My dreams are spoiled by circumstance,

My plans are wrecked by Fate or Luck;

Some hour, perhaps, will come my chance,

But that great hour has never struck;

My progress has been slow and hard,

I've had to climb and crawl and swim,

Fighting for every stubborn yard;

But I have kept in fighting trim.

'The Fighter' Samuel Ellsworth Kiser

****

"Wha' 'chu readin' boy?"

The old voice started Nero out of his study. He had been sitting behind the front desk of Ground Sheer for a few hours now and, as usual nobody came by. That was fine with Kaesar, it gave him time to read up on a variety of subjects online using the network feature.

At the moment he had fallen into a bit of a hole. Nero had started the night continuing his studies on games and game culture, but it had somehow dovetailed into a survey about Japanese history. In a way, it made sense, the Japanese had been a significant part of the development of games in the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Though Japan wasn't around anymore, it had sunk in the twenty-third century, its culture remained strong.

At least he knew why Ludendorff had been talking about Neko-Maids.

He had been in the middle of the 'Tale of the Heike' when Furu, unknown to Nero, had walked up behind him.

"How did you know I was reading?" Though NPC's had status screens of their own, they did not have options or network functions on their menu. Besides that, other people were not able to see other's status screens without particular skills or items. There should have been no way Furu was able to tell what Nero was looking at.

"Ya always readin'." The old man snorted before taking a swig of a bottle he carried in his had. "It's the eyes. Only when some'un is readin' will there eyes move like that."

"Oh, and how did you see my eyes?" Furu had been behind him.

"I didn'." The old man took another swig and collapsed into one of the chairs in the room. "But that's all you do here is read. So, wha' 'chu readin'."

"Nothing important, just a history book from my home." Nero would have to reevaluate this old man, lazy and drunk Furu might be, but he was sharper than he let on.

"Bah, history. I suppose you Outlander types have ya own history. What good is history anyway? 's already happed. Nothing we can do 'bout it now, can we?"

"We can learn from it," Nero said, a bit miffed. He focused more on societies and cultures, but history was still a significant interest of his. "All knowledge and experiences passed down help the future generations."

"Then why do people make the same dumb mistakes?"

"Because they did not learn the lessons of history. All situations are both unique and old situations. Nothing is exactly the same, but enough cases have happened in history to take an approximation that can help you."

"History's only as good as its use, eh?" Furu muttered as he stared at the ceiling, absently taking another chug of his bottle. Then he snorted in laughter. "Guess that makes me good eh? Livin' history, I am, and I'm mighty useful. Go ahead boy, ask me about the history of this world and old Furu will teach ya. Can't go knowing about our past can you, Outlander or not?"

Caught a little flat-footed about the old custodian's sudden turn for the genial, Nero floundered for a moment to come up with a question. Eventually, he decided on a simple one.

"How old are you?"

"Hundred an' four today. Can't ya see, I'm celebrating." Furu waived his bottle a bit before chugging down some more.

A hundred and four? Only? If that was the case, then he should be in the prime of his life. Nero had thought him to be at least four hundred.

Unless Gods' Nature was using the old life expectancy as the default setting for humans? If so, during the middle ages people would be lucky to make it to forty, let alone a hundred and four. Perhaps magical healing and others such things could account for the longer lifespan.

But that was for another time. Right now Nero had a golden opportunity in front of him, a chance to get a first-hand accounting of the last hundred years. Of course, Kaesar could not expect Furu to be impartial, mainly as he was apparently not sober, but an accounting from the ground was invaluable as a tool for something to go on.

"How long have you worked with Ground Sheer?" Better to start off small and build his way up to more noteworthy events.

"'Bout seventy years or so now? Somethin' like that. I helped build it. 'Fore it was just the eight of us, now it's enormous. Cours, been a busy hundred years." The old man looked wistful as he talked.

"Why did you start it?" Nero took the revelation rather quickly, not having any trouble believing the story.

"Things were busy back then, everybody an' their mother wanted to get out there an' explore. There was fortune to be had if you survived and made it back. 'Course, not many did. That was when these training hall things started to appear. Too many people were goin' off an' getting killed, ya see. The lord didn' like that. Started trainin' people up a bit, made a huge difference. Some people had the idea to do the same for money. Ground Sheer was one of 'em."

"Why Ground Sheer? Why that name?"

"Bit of a story, that. Before we decided to start a training hall, we were adventurers like everybody else. We had dreams ya see, we were going to find a tomb and strike it rich. One of our guys had found a passage in a book about some martial artist's dungeon, we set off south to see it, a bit past Machy. By the time we reached the location, out of the original eight, only five were left. The others had already been resurrected back here.

But when we got to the location, half the place had been buried. One of us had a bit of magic know how only a few spells. One of 'em shook the dirt up good and allowed us to dig. Took a few months, and three more of us died, me being one of 'em, but we were able to get in. No treasure though, only manuals and techniques to train. We had spent quite a pretty copper on this trip, so we needed money if we wanted to start another. Decided to set up a temporary training hall to train people in the techniques we found. Named it after the spell that got us in the tomb in the first place."

"Did you ever go on another outing like that again?"

"A few times, but nothing really came of it. We just kept the hall open to pay for it. One thing led to another, and here we are." The old man had a nostalgic look on his face.

"Why were things so hectic back then?" At Nero's question, Furu turned a disbelieving look to him.

"Ya don't know." He blinked a little before a look of realization came over him. "I suppose you Outlanders wouldn't. I was almost a century ago."

"What are you talking about?"

"The Rupture, boy! Greatest event in living memory! Whole countries wiped off the map. All the gates disappeared, an' civilization was left a scattered mess."

"The Rupture?" Nero said, tasting the word. "What happened?"

"Nobody knows, do they? One day everythin' 's fine an' the next we have earthquakes and tornadoes all over the place. Lost all communication between cities and many of 'em just disappeared. We still don't know the full extent bet countries were left isolated and only recently have we got back in contact with Selwe and Minas Cassu thanks to you Outlanders."

"How did you lose contact?"

"'Cause we lost the gates of course," Furu said it like it should be obvious. "Can't really talk to somebody on the other side of the continent without a gate, can we ya daft boy?"

"What gates?" Kaesar really did not like being treated like an idiot.

"Honking great stone arches, portals to all over the world. Soon as the Rupture hits, poof! No more magic gates, no more communication. We still don' even know how many cities and countries survive."

"You depended on magic gates to communicate?"

"Aye, it seems a bit stupid to rely on only them now doesn't it? But they had been around for so long, an' nothing had gone wrong, that people didn't even realize they were doing it. Happened so quickly that nobody knows where they went. Best guess is that Nalukkhath, the City of Gates, was destroyed in whatever happened. Course we have to find it again. Supposedly it's in the foothills of the Mountains of Madness, where ever that is."

"If it's been a hundred years, how come nobody has found it by now?"

"Because it's bloody far away and dangerous, isn't it? You die, and you revive right back at the most recent holy ground you've been to. And there are very few sacred grounds left. Today if you want to get to Selwe it will take you a few years, and that is if you are on foot. This is only 'cause you Outworlders helped rechart the old road in the last few years. There are tones of strong monsters all over the place too. A terrible day or some bad luck can ruin over a year's progress.

Not only that, but there are no real accurate maps of the world. We have some basics, but there are specifics. We know that the Mountains of Madness are incredibly dangerous but how? Supermonsters? Will they drive people insane? Who knows? As long as we keep moving step by step, we'll find out, but that isn't going to be for a while."

Apparently, the old man felt hotly on the topic. So Nero decided to steer the conversation in another direction for the moment, and double check the facts later.

"How come you don't help the students train?" Kaesar wasn't judging the old man, he was just curious.

"Do I care if those brats go out and die? The best teacher is experience, the pain will carve your mistakes into your bones, and you learn. Is it better to never feel the pain of death and resurrection or to never learn? When we started this hall, it wasn't to keep people from dying, it was to make money and teach people to grow. There is a difference between surviving and living, if you want to be great you got to learn that on your own." Furu was going to continue but was interrupted.

"What have I told you about drinking on the job you old bat?"

Ken had come from the back rooms without either man noticing and was giving the old timer the stink eye.

"Come on, it's my birthday! I'm celebrating! 'Sides, we got snake boy here to work."

"Work you are distracting him from."

"He wasn't doing anything, anyway. Just reading and shit. What's it matter if we were talking."

"Because I don't want to deal with you scaring away customers again. The lord's daughter was supposed to come by the other day with a contract, but she was terrified off because you were drunk. She wanted to give it to another hall because of you. I had to do some major damage control."

"Bah, 's that who she was? I thought she was another streetwalker, got too many of those coming by to get to the trainees. I just told her where she could find better customers?"

"There hasn't been a streetwalker in this area in five years! They stay in the Reds. Your memory is starting to go, old man. If you want to drink, do it somewhere else, I do not need you insulting any more nobility."

"Fine, fine. I'll drink in my room." With that, the old man stood up unsteadily and took his leave. Once Furu had left, the head trainer turned to Nero.

"You can head home, training is done for the night." Ken turned to leave as well but was stopped by Nero.

"How come you still let him work here? If you just need to take care of him, then why don't you just let him live here rather than have him deal with customers?"

Ken took a minute to think about it before responding. "He's a bit senile but not enough to fire him. He's got some good friends, Furu trained the lord and every instructor here at some point or another. He is also one of the few humans still alive that remembers a time before the Rupture, so we get him to lecture trainees every once and a while. It probably helps that he is my dad."

And with a good night, Ken left Nero alone.

****

As was usual with Nero, when he wasn't at work or training, he was reading. He vacillated between sitting in the park and learning online about gaming culture and history or spending time at the bookshop and perusing the 'lore' of Gods' Nature. He was currently involved in the latter at the moment.

The discussion with Furu the night before had sparked in him a curiosity about the 'Rupture.' To follow through with that train of thought, as well as to get second and third opinions on the subject, Nero had turned to recent historical events to make a more complete picture. Not that Kaesar believed the old man to have lied to him, though it was possible, but because not only was Furu's opinion subjective, he had also been drunk.

So far, what Kaesar had found had substantiated what he had heard the night before. He mainly had accounts from Sarra Keep, due to his location, but he had a few insights into Selwe Castle from accounts of travelers in recent years since they had been reconnected.

The 'Rupture,' as it has come to be called in the years since, was an almost cataclysmic event in Gods' Nature. It occurred almost a century ago and had been so momentous and world-shattering that the current year was recognized as 96 PR or Post Rupture.

Nobody was sure what was the cause of it, or if they did they were not telling, but the general consensus was that some sort of battle or event had cause magic and nature to fall out of their stable order and wreak havoc.

The aftereffects were also relatively unknown, though a few things had been discovered or theorized in the years since. The first and most apparent was the collapse of the 'Gates.' Collapse perhaps wasn't the right word, more like disappearance.

One day the giant portals, called 'Gates,' that connected almost all major cities had just vanished. People were naturally freaked out by their disappearance, many had loved ones in other cities due to trade or adventures or some other reason. While there had been panic, it hadn't been too widespread. People had believed that it was a simple malfunction of their own Gate and that those in the Nalukkhath, the City of Gates, would have it fixed soon from their end.

It was in the following days and weeks that the Rupture started in earnest, with natural and magical disasters that appeared as if from nowhere. People began to realize that something monumental was occurring. Many villages and farms in the area around the Keep were destroyed in the disasters or by monsters that had migrated.

About a month after the disappearance of the 'Gate' people in Sarra finally decided to do something on their own, since no contact was apparent. Unlike Selwe Castle, the initial starting location for players and a major city that had been reconnected with the arrival of players, Sarra Keep had not been the capital of their own country before the Rupture.

A massive expeditionary force had been assembled to travel to the capital to bring back news as well as orders. It was a project estimated to take months there and to return, not helped by the rather large baggage train needed to support such an endeavor.

It was a complete failure.

Monsters were appearing in places they never had before and in more significant number and strength. The expedition managed to make it a little over halfway before being forced to turn back due to losses.

With no capital to rely on, Sarra Keep was by itself in a brave new world. It wasn't entirely hopeless, however. The territory surrounding the Keep was suitable for agriculture, and there was a forest to the south and jungle to the north, so there were no problems with supply.

The general of Sarra of the time, who later went on to found the current ruling family, decided to take things slowly but surely. He instituted policies to adventurers who helped expand the frontier and reclaim lost land and knowledge.

Where before adventurers had been a safe and stable job, able to chose anywhere in the world to ply their trade at their own level, now the world had become a much scarier place. The position became a mix of enormous risk and return. An adventurer who rediscovered a lost town or tomb could make enough money to live the rest of their lives in luxury, but the death rates were staggering. No matter if somebody permanently dies or not, nobody enjoys the pain of death.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

What emerged was two classifications of people at the time. The title of adventurer meant somebody left the city to become stronger or wealthier through combat in the outside world. The average death rates, in other words, those that respawned in the holy ground rather than come back by their own means was around forty percent. It was dangerous, but so long as a person was careful and had a good team, then there was a good chance of coming back alive.

The second title was only for the best of the best. The strongest, or luckiest, were called Pioneers. These were the people on the front lines of the wild, always venturing into the new and uncharted territory. The job was entirely voluntary, and quite a few people took it upon themselves. Those in the front lines had the best chance of finding things undiscovered by anybody else and thus had first dibs on rare treasure or knowledge.

An excellent opportunity comes hand in hand with significant risks, however. The death rate for Pioneers was a staggering ninety percent. This was because so much of what they did involved unknown risks. A random monster that you had never seen before could be over thirty levels higher than you with abilities you've never encountered. A Pioneer could trip and fall down a cliff never discovered previously and be forced to restart back at the Keep. It wasn't rare for Pioneers to wander into a monster nest without knowing.

But Pioneers were also able to get fabulously wealthy. The 'Rupture' had quite literally reshaped the continent. Old maps were accurate on a broad scale, like the general shape of the continent or the approximate location of cities and towns, but they were useless on a subtler level. Rivers and mountains had sprung up in areas they hadn't been before, and the old roads were utterly destroyed. A Pioneer that managed to chart a reliable route could become enabled by the general and own their own town if they could establish it accurately.

Initially, there had been no real distinction of Adventurers and Pioneers, both falling under the broad definition of an adventurer. But as time progressed the differences in difficulty became more apparent and more and more people started becoming Adventurers rather than Pioneers. Now only twenty percent of all adventurers were Pioneers. It led to a different ideological perspective on which was the best way to make a living. Slow and steady, with minimal risk and minimal reward or fast and reckless with high risk and high rewards.

Catchphrases started to appear like; 'A Pioneers leads and Adventurers follows,' or 'Pioneers get the meal and Adventurers the leftovers.'

Of course, Adventurers had their own in response; 'Pioneers find treasure and Adventurers find their bodies', or 'In a pile of treasure, Pioneers get one and die, and Adventurers get the rest and live.'

Quite frankly, Nero thought that they were both equally valid, and a person should only do chose which method was more comfortable to them.

This culture of adventure and rediscovery continued for over eighty years around Sarra Keep. The original general had died as well as his son, leaving the grandson tho rule over the Keep. Expansion had colonized to the sea in the west, only a few weeks away, as well as to the north and the south a little bit before those directions had halted. The jungle in the north was incredibly dangerous, not because of monsters but the terrain was just too rugged and varied to fight reliably in. Progress in the south had stalled because a massive amount of undead of all sorts congregated just past the forest.

So expansion continued towards the east for years, and people became more and more curious about the state of the once capital of the nation. Eventually, a Pioneer managed to make her way all the way to the old location. All she and her team found was rubble and bodies. The capital had been completely destroyed in the Rupture and nobody, but strong monsters were left.

It was only a few years later that the Pioneers of Sarra Keep met the players who had started in Selwe Castle.

Selwe had not gone the route of adventurers, they had adopted a more state-centered approach to recovery. The army was in charge of expansion, and there were no rewards by the state for discoveries. This meant Selwe developed much slower but more stable. When players first started appearing, they were in a culture that was ambivalent to adventure. It was for those who did not have jobs or education in societal affairs.

Was it any wonder that, upon encountering Sarra Keep and their culture, that players adopted it as their own? The difference between Pioneer and Adventurer as well as training halls all became popular with players who then imported it to Selwe. Large guilds and organizations also offered up massive rewards for new location or knowledge.

Players had started to say that they were living in the 'Age of Pioneers.' Players who took the highest risks leveled up faster and had chances to get better items. Only the best players, or those who wanted to be the best, became Pioneers.

While this was all interesting to Nero on a cultural and historical level, he found it fascinating, he also had a notion of the significance of the Rupture. Could this be Gods' Nature's main questline?

From what Kaesar had learned in his recent studies on games, most games had a central narrative. It was the dominant story of a game that other, smaller, tales would fall under. In MMORPGs, like Gods' Nature, the main questline usually involved massive, world-changing events. Players would be required to band together in the hundreds of thousands to complete these main quests.

The Rupture certainly fit the bill for such a narrative, at least in scale.

Nero shrugged the thought off as irrelevant as he got up to put the books away. It wasn't like he would have anything to do with such a significant quest in the first place, besides being an observer perhaps.

Kaesar was always honest with himself. There were millions of players at the moment, with projections of reaching a billion players shortly. The chance of him, who was treating Gods' Nature as a vacation, having a relevant role to play in shaping the narrative of the entire world was so minuscule it did not bother thinking about.

****

"We're gonna try something different this evening." Nero was once more at Ground Sheer training. The evening was only beginning, and he had just finished his warm-up exercises. Though they were called warmups, in truth to others, they could be considered a full training regime.

It involved standard stuff like push ups, pull ups, a jog, and other traditional exercises. It also included more diverse types, like holding a log over your shoulder while squatting for ten minutes and other various forms that would not be out of place in pre-modern times where people did not have machines to facilitate their training.

It went on for an hour before Nero finished and was called over by Rob. Usually, this was when they would go through a few forms and practice bouts with a variety of weapons, Kaesar had gotten the basics of a few weapons down, like the sword and spear but nothing really clicked with him. The idea of a weapon being ‘an extension of one’s self’ was all well and good, but for Nero, it still felt like waiving around a stick or piece of metal.

“Alright,” Rob said as Nero approached. “You still don’t have a weapon you like?”

“No sir.”

“That’s what I thought. Truthfully, you do not have much talent with anything we’ve tried before. You are by no means the worst I’ve seen, but it's going to take a long time of dedication if you want to become competent with anything. If you had a preference, we could focus on that weapon, but since you don’t, we are going to have to think outside the box.”

“What do you have in mind?” Nero wasn’t really opposed to the idea of stopping training in weapons. While he believed that continual growth and learning was essential, a person can grow in different ways. Practice in something that you do not like, that you might not use and you are not good at is not good growth, it is foolish stubbornness. Nero could be stubborn at times, but he was no fool.

“We’re gonna teach you to fight with your fists. You can already throw a punch, so you got that at least. None of us are pugilists or martial artists so we are gonna wing it. What you are gonna do is try and attack me. I will counter and hit any openings I see. I will only use my cane, but this should serve as a bit of practice against armed opponents.”

Nero nodded in agreement as they moved to a corner of the yard. The other trainees were watching a demonstration from Dode on how a shield could be used to catch an opponent's sword and disarm them.

“Come at me whenever you’re ready.” Nero did just that, launching himself at the instructor with a straight punch aiming at his head.

It turned out exactly how he expected. The cane flashed out, hitting Nero on the wrist and then pummeling his chest.

“You are projecting your actions way too much, any half decent fighter could see you coming a mile away. You stared at where you were aiming, you pulled your arm back too soon, and your shoulders told me the angle. All these things need to be corrected if you want any sort of chance in a fight.”

Nero nodded in acknowledgment while rubbing the sore spot on his chest. One of the good things about fighting in a game was that there was no permanent damage unless it was beneficial. His knuckles had split on that first night, but the losses remained even now, they seemed to have gotten more robust as well.

“Again.”

This time Nero tried to put the instructions into practice. He stared into Rob's eyes and got closer before trying to hit him. The cane once more moved, though this time it struck his right leg. Kaesar jerked to the side, almost falling over as the rod followed with another blow to his chest which put him on the ground.

“We’re gonna need to work on your footwork. While none of us are martial artists, we know that a proper stance is monumental to any fighter. Too rigid and you can be pushed over. Too soft and you won’t be able to use your full force. Your legs were too far apart for proper balance, and you focused too much on my eyes. It doesn’t matter if I cant see where your gonna hit if you can’t either. You need to keep up a certain level of situational awareness at all time.”

As Nero got off the ground and dusted himself off, he nodded once more and then attacked. He defocused his eyes a bit, trying to take in the whole of Rob and keep some attention on the cane. Kaesar decided to try and take the older man off guard. He approached as he had before, but once Nero got close, he attempted to land a kick on the old man’s legs.

The cane flashed, and Kaesar was once more eating dirt.

“Nice try. It’s a good idea to try and surprise an opponent but only if it can benefit you. Being unpredictable is good until you cannot achieve your goal. I would also recommend staying away from kicks for a while. The legs tend to be stronger than the arms and can deal more damage if used properly but they have their own drawbacks. First, they can be caught easier, once somebody has a hold on your leg the fight is essentially over. Second, effectively using them requires a better sense balance than you currently possess. Until you have a better grasp on your stance and footwork, it will be better to focus on simply learning to fight before you go down that road.”

Getting back up, Nero nodded once more in acceptance of the advice and tried once more. He failed of course. Then he tried again, and again, and again. The practice continued in such a way for the remaining hours of the session. Kaesar tried to attack Rob and would be repelled, usually getting another bruise for his trouble. If it weren’t for the fact that this was a game and not his real body, Nero imagined he would be in too much pain to move.

Needless to say that by the end of the session Nero had become intimately acquainted with the sand-covered floor of the yard. It was somewhat of a relief when Rob held up a hand to signal the stop for the night.

“We’ll end it here for tonight. You did good boy. Keep up like that, and you’ll have a decent grasp on hand to hand combat by the time the course is over.”

“Thank you.” Nero panted from the exertion of the evening.

“Just stating the truth, now come on. Ken wants to say something to the lot of you.”

With that, the trainer led him towards the other trainees. Everbody was gathered in a group and was looking at Ken who stood in front of them. Once Nero and Rob arrived, he spoke up.

“Now that everybody is here, we can get started. We decided to hold our usual expedition this Sunday instead of in a few weeks. For those of you who do not know, Ground Sheer usually has two expeditions per training season. The first in the middle to help trainees get a good grasp on where they are and how they need to improve and the second for you guys to get a feeling of how far you’ve come.

Expeditions usually take a few days and provide you with much needed real-world experience. Typical enemies are low-level goblins and animals. This time it will only take a day, we will be going to a nearby mine to clear out some ratmen. Typically these would be too high level for you, but they have only recently evolved and are weak for now. Some of you may die, or all of you may die. This type of thing is something everybody has to experience if they want to become an adventurer.”

There were mumbles and whispering among the group as they realized what they had signed up for.

“Prepare yourselves well this week and have a good evening.”

The crowd started to break up, chatting amongst themselves as they headed home. Nero hung back as he wanted to talk to Rob.

“Am I also going to be included?” He asked.

“You are coming as well. As Ken said, even if you die this is something any aspiring adventurer should experience. Training is only good for getting the basics down. A real fight, win or lose, can teach as much as a thousand training sessions.”

“Alright, I’ll be there.” Death wasn’t permanent anyway, the most Nero had to lose was time.

“Come in a little early tomorrow, I want to teach you something before your shift.”

“Sure, see you tomorrow then.”

As Nero walked off, he decided to speed up his plans for Jorry. He would try and complete it before the expedition.

****

“Thanks for this, I don’t know why we are getting more rats than usual but if we had to wait for the mages to come by it could start affecting our business.”

“No problem, I’m happy to help.” It served Nero’s purpose well, with the increase in work Nero had managed to accumulate the money he needed for his plan ahead of time. He wanted to do one or two more jobs just to be sure he had some left over for the day to day stuff.

Kaesar was unaware of what was causing the sudden increase in vermin, in fact, he would not have even known it was an increase if the various shopkeepers didn’t point it out to him. It was unimportant though, it just meant that business was good.

“I’ll be in the area for a while, just come find me if more show up.” With those parting words, Nero left the small restaurant to look for one more job. He had a few hours of free time before he was to go to Ground Sheer and meet up with Rob.

“Status.”

Name Nrvn Qsr Level 5 (20 Points Unallocated) Nature The Beast (Natal) Alignment Neutral HP 184 MP 100 STR. 17 DEX. 14 Spirit 10 Knowledge 20 END. 7  

This most recent job had pushed Nero to level 5, and his stats had progressed reasonably well in the last few days. Endurance, Strength, and Dexterity had all increased the previous night with the harsher training regime and Knowledge had gotten a whole two points when he was studying the Rupture. He still had not allocated his points yet, he probably wouldn’t until he gave magic a try. Nero had not enjoyed using weapons, but close quarter combat might prove different.

Altogether, he was progressing rather well for somebody who was not really dedicated to becoming good at the game, though that could be because he had more time to spend on it than the average person. Ludendorff had not been kidding when he had said that leveling in Gods’ Nature was hard, Nero must have killed a thousand rats over the last few weeks and he was still only level five. Granted, he wasn’t fighting all the time like other players, but Nero was completing quests regularly.

Taking a look at the snoozing snake on his shoulder, Nero wondered what level Jorry was at. It should be the about the same as his. It probably didn’t matter, right now he should focus on getting one more client before he has to leave. Right now he was wandering close to the outside wall of the Keep, he had noticed that the increase in rodents was more noticeable nearer the wall.

Sure enough, a woman was waiving him down right now.

“Good to see you.” The woman said as he approached.

“You as well.” It took a moment to place the face, but Nero eventually recognized her as one of his earliest clients.

“Thanks for getting rid of those rats, I hear you’ve been doing well for yourself. Think you could do it again? I noticed one this morning when I was setting up shop.”

“Sure.”

“Standard fee?” She asked as she led him to the storage shed in the back. It varied from store to store, but most owners kept their food and stuff outside the building, Nero was not sure why.

“Yep.” Usually, Nero would try and haggle a bit but he wanted to finish quickly, he might have time to get the next step of his plan done before he had to leave.

Get rid of the Desperate Rats Rats.Rats.Rats.RATS! They just keep coming, once more it is time to dive into the deep. Clear the Desperate Rats before nightfall to claim your reward. Desperate Rats: 0/21 Rating: E+

A bit more than usual, but then again the amount had been increasing recently. The rating was the same as usual for Desperate Rats, normal rats usually got an E rating, and their more prominent counterparts got a + to signify the higher difficulty.

Still, it was nothing Nero couldn’t handle with Jorry. If he were by himself, it would be a different story, too many enemies would focus on him at once.

As usual, Jorry descended from his should right before the door. It allowed the two to separate the enemies quicker.

As expected, once the door was closed behind them, the Desperate Rats launched themselves at the pair. A few fell from the rafters in the ceiling, Nero sidestepped those, having expected it. The rest came at the two from the ground.

It only took Jorry a moment to catch one in his jaws and tangle up another. As he squeezed the life out of his prey, he continued to harras another two. Nero was dealing with six by himself, he managed to grab one and punt another. Altogether, the two fought as the had dozens of time before, and it wasn’t long until the rats attacking them were wiped out.

Once they had room to breath, Kaesar once more put Jorry up in the rafters to hang down as he went to lure another rat. By this point, the snake managed to land directly almost every time, but more practice never hurt.

This continued as usual and by the time that Nero had lured the eighteenth enemy, Kaesar would be able to finish up in another ten minutes, giving him plenty of time before he had to be at Ground Sheer. So it was a surprise when he received a notification.

Get rid of the Desperate Rats Rats.Rats.Rats.RATS! They just keep coming, once more it is time to dive into the deep. Clear the Desperate Rats before nightfall to claim your reward. Desperate Rats: 21/21 Rating: E+ (D+)

Nero blinked at the screen a little unless he had miss counted or Jorry had killed more than he realized, there should have been three more rats to go. And what did the D+ rating in parenthesis mean? He scratched his head in bewilderment and turned to look at the small snake hanging from the ceiling.

“Did you kill some while you were up—Shit!”

As he was speaking, he noticed a blur out of the corner of his eye. He turned to face it but was surprised when a rat lunged at him. He tried to step back to avoid it, but it was fruitless.

-22

“What the-?!” As he got a good look at the what had caused so much damage, Nero realized it wasn’t a rat. Or at least, not only a rat.

There, circling around him to try and get in another hit, was a mouse. A mouse riding a rat like a horse and waiving a sowing needle like a sword. More than a little confused, Kaesar was startled from his thoughts by a thump behind him.

When he turned to look, he realized that Jorry had fallen to the ground. Looking up the rafters once more, he saw two more rat riding mice. His distraction cost him, however, as he did not see the first mouse go in for the attack, accompanied by another that had shown up.

-21

-24

-22

“Shit!” Nero typically wasn’t one to swear, but upon realizing that in a few seconds he had already lost about half his health, he realized what kind of predicament he was in. He jumped back to try and make some distance from his enemy. In doing so, he noticed two more mice with needle swords approach. Including the two that had jumped down and were attacking Jorry, it made a total of six.

The next few seconds were spent jumping around as Nero tried to evade the mice. For some reason, the rat mounts were faster than the rats up till now, so he did not have time to counter-attack. Every time he tried, the mice would move out of the way, and others would counter-attack, costing Kaesar more of his dwindling HP.

Unfortunately, Jorry was nowhere near as mobile as Nero due to his small size. It took less than a minute before, with a mournful hiss, the small serpent succumbed to his wounds.

“Fuck!” Nero was surprised how much seeing Jorry die like that actually hurt, the lazy snake had actually started to mean something to him by now. Unfortunately, Nero had no time to mourn or get revenge.

With his companion dead, it freed up the two mice to join in on the assault. It was too much for Kaesar as his already poor health finally disappeared. In his last moments, Nero saw the mounted mice raising their needle-like swords in a victorious cheer before his vision faded to black.

****

I have to fight my doubts away

And be on guard against my fears;

The feeble croaking of Dismay

Has been familiar through the years;

My dearest plans keep going wrong,

Events combine to thwart my will;

But fighting keeps my spirit strong,

And I am undefeated still!

'The Fighter' Samuel Ellsworth Kiser