“There is much more to the tale of course, but I do not wish to keep too much of your time. I hope that I have helped you on your path.” The priest said in conclusion to his story.

“You have certainly given me a lot to think about. Thank you kinsman.” I responded.

“You mentioned that you had something else you wished to talk about?” The priest said as he poured me a small amount of tea.

“Yes.” I pulled out the necklace I had taken from the body of the dead woman. “On my way here, I found a small farm. The residents of that farm were killed by some kind of undead." My voice stayed calm as I coninued. "I took this from the woman, hoping that someone might be able to recognize who it belonged to.”

The priest carefully took the necklace from my hand. “I will ask about it.” He stared at it with a small amount of sadness. “It is truly a terrible thing.” The priest looked up at me with a grateful look. “Thank you for going out of your way to deliver this to me.”

“Do you mind if I stay in this temple for a while?” I asked as I stood up.

“Of course not. May inspiration be upon you.” The priest said. When I didn’t respond, he said “When someone says that, you are supposed to respond in kind.”

“My apologies. May inspiration be upon you as well.”

The priest smiled before moving off to pray in front of the statue of Sai and Maya.

I looked around the small temple. Across from The statue of the creators sat the statues of their three children. None of the other gods were represented here.

Dios was a muscular, blonde man reminiscent of Hercules. The statue’s eyes stared at me with an unfathomable wisdom.

Tia had long hair and was sitting at a bench with her head held in her hand. Her statue’s eyes stared at me with curiosity.

Maria stood there with a shield held in front of her. Her statue’s eyes stared at me in defiance.

In the game, this was an important moment for the cleric, for he would be choosing a god and the Cleric’s abilities would reflect the domain of their god.

I looked at each god in turn, unsure. I had decided on my choice the moment I had heard their domains. Still…. There was no turning back.

I gathered my courage and knelt in front of Maria, the goddess of protection. I pulled out the necklace that I had arrived with and held it in my hands.

“I don’t know if you can hear me Maria. But my name is Co- no, my name is now Drew. I have come to you for help and guidance.” I took a deep breath. “I am hiding it well, but I am scared.” I said before giving a sad chuckle, “If you really exist, then you know that I am not from here. I come from a world far away. At first I was excited to be here, but that changed. I have seen a terrible thing and I don’t think I will ever be the same. I dearly wish for the protection you offer. I know that I am probably unworthy of your blessing, but if you grant me it, I swear that I will use it only for good.” I paused for a moment “I realize how cheesy that sounds, but I mean it with all my heart. I am not one of those heartless idiots that you read about in stories. I have no desire to use my power for my own benefit… This must sound like ramblings to you, still, I hope you see my conviction. Thank you for listening to me anyway”

I lifted my head and to my surprise I saw the necklace in my hands glowing.

Words were whispered into my ear, “You have earned my gift”

A second later, a pendant in the shape of a shield appeared on my necklace. I felt a rush go through my body as I leveled up. I could feel my knowledge increase as I understood my abilities a little better.

I spent a moment trying to reconstruct what my character screen would look like if I was still in the game.

Drew, Swordsman/Priest, Lvl 2

Priest Abilities:

Heal

Purify

Barrier

Swordsman Abilities

Dash (Move forward three metres dealing damage as you go)

Riposte (block all damage for a second)

Swordsman’s Knowledge

Minor heal had advanced to heal and cleanse had advanced to purify. Clerics turn into priests once they start worshipping a god.

If I remember correctly, Barrier was a skill that would create a see-through dome. This dome would offer a certain amount of defence before breaking.

I put my necklace back on and walked out of the temple. I lost my balance for a moment, surprised by the increase in speed that my level up had given me.

I found Luna grazing on some grass nearby. She gazed at me for a moment, before turning her attention back to the grass. I carefully took off her saddle and blanket before I brushed her down.

A few moments later Damon, the guard I had rode with earlier walked up to me leading a horse with a young man on it, the young man had a short blonde haircut and two coyote-like ears, he looked down on me with a smile.

“Good evening.” I said with a poker face. I hadn’t seen the blonde when I was riding with Damon and he wore high quality clothes, which implied that he was something other than a guard. I took note of his sword and dagger before bringing my gaze back up to his face. His blue eyes assessed me with the gaze of a predator.

The blonde’s smile tightened at my curt greeting, “Good evening, I am Sir Brandon. My guards tell me that you have been riding with us?”

“That is true.” I considered leaving it at that, but decided not to antagonize Sir Brandon “Sir.” I added.

Sir Brandon’s smile widened at my use of his proper title. “We have lost some guards on our journey, if you can use that sword at your side I would like to hire you for our journey.” He nodded at Damon who promptly drew his sword.

I drew my sword and dagger feeling a little confused. Damon attacked me with a slash aiming at my arm, I danced out of the way of his sword, my thin rapier wouldn’t withstand a direct clash against his bastard sword very well. I switched hands so that my dagger is in a better position to redirect his strikes.

Damon held his sword in a two handed grip, an annoyed expression on his face. He didn’t want to fight me for some reason.

I quickly redirected his next strike away from me with my dagger and stepped in, pointing my sword at his throat.

A slow clapping sound came from Sir Brandon. “Nicely done. We would be happy to pay you say… two silver for the trip.”

I had no idea how much two silver was worth, but I would put money on the fact that Sir Brandon wouldn’t pay me what I was worth for my skill. I thought about it for a moment before I shook my head. “I am not so easily bought.”

Sir Brandon’s smile widened, “Very well, you have proven your worth. I will hire you for four silver.”

“I won’t join you for less than six silver.” Was my immediate response.

His eyes narrowed as an annoyed expression crossed his face “Very well. Six silver it is. Come with me, I will show you what you are guarding and what you must protect at all costs.”

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Damon sheathed his sword and grabbed the reins of Sir Brandon’s horse, Damon walked the stallion towards their camp. After a moment, I tentatively followed them.

I followed nervously as they led me through their camp. I could feel the gazes of the guards as they played dice and cooked their food.

A painful feeling in my stomach reminded me that I hadn’t eaten anything since arriving in this world.

I ignored the guard’s stares as I thought about my lack of food. Past the guard’s camp was a ring of wagons hiding whatever merchandise they were transporting. No one stopped us as we entered the ring of wagons.

I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t what I found. Lines of slaves were handcuffed to each other, staring out at us through cages.

I covered my shock as best as I could, Damon might have seen it, but Sir Brandon was busy looking over his slaves.

“Part of your job will be to make sure that none of these sheep escape.” Sir Brandon said.

An idle thought came to mind, Sir Brandon was using a psychological trick. Calling the slaves “sheep” disassociates them from humans, that way he didn’t have to care about them.

A moment later, I felt no small amount of disgust at myself for being so calm about the situation.

I realize that Sir Brandon is waiting for a response. “I see. I will do my best to make sure that the… sheep don’t escape. Sir.” I keep my expression carefully neutral as I respond. Anger started to build in my heart as I noticed that the smile on Sir Brandon’s lips never disappeared.

I felt heat on my chest, distracting me from my anger. The pendant I wore underneath my shirt was heating up. A few seconds later the heat disappeared as quickly as it had came.

What the hell did that mean? There was nothing I could do for the slaves, we are surrounded by guards. What did my new-found goddess want me to do?

I was helpless. Damn it all. What could I do? I could kill these two, but they would call the guards before I could kill them. I would be surrounded and killed within minutes. I stopped my train of thought, surprised at how I was contemplating killing people. I would have felt terrible for killing anything bigger than a bug back in my old world.

I sighed internally and pushed my moral concerns out of thought. I couldn’t do anything right now, but if the opportunity presented itself? Let’s just say that I wouldn’t want to be Sir Brandon.

I was about to turn away from the slaves when I realized something. They were humans. All of the slaves were humans. I almost laughed, thinking about all of the stories I had read, painting humans as the evil slavers. My mirth disappeared as the reality of the situation hit me.

I gave a slight bow to Sir Brandon, “Is there anything else you need from me.. Sir?”

“Yes. I would like you to start your duties right away. If you would be kind enough to replace the guards sitting in front of the wagons?” Sir Brandon didn’t wait for a response as he spun around and walked away.

I followed his orders and replaced one of the guards. Nothing interesting happened during my shift until I was replaced by another guard.

He approached me with an annoyed attitude “Sir Brandon wants you to feed the sheep. Here is the key to the shackles on their hands. Feed them one at a time.” He promptly handed me a pot of gruel, a bowl, spoon and a key.

I stared dumbly at the things in my hands for a moment. You could bet your life that this was a test. Sir Brandon wanted to see how I would treat the slaves.

I took a deep breath, I can’t show any kindness to the slaves. If I did, I suspected that Sir Brandon would never trust me anywhere near them.

I put on an impartial face, acting as if i didn’t care about anything going on around me.

The first slave I approached was a wiry young man with black hair and blue eyes. He stared at me without any expression. We shared an emotionless stare for a brief moment as I poured some soup into his bowl. I quickly undid his cuffs, it was brief, but I saw some pain cross his face as he moved his arms to pick the bowl up.

Now that I took a closer look at him, I could see various bruises across his body, nothing that wouldn’t heal within a couple days, still he must have been in quite a bit of pain.

He took his time eating his food, obviously enjoying the freedom of his arms. He finished and handed the bowl back to me.

I took a breath, preparing for what I wanted to do. I would only have a second to do it and if I messed up, Sir Brandon would never trust me near the slaves again.

As I put the slave’s cuffs back on I briefly touched his arm and said “[Heal]” under my breath. I stepped away from him to see a shocked expression on his face. The bruises were still there, which means that it worked. I had taken away his pain.

As I walked towards the next slave I saw the first one mouth “Thank you.”

I didn’t show the smile that wanted to appear on my face. I briskly moved down the line of slaves, and would heal the ones that were obviously in pain without taking away any of their bruises or obvious injuries.

When I left the slaves, one of the guards handed me a bowl of soup. I thanked him and he gruffly nodded in response.

With my hunger sated, I found Luna eating some grass outside of the little encampment.

Luna provided some warmth as I slept under the stars.

The caravan left at sunrise the next morning.

And our journey began.

It was rather interesting, so many of the plants and animals in my surroundings were similar to the ones I knew from Earth and yet, there were small differences. Changes in coloration, changes in size. One of the most striking was a full grown wolf the size of my palm.

When Sir Brandon had mentioned losing some guards, I had thought that the trip would have been much more dangerous. It was rather… tame compared to my expectations, at least during the day. It was at night that the true dangers came out.

To my surprise, Sir Brandon made sure that I was feeding the slaves again. New bruises had appeared on the raven haired young man that I had fed first the night before.

I made a show of ignoring him as he ate, but removed his pain again as I put his cuffs back on and continued down the line.

None of the other slaves had injuries like the first one did.

Once I was done with feeding the slaves, I grabbed the attention of one of the guards. I carefully kept my voice neutral as I asked him “Why does that sheep have more bruises than the others?”

The guard with dog like ears looked annoyed at me as he answered with a slight growl. “He is tough. So Sir Brandon decided that he needed to be taught a lesson or two. He doesn’t learn well.” He finished with a sneer.

Disgust filled me at the way the guard was acting, my hand twitches towards my sword. I stopped myself and took a deep breath.

This wasn’t me. Why were my thoughts automatically going towards killing? For god’s sake, I was a medical student, killing isn’t part of who I am.

I spun away from the guard and walked towards my campsite.

Yelling woke me up. Grabbing my sword and dagger, I hurriedly walked out of the tent that had been lent to me. An arrow whizzed past me and I quickly ducked behind my tent. Screams went through the air as waves of arrows came from the trees.

The arrows stopped. Slowly I looked around my tent.

A pack of white wolves ran through the tents and attacked the surviving guards. Following closely behind them were twenty white elves wearing leather armor and holding wicked looking sabers.

I turned back around when my eyes caught sight of something. Quietly, as the sounds of battle came from behind me, I crawled towards a body.

The pendant heated up on my chest as I looked down on the dead body of the wolfen guard. At his waist was a ring of keys.

I grabbed the keys from his corps and made my way towards the ring of wagons.

The guards at the wagons saw me coming. The one in charge pointed his sword at me “Stop and turn around. Go help your comrades.”

I unsheath my sword and dagger “I’m sorry. [Dash]” Before the guard could react, I was in front of him with my sword in his throat. I pulled my sword out and turned to the other guard. He looked at me with grim determination.

Our fight was breef.

Despite my brain telling me to hurry, I took the time to close both guard’s eyes and say a small prayer.

I walked towards the slaves. They looked at me with surprise as I walked towards them.

“I should have known you were a traitor.” Sir Brandon said from behind me.

I spun around just in time to block his thrust with my dagger.

I hopped back to gain some distance. We studied each other for a moment, before I went on the offensive, I couldn’t wait for the battle outside to be decided.

Sir Brandon fought with a cold efficiency that was effective in repelling my attack. Then I heard two words that scared me.

“[OverPower]” His arm sped up as he slashed at me.

“[Riposte]” Was my response. The ability drained me, but a look of surprise appeared on his face as I blocked his sword with my own.

I stepped in with my dagger, but his surprise didn’t stop him from performing a block with his own dagger.

I was breathing heavily, while Sir Brandon looked as if he was taking a morning walk.

This time he pressed the attack, strike after strike, he was slowly destroying my defenses.

“[OverPower]” I jumped backwards but he managed to leave a large cut on my chest. “[Dash]” before he could gain his ballance, I appeared in front of him. I knocked his sword away with my dagger and stabbed him in the stomach. He responded with his dagger, stabbing me in the side. I backed away and pulled his knife out of my side, “[Heal]” I managed to deal with most of the damage before I ran out of energy.

Almost falling down, I walked towards Sir Brandon, he was lying on the ground, trying to stop his insides from coming out.

I brought my sword out and stabbed down. Water fell from my face as I closed his eyes saying a prayer.

I slowly walked over to the Raven-haired slave and managed to unlock his shackles. Giving him the keys I had stolen from the dead guard, I fell over.

“Thank you. My name is Saron, I swear that I will not forget this.”

You are welcome Saron I thought, before my vision went black.