While Sylvia was out, the craftsmen gathered at the request of Corrin. “I think we need to have a talk about Sylvia-“ He couldn’t get another word out before Sally interjected. “It’s actually Frank; he introduced that as his actual base.” Corrin exhaled under his breath, before saying “Doesn’t real-“ just to find himself interrupted by Adam. “When did he say that? I just recall him introducing Sylvia as the form he used the most.” “Oh? I guess you mustn’t have heard it then. It was when he explained it as such to Philip back at the goblins.” Looking around, she just saw confusion in the faces of everyone but Philip and sighed. “Got it. Just my good hearing again.”
Having had enough, Corrin broke into the pointless chat. “Ugh. Whatever. Let’s say Frank then. It doesn’t really matter right now.” After looking around to confirm that no one was going to interrupt this time, he continued, “where was I? Ah yes, we need to have a talk about Frank.” He looked specifically at Sally as he emphasized the name, to which she just shrugged. “It is clear that he is not from here, just from how even what we’d consider some of the most basic information is not known to him, but at the same time, he seems knowledgeable on more advanced topics, such as construction. This just makes it clear that it’s not a case of amnesia or anything like that.”
Confused as to what the issue seemed to be, Enelise decided that it was her turn to add her thoughts. “Honestly Corrin, I don’t see what exactly the issue is. He saved us from the goblins and has done his best to take of us from that point on; it’s not as if he walks around and does a bunch of nonsensical stuff. Sure, it may be the first time any of us hears about that kind of transformation ability, but at the same time, none of us know everything there is to know.”
“Do you not find it weird that for someone with a medium earth affinity, it took him that long to actually dig out the cave, and it was done in a way where the stone had to manually be carried out? His progress in improving his magic also seems unusually fast for someone his age, especially for elements that one would’ve been born with, like his water and nature magic as Sylvia. Not to mention the fact that he has four different affinities, with one being a medium. It is almost as if he’s learning magic for the first time on his own, but he doesn’t have anyone to teach him.” It could clearly be heard in Corrin’s voice that he was releasing frustrating thoughts that had built up over the past week.
“Is the affinity stuff really that big a deal? I have a medium fire affinity and more from my blessing, so encountering someone with a heap of special abilities along with multiple affinities isn’t all that unsurprising, at least for me. In general, people with unique abilities tend to gather more over time, as they go on to accomplish more and more achievements.”
Looking around as she took a breath, she only just then noticed everyone staring at her with impressed glances. With a sigh, she realized why and rolled her eyes. “Calm down, it’s nothing special.” Just before Corrin could speak up, she made a mock sock puppet with a hand to shut him up right away. “Before you say that that explains my smithing rating, it doesn’t. I wasn’t just given this affinity, I had to earn it on my own first.” Grumbling, Corrin pulled back along with the others calming their awe.
“Anyhow. The most interesting thing I’d say is his fire magic; compared to the others, it felt like he had the least experience in that. From the bear, I could also feel remnants of fire mana, so my guess is that he got a worldly achievement and from there got his affinity. This would imply that his level most likely was quite a bit lower than it, and since his reaction to the orcs was terror, I doubt that it was stronger than them. This should place it around level 40 to 60 I’d say, which most adventurers would be able to dispatch relatively easily.”
Following her thought process, Philip continued when she paused to catch her breath. “So, what you say, is that he’s somehow been living out here without reaching more than level 20 or so before that fight? If so, then he can’t have been here for long, as we all know that passing the early levels is really easy if you just kill one or two beasts per level, and even more so if you kill above your level.”
Nodding along with the presented logic, Korrak continued from there. “I mean, leveling up is so easy that we’ve all reached level 19+ just by living our lives. So, unless Frank fought the bear practically as soon as he found himself in the forest, then he must’ve been raised someplace where he wasn’t allowed to level up.”
“That would also explain why he’s been asking me for help with advancing his mason class when Corrin has been busy, as my class is the most similar after his.” Adam said, interjecting to add his experience with Frank to the pile. “If he hasn’t had a class before, it makes sense to ask for advice. I will also say that even for someone who can’t do elemental magic, the hole in the bear’s stomach didn’t look like something someone who had just awoken with no experience in magic should be able to do, even if they have a medium affinity.”
“In conclusion, Frank has most likely grown up in a place where he couldn’t level up nor practice magic, but he has been able to learn some random pieces of info about the world. He has also been nothing but nice and accommodating towards us, even when some of us have reached a mental low point.” With a slightly embarrassed expression, Korrak scratched the back of his head but stayed silent.
Without minding him, Enelise continued. “Thus, I don’t think it’d be fair to hold further suspicions towards him, as if someone had intentionally raised him this way for whatever reason, they would’ve probably taught him enough about how the world works to survive properly in it, without having to discover everything about the system on his own. It could just as likely be that one or more gods decided to create a being and dump him here in the forest, thus explaining his lacking knowledge but also the level 1 stuff. In that scenario, they probably just forgot to grant him the relevant knowledge. Though that’s not to say that I particular scenario either; it’s just to point out how pointless it is to suspect him of bad intentions.”
Exhaling a defeated sigh, Corrin put both hands up in surrender. “Fine, you’ve convinced me that I needlessly worried.” He paused temporarily to quickly think something over. “Honestly, the idea you came with doesn’t sound half bad. I think I’ll just go with that assumption unless other info is granted; having some explanation will ease my mind a lot. It would also explain the weird transformation ability, since gods are known to appear as the race, they show themselves before.”
With a refreshed smile now that the situation was over, Enelise clapped her hands and spoke to Corrin. “I know that you dislike that a human has the blessing of Hephaestus while you don’t, so I want to show you that I have earned it. Thus, what do you say to joining me in the forge and watch what I can do?”
Before he could respond, Sally interjected once more. “Also, I don’t think xenophobia is the best thing to have when the one in charge of your safety literally changes between multiple different races.”
After hearing the words of his younger dwarven fellow and letting them sink in, he put a hand to his head and began to laugh to himself at the irony of his actions. “You know what Sally; you have a great point.” Turning around to face Enelise who’d walked over to him, he gave her a smile. “I apologize for all my previous remarks about your race, I’ll do my best to change my outlook. It won’t do to have someone half my age outmatch me that much as a person.” He held out a hand for a shake.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
With a proper smile from his words, Enelise shook it, before using it to pull him up from his stone seat. “I accept your apology; I know how uptight you dwarves can be about blacksmithing in particular. As long as you do your best to change for the better, then I can’t ask for more. Now, let’s go do what we do best.” With those words, the two made their way to the forge, with everyone hearing these words before they were out of the room. “Thought you’d never say it; I’m looking forward to seeing what you really can do.”
----
Some time later, Sylvia arrived at the cave, having thought about what she’d seen in the camp. By the time she got to the cave, her mental state had stabilized quite a bit. Just like when she had first killed the bunniv so long ago, she convinced herself that she had to steel her mentality; she will no doubt see similar or worse stuff in the future. For the rest of the trip, she had done her best to apply that thought process as much as possible, which included thinking up possible worse scenarios. Thanks to that effort, she had at the very least managed to wall-in the experience and bury it.
Sensing her presence as the first, Sally hurried over in an excited manner. “How did it go? Is the village gone? How much did you level up? Are you alright?” The flood of questions brought a vague smile to Sylvia’s libs; Sally’s excitement was quite infectious.
“Yeah, it’s gone and I’m alright, but you’ll have to wait for a bit until I answer the rest of the questions; I would prefer for everyone to be here for that.” Despite not being completely alright mentally, she didn’t feel like mentioning that right now. The question also reminded her of her most serious wound in the battle, but when she looked down, she could only see the tunic that had repaired itself. She could however still feel some pain from her breast, where she had been cut, but the wound itself had already healed.
As everyone gathered, Sylvia could feel that the energy of the group had changed slightly, and it wasn’t the excitement or curiosity of hearing what happened, but she couldn’t place her finger on what exactly it was. Once they all were there, she retold the happenings of the fight in broad strokes. “It was that big?” At the mention of scale, everyone looked visibly shocked, and Philip spoke up. “Why did you just take it on without convening back here first? What if you had died because you went in over your head?” Everyone but Enelise and Corrin expressed agreement to that statement.
In response, Sylvia just shrugged her shoulders. “Logical deduction. That’s all. I saw it a little less than a month ago and it was far smaller, so if it could grow to such a size in that timeframe, imagine what would happen if I let it be? I had already killed a whole outpost, so they would probably be on extra lookout for the next couple days, meaning that it’d be harder to attack them. My limited experience with level ups led me to believe that leveling up would help me recover from potential injuries and recover my mana, thus allowing me to keep fighting for a while. I’d also grow increasingly stronger, so it should get easier and easier to simply overpower the hobgoblins, and all the weaker goblins could be taken out with magic.”
As she took a breather, Enelise added her thoughts. “In addition to all of that, the village was the only large source of exp we knew of that seems feasible to get. Thus, it would only have grown increasingly tougher to take out the village if she didn’t squash it right then and there.”
The logic seems to have convinced the others and Sylvia sent her a small, but thankful, smile. Before she could continue, however, Corrin couldn’t hold in his curiosity, especially with the earlier conversation still in his mind. “I don’t believe you ever mentioned your level to us if you don’t mind me asking. I’m level 22 myself.”
‘Oh yeah, I never did that. There’s probably no harm in telling them, especially since they’ll be sticking around for a while.’ She thought after that realization. “Oh sure, I don’t mind. I gained 24 levels today, so my current level is 60.” One by one, as they calculated her earlier level, everyone realized that she’d challenged a full goblin village at level 36.
“Are you insane?” Philip exclaimed. “Normally it’d be a party of level 40+ adventures for attacking a medium sized village, and you definitely destroyed a large sized one. Luckily you didn’t mention encountering an enhanced hobgob…” -Sylvia could see the realization on his face as he remembered her level- “no. You did encounter them, right? You couldn’t have reached level 60 otherwise.” Having stood up in momentary anger, he breathed out slowly and sat back down, recognizing the futility of getting angry.
“Oh those? Yeah, there were three of them, in addition to the chieftain. They were all quite scary to fight, but only one of them didn’t behave like an idiot, so they pretty much all fell quite simply by use of magic in the end. Though I will say, magic is scary to fight against.” Seeing that Adam was the one close to speaking out this time, she beat him to the punch. “Earth magic is really strong as well and what’s done is done; too late to do anything about it.”
“Anyhow, now that we’re on the talk of the chieftain, there was actually something on it that I wondered about. It had these two weird sets of tattoos all over its body. There was a dark red set on its arms and legs and a red and white set on the crotch. Seeing as no one else had any, I doubt that they’re purely some tradition, so I wondered if any of you knew about it.”
No one seemed to know what exactly they were, but as they were discussing different theories, Korrak, who had until now been quite quiet, slowly raised his hand. “I-I may know w-what it is.” From his quivering voice, Sylvia figured it probably related to the orc raid, but before she had time to ponder whether to inquire further, Corrin did it for her. “Go on?” A slap could then be heard, followed by Enelise saying: “Oh come on, can’t you see that he’s not happy to talk about it?” “Buh, he was the one who offered to say something.” “But still, try to be a bit more con-“
“Guys! I appreciate the concern Enelise, but Corrin is right; I decided to speak up.” He took a deep breath to calm his nerves. “Alright. The leader of the orcs had a similar kind of tattoo, so I researched it some years ago, and they the sign of a god’s blessing on monsters or beasts. Phew… With that said, I think I will excuse myself.” With it being clear to everyone that he was barely holding himself together thinking back on that memory, they let him go without issue and watched as he set course for his budding fortress.
“Hmm, now that he mentioned it, I can recall having heard about it in passing back when I temporarily joined a group after reaching level 10.” At Adam’s comment, the others nodded as well. “Well, now that that’s cleared up, the question is just what gods blessed it.” After a short while of silence, Enelise spoke up. “I’ve got no clue about the dark red ones, but for the white and red, my bet would be on Aphrodite; that would certainly explain how the village grew that quickly.”
The name struck some bell in her head, but Sylvia could only recall vague mentions of beauty and sex, though at least the latter word explained much of what was needed, so she refrained from inquiring further.
“Well, with that all settled, I’d like to get the equipment unloaded before I take a nap; we can discuss further plans for moving forward at a later time.” With the help of the others, Frank unloaded and sorted the gear he’d carried back, 23 metal weapons and some 30 pieces of armor. It greatly helped that he only had to worry about carrying it for the time he took to transform. A quick shift into Calysta also resulted in an extra 25 pieces of armor dropping to the ground. In total, they had acquired an estimated 20 kilograms worth of poor-quality steel, including the occasional small metal plates on the armor and 55 random pieces of hardened leather or hide armor.
“I’ll see if I can remove the stench from the armor with my fire, but don’t get your hopes up Sally; I haven’t tried this before.” Sally simply shrugged, though kept a polite smile, at Enelise’s reply to her comment about the smell. “No worries if it fails. It has already been hardened, so it’s not all that great to use, not to mention the degraded quality. I will still try to make something if you can remove the smell, but otherwise, please just incinerate it; my sense of smell is a lot better than you guys’.” ”Got it. Let’s start then. Go get some rest, Frank.” At Enelise’s reminder, Frank made his way to his room as they began working. On his way, he wondered why Sally didn’t cover her nose if the smell bothered her, but that was something he’d have to ask later.