Today’s Earth date: August 7, 1991
We finished our first quest today. We took on a whole camp of orcs and it was… easier than I expected. Horcus, our wizard, has a spell called Fire 1 that shoots fireballs. We attacked at night, raining fire on their tents and then killing the rest before they got their wits about them. For there being seventeen of them and four of us, the fight wasn’t all that scary.
We’ve been leveling quickly. All of us are up to level 5, gaining the fifth right there in the orc camp. We were all squeamish about killing monsters at first, but we’ve gotten used to it. Thinking about them as video game enemies helps, so we can spend most every day chasing experience.
I feel like a superhero already. I can’t imagine what level 20 or something like 40 will feel like.
-The Journal of Laszlo the Paladin
***
A middle-aged man opened the door. He had the lean, ropey muscles of a farmer, a gray beard, and a receding hairline. His farm looked to be about the size of the one Wayne just left, but perhaps a bit larger.
The two soldiers escorting Wayne startled at the man’s appearance.
“We were told you had passed, sir,” one of the soldiers said.
“The goblins took a cow, not a person,” the man replied.
“Well, glad to see you’re well, sir. Wayne here was down at the Barnaby farm to clear some rattlins, offered to help you out.”
“What do you charge?” the man asked, still standing in his open door, everyone else outside on the small wooden porch.
Wayne didn’t know what he charged, and he didn’t need gold all that urgently. “What if we traded? Make me an offer.”
The man rubbed his chin. “Not sure I got something that would interest you… In the market for some new armor? My daughter has been working with leather. She’s still learning, but it’s pretty good. Would be tailored to you too.”
“That sounds great, actually,” Wayne said. “Toss in a bed and a meal?”
The farmer extended his hand. Wayne shook it.
“I’d appreciate it if you minded your manners around my children,” he said, waving Wayne inside. “A father and his daughters. You know how it is.”
Two young women chopped vegetables at the kitchen table. They looked to be fifteen and eighteen, roughly. Not having had kids of his own, Wayne’s frame of reference for age ranges was non-existent, so he broadly thought of children as babies, young children, high school students, and college students. What was the visual difference between a five and eight year old? He had no idea.
Though he wasn’t sure of the daughters’ exact ages, he was certain he had no interest.
“Show me where the goblins attacked?”
“Not much to see in the dark,” the farmer said. “I can stomach losing another cow or two. I’d rather you stick around the house for the night in case they get bold.”
Wayne liked that better than hunting in the dark, but he tried not to reveal his relief.
“Eat yet?” the farmer asked. “Welcome to have a plate. We turn in not long after supper.”
“That’d be great.”
***
Wayne sat in a rocking chair by a window, watching the shadows outside for movement. Dinner was a simple stack of potato pancakes with creamy fermented milk. It looked like an approximation of sour cream to him, but he learned a few years back that no one called it that in this world. That discovery came with a short-lived effort to introduce trashy tacos to his new home, akin to his favorite fast food from Earth.
Cooking was not a skill Wayne honed in his previous life, however, so he putzed around with trying to make tortillas and vaguely taco-feeling seasonings for a few weeks before deciding to find another hobby.
With the family in their beds, the house was quiet. Crickets chirped, and a steady wind bounced a branch off a window somewhere Wayne couldn’t see.
He heard a soft feminine voice say, “Excuse me, sir.”
Wayne turned to see the oldest daughter, wrapped in a blanket, her eyes sparkling in the moonlight.
“No,” Wayne said. “It’s late.”
“I was just thinking…”
“Let me stop you there. I have to focus. We can talk about the armor in the morning.”
“A little distract–”
“Flattered, really. But no. I have to stay alert.”
***
Wayne passed the rest of the night alone, using the time to study the map on his HUD. His view of the area was not limitless, but he could see most of the farm and some of the wilderness around it. He saw one corner in particular was more secluded than the others, the farthest point from where he now sat. That area was barely visible on his HUD and certainly wasn’t visible by sight from the farmhouse.
As he guessed, that’s where the goblins attacked their prey. He didn’t hear any of the activity that night, but he saw the aftermath in the morning.
The goblins killed another cow, and they attempted to butcher it right there. Their rip and tear approach left a good bit of wasted meat on the bones, not that anyone would eat seconds after a goblin.
Like the rattlins, the goblins weren’t great at covering their tracks. The bent grass and drips of blood felt like following virtual arrows in a game tutorial–painfully obvious, like a game designer assuming every player was stupid.
Unfortunately, Wayne was a little stupid. He spent so much time musing about how easy tracking goblins was that he didn’t notice the ambush.
The obvious trail took him right between a rise on either side. Seven goblins came out from behind the trees, charging Wayne with wooden spears. Their hiding places put them just a few steps away, so they closed quickly.
Repel.
Repel.
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Repel.
Three goblins crumpled to the ground. The four still alive looked between one another in confusion.
Wayne had already forgotten about his new Warrior Ring, but he was reminded as soon as he drew his sword. Like a supernatural samurai, the motion of drawing his sword into his ready position hurled a block of ice into a nearby tree. It was somewhat smaller than the charged version, but the jump in speed made that a negligible loss.
One goblin’s neck broke from an ice chunk, and another died to Wayne’s sword.
The last two ran. Wayne gave chase.
When they saw they were being pursued, the goblins began shrieking and shouting, presumably calling for help.
Wayne followed them into a foul smelling camp, surrounded by garbage and goblin waste. With their ambush foiled, the goblins seemed torn between retreat and standing their ground.
The two goblins he chased joined four others. They snarled at Wayne but still shifted backward, inching themselves away from the approaching human.
With Warrior Ring, any swing of his sword launched ice if he thought about activating the ability, turning the blade into a long magic wand. Flick. Flick. Flick.
Two of the three projectiles connected, but both wounded goblins survived. One had a broken arm, and the other had ice embedded in its ribs. While the goblins from the original battle opted to continue their retreat, the four new goblins moved in to attack.
Wayne’s sword swiftly poked holes in the monsters charging him, his pirate fencing style making him light on his feet and selective in his thrusts. Swatting away a wooden spear and following with a lunge of his own was fast and efficient. The two injured goblins went down first. A third goblin fell to the ground, clutching its stomach to contain its own entrails.
A searing pain erupted in Wayne’s thigh. One of the wooden spears punched a hole in his leg, and Wayne stumbled, his body collapsing toward the sudden injury.
Repel.
The goblin who a moment ago grinned maniacally at the sight of Wayne’s blood fell to the forest floor.
Chasing the final two was not an option with his wound, so he decided to gamble on his own fortitude.
Repel.
Repel.
***
Wayne awoke, lying face first in a pile of leaves with dead goblins around him. His head pounded like a smith’s hammer, and the ache rippling through his body reminded him of how he felt the day after a car crash. His life had never been in danger, but getting sideswiped by a pickup running a red light was still violent enough that he felt the accident for weeks.
Looking around, Wayne realized he passed out. Where pushing his limits before felt heroic, they looked reckless in hindsight. Losing consciousness anywhere near monsters was a great way to do the isekai hustle all over again–if he got another chance, that was.
He checked his Status.
Hero: Wayne the Guy
Level: 4
HP: 92/101
STR: 14
AGI: 12
VIT: 6
LCK: 18
Oh, he leveled up while he was out.
On the one hand, the spear only doing 9 damage was good news. On the other, 9 damage came with an incredible amount of pain. He had no interest in learning what a 30 damage attack felt like.
The wound was still open, but the bleeding appeared to have stopped. Wayne’s corporate First Aid certification and his extensive experience watching medical dramas told him that was unusual for a wound the width of a quarter and deep enough that he could stick a finger in and wiggle. His Medicine ability from Pirates! seemed to be putting in work, perhaps in conjunction with his growth in stats.
Either way, it needed cleaning.
Under spells, he had a new entry from Ultima III:
Rise – If you cast this spell inside of the dungeon, you can move one flight up even when a ladder is not available.
He was hoping for a Heal spell, but a spell to shortcut a dungeon exit was definitely useful in the game. Did Wayne have a desire to ever be in a dungeon, though? Probably not. Furthermore, anything involving teleportation made him uneasy. He had one too many debates with friends about how teleportation could go wrong–appearing inside a wall, ending up in the wrong dimension, teleporting part of himself but not the other.
Wayne saw no other updates in his menus, nor did his hitpoints tick back up while he lay there in the dirt.
He regretted leaving page 33 at home in the Capital. Waiting to level up was not something he could ever do in video games. If he had points to spend, he spent them. If he couldn’t spend them, it was like he had an itch in the back of his mind that wouldn’t stop. Playing it safe to avoid losing or destroying the page seemed silly now that the itch was back.
He pulled himself to his feet and limped to the farm. He didn’t have the appetite to harvest goblin ears right now, and monsters in this world didn’t drop convenient piles of gold.
“Are you okay?” The older daughter from the night before saw Wayne coming across the field and ran toward him.
Telling her not to worry, he said he’d be fine. The wound just needed cleaned was all. She unlatched the gate so he wouldn’t have to climb another fence and walked with him back to the house.
“They all dead now?”
“Can’t say for sure,” Wayne answered. “I don’t have a lot of experience with this kind of thing, but all the goblins I saw are dead. I’m thinking we watch one more night and see what happens.”
The daughter nodded. “You’re very brave.”
In truth, his bravery was more an understanding of RPG difficulty levels than any real sense of heroism. Goblins were a weak enemy, the kind a player mostly ignored after a level or two. Based on the hole in his leg, his math wasn’t quite right yet. If a character lost ten percent of their health, he wouldn’t bother wasting a potion or a spell to heal it because there was no real danger with that little damage.
But holy fuck did it hurt in this world.
“Thank you,” was all he said out loud, however. He kept walking toward the farmhouse.
“Am I too ugly?” she asked.
What?
“What?” Wayne said, turning in surprise.
“Am I not pretty enough?”
Oh god. Wayne stammered for a moment and said, “You’re a very pretty girl. I’m just… I’m just not dating right now.”
“Why not?”
“I’ve had some big life changes recently. I’m trying to navigate those first.”
She seemed to accept that explanation, her pained face fading away. Wayne quietly rejoiced at that development and followed her into the house. She brought him a bowl of clean water, a clean cloth, and some bandages. She offered to clean the wound for him, but he was fine doing it himself.
When his leg was wrapped, she stood him up and took his armor measurements, a process that took all of ten minutes.
“I’ll need two weeks or so to finish this. I have most of the pieces made already, but they need adjusted.”
That was longer than Wayne would have liked, but handmaking a suit of armor did sound incredibly time-consuming.
***
“That quick, eh?” the farmer asked. He was in the middle of repairing a cart for a wagon, replacing old floorboards.
“I think so. I’d like to watch for one more night to be sure.”
The farmer said that sounded reasonable. He also said that town was within walking distance. Two hours walk at most, but maybe two and a half on account of Wayne’s leg.
“I’d like to go back to sleep. Maybe tomorrow?”
“Oh right. You’ve had a late night.”
“Know anyone else who might need work done? I’m looking forward to that armor, but I have some time to kill.”
“You mean like killing more goblins?”
Wayne wobbled his head. “Could be that or something else. I’m flexible.”
“I can’t say for sure, but Benny usually needs some hands. Maybe talk to him in town?”
Wayne asked where he might find Benny.
“Runs a tavern called Big Benny’s.” Oh, that Benny.
Good news: He already heard the tavern had a positive reputation, and one night of sleep restored his HP back to max.