Rowan didn’t expect for the war to come to him first.

On the way to Felton’s Mill, one of the soldiers spotted a couple of loose beasts. And so Rowan decided to kill two birds with one stone. He’d get a feel for his new strength and stop the animals from rampaging through the countryside.

But when he watched almost twenty corrupted beasts sprint toward him, the plan suddenly seemed a lot more rickety. It wasn’t just a mere couple of beasts. There were a couple of foxes, a sickly looking deer, a menacing wolf, and a group of approximately ten boars. It was like the world’s worst zoo, with animals that seemed to come out of nightmares.

And then one of the boars suddenly sped up, overtaking the rest of the corrupted animals.

“Shit, shit,” Rowan cursed. It’s probably the Reckless Rush card.

As the corrupted boar came into range, Rowan sidestepped away from the charge. He wouldn’t call the motion smooth, but it was much better than clumsy. For the most part, he kept his footing and had a fairly large margin of safety.

The boar sailed past Rowan, tusks flying but not latching onto anything. It squealed in anger when it realized that it had missed its target.

“Nope, you don’t get to be angry,” Rowan said as he stabbed his spear into the boar’s flank. He activated his Empowered Thrust card silently and felt the mana flow through him. It swirled around his chest before rushing into the tip of the spear.

The boar was still in the middle of its turn when the spear reached its target. The glowing tip sunk deep into the monster’s muscle before Rowan pulled it back out. He must have hit something vital because the boar suddenly lost its momentum. By the time Rowan was ready to place his second strike, the corrupted animal was on the ground. Before it could get back up, Rowan took aim and finished his enemy.

Behind him, a small explosion went off. A quick glance confirmed that Olivia was in her element, chucking vial after vial of explosive liquids at the larger cluster of animals. For once, Rowan was thankful for his foresight in staying far enough away from his mad alchemist ally.

“Olivia, let a couple through,” Rowan called as he squared up to greet the next attacker.

Two of the foxes emerged from the giant dust cloud and sprinted right for Rowan.

The foxes were slower than the boars, but they came with their own challenges. As they got closer, one of the foxes veered to the side, splitting Rowan’s attention in two different directions. Luckily, Kayden had trained Rowan on how to fight multiple enemies.

Rowan took a quick step forward and lunged. His spear shot out so quick that it was just a blur. It slammed into one of the foxes, instantly taking it out of the equation. Rowan pulled the spear back and twisted in place to face the second fox.

As his foot squelched in the wet mud, Rowan’s stance was almost ruined by the sudden loss of balance. But that’s where his new deck came into play. Stable Footing guided his foot through the uneven mud to a more solid spot and saved him from a nasty tumble.

Even as he adjusted his stance, however, Rowan landed a precise strike directly on the second fox’s head. He stared at how easy things were.

Less than two weeks ago, he had nearly died to a corrupted boar. Now, he felt like he could mow down as many of these monsters as he wanted. In a strict sense, he was still limited by his mana, especially since Empowered Thrust usually took one to two points of mana each time. But those were mere details.

“Rowan? Ready for the rest of them?” Olivia asked as she chucked a few more vials at the horde of monsters, pushing them back once again.

“I’m ready,” Rowan yelled back. She almost didn’t need to ask him. When Rowan formed a party with the baron’s daughter, he began to have a faint sense of where she was and the rough strokes of what she was thinking. The sensation had sharpened when they’d initiated the battle, too. Right before she’d spoken up, he had felt a rush of intent from her, like a premature warning.

“On my mark,” Olivia yelled. “Now!”

Olivia slung a new vial at the monsters. Before it slammed against the ground, she began running back, putting as much distance between her and the battlefield as possible. The vial released a low purple haze, which the monsters charged through without a single worry.

For a second, Rowan was worried that their plan had backfired. The corrupted animals seemed immune to the purple gas. And then one of the boars stumbled and found itself rolling head over stomach. Soon, almost all of the monsters were missing their step.

PETA would have a field day with me in court.

Luckily, there was no PETA and Rowan wasn’t sure if they would even protect corrupted animals. He stepped forward and in the span of a dozen Empowered Thrusts, the animals all met their ends. The most stressful part of the whole thing was when the wind shifted and he was forced to retreat in a hurry lest he inhale some of Olivia’s concoction himself.

“Why didn’t we do that earlier?” Rowan asked.

“Because you needed a test. That’s what father made you fight on your way to our keep right?” Olivia asked as she pointed at the original boar that Rowan had defeated.

“Yeah, fighting it is a breeze now,” Rowan answered.

“Good.” Olivia hopped back on her horse. Next to her, the soldiers hadn’t even bothered to dismount. “It’d be a bad thing if you couldn’t take them on. These are all common monsters, not even demons.”

As Rowan found his own seat, the system apparently decided that the fight was over and began distributing the loot.

Battle Results:

EXP:

[Corrupted Boar] + 5 x 12

[Corrupted Deer] +10

[Corrupted Fox] +12 x 4

[Corrupted Wolf] +16

Loot:

18x cards in Party Loot Inventory

“You know, I almost didn’t believe father when he said that you needed to be rescued from fighting corrupted boars,” Olivia said. Her tone wasn’t mean, but she was definitely poking fun at his expense.

“You try being shoved into a new world, given weird new powers which you barely understand, and then told to fight stuff that looks like it came right out of a nightmare,” Rowan countered. “Actually, if the boars are so weak, then why did they wreak so much havoc? I almost beat one without a class.” The image of dead farmers floated up to Rowan’s mind.

Olivia twisted in her saddle to look at Rowan. “You mean why most people run away from them?”

“Yeah.”

“The system,” Olivia answered. “The difference between having even just a single useful fighting card and a deck of random cards is huge. Monsters and demons naturally get cards that are suited for them. Most of us don’t get that advantage. But no matter how powerful the system is, it can’t teach you how to fight or give you the courage to stand your ground. Anyways, you handled the last group of monsters better than I thought. Let’s try just explosive potions next time.”

“Don’t you want to use the explosive potions less?” Rowan asked. Potions exploding next to him did not sound like a good time.

“More, actually, the explosive potions are literally the cheapest potions I can make. They're not even real potions, if you want to get technical about it,” Olivia said as somehow found the focus to flip her hair. “Part of [Experimental Alchemist]’s class card is the ability to take a bunch of different materials and stabilize them before sealing them in a vial. If I pick ones that react badly to each other and undo the effect, it produces a nice boom. It’s cheap, it’s easy, and you can always find conflicting materials.”

“So, let me get this straight,” Rowan said. His voice went dead as he realized the implications of what Olivia had just said. “You’re saying that you’re always walking around with a bunch of bombs that could potentially go off?”

“In a way,” Olivia said before changing the topic. “Did you level up? You probably did with all the experience that you earned.”

Rowan glared at her for a few moments longer, before refocusing his attention to the system screen.

Congratulations, you have leveled up!

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Rowan Clairfont

Level 4 Spearman

EXP: 15/100

Mana: 30/50

STR: 10

VIT: 10

DEX: 10

PER: 10

INT: 10

WIS: 10

Available stats: 6

Deck (3/4):

* [Heart] Keen Spear (Epic, Passive)

* [Class] Empowered Thrust (Common, Active)

* Stable Footing (Common, Passive)

* Inspect (Uncommon, Active)

Blessings:

* Blessing of the Stalwart Hero

“Holy crap. I just jumped three levels,” Rowan said. He repeated the phrase again in disbelief.

“Yeah, that’s expected.” Olivia's words snapped him out of his daze, and he gave her a confused look. “Come on, most of those monsters were level three or four, so obviously they’d give you full experience. That means each boar should give you at least three to four points of experience after my split.”

“Four?” Rowan asked.

“Yeah, did I get that wrong?”

“Uh, no,” Rowan said. For some reason, he wanted to keep the specifics of his blessing to himself. It had changed once before when Kayden showed that he was an Aristaeus follower. “Did you get experience too?” Rowan asked.

“Kind of, the system splits the experience of enemies defeated evenly between party members,” Olivia responded.

“So, this is a normal leveling pace?” Rowan asked.

“More or less. Things get tricky from uncommon and onwards. But your class actually becomes useful then, so it balances out. I actually got no experience out of that. Those were common enemies, so they don’t count for my progression anymore. It’s to discourage people from gaming the system by fighting enemies too strong or too weak,” Olivia said. “You should also see that we have eighteen cards to claim. Don’t mess with those yet, we don’t have anywhere to keep them if we claim them right now.”

“Alright, not touching the cards,” Rowan said even though his hand itched to accept the cards. With his cardholder, he could store the Inspect card away and maybe equip another attack card.

“Also, pick out where you want those stats to go if you haven’t already, and be smart about it. Don’t hoard them,” Olivia said as she urged her horse forward.

What do I know about my class so far? Rowan thought, thinking back on his training and the two battles he’d been in. I need to be able to dodge, and I need to strike quickly and hard.

When put like that, his initial investments seemed obvious. He focused on the unassigned points, and invested them in the corresponding stats.

Rowan Clairfont

Level 4 Spearman

STR: 12

VIT: 10

DEX: 14

PER: 10

INT: 10

WIS: 10

A jolt tore through Rowan’s body, and the horse almost bucked him off in his moment of weakness. Once the sensation passed, power coursed through him. His fingers tightened on the saddle more powerfully, and balancing himself suddenly became easier.

“A rush, isn’t it?” Olivia teased, giving Rowan a considering look. “Enjoy it because leveling up really slows down after a while.

Rowan did enjoy it. Assigning the stats also filled him with a buzzing energy that he was dying to burn off. When they came across another group of corrupted animals, he was downright eager to face them.

What Rowan didn’t realize was how much the extra stats changed things. As he charged at a group of foxes and squirrels, his legs seemed to have rockets strapped to them. The difference that four points in dexterity made was absolutely massive.

The best part was that Rowan felt completely in control of the extra speed. Where he’d still been a bit slow when dodging away from the monsters before, he now felt like he could dance right through them. And for the first few, he did. One of the foxes lunged for his thigh, and he twisted to the side while driving the end of his spear into its flank in a single motion. Then, in an instinctive movement, he ducked when a squirrel launched itself at his head like a mini missile.

Of course, that’s when the rest of the animals ganged up on him, and he was reduced to a half-panicked mess of wide blows and desperate dodges. It was incredibly difficult to fight the critters when they were practically on top of him, and he was clubbing the animals more than he was stabbing at them.

But the stat gulf was something that the monsters couldn’t just overcome. The extra dexterity did wonders for his reaction speed. A couple of minutes later, Rowan emerged from the fight harried but victorious.

“That’s why you don’t fight close range when you have a spear,” Olivia called out. “You need a potion, mighty hero?”

“Hey, I won, didn’t I?” Rowan yelled back. Despite his tough words, his face was bright red. He deserved the ribbing for the rookie mistake of charging in like that.

“Should have let me help you. Heroes have parties for a reason,” Olivia said. “Ideally, we’d have another two party members to shore up our weaknesses, but I can do a lot of crowd control and terrain management, like I did with my poison cloud potion.”

“The purple potion?” Rowan grumbled. “Doesn’t that color just scream poison?”

“It does. And that’s intentional. Because, spear hero, if I just started chucking poison onto the field, I’d do more harm than good. Do you want to be on a battlefield when the next breath you inhale could be full of poison gas? The purple makes it easier to track, and frontliners know exactly what areas to stay away from.”

Rowan had no witty response to that. Instead, he preoccupied himself with the system screen.

Battle Results:

EXP:

[Corrupted Fox] +10 x 3

[Corrupted Squirrel] +5 x 4

Loot:

25x cards in Party Loot Inventory

—

Felton’s Mill wasn’t exactly far-off. But as they got further from the baron’s castle, their pace kept getting slowed down.

By the fifth group of corrupted beasts, the soldiers started joining in on the fights. Individually, Rowan could see that they were slightly stronger than him. But together in a group, they became a slaughter wall. No corrupted beast, boar or wolf, could get past the flurry of spears.

After the eighth attack, the officer attached to the group called everyone together.

“What’s wrong?” Rowan asked.

“There are too many beasts,” Olivia explained, her face grave. “This isn’t normal. We’re in a relatively protected part of the barony. There shouldn’t be this many beasts.”

“Could we have just been unlucky?” Rowan asked.

“Luck is something that farmers count on,” the officer said. “We assume the worst. Always.”

“I agree,” Olivia said. “Either the demon horde is much larger than we expected or the battle’s been shifted.”

“Neither case bodes well for Felton’s Mill,” the officer concluded. “We’ll do double speed and ignore the monsters on the way. I’ll feel a lot better once we see what’s going on at the village.”

Olivia nodded her agreement and Rowan, seeing no better option, did so too.

Over the next couple of hours, the group avoided different groups of corrupted beasts. The frequency of these encounters rose as daylight soon started shedding away. After a few close calls, the group finally saw the village.

Rowan had heard both Olivia and the others refer to Felton’s Mill as a village. In his mind, that equated to a cluster of straw houses that opened onto the surrounding fields, with perhaps a mill at the center of the village. What he saw was a sturdy-looking wooden palisade, large enough to be a small castle. And thanks to large lanterns hung on the walls, Rowan could see that the officer’s words had come true.

The village was under siege. Hundreds of people were guarding the walls and using pretty much every medieval tactic that Rowan could think of. The more professional-looking militiamen used bows and spears, while the villagers threw rocks and poured boiling water down onto the beasts.

It wasn’t looking good.

The monsters seemed to be of a different breed than the ones that Rowan previously faced. Arrows bounced off the creatures’ hides more often than they pierced, and the stones and water were at best slowing them down. As the animals jostled against the walls, Rowan could occasionally hear the sound of screams. Human ones.

“Off your horses, men,” the officer ordered, and his soldiers obeyed instantly. “Flat formation!”

Rowan followed the first half of his order, copying the soldiers and hurriedly tying his horse to a nearby tree that looked sturdy enough. When it came to falling into formation, however, he was woefully unprepared. The two neat rows of soldiers offered him no spot to squeeze himself in.

“Not you, Hero Rowan,” the officer said. “Let us clear the way for you first.”

“Are you sure about this?” Rowan said. The twenty soldiers that had tagged along were almost nothing compared to the horde of monsters.

“Of course,” the officer said with a smile. “Formation, ready.”

The men began to unsheathe their weapons. The first row wielded spears identical to Rowan’s own while the second row took out a lightly curved short sword along with heavy shields. The officer himself gripped a large, double-headed axe in one hand, and a shield in the other.

“Time to earn our mead,” the officer roared. “Formation, Fearless Charge!”

As one, the soldiers broke into a run, gaining momentum far faster than should have been possible. When they met the beasts, Rowan realized that he had severely underestimated his traveling companions.

They shouldn’t be called spearmen. They’re harbingers of death.

The wall of soldiers crashed into the beasts with glowing weapons, easily mowing down the opposition. Where a single spear might have faltered, the momentum of the soldiers together was enough to push hundreds of corrupted beasts back.

Rowan watched the soldiers literally step on the bodies of their enemies to continue their charge. It was both gruesome and a raw display of power.

The rush finally faltered when the soldiers crashed into the main body of the horde, but by then it was too late. The officer shouted something unintelligible from their position, and the spears retreated to let the second row of soldiers forward. In moments, the corrupted beasts at the front of the horde met a whirlwind of steel from the curved swords.

As soon as the village defenders became aware of the reinforcements, a cheer rose from the wall, and their efforts redoubled. Arrows flew unsparingly into the thickest pockets of the horde.

A black miasma that somehow stood out against the night sky flowed down from the wall, rapidly spreading over the horde and making the beasts visibly falter. To follow up that display, a figure launched itself off the wall and down into the press of animal bodies, killing more than a few on impact. Rowan couldn’t make out much, but he could tell that the fighter was wielding a truly ridiculously large shield. It looked bigger than the person themselves, and they used it proficiently to literally pulp the surrounding corrupted beasts.

What had once looked like an insurmountable obstacle was being rapidly demolished right in front of Rowan’s eyes.

“Impressive, aren’t they?” Olivia’s voice was solemn. “My father was only allowed to bring a tiny portion of his men to the barony. Most of his standing troops were ordered to stay behind and serve the new duke. They had to. The king would have seen their insistence to follow my father as rebellion.”

Rowan wasn’t sure what to say to that, opting to instead watch silently as the soldiers tore through the horde. In a matter of minutes, the battle was done. The corrupted monsters lost their will when the worst injuries they could inflict on the soldiers were mere surface wounds. It didn’t take long before they fled.

“Looks like it’s our turn.” Olivia grinned as she went to untie her horse.

“Our turn?” Rowan asked as he copied her motion.

“Remember what I said about the system? It’s only a part of a person’s strength. The same thing applies to a group of people. If they know that their lord’s daughter is among them, it’ll do wonders for their morale. And a hero? It’ll be like a buff that doubles their stats,” Olivia said. “And looking at how big that horde was, we’ll need every bit of help we can get.”

Rowan moved toward Felton’s Mill. It was time to see if he could play a convincing hero.