Chapter 2: Settlement (Rialey's Pov)
I had always liked anime and manga but not to the extent Andrew did because he loved it with passion. Personally I thought of it only as a hobby. I was not as much of an introvert as Andrew, I still had a lot of things I was focused on. Things like college as well as my sport. I did not focus super heavily on fun or family.
I was always usually considered quiet by my peers and I only had around 2 or 3 friends and as shitty it is to say I didn't care too much for family as I never talked to them or was never around them. I guess you could call me picky, I was actually a bit envious of Andrew because he seemed like he had his entire life figured out. Onto more pressing matters, I had always dreamed of the idea of being reincarnated. I never thought it would happen though. Although I never dreamed it would be as painful as it was. But was it worth it? HELL YES IT WAS!
Recently we were leveling and I got a new skill called dash. This was awesome because it could help me become faster and would help me escape sticky situations but what was more important was that it could be used to save people. And when you save people you're considered cool, and the cooler you are the bigger chance of a harem (Having a harem was one of my personal goals). I personally think that this world will be better than my own, but there are still some questions. I need to know the geography of this world and how far their technology progress was as well as their language if it is different. It would also be cool to learn about how this place and how it is different and how to manipulate electric particles with my element. I personally think lightning is really great. Anyways Andrew and I were leveling up and when we had found this town. I was currently level 5 and he was level 6. So we entered the wooden gates of this town, and the people were dressed in a kind of medieval era clothing (Tattered cloth was the attire for the poor and the rich wore some nice looking clothing. The nobles' clothes glimmered, leading me to believe it was silk. Which was to be expected, considering its impoverished vs. rich). Unluckily, we were both introverts and were broke except for the few copper we had from the slimes. I was way more social than Andrew. I walked over to two women who looked as though they were shopping for groceries.
"Hello could you point us in the direction of an adventurer's guild or a cartographer"
She looked at me with a gentle smile with a hint of shock, and said,
"Weren't you taught to use scan magic and what are those clothes? They are nothing like what I have seen before."
Scan magic there was scan magic in this world too?
She asked, "where are you two from?"
Without missing a beat, I replied, "southern Japan, that's where our clothes are from too. "
She thought for a moment, then asked,
"Where is that, I've never heard of such a place. As well as your clothes they are quite foreign."
In my head, I was wondering whether my brain was fried or if I was just stupid. Andrew gave me a very annoyed face, so then he took me to the side and he asked,
"Why did you say we are from Japan?"
I told him, "because every main character comes from there, right?"
He slapped me, and asked
"Do you really think this is a game?"
I replied with a "yes" then he slapped me again. He approached the lady then explained,
"We are from a place out in the sticks that I can almost guarantee you've never heard of before. The 'Southern Japan' He mentioned was just the name of our club that we and other people from our village thought up and our clothes are something that the small children of the village made they are not formal clothing in any way, " he further explained, "It was like our 'banner' in a way."
She looked a bit relieved, "Oh, that makes a lot of sense. Im studying countries and I was super concerned that I missed one and those clothes look nice tell those kids they did a good job." but what we really needed to figure out how to use scan magic.
I asked the women, "how do you use scan magic" she said "just hold out your hand and try to picture what you are looking for."
My scan radius was around 10 meters, so I couldn't find what I was looking for.
A little defeated, I said, "I can only see around 10 meters in an aerial view? (this was very weird to me) and it is a bit blurry but nothing too bad"
She looked a little surprised, "Impressive, that's quite uncommon for someone to see that far"
Her reaction surprised me a little, was it hard to use this magic and how was 'blurry' clear?
Interrupting, Andrew asked, "How do I use the scan magic again?"
She re-explained the process and then he tried it out.
"I can see around 15 meters and mine is clear..."
She was shocked.
"Very impressive, it takes a couple of weeks to see 10 feet and the clarity depends on the person but it can be slightly improved"
I couldn't help but feel a little jealous but it makes sense, him being the rouge and all.
"A building that looks like an adventurer's guild is that way" He pointed south-southeast
"Thank you, miss." I said.
"No, thank you for showing me something you don't get to see every day."
"Have a good day, ma'am."
We parted ways and headed inward into town. Whilst Andrew was leading the way to the guild, we heard a stir among the crowd.
"Is that Elyse?!" A voice in the crowd shouted.
I turned my head to see what was happening and saw a young girl running out of the forest with all that she had. Her clothes were tattered, and she was covered in dirt. Behind her was a shadow, it felt malicious. Without thinking, I ran as fast as I could to where she was coming from and where that shadow was. I drew my sword and swung as it came at me. It stopped in its tracks then I got to see what it was. It was… A dire wolf? Aren't dire wolves supposed to be strong..? No, point in thinking. Thinking will get me nowhere. All I need to do is attack it. It lunged at me, so I focused lightning into my hand and punched it as hard as I could in the snout. It flew back a couple of meters then jumped back another few. On its final jump it limped on its back left leg. I felt as though I had to put it out of its misery, so I ran up to the beast and kicked it up then activated multi-slash. The fight was over in an instant. I felt very bad, after all, I am not a very murderous person.
I turned around to see the little girl on the floor crying tears of relief but the villagers had a very different reaction then what I was expecting. Was it confusion, anger..? No, it was fear. I walked over to the girl and starting talking to her,
"Are you alright?"
"Yeah, I think so."
Andrew came walking up to me with a grim look on his face and he pulled me aside.
"Hey, she was an offering to the wolves, so they wouldn't attack this village and kill everyone here."
I was stunned. Then I was Angry. How could they put a little girl through this?
"Look, I know how you feel and I feel the same way, but if they didn't then she would have died either way. You can't fault a person for looking after their own life."
"Why are you defending trash like them?!"
"I'm not, I'm just saying everyone has their own circumstances."
"You make a point, but fuck that makes me mad."
"Well let's go to the guild and see what they have on information regarding the wolves den."
I then skinned the wolf and cut the meat off the bones. Andrew drained the blood and took a couple of bones then we sold the rest of it including some of the meat. We decided to keep the hide for when it got cold. We got 30 coppers for the materials we sold. For the goblin's gear we got from the enemies the previous day, we got 50 coppers. With that we now have a total of 80 coppers. It was around noon when we made it to the guild hall. The few people that were adventurers in the hall looked very distraught. No wonder why, they were scared of dying. We made our way over to the counter, started talking to the receptionist,
"Excuse me ma'am do you know where the wolves den is from here."
She looked stunned to hear the question.
"Normally people who cause trouble look the other way when they do the very thing they are good at."
"We aren't those types of people ma'am, we clean up after ourselves." I said.
"You better be strong enough to handle them all, our heads are riding on it" she said a little pushy, "also what are your adventurer standings?"
"Is that the same as 'social standings'?"
She hesitantly replied with a shy, "yes..?"
"Oh, then we are 'wood'"
A look of uneasiness washed over her face.
"We are doomed, aren't we?"
"Never mind that, where is the den?" Andrew spoke up. She took a moment to recollect herself,
"The den is west of here, be careful."
"Oh, one more thing is there any place to sell materials from monsters?"
"No, not in this town. Maybe in the next town over."
"Alright, thank you for the information"
We walked out of there and started heading south, but one of the adventurers from the guild came out and got in our way.
"You really think a couple of wood ranks can beat a whole pack of those monsters. You just got lucky earlier this morning since the bastard was hurt. If it was that easy to kill them then I could have done it ages ago! If it was that easy then I wouldn't have sent my wife and daughter to die last month!"
"Well maybe-" Andrew stopped me and just whispered, "people like him don't change their minds. Let's just get there before the wolves try anything."
I hated how much he was right. I unwillingly followed after him and left the man who was shouting and cursing us. Not much you can do to fix a shattered heart.
"Don't ignore me, you brats."
Without realizing what was happening, I flew forward as Andrew pushed me back. I heard the clashing of blades. I turned around, and the man had his sword and was pushing down on Andrew's daggers. Andrew then kicked the man and knocked him off balance and rushed forward. He then cut the man's hand, making him drop his sword, then landed a kick square in the jaw. He fell down in a pool of tears. Tears of defeat. Not from this battle, but from life. Andrew lightly smacked my arm and gestured for us to leave. He was right there was nothing that we could do for him. He lost the thing most important to him, his family. Leaving a very distressing scene. It was around 2 p.m. we used up a lot of time.
"Hey we are running out of time. Based on what we have heard of the wolves, they won't sit by for long and do nothing."
"True but we will run into them either way, they need to travel along this path to get to the village."
"You make a fair point, but we should still hurry."
"Alright, I hear you"
We started jogging to where the den is and Andrew is using 'Scan' to see the den. Around 5 minutes he stops,
"We are here. It's much closer than what I thought. We should rest for a couple of minutes before we enter."
"Alright, let's bring them hell after."
We sat on some rocks bordering the road and we then talked about our plan.
During the discussion, I saw a wolf walking along the road.
"He's all yours"
I drew my sword and got in the wolf's path. It bared its fangs and I glared back. The wolf didn't back down, then I made the first move. I swung my sword horizontally but the beast jumped back then lunged at my face. I switched the direction of my sword and upwardly cut through its stomach. It's blood rained down on my face and my clothes. It's a different experience than I've felt before. I stood there awe struck with the warm feeling of blood on me. In my daze I didn't realize the wolf wasn't completely dead yet, but it was in no fighting shape. I cut off its head to end its pain. Andrew was locked in the battle with one himself. He jumped and stomped down on the wolf's head then beheaded the beast. He looked at me then firmly stated,
"Progress the plan."
"Got it, good luck"
He nodded then took off running to the den. To explain the den, it was a cave but it had a front and back way to where the most wolves are located. I was in charge of the frontal assault, and Andrew was in charge of the rear pincer. I took a deep breath then started to charge into battle. There were two wolves at the front entrance. I swung my sword horizontally then mid-swing, I changed direction of the blade, slicing the neck of the left wolf then I kneed the wolf to my right. Then made an X with my sword if following the previous path. Both wolves were down. I tightly swallowed (physically and also swallowed my pride and fear in the process) then continued the path inward to the den. Using 'scan' I saw that there was one more left in this "hallway." I was coming close to the wolf, so I readied my sword preemptively. When I was within striking distance I jumped up and slammed my sword to where the beast was. It dodged the attack then scratched my arm. I let out a grunt. I then thrusted my sword into the mouth of the beast. Another down. I continued along the path to the main chamber, and I saw Andrew fighting a huge wolf, it was most likely the alpha. Three wolves along the ground and a couple of skeletons to accompany them.
"About time you get here, I need your help,"
I ran over and sliced at the beast. He grunted then swiped his paw. I narrowly dodged then used multi-slash. It wailed in pain. Andrew jumped atop of it, stuck his knives in and generated a dark liquid and it went into the cuts he just made. He jumped off and then yelled,
"Use an electric attack on the wounds I just made."
I nodded then jumped, encased my hand in lightning and jabbed into the cut. The wolf didn't have much time to feel the pain. It was almost dead instantly.
"We did it!" I celebrated then clutched my arm.
Andrew then fell to the ground and clasped his chest. It looks as though the alpha gave him a bad time.
"It's hard fighting four on one, huh," he said.
"I thought you were gonna use 'vanish' and kill them then"
"I did, but I only killed two then the third gave me enough trouble for the alpha to get over there and swipe me as I killed it."
"Do you think you will be alright?"
"I should be but you never know."
He pulled out his canteen then proceeded to pour the water onto his cuts to wash it out.
"Ow, this hurts like a bitch," he remarked.
I pulled out my canteen and poured water on the cuts on my arm. He was right, it did hurt like a bitch. After a couple of minutes of rest Andrew spoke up,
"We should get going, it's around five. The villagers are probably worried the attack is going to commence soon."
We walked back to the village without any speed bumps. When we arrived in town, we didn't see anyone on the way to the guild. When we got there, the adventurers from earlier, some new ones and the receptionist were the only ones there. I waved in a "told you we could do it" kind of way. She was completely dumbfounded, so was every adventurer in the room.
"We are back, and killed all the wolves. So can I get some help," Andrew said that quite awkwardly. She snapped out of it then ran over with first aid that was hidden under the desk.
"You know, I've been thinking," Andrew said as she was cleaning and patching his wounds. "If this is a city big enough to have an adventurers guild then where is the city guard?" I was wondering the same thing, but I had more tact then to ask that when she was cleaning our wounds. She stopped for a second then continued,
"We had one, at one point. But the ones who didn't die to the wolves, fled the city." she then changed the subject, "How did you guys even kill that huge wolf?"
"Well, Rialey distracted it then I jumped onto the wolf. I then stabbed it, poured in some mana in there in the form of poison. I jumped off then he electrocuted the liquid in the wolf." he finished,
"Amazing, you said you guys were only wood level?"
"Yeah," I said.
She got done with Andrew's wound then attended mine.
"What guild do you guys operate from?"
"We don't have one."
"Wait, so you guys have no affiliation with a guild and you are this powerful?"
"Yeah, that's right."
"You boys should consider working for our guild," she said quite enthusiastically.
"Sorry, we can't. We want to learn a lot from this world and grow to be strong." I said.
"This is disappointing, but it seems you two have made up your minds."
"That being said, is there a library in this town?" Andrew asked.
"No, but there is in the town over the way."
"Okay we will head there in the morning." I said, "Also where is the inn and how much does it cost?"
"It's a couple of buildings down and the price is 10 copper. Speaking of cost here is the payment for killing the wolves"
She handed us 5 silvers.
"Good luck on your future adventures" she waved very enthusiastically.
We walked out of the guild and made our way over to the inn. As soon as we went in, we saw an old man at the bar and a familiar little girl. She turned around, and her eye's started to sparkle. She ran up to me and hugged me,
"Thank you for saving me earlier!"
She smiled wide, and I saw that she was missing her front left tooth.
"Ah, so you must be the young man who saved my granddaughter from the wolf this morning"
"Yes, that was me."
"I sincerely thank you" he bowed his head low.
"You don't have to do that. It's alright."
Both of our stomachs growled simultaneously. The old inn keeper laughed and went to the back. He came out with two plates of food. I pulled out my money and then he said,
"It's on the house, and there is a room upstairs in the back of the hall you can use for the night."
"Thank you very much," we both said, he murmured under his breath,
"No thank you"
We finished out food and headed off into the room he allowed us to sleep in. It was well kept and there were two beds in the room. Andrew instantly laid down and fell asleep. I followed suit and laid down. I fell asleep before I knew it.
I had a dream that night. It consisted of me being chained on a stone platform atop a mountain. I was very tired, it was night it seemed. The stars were quite brilliant, it was almost alluring. There were so many colors and designs. After seeing it, I noticed that the left side of my body felt horrible, almost deathly. It was on fire, and to be honest I was terrified it hurt really bad.
I had a dream that night. It was filled with abundant colors and designs. I was chained atop a stone platform on a mountain. I was very exhausted, it was night it seemed. The stars were absolutely brilliant, it was alluring. After a few moments the left side of my body roared in pain. It was a painful tingling sensation. I was on fire. I was in excruciating pain, from the devilish flames that engulfed me. Being in so much pain my mind went blank, and it drifted off into nothingness.
The next morning I woke up in a pool of sweat, and I had a lingering pain on my left side. I quickly looked over and my left side was a pinkish hue. It seemed to be irritated so for now I think I was fine. I decided to try and forget about the dream. Andrew was already up and getting ready,
"Ah, you're finally awake," he said, alluding to a game.
I looked at him for a minute, then I just ignored what he said.
"Are you sure that you should be walking around right now?"
"If you are asking if it's painful then, yeah it is."
"That's not what I meant but whatever anyways let's get going"
We headed down to the main area of the inn and decided to eat breakfast and discuss what we would do once we got to the next town I then asked andrew what he thought about it
"I say we head to the town east of here that the receptionist told you about"
"I agree since it has a library and more established guild. It may be something we would want to register with but i'll leave that up to you since you make good judgement when it matters"
"Me, make good judgement, what drugs have you been taking?"
"Alright well let's do some inventory. I say we head to the town around noon"
I had 2 silvers and 30 coppers, my stone sword which was not in good shape, 2 pieces of cooked meat set to spoil in 4 and a half days, and a full canteen. I actually forgot that I had a gamelike inventory, and I also had not checked my level or stats in a long time. When I opened my stat screen I was shown:
Level 10
Social Standing: Stone
Main Class: Swordsman
Sub Class: Undecided
Element: Electric
Rank: Unranked
Guild: No Affiliation
Stats:
Health: 145
Mana: 95
Power: 23
Luck: 14
Intelligence: 15
Resistance: 10
Carry Weight: 225
Skills/Abilities: Multi Slash, Mana Channeling (Lightning Punch), Dash, Scan
Passive Abilities: Electric Resistance
New skill(s) Learned: Sword bolt
(Shoot a bolt of lightning from the melee weapon in which the user wields while using 20 points of mana)
In the loot tab I saw all of the collected monster gear and weapons. There wasn't anything of note. Disregarding that, I went back and marveled at my skills.a
"That's pretty damn cool"
Andrew then asked what happened
I explained to him that my stats went up like crazy and that my carry weight went up by 50 points but sadly I did not see much return in muscle growth or definition. But what I was really excited about was the sword bolt, but sadly I don't think my sword will be able to handle it. I need an upgrade soon. I also told him about how our social standing increased to stone and how the new "guild affiliation" status showed up. He looked very excited to look at his stats. This was awesome but there were some very big problems that needed to be addressed. The first being: I need to figure out a way to control my fear. It almost got me killed in the cave. But of course nobody will ever know about what happened. Number two being: we need to figure out more about this world, how it works, and how we got here. In conclusion this part of the journey was done and we needed to head somewhere bigger and we needed to get a lot stronger to survive because I had a bad feeling that this world was going to be the most painful and joyful experience of my life.
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