With the woman calmed down and her sword back in its sheath, though she is still holding its hilt with a palm of her hand all the while suspiciously glaring, the man speaks up first.

"So Uuuhhh, Sorry about that...you spooked me."

"I?..I SCARED YOU?..YOU almost gave me a fucking heart attack you- you stinky, boorish, moron."

"Ookay, there is no need for insults, besides I-."

"Fuck you! Don't think I didn't hear you calling me a lunatic!"

"Haah, like I was about to explain, I don't exactly have a place to bathe in, given that I haven't the slightest fucking clue to where I am...though...yeah, moron is pretty accurate."

"How are you lost when there is a town just a three hour's walk from here, I mean you can see the damn smoke from here if you just climb a tree or something, not to mention the roads leading to it a few hundred meters from here above that cliff."

"Huh!?"

"Don't Huuh me, you liar!"

"No, I seriously haven't gone up there yet, I've just been roaming around that forest for the past few days."

"Uhhuh...?...Say... why are your clothes like three sizes too small?" the woman says only now noticing the filthy rundown rags.

"Hm? Oh, I swiped them off some dead guy getting dragged by an Ork."

"Why would you do something like that!"

"Well, it beats the alternative of running around bare-assed."

"...What?"

"I woke up naked in the middle of this forest..." (Shit, uhh, uhh, oh sure, actually never mind, or well you know what, fuck it, let's just roll with that) "Last thing I remember before that is getting hammered in some cheap shady bar." (The best of excuses, now please buy it...)

"...I see...you do seem dumb enough to do something like that..."

"So uhh...you gonna tell me why you're here or..?"

"I'm here on a goblin subjugation quest...but it seems that the place has already been cleared... You wouldn't happen to have seen an adventurer called Tom come by here would you...he's been missing for five days."

"Nope no one's come by here before...youu...yeahhh, this dagger or this short sword wouldn't happen to be his would they?"

"Um, Yeah both seem to be actually, what happened?"

"He's dead."

The woman pulls her blade back out and points it toward the man, glaring daggers at him as she does so.

"Nohoot by my hands! seems the goblins got him, I've only been here for three nights!"

"Where is his body, I want proof."

"A-alright, alright just uuhh, follow me."

A few minutes walk later to the place where the man had buried the corpse from the pile on the first day which he mistook for a teen.

"Should be somewhere around here...Ah, there it is."

"Dig it up."

"uh...why? someone you knew?"

"Just dig it up!"

"Argh, Very well, my lady."

"DON-whooh, don't call me that!"

"Fine, fine." the man drops to his knees and starts digging out the shallow grave.

"Yeah, that's him...damn it." the woman says with a slightly disheartened tone in her voice.

"So you believe me now?"

"Yeah...those are clearly a goblin bite marks on his forearms...but how could he be killed by just four goblins even though he was an E rank."

"Nine."

"hm?"

"I said nine, there were nine goblins residing in the cave..."

"that's still not enough to-"

"And one of them had red paint on its face."

"O-oh...mmh, I see...Did you get them all?"

"Yeah."

"Alright... Well, I guess this trip was a waste."

"How come?"

"Well for starters, my only party member is dead and there isn't any money to be made, though you do get a few coppers for bringing back the guild rank sheet but even that's gone."

"I have it...here."

"Oh um...thanks."

"hey uuh, do you have a place to stay at in that town?"

"A room in an inn...whyy?"

"You wouldn't happen to be so kind as to-" "NO."

"-let me stay over for a night & wash up...in exchange for all I've gathered during my time in these woods."

"NO!"

But as if on command, the stomach of the man growls loudly and in a drawn-out way, begging for food.

"...I can...sleep on the floor?" his stomach gurgles again.

"G-g, haah...Ffiine, one night."

On the way to town, the woman gave most of the rations she had on her to the man which he ate on the way. The two also didn't talk much, but the woman did ask a few questions about the man like is he a criminal because they won't let criminals of any sort into town, even if they only really arrest those with a bounty or an arrest order on their head, also those with no id have to get checked with what she called a voyance-stone if they want in and that costs a bit. By the time the two made it to the town gates, the sun had already started to set.

(Guess I was passed out longer than I thought I was. Or are the days here shorter? or wait, longer? I'm so lost, could it be because I'm in a different time zone planet-wise?)

"Oh, Elena you're back, how'd it go?"

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"Tom's dead and I'm tired."

"Oh umm... sorry to hear that..."

"Well, he knew what he signed up for when he became an adventurer, shit happens."

"I see... So, who's the giant?"

"None of your business, here's 5 coppers since he doesn't have his id, later"

"Oookk?...well, sir, would you please place your hand over this." the guard pulled a necklace from around his neck and held it in his free left hand, holding his spear with his right. The man didn't hesitate even a little when placing his right hand on the necklace the guard was holding and so when the white pearl-like stone embedded in the middle of the necklace didn't react in any way when the man touched it, he was cleared for entrance.

"Ok, all's good...by the way man, take a wash, you smell like a dead rat in an outhouse." while saying that, the guard flips a copper coin up and toward the man. Catching the coin the man says his thanks and jogs to catch up to the woman, to Elena, who just kept walking straight after handing out the coins to the guard.

When the man caught up to Elena, he went straight to asking questions.

"Was that pearl necklace thing the voyance-stone?"

"Yeah?"

"Why didn't it do anything and why does it cost you to place your hand on it?"

"??? You've never seen a voyance-stone? What hole did you climb out of, those should be literally everywhere."

"A cave, didn't you see? And yes, where I'm from, we don't have those."

"...Haahh, The Voyance-stone checks your titles for any criminal titles such as common thief which you can get even by stealing food, if the stone detects something like that, it glows. The higher and worse the title, the brighter it glows, the reason it costs to even try touching it is that each one only has a single charge and refills cost about a copper tag so..."

"I see...by the way, what's a tag?"

Elena looks up at the man with a hint of confusion and pity in her eyes. "You're kidding, right? I mean you said you found yourself here after getting hammered, right? How did you pay it?"

"...Sheep?"

"...What you just said is so backwards it's, it's, haaahhh...ok, so, you must know 10 copper pieces is as much as a copper coin right, tags are the same for coins, a copper tag is 10 copper coins, a silver coin is 10 copper tags, a silver tag is 10 silver coins and so on...get it?"

"Uhh, yeah, thanks, this it?" the two had stopped in front of a large wooden building with a sign that just said...guild.

"Nope, I'm just dropping off Tom's guild sheet, I'll be back in a bit."

Five minutes later, Elena came back out of the guild building with a sad look in her eyes while murmuring to herself.

"What's up?"

"huh?"

"I mean, what's wrong?"

"Oh it's nothing, let's go"

Without another word, the two walked straight to the inn, then up onto the second floor and in front of Elena's room.

"Alright, here we are, now then, clean up before anything since you smell like shit and I will find you some fresh clothes while you go do that, what's your size?"

"Do you even need to ask me that? I'm 215 tall, the biggest size you find probably won't fit."

"Ha HA! You're right...remember, this here, room 14 is the one, the buckets and the appropriate areas are on the first floor all the way to the right, I will leave whatever I find next to your clothes."

After washing himself and changing into the new skin-tight yellowish-white clothes, the man goes back up to the second floor and knocks on the room door. When Elena opens the door, she just stands there holding the doorknob, mesmerized by what's in front of her.

"..."

"uhh, Elena?"

"Hm?"

"Uhh, ehehh, you are uhh, drooling." "Bing!"

"Oh, ah, sorry, you didn't tell me that you were this ripped."

(WHAT? RIPPED? ME?) "Well, there has yet to be a time where it felt right to start switching advice about our training regiments."

"Heheh, right."

Once Elena turned around to walk into the room, after letting the man in and closing the door behind him, the man does a quick look over, confirming that he has indeed gained a bit of muscle, or, well, it might look like he did but in actuality he had barely gained any muscle, losing most of the excess fat he had on him made it look like he had though.

(Since when have I been ripped, I didn't even fucking realize until just now, though I did notice that I was feeling a bit lighter by the time we were closing in on the town gates.)

While the man was still in his own little world, Elena had already sat on the edge of her bed.

"Alright then, show me your wares."

"Here? It's gonna make a mess, ya know."

"What kind of a mess would a few magic stones and some bones make?"

"Ok, well, don't say I didn't warn you."

The man turns to face the empty space at the back of the tiny room and just starts dumping the bodies on the floor one by one, every single one still dripping blood and other bodily fluids onto the floor but just before the man was about to drop the ork, Elena stops him.

"WHAT. THE. HELL!!?.. Where in the fuck were you keeping those!?"

"I uuh, know a little storing magic?"

"A little? A LITTLE!? are you an official of a magic division regiment or something?"

"Uuh no."

"Then wh-, h-ahem, sorry, I didn't mean to pry... can you put those back, we'll postpone that till tomorrow."

"Alright."

The two get a small bucket of water and two rags to clean the blood left behind by the bodies. After finishing up the clean-up, the two decide to go get a quick, cold, dull, tasteless meal before preparing for sleep.

When Elena is about to start undressing, she glances at the yawning man, then instead of doing it out in the open, she slips under her blanket where she undresses and places her clothes in a pile besides her bed. Then the man starts unbuttoning his shirt.

"Hey hey hey, woah, what are you doing?"

"I uhh, like you, I prefer sleeping with only my underwear on... if it bothers you I can just keep this all on."

"Right, I uh, no sorry never mind."

"The man pulls down his pants and throws them on his new shirt on the floor then lays down on the wooden floor. After that, as per usual, the man is led by his habits."

"Good night, sleep tight, don't let the-."

"what?"

"Oh, shit, uhh, sorry, force of habit"

"...I see...umm, you too?" "Bing!"

And so, after about 25 minutes of silence in the dark room, the two are still wide awake. Elena, because she's feeling restless and unable to sleep for some reason or another and the man, despite his minor sleep deprivation isn't asleep yet, because he's yet to get used to the extremely uncomfortable and splintery wooden floor, also he is feeling a bit anxious about the next morning perhaps scared even.

Suspecting that the man might still be awake as well, Elena brakes the silence.

"Still awake?"

"Yup. you?"

"Hah, yup...You know, I never asked you your name..."

(Aahhh shit, here it is... should I just go with my old name or just come up with a new name, it is another world... a different life, after all... Oh but I'm so trash at coming up with names...whooh, ok, focus the last of your functioning brain cells on this, here we go, Uhhh, Mattheus for sure as my first name because I don't think I can react to any other name at this point since I did go by that for 18 years, umm... Unicus since it meant something like alone or something and uhhhh...shit shit shit... Lasers are cool right, no no, umm Lazar, noooo fuckkk, Alzar...uhhh, no...)

"It's ok, if you don't want to, I get it, but I thought since you knew mine it would-"

"Mattheus Unicus Azarean" "Bing!"

"!!?...are you a noble?"

"No, Why?"

"Well, most people usually only have a single name, and yours are quite...grand."

"Thanks! Yours are nice too."

"...Pffffttt kehehehehe, shu up...thanks."

(??For what??)

Looking up at Elena to ask, Matthias notices that she'd turned over to her side to face the wall, presumably now ready to sleep for real, so he didn't want to bother her. Instead, while he waits for sleep to finally catch up to him, he checks the notifications he'd gotten during the day.

(Gained knack: Trap Making I

Gained knack: Danger Sense I

Gained knack: Charm I

Gained title: Smooth operator

Official Name Changed from: to: Mattheus Unicus Azarean.

Oh shut up with your smooth operator crap, I'm just a thoughtless idiot with a lot of luck both great and terrible...my names are a bit cringey though aren't they...Oh well, I don't think you can just change your name all willy-nilly, at least it doesn't seem like that...Ehh, you know what, it's good enough and if I come up with something way better I'll just figure out how to change it and who knows, they might grow on me...nope, still feels weird.)

The man, even now, another 15 minutes or so later, just couldn't fall asleep, but then he had a brilliant thought.

(...You know what... I passed out from burning all my mana, soo...even if I do get a headache from doing this, I really need this sleep.)

The man then promptly proceeded to burn mana the same way he had back at the cave, though instead of constantly making more, he just made a fist-sized ball of water and made it float around. Though with just that, it would take too long, so the man tried to make another ball of the same size, though that one didn't really get anywhere since it couldn't get at all big and just kept dripping, but it did spend a lot more mana, besides, the man was feeling a bit thirsty anyway.

When morning comes, the both of the two wake up to two cocks, something that sounds like a rooster which is screaming its lungs out as one does and the other type that you definitely had come to mind first...saying that it was an awkward morning for the two would be an understatement.

Yawning under the sheets, Elena sits up and throws on the lighter clothes from the pile besides her bed before Mattheus even has a chance to really come to, but when he does, he is surprised to learn that he doesn't have a headache.

"Good morn...ing, ohohouhh...wow..."

No, the man didn't have morning wood...he didn't need to, the tight undersized underwear was bulging even without one and with it being light out, everything was quite visible since the wooden shutters in place of a window were letting in a surprising amount of light even though they were still closed.

Mattheus not being a morning person, he responds to Elena after a slight delay. "...Mornin..."

Sitting up to stretch a bit while yawning, he continues "...which one will we do first, the trade or breakfast?.."

"..."

"Elena?.."

"..."

"Eleeenaaa?.."

"..."

Mattheus gets up and walks right up to the edge of Elena's bed to lean over slightly and wipe his hands in front of her face. "Anybody home in there?"

"Hm!?, Ah, Eh, uhmm, yesh!?" she blurts out as her face flushes as red as can be while covering herself entirely with her thin blanket despite being already dressed.

In his confusion the man scratches his head while turning around, only once he looks down at his clothes on the ground, does he realize what that just then was.

(Ooh...Ooooooooohhh!..With all my heart, I once again thank the kind soul that gave me such a wonderful blessing!)