After Ryuji had calmed down somewhat, he started to talk about video games and how they related to his power. I was surprised by how open he was with the basis of his power, even if he did try to veil his Otherworlder nature with some excuse that he had an inherent bloodline ability of sorts, whatever that meant.
All in all, I learned some interesting things.
Most of what he said confused me, especially the concept of video games, which he described as a play where the audience could control the actors’ every move. Throughout the play, the actors would grow stronger to defeat whatever conflict was present in the story at the time, gaining levels, stats, and skills.
I didn’t understand the minute details that Ryuji spouted out in great length, but I at least understood that Ryuji grew stronger in power by levelling up, which was achieved by gathering experience points. While Ryuji’s description of experience points was vague to the point where I couldn’t follow his logic in the slightest, the fact that I’d seen him gathering experience points whenever he completed a quest helped me draw my own conclusions.
What did concern me was that he mentioned that in video games, actors would usually get experience points for killing things. Though it seemed like the same logic didn’t apply here, I was hoping that Ryuji wouldn’t go on a killing spree to test it further.
Honestly, the fact that Ryuji had revealed to me that he would be getting stronger as he got more level ups was the most terrifying thing that I got out of his explanation. He seemed to imply that his power was at its infancy and I wasn’t eager to see what it looked like when he progressed even further.
I hadn’t contributed much to the conversation thus far, but that had changed when he mentioned stat points, which seemed to be numerical values that were assigned to his strengths and weaknesses that he could raise once he levelled up.
Which was the reason why I was currently talking and not just nodding along with whatever he said.
“So I usually go for Dex and Int builds in video games, so they’d be probably be the most comfortable for me, but I’m not sure how much it would apply to real life,” he said, completely forgetting about the cover story he’d made up that he’d had this ability all his life. “Though I’m not sure I’d be happy with anything else.”
During our walk through the forest, I was slowly starting to feel myself getting less scared of Ryuji as time passed. Though it might have been my hysteria talking, it was getting difficult not to see him as just being a normal excitable boy. I certainly wasn’t comfortable with him, but I no longer felt like the slightest misstep would result in my quick incineration.
“Why don’t you just do a little bit of everything then?” I asked, genuinely curious as to why he didn’t take the simple solution.
“Eh, that’s just suboptimal.” He was blushing and stammering less the more he spoke, though I wasn’t sure if that was because he was getting more comfortable with me or if it was because he was too focused on the subject of our discussion. “The higher your stats are, the more access you have to better abilities, so a specialist would have a more exponential growth in power.”
“I see,” I said. The fact that he would have a slower growth only supported the reasons why I would want him not to specialize in a single stat, but I assumed that’s something he wouldn’t want to hear. “So what are dex and int then, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“Oh,” he said, rubbing his head in embarrassment. “Right. Sorry.”
“It’s alright,” I said.
Once again, I was confused about why he was apologizing, but he’d done enough at this point that I’d accepted it as a personality quirk of his.
Once again, he seemed to appreciate whenever I pardoned him for whatever faux-pas he thought he committed, though maybe he actually had done something that was considered to be rude in his culture.
It was a little worrying how easily I was starting to forget that Ryuji wasn’t a human. He was an Otherworlder, who likely had his own mindset and culture that was foreign to my own way of thinking, even if he did act somewhat like how a human would.
“So,” I said. “What were you saying about dex and-“
I paused when I heard the hoot of an owl. Though the sun was still shining through the forest canopy, the reddening hue of the light suggested that night was coming somewhat soon.
“Maybe we should continue this conversation some other time?” I said, motioning towards the vague direction of the sun. “We should start setting up camp.”
“Really?” Ryuji asked. “It’s still so bright out.”
“It’s easier to set up camp when there’s still light out. And it’s been a long day. I know we have rations ready, but I’d rather cook something up if possible.”
“Oh. I guess that makes sense.”
With nothing else to say, I stopped talking and scanned the area around us for a suitable clearing to camp on. I didn’t have to look hard, as the path through the forest was lined with small patches of flat dry ground, either natural or artificially flattened by larger groups of travelers who’d been forced to make their own camping grounds. I chose a spot that would accommodate two tents comfortably without them having to be too close to each other.
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The set up of the camp was a relatively simple thing, something I did many times in my life when I went to the forest to learn magic from the Goblins. They preferred to sleep in the trees or on the forest floor without any cover, so had to learn to set up my own accommodations. Once I doffed my travel bag and survival kit, it was a simple process to unroll and set up my tent in a matter of minutes.
Ryuji, on the other hand, wasn’t having such an easy time. He was grumbling and griping as he struggled to put together the tent. I wasn’t sure he even knew what each part was used for, other than the general idea that the tarp should go on top.
When I heard a laugh, I couldn’t help but feel like I imagined it, especially since it sounded like my own. But when Ryuji looked at me with a look of shock and utter mortification, I couldn’t help it.
I knew that Ryuji liked me on some level, but that had never given me the confidence to truly be comfortable around him, in case he changed his mind. I knew he could still kill me, but somehow, that made the situation that much funnier. Tangled up in a mess of ropes, poles, and tarps, Ryuji looked so damn helpless.
A giggle escaped me, and I felt a vague flash of panic when I realized I was laughing openly at an Otherworlder, but that panic only made me find the situation even funnier somehow. I slapped a hand over my mouth, as if that could stop the laughter from escaping it, but a torrent of giggles flowed freely until it devolved into full blown laughter. A small handful of birds flew away with indignant squawks at the sound.
I don’t honestly know why I was laughing so hard. It wasn’t even that funny. Maybe my mind had finally snapped under the pressure it had been under. Maybe I was delirious. Who knew? Certainly not me.
Though tears of laughter flowed freely down my cheek, my hands were too busy clutched around my aching stomach to wipe them away. Eventually my laughter petered out and I managed to catch my breath again and wipe the tears from the corners of my eyes.
I might have burst into laughter again when I saw Ryuji’s indignant expression, if it weren’t for the fact that I was completely spent already. He was red faced and had trouble looking directly at me, but at least he wasn’t setting me on fire.
“It’s not that funny,” he said.
“Sure,” I said. “C’mon. Let’s get you set up.”
It took about five minutes to set Ryuji’s tent up, which seemed to humiliate him even more, but I decided I didn’t need to push my luck any further. Squashing down the amusement I had, I focused on gathering wood for a fire and digging a small pit for a makeshift washroom far enough that we wouldn’t smell it. Ryuji didn’t do much, choosing instead to watch me work as he calmed down from his embarrassment, but I didn’t mind. I was used to camping alone and an extra person didn’t add too much work.
He did offer to start the campfire, which was nice, but he only ended up embarrassing himself again when he cast a spell that was too strong and incinerated the firewood that I’d gathered.
I wasn’t going to make him gather more firewood with me to replace the pile of ash that he’d made, but I was grateful when he insisted. He wasn’t too good at it, but he seemed to know that and didn’t mind me telling him what to do.
“Don’t do that,” I said. “It’s not good to break off branches from young trees.”
“Sorry,” he said, letting go of the branch he was about to snap off. “Is it because of the circle of life or something? We should use the older trees so the young ones have room to grow?”
“No?” I said, unsure of what he was talking about. “The young ones are supple and full of water. They don’t burn as easily. Try searching on the ground for drier twigs.”
“Oh.”
It was a funny image to see an Otherworlder squinting as he pushed around the forest debris with his foot. While the sun was still up, it was quickly setting and it was getting more and more difficult to see in the dim light. I wasn’t surprised when Ryuji failed to gather any more sticks after that point, but thankfully I’d gotten enough that starting a fire wouldn’t be a problem.
“How are you so good at this?” Ryuji asked as we walked back to our tents.
“Practice, I guess. I’m used to being in the forest.”
Ryuji nodded, but that seemed to be the end of his questioning.
“How about you?” I asked.
“Me?” Ryuji asked, as if there were anyone else I could possibly be talking to.
“Yeah,” I said. “You seem to be pretty new to this. Do adventurers from where you’re from not need to travel long distances?”
Ryuji looked at me and shifted his eyes away. “No, they do,” he said. He sounded nervous for some reason, and though he fell silent, I could tell he wanted to keep talking. “I actually wasn’t an adventurer back at home. This is my first time doing something like this.”
Though that meant nothing to me, since I still wasn’t too sure about what an adventurer was exactly, nor what his home was like, he seemed to feel a little ashamed by the admission.
“Well, that’s fine,” I said. “You’re what, fifteen? Sixteen?”
“Fifteen,” Ryuji said, finally confirming my suspicions.
“You’ve got time,” I said. “You’re still young. You’ve got a dream. You’ll be a great adventurer soon.”
Ryuji stared at me, like I’d spontaneously spoken in a foreign language. “Nobody’s ever said that to me before.”
“Said what?” I asked.
“That they believed in me.”
I had no idea how to reply to that. Though I now knew that he was only two years younger than me, he looked even younger in that instant, like a child. I coughed to hide my discomfort and unloaded the sticks we’d gathered into the small fire pit that I’d dug out beforehand.
“Well, that’s dumb. I’m sure you can do whatever you put your mind to. Like starting a fire! Ready to redeem yourself?”
Ryuji looked at the pile of firewood and the pile of ash just underneath it, a reminder of his previous failure.
“Are you sure?” he asked.
“I believe in you. Just try to make your spark weaker this time.”
Even if he did fail, we didn’t necessarily need the fire. I mostly wanted it to cook our food and keep the bugs away, but we had rations and I was no stranger to bites. Still, I didn’t feel like he needed to know that.
Ryuji, once again, looked shocked by my statement, but his shock quickly morphed to determination as he placed his hands directly over the firewood.
I hoped he didn’t notice me subtly backing away.
“Spark.”
What looked like a tiny red lightning bolt arced out of Ryuji’s fingers and disappeared into the pile of wood. At first it didn’t look like anything happened, until I noticed a tiny ember in the tinder at the center of the pile. Ryuji looked torn between excitement and not knowing what to do, so I bent down and started to blow on the fire to keep it alive. It was a substantial flame already, so I didn’t need to do much to make it catch on to the thicker branches.
“See?” I said. “I knew you could do it.”
Ryuji seemed too distracted by the fire to hear me, so I let him be, taking a moment to appreciate the fire with him for a few seconds before starting to unpack our food.