The reasonably edible leech flesh had benefited his body more than the residue he had eaten so far, but Kyle was far from satisfied.

'Not worth the cost.'

His lifeline had snapped, leaving him stuck in this room for the next week. Kyle humbly accepted his arrogant mistake. At the very least, he should not go swaggering around at high tide until he had both shoes.

'Hmm, or is that not enough? Do I need the cloak too?'

The Fragment had advised him that he needed shoes and a cloak to operate at high tide. The shoes were for walking on the black sea. The cloak was for protection from the abyssal gaze.

'I'll get the shoes first and test them out. If that won't work, I'll just have to get the cloak too.'

Kyle nodded at his decision. All the while, the Fragment was still shouting at the top of his lungs and shaking him.

"Enough, enough. I understand. I'm sorry. I was completely in the wrong. So please stop shaking me."

"Lunatic! You lunatic! You would have died without that lifeline!"

"I tried it because I had the lifeline. It's a great thing to have. I'll be careful from now on."

"You crazy..."

"You said it takes a week for the lifeline to recover, right? That's too long."

He had killed the leech that served as the anglerfish's lure. Surely he could ask for a reward? With that thought, Kyle raised both hands.

"Restore my lifeline."

A translucent black light enveloped his hands. A thin strand of light extended from the crown of his head, but failed to connect to the air and drooped limply instead. Kyle glanced at the lifeline dangling around his shoulder and muttered,

"Not quite enough to restore it completely?"

"Just ask for food and behave yourself, you lunatic!"

"It would be a waste to ask for nothing but food."

At that brazen reply, the Fragment stopped shaking Kyle and staggered where he stood. He clutched his throbbing head and groaned, then returned to his chair, sighing heavily.

"I've been watching your bloodkin in the Sword Tower for five hundred years now, but I've never seen anyone as insane as you."

"You met the founder too? He came in here as well, didn't he? What was he like?"

"Ruin Alastor? He..."

The Fragment started to answer, then let out another deep sigh.

"He... was quite the lunatic himself. But his madness was different from yours. Of course he came here too. Though he never visited the Mudflats."

"Then did he go to a higher floor?"

"I cannot tell you about the structure of the Floor of Asceticism. If you want to learn about this place, you'll have to reach the end of this level yourself and move on to the next."

"But you said the founder never visited the Mudflats."

"Ruin had no need to, but you're not Ruin. You must adapt, starting at the lower levels, and reach the end."

"I've said too much," the Fragment murmured, shaking his head.

"Your lifeline... should recover in two days. For those two days, stay here and reflect on your arrogant, foolish mistake instead of doing anything unnecessary."

What would happen if he went into the Mudflats with a lifeline that had not fully recovered? Kyle was curious, but decided against taking an unnecessary risk. An ordinary spiritual root might have been another matter. His spiritual root sensed not only mana exceptionally well, but also the ominous gazes in the Mudflats.

Just as the Fragment had said, the lifeline took two full days to recover. Kyle spent those days productively enough, peering over the Fragment's shoulder to watch him develop the cultivation method and sitting in the middle of the room, absorbed in practicing his own.

Once his lifeline recovered, he headed straight into the Mudflats. Having experienced the dangers of high tide firsthand and learned that shoelace fishing carried too much risk, he devoted himself to hunting at low tide.

By the time he obtained both shoes, a year had slipped by.

"Hmm."

He had worried that the food here might be less nourishing than meals outside and stunt his growth. Fortunately, he had grown steadily over the year. Apparently the low-tide residue, whose shitty taste he still had not gotten used to, was packed with nutrients.

Kyle put the boots on both feet and hopped in place. Though new, they fit snugly, as if custom-made, and did not hinder his movements at all.

"..."

The Fragment watched him with an appalled look. Was this... admirable patience? For over a year, the boy had made most of his meals out of residue. For the last six months or so, he had barely returned to the room.

That was how accustomed he had become to life in the Mudflats. Having eaten thousands upon tens of thousands of residue creatures, his body had now finished adapting enough to live in the harsh environment outside.

His mana still stiffened, but far less than it had at first. Kyle could now ignore the discomfort and use mana outside. He could even replenish it by breathing in the mana out there, without having to return to the room.

"I'm starting not to feel any changes when I kill or eat residue. Is that normal?"

Kyle turned to the Fragment with a grin. Golden eyes shone through hair that had grown shaggy over the year. In their brilliant color, the Fragment saw a madness that did not belong in a boy his age.

"... Your body has changed too much for residue to change it any further."

"Then should I move on?"

"You could probably reach the end of the Mudflats as you are now... but I would not recommend entering the next level."

"Why not?"

"To survive there, you must be able to protect your body with aura at all times."

"An aura shield? I can do that."

Kyle raised his aura in demonstration. He had opened his middle energy center two years ago, on the very day he awakened his spiritual root. He was also familiar with applying aura thanks to his experience in his previous life. Seeing the violet aura enveloping Kyle, the Fragment shook his head.

"I won't bother being surprised that you can do that at your age. What I must do now is offer a sober assessment and dissuade you."

"So this isn't enough?"

"It isn't. I told you, you need to protect yourself with aura at all times. How long can you maintain that?"

"Hmm... five minutes?"

Kyle tilted his head as he answered. Mana was scarce in the Mudflats. Even if he practiced his cultivation method throughout high tide, when he could not hunt, he could only fill his lower energy center about halfway.

This room, by contrast, was rich in mana, but not so much richer than the Sword Tower's cultivation rooms. Since Kyle spent most of his time in the Mudflats anyway, the mana in his energy center had barely increased since his arrival.

"Five minutes is nowhere near enough. If you want to advance to the next level, you must be able to maintain an aura shield for a full day."

With his unusual spiritual root, unusual cultivation method, and even Jorm serving as a filter, Kyle was extraordinarily efficient at increasing his mana. But however efficient he might be, he was still only twelve years old. The generous supply of elixirs he had consumed gave him overwhelmingly more mana than others his age, but not enough to maintain an aura shield all day.

"Hmm."

Kyle wrinkled his nose and scratched his head vigorously. To advance to the next level, he would need to increase the mana in his lower energy center several dozen times over. That meant shutting himself in this room to spend longer cultivating, or requesting things like elixirs as rewards for killing residue.

"Well... I don't really have to go to the next level, do I?"

Kyle did not deliberate for long. Once the cultivation method was complete, his mana would grow rapidly anyway. As for elixirs, he could get more by going outside and being a good grandson to Julius. There was no need to aim for the next level right away.

"Now that I have the shoes, shouldn't I be able to go down onto the sea at high tide?"

"Not... not yet! You still haven't obtained the cloak, you ignorant brat. Your body may have adapted to the outside, but you haven't become accustomed to the abyssal gaze!"

"I've adapted this much. I think I could handle its gaze now."

"Don't be ridiculous! That gaze is something no human can ever adapt to!"

"If humans can't adapt to it, does that mean I could once I transcend humanity?"

Kyle grinned as he asked. The Fragment flinched and shut his mouth. At that silence, Kyle chuckled and tapped his head with a finger.

"As I understand it, opening this lets you transcend humanity. I take it I'll be able to face that eyeball then?"

"When you know... too much, see too much, and become able to sense too much, you come to feel new terrors you never knew before."

The Fragment shook his head, looking thoroughly fed up.

"For the sake of my own mental health, I do not wish to say anything unnecessary. That is for your sake as well. Julius probably wouldn't want to answer either."

"All right, all right. I don't want to die for nothing either, so I won't do anything reckless. It took a year to get both shoes... How long do you think the cloak will take?"

"The cloak is worth... more than the shoes. It protects you from the abyssal gaze, even if only temporarily. You can't increase your hunting speed any further, so it should take another full year."

"What about finishing the cultivation method?"

"If you had only intended to develop your body to a middling extent here, I would have finished it long ago. But you... have surpassed my expectations in several ways."

The Fragment pointed at the thick stack of parchment on his desk.

"I examine your body whenever you occasionally return, and it gives me chills every time. All that residue you've been stuffing yourself with has made your already abnormal body even more abnormal."

"Is that bad?"

"No. It's becoming the ideal vessel for your spiritual root. However..."

The Fragment sank into his chair with another deep sigh.

"The vessel changes every time I see it, so revising the method each time is a great deal of work. I'm making it far more radical and daring than my original design, but my head feels as though it's breaking apart in the process."

"You're not cutting corners because of that, are you?"

"What do you take me for? You may not understand this, but to a being... like me, a promise is absolute. So stop spoiling my mood with pointless suspicions. Go work hard and earn your cloak."

"Yes."

Kyle left the room with a broad grin.

The Fragment's estimate proved accurate. Only after another year had passed did Kyle receive his cloak.

"Not much of a design."

Two years had passed since he entered the Floor of Asceticism. His voice had broken and, though still beautiful, was no longer as childlike as before. Fingering his crudely cut, jagged hair, Kyle stared at the cloak floating in the air.

It was a thin piece of cloth woven in pitch-black, plain and devoid of elaborate embroidery or ornament. Kyle took it from the air and draped it around himself.

Like the boots, the cloak fit him perfectly. He focused on the strange sensation he felt the moment he put it on. There was a brief chill, as though he had submerged himself in cold water, and at the same time a hollow feeling, as though his whole presence were being erased from the world.

Kyle turned toward the mirror. The edges of the parts covered by the cloak shimmered indistinctly. Murmuring in admiration, he lifted its hem.

"Oh... I could use this for assassinations too."

"Assassinations, my foot. What reason would the youngest young master of the oh-so-illustrious Alastors have to assassinate anyone personally? It's a precious artifact that can withstand the abyssal gaze. Use it for its intended purpose."

The Fragment grumbled from his chair.

"I've told you repeatedly, but the cloak is not all-powerful. It can only withstand the gaze temporarily. The same goes for the boots. They're all consumables. Use them, and they'll eventually wear away."

"How long will they last?"

"That... you will naturally be able to sense. Focus on what you feel. If you notice an ominous sensation under your feet, the boots are disappearing. If you feel as though you're going to die... or simply can't endure any more... the cloak has worn out. When that happens, don't play the hero. Flee to the coral."

"So I'll have to experience it myself to find out."

With that reply, Kyle stepped out into the Mudflats.

"Mmm... That rotten smell."

Two years of toil in these rotten Mudflats had earned him two shoes and a cloak. He had not found the process boring.

Fighting residue no longer gave him any sense of tension, but cutting them down had provided more than enough real combat experience. He had also refined the swordsmanship he already knew, making it sharper and more flexible.

'I am curious about what's happening outside.'

Had Aslan escaped life in the garden and returned to the manor? Perhaps... perhaps Kyle really would have a younger sibling waiting when he went outside. If so, he dearly hoped it would be a little sister.

'Maybe that pig has been disowned. Maybe my absent uncles have returned.'

If his uncles had returned with good results, he might finally meet the grandmother he had never seen because she had been asleep all this time.

'I don't know how much longer I'll stay shut away here. But if I leave after several years, things outside should have changed accordingly.'

Not as absurdly as they had over five hundred years, of course. Kyle hoped that when he left this place, interesting changes would await him.

RUMBLE...

It was time. Ignoring the corpses of the residue he had just cut down, Kyle ran to a nearby coral pillar. They no longer changed his body anyway. Lately he had only been eating them as meals.

But starting today, he could eat something new. Kyle recalled the taste of the leech he had eaten two years ago. Those things called "byproducts" tasted much more like actual food than residue did.

"Today's meal will be a new flavor. What do you think, Jorm? Aren't you excited?"

Kyle had aged two years and his voice had broken. An ordinary child his age would be going through puberty, but while Kyle's body was thirteen, his mind belonged to the Sword Demon. No adolescent phase had come for him.

Jorm was different. Three years had passed since he contracted with Kyle and settled in his middle energy center, and he had outgrown his infancy as a spirit.

["D... die, die!"]

Kyle had never known that spirits went through puberty too. Whether this truly was puberty or two years of tasting residue and eating contaminated mana had driven Jorm mad, he could not say. In any case, Jorm had lately entered a rebellious phase befitting adolescence, and his language had grown rather rough.

"Die, my ass. If I die, you die too. Haven't you figured that out yet?"

["Die... I'm going to die!"]

"Oh, you're not telling me to die? You're saying you'll die? Who said you could talk like such a weakling?"

Kyle snickered and glanced below the coral. Thanks to that helpful hand out in the distance, tirelessly scooping up water, the pitch-black sea had already filled the space beneath him.

"Let's go."

His heart pounding with anticipation, Kyle leaped down.

["Aaaaaagh!"]

Amid Jorm's screams, Kyle's feet touched the sea. The boots kept him from sinking, but the shifting surface felt entirely different from standing in the Mudflats. He swayed, nearly falling, then quickly righted himself.

"Just standing here could count as training."

The Mudflats had been unpleasantly squelchy, but they had never heaved like this. Worse, the sea did not merely rock with the waves. It felt as though the slightest mistake in distributing his strength or balance would suck him underwater in an instant.

"..."

A chill ran through him.

He felt the cloak tingle and tremble, along with the clothes touching it and the skin beneath them. Goosebumps rose across his body. Kyle swallowed and stood motionless in silence.

He felt a gaze from the deep, deep abyss below. When he had seen that eye from atop the coral, he had felt a powerful urge to meet its gaze—but not now. He sensed the gaze, yet felt nothing beyond the chills. There was none of that sickening sensation that threatened to drive him mad.

'I see. So this is how it lets me endure.'

He could still hold out longer. Just as he sensed that, the gaze departed. The eye of the abyss had closed. Kyle opened and closed his hand, damp with cold sweat, and grinned.

"I really wonder what sort of incredible bastard is down there."

Curious though he was, he could not find out yet.

Nor should he. Kyle glided across the sea, glancing down. The cloak protected him not only from the abyssal gaze, but from the byproducts' gazes as well. That meant they did not attack even when he came down to walk on the sea.

He would have to provoke them first. After walking across the sea for some time, Kyle stopped. Below, he saw a writhing leech—and deeper still, an enormous anglerfish hanging motionless.

Was it the same one from two years ago? He had certainly cut off the leech then, but it might have regenerated over the last two years.

It did not really matter whether this was the same individual. The leech he had eaten two years ago had tasted fairly good, so he had decided to make a proper meal of one for this momentous first feast.

The aura enveloping his wooden sword stabbed into the sea.

The surface heaved around the plunging aura. Kyle stood still, waiting for the creature's reaction while trying to learn what the world below was like through the aura penetrating the depths.

'My sword aura... is being squeezed.'

The aura covering Kyle's sword—his sword aura—perfectly reproduced the experience of his previous life. Yet this flawlessly refined sword aura shrank the moment it entered the sea, compressed as though it would burst. Had anyone but Kyle been controlling it, that would have happened the instant it plunged underwater.

'Water pressure...'

When describing the dangers of this sea, the Fragment had called it a poisonous liquid that corrupted everything it touched. But judging by the pressure Kyle currently sensed through his sword aura, corruption would be the least of his concerns. Simply entering the water seemed enough to squeeze his body to death.

Kyle focused harder on maintaining his sword aura. As it descended and touched the leech, a powerful vibration traveled back through it. His heart pounding, Kyle leaped backward.

BOOOOM!

The surface where he had stood erupted with an explosive roar. A huge wave rose, but rather than move to avoid it, Kyle circulated his mana and focused on the sensations coming through the soles of his boots.

These boots allowed him to stand on the sea one way or another. Even amid the raging waves, he would not fall in so long as he maintained his balance. The torrent swept his whole body this way and that, making him sway, but his center remained steady.

Soon the black seawater rushed inward, forming an enormous whirlpool. The sea was pouring into the gaping mouth of the anglerfish rising toward the surface.

["D-die! Die!"]

The adolescent Jorm shrieked in short bursts. Such a lack of spirit. Perhaps Kyle ought to set aside a day to straighten him out?

["I'm w-worried! I'm saying it because I'm worried!"]

Reading Kyle's thoughts, Jorm cried out again. Apparently he did not want that lesson.

In truth, however timid his words, Jorm was doing exactly as Kyle intended. He was already fiercely generating mana in the middle energy center, concentrating on refining the mana surging up from the lower energy center into sword aura.

CRACKLE!

The wooden sword emerged from the water wrapped in aura. It was sharper and larger than what Kyle ordinarily used to dismember residue. The aura writhed wildly like lightning, then spiraled around the wooden blade. Kyle firmly gripped the hilt with both hands.

"Long time no see."

He did not know whether it was the same creature from two years ago, but he greeted it warmly. In any case, something that looked like this had eaten him two years earlier.

Without the lifeline, he would have been eaten and killed then. It would have been his second death across his two lives. Judging purely by the outcome, this enormous anglerfish had done the same thing as Ruin Alastor.

'If I'd actually died that time, anyway.'

The corners of Kyle's mouth twitched upward. The lifeline's protection had spared him death, but he had still suffered a "defeat" two years ago. He had experienced defeat several times in his previous life too, so it brought him no self-loathing.

The reason was simple. He would win when they fought again. Ever since his previous life, Kyle—the Sword Demon—had fled each defeat with that thought.

ROOOAR!

The sea rushed into the anglerfish's gaping mouth. Rather than flee, Kyle let the current carry him toward it. He felt not the slightest fear of that enormous maw swallowing everything in its path.

Things were very different from two years ago. Back then, he had been stranded on the coral with nowhere to dodge, and his mana had not been flexible enough to strike at the moment he wanted. Now he could run anywhere across the sea, choose his own timing, and move his mana freely.

He had countless ways to cut down the enormous anglerfish right now, and chose an easy, convenient one. Like the leech, its skin would likely resist all but exceptional sword aura. In that case, the simplest approach was to stab into its mouth, just as he had done to the leech.

The sword's tip followed the mind. Kyle thrust the wooden sword forward with both hands, just before the anglerfish's mouth swallowed him. As he drove the blade toward that black cavern of a maw, the aura wrapped around it spun even more furiously and exploded.

SHAAAANG!

The vortex of aura shot straight ahead, becoming sword aura. The elongated blade pierced the darkness and swept upward.

SPLURT!

The roof of the anglerfish's mouth split in two.

That was the end. The seawater drawn into its mouth surged back out. This time, rather than stand his ground on the sea, Kyle leaped up and clung to the side of a nearby coral pillar, keeping the backwash from carrying him too far away.

The sea settled. Kyle watched it carefully. Various monsters besides the anglerfish lurked beneath that black water, but everything he had learned so far suggested they did not form groups. Whether wary of one another or simply indifferent, they kept a considerable distance apart.

That made picking them off one at a time easy. But if they scavenged corpses, things would become troublesome. And this anglerfish was far too large.

'I've used quite a bit of mana too.'

He could not possibly eat the whole thing. He would take only as much as he could eat and rest for today. As that thought crossed his mind, black smoke rose from the anglerfish.

Just like residue, successfully hunting a byproduct added strength to his body.

WHOOOOSH!

The black smoke pouring from the anglerfish enveloped Kyle.

"Urgh...!"

His teeth clenched involuntarily. The concentration of energy was on an entirely different level from the residue he had killed. Searing pain engulfed his whole body, as though boiling lava had been poured over him.

CRACKLE...!

His joints twisted and his muscles convulsed. Energy so potent and vicious that even the Fragment's blessing—which purified the Mudflats' tainted energy for him to absorb—struggled to handle it shook his mind.

["M-Master?"]

Jorm hurriedly circulated mana to cool the heat, but Kyle shook his head.

"I'm fine."

The changes were as dramatic as the pain. The energy permeating his body tore apart muscle fibers and wove them anew, reconstructing them tougher and stronger. His already broad mana circuits felt as though they were expanding further, and several circuits that had nearly touched now firmly joined.

'They'll connect if I keep stuffing myself.'

The changes were even more noticeable in his spiritual root. A spiritual root containing the entire world. The nature of chaos, lacking harmony yet embracing everything, capable of becoming anything.

Even a spiritual root with such qualities had not contained distortions as unpleasant and ominous as those of the Mudflats' inhabitants. Eating residue for two whole years had gradually added distortion to his spiritual root, but never had a single intake caused so much change.

'I see. Residue and byproducts really are on different levels...'

The heat subsided. Kyle steadied his breathing and wiped away the cold sweat soaking his face.

["Grrrkkk..."]

In his middle energy center, Jorm twisted his entire body and let out a strange groan. Changes great enough for Kyle to feel also affected Jorm, who nested there. Born an infant lightning spirit, Jorm had been unmistakably exceeding the bounds of his own existence since entering the Floor of Asceticism.

'Am I doing the same?'

Kyle kept breathing deeply as he considered it. Two years in the Mudflats. He had killed and eaten countless residue creatures. His body had been far from ordinary to begin with, but now he truly had no idea where it was headed.

'It's certainly moving toward being better at wielding a sword.'

Of that he was sure. Kyle leaped down onto the now-calm sea, approached the anglerfish's corpse, and raised his wooden sword.

SWISH!

Though he had not even circulated mana through his cultivation method, his swing generated a sharp blast of air that sliced cleanly through the anglerfish's flesh.

"..."

His body was incomparably stronger than before he entered the Floor of Asceticism. And eating byproducts would only make it stronger still. Kyle gave a disbelieving laugh and nodded.

"I'll have to get used to controlling my strength too."

If his body kept growing stronger like this, he might snap his spoon every time he ate. Carrying a piece of anglerfish flesh as large as his torso, Kyle bounded up onto the coral.

Sitting at the coral's edge, he looked down for a moment. The sticky red blood flowing from the anglerfish's corpse did not change the sea's color. Instead, the surging sea was rapidly dissolving the corpse.

Before long, that enormous body became part of the sea without leaving a trace. Kyle shook his head with a hollow laugh.

"I couldn't eat it all anyway."

Should he be grateful that no other byproduct had stolen it? Thinking that, Kyle turned toward the flesh beside him.

["Grrk... kk... A-are... you going... to eat it?"]

Still writhing, Jorm stammered out the question. Rather than answer, Kyle rubbed his jaw joints and brought his face close to the anglerfish flesh.

The lump of meat tangled in scarlet slime looked stomach-turning, but after eating every kind of residue during two years in the Mudflats, Kyle did not care.

'Hmm.'

Compared with its appearance, it actually smelled good. A deep, rich scent of the sea, perhaps. Kyle sniffed a few times, then boldly bit into the flesh.

He chewed.

'This is delicious.'

He meant it. Unlike the nauseating taste of residue, the anglerfish tasted much more like food. It was rather like eating a rich seafood soup. Every time he chewed the meat, something seemed to burst inside his mouth—no, inside his body.

'Hmm...'

It tasted good, but his body hurt. Closing his eyes, Kyle felt the changes happening within. The countless mana circuits connected to his lower energy center—the circuits he had spent two years joining together—were breaking apart once, then being sturdily reconstructed.

"Whew..."

After finishing his meal while enduring the unrelenting pain, Kyle closed his eyes and practiced his cultivation method.

The Primordial Chaos Circulation Method he had racked his brains to develop before entering the Floor of Asceticism now felt far beneath this body. His mana flowed noticeably faster and more violently, and could go anywhere he wished. Precisely because it had become so free, the operating principles of his earlier method now felt like shackles.

'I'm a real monster now.'

Back in the Sword Tower, Julius had called him a monstrous treasure, a treasured monster, and the like several times. But such assessments had never particularly excited Kyle.

Being unbelievably strong for his age? That was because he had reincarnated with all his memories as the Sword Demon intact. The swordsmanship and mana control everyone in the Sword Tower admired were things he had already done in his previous life—and done better. He had yet to mature sufficiently in several respects.

Even as he tried various ways to surpass his former life, he had found it difficult to imagine just how strong he might become. He had few lingering regrets about his life as the Sword Demon. He had fought his fill, enjoyed himself to the fullest, and grown as strong as he could imagine.

But he had still fallen short of Ruin Alastor, lost to him, and died. He had vaguely resolved to become stronger than his former self, stronger than Ruin, and love the sword even more. Honestly, though, he had struggled to picture that future clearly.

The reason was simple. Kyle—the Sword Demon—had never seen Ruin Alastor's full strength. He knew his own full strength at the time of his defeat, however, and had considered it the ultimate limit.

Now he understood exactly how low that supposed ceiling had been. He was certain that merely completing this body would give him the foundation to far surpass his previous life. Having sensed that at only thirteen, perhaps he could now proudly call himself a monster.

'...'

Kyle looked at the hand beyond the horizon, far in the distance. Seeing it still sent chills through his body and made his head throb, but perhaps thanks to the cloak, he could now look at it fairly directly.

'A hand...'

Beyond the horizon was something that looked like a hand, yet was not one. In the sky was something that provoked terror merely by looking up at it. In the deep sea, too, was something that seemed capable of driving him mad, killing him, or perhaps doing something even worse, simply by meeting his eyes.

Those were likely transcendent beings, far beyond anything the word "monster" could describe. Kyle grinned without realizing it, then glanced beside him.

He saw the anglerfish flesh he had left more than half uneaten. He had not stopped because he was full, but because he felt he should eat no more.

Even the best medicine could ruin the body in excess. The anglerfish's flesh—the flesh of a byproduct—was no different. He instinctively knew that forcing down more would damage his body. The same went for hunting. If impatience drove him to absorb too much energy, something would happen to his very existence.

'I'll have to spend a few years here after all.'

With that thought, Kyle closed his eyes.

* * *

As the Fragment had said, the boots and cloak were consumables. Though earned through two years of hunting residue, they would wear away with use.

Fortunately, they lasted considerably longer than Kyle had expected. That was because he did not linger on the sea, instead finishing his byproduct hunts quickly.

Still, they did wear out. After about two months, both the cloak and boots vanished at once, and Kyle immediately returned to the room.

"A cloak and shoes."

After exchanging a cursory greeting with the Fragment, Kyle immediately requested a cloak and shoes as his reward. Fortunately, byproducts were on a far higher level than residue, and he received them as soon as he asked.

After that, Kyle settled into a fixed routine.

By day, he killed residue. By night, he killed and ate byproducts.

When his cloak and boots wore out, he returned to the room to receive replacements.

"Hmm."

On the black sea, atop the corpse of a sea anemone with countless tentacles hanging limp, Kyle opened his pocket watch.

Four years had already passed since he entered the Floor of Asceticism.

"Killing and eating them doesn't change much anymore."

["Then... then..."]

Behind Kyle, an enormous violet snake raised its head from noisily chewing the anemone's tentacles. Despite its terrifying appearance, its eyes sparkled, brimming with tears.

["Are we... finally leaving?"]

"Hmm..."

Slurping down a tentacle cut into bite-size pieces, Kyle propped his chin on his hand.

["Master, why aren't you answering right away? If eating them doesn't change anything, we can just leave now!"]

The snake—Jorm—thrust his enormous head forward and pleaded. Five years ago, he had been the size of a finger. Now he was large enough to swallow a person whole in one gulp.

Kyle pushed Jorm's head away with one hand and stood.

"Let's head back to the room first."

["Yaaaaay!"]

Jorm trembled with cheers.