“Swing your sword with meaning!” Alia yelled.
“Y-yes!” I stuttered as I swung my sword.
Once we met the other student, Alia took us into the Blackened Forest. It looks intimating with its blackened foliage, but it holds the weakest monsters in the world. It’s one of the few areas the king allowed us to hunt in. However, I haven’t hunted a single thing. All I’ve done is swing my sword again and again, hundreds of times over.
“When can I begin attacking monsters?” I asked as I began to lose all feeling in my hands.
“The last week,” Alia said. “For the first three weeks, you will be doing this basic training. You can’t fight monsters in your current state.”
“But if I level up, I’ll get stronger,” I pointed out.
“You may beat an opponent using pure strength, but when strength is equal, skill is what decides the battle,” Alia countered. “You’ll gain abilities and find a fighting style that suits you as you adventure, but only if you first know the basics. You can’t run before you walk, and you can’t walk before you crawl.”
Her logic was flawless, but boring. In game, basic training was fighting monsters. If players had to swing a sword for three in-game weeks before fighting a monster, the game designers would be fired!
“I’m back!” a voice exclaimed from the woods.
I looked behind me to see Rosa emerging from the woods. If I ran into her while playing Infinite Skies, I would have either ran the other direction or died trying. However, since she’s learning from Alia as well, I have no choice but to train with her.
“Did you defeat ten goblins?” Alia asked.
“Yup!” Rosa exclaimed. “And here are the fangs you wanted.”
Rosa pulled out a small bag filled with goblin fangs. Alia took it and opened it up to count its contents. After a minute, Alia closed the bag up.
“Good job,” Alia said before turning to me. “Ray! Now that Rosa is back, you can take a break.”
I immediately dropped my sword and sat down. While Rosa gathered her goblin fangs, Alia made me practice an overhead swing. At first my swings were wild, but once I swung my sword correctly a single time, repeating it wasn’t too hard. Repeating it for two hours while we waited for Rosa, however, was a nightmare.
“Seems like you got a good workout in,” Rosa said as she handed me a canteen.
“Yeah, now if a monster comes straight at me, I can kill it assuming it doesn’t step slightly to the left,” I said as I took the canteen and chugged it.
“Slow down, or you’ll get sick,” Alia said as she walked over with a bag. “Here’s some dried meat. Get used to the taste, since it’s probably all you’ll eat on long adventures. I’m going into the forest for a bit, so yell if you’re dying.”
With those words, Alia dropped the bag and went deeper into the forest.
“Finally, food!” I exclaimed as I closed my canteen.
“You look like you haven't seen food in days,” Rosa pointed out.
“I didn’t eat for hours before being summoned,” I explained. “And this is my first meal here.”
“Poor you,” Rosa mocked. “You know, people like Alia have gone days without food or water while on a mission.”
“Well, I’m not a Diamond adventurer, am I?” I asked.
“No, but I think you’re equally interesting,” Rosa said. “We haven’t summoned a single hero ever since the first ones over a century ago. And we summoned thirty of them instead of four.”
“Yeah, I don’t get that either,” I lied.
In Infinite Skies, the king summons thirty Heroes solely to aid in the eradication of the four other races: the elves, the demons, the beastkin, and the dwarves. If you follow the king’s orders, you will get an ending where humans take over the world, though the game considers it a bad ending.
“Hmm…” Rosa pondered.
I grabbed some dried meat out of the bag and took a bite out of it. I was expecting it to taste like jerky, but it was more like salted rubber. I couldn’t even properly chew it until it had sat in my mouth for a while, and even then, it took forever to break down.
“You took too large of a bite,” Rosa pointed out as she grabbed a piece. “Take smaller bites, otherwise you’ll spend more energy chewing than you’d get from the meat.”
“I figured that,” I said once I finally swallowed the piece I had in my mouth. “There’s just a lot of stuff in this world that’s new to me.”
“I guess that makes sense,” Rosa said as she took a bite of the meat.
“Isn’t this foreign to you as well?” I asked. “We’re both students, yet you seem very knowledgeable about adventuring.”
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“Oh, I’m a Silver adventurer,” Rosa explained. “Fresh Silver, though. So I know the basics. It’s complicated, so don’t ask.”
It felt weird talking to this Rosa. I’ve spent so long fighting her, that I forgot that she has a backstory, although most of that is hidden to the player. Even if you get close to her, she’ll only tell you that she is someone who we would be better off forgetting.
She really acts like a normal NPC that the player would eventually forget, but once you know her true strength, you can’t help but wonder what she really is.
“Hey, wanna trade?” Rosa asked. “I’ll show you a secret if you do me a favor.”
“A secret?” I asked. But Rosa kept her mouth shut. “Tell me the secret first.”
“Deal!” Rosa exclaimed. “Did you know that you can see my stats?”
“Menus?!” I asked. Finally, something game-like! I’ve been doing physical labor for so long, I forgot that I’ve been transported into a video game! “How do I open it? Do I just say menu?”
“No, it’s not that complicated,” Rosa explained. “And you seem excited, but the menu doesn’t show much. Just look at an item and think about opening a menu. Then it should appear.”
“It’s that easy?” I asked.
“It’s that easy,” Rosa confirmed. “Try doing that with the meat you’re holding.”
I did what she said and looked at the dried meat, picturing how Infinite Skies would display the item information in my mind. Then, suddenly, a box appeared over the dried meat.
Dried Meat (25%) Hunger Stamina Health Effect +5 (20) +2 (8) +1.25 (5) A chunk of dried meat. It’s surprisingly filling despite its size and can last months in poor storing conditions. Tastes overwhelming salty.
Yup. This looks exactly like Infinite Skies’ menu. I mean, the percentages are new, but everything else looks the same. It’s hitting me that I’m really in the world of Infinite Skies all over again.
“Amazing!” I shouted. “But what’s with the percentages?”
“It's the durability,” Rosa said. “In this case, the amount of meat left is what the percentages reflect,”
“Ah,” I said. “You’re right.”
“Now that that’s out of the way, you gotta do something for me!” Rosa exclaimed.
“Alright,” I said. It was only fair that I honored the deal. “Shoot.”
“Basically, Alia tasked me with killing a goblin king, however that’s too much work for me,” Rosa lied. “So you’re going to do my work for me!”
“A goblin king?!” I exclaimed. Goblin kings are the boss monsters of the forest. They aren't that tough to beat, but a level one player fighting bosses on their own is too much.
“So you know what those are,” Rosa said.
“Oh, we have a similar creature in our world,” I said. I probably shouldn’t reveal anything about my knowledge of this world in front of someone who lives in it.
“Well, doesn’t matter if you know about it or don’t,” Rosa said. “All that matters is killing it.”
“Isn’t this a bit unfair?” I asked. “I have to kill a goblin king because you showed me how to open a menu.”
“You’re right, it isn’t fair,” Rosa admitted. “If I was fair, I would have you kill every monster in this forest. But I’m just asking for the goblin king. Aren’t I generous?”
I paused. She was being ridiculous, but honestly, this was a chance. I can’t wait three weeks to fight a monster. Combat was the whole reason I kept playing Infinite Skies, so I wanted to see how combat worked in this world. I can’t wait three weeks.
“Fine, have it your way,” I said. “Just bring me to it and I’ll kill it.”
“Great!” Rosa exclaimed. She grabbed my arm and began pulling me deeper into the forest. “Let’s go!”
“Wait!” I yelled. “I dropped the rest of my meat!”
Despite my yelling, she didn’t stop. And thus, I experienced the first casualty of war