The next morning Azrael emerged from the village chief’s house, greeting the dawn with the rest of the villagers. He felt a lot more relaxed than yesterday. It was funny how much a proper bed could help. Even if said bed was just a simple straw mattress. It sure beat sleeping on the floor.

Azrael stretched and looked over the village square, admiring how the first light played with the treetops. In real life he would never wake up this early, but here in-game there was something special about it. Something different.

Despite the early hour, many villagers were up an about. As they passed where he stood they bowed on their way to work and he nodded back to them. Last night he’d had a bit of a conversation with Sera and she’d suggested that he try to be a bit nicer to the villagers. This had led him to formally introduce himself to everyone. He hadn’t wanted to, but Sera had managed to persuade him.

The rest of the villagers introducing themselves in turn, with mixed reactions. Some were eager to speak with their [Lord], while others behaved cordial, but reserved and slightly wary. After his introductions they seemed more friendly, no, maybe just less tense. Instead of a dangerous beast then now looked at him as a dangerous human. A small improvement, but an improvement none the less.

Honestly, meeting all the villagers had been overwhelming, and by the second or third name he had known that he’d have no hope in remembering any of their names.

Luckily, he’d found another exploit, if you could call it that. A very adorable-book-loving exploit to be exact. Since Sera knew everything he knew, he’d made a mental list and she could supply him with the required names when the time came.

A call from behind announced the arrival of the village chief Corn. ‘Cairn’ Sera supplied him. Right, right. He was glad that he had her. Then again, that was kinda the point of AI assistants.

Azrael greeted the village chief Cairn, who nodded back. After his announcement and introductions last night, he’d spent the remainder of the evening in the village chief’s house talking about the management of the village and his expectations. Sera had helped him again, by supplying him with more than a few of his lines. Azrael wasn’t sure he would have managed it without her.

Luckily, Cairn had excused himself after ten or so minutes, obviously uncomfortable at being alone with him. The village chief had insisted that he use his house during his stay, as it was the largest in the village. Azrael had no complaints.

The village chief handed Azrael a bowl, which Azrael accepted, before standing next to him. Azrael looked at it with cursory interest. Some sort of porridge with berries. They ate in silence.

***

Cairn handed the Lord his breakfast. It was a simple fare, but there was nothing else. The rolled grains were what little they’d scavenged from the village stores, while the berries were found in the forest the day prior. He’d tested them personally. It would not do to feed their Lord poisoned fare.

Watching the Lord, no, Lord Azrael take his second bite he relaxed. He’d feared that their Lord would reject the meal. It was not worthy of such a great man.

Last night he’d failed his Lord. Lord Azrael had commanded that he and the villagers find strength, but instead they’d been so focused on building a new village that they had failed the Lord’s first challenge.

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All of the men had been injured and he’d only been spared by his Lord’s grace. While the Lord was busy watching some villagers approach, Cairn bowed his head in gratefulness. He would not fail again.

***

Azrael watched a group of five bandaged men and one woman approached him with spears. The woman surprised him. Not because he had anything against women, it was just since all the men had fought the wolves, he’d assumed that the village stuck to a more ‘traditional’ view of roles.

Seeing how she stuck close to one of the wounded he realised why she hadn’t been in the fight. These two were partners. She’d been looking after their two children during the fight.

Azrael realised that he’d been staring at them long enough and led them to an unploughed field he’d ‘reserved’ as a training field the night prior. He got them all to line up facing him. Six faces. The spear boy, the father, the mother, two men whose names he couldn’t remember (now Villager A and Villager B) and an older guy who hung out with the chief quite often. Maybe a drinking buddy?

As he looked at the group gathered in front of him, it dawned on him what he’d actually agreed to do. HE’D AGREED TO TEACH STRANGERS!!!. That meant talking to them! He had no idea how to teach and what if…

He drew on the [Calm Mind] skill, as he felt an irrational panic rising up.

Slowly he felt himself calm down, the emotion settling, averting the crisis. He let out a breath. He’d agreed to teach them, and that meant that he would teach them. After all, a man was only as good as his word.

Straightening his shoulders and raising his head Azrael activated [Lord’s Insight], focusing on the youngest in the group, the spear boy.

Name: Nolan

Class: Villager (Lv. 4), Spearman (Lv.1)

Hoping for a comparison he turned his gaze onto the oldest in the group, the chief’s friend.

Name: Hugh

Class: Villager (Lv. 8), Carpenter (Lv.4), Advisor (Lv.2)

Scanning the rest of the group he found that all of them had the [Villager] class, with levels ranging from 4-7. Other than Nolan and Hugh, nobody else had a second class except Villager B, who had [Herder].

Azrael got the all to line up, performing basic thrust techniques, but was puzzled. He’d expected them to be bad, but not this bad. None of them moved with grace, speed or strength befitting their levels. All of them were of a higher level than him, except for Nolan, who also had a total of five levels. In theory all of them should be able to beat him in a fight with raw stats, except that he was sure that he could probably beat all of them in a fight – at the same time. Was it a class thing? Like [Spearman] against [Herder]?

Briefly correcting Villager A’s footwork, he glanced over at Nolan and Villager B. Despite their different classes Villager B would win. No question. It seemed that cumulative class levels did matter, despite class types. Overall, the higher levelled [Villager]’s seemed to have more stamina, including Hugh. Despite his seemingly old age he was maybe the least exhausted after all the exercise. Which left Stats. If levels meant stats, then more levels meant more stats. The fact that he was stronger than them meant he probably had more stats.

Thinking back to when he levelled, he realised that the status points he’d gained had been inconsistent. [Enchanter] had given him 5, while its subsequent upgrade [Runist] had given him 6. The [Sorcerer] class had also given him an additional 5 stats, while [Lord] had given him 7.

Using these to base his hypothesis on, it was very likely that classes were tiered. Whether this meant rarity or difficulty to acquire he didn’t know. What he did know that it meant was that if [Villager] was a considered a ‘base’ class, then he was gaining more stats per level than a normal villager. 5-7 for every 3-4 a villager might earn per level.

Seeing the father trying to help instruct his wife Azrael turned his attention to them. She was gripping the spear too far forward. Not that her husband was much better. He was just trying to brute force everything.

With a sigh he walked over. Hopefully, they would get tired of this soon and give up. Or better yet, become strong enough to not need him. Moving over to help them, he briefly watched somebody else and supressed another sigh. They were going to need a lot of help.