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Achievement: Survivor (2)

You have gone a full week without dying. What an accomplishment! Your base physiology is adjusted accordingly.

My Might attribute was now an E, though Speed was still at F+, and Presence hadn’t changed either. I felt great. If this kept up, I would be superhuman in a year, though it seemed like these achievements were going to be spacing out as I went along. One day had gotten me the first rank, then a week. Would the next be after a month?

When Esmelda and Gastard arrived at my shelter, they found me pushing zombie parts into a pit. I didn’t see a point in harvesting all their tainted flesh, but leaving them out to rot wasn’t an option. As it was, I expected a major mushroom patch to sprout up around this mass grave, but at least that would be manageable.

Esmelda whispered a prayer, while Gastard slipped down off of his horse.

“What happened?” His blue eyes were as cold as his tone, but I didn’t think that attitude was for me. The sight of all the dead monsters just had him ready for a fight.

“Took your advice,” I said. “Tried getting out and killing them. Went pretty well, mostly.”

“Your clothes,” Esmelda said, looking me up and down. “You made them from koroshai?”

The mask was tucked away in my pack, but I was otherwise decked out in a complete set. Apart from shields, there were only four armor slots in Minecraft, and I was proud to have filled out every one of them.

“Zombie leather,” I said. “I wouldn’t recommend it for everyone, but it does the job.”

“You skinned them?” Gastard said, looking at the body at my feet with clear disgust.

“I use what I have.”

“Are you alright?” Esmelda asked. She brought her pony up to the pit and looked down at the pile of corpses. She looked more curious than afraid.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I said. “Did you see the garden?”

They couldn’t have missed it. The wheat wasn’t ready to harvest, but the stalks were tall and green. The trees hadn’t been there on their last visit either.

“We did,” Esmelda said. “It’s incredible. Mizu’s blessing shines through you. How did you make them grow like that?”

“As long as I hang around, plants sprout up.” I gestured at the high grasses crowding my shelter and the nearby fields. Cutting it down wouldn’t take long, but it was a chore that didn’t rate highly on my to-do list. “It’s kind of annoying.”

Esmelda touched her forehead. “It’s a miracle. There are many things written of the Dark Lord, but causing crops to spring up and feed the multitudes is not among them.”

“We aren’t quite to feeding multitudes yet,” I said, “but we can get there. Are you sure you’re alright with me coming into town today? What did Boffin say?”

“He says you are welcome, as long as you leave well before nightfall.”

Gastard kicked the last shambler into the pit for me. “I would have fought them with you,” he said.

He was an odd guy. “Don’t worry, there’s plenty more where that came from.” I looked over at Esmelda. Her hair was down, but she was still wearing the silver comb. “How far is the village?”

“Over a league,” she said. “I’m sorry we didn’t think to bring you a horse.”

“No worries.” Walking wasn’t an issue. “Let me tidy up a few things and we can go.” I filled in the grave and moved over to the garden to harvest everything that was ready before replanting seed coins in their place.

I could keep all my tools in medallion form, so it was easy to travel light. Walking was pleasant enough, and as they weren’t rushing, I had no trouble keeping up with their mounts, but it made me miss music. The Subway had been close enough to home that I could hike there, and I’d made a habit of doing that in the months before I got my license back. Without earbuds and a streaming service, however, it felt like I was missing something. After getting locked up, there had been a few years without music apart from what I’d heard playing on the TV in the dayroom.

It had taken two and a half years for me to get a CD player, and one of its buttons had come broken, so I sent it back to the company to get a repair. Then they banned CD players from the facility because people kept using the motors that spun the disks to make tattoo guns. That had been a letdown.

In my former life, earbuds had been a constant companion. Music helped me focus, or I liked to pretend that it did. If nothing else, it helped me get through the day, and streaming music was definitely on the list of things I missed from my previous existence. But there were people with me now, so it was probably for the best that I stayed present.

“Have there been any monster sightings around the village?” I asked as we went along.

“No,” Esmelda said. “It appears that this distance is enough.”

That was a relief. Seeing Bill with new skin had made me wonder if he’d killed someone else.

“They will come,” Gastard said. I wasn’t sure if he meant my spawns or Kevin’s forces from Dargoth, but either way, it was a downer. Esmelda kept glancing at me. That made sense. I was something out of her people’s folklore. She was adorable, and a part of me wanted to think she might be attracted to me, but the fact that she thought I was a hero sent by her chosen deity was more than enough to explain her interest.

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“Are there other towns around here? Or is it just Erihseht?”

“There are a few other villages,” Esmelda said, “but we are not numerous.”

“And are they all like you?” I asked. What was a delicate way to phrase this? “Little folk?”

“Lillits,” she corrected. “Our people settled here centuries ago, but we keep mostly apart from the men of Drom. We do not have many humans living among us. Gastard is an exception.”

The man grunted in agreement when his name came up. It was weird hearing her refer to humans like they were a different species, but I guessed that was normal in a fantasy setting. Being an elf or a dwarf wasn’t like having a different skin tone. There were significant biological distinctions.

“What’s the difference between a lillit and a human? Aside from height, I mean.”

Esmelda gave a slight smile. “It depends on who you ask. We live longer, slower lives, but we are not so different, overall. Some humans don’t trust us, but in Drom at least, most people are accustomed to our presence, and don’t think much about us at all.”

When it first came into view, the town was just a smudge beside the river, mostly hidden behind hills. The smudge gradually solidified into a mill and a waterwheel, a scattering of houses, and a few larger buildings. There were crops farther on, and livestock, but no walls that I could see. Further evidence that the monsters were a personal problem.

Everyone was short, and the buildings had been constructed at a reduced scale, but otherwise, it could have been any medieval town. Someone working in a field waved to Esmelda as we came in, and the grass gave way to a dirt road that wound its way through Erihseht.

We attracted a lot of attention as we went through. The lillits stopped what they were doing to greet Esmelda and Gastard, and their reactions to me were mixed. Some looked suspicious, but others tried to speak to me in their language, so I nodded and waved and got smiles in return.

Esmelda had wanted me to talk to Pastor Tipple, so we went directly to the local church. It was the largest building in the area, topped by a steeple with a bell. The doors were short enough that Gastard had to duck to enter, but they were just the right height for me to slip under the lintels. The hall was lined with pews that ended on a rostrum, but there was no one else there.

“Pastor,” Esmelda called. “You have a visitor.”

An unintelligible voice responded from a door to one side of the rostrum. We stopped there to wait, and a few moments later, Tipple appeared, adjusting the blue stole around his shoulders. He’d been on a horse when I’d seen him before, so it hadn’t been as obvious how overweight he was. He looked like a pilates ball with a pair of legs.

His nose was red, and his eyes were a little glassy, so I suspected his caloric surplus had something to do with a day drinking habit. He extended a hand to me, and I shook it.

“Welcome,” he said. “It’s a pleasure to see you again.”

“You too.”

“Esmelda said you would have questions for me. Why don’t you all come to the study, so we can talk?”

We followed him into the room attached to the hall where there was a table with chairs that were all built a little low for me and Gastard. A half-empty wine bottle stood beside a mug and an open book, and behind the table was a shelf lined with more books.

Tipple took his seat by the mug, and we followed his example. Gastard was ramrod straight in his chair, as tense as if he was expecting it to give way underneath him.

“Esmelda says you know little of the goddess.” Tipple tapped the open book, its pages filled with a foreign script. “Are you interested in learning about the Shui?”

“That’s your holy text, right?”

He nodded. “The record and the practice of our faith.”

“Esmelda said there were others like me before, not just Kevin.”

"That’s correct. Mizu came to one of our people when we were still under the sway of the Dark Lord. She gave him visions and secrets, and he showed us her miracles. He led a rebellion of the little folk and gathered up as many of us as he could to take us out of Dargoth. It was a long and dangerous journey, and we were harried by the forces of the shadow all the way. I’m sure we would have been lost, if not for the heroes."

"What were their names?" I felt like I already knew where this was going.

"Lady Nadia, Lord Umber, and Captain Murderface."

Okay. The first two could have passed for names local to this reality, but there was no way Captain Murderface was not an isekai. Tipple had spoken each title with equal gravity. It was obvious this was no joke to him. I opted not to comment. So Mizu was responsible for bringing these people into this world, and Kevin as well, unless there was another random omnipotent being playing around at being her counterpart. If she had been the one to bring me here, why couldn’t I remember her better?

"Tell me about the miracles," I said. "The heroes performed them too, didn’t they?"

"Of course," Tipple slugged back his drink and poured himself another.

Then he glanced up at me sheepishly. "Apologies for my rudeness. I’m not much of a host. Would you like a glass?"

"No, thanks," I said, to his clear relief. "But what could the heroes do? How did they keep the Dark Lord’s forces from recapturing your people?"

"Each played a part. All three of them were stronger than any man or lillit, fighting bravely and with skill. Lord Umber could heal any wound short of death, and Lady Nadia could command the elements. She summoned mists to hide us and called water out of the earth to ease our thirst as we wandered through the Wastes. At her command, lightning fell out of the sky to scatter the Dark Lord’s forces, and campfires rose like soldiers to fight on our behalf."

"And uh…Captain Murderface?"

Tipple was solemn. "He was the greatest of them all."

"He was a shapechanger," Esmelda added. "He wore a hundred faces and forms, and he could exchange them more easily than a man changing his clothes. He could harden his skin until it turned the edge of a sword, or grow wings and take to the skies. He could even take on aspects of the creatures of Bedlam."

Turning into a zombie didn’t sound like a great superpower, but there had to be more to it than that.

"Esmelda has made something of a study of the holy triad," Tipple said fondly, "and she is correct. When the Dark Lord sent the greatest of his beasts to finish us, he met them fang to fang. But that was long ago, and he left us soon after we were free."

Had the previous isekais not been able to respawn? Did they age? If Kevin had been around all this time, why not the others? "Your people never saw him again after that? What about the other two?"

"Lady Nadia and Lord Umber helped establish the first free lillit settlement in the Free Kingdoms and negotiated with the kings of those days. But after it was clear that our people were finally safe from the Dark Lord, they took their leave. Only noble Frodo remained behind."

He must have seen something in my face.

"Are you alright? Have I said something to offend you?"

"No," I said, "not at all." The Lord of the Rings reference had just caught me by surprise. No way it was a coincidence. That made four isekais on the side of the light before me. One of them had just spawned as a lillit, or who knew, maybe he had just been short to begin with.

"They weren’t ever seen again?" I repeated.

"There have been stories and songs," Tipple shrugged, "as they worked wonders in other parts of the world, but officially, no. The heroes are said to have returned to Eversea to dwell with the goddess when they were no longer needed here."

“We know of them,” Gastard said. “Umberious remained.”

“That may be,” Tipple said, “but it is not recorded in the Shui.”

Maybe they had escaped the world, maybe they were still here. Either way, it didn’t sound like I was going to run into them any time soon. I looked at the bookshelf.

“I’d like to learn some of your language. Do you have anything here that I could use to study?”

"I speak Kevinian well enough, as do Esmelda and her father,” Tipple said. “She would be a better teacher than I, especially for Sprache. Most of the people of Erihseht are not so thoroughly educated. We keep the memory of Kevinian alive because it wasn’t only spoken by the Dargothians, but the heroes themselves. I do have books written in all three tongues, but they are not instruction manuals. You would have to go to Henterfell for something like that. I’m sure their priestly schools would have them."

"Do they worship Mizu too?"

"Oh, no, humans know next to nothing about the goddess. They send their praises to Gotte and none other." He lifted his mug, found that it was empty again, and set it back down. "If you would like, the two of you can use this room to study. I have some spare parchment and inks, and I will help you as I can. It wouldn’t be proper for you to spend so much time alone, but I would be happy to act as a chaperone."

"I would be grateful," I said. We spent a little more time talking about their history, and I agreed to take part in a service in the indeterminate future. Tipple bid us farewell, and we walked back out into the street in front of the church. There was still plenty of time left in the day.

“If it’s okay with you,” I said to Esmelda. “I’d like to talk about doing some business.”