Aaron stepped off to the right hand side of the road and silently stood there waiting. He was currently using both his hands to hide his manhood from sight, there was, after all no need to make what was likely to be an awkward encounter any more so than it needed to be.
Aaron had been following the road for what was likely a couple of hours now and as he had hoped, the weather had indeed warmed up considerably. He had only just, a moment ago, noticed the tell tale sounds of wooden wagon wheels grinding along the dirt road and hooves clopping away.
Aaron had decided to step out of the way, as the wagon approached him from the rear. Waiting patiently on the side of the road. He was understandably nervous in his current rather ‘vulnerable’ state. At least his erection had gone down early on already, so that was two things less to worry about; a less awkward situation for him now and fewer concerns about crazy ideas like magical boners.
As the wagon drew nearer, Aaron could start to make out the driver. He was a large man. Really large. Aaron suspected that a lot of that was body fat and mostly the kind of size that comes with age, as the man was clearly getting on in his years if the slightly sagging folds on his face or the beginnings of grey in his beard stubble were any indication.
The man either did not notice Aaron or simply chose to ignore him, as his gaze did not waver from the road in front of him in the slightest. A true accomplishment in Aaron’s humble opinion, considering his current disposition.
The wagon itself was made almost entirely out of wood, everything except the undercarriage basically; that was metal. The four wheels were large round spoked things with the two in front being somewhat smaller. The wagon itself was open-air with large extra wooden ‘flaps’ bolted on all sides at a slight angle, obviously designed to heap as much cargo into it as possible.
The front of the carriage was an extended area where the driver could sit, complete with a seat for him that Aaron suspected doubled as a storage chest; and another ‘wooden flap’ extending out in front of driver, probably to stop dirt that the horses hooves may kick up as they go. The carriage itself was being drawn by a single dark brown horse at a steady trot.
As the carriage neared Aaron the driver still hadn’t so much as glanced at him, however the carriage did come to stop when it finally reached him. It was then that he noticed the carriage wasn’t carrying much in the way of cargo, save for one woman.
The woman who was sitting down inside the wagon previously, had already hopped out the back and began approaching Aaron.
A Vixen.
There was just no other way to describe her.
The woman was wearing thick smooth silver bangles around her thin wrists and a sweeping red dress almost unnaturally deep in color. The top of it was mostly open with two thick red straps of material hanging off her slender shoulders, leaving a lot of her neck, bust, shoulders and all of her feminine arms exposed. The pale skin was quite beautiful. Especially on her mostly exposed cleavage that while they seemed to be of adequate size, were nicely accentuated by the folding, criss-crossing cloth design of the dress in that particular area.
Wearing black sandals, she was a tall woman with long legs, in spite of her petite figure. But she did have all the right curves of a ‘woman’ in the right places. As she stepped out of the wagons shadow, the sun illuminated the bottom half of her dress. It was practically glowing red at this point and the silhouetted outline of her legs, thighs, hips and crotch were plainly visible through the surprisingly thin material. Does she even wear underwear?
Aaron immediately pulled his eyes away from the visage of eroticism in front of him and up towards her face, lest he get another erection, one that might be awfully difficult to conceal in his current state of dress.
The woman smiled at him as she spoke, “Well here’s something you don’t see everyday”.
‘Back at you lady’, Aaron mused to himself. The woman had ‘armpit length’ dark brown hair bordering on black; straight on top but curlier towards the end, mostly swept over the front of her left shoulder. She had soft yet angled facial features with rather pronounced cheekbones. The faintest flush on her cheeks complimenting the soft red colour of her lips very nicely. Thin and long chain-like silver earrings hung off her delicate ears, swinging ever so slightly from her previous motion, while her deep and dark brown eyes gazed at Aaron intently.
He could seriously get lost in those eyes, even if they were a little intimidating. The woman stood there for a while, simply staring, not saying a word. It seemed like she was awaiting some kind of explanation. Unfortunately Aaron doubted he could come up with anything that would hold up to even the slightest bit of scrutiny, since he knew absolutely nothing about this world. So he did the only thing he could, “I don’t know what happened. I woke up in the field, completely naked and I can’t remember anything. Not where I am, not the date, not anything.” AKA, total amnesia.
Congratulations, skill unlocked: Cliche tropes
As much questions as that raises... Dianna was busy giving Aaron a very serious look, probably trying to decide if he’s telling the truth, mentally unstable or dangerous, or just flat out lying. In the end Aaron did not know which one she settled on but she did ask a follow up question, “So what’s your name?”
“Ah now that I at least remember, it’s Aaron”
“Well Aaron, I’m Dianna. So where are you headed?”, Dianna enquired as she shifted her arms to place her hands on her hips. She had rather long slender fingers, with the telltale signs of age on them. She was obviously the kind of woman that looked ten years younger than she really was.
“Yeah… I- don’t really know”
Dianna purses her lips ever so slightly in contemplation, “Figures”
A moment passes in silence before Dianna speaks up again, “Okay, so why don’t you come with me for now. I am on my way home now, but will be heading back into town in a day or so. You can tag along at that point and maybe someone there will be able to help identify you?”
“That would be really great, I’d really appreciate it.” Aaron did his best to sound grateful, even though he was a bit concerned about that second part. There ain’t nobody gonna be recognising him any time soon after all. Although, all in all, he was quite surprised she was being so generous. The medieval type settings were rather notorious for their self-centered populace. Perhaps it’s just the world in question, to soon to tell.
“Thomas, hand me your coat”, Dianna called out to the big coachman, who in turn silently reached for the warm coat that was lying on the seat next to him and handed it over to her. Dianna in turn handed the coat over to Aaron.
Aaron quickly put it on and buttoned a few buttons.
“There, that’s much better”, Dianna smiled.
“Thanks”
“Now then, come along, we need to get moving if we wish to get home by nightfall.”
Aaron followed Dianna up onto the wagon. There were two long benches lining either side of it obviously meant for passengers, Dianna sat on one and Aaron took a seat opposite her. Now that he was wearing a thick coat that went all the way down to his knees, he intended to make full use of the ‘cover’ it would provide for any potential erections and ogle Dianna’s figure whenever she wasn’t looking.
Thomas whipped the reins and the wagon once more began moving. As it rattled along Aaron took stock of the various wares rattling about with the two of them in the back of the wagon. There were a couple of sealed clay jugs, various sizes of burlap sack and one or two small crates. Aaron could only see the contents of one of the sacks which wasn’t tied closed and it seemed to be filled with potatoes. If he had to venture a guess, Dianna had probably come back from doing her monthly shopping in town or something to that effect.
“So, you really don’t remember anything at all?”
“Um- no, nothing” Dianna had started up a conversation and with such a leading question, it was practically an invitation for some much needed enquiries on Aaron’s side of things.
“As you can imagine there’s a lot I would like to know about-”
Dianna waved her hand in a dismissive gesture while simultaneously crossing her legs in the opposite direction to what they were previously in, “Feel free to ask away”
Aaron did his best to focus on the task at hand and not her ‘basic instinct’ impersonations.
They spoke over the next couple of hours on and off about anything Aaron could think to ask, while he tried not to seem too suspicious. The TLDR was basically that he was on a continent called Eumoria in the country of Euclidia. As one might be able to infer from the name, Euclidia was essentially the ruling force on the continent.
This world had magic, skill, status screens and ‘the system’. It was present among all known inhabitants of the world, and the question that some might not have it or be exempt from it, seemed utterly ludicrous to Dianna. It was in fact a very natural part of society.
Aaron had not asked Dianna about her status or level and neither had she. It was only a guess, but he suspected to ask such a thing might actually be a bit rude in this world. He also had not asked about certain things like the ‘destiny’ attribute as he suspected that such things were a special case and would draw to much attention to him.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Aaron had also enquired about ‘monsters’. There was initially some confusion on Aaron’s part since he couldn’t quite manage to distinguish properly between the word ‘monster’ and ‘animal’. While they were essentially one and the same thing to the people of this world, something Aaron figured out rather quickly, it seemed the trouble he was actually having may have rather been with translation.
After a fair amount of back and forth and a deep look of concern on Dianna’s face worrying for his sanity, Aaron had managed to work out that they were not in fact speaking the same language. There was some kind of translation system in play here. While he heard and spoke english, clearly the language they were speaking was anything but. Euclida, the language Aaron later found out they were speaking did not have seperate words for monster and animal, the way english did. This did not seem to stop the ‘translation engine’ however from attempting to make some kind of distinguishment between the two, to Aaron’s ears, much to his annoyance.
Monsters also appeared to have levels, skills, and a ‘system’, but little was known about it or its mechanics.
After the conversation finally died down for a long period of time, Aaron finally got round to that notification he received earlier.
‘Haremest skillbook’
Skill book: Haremest (lvl 1) Skill points left: 1 Skills Owned: Skills Available: Skill Level Skill Cost None N/A Cliche tropes 1
‘Cliche tropes’
Skill: Cliche tropes Type: Passive Element: Divine Cost: N/A Description:
Protagonists often find themselves in overused situations or dialogue. These things are here to stay and the audience is simply expected to roll with it. Effect:
+1 luck per level of this skill
+2 charisma per level of this skill
Ridiculous situations or actions will be more easily accepted by those around you - The intensity of this effect will scale with the level of this skill
This reinforces what Aaron had heard from Dianna, that while most skill books apparently come loaded chock full of skill choices from the get go, there are many special skill choices that only become available once certain criteria are met. So while his Haremist skill book is starting off in a very bad way, it is likely to turn into a very powerful skill book in the end, filled with entirely these 'special skills'. Well, the whole ‘divine’ thing was certainly already hinting in that direction.
It does unfortunately mean however, that he won’t know how to unlock any of the skills in it, except by accidentally stumbling onto them. You would need someone knowledgeable on the skill book in question to be able to point you in the right direction and since there is an awfully good chance that the skill book in question is likely one of a kind in this world, that probably won’t be happening.
Aaron mentally sighed. This is his only class and probably going to be his most powerful class by far, assuming he even obtains any others. Which means the best thing he can do to increase his chance of unlocking its skills, was to basically embrace the ‘harem protagonist’ lifestyle. He can only imagine the amount of trouble this is going to cause him in future.
For now though, he won’t be purchasing any skills. There is only one choice currently and he doubted it would be of any use at present, since he’s already past the whole ‘hey I’m a naked guy in a forest with amnesia’ checkpoint. Also, he has no idea when he’s going to have the opportunity to get a ‘level up’, or if he’ll even live long enough for that to happen. So he will not be assigning points right now, rather holding out in hopes of a better skill to assign his one and only skill point to.
Yet another reason to embrace the whole ‘haremest’ lifestyle is that apparently one levels up whenever one of their classes level up. Or more to the point when your highest class levels up, so you can’t just go gain a bunch of random low level classes to power level yourself.
Classes level generally when their skills are put to use, more so in extreme circumstances and it is usually relative to the nature of the class in question. So a farmer needs to work hard on farming related tasks and someone with a combat class needs to fight. You can still get experience from unrelated jobs if they are under extreme enough conditions, but generally much less so it seems. Regardless yet another reason Aaron will have to embrace the ‘haremest’ if he wants to get anywhere.
They had left the main ‘road’ a while back already and had been travelling along a ‘lesser road’, seemingly deeper and deeper into the forest. The road was less of a ‘road’ and more of a slightly worn in track.
All around were sparsely spaced, tall trees. They had an interesting bark that almost seemed to have small red veins running through them and their branches and leaves mostly started near the top of the trees. Despite being fairly spaced out from each other, they still managed to block out about half of the now yellow and near setting sunlight. This created visible beams of light filtering down and patches of light and dark on the soft lush green grass that was visible in every direction. It truly felt like a scene out of a fantasy setting.
Finally, after rounding a small hill, a cottage came into view. The area immediately around the cottage seemed to have all kinds of flowers growing, ranging from white to yellow to even blue and red of varying kinds. It gave off the impression that the land around the cottage was special or more fertile, when in reality it was more likely most of them were just planted there.
The cottage itself was made out of large-ish grey-brown stones that were cemented together, with the 45 degree roof on top, having been put together from some sort of dark grey roof tiles. The cottage had two floors and a bit of an irregular shape overall, mostly caused by trying to shape the upper floors rooms to be more rectangular and have more space. There were multiple dark wood shutters on both floors, however the upper floor did also have two small balconies, each lined with a small iron-bars type railing. In multiple places on the cottage some kind of creeper vines with pink flowers was growing, in some places even climbing onto the roof.
Thomas directed the horse around the side of the cottage and to what appeared to be a stable.
Aaron followed Dianna as she disembarked. She then directed Thomas to take care of the horse and unload the wagon. Aaron then followed her into the cottage.
Thomas was starting to bother Aaron, he still hadn’t said a single word.
The cottage was more spacious on the inside than Aaron had anticipated, also it was less medieval and more homey than he had expected. The bottom floor was for the most part a single room with both kitchen on one side and ‘living room’ on the other, not that there was really a clear distinction between the two.
There were wooden stairs that began next to where the fireplace was and they led up to a second floor that was made entirely out of wood and was supported by iron beams. There were various tables, racks and shelves supporting a variety of implementations most of them related to cooking no doubt, but others possibly for some kind of herbalism or alchemy. There was also a variety of plants, roots, garlic and other ingredients hanging in various places.
Suddenly a teenage girl came trotting down the stairs and turned to face them, “Hello mama, how was your tri-” She stopped dead in her tracks when she spotted Aaron, like a deer caught in headlights.
“Ah yes fine dear, this by the way is Aaron. Aaron, this is my daughter Rita”
“Hello” Rita responded in a much smaller, barely audible voice, while she did something akin to a small bow, but more like a nod.
“Hi, pleased to meet you”, Aaron sort of nodded in response. For some reason this seemed to make Rita nervous as she seemed to keep glancing at her mother for reassurance.
Rita herself, was more of an untamed beauty. A petit teenage girl, with a wild mane of long slightly unkempt fire-red hair. The pale skin on her small but round face was littered with freckles, largely congregating on her slightly larger yet somehow still cute nose. Her cute pink lips looked softer than cotton candy and not far off in color either.
And then there was her eyes. Man, those eyes. Aaron had thought her mother had intense eyes, hers was on another level. They were a brilliant seagreen color, lined on the outside by a much darker color. Her thick black eyelashes also pretty much overpowered her faint fiery eyebrows.
The whole picture of untamed intensity sat in sharp contrast to her apparently subdued personality. But regardless, she was easily the prettiest girl Aaron had ever seen in his life. That ‘Haremest’ class had clearly been working its friggin ass off, to pluck this girl straight from valhalla and placed into his path.
“Rita dear, me and my guest are rather famished by this point, could you be a doll and prepare us something to eat?”
“Of course mama. I have already made some soup.”
“Lovely. Uh- Aaron, I’m just going to go freshen up quickly, please take a seat so long”
“Sure, thanks”
With that, Aaron took a seat near the fireplace and Dianna disappeared upstairs. Rita began heating her soup and preparing some bread.
“That smells lovely”, Aaron attempted a compliment, more to try and break the awkward silence than anything else. Rita simply gave him a quick smile that looked awfully forced and then practically hid her face behind her hair.
Well that was a bust. Aaron wondered why on earth-, sorry, why on Exia she was so shy. Perhaps it was his current dress code, he was after all one step away from being a bonafide flasher.
The sun had finally begun to set and in response Rita went around lighting a bunch of candles. The cottage was suddenly filled with a warm glow that increased its ‘hominess’ even more than before.
Dianna come downstairs at that moment, “Aaron, I brought you a change of clothes. You can change into them when you’re ready, but I think we should eat first before the soup gets cold.”
Aaron noded in consent.
Aaron sat at the dining table. Dianna went over to the kitchen, “It’s okay I’ve got this dear, go take a seat so long.” Rita obeyed and joined Aaron at the table, although she seemed to pick the seat furthest away from him that she could find.
Dianna soon came over with a plate of bread slices, soon followed by three bowls of steaming soup. Everyone dug in.
The soup probably wasn’t very good, but to a person that hadn’t eaten anything for the better part of the day, it was simply scrumptious. There wasn’t much in the way of meat content, but Aaron did suspect that given this worlds ‘setting’ meat was likely a luxury. There was however several vegetables present, some of which he could not actually identify.
The three of them mostly ate in silence. Rita however seemed to keep sneaking glances at both Aaron and her mother. That girl was seriously strange. Dianna finally noticed this behaviour of hers and started explaining to Rita about what had happened, about how she and Aaron had met. Probably more an attempt to engage her and relieve her tension than anything else. This seemed to work, as the subject matter, Aaron in this case, seemed to interest Rita greatly and she even engaged in the conversation and began to ask questions, seemingly already having forgotten Aaron’s presence.
All’s well, Aaron carried on eating his soup in silence paying only mild attention to the conversation as he went. So Rita wasn’t that quiet after all, probably just around strangers. Aaron snuck some glances in at Rita while she was distracted by their discourse, but his vision soon become blurry.
Man, was he really this tired? Travelling really takes it out of you. He was already starting to sway from side to side.
He noticed Rita giving him a concerned look, but her mother seemed to try and pull her back into the conversation like nothing was wrong. No, wait, something wasn’t right here. Aaron only barely registered the system message, before passing out.
You have been afflicted with the status effect: Sleep
Duration remaining: 5 hours