The next day.

When Shu Himo woke up, he was greeted by the view of a burly man standing in front of him.

The man was a tiger-man with orange ears and tail. In front of his figure, anyone would feel to be mere prey. And that man was staring straight at Shu Himo, as if trying to see his soul.

“Wha-?!” Shu Himo was shocked. Who is this guy…? He looked around to try understand the situation, as he tried to remember what was happening.

That was when he noticed the presence of two other people behind. They were a frail-looking man and the woman he had seen the day before.

The frail-looking man had fluffy gray ears and tail, he was a wolf-man who appeared weak at first, but Shu Himo felt he wasn't so simple.

Looking lastly at the woman, Shu Himo was puzzled. A cat-woman? She had black ears and tail. He was sure that he didn’t notice the existence of such traits before. Maybe I overlooked it before, he thought. He was exhausted from shattering his own cultivation, after all.

As of why he was able to recognize their races, he felt it was like an instinct to him. I guess it is something left behind by the former Shu Himo...

Oh. Shu Himo blinked. Right, I was kidnapped. He had completely forgotten about it.

The three were staring at him as if they were about to skin him alive. This puzzled Shu Himo, so he was about to ask what they wanted when the tiger-man cut him first.

“You— What did you do yesterday to fill the room with so much blood? Do you think you can just stain everywhere as you like?”

So unreasonable, thought Shu Himo. He was about to reply, when he heard a message from the system.

[The integration of the memories of the former Shu Himo has been completed.]

[Warning! A part of the memories is sealed. Do you want to unseal them?]

Surprised for a moment, Shu Himo replied quickly, Yes!

[Please pay 50.000.000.000 BS points.]

Oi! Cut it out, I won’t find so many points even if I were to spam quests for ten years!

Knowing that he could not unseal those parts of memories, Shu Himo went through the rest of the memories. He was stunned to find out how the former Shu Himo acted.

The former Shu Himo was the son of the Shu Family's head, an influential military family of the Arsia Kingdom. His father had always doted on him, never forcing him to do anything he didn't want. He believed that, no matter what could happen, everything would be fine.

Placed in such situation, he had never bothered to cultivate properly and resorted to cultivating via pills, which built a shallow foundation.

The news of such "lazy" behavior had spread throughout the kingdom, and everyone started to consider him a waste. He got gradually despised by most, especially by those who didn't know if they could live the next day. The public opinion toward him was worsening continuously. However, he had never cared about it.

Usually, children would start to cultivate as 3 years old, but he had started at 5, without placing any importance on it.

Knowing that he was too weak to defend himself, a man had kidnapped him and locked him in an unknown room. It was the first time he had felt true despair. In a panic, he had started to cultivate frantically, but due to his poor foundation his cultivation went berserk and he died on the spot.

It was afterward that the Shu Himo from the other world came as the substitute for him.

It seems that he was a bit too naive… Shu Himo smiled bitterly. He was lost in his thoughts, when he heard a call.

“Oi! Are you answering me or not?!” The tone of the tiger-man seemed about to erupt. “If I ask you a question, you will answer me immediately!”

His authoritative tone reflected his large build. Startled, Shu Himo was about to answer anxiously.

He lived a good part of his life as a shut-in, so he didn't have too much experience with others. In front of three cultivators staring him like that, he felt a bit under pressure. But when he was about to reply, he felt his years of reading novels flash in front of him.

Right, how could I have forgotten about it? He almost felt shame for this moment of weakness. Luckily, he had finally remembered one of the most important rules he had come up after watching many main characters for so much time.

In front of a crisis be always cool and cold, answer as nonchalant as possible!

Thinking about it, these three are just random mobs, why would I fear them?

His uneasy expression grew into a light smile as his eyes turned colder. Using the expression he had trained for ages in front of the mirror, Shu Himo stared at the tiger-man, looking at him as if he were a dead man.

Shocked by the sudden gaze, the man jumped back reflexively and crashed against the wall. Not even caring about it, he locked his gaze on Shu Himo. He didn't dare to miss a single of his actions.

Being stared like that by someone who he had considered trash sent his mind in disarray. His heart’s beat sped up. Feeling threatened, he signaled to the other two to come out of the room with him.

Upon sight of the tiger-man's reaction, the other two almost burst into laughter. But, feeling something wrong about the situation, they increased their alertness and nodded to him.

The three stopped inquiring about the previous day’s happenings and walked out of the room.

“Don’t make a mess anymore. If you make any suspicious movement we’ll break your arms and legs.” Having made his warning, the wolf-man locked the door and followed the other two.

The three then walked to another room, when the cat-woman turned to the tiger-man, “Jenh, what were you so scared about?”

He hesitated for a moment but then started to explain.

“His gaze turned cold all of a sudden, and I felt as if I were locked on by death itself. My body shivered, and my instincts screamed to get out of there.” He clenched his fists trying to muster courage. ”Still, I believe that it happened only because I lowered my guard. I shouldn’t have considered him trash… I think we should stop underestimate him or we may get bitten to death before we notice it.”

Hearing the nonsense from the man the two felt like laughing, but still decided to increase their guard against the kid, just to be sure.

-----

Looking at the three walking outside, Shu Himo felt proud of his acting ability.

[Nice job. The User successfully alerted the three enemies, reducing the chance to escape or to kill them.]

"System, can't you act a bit more proud?” Shu Himo felt annoyed. ”As a transmigrator I have my own reputation to protect, I can't feel fear toward a few weaklings!"

[Those “weaklings” could easily kill the User by themselves... whatever. The User can keep saying nonsense as much as the User wants.]

“...” Speechless, Shu Himo was about to ponder on how to escape but was interrupted by a sound from the system.

*Ding!*

[The User successfully frightened an enemy! The User learned the skill: Intimidation lv_1]

[Intimidation lv_1: Instill in the target the impression to be locked-on by a deadly monster, awarding him with the feeling of impending death.

The chance of succeeding varies based on the enemy's state of mind compared to the User's.

If the difference in realms is too high the skill will fail.

Note: Beware of idiots, it doesn't work on them!]

"Heh, it seems what I did wasn't useless!" Feeling to have beaten the system for the first time, Shu Himo had a smug smile plastered on his face.