Ludo got up from his bed in the now empty room. The week he had spent with Emmer had flown by quickly. He sighed as the room around him had an uneasy silence. He got ready, his new sword strapped to his side and descended to the bar where, to his luck, he found Claus busy cleaning a mug. Ludo greeted Claus and the two began talking about adventuring and the town.

“The town isn't very old or rich. It was founded by the son of an adventurer around a hundred years ago, he divided into districts, like the adventurer district, government district and the market district that you and Emmer went to yesterday. Each quest has been analyzed and labeled accordingly, you need to do about three hundred quests to rank up.” Claus keep a calm smile through all of this.

“That many!? And what if I do rank A quests as a level G?”

“And do you wish to die young?”

“I understand.” Ludo finally admitted defeat.

He thanked Claus for the information and left the guild and the rowdy tavern. Ludo pulled out a list from his pocket that Emmer had given him, in it there were three names that Emmer recommended for Ludo to go and meet, one of them was Bohdan while the other two were called Galti and Auria and where they were. He chose to go to the market district were the list said the person called Galti had their shop.

Walking through the same roads as the day before, Ludo found Galti’s shop, a blacksmith shop. He went inside and saw all manner of weapons and armor laying there for him to witness. Deadly swords and brutish axes caught his interest but the highlight of the shop was a plated cuirass that looked as if it was made of silver. While Ludo admired the wares he didn’t notice someone walking up to him.

“What are you looking for, lad?”

Ludo turned around and saw no one. Puzzled as to where the voice came from, and worried a second Ben might be manifesting inside his head the voice called to him once more. Ludo looked down to see a burly man with a shaggy and groomed red beard that reached his knees. He stared at Ludo with his fiery brown eyes and an overall unwelcoming face.

“Why are you” —Ben’s voice appeared all of a sudden, warning Ludo to not finish that sentence, it was too late— “so small?”

The man stared at Ludo and spit at his feet, he began cursing him and pushing him out of the store. Ludo tried to excuse himself to no luck. The man only stopped at the mention of Emmer and Galti and Ludo’s lack of memories.

“So the old hound send ye?” The man asked. Ludo nodded. “Why didn’t you mention it earlier!? I’m Galti an old comrade of his.”

The two exchanged a handshake and Galti’s hostility had all but disappeared as he returned to the back of the room. Seemingly given a green light. Ludo continued to browse his wares. While Ben spoke to him inside his mind.

“Ludo that’s a dwarf!”

A what!?

“A dwarf, they’re smaller than humans but are quite nimble with their hands and good smiths.”

How do you know all of this?

“Remember that bit about subconscious memory? It seems you met a dwarf before, and also you should apologize to him before leaving.”

Ludo clicked his tongue as the lack of knowledge of his own world antagonized him yet again. Most importantly, the prices of most of Galti’s wares were out of the budget that Emmer had left him which was three silver coins and the bronze coins he had gained from the slime quest.

The only things he could afford were a gambeson shirt and a basic helmet at the price of two silver coins. Once he had bought them, he tried putting them on but Galti stopped him, telling them he had to equip them first.

“Equip them?”

“You don’t know about that!? Even a child can, come on open your inventory!”

“And how do I do—“ A large black rectangle popped into existence before him, making him jump. Just like the ones he saw when he woke up, he saw that he had ten inventory slots and two of them were occupied with Emmer’s sword and the bag he had given him earlier. Not only that, the bag gave him a total of thirty more slots for his inventory and at the top center of the rectangle he saw himself and multiple special slots.

“The ones at the top were your ugly face is are the equipment slots, those are were the armor and weapons go.”

Following Galti’s advice, Ludo stashed the gambeson and helmet into his inventory and moved them up to his head and torso. Both items appeared on himself as soon as he dropped them there.

“There you go.” Galti humphed.

Ludo inspected them, seeing both had something called durability and that it was low. Without thinking about it twice, he asked Galti about it.

“Durability.” Galti began. “Is how much damage the armor can withstand. Armor also saves the wearer of a guaranteed lethal strike before breaking so keep that in mind, aye?” Galti pondered for a moment, stroking his beard. “I also see that you haven’t bought a weapon. Why?”

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Ludo showed Emmer’s sword at Galti. Galti gasped and took it from Ludo, observing it with deep care and study.

“Boy if you sell me this right now, I’ll give you a hundred golden coins.”

“A. Hundred. Gold. Coins!?” Ludo stammered, not sure how to proceed with that information. He wanted to sell it but he remembered the reason he had it to begin with. “I’m sorry. But it’s not for sale.”

“That’s a shame.” Galti sighed. “But if you ever change your mind, you know where to find me.”

“I’ll think about it.” Ludo said and knelt, following Ben’s advice from earlier. “And also I apologize for calling you small earlier.”

“Don’t fret on it. You can’t remember much and my sublime appearance might’ve surprised you.” Galti began laughing at his own joke. “And before you leave.”

Galti threw a package at Ludo. He caught and opened it, inside he saw a scarlet red cloak beaming its bright color at him. Ludo took it and equipped it on himself. He looked back at Galti, who was looking at him with his arms crossed and a smug look.

“That’s my first attempt on making a cloak so it might not be the best, you can keep it. Now get out of my sight before I change my mind.”

Ludo thanked him and left the store, happy with what he had gained in Galti’s shop. He opened up the list again, now he only needed to go to and meet Auria in the magic district. He walked for a few minutes until he reached the magic district and was greeted by a large purple explosion, fireballs whisked through the air, leaving orange trails that formed beautiful figures above him, papers levitated from one place to another and the shops were busier in this area compared to the rest.

Ludo stopped outside of the shop that the list said belonged to Auria, it was a smaller shop than Galti’s but, based on the wares displayed on the windows, it was some sort of potion shop. Ludo entered and was hit with a strong array of smells that made him sneeze. An old woman with a pale face and white hair appeared from behind the counter, asking him what was wrong. She gave Ludo something to drink and he stopped sneezing.

“Thanks for the potion.” Ludo said, cleaning his nose.

“That wasn’t potion dear, that was milk. That’s the only liquid we have found that cleanses all the effects of potions.”

Surprised at the bit of information, he thanked her again and correctly guessed that she was Auria. Ludo told her about his lack of memories, meeting Emmer and all that had transpired.

“It must be very hard for you to not remember anything. And for Emmer to put you through that.” She hissed.

“No you got it wrong. I wanted to be an adventurer.”

“I see. So you must be looking for a potion or two.” She stood up, browsing her own shelfs. “Strength, speed, what is it that you want.”

“Only healing potions.” Ludo replied.

Auria clicked her tongue, breezing through the shop to the other side. She came back holding thin vials of green liquid. She handed them to Ludo.

“This are basic healing potions. They’ll do the job on a scratch or burn, but won’t do much if you lose an arm or leg.” She looked jumpier than before. “I’d give you a better one but I don’t have the materials to brew them.”

“I can get them for you!”

Auria humphed as she hurried back to the counter and came back with a piece of paper and pen. She began writing incredibly fast on it, handing it to Ludo.

“This are the materials I’d need to make them. You can take those three potions as payment for doing it. Now go!”

Ludo left in a hurry. He was about to do his first unofficial quest. Before that, however, he had to check something. Opening his inventory, he saw the potions were already there but he had forgotten to equip Emmer’s sword. He inspected it and gasped at what he saw.

GLASS GUARDIAN

DURABILITY: HIGH

STRENGTH: +3

STAMINA: +3

SPEED: +7

THIS IS AMAZING!! Ludo yelled mentally. He inspected his other equipment better. The gambeson shirt and the helmet gave him a grand total of three extra protection while the cloak added an extra stat on speed. He checked his own name, which was titled as stat sheet and saw a completely different thing than what he saw before.

LUDO (18)

HUMAN - MALE

LEVEL 1

STRENGTH: 4 (+3)

STAMINA: 3 (+3)

MANA: 0

SPEED: 0 (+8)

DEFENSE: 3 (+3)

INTELLIGENCE: 5

POINTS AVAILABLE: 0

SKILLS: ONE-HANDED LEVEL 1, RIDING LEVEL 1

Ludo was now heading for the forest, in search of the items Auria needed for her potions. The first one was purple fennel, he looked around for most of the day and almost gave up once until Ben suggested that he should use this time to practice with his magical eyes. He closed his eyes and focused, opening them again to see nothing different.

“Are your eyes broken?” Ben said.

Ludo ignored him and looked at a plant nearby and the information came out without anything else that might distract his vision. The plant was called a Trille, Ben praised him for his newfound control over magical eyes, Ludo continued searching through the forest until he found what he was looking for, an entire patch of purple fennels as if waiting for him to appear. Without hesitating, he ran up to them and began pulling as much of them as he could from the ground.

Once he was done, he quickly learned he could read the list without pulling it out by looking at it in his inventory tab, he looked at the list and saw that what he needed now was kobold teeth.

“Ben what are kobolds?” Ludo asked.

“Again, I’m not an encyclopedia, I’m your conscience.”

Ludo groaned as he returned back to Balessia in defeat. Once inside it had hit him that Emmer had only paid for an extra night at the adventurer’s guild and that he needed to start looking for an inn to spend the night. He opened his inventory and saw he had only a single silver coin and seventy five silver coins. He returned to the adventurer guild, and to his luck found Claus working behind the counter. Ludo asked him about the way currency worked in Balessia.

“It’s simple, five hundred bronze coins are the same as a single silver coin, then you do the same twice for gold and platinum coins and thats about it.” Claus said.

Ludo looked again at the measly amount of wealth at his disposal. He dreaded to ask the next question.

“How much to stay the night here?”

“It’s two silver coins a night.”

Ludo’s heart sank, he had limited time and needed to get money quickly or else he would be living on the streets, he sprang to his feet and ran to the quest-board and to his dismay all of the G ranked quests had meagre prices, only ranging from twenty to seventy-five bronze coins while the F ranked quests weren't much better either. The best one only offered a total of three hundred bronze coins. Ludo felt something on his shoulder and he looked back to see Claus behind him.

“Don’t worry. There are lots of inns offering a more affordable price to you, and we will be waiting here for your return.”

Ludo thanked Claus, although he was not sure why and returned to his room, it would be the last day he would sleep here and knowing that harder days were coming only demoralized him further.

“Hey!” Ben said at the back of his mind. “No need to be down, there is going to be plenty of opportunities for you to make a ton of wealth back. You just watch.”

“Thanks.” Ludo smiled weakly.

“Anytime Ludo.”