Argos blinked in disbelief as he stared at his most bloodthirsty warrior. The chief had seen many things in his long years as ruler of these tribes. He had witnessed the birth of a great Conqueror among monsterkind, a uniter who had succeeded in his quest, and had ascended to divinity. He had seen terrible wars -ones that made the current strife seem like friendly children’s play, witnessed honor and courage and cowardice many times over.

Yet he was flabbergasted by the audacity of a minotaur who wanted to retire.

“Leave?” He sputtered. Yes, Garek had failed to reach his prime, that much was true. The breakthrough into the level thirties constantly eluded him, and yes, he had fallen behind his peers in the eyes of the system, for which he was constantly tormented. But few held the minotaur’s sheer, almost divine bloodlust and thirst for combat.

He, Argos Stonegrinder, was for the first time in long memory at a loss for words. Not simply out of disbelief, but what did one say about a minotaur who no longer wished to fight? The very thought was anathema.

“Leave, then.” He rumbled. “Pack your things and be gone before the sun sets. Never show your face within these lands again, to spare us the shame of your existence.”

One of his own, turned coward, unable to taste the joy of bloodshed. Another soul lost on the long, treacherous journey to the one-hundreth level. The promise of ascension that came with touching the final level drew many. Most of whom perished in the attempt to reach it.

But to willfully turn and leave the sacred path behind? Dishonor and heresy. Men had been killed for suggesting less.

He refused to speak any more words, and simply stood in silence as the disgraced minotaur turned and walked away in his own shame.

/`/`/`/`/`/`/`/`/`/`/`/`

This week was proof that whatever god there is hates me. I wake up just as this guy’s spirit vacates the body from an overdose of pills that make this entire place fight-horny, find out I’m a furry, and immediately get told to go stop a monster raid.

Sure, good deal. At least I have a massive beefslab of muscle for a body, lots of experience, and according to the System, a fuckload of Skills.

Immediately got my ass beat because what the fuck is a muscle memory when I’m not human anymore?

No, seriously, trying to move feels like piloting a big furry mech suit. All stomp, no grace. Eyes out of alignment. Way too strong sense of smell.

I blame the eye thing for how thoroughly I got stomped into the ground by the way. The others rescued me, pulled me back to camp and tossed me into what I assumed was my tent to heal up.

I immediately went and quit.

Fighting monster raids non-stop all my life, competing with the entire world to reach the one-hundreth level. Endless war after endless war here on the frontier? Fuuuuckkkk. Thhaaaat.

Garek or whatever his name was, had done a lot of killing. Like, copious amounts of it. His tent was piled with weapons forged from monster remains. Sacks of coin littered the floor, jars of rage pills were messily stacked by the shelf-full. Everything about this person was devoted to bloodshed in an almost fanatical fervor.

And I wanted none of it.

He had very portable loot, several large sacks, and more muscles than brains.

I didn’t want to be an adventurer, a slayer, a dungeon explorer, a warlord or whatever the fuck big beefy had for career options. Instead, I was going to do what I had been decently good at; Farming.

Screw glory, I already had gold, and if capitalism had taught me anything, it’s that the value of owning land was priceless. Time to go be the bestest little farmhand nobody had ever seen.

A bag slung over my shoulder with every conceivable possession this brute had owned inside, I trudged out and awkwardly stumbled off. A big, clunky, furred mech suit indeed.

Someone waved and began to approach, and I just trudged along faster. They got the message, and within a few minutes, I had left the camp behind.

It took several hours of sifting through memories of gleeful violence and strangely ero visions of weapons. I would never recover those lost brain cells. But I did find some sort of useful information, at the cost of severe mental scarring.

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Big man here hadn’t been too interested in geology, but he had pretty vivid memories of where all the monster infections were, which lands had what levels of creatures, and whatsuch. I aimed right for the nearest spot with weak-ass creatures roaming around. Stuff that I could whack around, but so could my geriatric grandmother in her rusty wheelchair.

I was taking no chances.

It took several days of blunders, and a bad deal with the local bigwiggit but I DID get my farm. The only satisfaction from that bargain was the small bag of seeds the man had kindly thrown in. Seeds that I planned to have planted as quickly as possible.

They just neglected to mention what state it was in.

Overgrown didn’t even describe it. The word simply failed.

The house was rotted, crops filled with weeds and roots, stream was clogged up. Whoever had moved out here had done so because the task was hopeless.

But they weren’t an eight-foot-tall wall of walking muscle with Skills out the wazoo. Garek’s body didn’t give a shit where it slept, I had learned. He had no qualms about dirt-naps if they got him to the next slaughter faster. But I had a need for those luxuries, like any civilized person.

The first thing was to rip apart the stump-covered field and get these seeds in the ground. Then to build myself a house. And no, strength would not make that process speedy. There were so many small details that simply took time. It was one of the few currencies I had plenty of.

Sure, I could have easily hired a crew of builders who knew what the fuck they were doing, but I wanted to build my domicile with these hands.

Bag dropped unceremoniously, I pulled out a beautiful, engraved war-axe and went to wage my first war upon the priceless earth of this accursed place. Took a little longer than a few hours, but soon, I had a small chunk of land cleared out. Without a plough, I had to till the earth by dragging the axe as I walked, weapon in one hand and seeds in the other.

But soon, the task was done -as much as was able with the small bag of seed on hand- and I turned my attention -and willing axe- upon the forest.

Betwixt the forest and ground, catharsis I found. Hey, it rhymed. But with every swing that clove a tree trunk from its roots, I gained several things. Wood, of course. Piles of it. Trees toppled every which way, even towards me. But control, that was what I valued most. Strength was fine. Cool, even. Very, I might admit. But control was crucial. A better sense of how to steer my new body without tripping every few steps because I was several more feet from the ground than usual.

But there was an accomplishment in good, hard labour. A feel-good sensation that came from endurance. From continuing when I could have just quit and waited for tomorrow. With every swing, every grunt of effort, I began to feel something that had eluded me for a long time.

Satisfaction.

Moonlight had begun to rise when I finally decided to lay my head for the night. With a tree over my shoulder and axe at my belt, I wandered home.

The word rolled through my mind, and I smiled. This was the right choice.

There was a town not too far away, I recalled some time later, sat upon a freshly hewn stump. A fresh fire crackled before me, a meal on a spit above it. Maybe I could go and hunt for food, but why bother when I had gold? I had fields to break open, a house to build and animals to procure.

Garek’s Skill painted a very clear picture of the person this body had been inhabited by. A thoroughly pleasant fellow, I had to admit. Still, they could be made to apply.

Brutal Swing and Relentless Charge had immediate uses I could think of, while things like Scream of Fury and Blood for Blood were very much not things I was eager to explore.

After A lifetime of being just an average human, being able to hurl a tree like a javelin amazed me. Okay, it made me giddy. I even had fun purely kicking a tree in half before I realized that just wasted wood. But for all his flaws, Garek’s body was in excellent shape. And all the Levels he had accumulated made tasks trivial.

Why chop one log when I had the strength to cleave through a stack?

It was quiet. Peaceful. Serene, even. Just me and the woods. Things progressed slowly, but they went. Earth I ripped up with Brutal Swing to dig a foundation, then jammed the sharpened logs into the soft earth through sheer strength alone. Nails and hammers I had, but the human-made tools broke in my grasp. As such, I was pounding nails with a minotaur-sized warhammer. Gently, of course. Didn’t want to shatter the floor I was constructing.

It was slow, careful work. My own strength made mistakes costly, and a very tight reign over my frustration kept things from escalating. But deep within all that, all those mistakes and in the slow progress, I found something truly priceless.

Happiness.

It was not simple work, to build myself a proper home. But it was a task I took pride in. Yes, I could rip trees from the ground with my bare hand. Flatten sections of dirt with a stomp. Hew trenches in the soil with little effort. But could strength alone properly connect a joint? Shave down wood into boards and frame a wall? That was all skill and memory.

I could not build to human proportions, but to what must fit my new form. And so I did. A sturdy floor, framed walls with windows ready to mount in slots that could be covered for now. And finally, the worst part.

The rafters took several days by themselves. Even with a design as simple as I could make them, working on a rooftop was less than ideal. But it was done. Plywood didn’t exist, so I had to make do with more boards. Another slow process as I trimmed them to uniform length and width and covered the outside layer onto my new home.

The inside I left open for now. I would stock the walls with insulation before I worked upon the inner layer. Garek’s magical axe hewed stone apart for brick so that I may have a fireplace within. Before I knew it, a week and then some had passed, and I needed food once more.

Cloak about myself, dressed in what I assumed were decent enough clothes, I finally decided to venture to the nearest town and search for whatever I might need to thrive.

Tomorrow. For now, I needed sleep.

Thrive. Profit. Expand.

And just like that, the System kicked in.

Farmer Class obtained. Level One Reached. Sleep to apply.