“You know, Hartie,” Boni began as he hammered down on the new timber for the floor of the silo. “I’ve noticed that most of the Skills you are gaining are martial focused. You even work with dummies now. What is the number of the newest one you built?”

We were in the family’s silo, preparing it for the grain that would be brought in when the harvest began in three days. I wasn’t looking forward to that. It usually involved a lot of carrying of a lot of heavy things. With my low leveled body, I would most definitely break apart. Not that I was so low Level anymore.

After weeks, was it four or five since I came to the Realm of Mesily? Maybe it was six even? Anyway, after weeks of back braking work, and getting rest once every six days, I had reaped the benefits. And also don’t forget the martial training I did more often than not. But I was finally approaching Level 20, not there, but I was getting there. I only needed one of my Attributes to level up and I would finally be away from the 10s.

I had learnt a few things on those weeks. Chief among them being that, and I’m not sure whether it was Clare or Boni who told me, but the Level I had was an average of all my Attribute levels, always rounded down. So, yes, one more Attribute level and I hit the two-o. It would also put me four Levels behind Boni who was at Level 24. When we met, he had been at Level 22.

“Number Seven,” I said as I hammered my own timber to the pegs. “And the training is because I plan to move to a new town, or city even, when we are done here. I thought I told you so.”

And as you might have noticed, I also leveled up in my General Skill [Language Proficiency]. I could now communicate fluently in the Common Tongue. But only when around people I was familiar with. Otherwise, it was back to three-four word sentences that made no sense.

“You told me about the moving, but not the reason for the training,” he said.

“I thought I had.”

I really did. He had helped me research on nearby towns and cities in my quest to find the most promising destination for me to head for. The least I could have done was give him a few reasons for my decisions. A few, not all. Some secrets were mine and mine alone.

“You know about the bandits. Some were above Level 25. I just need to be better prepared, in case I run into something similar,” I told him.

That wasn’t the only reason though. I had learnt about Mercenaries Guilds, Troop Guilds, and others. They paid well, but needed people with martial prowess and above Level 25. If my dream of finding a safe non-violent job failed, I needed to be prepared for that lifestyle.

“You could always travel in a Troop,” he offered.

He must have known I couldn’t afford it. Especially since he wasn’t aware of the previous stash of coins I had before they began paying me the silver a day. I had been frugal, spending it only on library sessions. But I still didn’t have enough to risk going in a Troop. The trip to Sjuma, the Barony’s administrative city, would cost me three golds. That was around twice the amount I had saved from just working with them.

“Wastage of money,” I simply told him.

I had finished my area of the silo. Turning around, I found that he was done too. But we still had an hour of day-work left, and as an employee paid per day, that meant I had to begin on the next project. The roof. It was also the last one before everything would be done and ready. Silas had estimated that the roof would take at most a day to get done. If we started on it earlier, we might finish even earlier the following day. And then I could have more hours to train even further. Get closer to that Level 25. I didn’t even wait for his opinion as I went for the roof.

“You really like saving your money any chance you get, don’t you?” he asked as he joined me on the roof. “Do you even spent it on anything other than the library?”

Of course I did, I occasionally bought apples. But he knew that, and it was negligible that all my apples’ spending hadn’t eaten through a silver yet.

“I want to be rich one day. That means saving as much money as I can, whenever I can.”

Looking up from my spot on the silo roof, I could see the entirety of Silas compound. The main house at the front that connected the compound to the street and obscured everything behind it. Then the small play area they had immediately behind it. After that was the animal pens. For the chickens, cows and pigs. Some of the compounds even kept horses. Then came the silos; for the grain and for the feed.

Most of the Farmers Sector was like that, front houses next to the streets with compounds in the back for the rearing of animals. There were small paths connecting the back of the compounds to the streets. No animals were reared outside the town walls, which had the consequence of making meat a little bit more expensive compared to the rest of the other food products.

“What if you died today?” he asked, then quickly added. “Not that I’m saying you will. But what if you did? Then all that money will be left here, and it will not have helped you at all. Don’t you want to at least enjoy it a little?”

“If I die without spending any of it, but having being true to my goals. Then I will die a happy person, knowing that I did everything I could to achieve my goals.”

“If you were higher leveled, you could have joined The Grand Competition,” he said.

“The what now?” I asked, completely forgetting everything I had been doing. I had liked the word competition, that made prizes. I wanted prizes. No, I NEEDED prizes.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“The Grand… oh right, you don’t know.” What an understatement mister.

“Of course, I don’t know! The whole thing about me is that I don’t really know anything!”

“Okay, calm down,” he said, waving his hands as if putting out a fire. That just made me annoyed, but I let him. I wanted to hear more about this so called Grand Competition.

“It’s this competition that happens every year, all year. It starts at the beginning of the year with the first rounds at the Baronies, and progresses upward till the end of the year. I honestly don’t know how high it goes.”

Then he went silent. And I stared at him accusingly.

“What?” he had the nerve to ask.

“How does that relate to me getting more money? Plus, what is the competition? A singing competition? Dancing competition? Eating competition? Mesily, it could be a laughing competition for all I know.”

“Sorry, it’s a fighting competition. Dueling to be exact. Two people, one winner.”

“To the death?” I asked.

He stared at me with a confused expression, his mouth flapping about like a fish out of the water.

“What’s wrong?” I asked when I realized he might have stopped working, like a computer on overload.

But he collected himself, quickly recovering from the episode, “I really need to know where you came from.”

“So you can go visit?”

“No!” he exclaimed. “So I can avoid it completely. And for your information, the fights are not to the death. Just until one person is a clear winner. That does not, in any terms, mean the other one has to die.”

“Their loss,” I said as I got back to my shingle. Then I remembered that I still didn’t know whether there were prizes or not. “Are there prizes?”

Direct and to the point. Perfect.

“Yes. I just don’t know the exact amounts. There are rumors that it gets to over a thousand golds in the Duchies. The last Baronies had around hundred golds for the top finisher.”

“Top finisher? Are they ranked in all the Baronies?” That would put a dumper on my new get rich quick scheme.

“No, not all the Baronies. The top finisher in the Sjuma Barony. It’s a knockout competition as far as I know. But more than one person advances to the next stage.”

“Let me see if I get this right. It’s a knockout in each Barony, with the top finishers from each Barony, say four, going to the Counties. Then they clash in another knockout, with the top four from each County going to the Duchies. And so on.”

“Yes.”

“And these top finishers get prizes, sometimes hundred others thousands of golds?” I needed to be sure there were prizes. That was the only thing that mattered.

“Yes. But the prizes aren’t equal. The top finisher gets more than the second, who gets more—”

“Stop, I know how prizes in competitions work. So, where do I sign up for this Grand Competition? And when does the next one begin?”

I was looking forward to smashing some skulls on my way to riches. I mean wins and glory. No, definitely only riches. I want nothing to do with glory. But my dreams were crashed before they could even unfurl their wings.

“The next one begins in six weeks-time. The Baronies that is. A group of registrars will visit the town to get the names of those who want to participate. But uhhh… remember when I told you Level 40 being another league?” After I nodded, he continued. “That’s where you need to be to have any hope of winning.”

“Even in the Baronies?” Come on give me something to work with. There was no way I was going to gain twenty Levels in less than six weeks.

“Maybe you could win in your 30s. This area is pretty low leveled. I don’t think this town has more than fifty people above Level 30. And most of those are just visitors.”

Level 30. More than ten Levels in less than six weeks. Could I do that? The answer was a flat no. I could get past twenty-five, but thirty was just not possible. And the amount of time and energy I would need to train for such a Level gain would leave no room for work. It would be an all-in kind of thing. Was I that greedy?

No. No, I wasn’t. I would be done with the Silas family in a little more than seven days. I could either prolong my stay for another three months, or pack up and leave for another town. If I didn’t participate in the coming year’s competition, then I would have a whole year to prepare for next one. Then, then I would most definitely be above Level 40. Just a year. One year of dedicated training. One year of preparation for the competition that would determine my future. One whole year of back breaking work, getting little more than a silver. And no time to train at all. The answer was easy, then.

“I will be in the coming competition, and I will win myself a prize.”

“You can’t be serious. You’ll be up against people who have been preparing for this for their whole lives. Years of dedicated—”

I tuned him out as I got back to work. All his points were mute anyway. I would win or I would lose, there was no other outcome. If I won, I would get rich, but if I lost, nothing much would really change for me. Unlike him, I didn’t have a family, a roof over my head to call my own. I was all I had. Less than two months prior, I was stark naked in the middle of an unknown forest. Whatever will happen in the competition, I would bounce back. Plus, I had magic and was an otherworlder, that was supposed to make me powerful. What could possibly go wrong?

…

Preparations began in earnest after that.

The competition registrars would be coming to Yange in four to five weeks-time. By then, I needed to be above Level 25, and as close as I could get to Level 30. If possible, above Level 30. I didn’t want to rely on plot armor to keep me going. No, that wouldn’t do at all. I was Hartie, and I was capable of taking care of myself. Capable of fighting my own battles and winning them without any help.

Wait… had I ever been in a fight? Leave alone the not-caterpillar I can’t remember the name for, had I? Not that I could remember. Not in the Realm of Mesily, and most definitely not on old earth either. Oh dear, I needed fighting experience first. I couldn’t go to this Grand Competition a freshie. That was just a recipe for disaster. It was a knockout competition. A single mistake was all it would take to see me lose everything.

But first, I needed to take care of my finances. Or lack thereof. I didn’t have enough savings to focus solely on mad training for the coming six weeks. That meant that I would still have to work. Which wasn’t entirely a bad thing. It still could be considered as a training of sorts, endurance training. And if I kept working with Silas and his family, I had an assured shelter and food. I might feel bad about going for the second serving they always offered, but I couldn’t afford to refuse anymore. Maybe when I win big I would come back and repay them for their kindness. Give them more gold than they made in a year. That would be something. I cut myself short before I could go any further. Thoughts like those where like placing a target on your back. I needed to have bad thoughts for good things to happen. Thoughts like, I will not make it to Level 30, I will not be top finisher in the Sjuma Barony. Yeah, that’s what I need to think about.

I also needed to inform Silas that I intended, or was it hoping, to extended my stay with them for another month at least. Or until the competition really began. They hadn’t began searching for a new farmhand yet. When I asked, Silas claimed that it was too early and the last time they had rushed it, their farmhand had left them in the middle of the season. I didn’t think he understood what rushing things meant. If he didn’t start looking early on, wouldn’t he have to rush the hiring at the last minute? Of course I didn’t ask him that.

And now for the training.