Frei walked down the path that led away from the ruins on top of the mountain. The mountain path curved to the west, he was glad that he had some luck for once, it went exactly the way he wanted to go, away from the shiny temple far in the south. He was also happy that they had managed to leave behind the group of skeletons, he just could not help but be suspicious of the group with unclear intentions.

Parting ways had been the best option.

"Hands up!" A voice suddenly commanded and Frei's hands shot into the air immediately.

"Turn to the right!" He heeded the command of the voice again and his head slammed into a rock.

"You are too unreasonable Crow!" Frei grumbled angrily while scratching his sore head.

"Not at all, not at all. I have to enjoy this while it lasts." The walking stick in his hand contradicted him while Frei began waving his right hand, trying to use the Heightened Senses spell.

"This is not working, either it will never work with you, or your orders are too superficial." Frei frowned, his scheme to gain a level had clearly failed.

"See, my fun is over now." Crow sighed.

"Is there something you have always wanted to try?" Frei intended to give his idea one last shot.

"Yeah, but I do not think it will make any difference." Crow was reluctant, but Frei wanted to exhaust all options.

"Just tell me."

  A moment later Frei was blowing into an empty bottle, the air inside resonating and giving off a clear tone. Despite doing the activity for a while, he found out that he had to be on the same level as before based on his inability to use Heightened Senses.

"It will probably never work with you." Frei sighed and continued to follow along the path in a bad mood. He needed quests to complete to rise his level in order to be ready when an opportunity came and he would get his hands on good spells. The worst case scenario was that the quests were not only not visible, but the whole mechanic was no longer functional. When he thought about this possibility, a smiling Victor's face appeared in his mind, laughing at his inability to do anything while he stole with his cheap tricks his freedom and more than just that.

"No, all that is behind me and there is nothing I can do about it. But next time around, I will make sure to have some badass spells to blast fuckers like Victor into oblivion." He clenched his fist and told himself that it was only logical that it had not worked out with Crow, he was a distorted existence in all kinds of weird ways after all, he needed to meet a regular, proper NPC character.

  After they had walked a considerable distance, Frei took out one of the statuettes he had picked up at the ruin to distract himself from negative thoughts. Admiring its fine details, he wondered if the dragons had crafted this little sculpture or they had to hire someone smaller to do it for them. The ruins had to have some connection with the giant beasts, their depictions had been everywhere and the annoying lizard himself had surely not piqued the location of their duel just by an accident.

"Why are you obsessing with every little trinket? Are you a kleptomaniac?" The walking stick in his hand complained about his compulsion. Most likely still grumpy that it could not order him around anymore.

"Mind our own business." Frei grumbled and continued to stare at the work of art. He had stolen, no, recovered more of them, because he considered it prudent to hoard valuables to be able to sell them later. He was immensely glad that one of the irrational things that this world considered not important enough to obliterate was an inventory.

"Jeeez, I have to get rid of these soon." Frei returned the statuette into his inventory and had been reminded that a mountain of tattered pelts was still there.

"Frei?!" His companion demanded attention again. "You should pay attention to the path in front of us, loot can wait."

  When he moved his eyes to look at what was in front of them, he had to swallow his words of discontent, as there seemed to be a small group of people heading in their direction.

"That is the zombie birdman from the haunted ruin!" A shout made him pay attention to a little figure that was among the eight people that were going in their direction."You have not picked up the bad sword, have you?!"

"You little thief!" Frei immediately recognized the urchin that had tried to steal his trusted weapon among the eight and quickened his steps to get his hands on her. She would have stolen all he had if not for the convenient existence of an inventory.

"Chill man, we have no reason to fight. You are one of the refugees, right?" The tallest of the group stepped to the front, shielding the urchin with his body.

"Kind of and what are you doing here?" Frei said, looking at the leading tall man from his head to toes. This was technically not a lie, he was still on the run from the slavery system of the Divine Universe's Adventurers' Guild.

"We are scouting, this area is infested by the undead, but we might have gone too far. Everyone, we are going back!" He turned to the group, making eye contact with its other members. "You can join us, a lonely person is unlikely to survive out here!"

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Frei did not answer and simply tagged along, mainly to find out more about the region.

  After exchanging the basic pleasantries with the members of the group, he had a rough idea who they were. As almost all of the non-native population of this universe, they had escaped their home planet and found themselves stranded in this place.

  Two of them were a middle aged pair that had for some weird reason decided not to have children. They both had long blue hair and their bodies looked like they were almost athletes. Were they the type of happy-go-green people eating roots and nuts, refusing to have children, saving the planet every other day with their healthy lifestyle? Frei shoveled that question for later analysis, but they surely looked that way. They were the only ones to lack any weapons, what were they going to do if skeletons attacked them? Summon birds to sing them to death?

  Three of the men were just teenagers. the tallest one of them being the leading character, probably because he knew the game and was most likely the reason why the lot of them had not been turned into skeletons yet. Although Frei felt better about them than the previous pair, something inside him kept warning him about the three. Based on their carefree attitude, they have not yet fully realized that this was not a game.

  There was also a pair of girls that had been drinking coffee in a restaurant when the apocalypse struck their planet. They appeared to be still in a daze because of the sudden change of environment, their long black hair have surely seen better days, the four blue eyes of theirs restlessly searching their surroundings for something that would wake them up from this reality that felt like a bad dream.

And naturally there was the urchin that was the only one native to this universe, she seemed to serve them as a guide and tried to seal what she could when no one was looking.

What a merry bunch! He wanted to leave, when the urchin asked him an innocent question.

"Will you stay with us sir? The trip will be much safer." He looked at the native girl with suspicion.

Was it a quest?

"Sure." He had nothing against it, as they seemed to go in the same direction.

"That is awesome! Just until we can report back to the Baroness." The girl jumped lightly, her face suddenly beaming with a smile.

"I will accompany you until then." Frei smiled and he could almost hear a loud "ding" sound in his head, announcing the start of a new quest.

This had to be it! What else would fit the criteria if not this? A native, cute, little girl in distress!

"Just pay attention to your pockets, Ranna likes to play with new things." The teenager that had stylized himself into the role of an experienced, responsible leader warned him and Frei just smiled in return.

"I will be careful, we have already met once." He answered and received a knowing look from the leader that had introduced himself as Salim.

"Ugh." They were distracted by a grunt of one of the black haired girls that almost fell after stepping on a rock that on closer look had stains all over, making it slippery. Frei had noticed before that she was limping on her right foot and when their eyes met, her face was distorted in pain, her pupils focusing on the walking stick he held in his hand.

Frei just smiled awkwardly and switched hands to hold Crow in the hand that was further away from the girl, causing her eyes to open wide with disbelief. Based on his actions, it was clear that he was not using the walking stick because he had to.

"Frei, could you perhaps. .. "

"I am sorry for your leg, but I have unfortunately never learned any healing spell, focusing mainly on attack spells all the time." Frei swiftly interrupted her with an apology.

"Ah, I see, but could you please. . ." Her big eyes reminded him of a stray dog begging for food, but he was merciless.

"It was dumb of me, I have to search for an appropriate spell when we are back in a more civilized region." He interjected again.

"That's not it, would you please let. . .. "

"I am so sorry that I cannot help you, my fascination with attack magic have truly gone too far." Frei observed the girl's expression to change, she had to finally understand that Frei was simply not going to hand his walking stick over to her no matter how pitiful she looked. Not being completely ignorant, she ceased her futile attempts and limped away from him with spite in her eyes.

Crow was his universal weapon, shield and an ultimate utility tool. Although he pitied the lady with injured foot, he was not going to give away something that would most likely save his life one day.

"You should have eaten more Kokabelle when you were young! " Frei suddenly froze, surprised by one of the teenager's ruthless remark addressed to the girl.

It seemed that the group was not as cohesive as he had thought, it was certainly not meant in a good way. Was there bad blood between the two?

And what on Earh was Kokabelle?

  Everyone seemed to ignore the exchange, they were already among the trees that grew in the lower parts of the mountains, forcing them to pay more attention, as trees might provide potential attackers with a place to hide in.

"Ranna, scout ahead." Salim ordered and the girl readily bolted forward, she disappeared among the trees in front of them like a trained dog.

"Huh, he certainly likes to order people around." Frei though and suppressed a chuckle.

"It will take a while, you can rest for know." Salim stated the obvious and most of them sat on a nearby boulder next to the forest path.

  It did not take long for their little companion to come running back to them, screaming in a high pitched voice It was clear that she was being followed by something.

"Robbers! Robbers are attacking!!" She quickly hid behind the leader of the group. "Saw two!"

"Men to the front! Prepare you weapons!" Salim barked and led by example, assuming the center position while holding his spear at the ready. The others executed his order without question, Frei taking a position at the formation's right side, the blue haired man next to him.

"You little . . ! Stop right there!" Two figures appeared in front of them when the bushes parted to make way for two robust man, the distance between them was just a few dozen meters.

"Attack!!" Salim roared and everyone seemed to be about to unleash their spells and abilities.

  Following the flow, Frei himself gestured with his hand and five blades made of shadows flew in the direction of the pair of thugs, Not waiting for the cooldown of Shadow Claws to end, he switched Crow into the hand and summoned the Sacrificial Blade into his other hand. Crow immediately transformed into some fancy sword.

"What is the idiot doing? A simple sword should be enough, I am not a walking museum!" Frei thought and clicked his tongue when he saw Crow's form. Frei noted that he was able to use the spell almost at the same time. Was it because he used different hands, or were the spells from different categories?

  He charged at the enemy only to find out that the two thugs had already been totally obliterated by his spell and when he turned around, the people of the group were staring at him with wide eyes.

"W-Well, well done Frei! Well done!" Salim forced a laugh, not helping the awkward atmosphere. Everyone stared at his dual wielding figure in a daze, be it the red flames of the black blade or the shiny blue runes of the other sword, it was crystal clear that Frei was not your usual bumpkin warrior.

"Damn, I have overreacted." Frei shook his head, he had probably a lot of explaining ahead of him.

No one noticed the sparkle in the little girl's eyes.