Joy had been spending a lot of time pondering in the past few days. After he had successfully completed his mission, specially administered by the prince, he had wondered what was next.

He knew that he was not a hero of legend, sure he had a cool ability and awesome friends. But he was no legendary savior, he had no karma built up within him to help him free the miserable from the bondage of their lives.

So, he pondered what his life should be about. When he had set out from home way back when he was thirteen his parents had looked sadly upon him. They were content with their lives far from the hustle and bustle of heroism and royalty. But Joy was not and could not be content with that. He had yearned for so much more; he wanted to explore and adventure.

And he did just that for years. He wandered to villages just like his own, telling stories and swindling the locals for all the gold he could. He kept this up, gaining memories and stories until he reached Vena Cava, where his existence exploded. More and more adventures and misadventures followed him, until it culminated in this journey to the frozen continent.

But what was the shape of his life going to be from here?

He was not a karma defying king who fought back legions of his enemies. Joy’s existence had been determined the day he was born, and it had never been to power through challenge after challenge.

This point had been brought to his attention after he had brought Anna back to the castle. After he was done, he sat in the hall outside of Sam’s chamber and wondered, what next?

Then he had been told to take a break. To chill out for a while.

No new insurmountable task, no impossible challenge, just rest and revive his spirits.

Here he was, in an era defining moment, being told to take a break.

It had shattered him.

Joy had been shattered, until the prince had announced that the real mission was about to begin. Their groups would go out in force, enter the frozen wastes, and take the artifact back to the king.

Giant centipedes of ice and snow had positioned themselves outside of the castle, and nearly everyone prepared themselves for the mission. Joy only saw some stragglers; the chef, and Sam stay behind in the castle. Every other person got onto the icy creepy crawlies and set off into the snow and ice.

With renewed purpose, Joy felt like himself again and the world seemed brighter. But the journey dragged on. The unceasing movement of the centipedes only stopped when the group needed to rest, otherwise it was an endless journey with no end in sight, since the prince didn’t ever say how long this journey would take.

The endless journey made Joy question the new purpose he felt. Did he need to constantly be pushing for new adventures?

This “adventure” had been monotonous and boring, yet he still felt an inner pressure, the pressure of purpose and direction.

Joy felt that he had set himself up for failure with his goals in life. Constantly searching for the next adventure, the next greatest story to tell. What would happen when he finally met his limit?

Joy wasn’t one to defy Fate, he set out for adventure because it was the only thing that could sate his thirst for life, the love he felt for every moment he existed in this world.

But love is not solely made of grand acts, love is the small things.

Through pondering and self-reflection Joy found an answer for his purpose, he found a way to show his love for life.

Joy could still enjoy a good adventure, but his love of life would be shown through the small acts. Playing games with the drunk good-for-nothings, talking about their lives and woes. He would sit in the snow and let the cold seep into his bones. He would make a beautiful snowman and watch it fall to pieces. He would bring smiles to the faces of those around him.

Joy was small in a vast cosmos of gods and power beyond human reasoning. But he could bring little pieces of happiness to those around him, and maybe those people would bring little pieces of happiness to those around him. Until everyone had felt a piece of the kindness he brought into the world.

It was a tall order and maybe a truly impossible goal. But it was his, and it started with him helping the chefs, not the chef, make a good dinner, and maybe sneaking a laxative into some people’s dinners. Getting the shits kept everyone honest here in the frozen wastes.

Joy wasn’t sure how Ian was able to track him down while keeping from shitting himself. Ian was the one he had targeted the most, with a minor dose going to the other guy in the prince’s entourage, Clyde, or something. Joy barely put a drop in the prince’s food, mostly out of a deep abiding fear that the prince would leave Joy out in the winter wastes if he was too bothered.

The prince was unaffected and found the whole exchange wildly amusing. Apparently, watching the continent’s greatest killing machine double over to keep from making the pristine white snow a little browner while chasing the little goober who had done it to him was hilarious.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Poor Clyde was already a good distance away, deciding that a lonely cowardly road was the path with the least embarrassing.

Ian’s naked blade sliced through the air, missing Joy by mere a finger’s width. But Joy wasn’t afraid and seemed to enjoy the whole bout, treating it as a sparring match with higher stakes.

The prince was the only person other than Ian himself who knew the specifics of his gift, so he knew that the fact that the blade was unsheathed showed how little Ian truly cared about this whole debacle. Ian’s basic sword skills were second to none, however, his gift was given by the god Blade.

Everyone had thought it was some sort of sick joke at first, Blade giving a scabbard as a gift. The antithesis of the core concept of the god, however Ian had changed all their minds once his potential had been fully realized.

But the playful game continued until finally and magically, Joy’s shoes yanked him around. They flipped him upside down and hung him in the air while Ian smacked his ass with the flat of his blade.

Tears streamed down Joy’s face, but they were matched with mirthful laughs. Grimaces of pain followed by cheerful grins, creating a symphony that described the oddness of the entire encounter.

Everyone had gathered bit by bit to watch the spectacle and their faces also lit up with a little bit of excitement, watching as something broke the drabness of the entire trek.

After one final hit Ian started walking away, to go deal with something quite personal and embarrassing. But no one commented on it, believing silence to be the only option that could possibly save them from his wrath.

Joy’s shoes finally dropped him onto the ground with a powerful crunch as he smushed the snow beneath his figure.

He wasn’t truly hurt. Of course, his ass was going to be in pain for the next few days, but nothing that was out of the ordinary. So, Joy started stumbling back to his section of the camp, where his friends were.

As he passed one section of warmth in the otherwise unstoppable cold, Joy waved at the woman who was surrounded by people. Emmy was certainly popular here on this long trek. She gave a tentative wave back to him, he had never quite gotten her to warm up to him, but Joy couldn’t win everyone over with his bountiful charisma.

He moved on, not wanting to get caught up in Emmy’s groupies.

Eventually, he arrived at the clearing where Theo and Lillian had set up their tent. He grinned at them, before regaling them with the story of his “triumph” over the mighty Ian.

Theo let out a giggle, that he tried to stifle, and Lillian grinned back, firing a few suggestions off. It was a warm moment; Joy felt a spark of warmth in his heart as he was surrounded by people and their lives. He could see each of them as a small world, filled with wonder and whimsy, sadness and sorrow, and ambivalence and action. Joy existed in each of those worlds, every person he met, every world he saw, he influenced just the tiniest bit.

Joy felt he was an accidental farmer. Taking after his father in a rather unique way. He cultivated the fields of other people’s souls rather than fields of wheat, but he felt he could be a good farmer, walking to and fro with only his hoe and watering can to accompany him.

Maybe it was a bit self-absorbed to see himself as this cultivator of people, but reasonable goals were never Joy’s strong suit.

The night wound down and everyone went to sleep. Everyone dreamt of warmer climates and tastier food, of days where they weren’t stuck on the backs of giant icy centipedes, of the little amenities they had given up for this adventure. But eventually, they woke up to continue their ceaseless journey, the legs of the centipedes skittering throughout the day.

It was boring, endlessly boring. Except there was a man of whimsy now, a man whose only goal was to just make everyone around him a little bit happier.

Some days Joy was the villain, ruining the somber atmosphere with his badly laid plans and general ineptitude. At other times Joy was the hero, saving the night by bringing extra drinks or coaxing a particularly embarrassing story out of someone else.

The days seemed to drag a bit less and Joy tried to make each night memorable in its own way. He was not a hero of an age, saving the world. But he was a small hero, saving the vibe of the night; and he was happy with that.

But for everything that is comfortable and known in the world, it must eventually end to make way for the new and amazing to begin. Like winter making way for spring, the death of the known, makes way for the birth of the next step of the adventure.

The destination had not been what Joy was expecting. He had imagined great catacombs that went for miles and miles. Or a city of ice that stretched up into the heavens above.

Though in retrospect, this continent had not always been frozen, and the structures they were looking for predated the freezing. So, it was quite a foolish idea to imagine a frozen city. Of course, Joy felt it fit the motif of the whole continent and would add to the ambiance of the entire venture. Alas, Joy did not get to rewrite history so that it was cooler for him.

Instead of some magnificent city, there was just a large section of snow that was higher than the rest.

Once they had arrived the prince answered the questioning looks by saying, “what? It snows a lot here, of course it would be covered.”

Of course, it seemed obvious to the prince, but for the mere simpletons like Joy, they had been expecting something grand, not just snow.

As the day progressed, it became even clearer that the most common work was not going to involve any adventure. Most of the vast personnel bought by the prince had one singular purpose, to dig up snow.

In the beginning of the project, Joy tried his best to shirk his duties in the most efficient ways possible. He would help the chefs or clean up the camp all in a gambit to avoid clearing out snow. His skillset obviously was not helpful in this situation, and yet the call of the shovel was too strong.

His days spent in shovel limbo were awful, he got stomach pains and was unable to sleep properly. He felt it in his bones, that he needed to shovel.

Slowly, everyone around him got converted into extra shovelers as well. At first Lillian accidentally dreamt of something useful and excitedly went down to help excavate. Then she went again, even though she didn’t dream of anything useful. Then Theo started going to accompany her. Even Emmy was found with a shovel in her hand and her crowd of leeches followed her into the tunnel system.

Eventually, it seemed like only Joy was not shoveling. He was the one running from his duties to move snow from one place to another.

So, like a hero of old he picked up his shovel and marched into the tunnels. He heroically shoveled snow at an adequate rate. It was so adequate that those around him complemented him on his mediocrity, but he was proud of his shovel skills.

Just like that, the tunnels expanded, and a city was unearthed, unsnowed, bit by bit.