While time felt like it was passing quickly, I was slightly anxious about my unchanging self.
Of course, I wasn’t just playing around during that time.
I went to the training ground every day without fail and trained.
I also tried to get closer to the people around me in my own way.
Of course, there weren’t many results.
The way people looked at me as if I were a bug was truly heartbreaking.
It couldn’t be helped.
In a way, this was a consequence of my own actions.
According to the Time Stop Breeding Uncle’s diary, he easily stole food and belongings that people brought using time stop.
From the people’s perspective, he was a suspicious person who always had an abundance of food despite not working at all.
Naturally, he was bound to receive bad looks from people.
“Besides, the time stop ability isn’t completely invincible either.”
Of course, I wasn’t talking nonsense about the time stop ability being weak.
Rather, the more I used it, the more I realized that it was an overpowered ability.
But it wasn’t like it doesn’t have weaknesses.
First of all, the biggest weakness was the cooldown.
Surprisingly, I could control the duration at will.
But instead, the cooldown was twice the stopped time.
In other words, I couldn’t spam it recklessly.
Of course, it wouldn’t have mattered in the original work.
He appeared after all the enemies were dead.
Moreover, with time stopped, the opponent couldn’t even react.
Was there a need to care about the cooldown?
But now the situation was different.
If the opponent was an ordinary human, it might be fine.
But there were many cases where they didn’t die even if their heads were cut off due to regeneration.
Of course, that didn’t mean the value of the time stop ability had diminished.
The fact that it allowed you to fight in a very advantageous situation was more than enough to make the value of the time stop ability overflow.
But if I couldn’t finish off the enemy, I would end up losing.
In other words, it meant I shouldn’t be arrogant just because I had the overpowered ability to time stop.
In fact, even in other novels or comics, there were many guys who died miserably after being arrogant just because they had an overpowered ability.
“Huff, huff.”
And the second weakness was the extreme stamina consumption.
To put it simply, it was similar to running a marathon.
Stamina was continuously consumed, and in the end, I would become exhausted and collapse, causing the time stop to be released.
In other words, as long as my stamina held up, I could maintain a time stopped state for as long as I wanted.
That also meant that individual skills were important.
If you didn’t have stamina, you couldn’t maintain it.
Also, even if you stopped time, if you couldn’t kill the enemy, you would end up dying.
Of course, if I deliberately ran away, I would never die.
But not everything goes as planned.
“Uncle! Uncle!”
“Oh my god, you startled me. When did you come again?”
“I just came now!”
The training ground set up in the refugee camp was available to anyone.
And that included the little ones too.
Thanks to that, the red-haired kid I met before was coming to see me almost every day.
The more I looked at him, the more I felt like I had seen him a lot somewhere.
But I didn’t know where I had seen him.
I clicked my tongue and looked at the kid.
I don’t know what he was so happy about, but the kid was smiling brightly.
“Why do you keep coming to see me?”
“Just because! I’m curious about what you’re doing, Uncle.”
“This uncle is always diligently exercising.”
“Why? To lose weight?”
“…Yeah.”
I was unexpectedly hit with facts.
Did I look like a pig even to the kid?
I had suddenly become very depressed.
But, I had to admit what needed to be admitted.
I was indeed a pig right now.
In fact, it was amazing to gain weight in this situation.
Well, the Time Stop Breeding Uncle always easily obtained food.
Despite that, he didn’t exercise and just played and ate every day.
That was why he had no choice but to become a pig.
And now I had to take all the responsibility for that.
When I thought about it, I felt so wronged that I thought I would go crazy.
So, I just stopped thinking about it.
“I think you’ve lost weight compared to when I first saw you!”
“Really?”
“No!”
This little bastard?
I ran forward to smack him on the head as punishment for daring to tease an adult.
The kid ran away laughing.
It seemed like I had a lot of stress built up.
I chuckled.
Yeah, every child should have always been able to smile and live freely, just like a child.
But suddenly, someone blocked my way.
When I looked up, I saw a young man wearing brown leather armor.
He seemed to be in his early to mid-20s.
He had relatively clean skin and blue hair.
But what was important wasn’t that.
It was the equipment he was wearing now.
Brown leather armor and a cheap shortsword.
It might not look like much, but it was actually a supply item given to the village guards.
In other words, to summarize the current situation, it means I got caught by the police.
Aaaaahhhh!!!
Stay calm, stay calm.
Even if you got bitten by a tiger, you could survive if you kept your mind straight.
I hadn’t done anything wrong yet.
But a guard appeared.
Why?
First, I had to calmly think about the reason.
What was I doing just now?
I was playing with the kid.
The kid was running away, and I was chasing after him…
Oh shit, I unwittingly accepted it.
What do I do now?
“Are you trying to even rape a child now, Hans?”
“Why would I do such a thing?!”
“Yeah? Then how will you explain what just happened?”
The slightly raised corners of his mouth were filled with ridicule.
At first, I thought he intervened because I was suspicious.
But I could clearly feel malice.
I snorted and said,
“They say people see what they want to see. You’re exactly like that.”
“What did you say?”
“What? Am I wrong?”
“You bastard!! Even though you can’t even make eye contact normally!”
“…”
It seemed like this guy knew the Time Stop Breeding Uncle.
He called me by name earlier.
Somehow, I thought it was strange that he approached me so casually.
But there was a secret behind it.
But even with that much power, did the Time Stop Breeding Uncle really live with his eyes down?
No, in a way, it was conscientious.
At least it meant he acknowledged the fact that he was trash.
I glanced away.
People who were drawn to the commotion were whispering and looking this way.
They were all giving me bad looks.
Naturally, in my direction.
This was not good.
Putting aside the circumstances of transmigration or whatever, objectively, I was at a great disadvantage.
Anyway, I was currently a useless burden to the village.
On the contrary, he was a guard of the village.
“What’s wrong? Where did that confident mouth from earlier go?”
“…”
The momentum shifted.
Realizing that, his expression became arrogant again.
There was nothing good about fighting more here.
In the worst case, I might even be kicked out of the village.
That would be troublesome.
Of course, I had the time stop ability.
But between building strength in the relatively safe refugee camp and dangerously rolling outside, even a fool can figure out which was better.
“It seems you finally understand your place, Hans.”
“…”
“This is your last chance. Apologize, and I’ll specially let it go.”
“Da…”
If he’d let this go with a simple apology, I had nothing to lose.
If I could get through this situation with just an apology, it was a rather profitable deal.
The humiliation now could be paid back anytime later.
“Ah, stop bothering Uncle!!!”
“???”
If the kid hadn’t intervened in the middle, I definitely would have done that.
I was startled.
At some point, the red-haired kid got between me and the young man, trying to protect me.
“This is an adult matter. It’s not something a child should get involved in.”
“Uncle is a good person! He gave me unspoiled food!”
“Wh-why are you suddenly bringing that up here?!”
He seemed flustered.
The kid, with a reddened face and even tears in his eyes, shouted at the top of his lungs.
It seemed like he was just blurting out whatever, but thanks to that, I realized one thing.
“That spoiled food from before…You gave it to him?”
“He gave spoiled food to a child?”
“What are you talking about? A guard wouldn’t…”
The atmosphere changed again.
With a single word from an innocent child, people’s attention had now focused on him.
Come to think of it, I thought it was strange.
Giving spoiled food, even if he was like that.
“Don’t tell me you were fighting over that issue?”
“Giving spoiled food is a problem, so…”
“If we don’t properly protest this…”
Thanks to that, I also gained a justification.
People mistakenly thought we were fighting over that issue.
As the situation turned unfavorable, his expression soon turned red with anger.
“You damn brat!!!”
“Aaaahh?!”
In the end, unable to contain his anger, he swung his fist.
My reaction was too slow.
Even though he was a guard, his fist was incredibly fast.
If things went wrong, the child could really die.
However, just before the fist made contact, all the colors around me disappeared.
Soon, in that world dyed gray, I was the only one who could move.
I quickly grabbed the back of the kid’s neck.
And as I pulled him back, I stretched out my palm to block the guard’s fist.
Soon, time flowed.
Baam!!
A tremendous noise rang out.
I frowned and said,
“I don’t think that’s something you should do to a child.”
“It, it hurts…!!”
“Where did you learn to say that?”
The kid, whose neck was grabbed by me, spoke with sparkling eyes.
But the reality wasn’t that cool.
The fist was so fast that my reaction was slow.
I was also overpowered in strength.
If it wasn’t for time stop, I wouldn’t have been able to block it.
Fortunately, the other guards arrested the young man.
Thanks to that, I was saved.
At the same time, I realized.
I couldn’t stay like this.
“I need to become stronger than I am now.”
To find a way to return to my original world, I would need power whether I liked it or not.
Until now, I didn’t use it for safety, but if I continued like this, I didn’t know when I would become strong.
From today, I’ll use time stop to train.
I might be in danger due to the cooldown, but staying like this wouldn’t change anything.
A week had already passed.
While time felt like it was passing quickly, I was slightly anxious about my unchanging self.
Of course, I wasn’t just playing around during that time.
I went to the training ground every day without fail and trained.
I also tried to get closer to the people around me in my own way.
Of course, there weren’t many results.
The way people looked at me as if I were a bug was truly heartbreaking.
It couldn’t be helped.
In a way, this was a consequence of my own actions.
According to the Time Stop Breeding Uncle’s diary, he easily stole food and belongings that people brought using time stop.
From the people’s perspective, he was a suspicious person who always had an abundance of food despite not working at all.
Naturally, he was bound to receive bad looks from people.
“Besides, the time stop ability isn’t completely invincible either.”
Of course, I wasn’t talking nonsense about the time stop ability being weak.
Rather, the more I used it, the more I realized that it was an overpowered ability.
But it wasn’t like it doesn’t have weaknesses.
First of all, the biggest weakness was the cooldown.
Surprisingly, I could control the duration at will.
But instead, the cooldown was twice the stopped time.
In other words, I couldn’t spam it recklessly.
Of course, it wouldn’t have mattered in the original work.
He appeared after all the enemies were dead.
Moreover, with time stopped, the opponent couldn’t even react.
Was there a need to care about the cooldown?
But now the situation was different.
If the opponent was an ordinary human, it might be fine.
But there were many cases where they didn’t die even if their heads were cut off due to regeneration.
Of course, that didn’t mean the value of the time stop ability had diminished.
The fact that it allowed you to fight in a very advantageous situation was more than enough to make the value of the time stop ability overflow.
But if I couldn’t finish off the enemy, I would end up losing.
In other words, it meant I shouldn’t be arrogant just because I had the overpowered ability to time stop.
In fact, even in other novels or comics, there were many guys who died miserably after being arrogant just because they had an overpowered ability.
“Huff, huff.”
And the second weakness was the extreme stamina consumption.
To put it simply, it was similar to running a marathon.
Stamina was continuously consumed, and in the end, I would become exhausted and collapse, causing the time stop to be released.
In other words, as long as my stamina held up, I could maintain a time stopped state for as long as I wanted.
That also meant that individual skills were important.
If you didn’t have stamina, you couldn’t maintain it.
Also, even if you stopped time, if you couldn’t kill the enemy, you would end up dying.
Of course, if I deliberately ran away, I would never die.
But not everything goes as planned.
“Uncle! Uncle!”
“Oh my god, you startled me. When did you come again?”
“I just came now!”
The training ground set up in the refugee camp was available to anyone.
And that included the little ones too.
Thanks to that, the red-haired kid I met before was coming to see me almost every day.
The more I looked at him, the more I felt like I had seen him a lot somewhere.
But I didn’t know where I had seen him.
I clicked my tongue and looked at the kid.
I don’t know what he was so happy about, but the kid was smiling brightly.
“Why do you keep coming to see me?”
“Just because! I’m curious about what you’re doing, Uncle.”
“This uncle is always diligently exercising.”
“Why? To lose weight?”
“…Yeah.”
I was unexpectedly hit with facts.
Did I look like a pig even to the kid?
I had suddenly become very depressed.
But, I had to admit what needed to be admitted.
I was indeed a pig right now.
In fact, it was amazing to gain weight in this situation.
Well, the Time Stop Breeding Uncle always easily obtained food.
Despite that, he didn’t exercise and just played and ate every day.
That was why he had no choice but to become a pig.
And now I had to take all the responsibility for that.
When I thought about it, I felt so wronged that I thought I would go crazy.
So, I just stopped thinking about it.
“I think you’ve lost weight compared to when I first saw you!”
“Really?”
“No!”
This little bastard?
I ran forward to smack him on the head as punishment for daring to tease an adult.
The kid ran away laughing.
It seemed like I had a lot of stress built up.
I chuckled.
Yeah, every child should have always been able to smile and live freely, just like a child.
But suddenly, someone blocked my way.
When I looked up, I saw a young man wearing brown leather armor.
He seemed to be in his early to mid-20s.
He had relatively clean skin and blue hair.
But what was important wasn’t that.
It was the equipment he was wearing now.
Brown leather armor and a cheap shortsword.
It might not look like much, but it was actually a supply item given to the village guards.
In other words, to summarize the current situation, it means I got caught by the police.
Aaaaahhhh!!!
Stay calm, stay calm.
Even if you got bitten by a tiger, you could survive if you kept your mind straight.
I hadn’t done anything wrong yet.
But a guard appeared.
Why?
First, I had to calmly think about the reason.
What was I doing just now?
I was playing with the kid.
The kid was running away, and I was chasing after him…
Oh shit, I unwittingly accepted it.
What do I do now?
“Are you trying to even rape a child now, Hans?”
“Why would I do such a thing?!”
“Yeah? Then how will you explain what just happened?”
The slightly raised corners of his mouth were filled with ridicule.
At first, I thought he intervened because I was suspicious.
But I could clearly feel malice.
I snorted and said,
“They say people see what they want to see. You’re exactly like that.”
“What did you say?”
“What? Am I wrong?”
“You bastard!! Even though you can’t even make eye contact normally!”
“…”
It seemed like this guy knew the Time Stop Breeding Uncle.
He called me by name earlier.
Somehow, I thought it was strange that he approached me so casually.
But there was a secret behind it.
But even with that much power, did the Time Stop Breeding Uncle really live with his eyes down?
No, in a way, it was conscientious.
At least it meant he acknowledged the fact that he was trash.
I glanced away.
People who were drawn to the commotion were whispering and looking this way.
They were all giving me bad looks.
Naturally, in my direction.
This was not good.
Putting aside the circumstances of transmigration or whatever, objectively, I was at a great disadvantage.
Anyway, I was currently a useless burden to the village.
On the contrary, he was a guard of the village.
“What’s wrong? Where did that confident mouth from earlier go?”
“…”
The momentum shifted.
Realizing that, his expression became arrogant again.
There was nothing good about fighting more here.
In the worst case, I might even be kicked out of the village.
That would be troublesome.
Of course, I had the time stop ability.
But between building strength in the relatively safe refugee camp and dangerously rolling outside, even a fool can figure out which was better.
“It seems you finally understand your place, Hans.”
“…”
“This is your last chance. Apologize, and I’ll specially let it go.”
“Da…”
If he’d let this go with a simple apology, I had nothing to lose.
If I could get through this situation with just an apology, it was a rather profitable deal.
The humiliation now could be paid back anytime later.
“Ah, stop bothering Uncle!!!”
“???”
If the kid hadn’t intervened in the middle, I definitely would have done that.
I was startled.
At some point, the red-haired kid got between me and the young man, trying to protect me.
“This is an adult matter. It’s not something a child should get involved in.”
“Uncle is a good person! He gave me unspoiled food!”
“Wh-why are you suddenly bringing that up here?!”
He seemed flustered.
The kid, with a reddened face and even tears in his eyes, shouted at the top of his lungs.
It seemed like he was just blurting out whatever, but thanks to that, I realized one thing.
“That spoiled food from before…You gave it to him?”
“He gave spoiled food to a child?”
“What are you talking about? A guard wouldn’t…”
The atmosphere changed again.
With a single word from an innocent child, people’s attention had now focused on him.
Come to think of it, I thought it was strange.
Giving spoiled food, even if he was like that.
“Don’t tell me you were fighting over that issue?”
“Giving spoiled food is a problem, so…”
“If we don’t properly protest this…”
Thanks to that, I also gained a justification.
People mistakenly thought we were fighting over that issue.
As the situation turned unfavorable, his expression soon turned red with anger.
“You damn brat!!!”
“Aaaahh?!”
In the end, unable to contain his anger, he swung his fist.
My reaction was too slow.
Even though he was a guard, his fist was incredibly fast.
If things went wrong, the child could really die.
However, just before the fist made contact, all the colors around me disappeared.
Soon, in that world dyed gray, I was the only one who could move.
I quickly grabbed the back of the kid’s neck.
And as I pulled him back, I stretched out my palm to block the guard’s fist.
Soon, time flowed.
Baam!!
A tremendous noise rang out.
I frowned and said,
“I don’t think that’s something you should do to a child.”
“It, it hurts…!!”
“Where did you learn to say that?”
The kid, whose neck was grabbed by me, spoke with sparkling eyes.
But the reality wasn’t that cool.
The fist was so fast that my reaction was slow.
I was also overpowered in strength.
If it wasn’t for time stop, I wouldn’t have been able to block it.
Fortunately, the other guards arrested the young man.
Thanks to that, I was saved.
At the same time, I realized.
I couldn’t stay like this.
“I need to become stronger than I am now.”
To find a way to return to my original world, I would need power whether I liked it or not.
Until now, I didn’t use it for safety, but if I continued like this, I didn’t know when I would become strong.
From today, I’ll use time stop to train.
I might be in danger due to the cooldown, but staying like this wouldn’t change anything.
