“A class?” I asked the bamboo smoking panda. “As in archer or wizard and the like?”

“Yup,” he responded between drags. “In this world you need a class if you plan to fight monsters. Classes unlock more ways to increase your level, offer more stat points and they’ll help you hone your fighting technique – which I assume is pretty terrible right now.”

“I’ve made it this far.”

“You’re only a level 5 kid. You have no idea what kind of powers exist in this world. On a scale of noob to God you’re not even old enough to start playing yet. Trust me on this, you need a class and some direction.”

It felt oddly emasculating to be lectured to by a talking panda, but he was right. I had no idea what I was doing or how this world worked. I wouldn’t say everything that had happened was down to luck, no amount of luck forces you to kill monsters and hunters, but I was fortunate to still be alive.

Panda seemed to know his stuff, though I had nothing to compare him to. I decided to listen to his advice for the time being. First we’d escape – wherever we were – then we’d head for the city.

“Ok. First we need to get out of this place.” I said, nodding at my little companion guide.

“Agreed kid. Oh, and good job killing that level 10 earlier. That was impressive.”

“How did you know about that?”

“As part of the summoning contract I get a glimpse into your life so far in this world. You haven’t been here long so I probably saw everything of note. That’s why I haven’t mentioned your lack of pants.” He chuckled, raising his paw to his face.

I turned away from him and opened the door to the hallway.

“For the record I don’t want to be wearing a sock down there.” I mumbled.

“Oh no, it really suits you kid. I’m sure women will love that whole baby elephant dynamic you’ve got going on.” He sniggered.

Ignoring him I left the room and he followed behind me. Standing on his two back legs he reached my waist. He was pretty small for a panda, but at least he’d take up less room in the inn once we got to town.

I assumed there would be an inn at least. In most of the literature I’d read there usually was an inn in isekai worlds.

The corridor was still empty, to my relief. I followed the lush carpet, continuing in the direction I’d been heading before the wealth god’s aura had side tracked me.

We didn’t have to walk far before we found something.

The corridor opened out into a huge foyer, it reminded me of a shrine or something. We were on the second-floor balcony looking over the golden railings.

The room was huge. There were six roman columns made of gold on each side of the rectangular shaped room. At one end was a massive door covered in etchings that seemed to depict a big guy holding the world above his head. It remined me of Atlas from Greek mythology, except the man in this etching had a creepy, lustful smile on his face.

It was obviously supposed to be Chrysus, the wealth god I’d met. It looked just like him and this was his cult after all – at least according to the loot drops I’d had from killing two of them.

The huge door was likely the exit, though what awaited us outside was anyone’s guess. On the other side of the temple was an unnecessarily huge throne. It seemed to be made of solid gold and cushioned with purple pillows.

I guess gold is more about showing off than comfort. Tells you everything you need to know about a guy who’d make a throne out of it. I thought as I lightly shook my head, glanced towards the ceiling, and rolled my eyes. It was Chrysus’ temple, it stood to reason that he could see me if he wanted to.

“It doesn’t look like anyone’s home. Let’s get out of here.” I whispered, turning to Panda who had jumped up to the railing and was clinging on to get a view. His stubby legs were wagging underneath him as he couldn’t touch the floor.

“It’s your show kid.” He replied. “Just be careful if you’re gonna open that big door. It probably makes a lot of noise.”

With a nod I moved to my left and down a flight of stairs which led to the ground floor. I quickly glanced around to double check, but there truly was no one else there. I moved towards the large door and pushed.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

I really hoped it was a push door. Accidentally pushing a pull door was the height of the daily office job embarrassment.

To my surprise it moved easily, gliding across the floor as natural light began seeping through the cracks. I stopped pushing when it was cracked just enough to peak through.

It seemed Panda was wrong this time. The door was quiet.

I peeked outside and saw a large courtyard. It was filled with cultists. There was an outer wall that stretched past my vision in both directions and trees lined the outside, telling me we were still somewhere in the palm tree jungle.

Almost directly in front of me was a large iron gate that seemed to open onto a dirt road. It was much wider than the dirt path I’d been following on foot prior to my capture. The gate was closed though and there were guards stood on either side of it.

They wore the same crimson robes as the rest of the cult, but these guys had some kind of armour over the top. It looked like chainmail but it was hard to tell from my position.

The guards also wore helmets and held large spears in their hands. They would definitely be harder to kill than the cultists I’d murdered earlier. I wasn’t sure I’d win against people that well equipped.

The rest of the courtyard was divided into two sections with an ornate, circular fountain in the middle separating them.

On the left side there seemed to be training facilities. Cultists practiced with bows on straw dummies and some were sparring with swords. None of the training cultists wore armour but there was about ten of them that I could see.

Way more than I could handle on my own at my current strength.

On the right-hand side there were only three cultists and none of them had weapons. They were unloading crates from a vehicle which looked like an old army truck. It was a green flatbed with a khaki-coloured canopy covering the back.

It reminded me of a WW2 era, troop transport. The right-hand side seemed like our safest bet. Hopefully we could sneak past them, but if not, taking out three unarmed guys and running had to be better odds than facing ten armed ones.

I pulled my face back inside and told Panda what I’d seen and which route I’d planned to take.

“Sounds like the wise choice to me kid. Before we go though, take this.”

He opened his paw and a small bottle appeared in it. Inside the bottle was a shimmering red liquid, it was thick and kinda reminded me of a red wine.

“What is it?” I asked, taking the bottle from his paw. It was a stupid question because as soon as I touched it a notification appeared.

You have received a new item:

Inferior Health Potion

Restores 20 HP

Before Panda could answer me I took the stopper out and downed the drink. I needed all the help I could get. It felt warm and burned a little like a good scotch. It was sweet though, so also not like a good scotch.

In my HUD I could see that my HP was fully restored leaving me with a full 36/36.

“I didn’t mean for you to drink it now!” Panda shouted in a raised whisper. “You only got 4 points out of it! I wanted you to keep it to use in an emergency.”

He continued bouncing around as it dawned on me how stupid I’d been to waste the potion. It was the first thing I’d drank since I’d arrived here though and it got rid of that dry, sandpaper feeling in my mouth so I wasn’t too upset about the mistake.

It struck me as odd that I’d been able to get away without drinking for such a long time. I wondered if it was the system interfering, or maybe it was the adrenaline form the whole experience.

Before I had a chance to ponder further a new notification popped up.

Quest Complete!

Bear Grylls

You’re stranded in the wilderness. You need food and water to survive. Whatever will you do? Well, you could drink your own piss like the famous earth TV personality Bear Grylls, or you could try and find something fit for human consumption. It’s up to you.

Objectives:

Eat something 1/1

Drink something 1/1

Reward: Not dying of starvation. You’re welcome.

I’d completely forgotten I’d been given that quest. It was a pretty useless one to pass though, I didn’t really get anything from it. Still, I felt a kind of childish pride in completing it.

As I finished reading Panda was still giving me the stink eye and shaking his head.

“Are you happy now? You completed a pointless quest by wasting my potion. Gods! I wish I had a different human…” He huffed angrily.

“You’re starting to sound like my parents.”

Panda stopped complaining, stifling a chuckle, as I checked my inventory. I decided to go with the same approach I’d used before. I’d put the hood up, hold my knife under my cloak and use my other hand to keep the cloak shut.

It wasn’t a great disguise but I hoped it would help enough to by me the time I needed to get away from this place.

I walked back to the door and peered through the crack once more. Everything seemed pretty much the same as it had before. With a deep breath I turned to Panda, who nodded back at me, and I opened the door just enough to squeeze through.

Or at least that was the plan.

As I pushed the door slightly and began moving through the opening, the door decided it had other plans. With a long and obscenely loud creak it slowly opened all the way.

The sound grated heavily on my ears as the door scraped against the stone paving outside. After a few long seconds the noise stopped and Panda said:

“I told you it looked like a noisy door.”

“Yeah, thanks for that sage advice mate,” I said harshly.

As I stood in the opening of the door, every cultist in the courtyard turned to look at me. The ten on the left stopped their sparring and target practice and stared at me. The three on the right holding their boxes stared at me and the even the two armoured guards by the gate turned to look at me.

“Fancy meeting like this.” I said, raising my left hand in a wave as my cloak opened to reveal my semi-nakedness.