“Are you the guy who hit his head earlier?” A voice broke into my mental crisis.

I swiped away the boxes blocking my view. An unfamiliar golem with blue hair smiled softly down at me, but his eyes literally glowed blue with excitement. He was short and thin… Well, he was still larger than I was, but compared to the other golems I’d been around, this guy was tiny.

[https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/949515587766329405/1037134437995003994/SPOILER_Kron2_copy_2.jpg]

“That’s me.”

“You’re the only injured person nearby.”

The hell?

“I just received my healing class!”

Ah, he wanted to heal someone. Well, it wasn’t like getting cured by an amateur would make me any less dead in four years.

“What’s your name?”

“Kron Kronus.”

I guessed his parents didn’t have a good naming sense.

“I’m Samalrune... I guess you can call me Sam.” With the way he almost hopped from one foot to another, his impatience must have peaked. I continued, “Go for it.”

A wide grin spread across his face. And he quickly began casting by summoning the mana from the natural world, causing mana-light to rise from his feet. A more complex spell glyph than I’d ever used glowed around his hand. Once it condensed into a ball, he threw it onto me.

The pain in my head vanished and the dizziness that had plagued me for the past ten to twenty minutes finally abated.

And that was when the giddiness started.

“Ah... I think I messed up,” Kron said. “You may want to stop laughing.”

I was laughing?

“Don’t worry. I know who can help! Come with me.”

“Wait, I have friends.”

I turned to see Kimmi and Bradvin finally coming out of the Destiny Reveal gate.

[https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/949515587766329405/1037134437642686484/SPOILER_Kimmi.jpg]

[https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/949515587766329405/1037134437353267331/SPOILER_Brad_copy.jpg]

And I started laughing again. With a slap, I covered my mouth.

Kimmi trotted up to us and her eyes narrowed at me. “What’s going on?”

Kron smiled sheepishly. “I healed your friend’s concussion, but I accidentally used significantly more life mana than necessary.”

“How much?” Bradvin asked.

He puffed up his chest. “Don’t worry. A good healer never gives up on their patient. My teacher can help him. He’s only a few blocks away.”

The two looked at each other. They were probably worried that they’d miss out on applying to the Adventurer’s Guild if they had to go get me healed first.

“Hey, go on ahead. It’s just mana oversaturation. This happens all the time to adventurers. It would be good to get firsthand knowledge on how to fix it.”

I also didn’t know how to tell them about my fate. While I knew them well, I couldn’t guess how they’d react. Even I—

“Sounds good,” Bradvin said.

“We’ll save a place in line for you!” Kimmi said. She grimaced, handed me a handkerchief, then directed me to press it to my cheek. “You’re crying.”

I was? Impossible!

When I lifted the handkerchief, a damp smudge stained the white cotton.

“Duuuude, mana oversaturation is weird as fuck.”

They all looked worried.

“Did I just say, ‘dude?’” Those were words from my past life. No wonder no one understood me.

“Don’t worry, I’ll fix him up and bring him over to the guild. I have to go there anyway,” Kron said. “And give me the address of where you’re staying, just in case.”

“I’m not a child, you know. I’m just mana over-saturated.”

By the time the three had finished exchanging information, Dos left the gate. I waved goodbye to my friends.

Kron helped me through the bustling city streets by half carrying me. I was sure I’d be fine on my own, but he’d refused to let me. My legs worked fine. They just didn’t always do what I wanted.

The spring air cooled my cheeks.

Since the marine layer made everything gloomy, the various shops selling armor, weapons and food had their signs lit up with magic crystals.

[https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/949515587766329405/1037134438884196472/SPOILER_town_copy.jpg]

It finally occurred to me, “Hey, this isn’t some weird person-trafficking-thing, is it?”

“What?”

“You know, you come over to me, get me all over-saturated then throw me to some nefarious people.”

Kron sighed deeply. “What makes you think I’d want to do that?”

I pointed to my face. “I’m pretty!”

“Do you want me to drop you?”

“I can walk by myself.”

“Mana oversaturation is worse than the concussion you had.”

“Well, that’s not good. Actually, it occurred to me because we were at the AllChurch. We could have gotten a cleric to look at me.”

“Clerics and mages are different. Though the result is the same, and we both need to have high Mind stats, a Cleric uses divine energy while I use life mana.”

We turned a corner and shuffled down an alley between the shops and apartments. A very suspiciously dim alley.

I gave Kron a look.

“What you’re thinking is written all over your face. Don’t worry. The healer is just... eccentric. Likes to live in dark, out-of-the-way places. If he doesn’t, then he gets bothered all the time.”

“Uh-huh.”

Unlike in my previous world, everyone here was born with an inventory. One with a limited space. I carefully opened mine and reviewed the supplies I’d stored there.

When the expected illusory storage box didn’t appear, my eyes widened. It had been replaced with a well organized two-dimensional grid.

Food cluttered up most of the boxes, then clothes, a hunting bow, a robe, and a staff which I’d brought in case I became a wizard. Most importantly, I had armor and two swords. Yes!

Of course, since my dumbass never suspected that I’d become a tank, I hadn’t packed a shield! No, it was more than that. I hadn’t even been slightly trained with a shield. Not even a buckler.

That had been my fault. I’d never been interested in them.

My finger accidentally grazed the box with my armor.

Would you like to equip this?

What?! I don’t have to spend ten minutes struggling with straps? Yes, thank you!

This was not a normal function of the system. Was this part of what Game Sight meant when it said that my system would be more gamified than my peers?

Right after I pressed the accept button and clothes replaced my armor in the box and the heavy weight of it rested on my shoulders.

Kron’s eyes widened, “What—”

A knife flew out of the shadows of the alley. It tinged off my armor. Unfortunately, it had been infused with aura. A sharp pain ran through my shoulder. This, of course, helped clear my mind. Possibly because the life mana had some place to go.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

I sucked in a sharp breath and grabbed my two swords.

“Who’s there?!” Kron said. “This is Healer Gerald’s territory. He won’t be happy if he finds you guys attacking his patients.”

No one answered. “Rogues,” I said. “They don’t want to break stealth.”

“They’re probably new ones from outside of town. No one who lives in this city would dare mess with Gerald.”

I stood between Kron and the direction of the dagger, then I took a step back and waved for Kron to start backing out.

Another knife rushed at my head. On reflex, I slapped it away with my sword. Oh man, that was lucky.

This was strange. Were they attacking us just because they could?

“We don’t have any money!” I called. “And PVP doesn’t give XP.”

“If they were trying to rob us, they would have said something by now.”

“You don’t throw knives at people’s faces if you’re just playing with them. These assholes want to kill us.”

“Oh... ah. They might be after me then.”

“You?” I briefly glanced back at the shrugging golem before returning to searching the shadows for any movement. They sure were taking their sweet-ass time.

“Well, you don’t make a lot of friends when you deal in cheap healing potions.”

“You mean, on top of being a bad healer, you’re a shit alchemist?”

“Hey, that was my first time! Who is perfect their first time?”

“That’s what he said.”

“And I’m not a bad alchemist. I’m an experimental alchemist and someone grabbed the potions I’d been playing with instead of the healing potions I’d set aside. So, technically, it’s their fault.”

“Okay, but then why send a bunch of rogues after a level one healer?”

Kron pointed to the blurry figures in the shadows. I blinked. Was there less of them? “And while we’re standing here talking, they’re positioning themselves to strike at our weak points.”

Fuck.

“I think there are four of them.”

A projectile flew from a rooftop over towards the rogues in hiding. When it hit the cobblestones, pink dust flew all over the place, breaking the rogue’s stealth aura. Only three were visible, two catfolk — one blue headed, the other orange with stripes — and one human girl.

I took this chance to run up to the closest one, the human with a large dagger. She rushed toward me. So fast! Steel glinted in the dim light. I blocked with one sword and slashed at her armpit with my other.

And my attack completely missed since she’d flipped backward and kept going until she landed several feet away.

Were all rogues this fast?

That was when two small knifes landed on my armor. While some of the damage was mitigated, they were infused with aura, which did its work. My internal organs ached. I stopped myself from doubling over.

Shit, no wonder every party kept healers around. If an attack struck armor, it could still damage someone more than I realized.

Kron fired off a spell at the blue-haired rogue. The magic hit her in the back but didn’t do much to slow down her movement or hurt her. She turned toward me, then jumped up into the air. The two daggers in her hands fell towards my eyes.

At the same time, a tiger striped Catfolk rushed at me while the human girl did the same.

I was pretty fucked.

I focused on the one who appeared to be the most threatening, Blue Hair. I lifted one sword to block her attack while simultaneously striking out against the other two. It didn’t hit them, but it gave me enough time to infuse aura into my foot and kick her off me. She landed against the wall.

Kron sent another glowing attack her way. This time, when it hit, her eyes rolled up into her skull and she fell to the ground. I didn’t have time or energy to check to make sure she was really out because the other two had recovered.

I also didn’t forget about the fourth rogue, or whoever tossed that pink powder ball.

Tiger Hair’s movements were smooth and fluid, despite how little experience he had at level one. He swung his knife toward me. I leaned away from it. The blade sliced through the air, just missing me.

With a partial twist, I slashed my aura infused swords toward his side. This time I caught him! His eyes widened, and he jumped backward.

My blow had only landed on his leather armor, but it still did significant damage.

Tiger Hair’s eyes darted all around, panicked.

The human girl hadn’t been waiting around and attempted to slam her knife into my neck.

Unfortunately for her, I had better reach. I stabbed my right sword forward into her stomach. It landed on her leather armor. By the time I swung around my left she’d already dodged backwards.

Kron let loose another of his spells and struck the girl in the side of her head. Again, this didn’t seem to do much, but it must have done something because her face paled.

The two rogues looked at each other in silent agreement and ran away. As soon as they reached the further into the darkened alley, they disappeared.

That was when another pink powder ball exploded over them. Followed by another ball that exploded into a green gas. Once the gas cleared, revealing the two sprawled rogues, a familiar pink haired Catfolk dropped from a shadowy terrace. He rummaged through their pockets, took out their money and threw their weapons into his inventory.

He turned to me and waved happily.

[https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/949515587766329405/1037134438397661234/SPOILER_Murr_copy.jpg]

“You’re Murr, right?”

“Ah! You remembered. I thought you’d forget after hitting your head so hard after you defended me.” He pointed to his temple. “Thanks for that, by the way. My friends can be real assholes sometimes.”

“Those... were your friends?” I defended this guy, not from bullies, but from his weirdly aggressive friends? Was this a culture difference? Wait! I shook my head. “There’s a fourth rogue around here.”

“Took care of him already, Sam. Actually, this whole setup was really fun. You see, these three waited here to distract you, then they told the fourth—”

“Told? I didn’t hear—”

“Rogue sign language. But as I was saying, they told the fourth to kill this blue guy—” He jerked his thumb toward the golem.

“Name’s Kron.”

“—Kron. So, I snuck up and took out the fourth first.”

“Oh. I appreciate the backup.”

He snickered briefly. “Oh, I wasn’t backing you up. They were my targets from the beginning. If anything, you’re the one helping me again.”

“Targets?”

The teen smirked. “Oh yeah. My asshole friends told me to take them out to prove that I wasn’t going to get myself killed.”

“That... actually sounds like a good way to get killed.”

“Pssh, naw. These four were always shit. I don’t even remember their names — that’s how bad they were. They had good teamwork, though.”

Were they dead? Actually, I didn’t want to know.

He flicked a small knife up into the air and caught it with a smirk. “Anyway. I need to bounce.”

“It was nice to see you again, Murr. I’m glad you were able to go through your Destiny Reveal.”

He grinned. “Me too! I’ll see you around.”

Then he waved while disappearing into the shadows.

“Stealth Aura is OP.”

“What?”

Oops. These new memories were still affecting me. I cleared my throat. “Aren’t we going to go see Gerald?”

“Right!”

***

“You’re uninjured now,” the old dwarven healer said with a gruff voice. Gerald eyed Kron with resentment. “Why are you bringing me a patient when you know he’s fine?”

“But I was hurt in a fight recently!”

“And that’s why you’re fine. For life mana, if you become over-saturated, you need to injure yourself. It will then travel through your body to that area and increase your healing rate, so even if you don’t feel better right away like you would when the spell is first cast, you’ll still heal at an increased speed.”

“It does that during combat?”

“Yes, but not as quickly as it does outside of it.”

Kron grimaced. “Sorry for disturbing you, Gerald. I know you’re busy.”

“It’s fine, son.” He patted the taller golem’s arm. “And I’ll have my friends have words with the people who sent the ruffians to kill you in my territory.” The man’s eyes glinted with fury.

“Actually, while I’m here. I was hoping I could get some advice.”

I thought about my stats page to bring it up. Since children didn’t have access to it, this was my first time. Fortunately, the teachers had already explained it to us several times.

[https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/949515587766329405/1037449235165085766/Sam_Character_Sheet_Chapter_2.png]

For those who find the picture to be hard to read:

Character Name Samalrune (Sam) Designation Tank Class Fighter Subclass XXX Job Architect Start Current Level 1 1 Body 22 22 Mind 18 18 Boons Name Tough Nut Skills (Aura) Rank Name X Cover Body (1Foot) X Extend Aura (1mm) X Strengthen (1 muscle) Abilities (General) Rank Name A Game Sight Spells (Mana) Rank Name X Condense Fresh Water X Create candle flame X Move pebble X Cool Breeze X Recovery Equipment Num Name

Equiped

1 Basic Armor Y 2 Basic Swords N

I tapped on Tough Nut to bring up the explanation, physically pinched the window between two fingers and showed it to Gerald.

He blinked at the sudden menu in front of his face, but tapped his chin in thought.

“Boons are pretty rare... This one.” He sent me a pitying look.

Yeah, I didn’t need that. “Do you have any ideas on how to go about this? Maybe a codpiece—”

“I mean, you already felt that armor only helps mitigate damage.”

“Unfortunately.”

“If you want to level at all, you’re going to have to get good at using the body cover skill in that area. And party with a brilliant healer. With a good enough healer, you’ll recover even if your arm is torn off.”

I nodded seriously. I hoped Kimmi was up for the challenge.

“Honestly. If I were you, I’d be more worried about how I can direct my enemy’s attacks to that area.”

I hadn’t even considered that. Do I... shake my hips or something?

“You’re obviously a fighter but, what’s your designation?”

My throat felt dry, so I cleared it. “Tank.”

This time the old dwarf looked very sympathetic and he patted my shoulder.

“If you take advantage of your boon, and use it well, you might survive.”

Shit.