How long has it been? It's hard to keep track of time in absolute darkness with no feeling, just thought. Even when I had tried to count the seconds and minutes the numbers eventually disappeared almost as if they were eaten up by the void around me.
"You're still here? Jeez, hurry up and get back out there before he wakes up. I can't help any more or your body is going to get really messed up, get stronger you hear me?"
Who are you? Who is he? I tried to ask but no voice came out, I couldn't even feel my mouth moving. Then suddenly I can feel again. I'm lying in something soft, a bed? There were voices, is that Mary? The merchant's daughter and someone I don't recognize. Light, a wooden ceiling greeted my eyes; soft candle light causing shadows to dance across it.
"This is a problem though, he needs to wake up soon or we'll be sleeping in the streets." Mary said.
"Mina doesn't want to sleep on the streets!!" Mina, is that the name of the girl?
"I can try to ask the city, they have special rooms for us hunters." Unknown, I feel a link towards her though?
Welcome Back to the world of the living Shin. A bit rude to sleep for three days straight don't you think? I've already packed up.
"Sorry to make you worry Karen." I pushed myself up on the bed surprising the three girls as I did so. On the other bed at the other side of the room Mina sat cross legged while Mary was sitting rather close to a red head girl.
"That was rather rude to say sorry to a soul rather than the people taking care of you." Mary was sticking really close to the other girl.
"Would you like some water?" the other girl pushed Mary gently away and walked to the table in front of me pouring a cup of water.
"Thanks," I responded taking the cup and drinking greedily. "Umm... sorry but do I know you?" For some reason she was so shocked she almost dropped the cup of water she was about to drink.
Mary laughed a bit as she walked over, "I told you he wouldn't remember, this is Liliana Moonhowl the vampire hunter you violently held down and tied up. Also my new... friend."
"Don't make it sound so indecent Mina's right here, also you hypnotized me." Liliana was blushing furiously, seemingly over the fact that I didn't remember her. Rather I'm the one shocked speechless right now for more than one reason. Mary made a friend? She was really hostile to me a while ago and now she was... well kinda of like she was high really. And I really don't remember Liliana, but the bond is there so it was a fact that I apparently used Enslave Soul on her.
"Only the first time, and Mina's old enough to know about that stuff right? Rather she was awake the first time." Everyone looked at Mina who was beet red and had smoke coming out of her ears.
"Wait, what happened while I was passed out?" This reminded me in a way of the online conversations I used to had with people, we would get way off track and end up getting nothing done.
"Well, You suddenly turned killer when that guy with the crossbow tried to kill Mina and tore his heart out and ate it. Then you made me pass out and when I woke up you were trying to kill Liliana. I talked you into saving her and well that's all I know about that. I took three unconscious bodies into this inn and we've been here for three days." Mary talked in a broken and fast fashion. Liliana and Mina chimed in agreeing that that's about how much they know, less for Liliana.
"That was kinda helpful but not really!"
You have a second personality who was way stronger and cooler than you. He was also very daring, threatening me like that
I can't tell whether Karen is hating my second personality or liking him, wait second personality? Was that the voice I heard before? It did sound kind of like me... but more manly.
"Stop undermining my confidence in myself Karen! Ok I give up trying to figure out what happened. What was that about funds?" I asked while walking to get myself another cup of water, sleeping for three days makes you really thirsty.
"Including the amount that Mina's family, Liliana, the other hunter, and the bandits we got 5 gold, 68 silver and 89 copper. We stayed here for three nights as well as baths and food that total comes down to 5 gold and 50 silver. By the way how do you not have any money on you!"
I looked at Mary, "It wouldn't be that expensive would it?"
It was 3 gold total for the room fare, 1 gold 50 silver for the baths and 1 gold for the food.
... "Why are we in such an expensive place?"
"Tch, Karen huh?" Mary looked at me like I was crazy, "We're in the City of Gold, of course it has to be a nice place, plus you got a bed all to yourself for three nights."
I sighed, "So we have 16 silver and 89 copper, what's that good for?"
Mina raised her hand shyly like she was going to ask a question in a classroom, "I... I just used 15 silver for a teddy bear."
... so our current money count is 1 silver and 89 copper not that I could scold Mina for buying that for now anything that can distract her will be fine. I guess it'll be best to not them know about the 10 gold in my inventory, explaining the inventory itself would be a pain. "So is there an adventurers guild or something? I assume that's a good way to earn money."
At that Liliana looked towards me - was she staring at Mary? - "There is four different adventurers guilds in the city, one by each of the gates. We're currently in the southern end of the city which is quite close to the guild, but the missions with a good reward are quite difficult."
"Is there any costs that we need to be aware of?"
"As far as I know there's a sign up fee of 1 gold per person, and 10 percent of the rewards go to the adventurers guild. Equipment and items would be useful, the costs varies depending on the items. If we look at the bare minimum we need a sword for me and preferably some armour for me and Mary." Liliana looked towards Mina then me, "As far as I was told by Mary you are a caster unless you are in your other personality and Mina wouldn't be fighting. Some basic first aid and camping tools were included in the stock that Mina's parents had and there was also some food that we can use though none of us knows how to cook really."
Damn guess I really can't hold back on the gold. "Okay, lets go get you guys some equipment then register at the guild and we can see if we can find anything we can do for some funds. Also I can cook so leave that me, so stop buying expensive food."
First stop was the weapons shop which was a short walk from the Inn, it had a typical wooden sign with painted cross swords to represent what it was selling along with the name RedTalon's Weapons painted in big red letters. Inside we were greeted with many weapons on display hanging from racks a long with a burly guy in leather armour with a sword in hand. "Welcome to the shop, long as you don't make trouble or try to steal anything."
"Thanks." It seemed like flimsy security to me but back in my world there was all sorts of security measures, one guard won't be able to do much against an armed assailant or multiple. Liliana headed straight to the longswords and quickly picked a plain one up taking a few cautious swings. Mary on the other hand went towards some weapons that look like they would do well in a torturers dungeons. Mina tagged along with me as we browsed the general goods waiting for Liliana to make a decision.
Behind the counter was a gold scimitar with red bordering and from the bottom of the hilt flowed a red silk like cloth. "That's the RedTalon's weapon, a beauty ain't she?" A man with grey hair and closely cropped beard walked up from a room in the back, despite his age he was definitely not out of shape.
"Are you the RedTalon Mister?" Mina was peeking over the counter at him curiously.
He chuckled as he ruffled her brown head, "Nope, my brother was he recently passed away though."
"I'm sorry we reminded you."
He looked at me and laughed, "There's no reason for you to be sorry, he lived and died like he wanted; on a whim. Now what can I do for you?"
At that Liliana walked up and presented a longsword that was a bit longer than the one she first picked up, "Oh, you've got nice eyes lady, weapons aren't about how much they stand out but how good they are. She's a solid one and will serve you well."
"Then we'll take that, Mary put that back we aren't buying it." Mary was walking towards us with a very unconventional dagger that looks like it came out of a nightmare. With a pouting face she went back to the rack while the shop owner laughed.
"Well, are you looking for armour as well? We have some sets of leather armour as well." He pointed towards the back corner of the shop where a few sets of armour were being displayed on racks. At that Mary immediately went to one that was dyed a deep red and took it stand and all to the counter, making a face saying that she won't be denied. Well she did need armour, Liliana picked up a similar set except they were plain brown.
"You've got yourself quite a group there, who's your favourite?"
"Eh.. Umm, we're not like that."
The shop owner laughed again, "Well your total comes down to 3 gold and 70 silver for everything."
I looked at the price tags and realized he gave us a small discount, handing him the coins and thanking him. "It's fine it's fine, been a while since a lively group has showed up, a lot of people recently picked up crafting lately so all we got left are the old faces. Here a little something for the girl, she needs a little protection too ya know." He said giving a small Iron dagger to Mina complete with sheath and belt. Thanking the owner again we head out fully equipped saving us the need to go to another shop for the armour. Mary seemed pleased with her purchase and was admiring herself the entire time we took to get to the adventurers guild.
The adventurers guild registration itself took 15 mins of paperwork and waiting which wasn't very eventful at all. Looking at the guild billboard there was a ton of quests ranked from F to S in order of lowest to highest difficulty, with the higher ranked quests near the staff. After discussing a bit we decided on a job for hunting monsters in the forest to the west, it seemed like they were getting restless and were acting a bit weird. Taking Dumpley the ex-warhorse that was the one pulling Mina's wagon we left the city's west gates at dawn the next morning.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
Total Money: 51 silver, 89 copper.
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As we left the city with Mina at the reins and Mary assisting her I turned to look at Liliana."Could you teach me the basics of attack base magic?" While I did have some magic they aren't useful unless I have souls or corpses, always depending on someone dying first is unreliable and very saddening.
"Hmm... I'm not very good at magic but the basics for magic is feeling the energy in and around you then focusing it into a certain point using a conductor which could be any item or through a spell spoken or written." She held out her open hand palm facing upwards. "Basic spells don't need a medium and can be very powerful depending on the amount of energy, mana you put in. But if it exceeds the amount that your body can conduct it'll explode outwards unstably and cause damage to your body. The most basic magic is that of fire since it is a conversion of one energy into another. Just think fire and regulate the amount of mana flowing and you can make a small flame. Air, Earth and Water magic are more about manipulation but you can make them out of nothing if you put in enough mana. I know little about higher level elements aside from the fact that they take more energy and you need to manipulate mana in a certain way." A green flame appeared on her open palm, small but unwavering. "Typically the colour of your mana dictates the colour of the element you release, mine is green."
Imagining Mana flow from inside my body to my hand I tried doing the same thing, only to have a 3 feet tall black flame burst to life.
*Ding
Obtaining knowledge about mana flow gave you a new skill:
Lesser Mana Mastery: Increases maximum mana and reduces mana costs, higher levels of the skill further increases mana given and reduction in mana costs.
Novice 1 - 5%, Increases Mana by 10 and reduces Mana costs by 5%.
Regulating the flow of Mana has given you a new skill:
Mana Control: Increases efficiency of mana flow reducing mana costs, higher levels of the skill further reduce the costs.
Novice 1 - 10%, Reduces Mana costs by 1%.
Practising fire based magic has given you a new skill:
Lesser Fire Mastery: Increases power and reduces the mana costs of fire element skills, higher levels further increase the power and reduce the costs.
Novice 1 - 3%, Increase the power by 2% and reduce the Mana costs by 1%.
It's been a while since I've seen one of these. So if I do the same for the other elements...
*Ding
Practising Air based magic has given you a new skill:
Lesser Air Mastery: Increases power and reduces the mana costs of air element skills, higher levels further increase the power and reduce the costs.
Novice 1 - 5%, Increases the power by 1% and reduce the Mana costs by 2%.
Practising Earth based magic has give you a new skill:
Lesser Earth Mastery: Increases power and reduces the mana costs of earth element skills, higher levels further increase the power and reduce the costs.
Novice 1 - 1%, Increases the power by 3% and reduce the Mana costs by 1%.
Practising Water based magic has given you a new skill:
Lesser Water Mastery: Increases power and reduces the mana costs of water element skills, higher levels further increase the power and reduce the costs.
Novice 1 - 8%, Increases the power by 1% and reduce the Mana costs by 4%.
"You have remarkable talent, a lack of control but I have never seen anyone using such strong magic." I looked up from my palm to see Liliana, hair wet and messed up.
Oops I guess I really need to work on control.... Let's see focus mana into hand and release. A warm wave of air drifted towards Liliana drying her hair quickly. That was surprisingly easy, all I needed to do was imagine what I wanted to do with the mana and then apply the needed energy to make it happen.
"Are you sure you haven't been taught magic before? You're learning astonishingly fast, it took me a week before I managed to do that. And I haven't seen any trace of magic on you either, I just recently learned to hide mine."
"I've used magic before but this is my first time doing this, I don't know why either." Maybe I do have talent in magic, that would explain why I have no physical skills to begin with.
Your magic aura is hidden as part of the system because otherwise there would be problems considering the fact that at higher levels your aura would be immense. Also the assist system is helping you learn faster.
"Oh... thanks for the explanation Karen." So it was just the system and not me... Oh well as disappointing as that is I'm glad it's there helping me. So I spent the next few hours practising magic control with Liliana giving tips, at noon we stopped for a short break in a nearby clearing. While me and Mary could keep going for the rest of the day Dumpley needed rest and both Liliana and Mina needed to eat. Looking in the back we had various food but mostly it consisted of dried meats, bread and cheese. Using that I made some sandwiches for the two of them while they set up a resting place, it looked kind of like a picnic to be honest.
"That's an interesting way to eat something them," Liliana looked at the sandwiches with interest. They didn't have sandwiches here?
"It's GOOD!!!" Mina was smiling widely as she ate hers, soon afterwards Liliana also said it was good leading to Mary also taking a bite; which then lead to me being the group cook. It kind of reminded me of the orphanage, we took turns cooking and the younger kids would always wait around for me because I was good at cooking. Yuki was mad at me for being better at cooking than her, although she got a lot better over time. Although this time all I did was make sandwiches it was nice seeing people happy from something I made.
As we cleaned up a girl with brown hair tied in a pony tail and tanned skin run up from out of nowhere and starred at the sandwiches we had left over panting. At her sudden appearance everyone was shocked, before Mary and Liliana put their hands on their swords.
"Hey, Jane stop running ahead of us... Oh," A giant black man about 6 ft tall and muscles bulging out from his plate armour saw us and presumably Jane drooling over our sandwiches, "Sorry about the trouble, Jane stop bothering these peopl-" Then he saw the sandwiches and looked towards us. "By any chance is one of you from Earth?"
"I'm sorry but what did you say?" Liliana looked confused, "I didn't catch the last sentence."
"He asked if one of us was from Earth."
Jane turned around to look at me, "We found another one! By the way can I have one of your sandwiches? For some reason we both have skills that makes whatever food we try cooking turn into inedible poison."
"Uhh.. sure, they were just extras... Wait you were transported here too?"
"Yup, what Brandon said just now was in English so the people here couldn't understand it." Jane was busy stuffing her face with Brandon moving in to join her.
This was rather soon that we found someone, they seem quite tough. Ah by the way I'm not sure if I explained before but there's an auto language translator for verbal communication, if you concentrate you can choose which language you speak otherwise it'll be the common language. So what are you going to do?
"It's been so long since we've had anything resembling the food in our world, say can you make anything else?" Jane was staring at me now... I think we came across some troublesome people, as the rest of my group stopped packing up and sat back down. It seems Mary told them that I was from a different world while I was unconscious cause while they were surprised at the pairs sudden appearance they didn't seem surprised to know I wasn't born here.
"Yeah, I can make a few different recipes as long as I've got the ingredients."
Brandon put a hand on my shoulder, "You guys are headed to the forest right? Let's go together, the more the merrier right?"
I looked towards the other three members of my party, Mary seemed to be staring at Jane, Liliana just shrugged and Mina was spouting questions out already. Well... I guess for now we're going to travel as a group. I looked at Brandon and Jane, Brandon aside from the muscles had two handed great sword strapped to his back and while Jane was petite and compact you could tell there she was strong, her body devoid of any excess fat and her eyes were alert. Or were they just sparkling from joy? It would be best to observe them for now, they should have a god patron which means special skills that would make them a huge threat; what abilities they have would need to known before we attempt to fight them, plus as is we aren't that much of a threat as a group.
"By the way," Jane looked towards me head tilted to one side, "Who's your patron god?"
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*Note - sorry for the delay, had various distractions and also decided to rewrite some of it. Reason he did not get a cooking skill is because making sandwiches is not really cooking. Really it's not, you're taking things that are already cooked and stacking them.