me. 

Now though, things had changed. I couldn\'t tell with a hundred percent certainty what was going to happen and I wasn\'t strong enough either. But all that meant was that I had overcome these hurdles. 

If was going to continue with the plans I had for the future then I needed to get through this situation. After all, up until now, I wasn\'t really sure about my end goal. 

I didn\'t know what I would do, I didn\'t know where I wanted to go, I was just going along with the flow. However yesterday when I met my parents and saw their condition, I finally realized it. 

I wanted to create a world where the people I care for could live safely and I could lead my own peaceful life—which by the way had been utterly destroyed. 

To get those two things there was only one way, and that was to end the plot of the novel. I had to make sure that the demon lord gets defeated and humanity wins. Once I end the novel I\'ll be free. 

However, there was just this little problem with this—by the time I died, loli_pop had not completed the novel. Therefore I didn\'t know how it was going to end. 

Although since I was an author myself I could pretty much guess the ending.

"I make it sound easy but actually doing all that is going to be a LOT of trouble," I mumbled before taking a sip of coffee. 

Nonetheless, there was no other option. I simply had to continue with this plan and end the plot of the novel, no matter how hard it proved to be. 

"But before all that," I said as I jumped and stepped down from the window frame. "There is someone I need to take care of."

That\'s right. All that was in the future. The thing I needed to deal with at this moment was one guy. 

"Akumi Kotsusube, he is sure someone I never expected to come across."