“Oh, hey guys,” said the weary adventurer, leaning against a tree for support. “Been looking for you everywhere.”
“What happened? Did you find the dragon?!” Balthazar asked, looking at the soot-covered boy with great expectation in his eyes.
Rye exhaled deeply. “I did not.”
“Then what happened to you?”
The human placed his hands on his knees, visibly tired.
“Can we set up camp somewhere, and then I’ll tell you everything? It’s almost night, and I’m completely wiped.”
Not long after, on a clearing not too far off the road, the merchant and the adventurer sat around a small fire made by Druma, while the goblin and drake enjoyed some dried meat.
“Alright, spill already,” said Balthazar, holding a piece of dried fish in his pincer, which he wasn’t too keen on eating, because it wasn’t a pastry. “What did you find in that town?”
Rye sighed.
“So I went up the path that the guy we found on the road pointed to, and after a long walk I finally saw the smoke coming from somewhere ahead. Once I got there I found a small village, just a few buildings, pretty much, some of which were half burned, the villagers still trying to put out the few fires that remained.”
“Did you ask them where the dragon went?!” inquired the impatient crab.
“People were running around with buckets and jugs of water, Balthazar,” said the archer, “I wasn’t going to stop them to ask about it right then and there, was I? I ran in and picked up some buckets to help.”
Balthazar nodded. “Right, of course, earn their trust first before getting information. Smart.”
The adventurer shook his head and rolled his eyes.
“Yes, sure, that’s exactly why I did, not because it was the right thing to do in that situation. Anyway, after the fires were out I asked if there was anyone injured, but thankfully nobody died or got seriously hurt. This is when the real kicker happened.”
The crab raised both eyestalks. “What?”
“I said they were lucky nobody got hurt after a dragon attack, and they looked at me like I was crazy. They didn’t know what in the world I was talking about.”
“Huh?” said the confused crustacean.
“I had the same reaction!”
“But didn’t the guy on the road say he came from a burning village that had been attacked by a dragon?”
“Exactly!” Rye said. “Turns out, there was no dragon at all. The fire started because of a peddler who rode into town claiming to be selling smokeless torches. Someone was foolish enough to fall for it, they bought some, and well, soon after there was a roof on fire. And then another. And another.”
“How could someone fall for that?” said Balthazar, waving his fish on a stick around. “Sellers like that give honest merchants like me a bad name!”
“And get this,” the young man continued, “when I asked what the peddler looked like, they said he wore a tricorn hat.”
The crab stared at the ranger. “And…?”
“Who do you remember meeting that was also wearing a triangle hat like that?”
Balthazar shrugged. “I don’t know. I hardly remember what hat you were wearing last time we were together.”
“I wasn’t wearing a hat last time we saw each other…”
“Exactly my point.”
The adventurer threw his arms up in frustration. “Whatever, that’s not the point! The point is, the man with the cart we met on the road and told us about the village was wearing a tricorn hat.”
“Oooh!” said the crab. “I get it now. The peddler must have sold him the hat too!”
Rye smacked his palm against his own face.
“No, Balthazar! He was the peddler!”
“Right, of course, that was going to be my next guess.”
The tired archer pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed.
“So, yes, that was a monumental waste of time. I got tricked by a scammer fleeing from the village and went there for nothing, as there was no dragon. Spent a whole day helping the people there and then got back on the road without rest to try and catch back up to you. And to top it all off, at some point I lost my bar of soap, so now I’m a dirty, tired mess. Anyway, what about your day?”
Rye reclined back against his quiver, looking at the crab with an exhausted face.
“Oh, it was quite something too, I tell you,” said Balthazar. “It involved killer starfishes, bandits, slimes, and a lot more.”
As the fire crackled under the cloudy night sky, the crab rambled on about his own adventures, talking without break as he waved his little fish around.
“So anyway, then I just took off and flew away in style on Blue’s back while the twenty defeated bandits below watched in awe as I…”
The merchant’s eyes landed on the adventurer and he stopped his story.
Rye was now fast asleep, lying down with his head against his travel bag.
“Well, that’s just rude,” Balthazar muttered. “Bah, I get it, he had a long day.”
Looking over to the other side of the fire, he saw Druma and Blue also asleep, the goblin comfortably nestled against the drake, who was wrapped around him like a fire-heated cushion.
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A smile sneaked onto the crab’s face.
At least they get along well.
Finding himself all alone by the fire and with no wish to go to sleep yet, Balthazar remembered his level up from earlier, after defeating the cryomancer, and sat down as he pulled his system screen.
Alright, finally some me time.
[You have reached level 18]
[Choose a base stat to increase by 10]
[Health: 190/190]
[Stamina: 30/30]
[Mana: 20/20]
Give me that health, I like big round numbers!
Without much pondering or hesitation, the crab pressed the first stat on the list, increasing it by 10.
[Health: 200/200]
Nice. Next, let’s see…
[You have 3 unspent attribute points]
[Attributes:]
[Strength: 5]
[Endurance: 5]
[Agility: 5]
[Perception: 5]
[Intellect: 8]
[Charisma: 60]
Hmm, I could already have 63 Charisma if it wasn’t for that Intellect requirement on the Imbuing skill. I really want to get even higher Charisma, but should I consider putting some more into Intellect?
Weighing his options, Balthazar expanded the Intellect description once again.
[Intellect]
[Affects your mental power, your magical abilities, and the capacity to learn and absorb knowledge.]
Makes sense. I don’t feel any smarter after putting points into it, because I guess this just affects my magical power and makes me better at learning new stuff. Good thing I already know lots of things!
As the crab considered what to do with his points, his eyestalks suddenly jumped.
Wait! I almost forgot about that scroll I found in the mage’s satchel!
Digging through his backpack, he retrieved the rolled up piece of parchment and quickly opened it. A bright light projected into the crab’s eyes while he waited for the Scroll of Potential to reveal a new skill.
[Revealing skill…]
[Leader’s Voice]
[Skill - C tier]
[Requirements: 30 CHA, 10 INT]
[Cost: 20 mana]
[For 2 minutes, you and up to three of your allies receive +1 to all attributes, and all actions performed as a team receive a success bonus.]
[Would you like to learn this skill?]
[Yes] [No]
Balthazar glanced at his sleeping companions across the flames of the campfire between them.
Hmm, this could be a good fit.
As he hovered over the yes option, his eyes flicked back up to the requirements.
Figures. I’m good on the mana now, but I’m short on Intellect.
Grumbling, the crab navigated back to his attribute list and placed two points into his Intellect.
Hmm, I still have one point left now. Should I invest it on something else, save it for later, or…
Glancing down at his high Charisma, the merchant shrugged and placed the last point into it.
[Attributes:]
[Strength: 5]
[Endurance: 5]
[Agility: 5]
[Perception: 5]
[Intellect: 10]
[Charisma: 61]
After confirming all the prompts and learning his new skill, Balthazar watched as the scroll dropped to the ground, lifeless and blank.
“Too bad they’re single use. I could make some good coin selling them to adventurers,” he said quietly.
After picking up the piece of parchment, the crustacean stretched his pincers up and let out a long yawn.
“Alright, that was enough bedtime reading.”
After dumping some dirt on the fire like the responsible camping crab he is, Balthazar went to his own little corner, to fall asleep like all the others around him, certain that he would need much rest for all the traveling they would continue doing in the days to come.
***
After several days deep in the woods, Warren emerged from the forest’s edge and onto a road.
Heartha’s new arrival looked nothing like his previous self now. Gone were the soaked rags he walked out of the sea with, replaced with tightly fit pieces of padded leather and fur armor crafted by him using looted animal parts and his newly acquired crafting skills.
His physique had seen great changes as well. Already in fine shape before his untimely demise in the previous world, thanks to a balanced diet and daily exercise routine, Ren’s body was now even more muscular and well-defined, thanks to his new attributes.
After spending his nights carefully analyzing and calculating the best option for each of his choices, and his days tirelessly grinding experience, the new adventurer had already reached level 15, gained several skills, and even unlocked a unique class: Champion.
Stopping on the side of the road, Heartha’s new hero took a knee and opened the backpack he had fashioned from stitching rabbit pelts together using a moss snake’s fang as a needle and caterpillar silk as thread. Inside, he rummaged through even more rabbit pelts. A lot more rabbit pelts.
Ever the careful deliberator and efficient minmaxer, Ren had quickly figured out the entire formula for experience and level gaining, and rather than risking his life going into more dangerous areas while having only a few levels, no skills, and poor equipment, he determined that the best course of action was to remain in the easiest part of the forest, where no monsters dwelled and only small critters lived. After determining that rabbits provided the best experience returns relative to time investment, the young man spent several days slaying the fluffy creatures in order to raise his level.
Unfortunately for the Champion, after a minor bunny genocide, he quickly realized the slaying of the small critters was no longer an efficient method to gain experience, due to diminishing returns—and also the fact that the local rabbit population could no longer sustain itself thanks to him.
Knowing that he had gotten as much as he could out of that area, Ren was now ready to finally leave the forest meant for level 1 adventurers to do their tutorial quest on their first fifteen minutes on that world.
“Where did I put it—aha!” said the adventurer, as he pulled a compass out of his handmade backpack.
Standing back up, Ren turned around as he inspected the item he had expertly crafted with his own hands using nothing but raw pieces of iron ore and a few stones.
“So north is that way… and the river ran… that way,” he mumbled to himself, while using a stick of charcoal to draw on an old piece of parchment, where he had been drawing his own map of the area. Because he was also excellent at cartography.
“Right,” he said, storing the map and other items back in his pack after a few moments of study. “This way up the road it is.”
Putting his backpack on again, the adventurer took to the road, marching on with well-defined goals.
First, find civilization in order to learn more about his surroundings and possibly acquire better gear.
Second, figure out how to gain even more levels in the most efficient way, to make sure he is prepared for any dangers he might encounter.
And finally, track down the mysterious character seemingly responsible for him being in that strange world and nearly losing all his memories: Balthazar.
As Ren marched through the road, his thoughts drifted to the same few images that kept haunting him every night as he fell asleep. A blurry sight of a house, two distant figures waving from the front door, likely his parents, although he couldn’t quite be sure. And a face, a blank woman’s face, that he knew to be beautiful but still could not fully remember. What was her name? How could he not recall his fiancée’s name?
The broken memories would have likely driven him to insanity, were it not for his iron will and incredible focus, keeping him on the tracks and determined to get back what had been taken from him.
He would find this Balthazar, and he would get his answers, the easy way, or the hard way.
Catching something up ahead with his eagle eyes, Ren slowed down his march, carefully observing what was coming for any possible dangers.
Two men on horseback rode the opposite way as him. One was brawny, his physique even larger than Ren’s, with a shaved head that reflected the sunlight, and wearing dark studded armor. The other was a much smaller figure, dressed not in armor but instead expensive-looking clothes along with a feathered hat, and sporting a thinly cut pencil mustache.
“Alright,” Ren said to himself. “Let’s see if these two know this Balthazar.”