“Oh, hey, there’s some newcomers.” One of the men at the speakeasy noticed.

“He looks a little familiar.” Another said, frowning for a second. “Ah, that’s Jeremy, I have his finger.” I took note of that phrase, I could use it for later and appear like a real local ‘round this planet. Speaking of planets.

“I’m gonna come clean, I am not from this planet,” I said, waiting for a reaction. “I do not know anything about this place, I just ended up here.” I felt like I could trust these people for some odd reason, it was probably because I hated this nation or empire too, we were rebels.

“I don’t understand,” Mole said.

“In my planet, world, universe, wherever I come from, we don’t have stats, our world is way more modern, and there are no goblins.”

“Ah, you got assigned to the mental institutions, yeah, Kashubian was too, the crazy people are always so convincing.”

“NO! The frogmen did use to rule this world, it all lines up, just trust me.”

“That’s Kashubian I presume- Anyway, I was working at the scrapyard, not any mental institute,” I explained, I wondered how mental institutes even existed in the Empire, people only really started caring about mental health in recent decades. They were probably doing some messed up shit, that’s for certain.

“Either way, I know nothing of this place at all, I’m from Earth, do you know what Earth is?”

“You’re from the dirt? Us too, we had to struggle to get where we are now, and we’ve barely even progressed, the Empire is just too strong.” Mole said.

I wasn’t gonna bother explaining anymore, I could just use that time learning what exactly this empire was.

“Does this Empire got a name?”

“The Dunas Empire, ruled by some pricks who enslaved us and now they’re gonna pay, we just need to get as many members as possible. We've only recently started taking off, but I’m real good at this sorta stuff.”

“How did Jeremy know about you?”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

“Ah, I’ll let the founder introduce himself.”

The man who recognized Jeremy sipped his beer, stood up, and shook my hand. “I’m Garrick, I’m a knight but my true loyalties run with the rebels, though some might refer to us as domestic terrorists. Of course, people don’t know our identities, I make sure of that.”

“A knight, is that a rank? What are the ranks?

“Wow, you really are clueless. Well, the ranks go from Warrior-assigned, then to Knight, then Paladin, and to finish it off, Paragon. Those are the main ones but there are other ranks in between but they hold the same weight as the one before, it’s just a technicality.”

I nodded and he walked away back to his table, sipping on his beer.

“Hmm, let’s get you relaxed, living in one of those camps is terrible, especially as a null.”

“I think I’m just gonna sleep, do you have any beds?”

“Of course, whatever you need.” I have never felt so accommodated, those first two days in here really deprived me, I graciously accepted whatever they had to offer.

I was led into a side room packed with bunk beds. I walked along until I reached the end of the room so people could fill in more comfortably without having to step over me when it was my time to sleep.

It wasn’t any memory foam modern-type stuff, but it got the job done, and I was out within the span of a few minutes.

I dreamt of good dreams, I didn’t exactly remember what happened but that’s 99% of dreams.

-

When I woke up I came with the realization that I was now free, I didn’t exactly feel properly settled in and at ease with that group until I figured that I was in my most vulnerable position for a good 8 hours, I was safe with them.

Now that I knew I was safe to do basically whatever, I knew I could start leveling up properly, and who else would I do it with other than Jeremy, he had been a great help back in the forest and he was sure to be a perfect ally now.

I got up from the bed and escaped the room, all the cramped bunk beds acting as obstacles as I went out, as well as all the people sleeping, I slept early and so I woke early.

As I passed by Jeremy I gave him a light tap on the cheek. He slowly woke up, I put my finger to my lips to indicate he should stay quiet and the other hand gestured for him to come up.

“We’re going level up, we’ll have fun. Get ready quickly.” I said, before making my way between people and beds.

I didn’t really need to get ready, I managed to kill goblins just fine without any armor or weapons. Of course, having a goblin dagger was the better option, but I had run out.

A few minutes later and Jeremy was awake and enthusiastic, ready to go get his XP, looking at the corner of my eye I noticed that my XP requirement had shifted to a higher number as games usually do, instead of 100, it was now [30/200] I did need to level up again to figure out the formula for this thing, and when I did, I didn’t really know what I was gonna do with it, but hey, knowledge is power.