《Otherworld Women Are Scary》 v1c00 My sword and armor were still dripping with blood as I stood before the hall the so-called ¡°Demon King¡± resided in. I could always dispel and resummon them to fix that, but having a shiny weapon and armor would just look so out of place with my blood drenched hair. An outfit has to match, even at its worst. I pointedly ignored the fact that I was wearing glowing, translucent armor over jeans and a graphic t-shirt. I glanced over to Gloria in jealousy. As the mage in our two person party, her clothing was practically spotless. Either she would kill the monsters well before they were in range to splatter on her, or I would get in between her and the monsters, which led to the situation where we looked like complete opposites, me drenched in gore, her only lightly sweaty. I looked away, resisting the urge to say something that would send a death flag crashing down upon me, and did a quick check of my summoned weapon and armor. It was a habit purely out of nerves, as I would be able to sense it if there was anything wrong with them. I took a deep breath and opened the door to what would hopefully be the end of earth¡¯s troubles. Inside of the massive hall wasn¡¯t at all what I had been expecting. I¡¯d been picturing it as some sort of massive throne hall, maybe with a bunch of powerful monsters there as guards, but what I saw was vastly different. It looked like a massive ritual chamber. Magic circles were everywhere within it, dozens of them surrounding one large circle, in which the monster humanity had oh so originally decided to nickname ¡°The Demon King¡± sat. As we entered, he looked up to us, and began speaking in the same language the System had imprinted into our minds when it had arrived. ¡°I see that some more fools have come to their graves. Seems I¡¯m going to get some exercise.¡± He slowly stood up, and walked towards us, stopping about halfway to us. ¡°Come.¡±Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original. I obliged him. My sword swept out at him as I dashed forward, multiple spells flying from Gloria to bombard him. He went to block my blade with just his arm, and I grinned. He was surely expecting to be able to block my blade the way he could probably have blocked any of the bladed weapons we could currently make. Unluckily for him, mine was made out of pure, highly compressed mana. The expression he made as the blade sunk a good inch into the flesh he had been expecting to hold firm was priceless. After that, the fight devolved into him trying to dodge the assault of both Gloria and I while occasionally trying to land his own blows. He may have done much better, except Gloria quickly noticed that he couldn¡¯t actually move out of the large ritual circle, so the fight devolved from a dance, to me sitting back and protecting her as she spammed gigantic area of effect spells inside of it. It was at the very end I did something I really should not have. I got greedy. Diving in, my blade pierced into his battered body, straight through where his heart should be, and I released my control over my blade. It decompressed in a terribly explosive fashion, ripping his chest to shreds. The Demon King and I both stepped back as Gloria watched from the sidelines. I resummoned my sword and held it at the ready, feeling the strain as my mana dwindled to practically nothing, but not willing to risk being without a weapon, even if he was about to die. The Demon King coughed a bit, blood coming out. I was wondering how he was even able to do that considering his heart and lungs should have been utterly destroyed. He looked at me in disbelief, but it quickly transitioned into a look of madness. ¡°If I¡¯m going back to that damn place, I¡¯m bringing you with me!¡± he shouted, and an absolutely massive amount of mana began to swell, the ritual circles in the room beginning to glow. I started to run, but my legs were somehow stuck in place, feeling like they¡¯d been chained to the floor. The Demon King finally collapsed, but the glow only grew brighter, and I could feel this bizarre sensation of separating from myself. Figuring there was no reason to avoid the death flag at this point, I turned to Gloria, seeing her running towards me, casting all the healing and curative magic she knew. ¡°Gloria. I love you.¡± I saw her face morph into shock, and then into sorrow before she replied. ¡°I¡­ I¡¯m sorry, I only see you as a friend.¡± I wasn¡¯t sure if I should laugh or cry as I felt the last tether to my body snap, and everything went black. v1c01 The first thing I felt when sensations came back to me was that I seemed to be surrounded by some sort of liquid. I was instantly reminded of the reincarnation stories that started with the main character being born, but I soon realized that I wasn¡¯t constrained in any way, and I could open my eyes just fine to see myself in some sort of reddish liquid, a sun visibly shining through it up above me. The sensation of breathing liquid was quite disturbing, but I before I even got used to it, the changes began happening. At first, it was just me knowing things I didn¡¯t know before, an unknown language seemingly slithering into my mind, a concept I¡¯d never heard of before, geography of a world unknown to me. I wasn¡¯t sure how long I floated in that red liquid, but eventually the knowledge came to stop, and I noticed my body had gone from the childish one it was to much larger. I wouldn¡¯t be able to guess what my age would be was without a mirror, but I was clearly as developed as my late teens rather than the childish body I¡¯d had at the beginning. I would be wondering what the hell had happened if the new knowledge hadn¡¯t provided an answer. I was an unwanted child, thrown in the spawning pool. Spawning pools were an interesting system the Ruk had developed to deal with children whose parents didn¡¯t want to raise them. In a matter of weeks, a newborn would not only grow to a late teen, they would also be imparted all the knowledge they would need to be a productive member of society through information hundreds of Ruk had poured into the pools. It was strange, understanding things I never had, but I supposed that it wouldn¡¯t be as odd for a blank slate, I simply had memories of my own. I was terribly thankful that the pool had only imparted knowledge, if it had placed memories or god forbid, a full lifetime, I wasn¡¯t sure I would have been me anymore. It wasn¡¯t long after that I saw what seemed to be a net approaching, and then I was fished out of the red fluid. The first thing I did when I was dragged onto the boat was cough my lungs out, getting rid of the reddish fluid that had permeated them, and took my first breath of the air in a different world. Once I was done with my imitation of an asthmatic smoker, I looked around the boat that had fished me out. It was very wide and long, seeming more like a large raft rather than an actual boat, and there were quite a few others who were coated in the fluid from the spawning pool, none of them looking confused about what was happening. We sat there in silence as the boat finished collecting its passengers, and I looked around to see a bunch of other spawning pools, each with their own boat collecting the abandoned. Looking down, I saw that I didn¡¯t match the rest of the Ruk on the boat. Where they had red skin, mine was a pale, almost alabaster white. Reaching up, I noticed that I still had the horns of the Ruk, I just lacked the skin color, and running my mind through my new knowledge quickly supplied an answer, I wasn¡¯t a full Ruk, I was half human. I grimaced, half breeds tended to be looked down upon in Ruk society, treated merely as tools. They tended to be referred to by what my brain instantly translated to as incubi and succubi. We could breed with both humanity and demons, the race of the children taking the race of the other parent, and our children would be born in less than three months rather than the normal nine for humanity or fourteen for Ruk. Aside from that, we had a serious reputation for sleeping around, though I wasn¡¯t sure if the stereotype was particularly accurate. The Ruk tended to treat us as nothing more than tools to be used to repopulate their limited population, and I quickly made up my mind to run away before they decided to throw me in one of the breeding houses. Deciding that it would be better to mentally refer to the Ruk with the same term humanity on this world used to describe them, demons, at least mentally, I combed through my brain on what was going to happen to us. We were going to be trained for a while, to get our stats up to the point they would be at if we weren¡¯t raised through the spawning pool, then leveled up for a while so we wouldn¡¯t be completely useless. I smacked my forehead, getting some odd looks from the other passengers. My stats! I instantly focused my mind on pulling up my stat sheet, and it appeared before me in all it¡¯s misery. Name: N/A Titles: Otherworlder Level: 1 Strength: 13 Dexterity: 10 Wisdom: 22 Constitution: 12 Skills Mana Constructs - Master Light Magic - Early Journeyman Swordsmanship - Early Master Illusion Magic - Journeyman I let out a sigh, my prided level ninety-nine was gone. Not only that, my stats were horribly low for an incubus, even though we tended to be a bit weaker than a full blooded demon. It was an unfortunate side effect from being raised with a spawning pool, a problem would be fixed by our trainer soon enough. At least I got to keep my skills, and even got a new one, an instinctive knowledge of illusion magic that came with being a halfblood. Plus, my wisdom was far higher than it should be, considering that the average wisdom for a demon was seven. Incubi and succubi tended to be a bit higher, around fifteen, but I was still well above that. Contrary to its name, the wisdom stat affected only mana pool and to a lesser extent mana regeneration. I¡¯d held out hope that I would become smarter when I put points into it when the System had been activated on earth, but had been horribly disappointed.The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. The boat ride soon ended, and we were shepherded to a large clearing. I finally looked properly at the people who had been getting us out of the spawning pools, and recoiled a bit. They were all muscle monsters. I¡¯d heard the phrase ¡°had muscles on their muscles¡±, but I¡¯d never seen anyone that actually fit that description before. These demons instantly overturned my lack of knowledge, and I shivered as I realized through my new knowledge that this was normal for demons. And they were going to try and train us to be the same! I gulped, and realized I had to get out of here even sooner than I¡¯d expected. I refused to be a muscle monster! I looked around, and saw yet another muscle monster waiting for all of us as our guides had us line up before it. It was definitely an it. While I¡¯d thought the muscle monsters around us were bad, this thing had to be well over seven feet tall, and made bodybuilders on earth look like anorexic coke addicts. It shouted out a loud ¡°Salute!¡±, and I raised my left hand formed into a fist over my chest as my mind said was the correct response before nearly falling down. I took a closer look at the new muscle monster and paled. That voice had been terribly high pitched, and my closer look terrified me. The new muscle monster was female. Running through my mind, I realized that this was normal for the demons. They were strength obsessed nutjobs, both male and female, and thus would build up their bodies to ridiculous proportions. I paled as a realization hit me. They were going to throw me into a breeding house to mate with those¡­ things. Escape had quickly gone from a need, to a NEED. I wasn¡¯t going to get any chance to escape for now at least, so for now I would bide my time, praying that these horrors would let me save my new bodies chastity until I could get away. Looking around at the people who had guided us here, I saw that around seventy percent of them were ¡°female¡±. The muscle monster was droning on about how strength is everything as my thought drowned her out until she turned to me, the only incubus in the group. ¡°And you, you need to grow quite a bit stronger if you want to survive the breeding house, so I¡¯ll be sure to give you plenty of ¡®special¡¯ attention.¡± I may have whimpered a bit. We were then herded along a path, and we ended up at a large field filled with logs. ¡°What you¡¯re going to do here is simple. We don¡¯t have enough time to build you up to what a proper demon should be, but we can get you started. NOW START DRAGGING.¡± All of us freshly grown demons listened to her, and each grabbed a log, dragging it from one side of the field, to the other, then back. Looking over, I saw the prime muscle monster carrying for or five of them, running back and forth on the field while she watched us. She didn¡¯t bother berating us, simply watched us to make sure none of us went past the point of exhaustion, expecting that the relatively fresh slates that the rest of the group were to simply work until we collapsed. After a while, the first person collapsed, and surprisingly, it wasn¡¯t me. At that point, prime muscle monster, whose name I hadn¡¯t been paying attention to when she introduced herself, practically, and in one case literally forced us to take a break and eat a ton of food. The days continued in a similar manner, until most of us had around twenty points in strength, with me sitting at a ¡°measly¡± seventeen. Considering that the average baseline in my old world had been around nine in every stat, I was doing quite well for myself. We weren¡¯t at bodybuilder status, and wouldn¡¯t be until our base strength stat showed us about thirty five, but we weren¡¯t emaciated looking anymore, all of us having solid definition in our muscles. I¡¯d been worried the entire time for my chastity, but aside from quite a few slaps on the ass by the other pool spawned, I was safe for now. The prime muscle monster, who I could now refer to as Sienna, gathered us all up once we got to that point. ¡°Now that you are slightly less disappointing demons, we can give you names.¡± She quickly went through us, and gave me the name Ten. I winced a bit, it wasn¡¯t an uncommon name for demons, but considering it was a number in my native tongue, I was a bit annoyed. Seeing as how we were abandoned, none of us had any surname, and would only be given one if we managed to do something to impress someone powerful. After our very short naming ceremony, Sienna stuffed all of us on carts, and brought us to a forest. Once we arrived, we were given rudimentary weapons, and told to go into the forest to hunt. No training, no explanation on how to use them, just let go and told to hunt and not come back unless we hit level ten. I must have had a confused face on, because prime muscle monster turned to me and yelled at me to get going. I quickly obliged, trying to hide a grin as we were left completely unsupervised. Escaping was going to be way easier than I had expected. As I wandered through the forest, I wondered for a bit at why they would just let us go like that, but realized that I would be the only one to even consider escaping, seeing as how I was the only one who wasn¡¯t simply a pure product of the breeding pools. As I wandered the beginners forest, I idly chopped any of the really, really weak monsters that decided they wanted to bug me, my high stats and skills with a sword making short work of the small green humanoids and rabbits with horns, which were probably intentionally raised here for new demons to level with. As I continued, I noted that there were others here, but they all seemed to be children, and they would group up and mob any the small green humanoids I mentally referred to as goblins they came across. I was even able to bribe one of them with some rabbit I¡¯d cooked up to get information on where I was in Delfin, the country of demons. This forest was almost smack dab in the center of the country, and it was a good five hundred miles to the nearest border. I shrugged, I¡¯d had enough experience after earth went to hell in surviving off the land, so I would be fine getting away. Once I was in an area that didn¡¯t have anyone nearby, at least not that I noticed, I decided to try out my illusion magic. It was easy, far easier than it should have been, feeling like it was simply another limb that I hadn¡¯t used before, and I soon looked like one of the children who were hunting in the forest. Towards the end of the day, I followed the rest of the children out, and to a town built on the outskirts which was there to make sure the goblin population stayed within a healthy amount to train kids and those of us from the spawning pool. Arriving at the town, there was no checkpoint of any kind, the only wall being a pitiful little palisade, and I simply walked in, found a deserted alley, changed my illusion to an average looking adult demon, and walked out, leaving the town with a different look than I had entered. The days passed in a relaxing manner, hunting monsters on a regular basis, and with the constant rain which apparently was common for this time of year, water was no issue. I collected any monster hides and furs that would be worth something, and whenever I would stop by a town I would sell them. In this manner I managed to collect a bit of change, a few changes of clothing, and necessities for travel by doing so. The monetary system made me groan with how stereotypical it was, ten copper to a large copper, ten large copper to a silver, and ten silvers to a gold. The coins themselves were quite nice though, they had a hole in the center, and would be hung on a string to be carried around easily. They had a beautiful magic circle on them which would glow with a multicolored light when exposed to these sticks people would use to confirm they were real. As I got closer to the border, the human population increased, which I thought was interesting considering that they were supposedly at war with Delfin. There would be large caravans of human traders coming from Eln, completely ignoring the fact that there were constant skirmishes between Eln and Delfin. I quickly realized that the demons seemed to treat the skirmishes as a sport rather than an actual war after hanging around a few taverns. People would bet on how each skirmish would go, and on how many people this or that demon would kill this time. With all the monsters I¡¯d hunted for food along the way, I managed to hit level fourteen by the time I got to the border, and I¡¯d put one point into every stat except wisdom per level, which had gotten two. I was planning on getting that up to fifty before I switched to putting the extra point into dexterity, as I needed a decent mana pool to be able to make a proper weapon with my mana construct skill. Illusion magic on the other hand took practically no mana to maintain once it was cast, and I literally had it kept up of all hours of the day. I got to the border, which only had a checkpoint, as the demons didn¡¯t bother killing defenseless people or raiding, they didn¡¯t find any fun in fighting people who weren¡¯t there to fight. They would never invade, just sent armies out to fight those sent into their territory because they liked the contest of strength. Shaking my head at how odd it was that the so called demons were the peaceful ones, I passed through the checkpoint with a simple illusion making me seem human, and then had a thought. ¡®What the fuck do I do now?¡¯ v1c02 Eventually, I decided that my best bet was to simply find a town and ask around for what I could do for some work. Looking up at the sun that was about to set though, the first thing I was going to do was set up camp. I stepped off the road, searching for an elevated patch of ground in case it rained, then set up my simple tent, basically just a waterproofed piece of cloth that I could prop up with some sticks or a piece of rope, and hunted one of the horned rabbits that seemed to be everywhere for a meal before I went to sleep. I woke up not long after dawn, and packed up my sorry excuse for a tent before heading back to the road. I was quite annoyed with my non waterproof boots as I did so, as it had rained again overnight, but the small water catcher I¡¯d made meant that my water pouch was filled up. I wasn¡¯t a big fan of the water pouch, as it made the water taste funny, but I couldn¡¯t find a proper canteen at any of the stores, and rationalized that any canteen they could make with current technology in this world would probably impart a different annoying flavor to the water. The road itself was actually quite nice, and likely made with earth magic of some kind. It was one continuous strip of a flecked grey stone, with a very slight grade in it to make the water pour off of it. I walked all on my lonesome, which was quite unusual. Almost every other traveler that I saw was in a group of some kind, some groups riding on horses, others with carriages, but I only saw a few groups that were traveling on foot. I rationalized away that most lone travelers weren¡¯t going to be crossing the border over to Delfin, and then proceeded to try and come up with other possibilities to entertain myself on my boring walk. I noticed that the traveling groups were using the language that the System imparted to us, unlike the demons, who used their own. I wasn¡¯t sure if it was simply cultural, or if there was a different reason for it. A few days passed in the same manner, and I was running dangerously low on my horrible cracker like rations and dried fruits when I arrived at the first town I had seen in Eln. The first signs of civilization were massive plots of farmland, dark green stalks of this world¡¯s equivalent of wheat waving in the breeze. It took me most of a day to get past the farms to the city proper. On the bright side, I was able to purchase some fresh vegetables from one of the small farms I passed from a cheerful old man, and ended up making a stew with one of the horned rabbits that lived in between plots of farmland. Once I arrived at civilization proper, I was a bit shocked at how large it was. It would likely take most of a day to get from one end to the other, and there weren¡¯t any walls, which wasn¡¯t particularly surprising considering the tendency demons had of not invading anyone. The city wasn¡¯t anywhere near a border with one of the other human countries, so it wouldn¡¯t need to hold up under siege from any of them either. I shook my head, it was still odd to know the general geography of all the nearby countries without having had to learn it properly. Once I arrived at the city proper, I finally started to notice something odd. It seemed like a good seventy percent of all the people I passed were females. Running through my new knowledge, I realized something interesting, it seems that for all the different races, females were a significantly larger portion of the population than males. I hadn¡¯t really noticed it while I was in Delfin, but that was likely because, well, muscles. At least the females here looked normal, though open carry weapons were quite common, likely because you always had to deal with those stupid bunnies who would try and impale you with their horn whenever you went outside the city. I wandered the well designed streets for a while, surprised at how organized the city seemed, straight roads with road signs, and brightly painted buildings everywhere catching my eyes. After a bit, I found a dark green building that had ¡°Joenn¡¯s Tavern¡± written on its side, along with a big picture of a foaming mug. Figuring that fiction on earth could never go wrong, it would be the perfect place to gather information. Walking in, I was hit with the smell of smoke and alcohol. Smoking on earth had seen a massive resurgence once healing magic had been shown to cure cancer, so I wasn¡¯t surprised to see it was common here. If you went in to get a heal for something like a common cold, it would also cure any damage that smoking had caused. Healing magic worked in an interesting way, it put the body back to its most ideal state, simply requiring more mana the worse the damage was. With enough time and mana, even missing limbs could be healed. It also had the side effect of everyone having perfect teeth. Ignoring the smoke and chatter from the other patrons, I went up to the bar, a solid slab of wood coated in rings from the countless mugs of beer that had sat upon it, and got myself drink, handing over two of my coppers in return. Deciding to get some information on what I could do, I handed over a few more before starting my questioning. ¡°Any ideas where I could get some work? I can¡¯t do much but fight, but I can do that pretty well.¡± The short, dark skinned woman, likely Joenn, looked me up and down, likely questioning my ability to do anything. I¡¯d put on a decent amount of muscle, but I still wasn¡¯t built too largely, and seeing as how I was hiding my horns and slit pupils with my illusion magic, she was likely assuming I was a bit weaker than I was. ¡°Well assuming a pretty boy like you can actually fight, you could either join the army or go work for the hunters guild.¡± ¡°Hunters guild?¡± She looked at me funny, and I figured I probably came across as either completely clueless or a foreigner of some kind. My knowledge came with no information on the hunters guild, and apparently it was a well known organization. ¡°Yeah, you join, take a short test, and if you pass they¡¯ll contact you whenever they get a request to take out some monsters. Get to be a higher level and you¡¯ll get better pay.¡± I nodded, it sounded like what I was looking for. It sounded more like a temp agency than the adventurers guild I was used to from the fiction I¡¯d read back on earth, but it would hopefully pull in enough money to make a living. I asked for directions, then finished my beer, leaving a tip on the counter. I¡¯m pretty sure I heard a ¡°Pretty boy is going to get eaten up¡± from her as I left, but decided to ignore the comment. I followed the directions she had given me, and soon arrived at a massive complex of buildings. This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience. Walking inside the main building, it looked more like a bank than the stereotypical adventurers guild that I¡¯d been sort of expecting, one large line trailing through a roped off section to keep the line from getting out of check, leading to a large counter that had dividers to keep each person¡¯s business relatively private. Getting in the back of the line, I looked around. There was only one other person in the thirty or so people in line that was male, and he was built like a truck, in sharp contrast to my reasonably muscled frame. None of the women seemed to be ridiculously built like those of the demon race, but they all looked terribly athletic. A quick run through my knowledge let me know that females in this world were naturally stronger than men, and so most occupations that required fighting, or even physical labor were taken up by them. While that gap could be closed by training, and men generally weren¡¯t discriminated against like women had been on earth for much of our history, males tended to take up jobs like merchants or storekeepers rather than the more physical ones. Eventually I got to the front of the line, and went up to one of the men lining the counter. He asked me a few questions, such as my level, age, name, and skills. He filled out a form, then had me step out to a small training yard for a test of my fighting ability. The training ground itself was quite large, with dummies people were hitting, what looked like a rudimentary weight section, and a small track where the ground was visibly more beaten down for people to run in. When we arrived, he grabbed one of the women there, a blonde woman even taller than I, and from comparing my height to my previous life, I was a good six foot two. He talked to her for a bit. She walked over before looking at me with a bored expression. ¡°Well let¡¯s see if a small little boy like you actually knows how to fight.¡± I ignored the jab, and was passed a wooden training sword. I declined the offer of a shield, and took up a ready position. Shields generally weren¡¯t used much when fighting monsters, as it was better to have both hands on it to use more force to cut through the tougher monster¡¯s hides, so I took up a stance, crouched down a bit to stabilize my center of gravity, and waited for her to come to me. She started off terribly easy, and I easily handled the slow blows. She slowly ramped up the difficulty until I started breathing hard, and eventually she got fast enough that I couldn¡¯t keep up whatsoever. I leaned back against one of the training dummies as I took a deep drink from my water skin. ¡°Seems you actually know what you¡¯re doing.¡± She turned to the man who had brought me out here, and told him to mark me down as a silver level. The man then prompted me to follow him again, and he informed me that I could either find a place of residence and inform the guild, or stay for free at the hunter¡¯s guild to be on call at any time. Seeing as how I was quite poor at the moment, I decided to stay there. The man who had been leading me around brought me to a room, and we opened the door to see a woman taking off her shirt. I slammed the door closed and looked to the man, but he just looked at me funny. Not long after, the door was opened by said women, who had a grin on her face. ¡°What¡¯s the matter? Didn¡¯t like what you saw?¡± I turned a bit red before replying. ¡°They, uh, didn¡¯t tell me the dorms would be co-ed.¡± She laughed. ¡°Well you¡¯re going to have to get used to it. It¡¯ll be nice having someone else be the newbie. So what did they rank you as?¡± ¡°Silver.¡± Her eyes widened for a bit as she looked me up and down. ¡°Surprising.¡± I shrugged. My build wasn¡¯t even purely physical focused, but considering most builds were pretty even, I wasn¡¯t too far behind for my level in stats. If you built purely for strength, you couldn¡¯t keep up with people with higher dexterity. If you built purely for dexterity, you couldn¡¯t hurt people with high constitution. If you built purely for constitution, you couldn¡¯t hurt anything. The only exceptions were if you had a really, really good weapon. The only ones who would go a pure build were mages, as they only had to cast big spells from a distance. I would be losing a bit from putting some points into wisdom, but my mana construct skill would give me a very, very sharp weapon and very solid armor, so I would still be able to hurt things, and my sword skills would keep me alive versus anything or anyone that wasn¡¯t too high above me in stats. I shrugged at her comment, it was getting a bit annoying being looked down upon. She soon let me into the room, and I ended up with the top left bunk, as the both beds of the right bunk bed were taken, and the girl, who had introduced herself as Kara, would be taking the bottom bunk of the left. The room itself was a small little thing, holding nothing more than a bunk bed to the left and right, with trunks sitting at either end of the beds. Everything in the room was made of a dark red wood, which made sense considering how many forests were nearby. If plant growth was as ridiculously fast as it had been on earth after the System appeared, it would be basically impossible to deforest anything, so wood would be a very popular resource. Once I was done, I took a good look at Kara considering I had been a bit too distracted to get a good look at her when I first opened the door. She had blue eyes, and strikingly red curly hair which was cut short. She wasn¡¯t what I would consider beautiful, but she wasn¡¯t ugly either, her plain face in stark contrast to her eyes and hair. I put my stuff in one of the ridiculously heavy looking trunks at the base of the bed, and was given an old fashioned skeleton key to it by the man who had brought me here. Figuring I had nothing to do for now, I decided to ask Kara what exactly we would be doing until we got a mission to do. ¡°Well we get three meals a day at the mess hall, I¡¯ll show you where it is in a bit. Other than that, the only real thing to do is training or doing whatever you want around the city. Most jobs are going to take a few days to even get to the job site, so waiting a day for the hunter assigned to it isn¡¯t going to hurt too much.¡± ¡°So what exactly are the jobs going to be?¡± ¡°Usually monster extermination requests. For the easier ones, if a herd of horned rabbits or a horde of goblins show up, they¡¯ll assign a few hunters to go clear them out before they cause much damage. For big cities like this, the army will clear out any monsters nearby on a regular basis to train up their troops, so there¡¯s not much actual work. We usually get sent to outlying towns and villages to deal with problems for them. It¡¯s a lot easier for them to hire a few hunters rather than petition the government and maybe get a response. The hunters guild is subsidized by the government anyway. Then there are the people who hire hunters for rare materials like chimaera bones.¡± I nodded, it seemed to be pretty similar to what I¡¯d expected. After a bit more discussion, Kara brought me to the mess hall for some dinner. The mess hall was much closer to the stereotypical adventurers guild than the building I had first entered was, tens of tables scattered across the room in no discernable pattern, with hunters throwing back mugs of what was likely some alcoholic beverage. It was terribly loud as well, filled with laughter and discussion. Kara led me to the end of the room, weaving through the tables, to get a bowl of some mystery stew. The stew was surprisingly delicious, with lots of meat I recognized as the meat from the horned rabbits, with some sort of pepper giving a kick to that and some vegetables I only recognize because of the knowledge from the spawning pool. Once we were finished with our meal, me taking two bowls and Kara four, we both settled down for the night, and I was introduced to Lira and Erin, the other two who would be rooming with us. The looks they gave me would have made me a lot more worried if they weren¡¯t so attractive, but as it was, I was practically preening at the attention. Lira was a beautiful girl who I estimated at five foot nine, with hazel eyes and light brown hair, while Erin was a short girl, maybe a hair over five feet, with dirty blonde hair and pale green eyes. A couple days passed with me spending most of my time at the training grounds working mainly to raise my dexterity, as they had completely neglected any sort of dexterity training when I was doing the demon¡¯s training. I hadn¡¯t managed to raise it a single point by the time I was handed a mission. I was told to go to a meeting room, and when I arrived, there were five other hunters, with the man who had guided me around standing at the front of the room, which contained a large table in the center of it, seeming like a meeting room from earth. He gave a short rundown of the situation. A town called Haven had been facing regular goblin attacks. While your average adult could fight a goblin one on one, one of their people had seen a large gathering of them, and so they had sent in a mission request to have them hunted down. After he had finished talking, I was introduced to the mission mates I didn¡¯t know, as one of which was my roommate Lira. The others were all female, which was no surprise, and it wasn¡¯t long before we were on the road to the small town of Haven. v1c03 We were soon on the road, and I learned that Lira was the only other silver ranked in the group, and she was a low silver rank. I was informed that for missions like this, they would mainly use copper rank adventurers, only sending a silver rank or two in case anything bad happened. I was likely assigned to this as an easy starting mission, as I was a complete beginner when it came to hunter work. The four copper rank adventurers were named Kell, Syn, Nera, and Jen, all of them with matching brown hair, though their eyes ranged from plain brown to a striking silver on Jen. As the days passed, I learned that Lira absolutely loved raunchy jokes, constantly trying to make anything she could into an innuendo. The others had the decency to look embarrassed or resigned, but a few of them did make all of us laugh, so it wasn¡¯t all bad. After a few days of talking to each other, Lira started to make comments about visiting my tent at night, but was obviously doing it in a joking manner, which was a bit disappointing to be honest. It took us around a week to arrive at the small town. As we walked through the farmland, everything seemed completely deserted, lending an eerie atmosphere to the trek. I was starting to jump at every noise, the wind through the fields of grain sounding like whispers, and got laughed at when I panicked a bit when a horned rabbit popped out of nowhere. I made sure to get my revenge on said bunny, but I had to deal with constant teasing for the rest of the day. Once we got a bit closer, we faced a few goblin attacks, which wasn¡¯t too surprising, but they were only in groups of five to six, so it wasn¡¯t an issue for us to eliminate them quickly. Once we got to the main part of town, I saw that it had a pretty rudimentary wooden wall, with a surprising amount of people patrolling on top of it. I was wondering what was going on as we arrived at the gate, when we were hailed by a guard standing on the wall above us. ¡°It¡¯s not safe out there, hurry in!¡± I shared a bit of a worried look with the others in my group. A relatively small group of goblins shouldn¡¯t be causing this much of an issue. We¡¯d come expecting a group of maybe forty, and while that would still be enough to pause work on the farms, it shouldn¡¯t lead to the amount of worry the guard had shown. We got in, and the guard who had hailed us came down to talk to us. As she took off her helmet, I saw she was cute, with a round face one would expect to see on a bookworm, not on a guard. ¡°So what are travelers coming here for? We¡¯ve been having quite the goblin problem, so it isn¡¯t exactly safe nearby¡± Lira took the lead, taking out her guild card from beneath her shirt. ¡°We¡¯re from the hunters guild here to fulfill a request to take out those goblins. The group you sent a request for shouldn¡¯t have been this much of an issue though, has the situation changed?¡± The guard winced before replying. ¡°We don¡¯t have a message station in our town, so we couldn¡¯t send a message that the group has grown. We couldn¡¯t even send someone out on their own to get a message to update the request, and we needed as many hands on the wall as we could get, so we couldn¡¯t send a large group.¡± ¡°So how large exactly has this group become?¡± Lira asked. The guard ran her fingers through her hair. ¡°We estimate there¡¯s at least a few hundred of them out there. If you could get a message back to the hunters guild, that would probably be the best thing you could do.¡± ¡°Wait, if there¡¯s that many goblins, there has to be a hobgoblin. Have you seen it? If we could take that out, they would all scatter.¡± The guard shook her head. ¡°He¡¯s always in the middle of the biggest encampment, don¡¯t bother.¡± At this point, I was wondering how often bad information was sent to the hunter¡¯s guild, but we agreed to head to the nearest town with a message station to get the information back to the hunters guild. It was about two days travel, much shorter than it would be to get back to Janna, the city we had set out from. We decided to rest the night at Haven, and got free room and board at the tavern. We each got our own room, which were basically mirrors of each other, a bed filled with straw with simple linen blankets, a desk and chair in the corner, and a window with shutters rather than glass. The next morning dawned with Lira opening my door, ogling me as I got dressed, me ignoring her. We finally got all packed up, and set out to the nearby town with a messaging station that I didn¡¯t know the name of. The first sign of things going wrong was when the first group of goblins we saw ran from us. I wasn¡¯t sure what to make of it, but the others grasped their weapons far more tightly. Deciding that it would be a good time to put my skills to use, I decided that I wouldn¡¯t need a better sword, and spent a good deal of my mana on my mana construct spell, creating a translucent, glowing blue breastplate to cover my vital organs. I got some odd looks from the others, and had to explain that it was a skill I had, then they decided to ignore it in favor of constantly looking out for threats. It was a good thing they were, as it wasn¡¯t long before a large group of goblins burst out from the grains around us which they had been hiding in. We were thrown into battle with practically no warning, but everyone responded promptly, and we were soon fighting against a group around triple our size. Kell, Syn, Nera, and Jen grouped up together, leaving Lira and I to scythe through the goblins on our own. It was quite easy compared to what I had gone through on earth, so I rather relaxedly slaughtered the goblins, making sure to move fast enough that none of them could get a good shot on me from behind. Lira on the other hand basically danced around in a small circle, constantly turning to keep them from attacking from behind, and chopping off any limbs that got near her. Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. Our reach advantage over the child sized monsters made it easy for us to beat a few of them at once each, and once we had killed around two thirds of them, the rest ran away as fast as they could. We hunted down a couple, but they had split up too much for us to catch all of them, so we continued to worry about a larger attack. This time, we kept our weapons out and at the ready as we continued, and had just exited the farmland when we saw a massive group waiting for us on the road, with more pouring out from the sides and our back. We raised our weapons as the group split, and a much larger, and much uglier goblin went to the front of them. Syn cursed, and said ¡°hobgoblin¡±, explaining to me what that thing was. The hobgoblin screamed in some language I didn¡¯t know, and the goblins rushed us as the hobgoblin sat back to watch. This time, instead of the crappy stone tipped spears and axes they had wielded, they all had weapons such as pitchforks and scythes, likely stolen from the farms nearby. I took a deep breath. I¡¯d faced a lot worse than this on earth, but I was probably going to get hurt a bit if we were going to fight all of them, and I was worried about the others. It started out not so bad, Lira and I were chopping through them without an issue, but they just seemed to keep coming as the hobgoblin watched on with a rictus of a grin. I focused as I parried a blow aiming for my thigh, then twisted to avoid a scythe that was coming towards my neck as I chopped through the arms holding it. I weaved through a couple more stabs from a pitchfork and a goblin who only had a stone tipped spear, sending my sword piercing through the neck of the one with a pitchfork. I pushed myself forwards through a couple of them, slicing through a leg as I did so as I noticed one of them getting a bit too close to me from behind, and finished off the one to my right as I span and sliced into its chest, idly noting that goblin bones seemed to be terribly soft. After a while though, we all started to get tired, and then the Nera took a pitchfork entirely through her arm. One of the others instantly killed the goblin that had stabbed her as she yelled, and the pitchfork was torn out from her arm as it died. Luckily, it wasn¡¯t bleeding too much, so it hadn¡¯t hit an artery, but that was only the beginning, and she was down a hand with her spear. My armor started to take more and more hits, as I completely gave up on dodging anything that would only hit it, and after enough of them, it started to crack. I used up some mana I could spare to keep repairing it, but I was beginning to become tired. Lira and I stopped fighting on our own as we grouped up with the copper rank adventurers, and we had a shouting discussion. ¡°We need to break away from them! Goblins can¡¯t run too fast!¡± ¡°And how the hell are we going to do that!? We¡¯re completely surrounded!¡± ¡°Ten! You think you can cut us a path!?¡± I took a deep breath, and shouted a quick ¡°I can try!¡± I took a deep breath, crouched, and sheathed my sword before conjuring one with my mana construct skill, using the last of my mana. I dashed to the side, away from the hobgoblin, cutting anything between me and the way to escape, my conjured sword slicing through the wooden shafts of their weapons like they were butter. Things blurred together as I would ignore any attacks that wouldn¡¯t wound me enough to slow me down, slicing through the goblins far easier than I could with my metal sword. Eventually, I reached the end, and looked back to see Nera being carried by Lira, but everyone had made it out safely, if a bit worse for wear. It was at this point that my mana for keeping up my illusion making me seem human faded. We ran for as long as we could, me getting odd looks from the others, and I ended up carrying Jen, as she had taken a pretty nasty wound to her leg. Once we felt we had gotten far enough away, we did an inventory of all the wounds we had taken. Nera and Jen had it the worst, Nera with the puncture wound in her arm, and a massive cut on her chest, while Jen had a pretty nasty cut on her leg, which had been why she was limping. We took a bit of a break, with Lira keeping watch, and I mentioned I was decent at light magic, so once I got some mana back I could heal everyone up, but with how long it takes for mana to regenerate, I wouldn¡¯t be able to until tomorrow. After our break, we changed directions to be roughly pointed to the town we had originally been heading to, and ended up making camp at night. We set up a schedule for keeping watch, in which I got the last watch, so I would be waking up early. Luckily, nothing happened overnight, and when Lira came to wake me for my watch she decided to interrogate me. ¡°So what was with the weapon and armor you were using? If you have something like that you should definitely be rated higher than silver, maybe not gold, but at least high silver.¡± I shook my head. ¡°It¡¯s not quite that convenient, while my sword can chop through wood much easier than a metal sword, it¡¯s not strong enough to chop through metal, and the only real benefit to the armor is that I can control the weight of it. It means I can have plate armor for no weight, which is really nice, but then I¡¯ll have no mana for anything else. You¡¯re not going to ask about the horns and eyes?¡± Lira shook her head. ¡°It¡¯s considered very rude amongst hunters to ask about people¡¯s past.¡± I shook my head. ¡°It¡¯s not even like I have a past, I was raised in one of the spawning pools.¡± She looked at me oddly. ¡°You seem to be quite a bit different from any of the other demons I¡¯ve met who were raised in one of those.¡± I smiled. ¡°Well that¡¯s a secret.¡± She grinned back at me. ¡°Well regardless, thanks for getting us out of there, if you keep it up, I very well may sneak into your tent one of these nights.¡± This time, I wasn¡¯t quite so sure she was joking. My watch went by with no issues, and in the morning my mana had regenerated to heal the worst of the wounds in our group, though I didn¡¯t have enough to fully heal everyone, as we¡¯d all taken some small wounds. The rest of the trip to the town went peacefully, only a couple horned rabbits causing issues, which quickly went into our meal pot. We arrived, and headed straight to the message station. ¡°We need to send an urgent message to the hunter¡¯s guild in Janna,¡± Lira said authoritatively, taking out her guild card to show she was a member. ¡°What¡¯s the message?¡± The man manning the counter asked in a bored manner, apparently not interested in anything urgent. Lira quickly gave a quick rundown on the situation, and as she dictated the message to be sent, the bored expression on the man manning the station turned worried. The town here was large enough to be fine, with a garrison to prevent things like this from happening nearby, but nobody likes to hear news like that. ¡°You think they¡¯ll mobilize some of the troops here to deal with it?¡± he asked. Lira shrugged. ¡°That¡¯ll be up to the hunter¡¯s guild to decide.¡± We waited around for maybe an hour and a half before we got a reply. The hunters guild would be sending a larger group, who would meet up with us here, as the military wasn¡¯t going to be doing anything. We looked at each other, then went to find an inn to rest. When I asked Lira, she mentioned that the guild would subsidize the money to stay there so long as we shared a room, so we weren¡¯t stuck sleeping in the common room. We went to bed, wondering if Haven would be okay until the rest of the hunters arrived. v1c04 The next day, I woke with the sun as usual, and opened my eyes to see the other three getting dressed up. Deciding to be tactful, I pretended to stay asleep, but after a small snicker from Lira, I decided I may as well enjoy the view. The others rushed getting their clothes on, but Lira slowed down, giving me a wink when she finished, and didn¡¯t leave with the others, leaving me to dress under her perverted gaze. The girls were wearing their leather armor and weapons, I assumed more because they didn¡¯t want to leave it in the room rather than because they would be needing it. Nera had her short spear tied to her back, while the rest of us had our swords sheathed by our sides as we left the inn to find some way to entertain ourselves. What soon happened was something that apparently was a commonality between women here and our old world, shopping. The only difference was what we were shopping for. Instead of just visiting clothes stores, the first place we stopped by was a building with a sword and shield carved into the signboard hanging in front of it, covered in a flaking grey paint. There wasn¡¯t any writing of the store name like there would have been back in Janna, which I found odd. It¡¯s not like literacy was an issue, the language imparted by the System gave knowledge on how to read as much as it did how to speak. Entering the building, it was covered in different weaponry, with a few cuirasses and shields littered here and there. It was terribly organized, only one of the walls sorted out. Prices were only posted for the weapons on the sorted wall as well. The rest were just a bunch of daggers or swords put point down into boxes and barrels, or piles of roughly stacked shields and armor. There were even areas you could barely fit into with how much of a mess the shop was. The girls instantly split up to look at all the different weapons, while I decided that the best organized area would probably be where the best weapons were. I went over, to see that they seemed to be well crafted, though more decorative than functional. On the other hand, I wasn¡¯t too experienced with what exactly made a good sword. When I was on earth, we had only switched to cold weaponry when we realized that only large scale weapons would harm high constitution monsters, while a stat boosted person with a sword could hurt them quite easily. We¡¯d even tried to nuke the demon king, but it had somehow been detected and destroyed while it was still high in the atmosphere. By the time factories had been churning out good swords with the new metals that had appeared with the system, I was already using my mana construct sword, so I never learned much about what made a good one, aside from the balance of it. All of the weapons here were made of simple iron or steel rather than those fancy metals that we had found on earth, which didn¡¯t surprise me. Large scale mining wouldn¡¯t be nearly as easy in a low tech world like this compared to earth, where we had massive machines to do most of the work for us. Turning away from the horribly expensive swords with pretty patterns carved into them, I decided to go join the girls in the messy portion of the shop. Pretty much every sword there was better than the battered iron one I had been given when told to hunt by the prime muscle monster. Unfortunately, even the cheapest was out of my price range, in the range of a gold, so I simply let out a sigh. I was getting paid two silvers a month from the hunters guild, and would get a bonus for any completed missions, but it would be a while before I could afford a decent sword. We left with the only purchase being a whetstone and oil for my sword, and I felt left out of the conversation as they discussed different methods of forging, and how this style of sword is better than that style. Eventually, Syn and Jen got into an argument, and I got dragged into it, being forced to use my mana construct skill to make different types of swords to support their side of the argument. By the end of it, I had to plead with them to let me go so I could maintain enough mana to retain my illusion making me seem human. Then came clothes shopping, and thankfully, they asked each other¡¯s opinions more than they did my own, which saved me the awkwardness of trying to have original compliments for the outfits that they chose. Both men and women wore pants in this world, dresses were occasionally worn by women, but really only nobles. We stopped for lunch at a small food stall that was selling skewers, unsurprisingly made from horned rabbit that seemed to be everywhere. They were coated in some kind of red sauce, and had a sweet and spicy taste. I was still savoring mine as we continued to wander the utterly convoluted streets. Alleys and actual streets seeming to connect to each other in random patterns. I was terribly thankful that they were advanced enough to have a sewer system, but wondered how the hell they had managed that with this city. Even with earth magic, it must have been a complete mess. Eventually the girls were shopped out, which happened far after I was, and we retired back to the inn to have some drinks. After the third beer or so, most of the girls were laughing at pretty much anything, but Lira seemed to have morphed into a shy girl, which I found absolutely hilarious in my slightly inebriated state. As we retired for the night, I pointedly ignored the fact that Syn and Nera were getting handsy with each other and ended up sleeping in the same bed. Or at least I managed to ignore it after I visited the restroom to relieve some stress. I totally expected some sort of comment from Lira when I got back, but she just glanced at me, then turned away a bit redder than even the alcohol would explain. I soon went back to bed and passed out.Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website. The next morning dawned, and with it came an annoying headache. I groaned, and instantly cast healing magic for relief. Looking around I saw all of the girls glaring at me, having noticed the light show that was indicative of light magic. I got a few hugs for my hangover relieving, and then we were back to finding things to entertain ourselves. The next four days passed with lots of window shopping, and only a couple actual purchases. The day the other hunters were supposed to arrive came, and we were waiting at the message station. When they got here, I was a bit surprised to see two other guys in the group of fifteen people. Looking over them, I noticed Kara was in the lead, and she quickly came up to Lira to discuss what we were going to be doing about the goblins. The groups mixed together as the girls in our group chatted with the people they knew from the new arrivals, and I stood there awkwardly while everyone talked. Eventually the girls I had been with started to introduce me, but I doubted I was going to be remembering anyone¡¯s name. It was only midday, so Lira and Kara decided to head out towards haven immediately. We marched along, with plenty of chatter going around, as there weren¡¯t going to be any threats for a while. Everyone was simply hoping that enough horned rabbits would attack us so we could all have some fresh meat when we stopped for our evening meal. The meal and night passed in a quiet manner, and I got lucky with drawing lots, not having to keep watch. Once morning dawned, everyone got on a more serious look. We weren¡¯t too far out from Haven, maybe half a days worth of walking, so we were close enough to the goblins to walk with our weapons out. The tension slowly built, all of us constantly vigilant, even with two of the hunters ranging ahead to scout for us. It was around noon that one of them returned with the news we had been waiting for, the goblins had been spotted. She gave a quick rundown of the situation, there were maybe two hundred goblins grouped up in an area, with a few groups out hunting for food. The hobgoblin was in the middle of the large group, so we weren¡¯t going to have any sort of easy access to him. We¡¯d discussed our plan for a bit, which came down to basically sticking to our own groups and attacking at the same time. Hunters weren¡¯t trained like the army. While we could usually work well in the small groups we would form, for the most part we had no clue how to fight in formation, so the fight was going to be a bit messy. The fight started with one of the other males in the group casting a large spell that made tens of shards of ice bombard the area the goblins were staying in. Judging by how he seemed to shrink down a bit after, it seems he had used up all his mana in one shot. As we charged in, I heard a quick ¡°Typical guy, no stamina at all¡± from Lira, and grinned a bit that she was making her inappropriate comments even before battle. Our groups impacted the disarrayed goblins and carved through them with ruthless efficiency. Lira and I fought next to each other, the other four in our group staying together as usual as they covered each other, Nera in the back with her short spear to poke anything that the others couldn¡¯t handle. My focus snapped back to the fight as I was nearly hit with a meat cleaver one of the goblins had found somewhere, and I reflexively beheaded it, spinning to continue my cut onto the goblin next to it which was poised to stab me. The battle wasn¡¯t a dance, it was simply carnage. I would carve through any limbs that became exposed, diverting what weapons I had to, and taking the rest on my mana construct armor. We¡¯d gone through about half the goblins before the hobgoblin finally decided to act, and for some reason it decided that I was the person he wanted to fight. It approached, not quite matching my height, but making up for it with its large build. I wasn¡¯t sure exactly how powerful it was going to be, so I went into the fight in a cautious manner, feinting a stab with my sword to gauge its reactions. It easily went to divert the blow with a speed that I wouldn¡¯t be able to match, but the fact that it had bothered to try and deflect the blow as I pulled my sword back made it clear he wasn¡¯t my match as a swordsman. Its own blow was simple, straightforward, and fast as hell as he chopped towards my head with the only real weapon I¡¯d seen any of the goblins using, a rusty sword. Being unsure of my ability to actually block such a blow, I diverted it to my side instead, yet still felt like I was trying to lift a mountain as it impacted my blade. I cursed as I returned the attack with my own blow diagonally from the top. I¡¯d expected the blow to be at least debilitating, but he used his advantage in speed to get his sword partially interposed with mine, so what would have been a massive wound turned into a relatively deep cut on his shoulder. We each took a step back, and it lunged forwards at a speed I could barely follow, but I simply twisted, allowing the blade to scrape along my mana construct armor, which ended up with a nasty gash in it that didn¡¯t quite cut all the way through. I then took advantage of its over-aggression, sliding my sword deep into its neck, and looked on coldly as the life faded from its eyes. I looked up from my fight, wondering why no one had helped, and saw everyone standing around watching, surrounded and covered in gore, with a few coins changing hands. ¡°You were betting!?¡± I wasn¡¯t sure if I should be offended or amused. ¡°You couldn¡¯t have dragged it out a minute longer?¡± One of the girls whose name I didn¡¯t remember asked. I just shook my head. Doing a quick cleaning of my sword with some leaves form the nearby trees, I decided to figure out if we were going to be doing anything else. ¡°So what now? We killed the hobgoblin, but there are still a bunch of goblins nearby, do we hunt them down now?¡± ¡°Pretty much,¡± Kara said ¡°We¡¯ll set up base in Haven and sent out patrols to clean up the rest of the goblins nearby.¡± Once we had all finished doing a quick cleaning of our swords, we headed over to Haven where hopefully we would be able to wash off a bit. Once we got there, the town mayor was ecstatic to hear that we¡¯d killed the hobgoblin, and even happier when we mentioned we would be cleaning up the rest of the goblins as well. We all went to the well and rinsed off before we went back to our rooms to change clothes. Once we were done, we all ended up doing laundry, scrubbing our blood soaked clothes together as we chatted. We went to the bed in the sole inn in the town, a reasonably sized affair painted in a dark green, with a common room half filled with tables alongside a bar, and the other half filled with simple cots on the ground for the people who couldn¡¯t afford a room. My group ended up getting one of the group rooms, and we were soon passed out. The next few days were more boring than exciting. We would group up and go on patrols around the different farms. I spent more time admiring the scenery, waves of hills covered in green stalks of grain flowing in the wind, rather than being tense about possible fights, and three days later we were back on our way to Janna.