“It’s really quiet, don’t you think?”
Cleo simply nodded whilst continuing to observe their surroundings.
The forest seemed as peaceful as any wood back at home, as if they were just going for a stroll on a lovely summer afternoon instead of trying to survive in a boar infested trial.
But Cleo didn’t dare drop her vigilance.
If they were to stumble on some boars without noticing it, they would be done for.
The only chance they had was to sneak up on them, and only if they were alone.
Otherwise the only option was to run away.
Ducking below some low hanging branches, she couldn’t help but recall the events of today. The day wasn’t even over yet and she had experienced more crazy things than she ever did back home. She woke up in a new location, which looked like Earth but at the same time couldn’t be it. She saw countless beasts killing other people. She got chased by said beasts, fearing for her life. She killed one of them on her own.
And was looking forward to killing more of them.
Yes, even after all of that, she was still excited.
She had seen people die before. She had contributed to the deaths of others as well, though she would never let her sister know that.
But it had been necessary.
Not only for herself, but for both of them.
The image of their father flashed before her eyes. The last time she had to look at his face, right before his accident.
She shook her head in an attempt to get rid of the resurfacing memories.
No, everything would be different now. She would acquire true power now and then no one would be able to hurt them anymore.
Just when she brought her attention back to her surroundings, she glimpsed a shadow moving in a tree up ahead.
Cursing at herself for getting distracted by useless thoughts, she stopped and put up a hand. Her sister, who had been more or less quietly following behind her, followed suit without questioning. They both had agreed on some very simple hand signs during their walk, in case they were sneaking up on something again and had to communicate without talking.
Standing still, they both tried their best to spot anything unusual. Her sister was looking around everywhere nervously, as if expecting something to rush at them at any moment.
There again!
Cleo was now sure that she didn’t imagine it. Something was there, and it was trying to hide as well.
Gritting her teeth, she slid behind a tree to take cover and motioned for her sister to do the same.
Why is it hiding? Is it trying to ambush us? Wait…
Peeking from behind her hiding spot, she kept observing the spot where she saw movement.
What if-
“Ahhhh!”
Her sister’s scream rang out, followed by another voice.
“DIE MOTHERFUCK- eh?”
Cleo’s head whipped around just in time to see a man standing next to her sister, with his sword in full swing.
Just when she thought the sword would smash right into her sister’s head, the sword curved upwards into the tree, embedding itself with a deep *thunk*. The tree shook a little from the impact.
Was his weapon just… glowing?
Her sister scrambled away from the man, leaving her own weapon lying next to the tree. Cleo clenched her own spear, stepping forward resolutely to defend her sister. The man looked up and spotted Cleo, his eyes opening wide.
“Wait! Don’t, Jack!”
Cleo whipped around to see another man, with a spear just like hers, getting ready to stab her.
“What the-”
His spear shot forward. Cleo instinctively turned to the side and used her own spear to further deflect his stab away from her.
“Stop it Jack! It’s not them!”
The man, who had just tried to kill her, stepped back, eyeing her suspiciously.
“How do you know?”
“Jesus, look at them! Look at their weapons! It can’t be them.”
“W-what is wrong with you people!”, cried her sister, who had crawled all the way to Cleo, “Why are you trying to kill us!?”
“It’s a misunderstanding! I’m very very sorry!” The man with the sword, which was currently still stuck in the tree, held up his hands in an appeasing gesture.
“I’m sure you didn’t mistake us for some boars,” hissed Cleo, “so what the fuck kind of misunderstanding could it be?”
The swordsman and the spear wielding guy, Jack, exchanged glances.
“Someone ambushed our group and killed 2 people. We chased them all the way here…,” Jack scratched his head.
“I thought you were them,” the swordsman spoke up again, “It was my mistake, really. I’m sorry about that. Ah, my name is Alexander by the way. But you can just call me Alex.” He sheepishly held out his hand.
The sisters both just stared at it until he awkwardly pulled it back again.
“What made you change your mind?”, asked Cleo, “You said something about our weapons?”
“Ah, we were attacked by ranged weapons. Probably a crossbow. So when I saw yours…”
Cleo subconsciously nodded her head.
The explanation does make sense… It explains why he diverted his blow upwards instead of hitting Laira. But still. That other bastard clearly still tried to kill me!
“Wait,” her sister spoke again, “but why… why would anyone want to kill you guys? Did you do something bad?”
Cleo furrowed her brows at that.
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She is right, what could be… oh.
“The quests,” she blurted out.
“What?” said Laira, clearly confused.
With a focused thought the quest content appeared in front of Cleo’s eyes again.
Quest: Walking your Path
Be a major contributor to the death of 3 opponents of equal or higher grade, using your aligned weapon [1/3].
Reward: Choose 1 from 3 aligned Copper I skills.
“Yeah, probably the quests,” Alex agreed grimly, “After all, it only says ‘opponents of equal grade’, not ‘boars’ or ‘beasts’ or something like that.”
“Those fucking bastards…” Cleo cursed.
Of course there would be some people attacking others. It’s much easier to ambush some unsuspecting humans than it is to fight those boars.
“Anyways,” Alex continued, “I think we must have lost them. If they didn’t cross your path then they must have gone somewhere else.” He went to his sword and tried to get it out of the tree trunk again. “I think we should head back to the camp before nightfall.” He turned his head to look at them. “Do you wanna come with us? I think it’s probably safer together.”
Cleo furrowed her brows.
“Larger groups attract-”, she began.
“Only over four people,” said Jack, who had been quiet for some time, “Once your party consists of five or more people, you attract more boars. But four and below is fine.”
“Yep. What he said,” agreed Alex, finally freeing his sword.
Basically the standard size of parties in many games… it really feels like a role play now.
“And you figured that out… how?”
“The people at the camp came up with it.” Alex shrugged. “They have some smart heads over there.”
“They also have water, right?”, Laira blurted out.
“Yeah haha, they have water. You guys must be parched, no?”, Alex chuckled, “But who would have thought that that would be a problem. After all the crazy stuff that happened today.”
“Yeah,” sighed Laira, “crazy indeed. I’m looking forward to some rest.”
Cleo couldn’t help but scowl at how easily her sister seemed to be getting along with them. They had attacked them barely a few minutes ago!
“But even if we are fine with four people, the camp has many more. Wouldn’t that make things harder again?” Cleo pointed out.
“You don’t have to come if you don’t want to, girl,” snapped Jack.
“Well, maybe I don’t. You guys just tried to kill us after all.”
Cleo and Jack glared at each other.
Alex coughed awkwardly in an attempt to break the tension.
“Easy, it’s a valid question, Jack. We aren’t going all the way to the camp actually, we only do that when we want to fetch water and exchange information. You are right that too many people in one spot would be dangerous. Which is why we camp further out, outside of the influence of their aggro, as they like to call it, but still close enough so that we don’t have to run too far to safety in an emergency.”
Cleo looked to the side where she felt her sister poking her.
“Sounds good?” Laira mouthed silently.
Cleo suppressed a sigh. Her sister tended to trust others way too easily. Getting somewhere safer did sound nice, and everything they said sounded very reasonable. But still, the revelation that there were people murdering others just for their quest progress, had made her extra cautious. Not to mention that she still didn’t like that Jack guy who had attempted to stab her. And they were stronger than the both of them. If her guess was correct, the subtle glow she saw on Alex's sword when he attacked Laira was the result of a skill. Assuming Alex and Jack both progressed equally well... meant they both had skills already, while Cleo and Laira didn't have anything yet. In other words, they would get overwhelmed by them if they truly had to fight.
But this Alex guy does seem nice enough... it should be okay, right? Just until we reach the camp.
“Okay… we’ll go together. But you guys go in front, I’m not turning my back to you so easily again.”
Alex nodded. “Fair enough.”
“Just don’t get lost,” Jack sneered.
Laira’s hand on her shoulder stopped her from giving him a more than unfriendly reply.
I really don't like that bastard...
****
“So where are you from?”
Laira, not being able to endure the strained silence anymore, had walked up a bit to talk to Alex, who she found to be the more approachable of the two men.
“Oh, um, I’m from Russia. What about you?” he replied with a smile.
“Woah, I couldn’t tell at all. Your accent is impeccable!” Laira whistled in surprise. “We are from the States.”
“Actually…”, said Alex, scratching his head, “I’ve never been very good at English. But now I’m speaking it fluently. And I don’t remember a single bit of my mother tongue.”
Laira stopped in her tracks. “What? How’s that possible?”
“Honestly? No clue. But I think the System must have done something to our brains. I think it forced everyone to speak the same language.”
“That’s crazy…” mumbled Laira, only starting to walk again when her sister grabbed her arm in passing.
But language is such an integral part of a person’s character. Weren’t there studies that said multilingual people had different personalities in each of their languages? I wonder if the System changed who they are by changing their language…
Now Laira was kind of glad that English was her native language. She didn’t want anything to meddle with her mind.
Speaking of mind… I still don’t know what to do with my alignment thing.
She had kind of forgotten about the whole thing and even gotten used to her makeshift spear, but it didn’t change that she had something completely different than everyone else as her weapon. But so far it didn’t seem to do anything. She had no clue how to attack with her mind. Should she just imagine attacking something? Should she think really hard about things happening to other people? That all sounded very silly.
“So, uhm, what happened to your weapon?”
“Huh?” Laira’s attention snapped back to reality. She only now noticed that she was walking next to Alex again.
“Oh, uhm…”
“She dropped her weapon at the start, when we were running away. The stick is all she has now.” Cleo’s voice sounded from the back.
Nice, quick thinking sis!
She gave her sister a mental thumbs up. She didn't like lying, but even she recognized it probably wasn't a good idea to tell every stranger they met, that something really strange happened to her weapon choice.
“That’s really unfortunate… maybe they have some spare spears at the camp. I’ll try getting you one,” Alex smiled encouragingly at Laira.
“What about another weapon?”
Alexs crunched his brows at the question and started tapping his chin in thought.
“Well, your align-”
“You don’t get quests for unaligned weapons,” Jack interrupted.
Alex raised an eyebrow at Jack. “I didn’t actually know.”
“I heard it at the camp,” Jack shrugged.
“You seem very knowledgeable, Jack,” Laira complimented him with a smile.
Jack simply ignored her and kept walking in silence.
Laira’s smile dropped awkwardly.
Cleo is right, he really is a bit hard to work with…
“Is it still far?” she said, turning to Alex again.
“Hmm, no I think we are almost-”
“Stop!” hissed Cleo all of a sudden.
Surprisingly, everyone listened to her and stood completely still, even Jack.
Though he did give her a nasty ‘What now?’ look.
“Boar,” she whispered, her hand pointing to somewhere at the front.
They all craned their neck to look at where Cleo was pointing.
“I think I see it. Seems like it’s just one,” whispered Alex, “should we?
Alex looked questioning towards the other three.
Jack smiled for the first time since they had met him.
“Yes, let’s hunt it.”