Murr’s ears flattened, and he glared at the woman in a tight leather catsuit. “Damn it, Rava! I know what I’m doing.”
“You know her?” While I remembered him mentioning that she was his friend, friends didn’t normally kill-steal. I looked at the pink haired catfolk.
Rava smirked. “Know me? Of course he knows me. He hired me to teach him how to pick locks along with other roguish things he couldn’t figure out on his own.” Her eyes narrowed at him. “I never thought you’d actually become one, though. I always assumed you were just some rebellious rich kid hanging out with us ruffians because you thought it was a good time.”
“And I thought I’d repeatedly proven to you and the gang that I had what it took to be one of you. But I guess that didn’t matter.”
She scratched her cat ear and sighed. “It would have been better if you’d become a non-combatant merchant.”
“You’ve said that already, but this is the life I’ve chosen and my Destiny Reveal has acknowledged that.”
Her lips changed from a smirk to a melancholic smile. She shook her head. “We all told you to wait until you were twenty.”
“I’m glad I didn’t.”
“Can you say the same thing after you’ve lost eight lives? Being a rogue is dangerous.”
He crossed his arms and smirked. “A catfolk who reaches 300 can earn 90 more.”
She snorted. “Not everybody does.”
The bushes rustled. Everyone stilled and glanced toward the mass of leaves. Bradvin and the rest of his team practically toppled out of the bush and into our clearing. They appeared haggard, but all wore wide smiles... until they saw me. Then their faces froze.
Kimmi blew a leaf out of her hair and then smiled at me. It looked a little forced. “Hiiii, Samalrune.”
“Funny meeting you out here in the middle of nowhere.” I raised both brows at them. “I was worried when you didn’t return to the inn.”
“The thing is,” Kimmi said awkwardly, “we went on our first quest and it took longer than we initially thought. We’re only returning now.”
“And you didn’t think to tell me or leave a note?”
Bradvin rolled his eyes. “We went deep into the forest to fight level 5 monsters.”
“What?” They did that at level 1? Were they insane?
“We had to fight for most of the day and then on the way back, we ran into a few Three Horned Lions.” I knew about those. They were level 8. “In the end, we ended up gaining four levels from this single quest!!” Kimi practically vibrated with excitement.
My mouth dropped. What? But more importantly, “You fought a level 8 monster? Are you insane?!”
Bradvin patted the shoulder of the violet eye’d dwarf. “Between Olin keeping us all healed up and Dos tanking like a champ, we all came out of it fine.”
The dwarf grinned at Dos. “That was some of the finest tanking I’d ever seen.”
The golem smiled proudly. Considering what I knew about him, the praise was fully earned.
“How about you?” Kimmi asked.
“Well, Kron and I reached level four yesterday.”
“And I would have gotten to five if Rava hadn’t stolen my kills,” Murr glowered at the brown haired catfolk girl.
Rava scoffed. “Don’t be silly. No one can progress that fast without putting themselves in extreme danger like we did. These bees are what? Level 4? You’d probably have to kill thirty of them to go from 4 to 5.”
Murr placed a hand over his eyes and sucked in a breath like he was doing everything in his power to not choose violence. Considering that three bee-balls at a 10x multiplier would give the same experience as thirty, he had every right to be upset. With a few well-planted knives, Rava had ruined his chance for getting an easy level.
Bradvin pursed lips and his brow furrowed with concern. “Aren’t you progressing a bit too fast, Samalrune?”
“You know my situation.”
He sighed. “Yeah, but you have to realize that leveling so quickly isn’t healthy. Our teachers always reminded us that you won’t develop the necessary skills to succeed if you don’t take your time.”
Rava grinned, “You’ll also end up becoming kitten-adventurers — cute, dangerous looking, but not all that threatening.”
Murr, who had finally calmed down, scowled at her.
“Then what about you? You’re already level 5,” I point out.
“Our party is aiming for 160.”
Hearing that was like a punch to the ball sack. And, the worst part, I had to explain why using math.
The traditional way to level in the four years preceding the Destiny Test was:
Year 1 - 40 levels
Year 2 - 22 levels
Year 3 - 12 levels
Year 4 - 6 levels
And the average adventurer would break up the years into quarters, the first one looking like this:
Quarter 1 - 20 levels
Quarter 2 - 11 levels
Quarter 3 - 6 levels
Quarter 4 - 3 levels
If I graphed it out, it would look almost like stairs. Wait, that was wrong... It would be closer to a stupid-looking bumpy hill. Or maybe the reverse of a good movie’s rising-action zigzag.
Each quarter was 91 days, with an extra day at the end of the year to rest. Nearly everyone spent their first one attempting to earn a level every four to five days. Which was around what I’d have to do to steadily reach 300.
But, if Bradvin’s party wanted to aim for level 160, then they’d end up needing to level every 2.27 days... which was every 2 days with an extra day off at the end of every other week? Ooof. I didn’t know. Could someone do that math for me? I was a tank, not a mathematician. Where was a calculator when I needed one?
Regardless, what all this convoluted math meant was that, for at least the first three months to six months, my ex-party might significantly out-level me... and it also meant that I could have spent most of a year leveling with them if they’d given me a shot. And that hurt.
While I could just let it go, and focus on leveling at my own pace, I still remembered that Bradvin called me mediocre. Frankly, it made me want to prove how talented I was.
But, like Rava said, I’d also had to make sure my skills didn’t lag behind, or I’d become all hiss and no claws.
Actually, my situation kind of reminded me of a history lesson Professor Coltvins gave us.
In the past, before the adventurer’s guild started to strictly regulate the Combat-Oriented New Adults, there would often be very rich or powerful people who wanted it easy. They gathered parties of excellent adventurers to carry them to the higher levels. While their level and gear turned out to be top-notch, their skills were pieces of shit.
This would have been fine back in my old world, but in this one, if you were a combat class, that meant you were destined to fight. If you didn’t seek out a battle, they would come to you. By not developing their skills and practicing them until they were efficient, these rich kids only did themselves a disservice. Many ended up dying during their Destiny Test. Some, who barely passed, never lasted long afterwards.
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To put it in different words from my past life, it was like these kids bought a high level character in an MMO and didn’t know how to play it.
We couldn’t allow our boons to do the same thing to us. Just because we leveled easier, didn’t mean it was all good. Similar to how some genius children struggle as adults because they don’t form proper study habits when they’re young — if we weren’t careful, and took the easy route, we wouldn’t be prepared when shit hit the fan.
“Are you that shocked?” Bradvin said. “You might think badly of us, but even we aren’t brave enough to try for 300 in four years.”
“If you’d been willing to give me a chance, we could have leveled together for the first two quarters, at least. It’s not like parties never have members leave.”
He scowled at me. “Be realistic. We’ve both heard the statistics. Professor Coltvins beat it into our heads that we need a suitable group at the very beginning. It will improve our chances of reaching a higher level. And that’s what we’re trying to do here.”
“But we can help you find good party members,” Kimmi said. “We were planning on doing that, anyway.”
“I’m satisfied with my current team.” I nodded to Kron and Murr in appreciation. “They’re willing to work with me and our aim is 300.”
“You can’t be serious!” Rava’s ears flattened.
Our rogue sent her a smug look.
Dos raised both brows. “You’re going to need two more DPS, at least.”
“Unless we can find some that have boons like us, I don’t see that happening.”
“You received a boon?!” Kimmi’s eyes widened in excitement. “What is it?”
[https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/949515587766329405/1041519306187477052/SPOILER_Kimmi_copy.jpg]
Ah... Did I really want to tell them that for me to level, I have to get hit in the balls? Nope! Not doing it!
I cleared my throat and carefully avoided the issue. “We each have something that allows us to progress faster.”
“That’s ridiculously dangerous,” Bradvin said.
“Maybe the goddess saw some talent in me you guys didn’t.”
Murr came over and briefly hugged my shoulders. I had to bend down to allow him to do that, but it was warm.
“You guys missed out. He’s ours now,” the pink haired rogue said.
“Is that why you decided to try for 300 instead of going home?” Bradvin said.
I nodded.
He looked relieved and gave me a big grin. “I’m glad. Honestly, I’m very glad. Surviving to 300 will be difficult, so I hope you’re very careful when developing your skills.”
[https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/949515587766329405/1041519305700941914/SPOILER_Brad_copy.jpg]
Now he acts like he’s glad? Really? I would have told them about it if they’d given me a chance back then. “I don’t need you to tell me that.”
“As much as this reunion is nice and all,” Olin interjected, “This isn’t exactly the best place for it.” He gestured to the trees, the clearing and the dead bee-balls.
“Come to the Inn tonight! We’re going to celebrate our first successful mission,” Bradvin said.
He waved, Kimmi sent me a smile and Dos simply nodded. Then they all turned their backs on us and traveled towards one of the main paths in the forest.
Rava stayed behind and stared at Murr. “You’re crazy for trying to reach 300.” Then she vanished from sight.
“So, I think we both agree that we should out level those assholes, right?” Murr said.
“Definitely.” I sent him a thumbs up.
“They didn’t seem so bad to me,” Kron said.
We both just looked at him. He held up his hands. “But I don’t know what you went through.”
Murr tossed his dagger into the air and caught it. “Tell you what, if we can reach 6 today, I’ll tell you why she pisses me off so much.”
“Well, she did steal a level from you.”
He frowned like another catfolk drank the milk he’d just poured. “Don’t remind me. I was so close!”
“Should we go find some more of those bees?” Kron asked. “I mean, what better enemy to hit your balls than a ball-shaped one?”
“Okay, while I’m glad you stopped punning, I don’t think that’s a good decision. First of all, it would be difficult for me to redirect their attacks to my groin. And secondly, I don’t need a bee stinger dick piercing.”
Kron smirked, “I believe the technical term is bee stinger Prince Aldivous, named after Emperor White’s son, who famously enjoyed wearing tight pants. He used it to hide his enormous—”
“How do you even know that?!”
He shrugged. “I’m a healer. I’ve studied everything I could get my hands on when it came to healing the bodies of various races, even fae. Back when Prince Aldivous was alive, it was a popular piercing... and so were tight pants. When a healer learns to heal, they have to avoid repairing things like that. So, of course, I’d learned about it.”
“Alright,” Murr said, “Since we’re not giving Sam a bee stinger dick piercing, let’s find another monster nearby here.”
“Preferably one that’s stronger than us,” I said. “We can’t allow ourselves to rise in level without developing the appropriate skills.”
“Think about what abilities will help you develop a good sub-class, too,” Kron said.
“I still haven’t figured out what direction I want to go.” Murr pulled out his map and started searching. “Not everyone is lucky enough to be given a subclass right away.”
“Well, you still have some time, but not much.”
“Currently, you are an all rounder-type rogue. However, you’re better at controlling the battlefield than I’ve seen from anyone our age,” Kron said.
He scowled. “As far as I know, control rogues are weak. They sacrifice some of their ability to do a ton of damage for powers that help them adjust where enemies go. I don’t think that’s the direction I want.”
The golem shrugged. “You are our only DPS, so having you do maximum damage would only be good for the party.”
I grinned. “I’ve already decided on my sub-class.”
Murr looked up from his map and Kron raised both his eyebrows.
“I’m going to be Faerule’s first Dodge Tank!”
“What? Like a tank that dodges instead of blocks?”
I nodded. “Isn’t that perfect for someone who doesn’t have the right frame to tank normally?”
“But how are you planning to do it?” Kron stroked his chin.
“That’s what I’ll have to figure out.”
“I got it!” We turned to Murr, who pointed at the map. “There is an area near a waterfall where people sometimes find kelpies. They’re often level 6 or 7, so they’ll be a challenge for us.”
“I thought you were talking about my subclass.”
“What? Oh. That’s a good idea, but let’s look into that later. For now, we need to level past those assholes!”
***
[https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/949515587766329405/1041519305948418118/SPOILER_Kelpie_copy.jpg]
The beautiful waterfall surrounded by trees appeared picturesque. The weird, elegant black stallion just standing in the shallow water of the river, though, was a little odd. It might have been the reversed hooves. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought that it was just a wild horse chilling in the water, ready to be tamed. And I would be very wrong.
Kelpies, in the folklore of my last life, were known to drown their victims; here, where adventurers actually encountered them, they were more a nuisance than a hazard.
Murr patted my shoulder. “So, how are you going to get it to stomp on your groin?”
“You’re not helping.”
“I’m asking deep questions here.”
“I almost want to go back to those over-sized mantises. At least I know how to redirect their attacks.”
“Well, it’s better to figure it out while we’re at a low level than wait until we’re fighting giant crabs at level 80 and you’re not sure how you’re going to get it to give your junk a tap without killing you.”
“Gee, thank you for that image, Kron.”
“Glad to help.”
Murr brought out his slingshot and grinned. “Come on, that pony isn’t going to fight itself.”
“Wait, I need more time to think of how to redirect its attacks.”
“We haven’t seen how it fights. How can you know for sure unless you see it in action?”
That... was a valid point.
“First, let me get it out of the water.” Murr pulled back on his elastic string and loosed it.
[https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/949515587766329405/1041519306443333792/SPOILER_MurrShoot_copy.jpg]
When the black iron hit the horse in the side, it transformed from a beautiful stallion to a green, seaweed-haired monstrosity. It even increased in size by at least twenty percent and galloped toward us.
I stepped in front of my party members, swords out.
The kelpie ran fast, but I thought I could handle it... until it got closer and I realized I had misjudged its size. The monster was twice as tall as I was.
When it reached me, it neighed and attempted to stomp my head in. I jumped back.
It bolted after me, attempting to use its sheer mass against me.
Kron sent a life drain its way, and Murr attacked it with a green shot that burst into a poison cloud. I distanced myself from the poison.
“Careful with those!”
“Oops. Sorry.”
“Oops my ass!”
“I’ve got the antidote!”
“Who wants to be poisoned in the first place?”
I took this chance to run around it and put myself behind the kelpie. There was a possibility I could get it to hit me in the balls if I could redirect a hind leg attack. There was no fucking way I was altering a strike from its massive frontal hooves. At least, not unless I learned to dodge while looking like a starfish.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t planning to cooperate with me. Instead of kicking me, it turned around and ran toward me again. I dodged to the side and slashed its frontal legs with my aura infused swords. From its soft grunt, I could tell that I barely did any damage. However, I did make it angry.
It snarled and tried to stomp my head in. Since I was too pretty to allow it to mess up my face, I avoided the blow and kept myself away from the poison cloud.
Of course, that was when it twisted its body unexpectedly and kicked me in the chest. Just in time, I put up an aura shield to protect my heart, but I still flew back. When I landed, I skid across the dirt, my armor catching on loose stones and dry twigs. My shoulders slammed into a large boulder and I came to a stop. Droplets fell on my face from the nearby waterfall.
Before I could recover, the kelpie lowered its head, bit my chest and threw me into the river.
Not good!
Then, as if fate, it stomped on my groin.
[https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/949515587766329405/1041519306682421248/SPOILER_Sam_copy.jpg]