“We’ll just pretend it winked. Yep. Sorry eye you don’t really fill my cup of tea, I like my tea with more…body.”
“Glad to see you’re having fun!”
“FUCKING… hello.” My startled response drew a full-bellied laugh from my visitor, a round man who looked strikingly similar to a barrel. If that barrel was a pro wrestler. Actually yeah imagining a super buff barrel and lining it up with the guy, they were pretty close.
“I’m Amos, the bartender. Mariche is taking the report from Mr. Grey about some kind of crazed heratosk. Probably setting up an extermination team while she’s at it so I’m over here to get you sorted! So without further ado, give that eye a smack on the lips and you’ll be set.” A bit weird sure, but from the way that eye moved it was probably magical, which meant this was probably the way that they checked new adventurers’ status and gave them their adventurer cards with their level and stats. Probably needed my saliva or something to work and I had no intention of standing around dumbfounded like a side character. Thinking this I quickly moistened my lips and gave the eye a kiss on the lid.
“HOLY SHIT HE DID IT! Hell I think he went in with tongue! Ahahahaha guess that eye really did fill your cup of tea eh, boy? Was it the sultry gaze of those ruby reds? BWA HahA hAAHA haaa… haa… AH HA haaaaa… phweehehehhh…”
I hate this man.
“All the eye had to do was look at ya! AAAHAHAHAHA! Oh boy I think it’s blushing! Heeeheeheehahaha” Amos left the room wiping tears from his eyes. I could faintly hear him keeping my disgrace a secret from the other adventurers with sweet nothings like “I finally found a husband for that beholder in yer basement.” What a bro.
With a quiet cling a metal plate slid out of the desk the eye was resting on. “What? Couldn’t have done that a minute earlier?” I glared at the eye. It blushed. Regretting my peerless ability to do stupid things effortlessly I sighed and picked up the plate.
NAME: Not Sure Yet
TITLE: Enigmatic
AGE: ???
RACE: Human
LEVEL: 1
CLASS: Beginner
STRENGTH: ???
VITALITY: ???
SPEED: ???
AGILITY: ???
LUCK: ???
INTELLIGENCE: ???
DEXTERITY: ???
MANA: ???
SKILLS: Origin. Enigma1. Traveler.
“Ooo, you people always get such interesting skills.” The lady from before was leaning over my shoulder with her hands on her hips and a wide grin on her face. Apparently, she had peeked at my plate. Keeping her grin, she straightened up and sat down opposite me. Grey followed after her and pulled up the seat next to mine.
“Do you know what my skills do?” I asked. After all with names like enigma I figured guessing wasn’t going to work.
“Well, more or less. Skills tend to be pretty self-explanatory such as fire resistance or light magic aptitude and there’s usually not really room for interpretation. And while the power isn’t determined by your ability to interpret it, for some reason vague skills tend to be stronger.” She nodded sagely and crossed her arms. “All the foreigners I’ve run into have had these vague sorts of skills.”
“So you’re saying I’m OP.” I knew it. I could already see the glistening image of a golden hero reflected in my eyes. The cheering crowds roared their approval {OH...PEE…OH...PEE…OH...PEE…OH...PEE…} Guild Lady tactfully ignored my daydreaming and began to explain the skills.
“Origin, enigma2, and traveler are your skills. It’s a little unusual to have so few skills but you will probably be able to train them and develop related subskills so don’t worry too much. Origin is a cleric skill. According to my understanding it allows you to return something to its original state once a day. I call it a cleric skill because it’s typically used to heal serious injuries. While it’s only usable once a day you can look at it as a free reset or an extra life, it’s quite a rare skill. Of course if you die instantly it won’t activate so do be careful. Enigma is… somewhat useless3.”
“Geh-” I choked on my tea a little. Grey pounded me on the back with an amused expression. I continued choking. Guild Lady breathed out a small laugh before continuing her explanation over my imminent asphyxiation.
“Enigma is a skill that makes things hard to understand. So far the extent of what we’ve seen it do is to hide information on your status plate and disrupt your presence. The presence disruption would be useful for stealth or upsetting an opponent’s concentration, or even hunting, but it cannot be used at level one. You have to train the skill to be able to pull out those abilities, so currently… you can hide your stats.”
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
“Well I guess if I become a monster that would be pretty useful.” At max level I might even be able to be invisible.
“Yes, but right now it means we can’t judge your aptitude based on your stats.”
“Huh? Why? Can’t I just turn it off?”
“Enigma is mostly a passive skill so it shouldn’t be possible to turn off.” Oi Oi Oi does that mean at higher level I’ll be permanently invisible? What the hell is that?
She choked4 back what looked like a combination of discomfort and amusement before continuing. “Well the skill’s development depends on you so don’t be discouraged. Now then, traveler, your last skill, is essentially a movement buff that allows you to travel distances at speed and lightens loads so you can carry more. It’s a common skill, but still indispensable.” Guild Lady hit us with a brilliant smile that suggested that this was by far the most useful of my skills. I bathed in that smile with an expression of horror. My skills are useless!!!
“Hey Grey,” I turned to my Knight companion who had been looking at his own plate this entire time. “What skills do you have?”
“Uhh how to say it…” He absentmindedly scratched his cheek, “I have time-dilation, god-speed slash, all weapon familiarity, medium armor familiarity, great strength and mental immunity.”
What the fuck.
“How the hell did you get such ridiculous skills??”
“Well my class is Sword Master so I have skills that focus mostly on fighting.” I died a little on the inside as my golden hero image lifted the visor to reveal Grey’s face. He waved to the crowd while I crouched in a corner invisibly asking for change and satisfying my hunger once a day by returning my stomach to full.
“Grey I’ve decided to become an assassin. While I train I ask that you never leave my side so I don’t lose sight of y… ah… I mean so that I don’t lose motivation.”
“Somehow I don’t want to.” Damn Grey, his instincts are sharp.
“Alright now, I have work to do so why don’t you head over to the town lord after this to find a suitable job.” The lady once again smiled warmly and gestured to the door. I filed out after Grey and met back up with Kel, who was sitting in the café section of the front room.
“Hey Kel! Perfect timing!” I plopped into a seat next to her.
“Timing? Wha…? You’re the one who just showed up.”
“Shhhhh it’s okay. Just accept it. So I wanted to ask about that quest you got paid for earlier. Are you an adventurer?”
Kel blinked a few times to get her bearings, and then looked at me.
“No, actually. I’m a mercenary and a merchant-in-training. Adventurers aren’t really that common in this…uh…country. I guess it’s not really feasible to make a living by effectively doing favors for random people when half of those favors could be done by a specialist with the right job.”
“Eh? Really?”
“Yeah. Even that receptionist is only an adventurer part-time. Everyone just kinda signs up as adventurers so they can keep better track of everybody. They should really rename it the traveler’s guild or something.”
“Oh ok.” Well that sucks. There go my dreams of being a superstar adventurer. “So what then? Gonna make it big as a rich merchant?”
Kel frowned.
“That’s just it, noob. We aren’t given any direction. How are we supposed to defeat the demon king and become heroes without even a hint? All we know is that it’s valuable to stay in character.” Kel puffed agitatedly, her face flushing slightly. I stared at her.
“H…heroes?”
“I mean. I get that the point is to be totally immersive and whatever but it’s been over three months and, besides those damn shut-ins over there,” Kel gestured in the general direction of the back wall, “no one has done bloody anything. I need a damn HINT.”
I politely looked back towards the wall where what looked like wanted posters were hanging up.
Kel crossed her arms and leaned dangerously far back in her chair. “I’m just tired of these damn fetch quests, that’s all.” She puffed out another breath and closed her eyes, tapping the table with her feet to keep balanced.
“Well…I’m new here so I don’t really get it, but should a kid really be trying to kill any…uh…demon kings?”
Kel’s eyes flew open and her chair slammed back into the ground. “KID?? I’M NOT A KID!” The noise attracted the attention of a few other people in the guild and one bulky man strode over to the table.
“Hey little missy, is this man bothering you? I can call your parents if you want?”
“ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME???” Kel threw her chair back and stormed out of the guild. The man blinked a few times and glanced at me.
“Puberty?” I shrugged. The man nodded knowingly and walked off. That went well. I pulled out my status plate and grabbed a crayon that was sitting on the table.5
NAME: Not Sure Yet
TITLE: Enigmatic
AGE: ???
RACE: Human
LEVEL: 1
CLASS: Beginner
STRENGTH: ???
VITALITY: ???
SPEED: ???
AGILITY: ???
LUCK: ???
INTELLIGENCE: ???
DEXTERITY: ???
MANA: ???
SKILLS: Origin. Enigma6. Traveler. Talking to people +1
Yep. That definitely levelled up legitimately and wasn’t added to my status plate in the second best crayon color.7
1 Boom. Perfect cop-out to not showing his stats
2Oh shit! Did he just make his cop-out important?
3No. No he did not.
4There’s a lot of choking going on in this room. Spitters are quitters
5That’s how you know a place is high-class. Crayons and food? Luxury.
6Boom. Perfect cop-out to not showing his stats. Wait, did I say this already? Who knows? It’s an ENIGMAAAAA
7Blue is the shit