Prologue

It was just another quiet day in the adventurers’ hall. People of all shapes and sizes were sitting at tables scattered around the massive hall, eating, drinking, and laughing as they conversed with their parties. Some groups stood at message boards and debated which quest to take, and others stood in line before the clerks and waited patiently to turn in their quests or whatever loot they managed to acquire on their quests. It was a jolly and peaceful environment … until a seven-foot-wide table went flying across the hall like a frisbee.

“You what!?” a deep, metallic booming voice roared from one of the private alcoves reserved for a party meeting.

“Ah said yoo’re out ay th’ party! Th’ baith ay ye! Ye tois hae bin naethin but trooble fur us, an’ we’re sick ay it! Gie out!” a man yelled, his voice deep with a thick accent.

“HA! You can’t fire us, you short, fat, wretched, ugly beard dwarf! WE QUIT!” the first person roared and stormed out of the alcove. The person yelling stood eight feet tall with steel-grey plate armor with gold embroidering around its edges. On the person’s back was a pair of massive weapons, almost as long as the person carrying them were tall, with gold and red embroidery along the handles. One was a massive one-handed war-axe, and the other was a giant war-hammer. Both weapons had a tower shield attached to them that was a foot and a half wide. The person wore a helmet that connected to the torso of their armor with two red flames where the eyes should be.

“Oh, I’m so sorry for her actions. I do sincerely apologize. She’s usually not this brash. I’ll talk to her and calm her down. So, terribly sorry,” another man said before a loud thunk resounded out from the alcove, “Oh no, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to hit you. My sincerest apologies I didn’t intend to—”

“GIE OUT!” the second man yelled before the sound of wood hitting wood a lot began resounding from the alcove. A minute later, a four-foot-tall dwarf stepped out of the alcove, a ten-foot wood staff as white as bone at his side with an orange crystal at its tip. The dwarf wore white robes with golden embroidery along the hems of his sleeves and a green and pink bracelet on his wrist. His long, red, braided beard hung down to his knees over a simple chest plate. Atop his head was an ancient-looking helm with two massive horns as wide as he was tall.

“Wardf! Please wait!” the dwarf yelled after the person in the plate armor.

Wardf didn’t slow down as she stopped over to an empty table and yelled, “Hurry the fuck up, Gomne!” She sat down and raised a hand to a passing Cat-kin server girl in a maid uniform, yelling an order, “Five mugs of grog, three of mead, and a fucking cup of water!”

The Cat-kin girl glared, her yellow eyes narrowing under her black hair and twin black tails swishing angrily, “Coming up,” she called back briskly.

Gomne soon arrived at the table and accidentally bumped the horns of his helmet against Wardf’s armor, “Oh, apologies for bumping you. Did you really have to explode like that on them? They’re our friends and were just worried about our safety on their team. They’ve been taking on harder and more challenging jobs and didn’t want us to get hurt.”

Wardf slowly turned to Gomne as he spoke and stared at him in disbelief for a minute before saying, “Are you fucking serious?! They kicked us off their team because they fucking hate us! They’re not our friends. They think we’re fucking useless.”

“Order up,” The Cat-kin maid said as she carried eight mugs on a tray, placed the entire thing down, and put seven of the mugs before Wardf with the last mug full of water in front of Gomne, including the bill.

Gomne fell silent at Wardf’s outburst and gratefully took the mug from the Cat-kin maid before staring at the check. His eyes widened slightly, but he said nothing as he lowered his mug, and a small tongue came out from the middle of his beard and lapped at the water. He sighed and said, “Suppose what you say is true. What do we do now? We’ve been adventuring for three years now, and we only have a handful of levels to show for it, and quite frankly, we need the money.”

The chest plate of Wardf’s armor opened in the middle, and a child-like right hand with a green and pink bracelet reached out and picked up two of the mugs, bringing them into the armor. The armor itself mimicked the movement, reaching past the mugs and grabbing air before pulling back and bringing up its other hand to grab an invisible mug from the right hand before miming tipping back the invisible mug in its right hand. The armor shrugged, and Wardf’s deep voice came out of the helmet as she hedged, “I don’t fucking know. We could try my brewery again? Have something fun and peaceful to do.”

“We can’t do that, and you know it,” Gomne argued politely before bringing the mug up to his lips to drink and bringing it back down to the tongue in the center of his beard. “We need money for that, and we need it fast. We have debts to pay, and starting a brewery takes time and money. Neither of which we have.”

Wardf tipped back the other mug before putting the mugs back on the table and reaching for two more, “What do you mean we have debts?! We’ve paid off everything.” Gomne didn’t answer and just slid the bill over to Wardf, who looked at it curiously. Picking it up, she carefully shoved it through one of the eyes of her helmet, and her armor mimed catching something from the air and looking at it closely. The armor and Wardf stopped moving for a moment before the chest plate opened, and Wardf gently placed the mugs on the table before closing back up. Then it opened again, and she picked up one of the mugs and chugged it, all while still looking at the bill. “That’s … uh,” Wardf began to say before stopping to grab another mug and chug that as well, “That’s a lot of gold.”

“It is,” Gomne agreed.

“For a simple table?” Wardf asked.

“A table three-hundred and sixty-six years old.”

“Age doesn’t matter with trees.”

“It does when the craftsmen spend four years carving the designs into the wood.”

“There were no designs on the table I threw!” Wardf barked.

Gomne nodded, “Yes, that’s correct. But the table you hit with it does,” he then pointed to where the table landed. Wardf turned and saw the small wooden table she had thrown had hit the guild’s S-rank table, reserved exclusively for S-ranked adventurers and royalty. The table had been hewn from a single ancient tree and was twenty feet long with the story of the kingdom carved into it. The legendary craftsman who carved it spent so long on it that he died after placing the protection enchantments on it to preserve the wood. Wardf’s table had chipped one tiny splinter from the wood, destroying the depiction of the king holding his sword over his head.

Wardf couldn’t tell what had happened from where she sat, but she was too lazy to figure out who and why it would cost her so much. Wardf quickly grabbed another mug and drank that in one go. She asked, “What do we do now? We don’t have five hundred gold to throw around!”

“Five hundred gold and thirty copper,” Gomne corrected as he took another sip from his mug.

“WHATEVER! WHAT DO WE DO?!” Wardf barked.

Gomne remained calm as he answered, “We need to find another party to join.”

Wardf scoffed, “HA! And who would want us?!”

“I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU DID THAT!?” a man yelled as he walked in through the guild hall doors. As a result, everyone in the hall turned to see the yelling man and who he was yelling at. The man in question stood about six feet tall with a slightly patchy beard. He wore a long turquoise trenchcoat that dragged across the ground with an orange scarf around his neck and a brown leather tricorne hat. A small shield no bigger than the man’s forearm hung from his right hip, and a short sword hung from his left over a pair of brown pants. His leather boots and steel greaves clacked on the ground as he stomped through the hall.

A young woman closely followed him and was the target of his yelling. She was a little shorter than him, and she wore a poofy black dress with maroon highlights along the hems of her sleeves and skirt that stopped just below her knees. A splash of violet adorned her chest, creating a swirling design that seemed to flow down her body to the maroon hem of her skirt. Her legs were covered with a pair of black, red, and violet stockings with a similar swirling design that ended over a pair of black high heels that never touched the ground as she floated a few inches above it. In her left hand, she held a large black and violet Grimoire with a long wand in it as a bookmark. And atop her head sat a massive witch’s hat with a four-foot-wide brim that glowed and sparkled with galactic colors and stars. And atop that sat an obese black cat that slept peacefully through the two’s yelling.

“Well, you told me to!” the woman snapped back the brim of her hat bobbing as she pointed a finger at him. The two continued to walk towards the clerk’s windows, aiming for one of the closed ones where a young, busty brunette elf sat, her green eyes already rolling with exasperation.

“Told you to?! TOLD YOU TO!?! I told you I needed a buff! I needed the one that would boost my strength! I didn’t need the one that has me bleeding from my anus!” the man yelled as he walked up to the window.

“If I hadn’t used the one that makes you bleed from the anus, you would have died from that last hit! And then I would have followed right after as I get torn apart!”

“ENOUGH!” the elf yelled, stopping the two’s fight before it gained any more traction.

“ENOUGH?!” the man yelled back, not stopping for a second, “This dumb cunt cast a spell on me that has me bleeding from my anus! And you want me to stop and not yell at her?!”

“Yes,” the elf clerk snapped back before taking a breath and asking, “Mr. Berry Yeprr, Ms. Chrysanthemum Sheila Venelopy the fifteenth, have you completed your quest?”

The man, whose name was apparently Berry, shifted from foot to foot before saying, “What was the – umm – bare minimum to complete the quest again?”

The elf gave him the sweetest, fakest smile she could as a vain bulged on her temple, “Berry, why don’t you two walk me through what happened?”

“Gladly,” Chrysanthemum said before Berry could get a word in edgewise, “Apparently, since I’m such a dumb cunt I can’t cast the right spells for him and caused us to have to retreat!”

“And this dumb cunt,” Berry began, “can’t tell a story right either! We went to the place listed in the quest—”

“After getting lost three times!”

“Then we were ambushed—”

“You were ambushed! I warned you!”

“You warned me too late! I got hit and lost half my HP!”

“Then I Healed YOU!”

“YOU—” Berry didn’t finish his accusation as a loud moist fart ripped out of him with enough force to make the tail of his trench coat flap out a little. He slowly turned to Chrysanthemum and glared at her as she struggled to hold back a laugh. “Are you happy now?” Berry asked, venom dripping from his voice, “I just bought this pair of underwear and pants. They were white and brown. Now they’re red and brown. And I’m not just talking about the pants and blood.” A small puddle of blood began to pool at his feet with specks of brown in it.

The elf at the counter finally had enough of their bickering, “That’s enough arguing. I will assume that the quest is incomplete and give you until tomorrow to complete it. I suggest you get an entire party to complete the quest. A party is a minimum of four people, so get to it.”

Berry never looked away from the chuckling Chrysanthemum as he asked, “Is there anyone available to join our party?”

“Why yes, there are a couple who are available,” the elf said as she pointed toward Gomne and Wardf, “Saint Gomne Thundertigh and Giant Slayer Wardf Hogan over there.”

Berry turned to the two, staring at them from across the hall as they stared back. In an instant, Berry bolted across the hall and appeared in front of Gomne and Wardf, taking the Gomnes small, meaty hand in his and shaking it vigorously, his brown eyes seeming to shine with excitement, “Hi, I’m Berry Yeprr. And this is my best cunt, Christy Jones.”

This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

Chrysanthemum, AKA Christy, appeared behind Berry and smacked the back of his head with her massive grimoire, her blood-red eyes burning with anger, “I told you not to tell people my real name! That’s why I changed it to Chrysanthemum Sheila Venelopy the fifteenth!” she hit him multiple times to emphasize each syllable of her name. Berry backed away from her cursing with each hit. Once she finished, she took a deep breath and curtsied, “I’m Chrysanthemum Shiela Venelopy the fifteenth. A pleasure to meet you two. Which one of you is which?”

Gomne looked puzzled by the two’s interactions and then shrugged, making his helmet move up and down with the motion, “It is a pleasure to meet such colorful adventurers,” he said as he stood to greet them properly, one of the horns of his helmet smacking Berry’s side, “I’m Saint Gomne Thundertigh I’m a Holy Arcanist I excel at healing and damage dealing. And this is Giant Slayer Wardf Hogan. She is a Holy Paladin, and she excels in defense and attacking. A pleasure to meet you, Berry, Christy.”

Christy’s eyebrow twitched, “I told you my name is—”

“Ah, you said you changed your name, my child,” Gomne interrupted, “Your God-given name is, as Berry said, Christy Jones. So I shall address you thusly. Apologies if I upset you.”

Christy gritted her teeth, and it looked like she was about to go off on the dwarf when she noticed Wardf reach for one of the massive war weapons on her back. Christy took a deep breath, “That’s fine.” she said in a tone of voice that didn’t sound fine.

“Anyway, would you two be interested in making a party with us?” Berry asked, interjecting himself into the conversation.

Gomne looked at Wardf, his helmet nearly smacking Christy and Berry as he turned, and they both shrugged, “Okay,” Gomne said, turning back around, nearly hitting Christy and Berry again, “We’ll be happy to join you for this one quest. If it goes well, we might join you for more.”

Berry took Gomne’s hand in his and shook it vigorously again, “Excellent! Great! Fantastic! Happy to have you on the—” Berry’s words died in his mouth as he died and collapsed limply to the ground.

The three of them stared at Berry’s corpse for a few moments. Then Christy smashed her fist in the palm of her other hand as she said, “OH! That’s right. Church, then guild hall. Yeah, now I remember.”

***

The church’s cathedral had massive marble pillars throughout, panes of stained glass adorned the walls of the church, and under each of them, inlaid carvings that depicted the lore of the world. Rows and rows of benches ran throughout the church on the ground floor leading to the main altar. Behind the altar stood a massive marble statue depicting an androgynous being with its arms open wide and its clothes tastefully draped over its body that left little else to the imagination. Upon the altar sat a casket just a little larger than a man with nothing special about it.

A Goliath priest stood next to the casket and greeted Christy, Gomne, and Wardf as they entered the cathedral. He towered at a staggering nine feet tall with grey skin and a short white beard. A golden sash hung over his white and gold robes with the symbol of the church in its middle, an equilateral triangle with four circles in it, a circle on each corner of the triangle, and one more in the middle with lines connecting all of them. “Good morning. I assume you are here for the recently deceased?” the priest’s voice was deep and boomed throughout the quiet cathedral.

“Yes, your holiness,” Gomne called back, rushing up to kneel before the statue and clasp his hands in prayer.

Christy floated up behind him and addressed the priest, “Is this Berry Yeprr’s body?” she asked over the sound of Wardf’s heavy armor banging across the floor as she moved to keep up.

“Yes, this is Mr.Berry. He just needs the donation for his resurrection,” the priest answered.

“Didn’t we have another three resurrections left?” Christy asked, an eyebrow raised.

“Three resurrections ago,” the priest corrected, “You’ll need to provide the minimum funds for the resurrection.”

Christy glared at the priest as she took off her hat and flipped it over, revealing her black hair tied up in a braided bun with red streaks through her hair. The cat on her head yowled in displeasure as it fell to the ground, landing on all fours before lying down again with an exaggerated yawn. Christy reached into her hat, going up to her shoulder as she searched for something within its depths. She pulled out a small leather bag no bigger than her palm a second later, opening it up to examine its contents with her free hand. She nodded to herself as she saw the contents and tossed the bag to the priest, who opened it up to examine its contents himself.

The priest’s eyebrow raised as he asked, “Are you sure you want to pay with these coins?”

“Yes,” Christy said shortly, “just get it over with.” she began to search around her hat again, pulling out Berry’s body a second later and dumping his fully clothed corps at the alter.

The priest’s jaw dropped, and he looked between the corps, which began steaming and sizzling, and Christy, who looked as though this was a regular day for her. The priest cleared his throat, “You know we can’t—”

“I’m well aware,” Christy interrupted, “but Berry will need clothes when he wakes up, and I’m not stripping his corpse for him again. Now, please continue.”

The priest sighed and turned toward the casket, clasping his hands in prayer as he began to channel mana. While the priest did his priestly duties, Gomne stood, finished with his prayer, and scowled at Berry’s sizzling corpse, “Why is his body doing that?”

“You’ll have to ask Berry if he’ll tell you. It took months for him to tell me what his ability does after he figured it out,” Christy said, shrugging as she put her hat back on and picked up her obese cat.

Before Gomne could ask any more questions, the priest held his hands palms down over the casket and yelled, “LESSER RESURRECTION!” A golden light shown from his hands and washed over the casket, penetrating the wood and filling it with light.

As the light faded, the top half of the casket opened to reveal the still form of Berry. Christy floated up to his still form and looked down on him with disdain. Gomne and Wardf followed her up and looked at Berry as well. Berry never moved for nearly a full minute, and Gomne said, “Maybe the resurrection didn’t work?”

“It worked,” Christy countered and began snorting, “HAUK TOWA,” she spat a massive glob of snot onto Berry’s face, and his eyes shot open.

Slowly sitting up, he turned to face Christy, wiping the snot from his face, “You fucking cunt. You just had to spit on my face!?”

“Yes, we’re on a tight schedule. Now get up so we can go,” Christy said shortly.

Berry rolled his eyes, “Fine, give me my clothes,” he said, holding out his hand to her.

“They’re right there,” she said, pointing at Berry’s corpse as she floated by, heading for the cathedral’s oaken doors.

Berry looked between his corpse and Christy and yelled, “OI! You could av’ taken my clothes off for me!”

“I did it once! I’m not doing it again!” Christy yelled back as she left the cathedral.

Berry sighed and looked between Gomne, Wardf, and the priest before saying, “Mind giving me some privacy. I’m not shy. I just don’t want to be crowded.”

“Can we ask a few questions before we go?” Gomne asked.

“No,” Berry said quickly, “Now leave. We’ll talk on our way to the quest area place.”

“And where’s that?” Wardf asked, crossing her arms.

Berry looked a little panicky as he thought of an answer, “The place where we are having our quest. Now hurry up and leave. I don’t want to seduce you accidentally.”

“I thought it was because—” Wardf began, but Berry cut her off with a glare, and Gomne, Wardf, and the priest all felt compelled to leave the cathedral in a hurry.

***

The party quickly left the town of Baram from the east gate. All the while, Berry and Christy argued like an old couple fighting over who said what and when. Gomne and Wardf hardly listened to their bickering. Instead, they focused on the road, where they walked, and what direction they were going. To the east of Baram spanned a large bog with cursed and rotting trees and was home to many high-level monsters. Berry soon froze as they entered the bog and whispered eerily, “We’re here.”

“Great, we’re in Belrogens bog,” Wardf said sarcastically as Berry pointed out the obvious, “Why are we here?! What’s the plan?!” she asked, sounding frustrated as her booming voice made her sound angrier than usual.

Berry looked up at the sky and shaded his eyes with his hand as he measured the time with the location of the sun. “It’s about noon right now. Let’s stop for a quick break, and we’ll talk,” Berry said after a minute and sat down in the middle of the road.

Christy did the same, but she waved her hand, and a clean stone chair rose from the ground with a cup holder in its right arm. She then took off her hat, again to her cat’s displeasure, and she pulled out four paper-wrapped sandwiches. “Here,” Christy said, handing two of them to Gomne and Wardf and tossing the third at Berry, who deftly caught it from the air.

Gomne took both sandwiches and handed one to Wardf as he said, “Thank you very much, Christy. Now, may I ask what we will be doing here? I’m sure we deserve to know at least that much.”

“We’re here to remove a dangerous monster that has taken refuge in this bog,” Berry answered, taking a bite from his sandwich, “The monster has been harassing traders and merchants, causing trouble with supply chains to Baram and beyond. We are here to slay the monster.”

“So, a monster-slaying quest,” Wardf said, opening up her chest plate to put the sandwich inside and start eating, her armor miming her movement. She sighed after taking a bite and said, “I don’t believe we’ll be much help with that. My ability will negatively affect everyone near me. Good sandwich, though.”

“Oh?” Berry asked, sounding interested, “What does your ability say?”

Wardf slowly turned to Berry, her armor seaming to glare daggers at him, “You first,” she demanded.

“Now, now, Wardf,” Gomne interrupted, “Please don’t start a fight with our new temporary party. We should share and work together.”

Wardf didn’t move for a moment, other than her armor miming eating a sandwich. After a few more bites, she reluctantly conceded and said, “My ability says, ‘A calm mind brings a strong heart.’ It took me a little while to figure it out. It means the calmer I am, the stronger the people around me and I become, but that means the opposite is true. The angrier I am, the weaker everyone becomes. It also affects everyone’s moods. There are five levels to each side of this ability. There’s serene, peaceful, joyful, happy, and calm, with calm being the lowest level with plus five to strength and serene being the highest with plus twenty-five.”

“And what about the other side of the ability,” Christy asked, finishing her sandwich.

Wardf didn’t answer immediately as she, too, finished her sandwich. She sighed and growled, “There’s annoyed, pissed, angered, furious, and wrathful. Annoyed gives everyone a negative five to strength, and wrathful gives everyone a negative twenty-five to strength. It also sends people into a frenzied state, and they start attacking each other.”

Berry nodded and asked, “Nice, and you, Gomne? What’s your ability?”

Gomne smiled and puffed up his chest proudly as he said, “The spells I use on people have three times the effectiveness. I usually cast long-range attack and support spells. Now, pardon my rudeness, but what about your abilities?”

“I give people good luck,” she answered bluntly, “but it’s at the cost of my own. I specialize in curse magic, so I won’t be able to cast support spells on either of you.”

Then, all eyes turned to Berry as though he was going to answer their questions. He looked off to the side and at the ground, moving his lips as though he’s reading something. Then he sighed, “My ability says, ‘Turns back upon itself any aura that pervades thine area around thine self.’ And that’s all you’re getting from me.”

Christy blinked in surprise, “You told them? Almost immediately?! You never told me that after months of pestering you!”

Berry shrugged, “We’ve got to worry about the monster more than my little secret.”

“What is the monster?” Wardf asked.

“The Wyvern behind me,” Berry said simply, as though he was talking about the weather.

Everyone froze and looked behind Berry, and they all saw the massive Wyvern thirty feet away, which none of them noticed until Berry said something. The Wyvern stood twenty feet tall with bat-like wings spanning two hundred feet wide. Its silver-blue scales gleamed in the mid-day sunlight under its dark blue feathers as it bared its fangs and racked the claws on its hind legs across the ground. Its scaled head had ice spikes forming around the back of its skull, acting like white horns that stood on end. The striking steel-white eyes glared at the party as they noticed the Wyvern, and it raised its head as it released a stream of frozen breath.

Nobody hesitated as everyone dodged to the left or right. Berry drew his sword and shield as he rolled out of the way and toward the beast. He ran toward the beast and closed the distance remarkably fast. The Wyvern snapped at him with its massive jaws, and he jumped back, swiping his short sword at the Wyvern’s left eye. The beast jerked its long neck back, and Berry took the opportunity to retreat as well.

“Why didn’t you tell us we’re fighting a Wyvern?! That’s a C-ranked monster! We’re not strong enough to fight that thing!” Wardf yelled, pulling her war weapons from her back.

“Because our leader’s a fucking psychopath!” Christy yelled back as she drew her wand and yelled, “LESSER WEAKEN!” A red bolt of mana shot toward Berry and the Wyvern in a flash and struck Berry’s back, making him stumble.

“What are you doing?!” Gomne yelled in shock as he recognized the curse, “That will drop his strength by ten points!”

“Hey, Wardf!” Berry yelled as he jumped back from the Wyvern as it stomped down at him with its hind legs.

“What?!” Wardf yelled back in panic and a little annoyance.

He turned and stared directly into her glowing red eyes as he yelled, “Your mother was so slow it took her nine months to make a joke!”

Wardf didn’t move for a second as a red aura enveloped her body. “Take that back. Right now,” she growled.

“You’re so short! When you played hide and seek as a child, they had to use a magnifying glass to find you!” Berry responded with a chuckle.

Wardf’s armor began to glow red, and flames peaked from the cracks in the armor. She clenched her fists and roared, “I’M NOT SHORT!!” and she blasted forward, swinging her hammer down on the wing of the Wyvern, snapping it with a loud crack.

The Wyvern roared in pain and jumped back, flapping its useless wing. It then breathed another stream of its ice breath, aimed for the ground. A wave of ice froze the ground, freezing Wardf to the ground as ice climbed up her legs. Berry jumped back, but his boot caught on a root, and he fell backward as the ice covered his feet and back, half encasing him in ice. Gomne swung his staff in a wide arch around him, creating an intangible shield before him, blocking the ice from reaching him.

Christy cursed, “Gomne got anything for this ice?!” she asked, unaffected by the ice as she floated above it.

Gomne hesitated as he watched Wardf and Berry struggle to stand, and the Wyvern slowly began to gather another ice breath to finish them off. “I … I can’t. I’m sorry. My ability – it won’t let me,” Gomne confessed, looking down in shame.

Floating over to Gomne with haste, Christy asked, “What does it say, exactly?”

Gomne took a deep breath and said, “Thine power shall only affect thine people thrice fold.”

Christy put her hand on his shoulder and said, “Well, while around Berry, that ability will affect everyone and everything thrice fold.”

“What do you—” Gomne began and saw the Wyvern about to release its breath. His instinct to protect his friends took over, and he yelled, “I CAST THE OUT FOUL MONSTER! CRIMSON FLAMES!” he pointed his oversized staff at the Wyvern, and a wave of crimson flames erupted from the end of his staff, melting the ice on the ground and freeing Berry and Wardf. The Wyvern released its frozen breath and met the flames head-on, creating an explosion of steam.

Berry quickly stood, ignoring the flames covering his body as he took advantage of the steam cover and launched himself at the Wyvern. The beast noticed him too late, and Berry’s short sword dug into the base of its neck, severing its arteries and windpipe. The Wyvern stumbled back in surprise, and a gurgling sound escaped its maw as blood trickled through its throat. It fell to its knees and collapsed to the ground, Berry just barely getting out of its way as it fell.

Berry pulled his sword from its throat and wiped the Wyvern blue blood off the blade onto his jacket sleeve. As his status screen appeared in his eyes, he looked toward you and cocked his head curiously. “Oi, Oi, how long have you been watching?” he asks you before waving his hand and saying, “Ah, no matter. You can’t answer me anyway. I bet you want to know a little more about what’s going on, and I’ll tell you,” He smirked and added, “In the next chapter. Welcome to My Stats Are So Bad They’re Good!”