Without delay, a rectangular screen appeared in front of Marcus. He paid little attention to the information listed here, which consisted of a series of charts detailing his stats, the distribution of his skill points, and the jobs he currently had equipped.
Located at the top-left of this floating screen was the name Theagenes, and to the right of that was the word “Level”, followed by the number 99. This was who Marcus really was, a Player. To the people of this continent, at least, he was something akin to a tall tale—a story mothers told their children to make them behave.
‘Most of the others should still be somewhere in Enfel. It took me 4 months to travel here, so I doubt more than a handful are anywhere close. Still... if only I knew how fast the news was travelling.’
“Shit…” Marcus muttered under his breath.
‘There’s nothing I can do about it anyway. She’ll have to find out eventually.’
Marcus let out a long sigh, and then quickly swiped and tapped through the various menus and buttons that popped up with practiced efficiency. After a few seconds, a red-tinted greatsword appeared in his right hand. He preferred this over the village axe, which he was afraid he’d break on accident. Marcus then tapped on the upper right corner of the screen, causing it to disappear. He placed both hands on the sword’s hilt, and took a stance similar to that of a baseball player. Swords weren’t really his thing, but when it came to chopping trees, anything with a blade was infinitely better than his gauntlets. Sure, he could punch a tree over, but the resulting damage to the wood would make it a lot less valuable.
Marcus let out a grunt as he swung his sword. The blade passed through the trunk of the tree like a hot knife through butter. There was so little resistance, in fact, that Marcus nearly spun around another 360° before stopping himself. It may have looked like overkill, but after a month of chopping trees, Marcus discovered that more strength usually led to a cleaner cut. With a quota of three trees, there wasn’t much of a reason to hold back and conserve his strength—not to mention that a Level 99 like him had a nearly limitless amount of energy. He honestly couldn’t remember the last time he’d ever felt physically spent from working, save for when he’d fought Players of a similar level.
Marcus shook his head to clear it, having realized the direction his thoughts were moving.
‘I really have a way of daydreaming about the worst stuff, don’t I?’
***
It only took Marcus a quarter of an hour to cut and strip all three of today’s trees, which he left in a neat stack near the start of the path leading back to the village.
“Sure wish I could just toss' em in my inventory,” Marcus muttered as he placed the last log on top of the other two.
Unfortunately, his inventory could only hold items from the game, which meant that he had to do this by hand.
He’d return before noon, bind them into a bundle with a coil of rope he’d brought along, and then float them down the river to the village. He timed the river-ride back to coincide with lunch, so that he could drop off the logs in front of the Chief’s house just in time to enjoy the midday break with Rei. On top of that, it was better to let them think it’d taken him half the day to cut through the thick trunks of these trees.
It wasn’t like anyone was nosy, anyway, but there was no reason to appear more superhuman than he already did when dragging three massive logs behind him out of the river. Now that he thought about it, save for the Chief's talk in the morning, Marcus couldn’t recall anyone actually asking him personal questions like that.
‘I’m pretty lucky, aren’t I?’
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Standing out was the last thing he wanted to do, but his work was raising extra money for the village. Life wasn’t easy on the frontier, and for Rei’s sake, he had to do something. Marcus was willing to sell some of the items in his inventory if the situation turned dire, but that was dangerous. Of the few items he now had, all of them were unique and would easily lead back to him. As a compromise, he decided that standing out a bit among the members of their little community was far better than painting a target on his back by selling items. Sure, the Chief was wary of his circumstances, but he probably assumed Marcus was some runaway warrior or knight. As long as none of them discovered he was a Player, he didn't care what they believed.
Now, with his work done, Marcus stretched and then fell back onto the soft grass around him. He almost wished that it would take him longer to finish cutting down trees, since he was left with so much free time. It wasn’t like he could just go back to the village and help there either, so Marcus had to find other things he could do on his own. Once midday rolled around, he’d be able to head back and have lunch, but that was still hours away.
Marcus sighed internally.
‘Might as well get this over with.’
To fill the time, he had ended up settling on a daily training routine. Basic muscle exercises, combat techniques, it was honestly just a jumble of whatever came to mind. Marcus hadn’t been particularly fond of working out before being whisked away from his original world, but unlike the game he used to play, his avatar was no longer just some data. Eating, sleeping, exercising, all of it mattered. Better to stay in shape than to become dull and sloppy due to lazing around, or so he believed. Plus, with being a level 99 and whatnot, Marcus had a lot of stamina to burn through.
Letting out a sigh, Marcus dropped into a pushup position and started to count.
“1, 2, 3...”
***
Several hours later, Marcus was sweating and breathing a little roughly. Wiping the sweat from his brow, he looked up and saw that the sun was nearing the highest point in the sky.
‘That’s my cue.’
He had just been running through a few combos while wearing his gauntlets, as the final part of his training. Marcus swiped his hand upward, opening his menu. He quickly unequipped his gauntlets, swiped down to close the window, and then said,
“System, deactivate.”
When the system was turned off, Marcus would be unable to open his menu or equip any items before he reactivated it once more. While this decision carried with it inherent risks, it was not without reason. When a system window was open, anyone could see it, which included the people from the village. The last thing he wanted was to accidentally open something with a careless gesture and reveal his true nature to everyone. Not to mention that when the system was on, other players were able to recognize him by a nametag which appeared above his head, though only other players could see that.
Just as he’d planned earlier, Marcus tied up the logs into a make-shift raft, pushed it into the river, and then hopped on himself. The lazy current of the water would slowly carry him to a shoreline near the village, making the trip far easier than trying to carry the logs back through the thick forest he’d travelled through in the morning. After around 20 minutes, the sight of a familiar sandy shore came into view around a bend in the river. Marcus could see two young men there, sitting on large rocks by the water’s edge. As he got closer, they put down the clothes they were washing and waved to him.
“Raul, Paul!” Marcus yelled back, returning a wave of his own.
He used a long stick he was carrying to push himself toward the shore, jumping off the logs once he was in shallower water. Marcus then grabbed onto the rope wrapped around the logs, and started to walk backward while pulling them out of the river. Just as he reached dry land, he felt a strong slap on his back.
“Well, if it isn’t the little giant himself.”
Marcus turned to find the two brothers standing close by, their huge frames towering over him. Though they weren’t twins, with Paul being older by a year, they might as well have been with how similar they looked.
“Finally came up with a new nickname, huh, Paul? Must’ve taken you months to think of that one.”
The stocky man beamed him a smile.
“Give or take.”
As Marcus started to turn back around to pull the logs the rest of the way out of the water, Raul spoke up.
“Need a hand?”
“Do I ever?” Marcus asked with a chuckle.
“S’pose not, but try to leave some heavy-lifting for the rest of us. This”—Raul gestured toward the laundry they’d been working on—”ain’t exactly our first choice of work.”
“Can’t say I disagree, though, why are you two over here? Usually the Chief's got a project or two waiting for you.”
Raul sheepishly scratched the back of his head.
“Well, ‘bout tha- gah!”
A quick slap to the back of the head from Paul cut off Raul’s explanation.
“This dunce brother o’ mine’d rather spend the day chasing girls than work. He got caught slackin and I got chewed out for lettin him. Chief said if he’s so interested in women he should go’n learn all he can, by doin their chores, that is.”
“Haha,” Marcus laughed heartily. “Guess I shouldn’t be expecting any clean clothes for a while.”
“Don’t worry, friend. I’ll take extra care with yours. But, that’ll hafta wait,” Paul said as he looked up. “Didn’t realize the time; let’s go get some chow.”