Michael narrowed his eyes, pulling out a singular coin from his pouch. He clutched at his heart with his hand as his face went into a grimace, miming being in great pain. Eyes closed, he handed Gregor the coin.

"I'll pay you back," Emm interrupted.

"It's okay…" Michael said. His voice sounded like he was crying. He even fake-sniffed.

Suddenly, his eyes opened and he gave Emm a serious look.

"This means I'm not buying you that snake stew I promised," he said.

Emm wasn't completely sure whether Michael was joking or not, but eventually, he broke into an awkward chuckle. Emm grabbed the infused spear and inspected it; he couldn't tell a difference from before. The shine was all gone.

He hoped Gregor hadn't scammed him by just pretending to infuse it. With the way these locals had treated him, he had zero remaining trust in them.

"Thank you," Emm said. Gregor huffed and headed back to his chair in the back, surrounded by polished steel. The rough building was a veritable treasure trove. It must have contained thousands of skulls worth of weapons, packed as it was.

Emm stopped himself from drooling and turned around, heading toward the edge of the clearing. Michael followed him.

"Seriously, I'll pay you back," Emm repeated. "How many skulls do you even have on you?"

Michael wiggled his eyebrows. "Oh, wouldn't you like to know? Gooold-digger!" he teased in a sing-song voice.

"It's not like that!" Emm hurried to say.

He wished that Michael would take their situation more seriously. It was a matter of life and death, and he couldn't stop joking around. He didn't even have a [Clown] perk as an excuse.

Emm almost blurted that out, but then remembered how he had almost died over something as dumb as coffee. So he changed his approach, and explained.

"I don't like being in debt to anyone. And I'm worried if you'll need the money back before I can pay it."

"No worries. The five of us managed to kill over fifty snakes yesterday, so I got paid ten skulls. I'm not too strapped for cash right now."

Emm whistled. Fifty was a lot, considering that he and Michael had only killed half a dozen. And it took them, what, half an hour? A bit more? Either Michael and his party fought for over five hours, or hunting in greater numbers made them more efficient.

Suddenly, Emm thought of something. "Did you get paid for the monsters we hunted together?"

Michael shook his head. "You need to bring the body in to claim the bounties, but we hadn't known that at the time, so we all came back empty-handed. A scam."

Of course. The locals must have found that very funny. They were looking for any excuse to bully the heroes around.

"Where are you going anyway?" Michael asked. "You're not allowed to kill monsters."

They were nearing the first of the yellow-tinted trees. Emm swung his spear around a few times.

"I know. I have a different idea in mind," he said.

"Well, I'm heading back then. I'm hungry. Have fun, I guess–Oh crap."

Michael froze in his tracks. He was intently staring at something in the direction of the camp.

Emm turned to see. It took him a few moments to find what had seized Michael's attention.

The something turned out to be a someone. A woman had gone out of her tent, and was currently stretching outside, legs spread wide. Even from a far distance, Emm couldn't miss how curvy she was.

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"Hey!" Michael shouted at her all of a sudden, waving his arms in the air. He even jumped up.

The woman turned and noticed them staring at her– and Michael responded by making an okay sign out of his thumb and index finger. He pointed at the circle with his other hand, both arms extended high up above his head.

"Oh fuck. Oh fuck, oh fuck," Michael started saying, strained. His smile looked forced, as if an old lady had just kissed him on the lips.

He proceeded to slowly slide his finger in and out of the circle, making the universal symbol for sex. His eyebrows wiggled suggestively.

Emm was flabbergasted.

Is this what his [Perk] acting up looks like? Oh dear God.

Michael kept repeating the motion with his fingers, faster and faster, spreading his hands wider and wider apart before each metaphorical thrust. The sight was so horrifying, but at the same time so ridiculous that Emm couldn't help but keel over in laughter. He felt bad.

The woman had realized what Michael was doing and flipped him off, before promptly running back into her tent.

As soon as she was out of sight, Michael stopped. He locked his arms under his armpits, and his smile turned into a grimace. His face was flushed pink.

"Oh no," he spoke in horror, then turned to Emm. "Why didn't you stop me?"

But Emm was still busy trying not to die from laughing too hard. His eyes were tearing up, and he couldn't get a single word out. Michael punched him in the shoulder, then rushed away to hide with his head down in shame. By the time Emm stopped wheezing, his friend was gone.

Emm felt sorry for him, but he hadn't been able to stop himself. It was way too embarrassing. Michael had completely lost control over his body's actions.

Are all the negative [Perks] this bad? He only got +10 Perk Points from it, and it looks hellish to live with. Imagine that shit going off while in the middle of a fight.

Emm decided to just try and pretend that the whole scene hadn't happened, so he didn't chase after his friend. Instead, he continued on his way towards the forest, spear in hand.

There weren't many things he could think of, that he could provide. They had the [Water Mage] for quenching thirst and showering, the cook that turned apparently managed to make the monsters taste good, the crappy tents to sleep in, Gregor for the weapons, The Guide for the [System], the shopkeeper for clothes. Even if Emm was missing something, most of their needs were covered. They even had the summoned heroes to torture as entertainment.

The one thing that was missing was firewood. Walking around camp, Emm noticed that the campfires had very little wood next to them. It wouldn't last a day. He hadn't seen any stockpiles of wood around, either.

Being supplied with the bare minimum was becoming a theme.

And which one of them wanted to spend their time chopping down trees when they could be getting experience and skulls by chopping up monsters instead? Emm was the one with the most "free" time. If he collected enough, he could even try and sell it to others for cheap. Or, if he was wrong and the people back at camp had wood that they were selling, then Emm would just sell his for even cheaper. And even if that didn't work out, he had a back-up plan. At worst, the wood would end up being useful by keeping Emm warm at night.

He didn't dare to try and compete with their [Cook] in cooking, or with any of the others in their respective jobs, but cutting trees sounded innocent enough to him. He hadn't seen any [Woodcutters] around, or any proof they existed so far.

And he hadn't checked out the toilet situation so far. Emm was pessimistic about the chances of them having toilet paper available. Or, if they did, it was [Level 12] toilet paper that melted your sensitive skin right off.

He shuddered.

Emm pushed through a few thick bushes and approached the closest tree. Its trunk was thick, far too thick, but it had some lower hanging branches that he could reach without issue.

He swung his spear, and went to town on it, chipping away at the bark. The branch was thicker around than his arm was, and the blade of his spear cut only an inch into it, remarkably sharp as it was.

He was sure that back on Earth, swinging some spear wouldn't have produced the same amount of damage. He'd need a chainsaw or something. So either his spear was unnaturally sharp due to being packed full of mana, or Emm had gotten stronger.

When he thought about it, the spear did seem lighter in his arms than it had been the day before. But it was probably just the fact that he had been exhausted and wounded back then.

Emm kept chopping.

His progress was slow but steady. Pretty early on he figured out that he had to pay careful attention to the angle of his blade, otherwise it would bounce off or cut sideways. And it wasn't easy hitting the same place again and again; especially when he put strength into the blows.

I should've picked a thinner branch to start off with.

Emm briefly stopped and sat down to rest. He checked his spear for any further damage, but it looked completely fine to him.

Still cracked, like before, but the damage hadn't worsened.

However, when Emm tried to get up, his hand squished against something wet and slimy. He turned to look and gasped.