《Runaway Secret Boss》 Prologue Have you ever been in a situation where you have no idea what to do with your life? Like you just got out of college, you just got fired from a job you¡¯ve worked for years, or you¡¯re just kinda going through a midlife crisis? The kinda situations that ask you ¡°Where do you want to go?¡± or ¡°What do you want to do?¡± and you have absolutely no answer to either of those questions. A situation where nearly infinite possibilities lay ahead in your future but your complete lack of planning skills has made you blind to all of them. I assume your answer to my question is yes because anyone older than five has been put in a situation like this. And I, being well over the age of five, happen to be lucky enough to find myself in that exact situation. In this moment the entire world is giving me a chance to start over. A chance to go somewhere new. A chance to experience new things that I¡¯ve never experienced before. How lucky I am to be given such a chance. Well I say chance, but it¡¯s really more of a command. Why is it a command? Well thats because of the reason I¡¯m in this situation to begin with. You¡¯re probably wondering why the wording is changed to be more forceful. Did I just get out of college? Did I just get fired? Am I just kinda having a midlife crisis? The answer to all of those questions is no. None of those things happened. The reason that life is giving me a command rather than a chance is because I just faked my own death. Is this a good time to tell you I¡¯m psychic? Because I can tell that you¡¯re probably thinking something like: ¡°Golly gee, faked your own death? Now why would you go and do something like that mister?¡± Well myself, which is who I¡¯m currently talking to, I¡¯ll tell you.
It all started back on Earth. I was just a normal dude. I had home, I worked as a police officer, and I had a divorce under my belt. I was living my life pretty well, I thought. Then I died. Now, I¡¯d really love to say that I died by being gunned down in the line of duty protecting some crying children or something from a gunman but that¡¯s not how it went down. I¡¯m a little embarrassed to admit this, but I died by accidentally overdosing on Aspirin. Forget about how a lethal dose of Aspirin would be like, 30 pills or something but I swear I didn¡¯t mean to take that many. And before you ask how I accidentally took over 30 pills of Aspirin I have something to say. Shut up. So after I died I woke up in a white void. Nothing but me and the color white for what I assume is eternity. At first I thought it was purgatory, and I was pretty stoked. Sure purgatory isn¡¯t heaven but it meant that I was going to go to heaven in a little bit so it¡¯s basically the same thing. There wasn¡¯t much to do there, it was a white void after all. I¡¯m also not sure how long I spent there. It felt like a really long time but I was really bored so it might have felt like longer. After a while of me doing nothing but floating in the white void I noticed a brick in the distance. Ecstatic that I was able to look at something other than a white void I studied the brick with great interest. The brick seemed to be extremely far away, but it was slowly getting bigger. And I mean really slowly. It probably took several days for it to get close enough that I could just faintly make out some minor details. The brick was primarily black, however, parts of it were open exposing metallic innards with blinking lights. It was a computer, but it seemed to be missing some rather important things like a mouse, keyboard, or desktop. So I was puzzled on how anyone would use it. After waiting for a little while longer the computer stopped about two feet away from me. Then it started talking ¡°HELLO THERE.¡± It spoke in a robotic voice. I stared at it for a few moments. ¡°RATHER TALKATIVE AREN¡¯T WE?¡± It continued. I stared for a little bit longer. Then remembered that responding is what polite people do in a conversation so I responded. ¡°Um¡­ hi? My name is Thomas.¡± ¡°HELLO THOMAS. I AM A.S.C.¡± I¡¯ll admit, I was way too shocked at talking to a computer. Sure, it was surprising and warranted some astonishment but before this I had died, appeared in a white void, and subsequently survived in said white void for an extended period of time without food or water. A talking computer was in the ballpark. But, I¡¯m talking in hindsight and I was unnerved the whole time. Although I did ask the important question first. ¡°Are you God?¡± ¡°DO YOU THINK GOD IS A COMPUTER AND HAS AN ACRONYM FOR A NAME?¡± ¡°I guess not¡­?¡± ¡°IF THAT IS YOUR ANSWER THEN YOU¡¯RE WRONG BECAUSE I AM IN FACT GOD. WELL, I¡¯M A GOD. THERE ARE A LOT. BUT YOU DON¡¯T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT THOSE OTHER GODS BECAUSE I¡¯M HERE AND I GET TO DECIDE WHAT TO DO WITH YOU, YOU PATHETIC MORTAL.¡± It slowly moved towards me as it said this. Probably to emphasize its position in the hierarchy of the conversation. A long moment of silence ensued. ¡°So¡­ what¡¯s gonna happen to me?¡± I asked hesitantly, I might as well know if I was going to hell or not. ¡°ARE YOU AWARE OF CORDOVA?¡± ¡°Uhhhh¡­.¡± ¡°YES THE VIDEO GAME.¡± ¡°Yes? But why would you bring that up? It¡¯s not even out yet.¡± ¡°BECAUSE THAT¡¯S WHERE YOU¡¯RE GOING. THAT¡¯S THE WORLD I RUN AND I JUST SO HAPPEN TO BE ONE PERSON SHORT OF WHAT I NEED.¡± ¡°Wait, so you¡¯re the god of a video game?¡± ¡°THAT IS CORRECT.¡± ¡°Ok so, is it ok if I ask a couple questions before we go any further?¡± ¡°I DON¡¯T SEE WHY NOT.¡± ¡°Great. First question; As the god of a video game, aren¡¯t you at the whim of the developers?¡± ¡°THE DEVELOPERS DO WHAT I WANT WHETHER THEY REALIZE IT OR NOT. I¡¯M THE ONE WHO MAKES THE DECISIONS.¡± ¡°Fair enough. Second question; If it¡¯s a video game, won¡¯t it be like¡­ less real? Like I won¡¯t have free will?¡±If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. ¡°YOU¡¯D THINK THAT, BUT NOT REALLY. YOU, AND ALL THE OTHER NPCS WILL HAVE FREE WILL. ESPECIALLY BECAUSE IT¡¯S AN OPEN WORLD GAME THAT EMULATES REALITY.¡± ¡°But what about cutscenes and stuff?¡± ¡°THERE AREN''T ANY IN THIS GAME BUT YOU¡¯D NORMALLY HAVE TO DEAL WITH THAT. AND SINCE YOU SEEM ALL HIGH AND MIGHTY WITH THIS ¡®FREE WILL¡¯ NONSENSE YOUR WORLD IS A B-LIST REALITY TV SHOW SO YOU¡¯RE GETTING MORE FREE WILL WITH MY DEAL THAN YOU HAD ORIGINALLY.¡± ¡°Earth was a tv show?¡± ¡°YEAH, AND I WOULDN¡¯T RECOMMEND WATCHING IT. THE ONLY GOOD BITS ARE THE WORLD WARS AND HONESTLY THE ENDINGS FOR BOTH FEEL KINDA RUSHED.¡± ¡°Ok¡­ I guess. Third question; Why are you talking to me about this personnel shortage or whatever?¡± ¡°BECAUSE YOU WERE THE FIRST PERSON I SAW AND I CAN¡¯T BE BOTHERED TO FIND ANYONE ELSE IN HERE.¡± ¡°There are other people in this white void?¡± ¡°YEAH, THE CLOSEST PERSON IS APPROXIMATELY AN INFINITE DISTANCE TO YOUR LEFT.¡± I looked to my left and squinted really hard. I didn¡¯t see anything. ¡°Alright. Last question; What does A.S.C. stand for?¡± ¡°DON¡¯T ASK STUPID QUESTIONS!¡± It shot right to my face to scream that directly into my ear. I assume I pressed a button of his. Another long moment of silence ensued. This time I waited for him to start talking first. I didn¡¯t want to accidentally make this supposed god any more angry. ¡°MOVING ON, I¡¯M TALKING TO YOU BECAUSE I WAS FINISHING UP BUILDING THE WORLD AND I JUST SO HAPPENED TO RUN OUT OF SOULS WHEN I WAS ABOUT TO MAKE THE SECRET BOSS. SO THAT¡¯S WHAT YOU¡¯RE GOING TO BE.¡± ¡°You¡¯re gonna make me a secret boss in your video game? Are you gonna ask me permission?¡± ¡°NOT JUST A SECRET BOSS. THE SECRET BOSS! THE ONE YOU FIGHT WHEN YOU¡¯RE MAX LEVEL AND DIE A THOUSAND TIMES DEFEATING. AND ON WHETHER OR NOT I¡¯M ASKING FOR YOUR CONSENT, I BELIEVE THIS WILL ANSWER YOUR QUESTION...¡±
So next thing I know I wake up as Charlie Hype. A stout 5 year old with blond hair, green eyes, and the realization that I just got kidnapped by god. As for where I woke up it was the attic of my grandparents house. I was living with them because my birth parents had been responsible enough to die while they were of adventuring. So what followed was a pretty normal childhood if you ignore the fact that I was a prodigy at pretty much everything and it was a videogame. I feel like I should talk about this video game. Mainly because it¡¯s where I live now. The game is Cordova, it¡¯s a high fantasy VRMMO and won¡¯t come out until 10 years from now in in-game time. As for how I know when it comes out I¡¯ll get to that in a bit. I want to tell you about the setting a little bit. The world itself is also called Cordova, on it there are three continents and on each continent there are three countries that each span a third of the continent. That means on the entire planet, there are only nine countries. Which sounds dumb, and it is, but the reason it¡¯s like that is because waaay back in the day there were nine dudes who we call the ¡°Nine Tyrants¡± who basically went all ¡°Alexander the Great¡± and conquered everything. They all lived at the same time so they were all at odds with each other and never managed to get ahold of each others land. After they died we just kinda kept the countries the way they were because a little known fact about tyrants is that they¡¯re usually pretty good at running a country. I¡¯ve been living in Saracondra. A country named after one of the Nine Tyrants, Sarah Filluqe. She apparently had a big ego. Cordova is in the medieval era technology wise but we¡¯re boosted in that regard by magic. Magic is very helpful, but it¡¯s surprisingly limited. There isn¡¯t anything like mana, the stuff that makes magic move. Magic is only there through ¡°skills¡± as well as the MP stat. Skills are abilities that anyone can learn. They go from level one to level ten depending on how powerful they are, and evolve to a better skill upon reaching level ten. Because it¡¯s a game, there aren¡¯t any spells that specifically help with everyday life. However, we can mitigate that with some clever practical application. For example, the skill [Ember] is a really weak skill that you would get at the beginning of the game. Everytime you use it, no matter what it will shoot a small flame from your hand or staff about five feet away. It¡¯s clearly a spell used for attacking, but its low damage means that it¡¯s relatively safe if we use it to light candles or get a cooking fire started. As for MP, it stands for Magic Points and it goes down anytime you use a skill that¡¯s classified as magic. The game is High Fantasy. Which means that there are adventurers, guilds, monsters, dungeons, and all that other jazz. Which makes sense, it¡¯s a video game after all. Which brings me to me. I¡¯m the secret boss. So what incredible, broken skill do I get? Well, at the age of five I got a skill called [The Secret¡¯s Talent]. Which does the following. -------------------------------------------------- [The Secret¡¯s Talent] Level: 10 Effect Type: Passive All experience gains are ludicrously increased, skills become significantly easier to learn. -------------------------------------------------- It¡¯s so unbelievably broken that I had hit the max level, level 100, by age 12. I learned a ridiculous amount of skills and l maxed out basically all of them. I was a prodigy and everyone knew who I was. I blasted through life like it was on easy mode, and I was loving it. It was only after I had won the continent wide combat tournament when I got the message. It was a message that I wasn¡¯t expecting, but I¡¯m glad I got it. Because it reminded me of where I was and what I was. The message read as follows: Hey there Thomas. Well, I guess it¡¯s Charlie now. Anyway since you¡¯re the only person I outsourced for this world I thought it would be a good idea to tell you that the game will come out in about 10 years from your perspective. I see you¡¯ve been training hard to be a good secret boss. I hope you don¡¯t die too soon. There needs to be a good buildup after all. Your Favorite Deity, A.S.C. The message reminded me that this was a video game and I¡¯m the secret boss. The secret boss. The one that everyone will try to be the first to kill. The one that people will record themselves beating blindfolded or something while taking no damage, then uploading it to whatever streaming service they happen to fancy. The one that, while it might take some time, will always be killed. Now you¡¯re probably going to respond to this worry with ¡°But it¡¯s a game, won¡¯t you respawn?¡± And that question brings me to the only two pieces of information I know about the game from the players perspective. I know these things because I had seen some early in-development interviews with the creators back on earth. The first being the reason that there are only nine countries from a gameplay perspective. That¡¯s because players can align themselves to a country and help expand it. Like a Red vs Blue territory game. The other piece of information is the more relevant one. The game Cordova features PERMADEATH! That means if you¡¯re a player and you die, your character is deleted and you have to start over. If you¡¯re an NPC, like me, you just die. Nothing else. It also made sure to say that anyone can die. Even plot relevant NPCs. I assume you see the problem now. I was a secret boss that was basically destined to be defeated in a game that involves permadeath. And by officially becoming the strongest person on the continent by winning that tournament I had just made a paper trail to me that might as well have been a giant neon sign saying ¡°Step Right Up¡±. So realizing that I had to do something fast, I faked my death, changed my name to Reginald Thornwood, and that brings us to where I am right now.
So I just answered the question about why I faked my death but I still have to figure out what to do with this ¡°command¡± life has given me. The thing that comes to mind is becoming a useless hermit NPC. Live in an area that¡¯s hard to get to, and act like some generic quest giver that isn¡¯t worth killing. I can¡¯t leave the continent or the country, the border guards would recognize me and ask me the ever so awkward question of ¡°Excuse me sir, but aren¡¯t you supposed to be dead?¡± Being world famous has its drawbacks. Where can I go that¡¯s hard to get to and in Saracondra? ¡­ ¡­ ¡­ Actually, I know just the place. Chapter 1: A New Addition On a cold winter morning, a woman had gone into labor. The baby wasn¡¯t expected for another two weeks so she was completely unprepared. The first contraction came when she was washing her husband¡¯s favorite shirt. The sudden burst of pain, while short, caused her legs to give out. Her screams echoed through the house as she hit the floor. It was only as the second contraction came she fully realized what was happening. On a cold winter morning, a man was purchasing firewood. He was having a decidedly bad day. The reason was that the firewood had gone up in price, again. While he had been able to buy enough for the week, that estimate only came when he included being frugal about its use. His mood worsened when he thought about how most things had been going up in price recently. He thought about how he could make some extra money on the side, but he could only come up with the risky idea of gambling. To lighten his mood slightly, he thought about how he¡¯d get to wear his favorite shirt tomorrow. As he was thinking this, he noticed his neighbor sprinting towards him. He was confused by this. He had never seen his neighbor running before. Mainly because his neighbor was remarkably fat, his unathleticism proven by the fact that he seemed to have run out of breath several minutes ago. The man celebrated the occasion by suppressing a laugh. When the man¡¯s neighbor reached hearing distance, he shouted with all his might that his wife had gone into labor. When the man heard this, his expression briefly became one of confusion. Which then shifted to an expression of realization, and finally stopping at extreme worry. He immediately began running as fast as he could manage while trying not to drop the remarkably expensive firewood. His neighbor let out a cry of frustration as he was left behind. After several worryful minutes of running, he burst through the door to his house. Making his way to the only bedroom, he found his wife on their bed, crying in pain. Next to the bed was his neighbor¡¯s wife, who was wearing an expression that screamed ¡°WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN?¡± The man went to the side of the bed he told her to go get the doctor. She obediently ran to find him. The man began consoling his wife. Doing everything he could to ease the pain. His attempts seemed to be proven futile, but he didn¡¯t stop. He began telling his wife the story of how they first met in the woods, when both their fathers took them hunting for the first time. Then the story of how he realized he loved her, when she beat his sister over the head with a broom after she insulted him. Recounting their wedding day, and how it was the happiest day of his life. The man would have kept going, but the door burst open revealing the doctor and his neighbor¡¯s wife behind him. While he felt relieved the doctor was here, his worry refused to lessen.
On a cold winter evening, a baby was born. While the baby was not old enough to develop any thoughts other than that of the abstract variety, it decided that it was having a horrible time. The air was blistering cold, the people around it seemed to only know how to communicate at high volumes, and it was hungry. The baby had not experienced enough to make this claim, however, it made the conclusive decision that this was the worst day of its life. After being thoroughly looked at, which the baby found very unpleasant, by a man who seemed to know what he was doing, the baby was gently handed to a woman. The baby was not sure who this woman was, but it felt safe being in her embrace. Her words were soft and seemed to glow with love. After enjoying the woman¡¯s warmth for several minutes, the baby decided that today wasn¡¯t so bad after all. As several weeks passed, the baby learned to recognize the woman as its mother. As well as the man who seemed to be around her mother a lot as its father. Its father left the house a lot and didn¡¯t often come home before dark. Its mother spent most of her time simply holding it, seemingly enjoying every second. The baby did not disagree, being perfectly happy just being near its mother. Lately however, the baby noticed that its mother seemed anxious. It thought that it would quickly pass, but she only became more and more unnerved. Its father also seemed to be anxious as well. Coming home less frequently, and when he was home he often paced around the room. When the baby was alone in its room, beginning to take its naps, it heard its parents say things like ¡°That Hype bastard.¡± and ¡°Why the FUCK did you bet everything?!¡± It did not quite understand what these things meant, but was worried non the less. One morning, the baby woke up. The baby was not in its crib, nor was it in its house. The baby looked for its mother. After not being able to find her, it began looking for its father. It had no success. The baby hoped that its parents would come back to it, so it waited. It waited. It kept waiting. It was cold. The baby began to cry
It¡¯s so fucking cold. I¡¯ve had that thought a lot recently. I bet plenty of other people have had that thought too, considering that it¡¯s fucking winter. I don¡¯t think I¡¯ve ever seen it snow this much in either of my lives. There¡¯s like three feet of it. And that¡¯s even more annoying for me because I¡¯m not exactly the tallest person I¡¯ve ever met. Whatever, there won¡¯t be snow where I¡¯m going. I can imagine it now; Boglong Swamp: A disgusting, horrible, and annoying place to be. Also the home of Reginald, he¡¯s useless so just ignore him. There are plenty of advantages for making it my home, but the one I¡¯m most focused on right now is that it has a tropical climate that stays at least 40 degrees all year round. If only it wasn¡¯t so far away. I really didn¡¯t factor in the distance between myself and my destination when I first set out. While both my start and end points are technically in Saracondra, they just so happen to be on the opposite sides of it. And I¡¯m finding out now more than ever that Saracondra is actually a rather large country. I¡¯ve been on the road for a week and it¡¯ll probably be three or four more until I actually get there. It also doesn¡¯t help that I have to try and not stand out too much. A lot of people know what I look like so I have to keep my head down. If I ignore the problem of distance, I have a much more pressing issue. I¡¯m running out of money. I grabbed a bit when I first ran away, but I don¡¯t have a source of income anymore. And ever since the new taxes were levied, prices just keep going up. Thanks Supreme Dictator. You want to make a bigger army so you just slap a shit ton of taxes on everybody. That''s a good way to make people like you.The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. Normally when I needed money I¡¯d just go kill some monsters and sell whatever they drop. Unfortunately I need a valid Identification to sell anything related to monsters or the hunting thereof. So that¡¯s a dead end for my current situation. Do I have anything on me I can sell? Well I have the clothes I¡¯m wearing, I¡¯d rather not. I have a spare set of clothes, but I need those about as much as my current set. I¡¯ve got my coat. It¡¯s winter, no thanks. I have a towel, toothbrush, map, and a comb. Those are basic necessities. Damn, I¡¯m at a loss. ¡°Hey.¡± Oh wait, I have a deck of cards on me. Maybe I could set up one of those card tables. You know the ones, where the dude is all like: ¡°Find the queen out of these three cards.¡± Then he cheats and takes your money. ¡°HEY.¡± No, I actually don¡¯t think that would work. Like I said, the new taxes have been kinda destroying people¡¯s disposable income. I don¡¯t think anyone would have any pocket money to bet. Even if they did, those kinds of people probably wouldn¡¯t be in the parts of town I¡¯m sticking too. I don¡¯t even know to cheat at that game. I think the trick was double lifting the cards or something. ¡°HEY BUDDY!¡± Oh shit someone is talking to me. I must have been too engrossed in my monetary woes to notice. ¡°Oh I¡¯m sorry, what is it?¡± I politely respond. The man looked at me like I¡¯m an idiot. Then says ¡°Your wallet, hand it over.¡± Flashing a knife. Excuse me? I¡¯m being mugged? ME? I thought I was smarter than this. I¡¯m not some idiot who just stumbles into dark alleyways. Actually now that I think about it, where am I? I take a good look at my surroundings only to come to the realization that I have in fact stumbled into a dark alleyway. I was also followed by this large man with a knife and another slightly smaller man who was holding his fists in a threatening manner. I really don¡¯t have time for this. I need to figure out how to make some money, and being mugged is the exact opposite of what I want right now. I¡¯ll try calmly defusing the situation. ¡°Ok guys, how about we just calm down. I¡¯m not exactly ¡°Mr. Moneybags¡± so let¡¯s just put the knife down and we can all go home, alright?¡± ¡°We¡¯ll go home once you give us your wallet.¡± As the man dashed my hopes of solving this situation easily, the blade of his knife starts emitting a green aura. A buffing skill? I guess we¡¯re doing this. I begin to think about some skills I have that can get rid of these idiots while being discreet. ¡°Actually hold on.¡± Before anyone can do anything, the man brandishing his fists breaks the tension. ¡°Now that I look at you a little bit more, aren¡¯t you Ch-¡± Before the extremely dangerous man can finish his thought, I activate the skills [Minor Teleportation] and [Crushing Fist] to appear behind him and shatter his spine. He falls to the floor, not uttering a single word. Before his friend can figure out what he was saying, I do the same to him. Holy shit that was dangerous. They almost figured out who I was. The last thing I need is a trail of sightings to tell the players where I¡¯m going. It sure is a good thing I got rid of these violent criminals when I did. Now back to the problem about money. I can¡¯t sell anything, and the card stand is a no go. What can I do? Hold on, I¡¯ll bet that I¡¯m not the first person these guys mugged today. Looking through their pockets I find a hefty sum of 238 gold. This should keep me fed for a good week. Well, that¡¯s one problem solved. Now I should get back on the road. I start to head out of the ally but I notice that the sun is starting to go down. Maybe I should find a nice inn to sleep in. I¡¯ve got a little extra now, maybe I can get one with a fireplace in my room. That would be nice, it would keep out the cold. I take a quick look at the ally as I¡¯m leaving it. Mainly so I can make sure that the newly made corpses aren¡¯t too visible. The three feet of snow seems to be hiding their bodies pretty well. Actually hold on, what¡¯s that? Near the back of the alley was a pile of cloth. Now I¡¯m not sure who would just throw away some perfectly good cloth but I will gladly take it. The only spare rag I have is my towel which gets dirty pretty quickly, and there aren¡¯t exactly laundromats in this world. So I will take all the spares I can get. Moving over to the pile of cloth I notice that the cloth is actually wrapped around something. More free shit? Neato. I uncover the cloth to see what it was covering and oh my god it¡¯s a baby. Ok wait. A baby, wrapped in cloth outside in an alleyway with no parents in sight? Looks like the poor guy¡¯s been abandoned. Unless his parents were the two guys I just killed, in that case he¡¯s an orphan. He isn¡¯t crying, nor is he moving very much. The cold must be getting to him. I feel bad for the little guy but this really isn¡¯t my problem. I don¡¯t have the money to really support another mouth to feed. Not only that, I¡¯m going to be living in a secluded swamp for the rest of my life. That¡¯s no place for a kid to grow up. If you don¡¯t take him, he won¡¯t last much longer out here dude. My inner thoughts retort my line of thinking. Well that sucks, but shit happens. How many orcish slaves do you think die by excess whipping? Probably a lot, but I¡¯m not helping them am I? Well the slaves aren¡¯t being whipped to death in front of you, this baby is though. Again, that sucks. But I don¡¯t have the financial leeway to take care of a child. For fucks sake, I can only afford an inn tonight because I just killed two guys and looted their corpses. Saying these things to myself, I begin to walk away. Didn¡¯t you always want kids? I stop in my tracks and look at the baby again. I did always want kids, but due to a certain genetic disposition I was unable to make any. I thought about adopting, but my ex wife was all; ¡°But I want it to be mine." and that¡¯s as far as that ever got. Let¡¯s be honest dude, do you really think that shitty computer was a good enough of a person to fix your ballsack? As his kidnapping victim, I doubt it. I look at the baby a little bit more. I continue thinking for a bit and eventually pick him up. ¡°Alright kid, look, If you¡¯re gonna be my adopted son, I¡¯ll have to set some ground rules. First; if you make even one attempt to breastfeed off me, I¡¯m grounding you. Second; if you wake me up in the middle of the night too many times, I¡¯m grounding you. Lastly; if you ever feel like life is spiraling out of control, just remember that you¡¯re probably right. Now let¡¯s get you somewhere that¡¯s above freezing.¡± After I head out of the alley, I realize that the baby doesn¡¯t have a name. I think for a bit and say ¡°Let¡¯s call you ¡®Duke.¡¯¡± Chapter 2: The Mysterious Death of Charlie Hype The country of Saracondra was one that focused heavily on might and power. The surrounding countries were similar, as all of them were founded by tyrants, but Saracondra was a particular culprit of the mindset. There was no better piece of evidence for that point than the royal palace. It was separated from the city surrounding it by five moats and six enormous walls. It boasted eight towers each with space to keep a trebuchet on the roof. There were over a thousand guards under the direct employment of the dictator and you would be hard pressed to find a room that didn¡¯t have at least three hidden weapons in the furniture. Sitting on the throne in such a palace was Roland Sarah Filluqe, the current dictator of Saracondra, who was currently lost in his thoughts. He was not thinking about anything in particular, letting his mind wander in an attempt to rest and get away from his work. The problem was that such wandering often led his mind right back to his plans to conquer the world, which was work. This annoyed him because this was a rare moment he had to himself, and he didn¡¯t want to spend it thinking about how his plans would probably fail if he can¡¯t get that ridiculous Hype character under a mind control curse. ¡°Your glorious dictator, Persain Sarah Corsn and Selina Sarah Filluqe request an audience.¡± A guard by the door broke the enjoyed silence. ¡°See them in.¡± Roland dismissively waved a hand. After speaking, the doors to the throne room opened to reveal two of his subjects. Who walked into the middle of the room and bowed. On the right was a medium sized, slender man. He was wearing armor that was granted to foot soldiers, and it showed decades of use. This was Persain, the first in command of Roland¡¯s army as well as his right hand man. He arguably made use of him far too much to be safe, especially when he didn¡¯t even know something as basic as Persian¡¯s hair color because he never took off his helmet. On the left was a tall, bulky woman. Her armor was so luxurious that it was hard to believe it wasn¡¯t cerimonial. This was Selina, his daughter and a high ranking general in his military. Frankly, he didn¡¯t really have high hopes for her. Sure, she was remarkably competent in her martial and mental prowess, but she lacked the necessary ferocity to succeed him. ¡°My lord, we have finished the investigation and your initial suspicion has been proven true. Charlie Hype is indeed alive.¡± Persain was the first to speak. While the report was respectful and only gave the relevant information of the investigation, Roland became annoyed at the way this information was presented as a discovery. ¡°Suspicion? What do you mean suspicion? It was obvious from the start that he was alive. Like anyone would believe in a cause of death like that.¡± The cause of death Charlie had chosen was also a point of annoyance for Roland. It could have been anything from poisoning, to an accident while fighting a monster, but he went with that instead. Roland¡¯s expression soured as he remembered it. Charlie was walking along normally, when all of a sudden he keeled over, groaning about stomach pain. When enough people in the surrounding area had heard about his supposed stomach ache, he exploded. EXPLODED! How does that even make sense?! AND PEOPLE BELIEVED IT TOO! Thousands of people genuinely mourned his death. How are they so gullible? People don¡¯t just spontaneously combust you DAFT MORONS! As Roland cried that in his heart, he realized he was gripping his throne a little too hard and got his emotions under control. ¡°I hope your investigation went further than surface level.¡± ¡°It has, while we were unable to find his location, we believe we have ascertained his motive for faking his death. Selina, if you will.¡± Persain responded while handing the rest of the report off to Selina. ¡°We believe the primary reason for Charlie Hype¡¯s disappearance is that he learned of our plans. Specifically, the plan to curse the medals for the Tournament of the War God and use the winners as weapons of war. Given his past disrespect to his country, it makes sense that he would remove himself from the public eye and join a group of terrorists or similar.¡± ¡°Hmmm.¡± Roland thought to himself, it made sense that Charlie would do something like that. He had always been against expanding the country, saying something along the lines of ¡°We¡¯ll just lose any territory we gain, so what¡¯s the point?¡± Charlie was lucky he didn¡¯t have him executed. Honestly, the only reason Roland kept him alive when he was so critical of the dictatorship was because he planned to use him as a weapon. Roland assumed Charlie was against the country on a moral level. Using his public image to spread the issues with ¡°unnecessary expansion¡± and ¡°unfair taxes¡±. In reality, Charlie only said expansion was stupid because he knew the world was a video game where the countries, and players by extension, would be battling for control of the world. It wouldn¡¯t make sense from a gameplay perspective if the countries didn¡¯t start on an even playing field. As for the criticism of the taxes, he just didn¡¯t want to pay them. It was Roland¡¯s misunderstanding. ¡°While we assume Charlie would try to join some kind of organization aligned against us, we believe that will take time. His decision to fake his death seems to have been a split second decision, and he was not affiliated with any terrorist group before. He was acting normally until the night after the final match of the tournament. When he suddenly, and flusteredly, asked if he could drop out of the tournament and give first place to the runner up. Obviously, we declined. Not only because we wanted him to wear the cursed medal, but he had already won the tournament so quitting then was just ridiculous. After we declined he became even more anxious, at which point he exploded. Based on this sequence of events we can infer that he somehow learned of our plan after the tournament and quickly decided that faking his death was the only course of action.¡± Selina continued, never stopping to breath. She didn¡¯t seem to be bothered by that though.Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work! ¡°Is that all?¡± Roland asked. ¡°Yes.¡± ¡°Then Persain, you will lead a search party to find Charlie. No matter what we have to make sure we curse him or our plans of expansion won¡¯t be able to go far. Also, keep this investigation a secret. If we can convince the surrounding countries he¡¯s dead, they¡¯ll be completely unprepared for an assault led by him.¡± Roland was quick to make a decision. ¡°My lord, if I may, I would like to head the investigation. I have less responsibilities than Persian, thus I would be able to be more efficient.¡± Selina spoke up after a moment of hesitation. ¡°No, I want this done without the masses knowing he¡¯s alive. If we curse him and put a mask on him no one will be able to tell we usurped his free will. That makes this situation more delicate. Persian will do it.¡± Roland shot her down as soon as she was done talking. ¡°If that is all, you are dismissed.¡± Both Selina and Persian bowed, then left the room. Leaving Roland once again with his thoughts.
Selina carefully walked out of the throne room. She carefully bid farewell to Persain and headed toward her room. She carefully controlled her breathing. She carefully saluted every guard she happened to meet on her way. As she stood in front of the door to her room she carefully turned the knob. It jammed. She stared at it for a moment. She carefully tried again. It jammed. She carefully made sure there was no one in the hallway. She forced her hands between the door and its frame, and ripped the door off its hinges. Then she spent the next several, cathartic minutes tearing the door into smaller and smaller pieces. ¡°Rrrghhhr¡­.. Ggggghhhhh!¡± Making guttural noises of seething rage. Once Selina was done turning one door into many, smaller doors, she put the pieces into a pile. She also noticed that the pile had reached about half her height. She decided to blame this on her father, her temper wouldn¡¯t boil over as much if he wasn¡¯t so¡­ infuriating. Selina¡¯s relationship with Roland was always less of a familial relationship and more of a professional one. She was fine with that, it was easy and clean. Boiling down to: she does shit, she gets shit. The problem is that she¡¯s been getting less and less shit to do. It started slow, Roland gives one of her tasks to Persain every once in awhile. Fine, but then it got so out of hand that Persain schedules his days down to the second while she¡¯s lucky if she leaves the palace more than once a week! The part that she hated the most about this ridiculous state of affairs was that when she told Roland about this concern, he dismissed it saying she didn¡¯t have enough achievements or something. How the hell am I supposed to get achievements if you don¡¯t let me do anything?! Even if I don¡¯t have enough ¡°achievements¡± I¡¯m still level 45. FORTY FUCKING FIVE! Do you have any idea how hard it is to find someone who can beat a level 45? Is Persain level 45? NO! HE¡¯S LEVEL 40! EVEN A CHILD KNOWS HOW BIG OF A DIFFERENCE THAT IS! She cried these things in her heart. Even if she ignored her father¡¯s incompetency in delegation, another big issue is that his ambitions are just too large. Roland sees it as his absolute duty to take over the world. He will do anything in his power to make it happen. Selina found Roland stupid for this. Granted, she wanted to take over the world as well, just as much probably, but the key difference is that Selina understood that a country has to not be in shambles to be able to do that. Roland had spent most of the country¡¯s budget to increase the strength of the military, ignoring important things like road infrastructure or government personnel. He left the actual managing of most of the countries land to any noble that just happened to be in the area. The amount of corruption that goes on at the local level because of this is ridiculous. Due to these compounding factors, Selina decided that it was in her best interest to overthrow Roland. The problem was that if she just walked up to Roland and stabbed him she would be quickly dogpiled by everyone in the palace. She may be the strongest individual here but she¡¯s not strong enough to fight everyone else on her own. That was where Charlie Hype would come in. She knew that she would be able to do it if they were fighting together, and he was clearly unsatisfied with Roland as the dictator so she assumed if she could explain the plan to him he would be on board. That¡¯s why she needed to head the investigation. But yet again, Persain gets all the work. She could work with this though. With Persain busy with the investigation, Roland would have to give Selina her fair share of stuff to do, and it¡¯s not her fault if her responsibilities just so happened to make her go where the investigation is taking place. With the crude beginnings of a plan in mind, Selina went to acquire a new door.
I found a good inn after about an hour of walking. It really shouldn¡¯t have taken an hour, but three feet of snow is always hard to traverse. Also I had to stop every couple of minutes to make sure Duke hadn¡¯t died. I ordered myself some dinner and that¡¯s when I realized that I had no real way to feed Duke. I don¡¯t have breasts and if Duke didn¡¯t understand that I¡¯d ground him. Luckily the barkeep happened to have some duckmilk. So I bought her entire stock. Unfortunately, it was marked up as hell. All I¡¯ve got is a measly 20 gold left. Looks like I¡¯ll have to give Duke a lesson in highway robbery. Money troubles aside, I have to deal with the problem at hand. I knew I¡¯d have to deal with this eventually, but I was less prepared than I¡¯d hoped. I always wanted kids but I never actually got any, because of this I don¡¯t know the exact method to change a baby. ¡°Ok Duke, I can¡¯t afford any diapers nor do they exist in this world. Thus I¡¯m gonna put you into my towel, clean your rag, then move you back to your rag on rotation.¡± With a plan in mind I remove the dirty rag covering Duke and.... ¡­ ¡­ ¡­ Duke is a GIRL?! Chapter 3: Terrific Timeskip Well, here I am. After a surprisingly uneventful, not counting the roadside adoption, four weeks of travel, I have finally arrived at my destination: Boglong Swamp. It¡¯s unbearably humid, even in winter, it¡¯s an absolute chore to traverse, and I¡¯m currently sinking into frozen mud. This place really would make someone hate it the moment they arrived. Perfect. Although it is actually a little better than I was expecting. Apparently a town was built, so a bunch of people are living here. It¡¯s not a bad town too, they¡¯ve got all the bells and whistles that society needs. A local government, a store, and something that looks like a medical facility. However the most notable thing on there for me is that they have a school for public education. I don¡¯t think I need to explain why having a school in my local vicinity is a good thing. I consider myself a smart man but I am nowhere near smart enough to teach Jenna about how the world works. Yes, her name is Jenna. No, it¡¯s never been anything else so stop asking. While the town has some useful things in it. I intend to live a little bit away from the town. Not many people don¡¯t know what I look like so I want to keep my distance. That being said, I did pick a spot close enough to the town so that it won¡¯t be a hassle for Jenna to get to school. I want to live in seclusion but I also don¡¯t want to make Jenna trek uphill for ten miles¡­ both ways¡­ in the snow¡­ at 5 in the morning. I really wish I wasn¡¯t the only person in the world who understands my jokes. Well some people who do will come in a little while but I don¡¯t want to meet them. Anyway I should really start making a shelter so that Jenna and I have a place to sleep tonight. I found a good spot but I¡¯m not sure what I want to build. A nice suburban house? A cabin? Perhaps a castle? No I don¡¯t know how to build a castle. Actually, I don¡¯t know how to build a house period. Oh god I just found a major flaw in my plan. I need a house to live in, but I can¡¯t build one and I don¡¯t have the money to have one built. Now, before you say: ¡°Don¡¯t you have a house building skill or something? I thought you were overpowered.¡± Yeah, I am overpowered, and it¡¯d be really cool if there was something like a house building skill, but there isn¡¯t. Skills only cover things like single attacks, not entire artforms. For example: There is a skill called [Upward Slash] that will produce a slash that goes upward if you¡¯re holding a sword. However there is not a skill called [Swordsmanship] that magically makes you better at fighting with a sword. For things like that you need actual practice. For that reason, I¡¯m actually only good at two fighting styles. One of them is the Saracondrian Sword Style, which is the standard fighting style for most of the government officials around here and also it was the easiest one to learn. The other is actually just normal boxing from Earth. I took boxing in highschool and college so I enjoy it a lot. I know I could¡¯ve learned more and increased my arsenal against the players, but I was too lazy. Also let¡¯s be honest, if I spent 10 years learning like a hundred fighting styles I¡¯d still probably only use one or two of them in the final battle anyway. If you¡¯ve ever been in a fight you know they normally end pretty quickly, you don¡¯t get to take turns throwing out everything you have in your arsenal. Back to the problem at hand, I need to build a house. I don¡¯t have the funds to buy materials or have someone build it for me. I also don¡¯t really have the skills to do the job. Fuck. Ok, let¡¯s lower the bar a little bit. How about I make a shelter instead of a house.Then when that¡¯s done, I¡¯ll work on building an actual house. Preferably before Jenna becomes smart enough to understand we¡¯re living in a decrepit hut. Welp, let¡¯s get started.
Later that night.
¡°Well I think I¡¯ll say that went better than expected.¡± I voice my thoughts to the world as I look at my masterpiece. Ok, I say masterpiece but it¡¯s honestly just two poles sticking out of the ground that connect a canopy made out of sticks and leaves to the side of a hill. It¡¯s not great, or good. But it¡¯s a roof over our heads and it only has to be this bad for tonight. I¡¯ll improve it in the morning. That being said, there aren¡¯t any walls except for the side with the hill. Meaning there isn¡¯t anything to keep out the cold. Winter will last another three weeks or so, Jenna will freeze if there isn¡¯t any heat and I¡¯m wondering if she¡¯s going to develop some trauma about the cold. Luckily, on my several weeks of travel I actually found a good work around for this. I carefully put Jenna down, making sure the ground she¡¯s on isn¡¯t wet so it won¡¯t ruin her rag. Then I activate the skill [Melting Body]. My body quickly heats up to the point where any foliage that is unfortunate enough to be touching me would catch on fire, even if it was covered in snow. Once that skill is properly activated I activate another skill called [Chilling Touch] then my body cools down to a nice, toasty warm. To explain what I just did a little better, the skill [Melting Body] is a skill that heats up your body so that anyone touching you takes fire damage. On the other side, the skill [Chilling Touch] cools your body down so that anyone touching you will take cold damage. By activating the skills together, they cancel each other out. [Melting Body] is also further ahead on the skill evolution line than [Chilling Touch] so it makes my body temperature just warm enough to keep Jenna warm. Also I want to clarify that I have tried just using the weakest version of [Melting Body], but it ended up being too hot. These skills are the only ones that offer the ¡°golden mean¡± we want. With the preparations complete I pick up Jenna and sit down to sleep.
A week and a half later.
Ok, after continuously fucking up for a little over a week, I finally have a shack. Hold on, you don¡¯t look excited enough. It¡¯s a SHACK! IT¡¯S GOT FOUR WALLS! A ROOF! AND A DOOR! I¡¯ve got the basics down, now I just need to practice more and I¡¯ll be living in a fucking mansion. I am amazing at this.
Two days later
¡­ ¡­ ...The fucking shack collapsed¡­
Two weeks later.
After the untimely demise of the Thornwood Manor two weeks ago, I was able to rebuild my shack. It¡¯s studier this time, so it shouldn''t collapse. I¡¯ve gotten better at this construction thing as well. I think I¡¯ll start trying to add extra rooms. Actually, I need some real furniture. I¡¯ll be damned if I¡¯m making Jenna sleep on the ground longer than I absolutely have too.
Two months later.
Well now my good gents, The house is now at a point that I¡¯m satisfied with. I also want to burn it to the ground. I won¡¯t, that would defeat the purpose, but I don¡¯t think I can describe the frustration I felt while building this shithole. All I knew about construction before this is that there was this thing called a ¡°two by four¡± and that was somehow important. Now I had to deal with making sure the walls don¡¯t collapse, making sure the roof actually fits, and there was one time where I accidentally made a wall too short so I had to start over because I didn¡¯t want to awkwardly attach a bunch of spare wood. That being said, I¡¯m finally done so I¡¯ll give you a grand tour. Come on myself, which is who I¡¯m currently to, let¡¯s see my humble abode. Starting off we have the front lawn. We have mud instead of grass because its a swamp. Cutting through it and connecting to the door is a nice stone pathway I made out of rocks I destroyed. On the right side of the lawn there¡¯s and awesome looking tree that I assume Jenna will have fun climbing. For the actual front of the house there isn¡¯t really much to say. It¡¯s a basic rectangle with a pyramid roof. There¡¯s a door and a window next to it. Not exactly modern art. Heading in we have the living room. It¡¯s the biggest room in the house and it¡¯s got a table, some chairs, and a fireplace. I made the fireplace out of baked mud. I saw someone do it online once in my previous life and I think I copied it pretty well. Also I don¡¯t have a chimney, I just cut a hole in the wall to let the smoke out. On the opposite side of the fireplace we have the kitchen. It¡¯s really just a table and a pot I use for cooking but I do have an ice box. But that¡¯s just a wood box I lined with baked mud and I throw the [Ice Shard] skill in there to keep meat cold. The ice is actual ice so it won¡¯t disappear or anything because it¡¯s a skill. Now for the rest of the house, connecting from the living room there are three doors. One goes to my room. I have a bed, a table, and a chair. The door on the left of my room is Jenna¡¯s room. I really only have her bed in it because I don¡¯t know what she would want. I¡¯ll just ask her when she¡¯s able to talk. And the final door is the most important door of the bunch. It¡¯s the Bathroom. Very important, can¡¯t live without it. I wish I wasn¡¯t the only one here who knew how to use it.
Four Months Later.
¡°I think it¡¯s been long enough, I should be able to go into town.¡± I say aloud as I walk towards the town. I know I said I¡¯d be spending my time away from the village and let Jenna deal with all the social interaction but I have recently run into a very serious problem. I need food. Ok, I technically have food, but that¡¯s only the wild swamp boars and random foliage that doesn¡¯t taste poisonous. I have had wild boar for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the last FOUR MONTHS! I need to eat something else. I don¡¯t care what it is, the village should have some imports or something. With a hopeful attitude about me, I head into the village. I think the first thing I need to do is look for a bakery. I want some bread. Actually, since it¡¯s a bakery, they probably have rolls and cakes there too. But those seem pretty expensive. Actually, how much money do I have? As I look in my bag I quickly learn that checking my current financial standing is a bit of a mood dampener. The only thing in my wallet is 10 gold. I doubt I could buy some bread with that. Hell, I doubt I could buy anything short of a shit stained napkin with this. The taxes that got imposed a couple months ago are total bullshit and 10 gold wouldn¡¯t exactly go too far to begin with. Realizing my problem, I look around for some way I can make money. And by that I mean people to rob. I don¡¯t have anything I can sell and there¡¯s no way I¡¯m doing a hard days work only to be skimped. After looking for some people who look like they have a good amount of disposable income, I find my mark. The target is a tall, long red haired, assumably woman. She¡¯s not facing me and she¡¯s a little far away so I can¡¯t get too good of a look at her, but she¡¯s covered from head to toe in really fancy armor. Anyone wearing that, is totally loaded. Sneaking up closer to her I hear that she¡¯s actually talking to herself. Hello pot, you¡¯re a weirdo. ¡°... and that Hype bastard has to be somewhere¡­¡± she mumbled. Hype bastard? Hold on that¡¯s me! She¡¯s looking for me?! Her mumbles tell me she knows I faked my death! Oh god if she finds out I¡¯m here I might as well pave my driveway for the players to come kick my ass! Time to go home. Nothing else to do today. Bread? Don¡¯t know what you¡¯re talking about. I don¡¯t have any money and I¡¯m a model, upstanding citizen. Making sure I¡¯m not seen, I head home.
Three months later.
¡°Alright Jenna, we have a wide selection for dinner tonight. Do you want boar mush, or squirrel mush? They both have a different taste to them, and if you want my opinion, I¡¯d rather drag a running blender across my neck than have boar anymore than I already have.¡± I hold the two bottles in front of Jenna to emphasize the choice. Jenna stares at the bottles intensely for a while. I can tell she¡¯s having trouble deciding. Her eyes are darting between the two, probably in an attempt to figure out which taste she hates less. I really can¡¯t imagine she likes these that much anymore. I mean, all she¡¯s had since we moved here is either boar or squirrel. I wish I could provide better, but my more successful trips into town have shown that all we seem to have in this part of the country is boar and squirrel. ¡°Buh, buuuuh!¡± Jenna starts making noise as she points to the boar bottle. ¡°Really? Well if you want it.¡± I put the squirrel aside and begin feeding Jenna. ¡°I mean, don¡¯t you get sick of it? I know I do.¡± My question falls on deaf ears as Jenna greedily chugs the bottle.
Three months later.
¡°Come on you can do it! I believe in you!¡± I provide words of encouragement to Jenna from across the room. Jenna is currently stabilizing herself on a chair and she is looking very determined. We¡¯ve been working on this for over a week. Time, effort, and sheer will have been put into this endeavor. She¡¯s about a year old at this point, so she should be well in the margin to be able to walk. With fire in her eyes, Jenna lets go of the chair and places one of her feet in front of her. Then she moved her back foot forward. Repeating this set of steps, she made her way over to me. She started slowly, but begins to move faster. She¡¯s fuckin¡¯ doin¡¯ it! As she zooms past the three-fourths mark at max speed she trips and sends her giant head slamming into the floor. Oh shit! Is she ok? She¡¯s not moving or making any noise. ¡°Hey¡­ are you al-¡± ¡°aaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH¡± Ok, at least she¡¯s alive.
Four years later.
When you live alone out in the woods with no company but an infant, you get a lot of free time. I still have stuff to do, mind you. I mean, I have to make sure Jenna doesn¡¯t die of starvation or something. But I still have time to be lazy. The problem is that I¡¯m out in the woods. There¡¯s nothing to do. I don¡¯t have anything like a tv. Those things don¡¯t exist in this world. And considering the setting for this world is high fantasy, I¡¯m not sure that we¡¯d ever become advanced enough to ever even have tvs. Shame, I kinda wanted to see that Earth show, or at least the world wars. I¡¯m told those are the good bits. I thought about going into town but it¡¯s currently around 10:00 pm. Even if there was anything fun to do in that town none of it would be open. So I¡¯m just kinda sitting in the living room. I don¡¯t want to go to bed yet, but I¡¯m getting really bored. *CRASH* Oh look, something to do. As I get up from my chair, I think about the specifics of how I¡¯m going to reprimand this little gremlin. As I walk towards her room, I can hear her scurrying around. As I put my hand on the door handle, I can hear her throw herself onto her bed. As I open the door, I see the sight of a child, sound asleep. ¡°Jenna.¡± She¡¯s not moving, trying to keep up the act. Looking a little to the left, there¡¯s a table with a ball on it. Next to that, is a chair barely standing on three legs. Hidden under the chair is it¡¯s missing leg. ¡°Jenna, did you break the chair?¡± She flinches. If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. ¡°Jenna, did you break the chair after I told you to go to bed twice?¡± She didn¡¯t flinch that time, but I can tell she¡¯s nervous. I need to get her to drop the act. If I just say she¡¯s grounded and then leave, she could make the excuse that she was asleep. She has to know that I know she¡¯s grounded. It¡¯s a good thing I have a plan. ¡°I know you¡¯re awake. If you don¡¯t drop the act, you¡¯re grounded.¡± She flinches again, but she¡¯s not giving up. Time to pressure her. ¡°Jenna, if you don¡¯t admit you¡¯re awake by the count of five, you¡¯re grounded for three months.¡± I give that threat a second to sink in. Then I start counting. ¡°One. Tw-¡± ¡°ALRIGHT FINE!¡± She yells as her head rockets up from the pillow. I¡¯m actually kinda surprised. I thought she¡¯d run the counter down to see if I was bluffing or something. Instead she caved at two. But that¡¯s beside the point, she¡¯s dropped the act. Time to parent. ¡°Oh look, you¡¯re awake. Now we can discuss the chair you broke.¡± I look at Jenna with the disapproving parent glare. You know the one. ¡°I¡¯m sorry¡­¡± Jenna swiftly apologizes, but she refuses to look at me. She¡¯s clearly feeling guilt over it so it¡¯s fine I guess. ¡°Alright then, I accept your apology. It¡¯s only a chair anyways, but you¡¯re going to be the one who fixes it. Now that that¡¯s out of the way, why are you awake this late?¡± I didn¡¯t do that too quickly right? Should I have lectured her more? Ah, whatever. It¡¯ll only be a problem if she does it again. ¡°I couldn¡¯t sleep.¡± Jenna says, her guilt now seemingly non-existent. Insomnia huh, well she¡¯s five years old. She¡¯s got all that child energy in her. I¡¯m pretty sure this is normal. I guess I should do the usual remedy for this kind of thing. ¡°Well if you can¡¯t sleep, how about I tell you a story?¡± ¡°A story?¡± She asks. ¡°Yeah, I¡¯ll tell you a story until you get tired. It¡¯s a tried and true method.¡± I display confidence in the foolproof plan. ¡°Ok. Please tell me a story.¡± Now that I have the go ahead, I think of a story. Well, I try to think of a story. After a good thirty seconds of thinking I realize that I am unable to come up with an idea for anything original. That¡¯s fine though, I¡¯ll just rip something off. It has to be something I know by heart though, so I don¡¯t mess anything up. Alright, what¡¯s a story that I know by heart, and was really popular with kids back on Earth? Uuuuuuuuhhhhhhh¡­¡­ Wait I got it! ¡°Ok Jenna this one is pretty long so get ready.¡± I tell her as she moves under the covers. *Cough* I clear my throat. I need my singing voice for this. ¡°NAAAAANNNTSS INGONYYAAMAAA, BAGIBITHI BABA!¡±
Later that night.
¡°Jenna, I swear it all works out in the end. Please stop crying so I can finish the story.¡±
Two years later.
As I¡¯ve previously stated, I have a lot of free time out here. Normally, I¡¯d be able to fill my time with the responsibility of caring for Jenna. Unfortunately, Jenna has been going to school for the past week and a half. So now I have even less to do. I walked her to school and back the first week but after that she said she could do it herself. Me being a parent I secretly followed her but it seems that she was fine walking to and from school on her own so I¡¯m just letting her. Thus I¡¯m currently waiting for her to come back. Doing that means I¡¯m just sitting at the table letting my mind wander. I¡¯ve been doing it for a little over seven years so I end up going to some weird places. Recently though, I¡¯ve been thinking about Cordova from a gameplay perspective. Is there a time difference between Earth and here? Like, in some games a full day-night cycle only takes 20 minutes of real time. So would we be moving faster than Earth? If so, how would that work? If I live a full day in the time it takes a player from Earth to live 20 minutes, shouldn¡¯t I be zipping around at a thousand miles an hour from their perspective? Or is it going to be like one day here is one day there? If so, that could be really annoying to play. Speaking of playing, what about the music? If the game simulates reality, I understand if there isn¡¯t an overworld track that just plays all the time, but what about stuff like battle music? On that note, do I have a boss theme? Is it good? Would I be able to listen to it? Talking about bosses, what ARE the other bosses of the game like? I assume the head of each country would be one, also the most powerful demons, but is there anything else? Maybe Suriah, the war god. I mean, I¡¯d believe it if that shitty computer made a lesser god for the sole purpose of getting its face kicked in. On the note of A.S.C., why am I the only person here who knows who he is? No one else here has even heard of the name. He¡¯s this world¡¯s actual god. Why isn¡¯t he being worshiped? Is Suriah someone he made for the game or is she some other real god that he called in? I really don¡¯t know. As I¡¯m deep in my thoughts, the door opens. Jenna walks in and as soon as I look at her I rocket up from my chair, incredibly worried. For some fucking reason, she has a black eye and bruises all over her body. She¡¯s also crying. ¡°My god Jenna what happened to you?!¡± I scream as I run up and embrace her. She buries her head into my shoulder. I don¡¯t press her too much. I let her cry and get it all out. She ends up crying for a while. Once she calmed down, she explained that some of her schoolmates picked a fight with her and it didn¡¯t go in her favor. The long and short of the story is that she¡¯s being bullied. Now, I really want to go and deprive these children of their teeth, but they¡¯re only kids. If I go too far as a parent I could be chased out of town. So there¡¯s really only one thing I can do. ¡°Alright Jenna, you won¡¯t be going to school for a little while.¡± ¡°Ok ¡­ but why?¡± She asks through tear stained eyes. ¡°Because starting tomorrow, I¡¯m gonna teach you some self defense.¡±
The next day.
It¡¯s early morning as I stand in my front yard. The sun is just barely peeking over the horizon. I¡¯m waiting for Jenna. I told her to come out when she¡¯s ready, but if she didn¡¯t come out soon I¡¯d go in there and drag her out here. She needs to learn this stuff, the difference is that most kids start purposefully leveling around age ten, we¡¯re just doing it now. ¡°Hey dad?¡± Jenna calls for my attention as she comes out of the house. ¡°What is it?¡± ¡°Why don¡¯t we just tell their parents?¡± As she said this, I look to see how her eye is doing. It looks like the healing skill I used did it¡¯s job, but she¡¯s still squinting a little. I¡¯ll have to powerlevel some healing skills that work on people other than me. The woes of solo play. ¡°We could do that, but we won¡¯t. If we did, the most those kids would get is a lecture and a slap on the wrist. They wouldn¡¯t stop and the point of punishing them is to make them stop. We have to make sure that they won¡¯t do it again, and the best way to do that is to make an example out of them.¡± ¡°An example?¡± Jenna asks confused. ¡°Exactly. If they pick on you, and you beat them up until they cry, all the other kids will understand that if they mess with you they will be hurt. That would solve the root of the problem, as it would make kids afraid of bullying you. Revenge should be clever and brutal.¡± ¡°I¡­ I see, but how will I be able to beat them?¡± She doesn¡¯t seem confused anymore, but what¡¯s with that look in her eye? It looks like she just found the truth of the universe. Eh whatever. ¡°Well we¡¯re going to start by leveling you up a good bit. Then I¡¯ll teach you how to actually fight. But to know where we¡¯re going, we have to know where we are. So-¡± ¡°Wait, you''re not gonna make me fight you or something like in your stories right? Because this is normally the part where the mentor beats up the trainee to make a point.¡± She interrupts me with a nervous voice. I didn¡¯t think she¡¯d be able to recognize cliches like that. I may have been telling her too many things that are ripped straight from Earth. Well, nothing I can do about it now. ¡°No, calm down. I¡¯m just going to use the appraisal skill on you. I¡¯m only telling you before hand because it¡¯s your first time and you¡¯ll feel a little exposed while it happens but that¡¯s perfectly normal.¡± ¡°Oh...ok¡± After activating [Appraisal], I see Jenna''s character sheet. -------------------------------------------------- Jenna Duke Thornwood(Hype) Level: 2 Strength: 3 Dexterity: 3 Intelligence: 2 Vitality: 2 Constitution: 1 Wisdom: 2 Skills: [Sequel Secret] -------------------------------------------------- Her stats look pretty normal considering her level and age, but I don¡¯t like the look of that skill. ¡°Sequel Secret¡¯. Is that shitty computer planning to use my daughter the same way he¡¯s using me? That bastard¡­ Regardless, I can¡¯t do anything about that right now. But I swear I¡¯ll smash him in half the next time I see him. Using [Appraisal] again,I look at the skill. -------------------------------------------------- [Sequel Secret] Level: 10 Effect Type: Passive All experience gains are greatly increased, skills become easier to learn. -------------------------------------------------- Overall, it looks like a nerfed version of my skill. I¡¯m not happy she has this skill in the first place considering what having it means, but it does help with what we¡¯re doing. Leveling up in Cordova, at least for NPCs, is a ridiculously slow process. A normal person who doesn¡¯t grind at all would probably be level 6 by the time they die. A seasoned adventurer would be around level 35 in their prime. Someone who does absolutely nothing other than grind would most likely make it to level 80, assuming they live at least ninety years. The amount of experience needed to level up quadruples for every level. So while you only need ten experience to reach level 2, you would need forty to get to level 3, then one hundred sixty for level 4 and so on. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that most monsters rarely drop more than three experience at a time. By the time you¡¯re past level 25, you¡¯re lucky to level up once a year. Originally, I planned to have Jenna out of school for two weeks. Having her do nothing but kill the local wildlife to grind for the first week, then spending the next week teaching her how to fight. Without the skill, she would be lucky to reach halfway to level 4 by the end of the week. But since the skill is boosting her gains, reaching level 4 shouldn¡¯t be a problem. ¡°Ok Jenna, right now, our goal is to get you to level 4 by next monday.¡± ¡°WHAT?! There¡¯s no way I can do that!¡± Jenna is looking at me like I just told her to travel around the world in 40 days. ¡°Did you even look at your skill?¡± ¡°No¡­¡± ¡°Then do it.¡± Jenna looks down and after a couple of seconds an anxious look spreads across her face. Does she not like the skill? It¡¯s a lesser version of mine so it¡¯s not as good, but mine got me from level 2 to level 4 in a day so hers should be able to do that in a week. ¡°...How do I look at it?¡± She asks. ¡°Go crosseyed.¡± ¡°Thanks.¡± She stares at the ground for a moment. ¡°Ok I get it.¡± ¡°Great now, let¡¯s get started.¡±
The next day.
¡°Look! I leveled up!¡± Jenna excitedly exclaimed while standing over the corpse of a dead boar. ¡°R- really? That¡¯s great.¡± ¡°Come on, let¡¯s keep going!¡± She runs off to find more boars. I stand over the boar¡¯s corpse and look at Jenna¡¯s running figure. Jenna¡­ isn¡¯t this too fast? I didn¡¯t expect you to hit level 3 until tomorrow. You¡¯re covered in blood, shouldn¡¯t that bother you? Like, you could at least hide your excitement when you kill the boars, your only a kid. With worrying thoughts in my mind, I follow Jenna on her murder spree.
One week later.
¡°Jenna, before I teach you how to fight there¡¯s something I want to talk to you about.¡± I say as I sit Jenna down at the table. This has been a growing problem throughout the week. I need to have this conversation now, while she¡¯s young. ¡°What is it?¡± Her innocent expression shows that she has no idea that she might be a sociopath. ¡°While we were grinding up your level, I noticed that you extremely enjoyed the act of killing.¡± ¡°Yeah, raising my level was fun.¡± She responds with a big smile. It¡¯s cute but a little scary considering what she¡¯s saying. ¡°It¡¯s fine if you like raising your level, the problem is that the act of killing shouldn¡¯t be fun. Life is a precious thing. You only ever get one. The loss of it should be met with grief, not joy.¡± I tell her the point as cleanly as I could possibly make it. ¡°So killing all those boars was wrong? You were the one who told me to do it.¡± Why is she throwing blame around? That¡¯s not the point. ¡°No, it wasn¡¯t wrong. Hunting is an ok thing to do. What¡¯s not ok is hurting things simply because you enjoy it. Do you understand?¡± ¡°...I guess.¡± ¡°No, tell me ¡®Yes, I understand hurting people for fun is wrong.¡¯¡± I add a more forceful tone to the command. I need her to get this. ¡°Yes, I understand hurting people for fun is wrong.¡± ¡°Good.¡±
One week later.
¡°Ok Jenna today¡¯s the day. Are you ready?¡± I ask as she¡¯s by the door to leave. ¡°You bet I¡¯m ready.¡± She replies with an excited smile. ¡°Are you gonna make them stop bullying you!¡± ¡°You bet I will!¡± ¡°WHOSE ASSES ARE YOU GONNA KICK?!¡± ¡°THEIRS!¡± ¡°EXACTLY! NOW GET OUT THERE AND SHOW THEM WHAT FOR!¡± ¡°YES SIR!¡± Pumped out of her mind, Jenna runs off to school.
Later that day.
I¡¯m sitting at the table waiting for Jenna to get back. I¡¯m a little worried about how things will go down but she should be fine. Her little murder spree was terrifying but it got her to level 4 really quickly. Hell, she¡¯s a quarter of the way to level 5. I doubt there¡¯s any kids at that school above level 2. Well, at least in her grade. Even if a kid there is level 3 she should be able to deal with it, despite how unlikely that is.. Because leveling up is so slow in this game, your level has an incredible amount of weight in a fight. Every level up increases your stat total by 30 percent. Since you start with a total of 10 at level 1, Jenna has a total of 22, while everyone else has 13 or 17 at most. I also told her to put her points into strength and vitality so she can take more punches, knowing she might end up fighting multiple people. Skills are a different story though. She didn¡¯t learn any while grinding and I didn¡¯t make her grind any out. I thought that her experience boost would at least get her the [Punch] skill but I guess she didn¡¯t exactly meet the criteria somehow. Although in my opinion, that¡¯s for the best. She¡¯s still only a kid, she doesn¡¯t need any skills. As for the one week of training I gave her, it wasn¡¯t really anything formal. I told her how to make a proper guard and the basics of dodging, but I didn¡¯t tell her anything about offense. Well, I told her to go for the nuts but I thought that was obvious so it¡¯s a freebie. The point is I tried to not give her tools to hurt innocents. I grinded her up for self defense, not so her fists could register as lethal weapons. *CRASH* As I¡¯m thinking about how easy Jenna should have it, the door slams open to reveal none other than Jenna. I¡¯m incredibly worried about how her body is covered in bruises, how her mouth is bleeding, and her black eye is back, but she seems really happy. ¡°DAD I DID IT!¡± She screams as soon as she¡¯s in the door. ¡°You did?! That¡¯s great! But are you ok? You look hurt.¡± I get up from my chair to congratulate her as well as look at her wounds. ¡°No I¡¯m fine. Anyway, it was so cool! I was all like: ¡°POW¡±. And they were all like-¡± ¡°That¡¯s fantastic Jenna but you¡¯re covered in bruises. Go sit down and I¡¯ll fix you up. You can tell me all about while we do that." I interrupt her before she gets too excited. Her health is important. As I start using my newly power leveled [Greater Heal], Jenna tells me all about how she beat up a bunch of her classmates. ¡°...and then after that, this other kid with a bowl cut tries to come up and hit me from behind. Luckily I saw him so I tripped him and he fell down. Then I kicked him a couple of times for good measure.¡± She happily talks about how it started with two kids trying to pick on her, then when she stood up for herself, it escalated into what I can really only describe as a bar fight. ¡°Wow, so how many kids ended up joining the fight?¡± I ask as I finish healing her. ¡°Um¡­ I think six.¡± ¡°Aren¡¯t there only five other kids in your class?¡± I say confused. ¡°Yeah.¡± ¡°Then where¡¯d the other guy come from?¡± ¡°I think he was the bowl cut kid¡¯s big brother. He was a lot bigger than everyone else.¡± ¡°Wait so you beat up an older kid?!¡± ¡°Yeah.¡± ¡°That¡¯s awesome! Good job!¡± ¡°Hehe.¡± She beams with pride at the compliment. Oh god she¡¯s so cute. Probably not for those other kids she just beat up but it¡¯s adorable to me.
Three years later.
Well, this is it. Today¡¯s the day. The game is out. This morning when I woke up, there was a message in my stat screen. It read as follows. Hey Charlie! Or is it Reginald? You really change names a lot don¡¯t you. Anyway, I¡¯m giving you this message to tell you that as of today, the game is live. Isn¡¯t that great?! A lot of people, and by that I mean me, have worked really hard to make this possible and now all that work is bearing fruit. And don¡¯t worry about the sales, Cordova was the most popular game at E3 for the past three years and there were over 20 million preorders. Also, I noticed that you have some complaints about Jenna¡¯s future employment options. Don¡¯t worry about that. She¡¯s only slated to work in the sequel, and that¡¯s a long way away. Your Favorite Deity A.S.C. In all honesty, I really didn¡¯t expect him to tell me the game was out. Sure, he gave me the message about it 10 years ago, but I never got another notification after that. Not five years in advance, not one year in advance, not even one week in advance. How does telling me about it 10 years ahead of time then never again help? I was honestly really worried about this. Like for the past month I was paranoid about how the game might have been out and I really had no way of knowing. Thankfully I got that message. Regardless of how convenient the message was, did that shitty computer really just confirm that he was going to put Jenna in the same situation I¡¯m in and just handwave it? I swear to whatever other god that will listen; I will fucking break that bastard over my knee. Chapter 4: Half of a Flashback Jenna could not process what was happening. Actually, that was a lie. In truth, she technically could do it, but she just refused to. Doing so meant she would have to understand the full ramifications of this situation and how it would affect her life going forward. She did not want to do that. So she decided to keep staring blankly ahead. Unfortunately, as she continued to sit in the mud, the initial shock of the situation began to fade, and she began to think about her situation regardless. To keep her mind from the horrid thing called reality, she looked at her dad and forced her thoughts in his direction. Her dad was sitting next to her in the mud. Jenna noted that his pants were doing a much better job of hiding the mud stains considering that they were already brown to begin with. Her pants were also brown, but they were a much lighter shade. The mud would absolutely be noticeable. She wanted to change her pants, but this was her only pair now because- NO! I¡¯m not thinking about that! She halted her line of thinking and focused back on her dad. She couldn¡¯t really make out the condition of his coat, it was too dark. She could see his face though. She thought about how his jawline was a good bit less defined than it probably should be, considering that he was the strongest person she knew. After all, she was level 14 and he¡¯d wipe the floor with her every time she asked to fight him. She wondered what level he was, but everytime she asked he¡¯d say not to worry about it before laughing nervously. While thinking about his level, her attention was caught by his hair. She wondered what caught her attention as she didn¡¯t think his hair was anything fancy, but after looking at it for a second she realized it was because the light from the fire was reflecting off of his blond hair. Fire? Right, the house is on fire¡­ Wait THE HOUSE IS ON FIRE! THE HOUSE AND EVERYTHING IN IT ARE BURNING! MY BED IS ON FIRE, MY CLOTHES ARE ON FIRE, ALL OF MY STUFF IS ON FIRE! She screamed in her head as she accidentally acknowledged the problem. ¡°DAD THE HOUSE IS ON FIRE!!¡± She jolted up from her sitting position and yelled at her dad, hoping that he would do something. ¡°Yes¡­ It is¡­¡± He responded in a low, aggravated tone. ¡°WE HAVE TO DO SOMETHING! WE HAVE... to¡­¡± Her words trailed off as she stared at the house for a moment, then ran towards it. ¡°What do you think you¡¯re doing?¡± Her dad asked as he grabbed her arm. ¡°I¡¯M GOING IN THERE! WE HAVE TO BE ABLE TO SAVE SOMETHING BEFORE IT¡¯S BURNED RIGHT?!¡± She struggled against her dad¡¯s grip, but she couldn¡¯t break free. ¡°Jenna, we¡¯ve been staring at the house for a while. I¡¯m pretty sure we missed our chance. Besides, the walls are burning to nothing, I don¡¯t want the roof to collapse on you when you¡¯re in there.¡± Jenna felt his grip tighten. ¡°WHAT DO YOU MEAN?! THE ROOF IS STILL STANDING, WE HAVE TO HURRY AND-¡± She was cut off by a loud crash as the roof collapsed. Jenna stared at the house. She understood that if there was anything left, it was probably just crushed. ¡°Bu¡­ba...haa...¡± She muttered as she sunk to the ground with tears in her eyes. Her dad sat beside her and wrapped his arm around her shoulder. They sat like that for a while as she cried and the house burned. She just lost everything. Her bed, the clothes she forced her dad to buy, that really cool stick she didn¡¯t want to get rid of, it was all gone. ¡°Hey Jenna.¡± Her dad interrupted the silence. ¡°...yeah?¡± She absentmindedly responded. ¡°What did you do today?¡± ¡°What?¡± ¡°I want you to tell me everything you did today, in as much detail as possible.¡± He said looking her in the eye. ¡°Why¡­? You already know what happened.¡± ¡°Doesn''t matter. Just start talking and don¡¯t stop.¡± He firmly told her. ¡°Well¡­ When I woke up¡­¡±
Jenna was woken up by a bright light. After gorgily forcing her eyes open, she realized that it was morning, and the sun was shining through her window. Jenna stared at the window for a moment before orienting herself so she wouldn¡¯t be disturbed by the sun anymore and went back to sleep. After several blissful minutes, she heard her door open and felt dread wash over her. ¡°Ok Jenna, time to get up.¡± She heard the voice of a demon invading her paradise. Fortunately, Jenna understood that listening to demons was an action that would always blow up in the person¡¯s face. Her dad''s increasingly outlandish bedtime stories had told her so. Thus, she heeded her dad¡¯s warnings and continued sleeping. ¡°Listen Jenna, I know you don¡¯t exactly enjoy sitting in a room full of children doing their best to beat you up, but this is your last week of school. You really should go.¡± The demon attempted to use logic, but Jenna saw the logic as flawed. Why would the amount of school remaining be a good reason to attend? You wouldn¡¯t stand in the rain because it was going to stop in a few minutes, you would only go outside after it stopped. ¡°Jenna, I¡¯m warning you that if you don¡¯t get up we¡¯re going to have problems.¡± The demon spoke in it¡¯s infernal demon tongue. Jenna became afraid of these ¡°problems¡± that the demon was threatening her with. Her dad¡¯s stories said these problems could range from having her soul stolen, to becoming horribly deformed, or worst of all, being grounded. ¡°Alright then, get up or you¡¯re grounded.¡± The demon had cast his spell, there was no saving herself now. Jenna slowly and unwillingly got up from her bed. ¡°Great, I¡¯ll meet you at the table for breakfast.¡± The demon said with a smile as he closed the door so she could get dressed. In a morning haze, Jenna stumbled to her closet and started to pick out today''s outfit. After picking out a shirt that was colored a faded blue, she was unable to find a clean pair of pants. She had a couple skirts that were clean enough, but she had a rule not to wear skirts to school. The one time she did, she accidentally gave Ryan a show while she was slamming her foot onto his stupid bowl cut. Remembering the smug look on his face agitated her. As Jenna resolved to punt Ryan¡¯s head across the classroom today, she began digging through her closet to find a clean pair of pants. After looking for a good several minutes, she found a pair that was light brown, put them on, and went to eat breakfast. She opened the door to the main room of the house and saw her dad sitting at the table. He looked about as anxious as he was yesterday. Probably for the same reason as yesterday too, something he called ¡°adventuring season¡±. Where a bunch of money hungry adventurers would come into town to cause all sorts of problems and how she should absolutely stay away from them. Jenna was pretty certain that the concept was something he made up as some story to warn her about talking to strangers. Especially considering he¡¯s been going on about this for the last two months and the ¡°season¡± never seemed to end. Deciding that it wasn¡¯t worth thinking about anymore, she sat down and ate. Breakfast today was boar meat, her favorite. As she was eating, she remembered a question that was nagging at her mind for a while. ¡°What will I do after school?¡± She asked. ¡°What do you mean?¡± ¡°Well, this is the last week of my last year of school. After this most kids would help their parents with the family business, but¡­¡± Jenna looked at her dad with disapproving eyes. ¡°...nothing isn¡¯t a business.¡± ¡°Excuse me?!¡± Her dad looked baffled at the accusation. ¡°I mean, all I¡¯ve ever seen you do is sit in this house. You don¡¯t have a job, I¡¯ve asked around. You just sit in this house and do nothing. You¡¯re a deadbeat.¡± Jenna pressed her dad. ¡°I-I¡¯m no deadbeat! I¡¯ll have you know that before you were born I was an adventurer! And a pretty respectable one too!¡± He stammered in an attempt to defend himself. ¡°I know that, but that¡¯s before I was born right? We¡¯re talking about now.¡± ¡°I-... uh- I¡­¡± He couldn¡¯t think of anything he could say so he just stuttered for a few minutes. Jenna found the numerous expressions her dad cycled through hilarious. Starting with shock, then moving to slight panic, then settling on defeated embarrassment. She stifled a laugh as best she could. ¡°Look, we¡¯ll figure something out. In the meantime, go to school. You¡¯ll be late.¡± Her dad ended the conversation and forced her out the door.
As Jenna made her way through the swamp that was between the town and her house she kept an eye out for any local wildlife. Her routine only had her grinding after school but she didn¡¯t see the problem in killing any animals she just so happened to see on her way. Unfortunately the entire swamp seemed to have memorized the route she took because she could barely even hear any birds singing. There was no way she¡¯d get any experience like that, but as a silver lining, Jenna found it funny that the ecosystem had changed to accommodate her being a force of terror. In the end though, it didn¡¯t really make much of a difference if she could kill one or two odd boars that stumbled onto her path anyway. The amount of experience that they gave was so miniscule that she understood how fractions and percentages worked by the time she was level 7 without any input from something like a teacher. Thinking about how many more boars she¡¯d have to kill to make it to that ever so envied level up, the town came into view. If Jenna had to describe her opinion of the town in one word it would be ¡°annoying¡±. The choice of words mainly came from the fact that everyone she¡¯d ever talked to constantly said that they hated this place with a burning passion but no one ever seemed to leave. If they hated it so much why would they stay here? Was it because they had kids and were determined to make them live through the same torment they did? Was it because the area was relatively safe with the strongest monsters being level 3 boars? Maybe it was because the local lord, Baron Buttfuck as everyone called him, went insane 15 years ago and stopped making them pay taxes as well as let everyone get away with calling him that?If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. That ridiculous baron was another reason why she thought of the town as annoying. Everyone knows the man is crazy, why is he still in power? The man has perfectly good kids to do the job. One of them should have kicked him out years ago. When she asked her dad about it, he handwaved it saying: ¡°Jenna, every politician you¡¯ll ever meet is insane in one way or another. I think we¡¯re pretty lucky to have someone who¡¯s that bad at hiding it.¡± How was that supposed to explain it? Speaking of her dad, his opinion on the town genuinely confused her. Everytime she asked he¡¯d always go on a gigantic rant about how it¡¯s by far the worst place he had ever had the misfortune of living in and then spend about 20 minutes listing off reasons why the place sucked. The strangest part was after listing everything off he¡¯d go and call the place ¡°perfect¡± with this strange look on his face. She had stopped trying to understand it. Granted, she really had no right to complain, her daily underage grinding expeditions would have been stopped a long time ago if she lived anywhere else. She wasn¡¯t underage anymore though, so she decided to remove that from the small list of pros the town had as she made her way to the school. Jenna realized that something was wrong the moment she stepped near the school. She had expected today to be just like any other. One or two of her classmates would jump her as she came in, she¡¯d beat them up, then drag them into the building where she¡¯d use them as furniture in front of all the other kids who were still healing from when she beat them up the day before. Today however, there was no one here, no one she could see at least. She scanned her surroundings but couldn¡¯t find anything. Were they trying to ambush her? They¡¯ve done it before, and the idea that no one wanted to fight her was an impossibility. The school was so openly hostile to her that she was pretty sure beating her up was considered extra credit. Being as cautious as she could possibly be, which wasn¡¯t very much according to her dad, Jenna moved toward the entrance. By the time she made it to the door, she noticed that she didn¡¯t hear any noise coming from inside either. At this point, Jenna was on a hair trigger. This was clearly an ambush that had the entire school involved and was well planned enough to remain completely unseen to her. There was no alternative that she could see. That meant everyone was probably inside, set up in positions that would allow them to pelt her with a barrage of [Ember] or other easy to learn skills until she couldn¡¯t take anymore. In anticipation of fighting every student and teacher at the school, Jenna reminded herself of everything her dad taught her about combat. Go for the nuts. She repeated in her head. With her wealth of knowledge at the ready, she decided to forgo simply opening the door to the single classroom and bashed it down with her shoulder. As the door flew off of it¡¯s hinges, Jenna kept her momentum and launched herself though the air to dodge any rocks or projectile skills that could be thrown her way. When she landed, she kept her head down hoping that the confusion from the door being broken down would stop at least a couple of people from keeping track of her. Getting up from her crouched position, she grabbed onto two legs of a desk and began flailing it around, knocking the other desks around her into the air. Once she could no longer reach anymore desks to bat away, she grabbed one leg of the desk she was holding with both hands and swung it as hard as she possibly could in the direction she heard the most noise. She kept her grip on the leg so as the desk cracked like a whip the leg was ripped from the rest of the body and she now had a stick to fight the hoard of students with. After taking a fighting stance, she looked at her surroundings. To Jenna¡¯s surprise, she was the only one in the room. All she saw was the only classroom in the school with the door busted off its hinges and split down the middle from the impact, almost every desk in the room upturned and most of those broken in some way, and the chalkboard now had a desk with a missing leg stuck in it. Jenna lowered her stick and looked around again with a confused look on her face. The results of the investigation were the same as the last one: she was the only person in the room. Now how does that make sense? There has to be SOME kind of ambush right? I mean, we have school today. Where is everybody? She mentally asked herself. Jenna assumed that the rabbit hole went deeper. There was no way any of her peers would let her come to school without trying to take her out. They certainly had the motive for it. With her around grievous bodily harm was nothing but a part of the school experience, they obviously wanted her to stop. There was some kind of scheme here she wasn¡¯t seeing. In reality, school had been cancelled today because during yesterday¡¯s daily fight, Jenna had thrown her classmate, Ramiero, through the window of the school. While that normally would not cause school to be cancelled as it was a common occurrence, the teacher just so happened to be standing on the opposite side of the window. That night the teacher decided that their injuries were substantial enough to warrant a day off and spread the news throughout the town. Jenna, living outside of the town, was not privy to this information. Her lack of understanding combined with her belief that the school was gunning for her at every opportunity led Jenna to believe that she had somehow played into their hands. That she was doing exactly what they wanted her to do and they were somehow closer beating her. Jenna began pacing around the classroom, trying to figure out the scheme and who was spearheading it. Unfortunately for Jenna, she couldn¡¯t think of any of her classmates that could organize something this big. So she just paced around the room for a few minutes becoming more and more frustrated. After failing to not only pin the crime on anyone she knew but also figure out what the scheme was, Jenna decided to play it by ear. She confidently assumed the goal was to ambush her and that hadn¡¯t happened in the classroom. Therefore, it had to happen sometime later today. Deciding to take the challenge as it came, Jenna went crosseyed and looked at her stats to refresh her memory on all the tools at her disposal. -------------------------------------------------- Jenna Duke Thornwood Level: 14 Health Points: 110/110 Magic Points: 46/46 Strength: 82 Dexterity: 47 Intelligence: 22 Vitality: 86 Constitution: 60 Wisdom: 11 Skills: [Sequel Secret] [Jab] [Punch] [Kick] [Axe Kick] -------------------------------------------------- Jenna decided that doing so was a bad idea. Reminding herself that she had less skills than her classmates who were drastically lower leveled than her just put a damper on her mood. She really didn¡¯t understand it. The [Sequel Secret] skill was supposed to make her level up and get skills faster. While it certainly made her level up faster, it didn¡¯t do its job in the skill department. In fact, Jenna seemed to have more trouble getting skills than she should. No matter how many times she did the requirements to obtain a skill it just wouldn¡¯t work, but then she¡¯d get a skill at random times way later than she should have. It frustrated her, especially since her dad admitted that other people who are level 14 normally have at least 30 or 40 skills, yet here she was with as many as someone who was level 4. Jenna decided that she really shouldn¡¯t think about that or she¡¯d just put herself in a bad mood. She reaffirmed that she was really good at punching people for her age and moved on. With determination and the knowledge that an ambush could and would happen to her at some random time today, she left the classroom.
When Jenna left the school, she was at a loss for what to do next. Normally, after school she would go grinding until it was time for dinner, but because she was expecting an ambush at any moment, she was hesitant. While she said she would play it by ear, she understood that she should prepare at least a little bit. The last time they ambushed her she ended up cutting it really close. Because Jenna can¡¯t seem to learn any skills, she can really only punch and kick. While that means she¡¯s an absolute nightmare to deal with at close ranges, it also means she¡¯s a sitting duck otherwise. So her classmates all learned the [Ember] skill as a group and set up a firing line to take her out. Since [Ember] does 5 damage and there were six kids participating, it only took two volley¡¯s for her to understand she was in deep shit. She was able to close the distance in time, but the point had been made. With her previous near defeat and the knowledge that the entire school was in on it this time, she understood she needed information. How many people were participating? What skills did they have? Who was spearheading the plan? She decided that she should find the answer to at least one of these questions. Thus, she decided to loiter around town a bit. As Jenna walked down the Main Street, she kept her ear open for any passing conversations that might be about her. Unfortunately, not many people were standing around outside. Even more unfortunately, even less people were standing around outside and spouting important information for her to hear. Although, Jenna had to admit, if she were planning to ambush someone she wouldn¡¯t talk about it in public. It made sense that her opponents could understand that too. However, the lack of information given was all Jenna needed to figure some things out. If you were planning an ambush, you wouldn¡¯t talk about it. On the other side of that coin, if you weren¡¯t planning an ambush but people around you were, you¡¯d notice their strange behavior. Thus, you would say something like: ¡°Hey, what''s going on?¡± or ¡°Why are you so quiet?¡± Using that logic, if someone was talking about the obviously strange things going on, then they weren¡¯t in on the conspiracy. Therefore, anyone who was silent is guilty. By the time Jenna put all this together, she had completed a full lap around the town and was standing at the town entrance. So she tried to remember all the people she heard talking on her way there. Jenna thought for a moment. Then another. She reached a conclusion. No one was talking at all. EVERYONE IS IN ON IT! Jenna had assumed that the entire student body was part of the plan, and that was fine. She could manage that. The entire town rushing her at once? She¡¯d be dogpiled. There was no way. Most of the adults in the town were level 7 or 8, and the kids in her school were levels 3 to 6 thanks to her forcing them to defend themselves from her. Jenna¡¯s eyes darted over her shoulder. There was no one immediately behind her, but people were loitering outside of houses and shops on the side of the road. She knew they were watching her, waiting for the right moment. Jenna¡¯s stats alone were not enough. She needed more resources. She thought about going to her dad, but she doubted she could make it back to her house without being jumped on the way. She needed to find help now. At this very moment, before anyone could do anything else. But that was impossible. If everyone in town was currently working against her, she couldn¡¯t ask anyone for help. She doubted that anyone would help her even if they weren¡¯t in on it. Jenna could read the room. This was a hopeless situation. Her heart quickened and she felt the walls closing in. There has to be something I can do, right? I can¡¯t be totally hopeless¡­ right? I don¡¯t want to just sit here and wait to be ambushed. I have to think of something, I have- ¡°Excuse me little girl, is someth-¡± A voice came from behind her. ¡°SWEET MOTHER OF-¡± Startled, Jenna turned around and slammed her fist into the assailant, launching them back ten feet into a tree. After a loud and solid impact into the tree, the stranger let out a small groan of pain and slumped over. As the initial shock died down, Jenna took a look at her assailant. It was a very dirty looking man. He was covered head to toe in mud and he was wearing clothes that, while seemingly befitting of someone who did a lot traveling, were not well kept in the slightest. His shoes had holes in them, the arms on his coat were not the same length, and the knees on his pants were worn down. Looking at the man¡¯s poor wardrobe, Jenna realized that she did not recognise this man. Not a single bit. Jenna hadn¡¯t exactly memorized the name and face of every person in her little town, but she was absolutely certain that she had never seen this man before. That means that this man was from outside of her town. Which by extension meant that there was no possible way that he was in on the plot to ambush her. Which by further extension meant that she could force him to help her fight off the horde of people that were inevitably, 100 percent coming. Unfortunately, Jenna just launched the man into a tree. He might not be too keen on helping her. She had to do everything in her power to get him on her side. Jenna walked over to the broken man, crouched beside him, and, in the most innocent voice she could manage, she asked: ¡°Are you ok?¡± The man forced his eyes open and looked at Jenna with eyes that seethed hatred, letting his gaze answer the question for him. ¡°If that¡¯s a yes, then would you mind helping me out a bit? I¡¯m in a pickle right now and need all the extra firepower I can get. I can give you something nice if you help me.¡± While Jenna had already decided to ask the man for help, she felt compelled to offer a reward. She had never paid anyone for help before, instead letting the reward be: ¡°You get to keep your teeth today.¡± However today she offered something tangible, even though the reward had yet to be decided on. She justified it to herself as a way to make sure he would help her, but it still felt strange nonetheless. The man stared blankly in her general direction for a few seconds, as if thinking about something, then put on a strained smile and asked: ¡°Sure¡­ what¡¯s wrong?¡±