Ethnobalt had explained how the holy heroes, other than Kizuna, had all been killed in her world. Control had been taken by a group who seemed to be a vanguard for the waves and also had access to the Takt-like power to steal people’s weapons.

“Tell me, Ethnobalt. Just to confirm, when do you think it would be best to cross to Kizuna’s world?” I asked. I had already returned the anchor accessory to him that he had previously given me. We could apparently use that trinket to cross over. However, there were some timing-based issues we needed to deal with first.

I had plenty of other stuff to be getting along with, of course. But I also wanted to go and save Raphtalia as quickly as possible.

“I think it will take three more days. Then I will be able to use the power of the accessory and take you across to our world,” he replied.

“Okay. In which case, I’ll use that time to make the required preparations,” I said, then shouted, “Gaelion!” He replied with a rumbling squawk, flying in at my call. I’d noticed that he was operating independently from Wyndia a lot more recently.

After claiming the dragon cores from Takt’s own Dragon Emperor, Gaelion had now ascended to the position of the greatest Dragon Emperor currently roaming the world. He had also acquired the knowledge about how to break the limit on the level cap.

In order to explain this limit-breaking knowledge, I need to first explain about this world and the levels that exist here.

To put it simply, this world has an element very much like the “levels” seen in video games. Defeating monsters awards you with experience, and that experience can raise your level. However, everyone aside from heroes has a level cap in place, the first one at 40 and the second one at 100. In order to break the 40th-level cap, you can use—with permission from the state—a facility called a “dragon hourglass” to perform a class-up ritual. The method for breaking the 100th-level cap, however, had been lost to us until now. It was no longer lost though, because Gaelion now knew how to do it.

“Considering we’re facing plenty more fighting in the future, think you could gather up everyone ready for the limit break and get it done?” I asked.

“Kwaa!” Gaelion responded affirmatively. He sounded pretty happy, perhaps pleased to be able to do something to help me out. That business with the class-ups for the monsters hadn’t really gone his way.

“You certainly have some interesting techniques here in your world, Naofumi,” Ethnobalt commented.

“What about in Kizuna’s world?” I asked.

“There’s a level cap, of course. If we could take this technique back with us, it might help us overcome our current troubles,” Ethnobalt pondered.

“I bet the system isn’t the same,” I replied. Our world and Kizuna’s world were quite different from each other. Just as they handled the seven star weapons and vassal weapons differently, the methods for limit-breaking were probably different too.