Some days a person just knows upon waking that this day will be a bad day. Sam knows today will be a bad day. She couldn’t sleep much last night. The constant fear of being captured. The unfamiliar sounds of nature. The feelings of loneliness with no one to turn to. The lack of warmth of a nice cozy bed. All of it weighing down on her with no relief in sight.
Even with the first light of dawn her mood doesn’t improve. Waking up with damp leather clothes, long hair that annoying clings to her face even when tied in a braid and the smell of herself after walking for hours. Sore muscles, blisters on her feet and hunger in her stomach from rationing her food.
Sam is miserable and she can’t even take a bath in the river as it would leave her vulnerable to attacks. At least she can soak her feet a bit in the cold river and have a nice warm morning stew. The one light in her life right now is the stew she stole. It stays warm and is the most delicious thing she has ever eaten.
Really the stew is only passably good but with how badly everything else is going for her by comparison it tastes like ambrosia. Feeling better after savoring her stew and cleaning her feet Sam begins the grueling self-imposed forced march anew
She wishes she could take the time to read more about sword fighting or learn about magic. Sam has always enjoyed learning and magic is sure to have something that can improve her current comfort level. However any slow down on her part increases her risk of capture.
“Damn the guides, their king, and this stupid crapsack world! I hate it all. But I will not give in.” Sam screams out.
A window pops. New title: Willful – Your continued determination in the face of hardship has granted you a bonus of 10% will when active. [Heh well at least someone cares.] Sam activates the title. Sam thinks to herself that she’ll need to learn more about this world system as well. It likely has defects she can exploit. However Sam needs a safe place and time, two things she doesn’t currently have much of, to do so.
The morning is cold but is quickly warmed up by her rapid walking. Her mood also begins to improve once her body heat and the sun dry off the morning dew that collected on her hair and clothes. Even her pain lessens as the runners high begins to take effect from the constant movement. Now if she just had some deodorant this death march could be upgraded to just running scared for her life.
By mid-morning she encounters a familiar sight. A horned rabbit taking a drink from the river. Charging she attacks the poor stress relieving mob. A few sword swings later and she now has one horned rabbit in her inventory. The used stew bowls stack and so now has room for monster kills. Checking her completed horned rabbit entry she sees it’s much like the magic fish.
Horned Rabbit: A normal rabbit mutated by an overabundance of mana in the area. They gain a horn and a taste for meat. Only active during the day. Like most magical beasts they are territorial and will attack those they see as threatening. Individually they are very weak. Mostly they become prey for more powerful magic beasts or new adventurers.
The rest of the day passes much the same way. Walking with the occasional pause to relieve stress on a horned rabbit or magic fish. By nightfall she has 2 stacks of horned rabbit carcass and 2 stacks of magic fish and 1 stack of empty bowls all stacked to 5.
If Sam knew how to cook or drain the excess poisonous mana from them she would be set for food. But as it is she is not looking forward to tomorrow. Sam will need to make a choice of going hungry or experiencing what very weak poison and bad cooking will do. That is if she can even start a fire.
Sam decides she’s far enough away from civilization to open up the lockbox and see what’s inside. A few hacks with her zweihander she is rewarded with a crumpled box and some coins. 7 copper and 2 silver… it isn’t very much for her or the duke she stole it from. The servants must have used most of it to pay the guides for bringing her to the duke.
Combined with her coins from the game it brings her total to 7 ironwood, 14 copper and 5 silver. Sam had spent most of her cash on the expensive noble room at the game inn before being summoned.
In hindsight that was a horrible idea. But planning for summoning to another world is not something Sam has done often. At least coins don’t take up an item slot in her pouch. Still if this world is like the game that is not much at all.
The coin system is straight forward with ironwood, copper, silver, gold, and pure mithril. Each is worth 100 of the previous coin. With large ironwood, large copper, silver crown and gold crown which are bigger and worth ten times each coin respectively. Finally the gold bar worth ten thousand gold coins. Crowns and bars are usually only used by merchants or nobles for large transactions.
Farmers mostly barter for goods or use ironwood or copper coin for daily trading. While tradesmen use silver for more expensive tool purchases. Gold is only used by nobles and merchants for luxury items. With 5 silver she has is around 5 days at a cheap inn or perhaps 10 days of prepared traveling food.
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Pure mithril was listed in game as a coin type but Sam and no one else ever found a pure mithril coin. There was some speculation it would be used in high-end equipment. Perhaps a hard to find ingredient only handed out in special events but no one was really sure.
Sam tosses the remains of the lockbox into the river before enjoying another unrestful night in the woods. Waking up the next morning much the same way as yesterday she knows today will be worse.
With no warm stew to cheer her up and her blisters now turned into open sores Sam is in a much worse mood. Filling up with water and getting little relief from cleaning her feet she starts walking.
She encounters several horned rabbits and uses the only sword swing she knows on them. Since Sam has been using it so much she decided to take the time to look up its proper name as it has been bugging her. Mittelhau or middle hew is a simple stroke delivered from side to side. Sam is terrible with foreign names so she decides to call it horizontal slash instead.
So far it has worked well for her. As she uses it Sam can tell it is becoming easier to perform and more effective against the magical beasts she is encountering. It seems like a simple action but getting the timing, targeting and range just right for the best effect is challenging to do.
Although with how weak her current opponents are it hardly matters she can tell being skilled in basic sword swings will come in handy against more powerful opponents. At least if her opponent remains oblivious to her using the exact same attack over and over and doesn’t adapt at any rate.
Encountering another horned rabbit Sam charges. The horned rabbit attempts a counter tackle but Sam is expecting it. Horned rabbits always attack in the same way every time. Making it easy to bash its head with her buckler and leaving the horned rabbit stunned. A quick follow-up with two horizontal slashes from her kriegsmesser and the horned rabbit is defeated.
Kneeling down to pick up the carcass she is interrupted by a loud roar from close by. Looking toward the woods she notices a large black bear running at her. Tossing the carcass at the bear’s feet she sprints down the river bank.
Happily the bear seems more interested in the horned rabbit then in her and stops to eat the free meal. Sam pauses to take a picture of the bear before running away. She has read many stories about the ferocity of normal bears and has no interest in finding out if she can defeat it.
A little bit latter she looks at the entry with the bear picture. Partial Magically Corrupted Bear. The picture shows a large black bear but it has boney growth on its shoulders and she can see some patches of red on its fur. Sam hopes she doesn’t run into those again.
A few hours later Sam runs into the bears again. See worse day than yesterday was. This time though the bears are focused on fishing at a three foot high water fall and leave her alone. Sam goes well out of her way to go around them. She also completes her entry on the bears before she leaves the area.
Partial Magically Corrupted Bear: Bears in the process of being transformed by an overabundance of mana into magical beasts. More powerful animals require stronger mana and longer periods to corrupt. Several years is not an uncommon time frame. Once they being to change they seek out mana to complete the transformation often eating lesser magical beasts for it.
She even sees one completely red bear with large boney horns from its shoulders but is only able to get its name. Ember Bear.
Sam gets the feeling she is headed toward some kind of greater mana concentration area. The magical beasts she is encountering are getting more numerous and more powerful as she heads upstream. She doesn’t have much choice in her path however so she continues to walk upstream.
Taking a moment to think about her situation she decides to leave her metal gear in her item pouch. Although it would give her better defense Sam decides that it’s better to be lighter and escape battle from more powerful monsters if she can.
By early evening Sam is starting to consider eating her mana poisoned rations and seeing what the results will be. Between walking and constant attacks by magic fish and horned rabbits she is very hungry.
However she spots several smoke plumes not too far from where she is and goes toward them to investigate. Several minutes later she comes upon a village by the river. She is happy but also surprised a village can be out here.
The constant attacks by magic beasts aren’t much of a problem for her but NPC’s in game were much weaker so presumably the peasants of this world are equally weak. Between having no wall and the likely event of hungry bear attacks she wonders how they can survive out here.
With the prospect of a nice bed to sleep in and warm food to fill her stomach Sam quickens her pace and heads toward one of the bigger buildings with smoke coming from its chimney. Hopefully it’s a nice affordable inn.