“Whoa! You’re immortal! That’s incredible!”

Natalie was startled. Well, I guess you would be. My class was “witch,” apparently.

“It’s true that some witches can fine-tune the circulation of mana—er, magical power—in their bodies to extend their lives, but immortal at level 1… How can that be? You must have a tremendous aptitude for it.”

“It sure is strange… Maybe I’m just lucky.”

I’ll keep the stuff about the reincarnation bonus to myself.

“Here, let me pay you for those magic stones.”

She gave me six coppers.

“I’ll start saving up by killing slimes, then.”

“Yes, and the guild is looking forward to your patronage, Miss Azusa!”

I’d gotten some gold coins when I reincarnated, so I spent them on groceries and seeds to plant in my field.

Looked like I was all set to live here for a while.

Three more slimes showed up on my way home, so I vanquished them with my knife.

More magic stones and more of the money they would bring me.

***

After that day, my laid-back life began.

I did virtually nothing, day in and day out.

First, I slept as long as I wanted. I tended the field here and there. When I wanted some exercise, I killed slimes. Since they were a valuable source of cash, I made sure to dispatch at least twenty of them daily.

Sometimes I ventured into the nearby woods.

Maybe it was my status as a witch that let me immediately identify which plants were medicinal herbs. From time to time, I blended them into various concoctions and took them down to the village to sell. I wasn’t trying to turn a profit, so I priced them at less than the market value.

When people in the village were suddenly taken ill, I’d examine them and give them my homemade herbal medicines. After all, I couldn’t just stand by and watch the villagers drop like flies.

Thanks to that, people started calling me “the great Witch of the Highlands” out of respect.

Some of them even brought gifts like cheese and other dairy products up to the house. That was much appreciated.

I considered reading grimoires in my spare time, but they were really expensive! Still, after mowing down slimes for a while, I’d saved enough to buy several! Once I set my sights on something I wanted, slime slaying lit a fire in me.

Other than that…nothing unusual happened.

Possibly because I was immortal, I didn’t age (of course), and I almost never got sick.

As a rule, no one came to see me at my house in the highlands which didn’t trouble me much. I’d lived alone when I was an office worker in Japan, too.

It was during my second life that I first came to understand the meaning of “leisure with dignity,” for sure.

And three hundred years passed.

I MAXED OUT MY LEVEL

You heard that right: I made a living by killing slimes for three hundred years.

When it came to defeating the little blobs, I had a fair bit of confidence.

I knew exactly where to stab them with my knife to finish them on the first attack.

Frankly, I could kill them unarmed with my bare hands or my feet. I could kill them with a forehead flick. I figured my level had probably gone up a bit.

Well, one day, I knocked on the door of the guild, as I always did. I needed to exchange my magic stones.

I took my spoils to the female staff member, who was a descendant of Natalie’s, several generations removed. She’d started working here only recently, and I didn’t know her name yet.

“Good afternoon.”

“Oh, great Witch of the Highlands!”

By now, everyone knew me as “the Witch of the Highlands.”

Having been alive for three centuries, I was the most knowledgeable about the village’s history.

“Here are today’s magic stones. Twenty-six slimes’ worth.”

“Yes, indeed they are. That’s fifty-two hundred gold, then.”

I put the money in my leather bag.

“Oh, that’s right. Great Witch of the Highlands, there’s something I’ve been wondering about.”

“Hmm? What’s up?”

“How strong are you, exactly?”

“Strong? In combat, you mean? I don’t know, or, well, I doubt it’s anything impressive.”

I’d registered as an adventurer so I could get money for magic stones, but I’d never actually adventured. After all, adventuring meant risking your life. A leisurely, peaceful life suited me better.

The employee brought out the old slate.

“Um, would it be all right if I checked your status?”

“My status? You know, I don’t think I’ve seen it at all in the past three hundred years.”

I hadn’t needed to. In this area, monster just meant slime. I’d never actually sensed that I was leveling up, either.

That said, claiming that I’d only ever fought slimes would be a lie.

In the forest, there were horned rabbits. Big caterpillars, too. Those monsters were still weak, though, and my knife brought me easy victories.

That knife might have been specially made. I’d been using it for three centuries at this point, and there were still no nicks in the blade.

If you actually gave it some thought, that was astonishing. This thing could be worth a fortune. Not that I’d sell an item that had taken such good care of me for thirty decades.

“You’ve watched over Flatta for so long, great Witch of the Highlands! I believe your status is probably astronomical as a result. I want to know what it is, so…!”

The young staff member’s eyes were brimming with fervent expectation.

It’s embarrassing to say this myself, but the people of Flatta respected me.

True, I gave them a hand whenever the village was in trouble. Over the centuries, several plagues had swept through, and every time, I’d whipped up herbal curatives in bulk, created strengthening tinctures, and worked hard to ensure there were no deaths.

In addition, as I’d watched over the village from the highlands since before its current inhabitants were born, they seemed to view me as some sort of guardian deity.

As far as I was concerned, I was simply enjoying my life of R & R, which made that reverence feel excessive and uncomfortable.

“I don’t mind if you check my status, but I’m just a long-lived witch who knows a thing or two about herbalism. I hope you’re not expecting it to look like some legendary adventurer’s.”

“Oh, you’re too modest. It may not seem impressive to you, but you’re judging by your own standards, aren’t you?”

“Well, go ahead and look. It’s going to be normal.”

I put my hand on the slate.

If this had been Japan, the environment would probably have changed drastically over three hundred years, but changes in this world were small. The slate was still functional and in use. Well, its ability to display statuses felt high tech to me, but anyway.

“……Huh?”

Now, that’s a strange number…

“Uh, you know, I bet the slate’s broken. I mean, it’s saying ‘level 99,’ so…”

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!! Great Witch, you’re way, way too stroooooooong!!!!!!!” The receptionist was so shocked I thought she might collapse. “That’s insane! You have to be the strongest in the world!”

“I’m telling you, that rock’s broken. All I’ve fought are slimes, you know? How could I actually have almost eleven million experience points?”

“Let’s see… You’ve killed slimes for three hundred years, three hundred sixty-five days a year, without skipping a day, correct? Of course, I don’t know about what happened long ago, so I’m extrapolating from what I’ve heard from the village elders, but…”

Incidentally, this world has a proper sun and moon and uses a solar calendar.

“That sounds about right. I think it’s been twenty-five slimes or so per day, on average. When I wanted to buy a grimoire or make repairs on the house or something like that, I remember going all out and plowing through a whole bunch to earn money.”

As you’d expect, after decades upon decades, the house in the mountains had been remodeled so much that it had practically been rebuilt.

“Somewhere along the way, you also picked up a special ability that increases the number of experience points you acquire. From what I hear, you haven’t traveled anywhere far away, so I think you probably got it at one of your level-ups.”

“I suppose that could be.”

Even if all I’d done was kill slime after slime, that bonus had probably boosted my level at least a little.

“That special ability increases the number of experience points you get per monster by two.”

“What, just two?”

“Well, each slime normally gives two points, so it basically doubled. And now we’ll calculate…

I think the equation would look something like that.”

“Yes, I’m following. Well, I wouldn’t have had the EXP boost from the very beginning, so this number will probably be a little high, but still…”

The twenty-five-a-day figure was a rough estimate, and if it had been more than that, the total would be higher. It wasn’t as though I’d never killed a non-slime monster, either.

“At any rate, I’ll try running a calculation with this. Ten, nine, five, zero, zero, zero, zero… Let’s see, how many thousands is that?…10,950,000!”

That’s pretty close to my 10,840,000!

“Just so you know, large dragons are said to be worth 2,500 points, so 10,840,000 is enough for 4,380 of them.”

“A dragon slayer extraordinaire!”

“It’s the same as if you’d killed fourteen point six dragons per year…”

After putting it in dragon terms, I began to suspect I’d done something extraordinary.

“This figure isn’t a slate error. I knew it! Great Witch of the Highlands, you really are a mighty and powerful witch!”

I was stunned. I couldn’t believe that number.

I had sensed, intuitively, that I was growing.

After all, my physical body stayed seventeen, and only my experience grew.

That said, to think it would reach such a ludicrous number…

No. More importantly…

…there’d be trouble if I couldn’t keep this under wraps.