A golem’s fist swings through the air. I had steeled myself for any attack, but their sluggish movements are slowly putting me to sleep. So slow—too slow. What is this? Some kind of anime protagonist punch overflowing with hopes, dreams, and the power of friendship? I could run to the grocery, buy an apple, eat it, come back, and still make it back in time to parry the blow. What’s with these half-assed movements? Am I being underestimated?

“These are some stiff golems, yeah?”

Voicing my discontent, I jumped lightly over the golem. Then, with a tenth of my full power, I thrust my heel down at the head. The stone statue crumpled like paper, completely losing any resemblance to its original shape.

Fra—fragile. Too fragile. A cardboard box would have won in a competition of durability. The grounds a bit too brittle as well.

“Master. There’s no need to hold back, you know? Could you make their movements more natural?”

“……Huh? Uh, what…? Im-impossible… the-the golem was defeated? What just happened?”

“…perhaps, were you…not paying attention just now?”

Once again, I took the golem’s speed and strength into consideration. However, the owner’s bewildered face tells a different story.

Ah, I see. It’s just me. It wasn’t because the golems were too slow or too fragile, but because I was too fast and too strong. My concentration on the battlefield was so intense that it distorted my own perception of time.

“I see… that was the extent of their power.”

That golem was level 5. That means that the average novice adventurer is also level 5, and that in this world, it is a praiseworthy display of strength. On the contrary, I’m level 1000 and especially confident in terms of speed. As a result, their full speeds appear as sluggish movements from my perspective.

The in-game mechanics also worked similarly. If the difference in agility was too large, the lower level player would never land a blow even if the opponent stood in place. It’s also a good representation of my fight with the golem.

“Let’s get this over with.”

I proceeded to crush the three remaining golems, lightly smashing apart two more with my feet. They give almost no resistance—as if I was slicing butter. I then pulled off a leisurely kick at the final golem, which soon fell to the ground, lifeless.

“…Wha—what in the world are…”

The bar master trailed off in a shaky voice. His eyes were clouded with fear. This is bad. I would rather not draw too much attention as I am now… well, what’s done is done. I’ll try to bear this in mind next time.

“Ruphas-sama, you’re overdoing it! The very standards of fighting are far lower than what they were 200 years ago! You’ll give rise to fear if you don’t restrain yourself!”

Dina ran over and whispered heatedly.

So now I know that the fighting standards have fallen over time.Shouldn’t you tell me that earlier?

“Ah, forgive me, Dina, It seems I might have lost my touch over the span of 200 years. I had misjudged my own capabilities.”

“Seriously, try to be a bit more careful next time, okay?”

It seems that even exerting a tenth of my power is excessive. Next time, a forehead flick should be enough to deal with this kind of opponent. Ah, but I can’t move my arms, so maybe a wiggle of my toes would suffice.

At any rate, how mysterious. The moment I engaged in combat, the world around me slowed to a crawl. With Ruphas’ instincts, I was able to smoothly transition between a normal field of perception into one more suited for battle.

“So, what do you think? I should think it was a flawless performance, though.”

“Ye—yeah… that’s right, you shouldn’t have trouble with any requests. The request board is inside the tavern, so feel free to choose one to your liking.”

Having received the owner’s approval, Dina and I returned to the bar to seek out the request board. However, after scanning over the available jobs, I found that all of them lacked a certain appeal. Frankly, I would prefer a task with a more generous reward over multiple smaller jobs. I want to get to Suvell as soon as I can. An escort request for a coach traveling from Yudaril to Suvell would be ideal. In that case, I would be able to earn some pocket money while heading over to Suvell. Although I alone could fly over in an instant, that would mean leaving Dina behind. With a carriage, I can easily bring Dina along with me… is what I initially thought, but—

“There’s nothing good here, huh?”

“There isn’t.”

Though there was an escorting request, the carriage was headed for Levatin instead. To say nothing of the fact that Levatin is in the opposite direction of Suvell. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find any requests that fell under my expectations.

“Ah, Ruphas-sama. What do you think of this one?”

“Hm?”

I glanced at the thin sheet that Dina held up to me.

【Request・Cat Search】Difficulty: ☆☆Reward: 100 eru for every cat foundOur household’s 12 pet cats have run off somewhere.Please look for them!

“1200 eru at best just for searching for 12 cats! What a bargain!”

“Ah, well, it certainly is.”

1200 eru if the search goes well… it certainly is a bargain.Eru is the currency of this world and if I’m not mistaken, 1 eru is the equivalent to around 200 Japanese yen (2 USD). Basically, that means completing this job earns us a total of 240,000 yen (2,400 USD). Either the client is quite the cat lover, or they’re wealthy nobles. In any case, they live a lavish lifestyle.

On a side note, although that was the in-game conversion rate, the opposite might hold true in reality. It’s obvious that between game currency and real money, the latter holds more value. In fact, you could obtain 10,000 eru worth of in-game equipment with 500 yen (5 USD). That would make real money more valuable by a long shot.

“Let’s not. I’m not the best at searching. That is a job for a beastman.”

“The—then what about this one?”

【request・orc subjugation】

Difficulty: ☆☆☆☆Reward: 1500 eruOrcs have built a nest near the village and