Chapter 12

The guards from Tuksan arrived the next day, only to learn that the reason they had been dispatched had been resolved without them. Their captain was somewhat more annoyed when Antoine requisitioned four horses from him and his men. Annoyed, but compliant. When the Vanquisher asked for horses, you gave him horses, and that was more or less the end of the conversation.

Once he had secured their mounts, Antoine went through their packs, throwing out half of what the boys had thought they’d need and making them visit the general store to acquire the proper provisions and tools. Jessica was spared the indignity of having her undergarments tossed onto the village green by the simple fact that she only had two changes of clothes, and Antoine had already provided everything that he believed she would need for the journey.

Once the veteran adventurer was satisfied, and the boys had said all of their farewells, the party took off to the south. The guards from Tuskan remained behind; their orders had been to ride to Tilluth Valley in all haste, but the exact nature of the emergency hadn’t been communicated to them. With the presence of the Vanquisher, they had heaved a sigh of relief under the assumption that the problem was dealt with, and the last Tom saw of them most of the men were relaxing in the inn.

None of the younger party members were familiar with horses, but they learned to ride along the way, following the distance-eating pace that Antoine set for them.

Once they had gone about twenty kilometers to the south, having left the valley behind, Tom abruptly came to a stop.

“Something’s changed,” he said. “The air, it’s different.”

Jessica hadn’t noticed anything, but Antoine simply nodded. “We’re leaving the Tilluth Core’s territory. From here, the mana density in the air falls off sharply, but given your class it’s not surprising that you noticed it first.”

“Does every village have a Core like Tilluth?” Jessica asked. “I mean, do people need them to live or something?”

“No. But without Cores there are no Classes.” Antoine answered. “Things might work just fine on Earth without a System, but here in Welsius not having a Class would be the same as willingly crippling yourself. Aside from that, plants and animals grow better near cores. Tame Cores, at least. Wild Cores are a different matter. Not sure exactly how it works, but Controllers take a Wild Core and tame them. Every town or city is built around a Tame Core, so the process can’t be too difficult. The king knows a lot more about the process than I do.”

“And nobody here thinks that’s strange?” Jessica asked. “I mean, has the system been around so long that nobody questions it anymore? And they’re just fine with their reliance on Cores?”

“Most people don’t question the way things are, Jessica,” Antoine pointed out. “The people of this world have been adapted to living with the Cores and their System for so long that it’s as natural as animal husbandry and agriculture to them.”

“Are there many Controllers in the Royal Knights?” Tom asked, wondering how many peers he would have.

“To the knowledge of the crown, you’re the only living Controller, Tom,” Antoine answered. “The last one died attempting to Tame a particularly virulent Dungeon. If you haven’t figured it out yet, your class is not a particularly safe one to have. Especially as you will be drawn to seek out new cores and conquer them.”

Tom considered that for a moment in silence. Acquiring the Controller Class had truly upset his life plans, and he was still sorting out how he felt about that. He’d expected to acquire Commoner, and then eventually push that Class into either Weaver or Trader to help his parents with the family business. Instead he had acquired an ultra-rare class. Not unique, since there had been Controllers in the past, but even rare classes would have multiple class holders at a time. Not only was his class ultra-rare, however, it was restricted.

He could understand why, now that he was thinking logically. The kingdom depended on cores working the way they did. He could upset the balance. He had almost screwed things up seriously in Tilluth Valley just exploring his new Skills. Understanding, intellectually, why his future was being decided for him without his input didn’t make the bitter taste in his mouth go away any faster, however. On that subject, he thought of Jessica. He had Summoned her, changing her future irrevocably. Should he be feeling guilty about that?

He rode up next to her and nervously searched for a way to ask the question he didn’t know how to phrase. Finally, he blurted out “Do you miss your family?”

Jessica considered the question, then shrugged. “Not yet. It hasn’t been long enough for me to really get homesick, I think. But at least I’m pretty sure they have a body to bury. I’d be much more worried about them if I had just vanished off the streets somewhere.”

“They have your body?” he asked, confused.

“Yeah, this definitely isn’t my original body. I was sick before you summoned me, Tom. I don’t think your language has a word for the exact disease I had, the closest I can think of is ‘blood poisoning.’ My last memory before waking up in this world was going to sleep with the expectation that I didn’t have very much time left. I’m pretty sure I died, and whatever magic you cast summoned my spirit and gave me a new body,” she explained.

“Oh. Are you, um, okay with that?” he asked.

“I mean, I’d rather be here than oblivion, you know?” she said. “That’s sort of what I was expecting death to be like. I mean, I was hopeful for some sort of afterlife, but I wasn’t exactly convinced. Being isekai’d isn’t what I was expecting, but I’ll take it. Just curious, what do you believe happens to your soul after death?”

“The gods decide that,” Tom answered. “For most people they have their memories and sins washed away before being reborn anew. Unless you’re especially wicked, in which case you are punished, or especially saintly, in which case you ascend to serve the gods.”

“Huh,” Jessica said, and they continued riding for a while.

“Antoine, what was your last memory of Earth?” Jessica asked before the silence got too awkward.

“Choking to death on mustard gas,” the man answered promptly. “Of everyone I’ve met from Earth in this world, all of them died before being summoned, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

“Mustard gas? Were you a soldier in World War I?”

He frowned. “How many World Wars have their been since then?”

“Just the two,” she answered. “I’m not exactly a history buff, but in case you’re wondering Germany got stomped pretty hard during the first one. The second one started in the 1940’s and it was really nasty as well. Germany lost pretty hard in the end of that one too, but not before bombing a bunch of cities and killing a bunch of Jews.”

Antoine sighed. “I suppose it was too much to expect that the war to end all wars would really end all wars.”

“Yeah,” she agreed. “There were a few other wars in the meantime as well. Nothing that they ended up calling a World War, but some of them were pretty bad regardless. What about this world? I mean, we’re joining the knights. Will we have to fight against other countries?”

“There are five other countries on this continent, but they’re all separated by vast regions of Wastes, Wilds, or Blight. The Wastes have no Cores on the surface. One of the tasks the crown might ask of Tom is to claim territory in the wastes by conquering dungeons and moving their Cores. The Wilds have roving monster bands on the surface. The blight is simply empty. There isn’t any mana, so nothing lives there. It’s difficult to even travel through them,” Antoine explained. “There is some trade between the six nations, but war is impractical for a number of logistical reasons. Most countries are focused on expanding into the Wastes or the Wilds rather than conquering their nations. That doesn’t mean that they get along, but most conflict takes the shape of economic posturing.”

Stolen story; please report.

“Well that’s a relief,” Jessica said once he’d finished. “Follow up question; how are you so old? You only look like you’re in your forties.”

“I was eighteen when I died. And I reached level fifty before I was twenty-five. The scholars think that being an Outworlder slows the aging process by itself, but they know for certain that earning a high level slows it significantly,” he said. “I’m far from the only centenarian running around. I am one of the few of them that can destroy a dungeon core, however.”

“Yeah, what was that, by the way?” she asked. “I mean, I wasn’t even close to you when you did that thing, but I still felt it.”

“Vanquish is my level one hundred skill,” he explained. “I have always been something of an anti-mage. My level twenty skill allows me to see mana flows, and my level forty skill allows me to disrupt them. Vanquish allows me to shatter them completely. It’s extremely effective against enemies and objects with high-mana concentration, such as Dragons and Cores. And apparently Controllers and Sorceresses. My apologies again, had I realized that you were magically inclined I would have advised you to stand further back.”

“It’s fine,” she said. “I’m just glad that your attack didn’t scramble anyone’s brain. If anything it seemed to unscramble Tom’s, and he needed that. No offense, Tom.”

“It’s fine,” Tom said. “I know I was unstable for a while there. Sorry again about that.”

“It’s okay, Tom. Just, well, try not to go crazy on us again, okay?” She said.

“The scary thing is that I didn’t think I was acting irrationally,” he said. “I kind of wish you guys would have slapped me and took the Core away from me before I was so far gone.”

“I thought I could reason with you,” Sevin explained. “But everything I said just made it worse.”

“I wasn’t wearing my wrestling pants. Or any pants at all. Also we were surrounded by monsters, and I’d been in this world for less than an hour,” Jessica said. “Next time we’ll stop you before you go too far gone.”

“I did stop you before you went too far,” Antoine pointed out. “You’d be a gibbering mess if I hadn’t.”

“Yeah...thanks for that,” Tom said. He shifted in his saddle, wincing a little at the soreness he was feeling. “So, what else do you know about my Class? You’ve worked with a Controller in the past, right? How did they level up?”

“It’s your class, and you’ve had a few days to figure it out. How do you think they level up?” Antoine answered the question with a question.

Tom frowned. “I think that controller levels up by … well, controlling things. I’m about two thirds the way through level one, but considering everything I did while I was in control of the Dungeon, I’m a little surprise it’s not any higher.”

“It would have been, if the monsters you spawned weren’t wiped out by me,” Antoine explained. “You gain a percentage of your minion’s experience, and a percentage of the experience of any cores you control. Dungeons, meanwhile, gain a percentage of experience from anything within their demain. You gained some experience when Sevin and Jessica were killing your monsters, but once I stepped in that stopped. I don’t get experience for killing anything less than level eighty.”

“Oh,” Tom said. He thought of what he knew about leveling. While most Classes got some experience from killing monsters, his own seemed to be an exception to that rule. It wasn’t uncommon for crafting classes, such as his father’s Weaver class, or miscellaneous classes, such as his mother’s trader classes, to gain experience in other ways as well. In fact, Commoners tended to earn experience for just about anything they did, from tending animals and crops to bartering with each other. They just didn’t get very much experience at a time.

“Sevin, what level are you now?” he asked.

“Display status,” Sevin said proudly, and the holographic screen came up next to the teenager, allowing Tom to see his friend’s growth.

Name

Sevin Wells

Health

250/250

Age

16

Stamina

210/210

Race

Human

Strength

22

Class

Warrior

Dexterity

14

Level

5

Constitution

25

Subclass

Pikeman

Endurance

21

“You got level five? Congratulations!” Tom said.

“I got level two just from blasting a handful of your monsters,” Jessica volunteered.

“Yeah. Sorry again for putting you in that situation,” Tom said. “I’m just trying to figure out how fast I can expect to level.”

“That,” Antoine said, “Will depend on what Core you Control.”