《The Wild Card (Place holder)》 Chapter: 1 Waking up and the cave I am Ashton, a typical young adult human male, you know, the average height, average build, brown hair, brown eyes and all . Everything about me was average, no past life memories, no special power or divine blessing, just your average human being. I was never really close with my parental units. I mean don''t misunderstand me, they never mistreated me and provided me with everything a person would need but we never really bonded with each other. They were out at work most of the time, even on the weekends they usually had something to do or atleast that''s how it was ever since I could remember. My academic life was good as far as I can tell and that''s when I got to know about my only redeemable traits: my near unquenchable trust for knowledge and curiosity and near perfect memory for anything I deemed interesting or important. It helped me through out the school and got me near perfect scores, never bothered with perfect score as it would be too much of a bother and would invite unwanted attention. Some people thought they I had mythical eidetic memory but I knew better cause I don''t remember everything, only what I deem worthy or interesting. I actually have trouble with names of unimportant people. Anyway long story short I cruised through the school life till the last year of my highschool without any trouble. No one bullied me or alienated me. Teacher were helpful and cordial. But again I had no one that I could say I was close to. I had acquaintances but not any real friend. In the last year of my highschool I came across an anomaly, yep an anomaly, no other way to describe her. Her name was Jahne and was way too cheerful. Always the sunshine and rainbows in her head, I tell you. If that was all then I wouldn''t call her an anomaly but she showed an interest in me. I mean, yeah, sure there were other girls here and there who showed interest in me, dropping some subtle hints which I might or might not have picked up. I was pretty much untainted in the matter of man and woman at that point of life. I am getting off the point again....anyway, as I was saying she showed an abnormal interest in me. At first it was disturbing and I was kind of creeped out even and thankful for the fact that I had different major than her. I had maths along with physics and chem while she had biology. At first I politely declined any advances she made but as time passed the witch managed to bewitch me. I started liking her cheerful aura and that''s how my first relationship started. We kept dating through highschool and in college, promised to spend life with each other and all that shit. I picked particle physics as major in college, published a paper and even got two patents. Everything was going well till the start of the 5th semester. Me and Jahne were going through another one of our argument about God and religion. It happened every now and then. She was devout christian, church on Sunday, saving herself till wedding and all that jazz and I was bonafide atheist cause let''s say if ''God'' created everything then who created him? God''s God? then what about him? How did he came about? I might as well believe all the conspiracy theories than that religious mumbo jumbo. Anyway, I regress, as I was saying we would usually have discussion about God and religion and sometimes it would escalate with neither of us willing to back down so we would evoke the right to not talk for couple of days. It was pretty good arrangement as we would be back to our luvvy duvvy selves after those couple of days. But this time it was an exception. On the third day of our ''not-talking'' agreement, I received a text from a acquaintance of ours asking when I broke up with Jahne and then he drops the bomb that that a guy in his dorms is bragging to his buddies about banging a virgin last night who just happens to match jahne''s description. I simply call it a bullshit cause you see, Jahne was supposed to be devout christian and even I haven''t gone past kissing in our 3 years of relationship. I put it out of my mind and focus my mind back on my research project. At the last day of our not speaking agreement I called her which was ignored and I simply chalked it up as her being busy till I got the text about ''wanting to explore'' and breakup. I mean are you shitting me? A relationship of 3 years atleast deserves a phone call as a way to break up, if not in person. So I called her again, and again, and again till she picked up and I got an interesting revelation. Apparently all the shit about God and the religion and their guidelines doesn''t worth anything when you are drunk. And that''s not all. The fact that he was a christian and that she already slept with him makes him better dating choice than a guy who respected her choice throughout their 3 years of relationship How do you argue with that? The least she could do was apologize, right? but no, no apologies or anything. Needless to say I was heart broken and the fact that she was the only person who ever got close to me, only made it worse. Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators! I started escaping from the issue by burying myself in my research but didn''t help much so I turned to games and light novels and used those fantasy worlds to escape the real one. I started missing classes, just attending enough to barely pass and that''s how I spent last year of my college life. I never resorted to drugs or alcohol though. I mean I am already putting my body through so much by not doing enough exercise and all, why would I want to increase its burden? It''s already a wonder that I am not turning into a fat ass as it is. After college I didn''t look for any job, the money from patents was enough to sustain me for a while so I shut myself in my apartment and completely immersed myself in light novels and games and mmorpgs and their fantasy worlds. I ended up reading about all the mythologies and such as a result. Oi! why are you reminiscing about our life in our own mind like some trashy main character from trashy novel? Shut up! I am coping with the present situation. So...Where were we? Ah right. You see, last night I went to sleep in my bed, situated in my bedroom after finishing up the world boss event of the mmorpg I was playing but when I woke up I found myself sprawled over hard floor of this dark and humid cave. Whoever did this must have drugged me somehow and transported me here because I''m pretty light sleeper so if anyone touched me in my sleep I would have woken up. It is probably a kidnap scenario. Yeah, let''s go with that, I like that one. God is not real. Fantasy worlds are not real. I can''t possibly be in a different world. That''s better so let''s calm down a bit . We are still on earth. But who would want to kidnap us? We are doing okay financially but we are not fucking rich and why wouldn''t they restrain us? Let''s not think about it. I don''t want to consider any other possibility besides a stupid prank or kidnapping. Yeah, let''s not think about it and explore the surrounding. Okay, exploring a dark cave barefoot is pain in the ass, especially when you are barefoot. I have already stubbed my toe 5 times and it hurt like hell. I probably would have stubbed myself more if I didn''t start moving in slow motion, feeling every step beforehand. I have been moving for about half an hour I think and I come across a small pool of water, a ground spring possibly. Now atleast we have a source of water for when we are thirsty, atleast till our kidnappers show up. Let''s not worry about drinkability of the water. Yeah, let''s definitely not worry about dysentery. The cave is like a fucking maze, I try to keep track of my exploration so I can get back to that pool if I need to. After another hour or so I come across another turn but this one is bit different as it has some sort of glowing rocks embedded in cave wall at proper intervals. It''s not like electric bulbs but after spending some time in this dark hole, I will gladly take it. I hear some movements and gibberish sound so I press myself against the wall and slowly creep towards the corner, being careful to not make any sound. I am no special force but even I know when to be cautious. Yup, better safe than sorry. After reaching the the corner I quietly take a peek. The hell...?!? The hell...?!? Chapter: 2 Goblins and cats I controlled my panicking mind and carefully backed away and slowly made my way to the pool, keeping my mind blank to prevent any silly mistakes due to the panic. After reaching the pool I relaxed a bit and my mind finally went in the over drive. What the hell was that?!? The hell if I know..!!! Wasn''t that the starting mob in all the fantasy games we have played? Fits the description I''d say... But...but goblins aren''t real... Then what the fuck did we see?? Are we hallucinating ? Yeah..yeah we must be hallucinating. There is no way it can be true. But what if we are not hallucinating? ...Then we must kill them... Are you insane? They had swords and sticks with them how are we supposed to kill them? You are scared of goblins? And you have galls to call yourself a gamer? I AM NOT SCARED!!! And besides it''s not game, it''s real and we know nothing about them. What if they aren''t hostile? I don''t know but I''m not one of those shitty main characters who are scared of killing! Yeah..yeah, you are real badass, happy? Anyway, what are we supposed to do now? I don''t fucking know anymore. Let''s just wait here and try to make sense of it? Yeah, why don''t we just drink the water and rest here? Uh..sure. Drinkability of the water is least of our worries for now. After finally calming down I walked towards the pool, got on my knees and started drinking directly from the pool in big gulps like a wild animal. I drank till I was full and laid down on my back. After few moments I felt a warm sensation in my stomach and then it hit me, an intense and continuous pain, I was barely able to contain my scream. Don''t you fucking dare to scream! You will attract everything in this cave to us if you do. But...it fucking hurts! We aren''t some pain tolerant super soldiers for fuck''s sake. Let''s remove our shirt and stuff it in our mouth then. I took off my shirt and stuffed in my mouth. The pain was intense but atleast now I couldn''t scream. Seriously!?! You can still narrate in this kind of pain? ... After few minutes of writhing in worst pain of my life I passed out. I woke up after who knows how much time later. I was half hoping it was all a dream and I will wake up in my warm and cozy bed but it was all real and reality sucks. Fuck, that shit hurt like hell! Yeah...let''s not drink from that pool again. Hey! How can we see now? Hmm? no wonder it felt weird. Also don''t we feel that we got a lot stronger now? Umm...Yeah but I don''t like where you are getting though. Do you think we will get stronger if we drink more? Hell no!! I am not drinking from that shithole again. I know it hurt like hell but if we really are in a fantasy world then we will have to get stronger. you know? You don''t want to be goblin meal, right? Ugh...whoever designed this training method must be a top class sadist, I tell you and you are a masochist for going along with it. Stop being a sissy. Aren''t you supposed to be the badass? At worst we will die, no biggie. It''s better than being weak in fantasy world. ... And thus my hellish training began under the supervision of my other half. At least the pain wasn''t as bad as first time. Either I became more tolerant to the pain or the pain itself was less. I would drink my fill from the pool, stuff my mouth my shirt and go through hell till I passed out. Rinse and repeat. I didn''t even have to pee. I wonder where all that water disappeared to. Probably in sweat and tears if I had to venture a guess. Why I didn''t have to eat or shit is beyond me...maybe the water in this world has enough nutrients? who knows...definitely I don''t. After couple of dozens passing out, the pain was bearable enough that I didn''t have to pass out. At that point I drank my fill and waited till pain went away. Rinse and repeat. My other half wanted me to continue till I could drink it like normal water. The gain was reducing though. I only felt a slight increase in my strength and senses now, unlike the first time. I started getting used to my increased strength, senses. The first time when I tried by sprinting I crashed face first in cave wall, creating a human sized hole. That was hilarious when we went slamming in that wall. Ahem...Thankfully I didn''t get hurt just few bruises here and there, getting out, seemed to be the real pain in the butt as I was kind of stuck in it. I have been taking it slow and steady since then and now I think I can perfectly control about 30% of my max strength without any mishaps. I also tried to access any status or character sheet of mine to see if there was any. After trying every word or combination of word, gestures and even weird poses I concluded there wasn''t such a thing. Or atleast I didn''t know anyway to access it. After couple of days, maybe weeks, I am not sure it''s hard to keep track of time when you are in a dark cave, the pool water pretty much became simple water for me. At that point I got approval from my other half to venture forth and slay the evil goblins or probe their strength as he calls it. As it would be my final day in this hell hole I decided to use pool to it''s fullest. I striped down to...nothing and went skinny dipping in the cold water. I enjoyed my first bath since arriving in this cave and after that I washed my clothes. Let''s just hope no one had the bright idea of bathing in this pool before we arrived. ... And that brought us to this point in the multiverse, I know nothing about. I had my washed and dry clothes on and I was ready for some goblin extermination. Hey! If our fantasy stories are right then the goblins abduct women and keep them in their stronghold, right? Yes but don''t get any idiotic ideas. We aren''t some stupid champion of justice. We will wait till there is only one of them and test their strength. If we can easily deal with them then we can think about raiding their stronghold. This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. ... After that brief discussion I started walking towards the turn where I spotted the goblins last time. It''s much easier and faster when I can actually see. I arrived at the turn and peeked a little to see to goblins standing about, one equipped with short sword...maybe iron, another with stick, club or whatever you call it. They were pretty much like what''s described in the fantasy novels. Short, around 4 feet, green skin and with face even a mother couldn''t love and pointy ears...related to elves maybe? let''s hope elves aren''t ugly like them. Amen. As per my instruction from my other half I waited. After what felt like ages of waiting but could have been half an hour, the one with stick said something gibberish and walked away...bathroom break maybe? I waited for a minute longer and walked out of the turn to check if they were hostile or not. As soon as it saw me, it squealed and charged at me with sword. Okaay...pointing the pointy end at us. I think that qualifies them as hostile? Atleast in my books. You are free to attack however you want. Remember the 30% limit, we don''t want to deal with any mishaps. ... I looked at the charging goblin, it was way too slow in my opinion. I side stepped the thrust, which is easy since it looked like it is moving in slow motion, and punched the goblin in the face, using only 10% power, shouldn''t overdo it, right? Or atleast that''s what I was thinking. The punch blasted away goblin''s head like some bomb went off in his head and the resulting blood fountain, from loss of head covered my clothes in blood. So much for washed and clean clothes. Whoa....a bit over kill, don''t you think? I ignored my other half''s remark as my attention was drawn towards the little particles of light drifting away from goblin''s body and then suddenly they charge towards me. I tried to dodge but I was bit late and it slammed against me or maybe absorbed in me? I checked if there was something wrong but after finding nothing I chalked it up in back of my mind as another question to find answer for. Seeing that I was literally able to blow them to pieces my other half readily agreed to let me raid their stronghold. So I picked up the goblin''s short sword and quickly went towards the direction of other goblin. After dispatching it quickly by decapitation and recurrence of light particle thing, I continued to follow the path and encountered more goblin and disposed of them quickly. The light particle thing happened after every kill but did nothing so i decided to ignore it for now. The biggest group I encountered had 15 goblins in it and I managed to dispatch them after few nicks and bruises. My other half warned me about any potentially dangerous surprise attack thus I quickly blocked or evaded those. Perk of two minds sharing single brain and body. After carefully sweeping all the caves clean off goblin I made my way to the center cave and found several females sprawled over the floor in chains, wearing nothing but rags. I also spotted bigger versions of goblins, just a bit shorter than average human males. Hobogoblins. Thanking my other half for that tidbit of detail, I proceeded to remove their heads from there necks. Again, everything was easy when they move in slow motion compared to me. After taking care of them I removed chains binding women in place and told them that they were free to go but they kept staring at me with confusion, panic and fear. I guess being drenched in blood doesn''t make for good first impression, huh? Crap!!! What? We forgot about language barrier. ...Are you shitting me? Are we supposed to learn a whole new language now? As I was having the discussion with my other half a blue haired beauty walked in front of the group and started saying something. And as predicted I didn''t understand a single word. She is kind of pretty. Focus! We agreed to not get close to any female again. Wait....Are those real ear on her head? I think I saw them twitch. Of course not! It''s clearly some cosplay headband. Do they even have a concept of cosplay here? I better check I guess... ... After ending my internal chit chat. I focused my attention on the cosplay beauty. She had cute face and looked adorable with those ears. Focus. Ahem, After observing her for few moments I moved towards her. She was still in handcuffs so I guess I didn''t have to worry too much about my safety. I walked up to her and checked her head, looking for some sort of headband. She was clearly surprised at my actions, I guess I was kind of being rude but I saved them so I guess it evened out. As I was thinking this I spotted something behind the blue haired woman..a tail, a fluffy swaying tail. I took a deep breath. Holly molly!!! She is real cat woman!!! Well it''s fantasy world. I kind of guessed that the demi humans might be real here but it''s really a surprise to see one. So..you know, she isn''t a human so technically our promise doesn''t bind against it... Really? Resorting to technicalities? Are you that desperate? Going to suggest beastiality next? .... She is saying something. My other half pointed my attention at her, ending our little discussion. She was saying something in that gibberish again while pointing towards her handcuffs. Maybe asking me to free her? I didn''t have any key though and searching for one would have been a bother. I grabbed the handcuff in my hands and applied a bit of force and they easily broke apart. The girl looked a bit shocked at the display of my brute force hehe. After I broke off her handcuffs she ran towards the corner of the cave, where there were bunch of bags were piled up and started rummaging through it. How rude!! even though I can''t understand it she should have said something as thanks. As I was thinking this the girl made her way towards me with a necklace in her hand. She gave the necklace to me and motioned me to put it on. Should we? What if it''s some sort of slave caller? I like your cautiousness but I don''t think she will do something bad to her savior. Let''s take a bit of risk. After some persuasion I put the necklace on. It glowed for a bit, startling me and then returned to normal. I looked at the blue head again and heard her speak. "Can..you understand me?"- cat woman How the...?!!? Chapter: 3 Story of a cat I am Sumila, a proud member of azure war cat tribe. I never knew my parents but tribesmen told me that they both were powerful warriors and adventurers and got killed in line of duty when they encountered a powerful drake in an escort request. The tribe taught me well and raised me to be an honorable and adaptive warrior. I was considered a prodigy among my peers, reaching a level of over 100 before my twentieth cycle, Level 112 to be precise. I registered as an adventurer on my twentieth birthday so that I could go out to explore the continent and leave the safety of the tribe. I love my tribe but I couldn''t allow them to always protect me if I wanted to grow strong. So after registering as adventurer I left the tribe along with another tribesman Galin. He was little older than me, probably 25 cycles I think. We demi humans are not proficient with magic except for few tribes but we excel at internal mana manipulation and body strengthening so we are pretty good close combat fighters. After two years of our adventuring , even though I only gained 10 more levels, we made it to rank 3 adventurers . Galin showed interest in me but I made it clear that I''m not interested in finding a mate just yet. But the truth however is that I don''t want a mate from cat tribe because if what tribeswoman have told me is true then our males share one more feature with cats other than the obvious ear and tail. And I''m no masochist so yeah, no cat-guys for me. Sorry Galin. Ahem, back to the the point. One needs to be atleast over the level of 100 and have enough quest point to become a rank 3 adventurer. For rank 2 one has to be over level 200 and almost 10 times quest points of rank 3. Rank one needs one to be atleast over 350. There are very few people on the continent who are rank 1, even the kings have to be respectful to them. Rank 2 adventurer are rare too and usually are prominent figures. At the age of twenty two becoming rank 3 is already noteworthy achievement, if I do say so myself. We were planning to visit the tribe after this last escort mission. We were escorting a small caravan along with some human adventurers. Everything was going well till one party of human adventurers managed to drug rest of the caravan. By the time I became aware of my surrounding they had already killed most of the males, poor Galin. They chained the rest, most of which were females, I even got the special handcuffs which prevent me from using mana, how thoughtful of them. I guessed we will be sold as slaves in black market, fucking slave traders. Barely a day had passed when we were ambushed by a band of goblins. They managed to overpower the human adventurers turned slavers and killed them all, well karma is a bitch and it bites you in the ass when you least expect it. The goblins even killed the remaining chained males and brought us to the caves, nothing much changed, instead of becoming slaves we would now be goblin breeding machines. We spent the next two days in the humid cave with only some glowing rocks as the light source. Goblins haven''t touched us as of yet, probably waiting something or maybe just fighting over who gets to go first. That''s when some hobogoblins walked in. I guess Now I know why the goblins didn''t touch us, their bigger versions get to go at it first. If it wasn''t for these accursed handcuff I would have made mincemeat of these ugly creatures. I cursed my self and hoped they wouldn''t pick me. As I was contemplating my misfortune a person walked in the cave, no, calling it a blood fiend would be better description. It was covered in head to toe in blood, this only served to make his strange apparel stranger and he wasn''t even wearing anything under his feet. The blood fiend scanned the cave with his eyes once and proceeded to beheading hobogoblins with an old and worn out short sword. He moved way too fast for me to see anything but a blur, a Rank 2!!! Why is such a person here and what''s with all that blood? There is even more of it now. The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there. Once it ended he removed our chains and said something in a language I knew nothing about. And after that he just stood there like he was thinking about something. I decided to thank him for saving me like a proper warrior should and walked forward. "Thank you my lord for saving us. This one is Sumila a rank 3 adventurer. May I inquire my lord''s noble name?" I don''t usually speak like that but who knows what kind of person this is. Better be safe. But the person in question simply stared at me like I was talking in gibberish. Why is he staring me like that? no one had any problem with my common in last two years. Then suddenly his eyes widen with surprise and shortly after he walked close to be. I try to remain calm as it would be rude to be scared of your savior. He suddenly starts touching my ear . What?! doesn''t he know that it''s rude to touch the ear of someone you have just met? Sumi, stay calm. Maybe it''s some sort of greeting in their culture. He is kind of cute though. Maybe 16? 17 at best. Sumi, control. He is too young for you. Wait...how is he that strong at that age? His eyes suddenly go wide while looking at something. I follow his gaze and find him looking at my tail and thinking something. Oh no, You don''t.My tail is not public property. "My lord can you please look for the key of this? I would be grateful if you can help me take these off." I showed him my handcuffs as a way to distract him from my tail. I asked for a key because breaking them is not an option. Forget a rank 2, even a rank 1 will have to spend quite a bit off effort to break an enchanted handcuff by brute force. He looks for a bit but looks like he understood some of it. He reaches out with my hand and touches my handcuff. You idiot! I am not asking you to touch them. go and find... My mental outburst is cut short when the hand cuffs just simply break apart in his hold. Just...how strong is this blood fiend..maybe the handcuffs were faulty..that must be it. He can''t possibly be a rank 1 at that age and it didn''t even look like he used his force for the cuffs. Yeah, the cuffs were damaged or something. He doesn''t seem to understand common though. Hmm...I still have that unbonded elven artifact of communication cause I never had a need of it. Maybe it''s still in my bag. I ran to the corner where goblins piled up our stuff and after bit of searching I find the necklace and get back to the blood fiend. For some reason he looks bit displeased. I give him the necklace and motion him to put it on but he seems to hesitate. This ungrateful bastard. I am giving him such an expensive artifact and he is hesitating like I just gave him a slave collar. These kind of artifacts aren''t unique but they are very pricey and they become normal trinket to others once they are bonded to someone. I only had one and it was a gift from tribe in case I end up in an area where common isn''t well know. The necklace allows it''s owner to communicate with anyone. After a bit of contemplation he puts the necklace on and it glows a bit, bonding with him. So I speak again to see if it''s working. "Can..you understand me?" And his eyes widen with surprise, proving that necklace is working. I smile, satisfied with his reaction to it. Chapter: 4 Presentable apparel and bath After putting on the necklace I somehow suddenly understand the blue haired beauty. She is smiling at my reaction it seems. What kind of sorcery is this? Umm...maybe it tapped in our brain and helps in directly interpreting their brain waves and vice versa? I hope not. Our brain doesn''t function like a normal person. Well....magic? It''s fantasy world after all. She is talking again. "Hello! I am Sumila, a rank 3 adventurer and member of azure war cat tribe. May I know the name of my saviour?"-Sumila How strong is a rank 3 adventurer? Can we take her on if by chance we pissed her off by touching her ear earlier? The hell if I know..... and she doesn''t seem to be upset at us. Besides if she was taken down by those stupid green critters, she can''t be that strong, right? Let''s hope so. I don''t want to kill a cute kitten and definitely don''t want to get killed by one. What happened to mr. badass who wasn''t scared of killing..? That was that and this is this. Do you really want me to kill a cute kitten? I won''t stop you if you want to hehe. She asked for our name by the way. "You can call me Ash"-Ash "Then lord Ash, may I ask about your adventurer rank?"-Sumila "Err..Just Ash will do. And I am not an adventurer."-Ash "As you wish. If it''s not too much bother then can I ask for your level? I am level 122."-Sumila The hell...?!? There are levels? "Umm...How does one check their level...?"-Ash There it is. She is looking at me like I am retarded or a country bumpkin. Maybe it''s common knowledge here? "Just think of status or say status and you will be able to see it in front of you.It directly projects the image in your mind so even if one is blind they can see it. One can also have it speak in your mind so even those who can''t read, are able to use it."-Sumila That''s neat but we already tried it, you lying cat! There is no status screen. "So...everyone has access to this status thing, correct?"-Ash "Correct."-Sumila "Can you show it to others?"-Ash "Yes. If you want to show it to someone you can make it visible to that person or can make it visible to everyone as another option."-Sumila "Great. Can you show me your status?"-Ash She looks bit troubled by the request and seems to be hesitating. after a bit she seems to have made her mind and speaks up. "Asking someone to show their status is considered rude and people only show it to someone they fully trust. I''ll let you see it because you saved me but you will have to keep it a secret."-Sumila "Uh..sure"-Ash Soon after a floating screen comes in existence in front of me and for some reason It''s in English...Maybe the necklace''s handiwork? Let''s see. Name : Sumila Bluestar Age : 22 Gender : Female Profession : Adventurer Level : 122 Race :Azure warcat(Demihuman) Titles Prodigy, Hunter, Loyal one, Hidden pervert Strength : 366 Agility : 422 Dexterity : 438 Intelligence : 152 Wisdom : 159 Endurance: 353 Vitality : 384 Upon further inquiry I found out that almost everyone starts as 10 in all 7 attribute at level 1. One can do the related training to increase a particular attribute and it will increase. Almost everything one does grants them some experience but doing the something related to one''s profession grants them more experience. So a non combat class won''t get full rewards from monster hunting. Race is also a deciding factor as every race gets different bonus at level up besides the extra 10 attribute point which you can distribute however you want. Sumila gets +2 in agility and dexterity and +1 in strength, endurance and vitality. She also told me about adventurers and their ranks. There are total 10 ranks from 1 to 10. Each rank has a requirement of minimum quest points as well as a level threshold. Quest points are obtained by completing a quest or as a reward from adventurer guild. Quest usually have a level requirement for accepting, sometimes a rank requirement. Rank 10 needs one to be at atleast level 20. And the threshold increases by 10 levels for each rank till rank 4. So rank 9-level 30, rank8-lvl 40 and so on till rank 4-level 80. After that it increases. For rank 3 you need to be above 100 levels. For rank 2, you need to be over 200 and over level 350 for rank 1. Rank 1 are treated as royalties and rank 2 as nobility. It''s usually very hard for a normal person to get over the threshold of level 100. So most of the adventurers consist of rank 4 and below. She also told me that she was drugged and chained which prevented her from using her power otherwise she would have slaughtered the goblins by herself. let''s avoid angering the blue kitten. Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. When I told about not being able to access status, she looked at me skeptically, like I am lying or bad at making excuses but didn''t really say anything. Seriously What the hell is wrong with this world? Isn''t it supposed to be the other way around? Shouldn''t I be the one with status screen instead of them?How come every person here enjoys the perks of the status screen while someone summoned from another world gets nothing? Where is my cheat skill? Even in fantasy world, reality sucks. She asked me for my plans so I told her the truth that I don''t have any, at which she offered me to travel with her and I gladly accepted. I mean, I know nothing about this world and its customs and the potential dangers so the prospect of having a Rank 3 as guide didn''t sound bad. Also from her explanation Rank 3 seems decently strong and nothing in her character sheet indicated that she is bad person. I am kind of worried about that ''hidden pervert'' title but let''s face it, deep down everyone is a pervert, right? Uh..not really? Well Fuck you! nobody asked you. Ah selfcest at its best. ... After discussing all that sumila instructed me to pick something clean from the pile my magic necklace came from, cause well, my current apparel wasn''t presentable enough and that I looked like a blood fiend. She is also treating me like I am younger than her. She is only 22 year old so that makes me a year older than her, maybe it''s the cultural difference? I don''t know.She is gathering and checking up on the other females. We will head to a close by water stream first where they can clean themselves and I can get rid of this blood and change in something ''presentable''.We are then going to escort them to nearest village or city. After checking up on the females she came back and helped me pick up clothes for me. She selected a light slate grey tunic, a black leather pant and my favorite a black leather trench coat, complete with a hood and all. The fuck are you imagining? It''s nothing like that glossy shit those Gothic kids wear back home. It''s completely about functionality and kitty said the gloss makes you easier to spot, same for shiny weapons and armors. She also grabbed us two grey cloaks. None of these look comfortable like the clothes from earth though. Smila suggested picking up under garments too but I politely declined. First of all they didn''t exactly look comfortable and 2nd I wasn''t up for the idea of wearing someone else''s under garment, clean or not. Then don''t say it like you might have worn them if they seemed comfortable, you creep. Shut up! We only have one underwear. We need one more to make a pair. Or do you want to wear a leather pant without any under garment? .... That''s what I thought. I will have to get atleast one more under garment in next village or city, preferably something soft and comfortable.While I was in discussion the cat picked up couple of pouches containing various types of coin and pocketed them and also grabbed a pair of daggers and throwing knives. As I didn''t have any sense of monetary system and it''s value and the fact that I was going to be traveling with her I didn''t bother with coins and picked up a short sword and two similar wooden swords and a sturdy knife. I completely intended to learn basic swordsmanship from Sumila. She is supposed to be Rank 3 adventurer after all. After picking up the things we wanted, sumila picked her bag and tossed everything inside and began leading us out, her in the lead then the women and finally me bringing up the rear, covered up in blood and all. We arrived at the stream without any incident. It was the first time I saw the sky in this world, which I missed dearly and that''s coming from a former shut in. Staying in a dark cave without internet for an unknown amount of time will do that to you. Once we reached the stream sumila went with the females to the stream and told me to not look and stay alert in case something happens. Like we haven''t seen everything already... And she is getting bossy.. Didn''t you want to use technicalities to get close to her? hehe. ... After quite a while, all of them were done. some were wearing cloaks and robes now but quite a few were still in rags, i guess the goblin pile didn''t have clothes for everyone huh? After getting a green light from sumila I took the tunic, pant and and the coat and approached the stream. Walking a little upstream I came across a shallow pool which fit my needs. Most of my current apparel was done for but my underwear could still be saved and it''s been only few hours since I have been using it, after the previous wash. So I carefully stripped down to my birthday suit and after putting the underwear on a dry boulder and trowing away the rest of bloody clothes, I jumped in the pool. My second skinny dip in this world. After an extensive bath I managed to get myself squeaky clean. I dried myself with a cloth provided by Sumina the great and dressed my self in my old underwear and the new ''presentable'' attire. I was a bit thirsty so. i walked. a little upstream and knelt down to drink from the stream and that''s when I saw it. "What the fuck...?"-Ash Chapter: 5 Emo and the world Sorry...another info-dump but it needed to be dealt with sooner rather than later ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ When I knelt down to drink from the stream I saw someone staring back at...no, I saw someone''s reflection was staring back at me. I was surprised and spooked and quickly pulled back but ended up falling back on my butt, on a dry patch luckily. Wet and clingy pant and underwear don''t sound like fun idea. Who was that? Is it some sort of ghost that you can only see as reflection? You sissy! It was our body. Bit young and different hair color sure but it was definitely our face. No way... Not believing my other half I slowly crept back to see the reflection and found it again. A 16-17 year. old guy with black hair and back eyes staring back at me. The hell..!!! We look like some emo wanna be. I want to punch whoever did this, repeatedly. Atleast give me white hairs or something. Really? That''s why you want to punch them? You''d rather look like a Chuuni than an emo? And since we are on the topic, I prefer the brown hair, thank you very much. .....Why? It didn''t make us stand out much and it helped in blending with background people. Anyway, now we atleast know why that kitty is acting like big sis character. That''s one mystery solved. Well good for you Sherlock. Oh? Are you sulking cause you know that now you have no chance with that blue cat? .... I am right, aren''t I ? *Sigh* Why do I even bother? you never learn from your mistakes. After coming to terms with my new and downgraded appearance and ignoring the taunts from my other half I made my way towards Smila and the women, who just gave me a nod and slight smile. Smila then resumed the leading position and after looking about for few moments she started walking in seemingly random direction and rest of us followed. She corrected our direction few more times and we came on a forest trail. Another thing added to the ''to learn'' list. After all I don''t want to resort to picking a random direction and miss the close-by settlement in opposite direction. As we walked on the forest trail I got another tidbits on the status and world out of Sumila. Apparently it''s like a game but not like a game. Confused? Let me explain, first there is no health bar or value. Everything about death works like back home. A level one person won''t simply die if a level 1000 person pokes or cuts his finger. Vice versa, a level 1000 person will still die if a level one person somehow stabs him in heart or shoots through his brain. Increasing stats simply makes you stronger, faster,more accurate, more intelligent, tougher and heal faster. And, even though the vitality helps you to heal faster, it won''t regenerate lost limbs or organs, for that you need either high level healing magic or a racial ability of regeneration. There are numerous races but most prominent ones are humans, elves, demi-humans, fallen and dragons. There are various sub-races in these main races. For example. elves are further classified as wood elf, high elf, moon elf. Demi humans are usually divided on their matching animals like tiger, lion, fox, wolf, dog, cat to name a few. Fallen race is like demon race in this world, they are strong and on bad terms with almost all of the races. Dragons are strongest race, a strong rank 2 adventurer is needed to fight a single dragon. They usually stay in their mountain range or volcanic regions so besides some wild drake here and there the conflict between dragons and other races is non existent. Elves mostly keep to their own forests and settlements. Only demihumans and humans interact on a regular basis. Almost every race discriminates against the rest to some extent but nothing too extreme and besides some small skirmishes between fallen and humans there haven''t been any massive war in past 100 cycles. Oh right, that''s what they use for a year here, a cycle. The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there. The humanity is in possession of the largest portion of the continent out of all races. And it is divided between two kingdom and one empire, with the empire being almost the size as the other two kingdom combined. One of the kingdom shares the border with demi human in the east, another with elven forest in west while empire shares the border with fallen in north. Dragons stay in their mountain range between fallen and elves. Currently we are in the human kingdom which shares border with demi humans, the Neagia Kingdom. Other one is Vathia Kingdom to the west of here. Wania Empire is to the north-west. After walking for about 4 hours we came to a human settlement, a small village. I don''t know what I was expecting but I was bit disappointed. There was not a single house made of stone. There was no high wall circling the village like you''d expect from a fantasy village. There was just a 5 or 6 feet high wall marking the village boundary, made of mud, stone and wood. Almost all the structures looked like thatched huts with walls made of mud and straw roof. Two or three such huts enclosed in a 2-3 feet high mud wall perimeter were the housing arrangement of a general household. There were about 30 or so similar ''houses''. It was evening but the sun was still visible on the horizon when we reached the village. People were either moving towards the village from the surrounding farm land or finishing up last of their chores. We were greeted by a group of villagers consisting of few middle aged men and few hot blooded teens with sticks and bows. I wanted to let our cute kitten handle the greetings and explanations while I blended in the background but I still received stares and glares from guys. Ugh..I hate my emo hair. After few minutes of explaining from Sumila everything was peachy. Turned out a few of women from the ragtag group were originally from here so after the tears and crying and all that reunion farce was taken care of, we were invited in and were offered some food, pure vegan diet. I haven''t had meat since I''ve arrived here let''s hope not everyone is vegan here. I''d rather go back to drinking that cave water than becoming pure vegan. Should have thought about that before turning it in used bath water... We can always hunt and eat that. The wild animals here are edible, right? I hope so. I barely touched the food and once it was done, Sumila and I were offered a hut and two blankets to sleep in, no beds though. Apparently, only inns in cities offer beds in rooms and only the high class inns have rooms with attached bathroom. Now I understand why most people want and try to go back to earth in those stories....I already miss earth. More importantly I miss my wardrobe, my bed and my bathroom. You forgot the internet, you numb-skull. Err...Internet isn''t a necessity for survival ...? Well neither is a bed or clothes or a bathroom. Let''s see what you will do in the morning then. .... Chapter: 6 Morning business and Bandits I would really like you to tell me your favorite part or aspect of the story in comments or at the main fiction page. If it''s too bothersome for you then nevermind, just enjoy the reading :) ------------------------------------------------ I woke up quite early in the morning. Sleeping on floor was not exactly comfortable but I am more or less used to it now due to that cave, the blanket was already an improvement. After waking up I had another talk with my other self because I wanted to hand him the controls to take care of morning business but he firmly refused. It''s not like I don''t understand his reasons to not be in control and always act like an spectator but sometimes I don''t want to deal with messy situation either. Anyway, I was led to a lone shack near the outer perimeter of village and was given a small wooden bucket filled with water and a wooden mug to take care of my morning business. I had a bad premonition about it and it was proven true the moment I entered the shack. It was a communal toilet and it only had a hole in the floor instead of a toilet seat and no toilet paper in sight. Good thing I predicted this and had few disposable clean cloth strips but let''s just say it was not a pleasant experience. No wonder none of those stories mention this part. Or maybe you are just a creep for narrating your toilet experience? Shut up! Or I will have you take care of it next time. .... After finishing up with the shitty business and cleaning up thoroughly I was given a powder to clean my teeth with. I was surprised to find tooth powder after seeing their other arrangements, maybe they pay more attention to oral hygiene? But I was sorely disappointed. It was just a plain old salt. Still I endured through the torture of using salt as tooth powder and index finger as toothbrush and cleaned my mouth thoroughly to remove the taste of salt. I then carried multiple buckets of water from the village well to a walled but open structure which served as bath place and took a much needed bath. I was given a underwear to change into and was assured that it was new and completely unused. It wasn''t as comfortable as my own but that one needed to be washed and I wasn''t going to wear a leather pant without one. Sumila and I had a short breakfast and she also packed some of the dry bread and dried fruits as travel rations. After that she said the farewell to one villager and we ventured forth from our starting, no name village. After walking for a bit I decided to ask about her plans as I never really asked her about that. "So...where are we going?"- Ash "City of Tane. It''s about six day on foot from here. Maybe less if we go at full speed."- Sumila "And...why are we going there?"-Ash "Well, I intended to go back and visit my tribe after the last mission but things have changed so I plan to continue adventuring and Tane is the closest place with adventurer guild. I also have to make a report on my previous quest."-Sumila "We can also check the adventurer''s archive for your status problem. You need to be atleast rank 5 adventurer to access the ground floor of it. The more important information require higher ranks. Be glad that this big sis is helping you"-Sumila Ugh...Why is she puffing out her chest like that? Isn''t it just a glorified library? It makes her look cuter though. *Sigh* Because we don''t have status so without her we won''t even be able to enter in a city let alone the archives...? *Sigh* That was devastating piece of information. Apparently, there are no I-card with photos here. The status works as glorified identity proof because there is no known way to fake it and you can control the amount of information you want to display to others. So displaying name and age is a way of showing identity proof here. And if you want to enter in a city then atleast one member of the group has to show ''I-card''. Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. "Why were you in that cave Ash? And where do you come from? It must be some far away place or an isolated one for you to not know the common."-Sumila Err...do we tell her the truth or lie about it? Lying is not an option cause She might have some lie detection skill. But we can''t tell her the truth either. We don''t know their views on people from other worlds. Half truth it is then.. "I don''t know...I simply woke up and found myself there. And yeah, it''s an isolated community. It''s pretty much like a different world."-Ash "Oh...that''s sad. Do you...hmm we have some company it seems. Why don''t you handle them and let your big sis guess your level?"- Sumila The cat was probably going to ask some troublesome question but got interrupted by highwaymen. And then she bossily ordered me to take care of them. Annoying cat. Well...since you guys interrupted the cat with a perfect timing I''ll go easy on you. Or that''s what I thought. I sped up and dashed towards the one seemed like their leader. He seemed like he was getting ready to deliver the typical bandit dialogue and I wasn''t exactly in the mood of it so I punched him in the face or that''s what I intended but I judged the distance incorrectly and it landed on his chest. About 10% of power maybe more, It''s hard to punch with less strength, I mean the whole point of punching is to smack them with full power, right? Anyway, the bandit got blasted off his feet and got smashed in a tree about 15 feet away, coughed a mouthful of blood, chest all caved in and moved no more, unconscious or dead maybe? I didn''t bother to check. The rest of his party looked at me in shock for a bit before running away in different directions and it would have been too much of a pain to chasing each one so I looked at Sumila for further instructions but she only looked at me apprehensively. Anyhow, We proceeded with our travel while Sumila gave me an earful on how I am all brawn and no brain, how I only rely on brute force with no techniques and how I am a bully. Apparently, killing bandits in fantasy world is bullying. Am I supposed to just hand over my stuff to them then? No, I only have a sword, a knife, two practice sword and my old underwear besides the clothes I am wearing. They wouldn''t want a guy''s underwear, would they? They wouldn''t want to be called underwear-bandits, right? Let''s not take any chances, Punch first and ask questions later. But that whole thought process went down the drain the moment kitty opened her mouth. I am supposed to leave the bandits to her until specifically ordered to engage. Ugh..this kitty caused so much of my precious thought process to go to waste. The rest of the day went by without anything interesting. We simply walked till late evening when we reached a stream. We decided to set a camp for the day so we searched for a clearing and set up a little campfire. Sumila brought out the rations and that''s what I had for dinner. Still, no meat...After dinner Sumila proceeded to sleep while I stayed up to keep watch and with nothing better to do I simply watched the stars. I don''t know if it was my improved eye sight or non existing pollution or maybe the combination of both, but the stars in the sky were bit clearer and more shiny than back home. None of the known constellations were there though. Sometime later in the night Sumila woke up and relieved me from my watch duties so I drifted to sleep. Chapter: 7 Rabbits and Mangoes I would really like you to tell me your favorite part or aspect of the story in comments or at the main fiction page. I am not exactly sure if there is a way to check but there are some who are following/''favorite-ing'' the story so thank you for liking my work, whoever you are. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sumila woke me up early in the next morning and after taking care of our respective morning stuff and eating light breakfast she proceeded to teach me ''way of sword'' as she called it. Why can''t it simply be swordsmanship? During our half an hour of ''sparring'' I came to understand why the technique and practice is important. I was definitely superior in raw speed and stronger than her but I still didn''t get any clean hits. Sure I wasn''t going at my full power or even at my full controllable power but she was probably not using her full strength either. So the spar was me trying to hit her and hitting nothing but air. She would duck, side step or pull back at the last possible moment, leaving me wide open for her counter. I could see her movement but I couldn''t move naturally like her, my movements were jerky and....unpracticed. After the ''sparring'' or one sided harassing was over, I mean if I was still the old me I would have been black and blue all over. Anyway, once it was over she asked me to pick a main sword style to train in. There are three broad ones to choose from, almost every style falls in to one of these, some mix few aspect of two or all three in them. First one is swift style, relying on speed, fast slashes and thrusts. This one mostly uses short swords, rapiers, katana, daggers etc. I like this one. Ahem, Second one is Power style, relying on superior strength. The common weapons are great swords or heavy swords. Meh, why not just use clubs or mace if all you want is to smash them? Moving on, the last one is Ever changing style, this one relies on unpredictable moves and counters. I think the last one is perfect for you, don''t you think? That''s a low blow...even for you. ...did the hair color change more than just appearance? I am not emo if that''s what you are implying!!! Uh huh...whatever you say dude. .... Anyway, moving on from my emo half..I am not an emo, you sissy! Ahem as I was saying Kitty asked me to pick a main style and I kind of agreed with my em...err other half and picked swift style as a major and ever changing one as minor, almost feels like I am picking subjects for college..Anyway after I told her my decision she proceeded to show me few stances and some moves and told me to simply practice them whenever I can while varying the pace of moves from slow motion to fast paced and also to do this without enhancing myself. Like I know how to do that...The hell is enhancing anyway? It must be something related to that mana manipulation she keeps saying she is good at. I know but how do we do that..? umm..meditation? I mean that''s how it always works in the stories, right? Hell no...You want me to become Buddhist monk? The sword tai chi wasn''t enough? Doesn''t hurt to try...? Well how do we go about it then? I mean what exactly are we supposed to be focusing on ? Umm...keep chanting ''inner peace'' and try to reach it? Or try to become one with the world? or try to find some sort of glowing energy or fog inside you? Take your pick. Lets ignore first one..that only works for tortoise or pandas. We will try the other two one by one before asking kitty. Although I said that but I don''t think she will be of any help. If it works like any of those stories then she will say something simple yet profound which I won''t understand till I succeed, rendering it meaningless. Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on. I practiced my sword-tai chi as I had this chit-chat and after about two hour or so kitty called it enough so we ate some more of the ration, packed our stuff and started on the day two of our journey. The day itself went by without any noteworthy event or discussion. We did come across a rabbit which was quickly dealt with by a throwing knife from Sumila. She picked it up and after dusting it off she tied it along side her travelling bag. I guess it will be our dinner tonight. Around evening we again looked for a source of water and a clearing and set up our camp. While Sumila prepared the rabbit, I walked a bit further away and started practicing my sword tai chi moves. I like my meat but I definitely don''t want to see the process if I can help it. Kitty called me over when it was done, I was practically drooling already so I took my share of the rabbit and wolfed it down. It was the first time I ate a rabbit and first time I ate something other than vegan mumbo jumbo. It was bit like chicken but not quite and Kitty roasted it quite well considering the equipment. All in all I liked it. After finishing up the dinner we laid on our back for a little but Sumila drifted to sleep soon So I started experimenting with meditation, my other half was sensible enough to keep quiet, probably attempting it himself. I stopped when I started getting sleepy and moved to practicing sword tai chi moves. Sumila got up at some point and told me to get some rest and that''s how day two ended. The day three was pretty much same except there was no ''sparring'', thankfully and no rabbits, sadly. Kitty did get us few purple colored fruits. It tasted like ripe mango but there was no large seed in center like an actual mango So if it wasn''t for the weird color and lack of seed I might have mistaken it for mango back home. We also encountered two bandit groups, which were easily taken care of by Sumila. It was first time I saw her fight seriously...no, a bit seriously. 3 of the 5 bandit were taken care of by flying knives in their throats before she even approached the remaining two and then played with them for a bit before slitting their throats. She wasn''t overly fast as I could follow her with my eyes but she was in complete control of her movements and was pretty agile. Her movement seemed elegant and natural compared to mine which are full of short bursts of speed and jerky. She even picked up any money they had on them and throwing knives. And she had galls to tell me that I am the Bully...? The other group was even easier. She picked two off with throwing knives and other two were dealt with by her daggers. I asked her why the bandits were throwing away their lives by attacking a rank 3 adventurer which are supposed to be strong from her explanations. To which she answered that very few individuals possess the skill which lets them check someone else''s level. They are either high ranked adventurers who somehow come across a lucky opportunity to learn it or are somehow born with the skill. Even then it has a lot of restrictions like the amount of information they can see is dependent on their skill level and they can only check for someone''s level if they are in close proximity and they are not too high level compared to skill user. So I am guessing without being able to check level the bandits are like gamblers hoping to not come across someone with high level or be able to handle them with superior numbers. And a cute demi human along with a teenager human don''t really strike them as high level adventurers, huh? Anyhow, the day three evening went like as usual I kept watch, practiced sword tai chi and experimented with meditation before sleeping till morning. The day 4 was pretty much like day 3 till afternoon, when we came across a carriage with dead horses, two heavily armored guards, a lavishly dressed youth, about a dozen individuals dressed like wannabe assassins and few bodies of guards and assassin cosplayers. And no, these cosplayers weren''t dressed in some steampunk version of assassin costume but the more traditional black outfits covering everything with some leather armors and daggers. Sumila rushed off to save the lavishly dressed youth while I stayed away so I don''t get pulled in their fight. After all I had specific instructions from Cat to not engage unless asked to and she didn''t ask me. Let''s hope it''s not an encounter with some arrogant young master from some powerful family to advance the plot... Errr....why are you saying it like we are in some sort of story...? Why can''t I? You are always narrating everything like some trashy MC. ..... Sumila approached the wannabe assassins while throwing her knives at them. 3 were dead before they became aware of her presence. Another died when a guard took advantage of their loss of focus due to her presence and stabbed one through his heart, making it 3 against 7. A short melee ensued where guards were trying to keep the ''young master'' safe from 4 assassins while Sumila engaged with the rest 3. Sumila ducked pass a rushing assassin''s slash while giving him a nasty gash in his side. She kicked the second one in the chest and used it as a boost to lunge at the last one slicing through his throat before he could react. She quickly dispatched the second one before he could get on his feet and soon after finished the first one by stabbing him through chest. While Sumila was busy with 3 assassin, the guards managed to kill one of the attacker but the assassin also killed a guard when the guard jumped in front of a thrust to save the youth. the other guard was also heavily injured so Sumilaa quickly sprung in action after finishing her three assassin. She threw two knives at the remaining attackers and got one in his head another in his shoulder, making it two assassin against her. She quickly reached the injured one and finished him off with a thrust through his throat. The last one gave a frustrated look and threw his dagger at the teenager in an attempt to finish his task before running away but Sumila finished him off with a throwing knife in his neck. The teenager was saved by the last guard who pushed him aside in time but got stabbed himself instead. Sumila checked the guard but from expression, I don''t think he survived. She then said something to the teenager, probably introducing herself before quickly giving a bow. I couldn''t really make out the words so I approached them. The teenager eyed me for a bit before opening his mouth. "Hey, you peasant! how dare you not assist this Prince in his time of need and why are you not on your knees, have you no manners?"-Bratty prince Oh boy.... oh boy indeed....hehe. Chapter: 8 Story of a bra..err Prince Sorry for lack of chapter yesterday. I was kind of catching on up with my reading list. And also sorry for a rather short chapter but I don''t like changing point of views in between chapters. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ I am Kendon Vathia, third son of Sanley Vathia, and was born to his concubine Nasja Vathia. I am also the third prince of Vathia kingdom by birth. Ever since I was born, I always lived in the shadow of my half brother and the crown prince Vidgar Vathia. He always got the most attention and was hailed as genius. At first I tried to compete for the attention but no matter how hard I tried it was never enough. Even if somehow I did better than him It was usually not paid much attention to save the dignity of the crown prince. After a while I just gave up on competing, there simply was no point in it. Unless my first 2 brother died I would never get the crown, not that I wanted it, so there was no point in trying so hard at the things which didn''t interest me, just to out do him. Things like politics, governing or interactions with nobles. So, even though I won''t get anything out of it, I was still required to maintain the ''royal dignity'' and was also required to study everything a prince would need to. Why should I always have to maintain the royal dignity when the position I can hope for is a general in army and that''s if I have the required military merits and accomplishments. Well atleast it also required me to take combat training, which I rather liked. I practice the secret sword style of Vathian royalties, it''s a mixture of swift style and ever changing style. I am rather proficient at ever changing aspect of the style. And I have to admit that being a royal has its perks. I get a multiplier in almost all the experience I get with just the ''Prince'' title. I can only assume what kind of bonus multiplier a crown prince title gives or a King for that matter, better yet the emperor. Anyway, due to my constant training with accomplished knights of the kingdom my level rapidly rose, reaching 78 at the age of 15. That''s 4 level more than my first brother, a small achievement but still. I also continued to study politics, governance, art of war, history and geography of the continent. I didn''t want to but I had to because every royalty needs to have a sufficient grasp on these topics to maintain their ''dignity''. I was really getting tired of hearing that again and again. I''d rather be a commoner than a prince even if it means to lose the multiplier from prince title. I wanted to be an adventurer, create my own party and go on grand adventures with them and leave my name in the history and legends but I can''t, all because of this stupid ''dignity'' of theirs. I was basically supposed to leave in the shadow of my half brother and assist him when he succeeds father. I longed for the life out of the palace and that''s why I volunteered..no, rather I begged my father to be allowed to go when I heard about sending someone from royal family to get an artifact from a Neagian merchant. Apparently, this artifact allows for long distance communication under correct conditions and can be used as spying, if our informant''s report is to be believed. It''s a two part artifact where one part can be used to see the surrounding area of another part. But the merchant will only deal with a member of royal family and a written decree of protection. After a bit of begging father reluctantly agreed and I was given a squad of knights, consisting 10 knights, all equivalent to a decent rank 4 adventurer and a knight captain, equivalent to rank 3 adventurer. It was a decent security detail considering I was just a prince, and not a crown prince. Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original. We arrived in Neagia kingdom without any incident and I enjoyed my time out of palace. It wasn''t until we arrived at the city of Tane when we heard the news of disappearance of merchant and his whereabouts. Frustrated and angry we decided to back to Vathia but never did I expect an assassin attack on me. The attack happened on the second day of our departure from Tane. It was done by either someone who held grudge against Vathian royal family or someone who wanted to create a tension between Vathia and Naegia by assassinating me in naegian teritorry. The knight captain was killed first in the surprise attack causing bit of disorder and panic in the knights, yet they stayed and protected me but the the number of attackers were bit much and soon we only had two knight remaining. I was starting to think that this might be the end of me when the most beautiful woman I''d ever seen, came rushing in the fight and started slaughtering the assassins left and right. 3 were actually dead before she even arrived. She must be atleast Rank 3 adventurer. I got another look at her and saw her cat ears and tail. *Sigh* I will never have a chance with her. A prince isn''t be allowed to marry a demi-human, though if it was a crown prince then it would have been possible as it would strengthen the relation with demi-humans. Bah the stupid politics..always making my life hard. I kept looking at her mesmerized and didn''t notice the dagger thrown at me by the last assassin but I was saved by the last knight. I started cursing myself over my mistake which caused the death of a loyal person. While I was in self-loathing the woman introduced her and I also told her my identity, my savior atleast deserves to know my real name. After knowing my identity she gave me a bow and I was about to tell her that it was unnecessary when a guy with abnormally black and straight hair made his way towards us with carefree and lazy expression. There was something off about this person and he made me feel irritated. He was staying away during the whole fight and just observed like it was none of his business..i mean it wasn''t but his companion was helping us. How could he let a cute lady fight to almost a dozen assassin by herself and he had helped their was a chance my knights wouldn''t have died. Thinking up to this point I could hardly contain myself and shouted at him "Hey, you peasant! how dare you not assist this Prince in his time of need and why are you not on your knees, have you no manners?"-Kendon I only came to my sense when I was finished berating him and again I quickly observed him. He was probably only a little older than me yet he had a rank 3 adventurer as companion so either he was from influential background or had enough money or was powerful himself. There also didn''t seem to be any sort of panic or fear in his eyes from my scolding...instead he seemed to be slightly annoyed. I shouldn''t have scolded him I guess...that wasn''t really a good first impression I guess. Awww...even Sumila is looking at me weirdly now. Am I weirder than this creepy weird guy now? Maybe I should try to smooth things over. Just as I was about to say something the creepy guy spoke up... Chapter: 9 Change of plans and Malligator Over 75 average views and only 3 comments so far...*cries* Ahem, don''t mind my amateur story teller''s outburst..Ash''s emo looks are starting to rub on him. But rejoice! I managed to steal a chapter away from him :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ As soon as the blonde brat opened his mouth, all of my suspicions were confirmed. He really was one of those arrogant characters which are used as third class villains to harass the MC or give him a reason to get stronger or move the plot or combination of those things. They are nothing but troubles and even if they somehow don''t cause the trouble themselves, the trouble finds them instead. Besides why should I bow to him? just because he swam little faster than his million other competitors? I don''t think so...let''s discuss my options. Can we just kill him? What if they have those jade token/slip thingies here which tell their family about whoever harms them? You know like one of those martial arts novels? How troublesome...Cat really shouldn''t have saved him. Let''s just tie him up and put him in front of wild monster then? Besides how will they find us even if they have those jade-magic thingies? Err....Some sort of Magic tracking method? Let''s just ditch him then and run like hell. He doesn''t really know much about us anyway. Sure we can do that but will your cute kitty follow us? Besides the brat seems to be thinking about something and not spouting nonsense like those 3rd class villains anymore....maybe he isn''t really a lost cause? Villain with a working brain...just great. After brainstorming about my options and no finding any good one I simply decided to get back at him for shouting at me. "Look here you blondy, I don''t care if you are prince or king himself, you wouldn''t even be alive if I wasn''t here so why don''t you bow down instead and thank me for saving you? I wouldn''t mind just killing you now and making it look like that the wannabe assassins did it."- Ash The brat looked at me with wide eyes, going wider as I continued my berating. He was about to open his mouth but quickly closed it when I mentioned killing him. Nothing works better than the good ol'' scare tactic. I grinned to myself mentally before continuing. "So why don''t you introduce yourself and why you were being attacked?"-Ash And that got him talking. First he told his name but I already decided to call him brat, atleast in my mind. Then he told us how he was prince from another kingdom and came here to buy an artifact which lets you communicate at long distance. I thought that would be common here with all this mana and what not...oh well. Then he told about disappearance of said artifact owner and the attack, of which he didn''t know much, just few guesses. I really planned to ditch him and leave him for his own but the brat begged and convinced Sumila with his puppy dog eyes to let him join us. A dog and a cat..some travelling companions. As he just came from the city of Tane, there was pretty good chance of encountering more of his assassins so we had a change of plan and decided to head towards a town to the west of here, about 5 days on foot if pass through the marshy region and more if we try to bypass it. It would take us about 3 days to reach the marshy region then a day in there and finally another day to reach the town. Annoying brat...he wasted 4 days of my travel. Before we set off for the new destination the brat went in his carriage and brought out a birdcage. After writing a short note on a paper and securing it on the bird''s leg, he let it out of the cage. Apparently he sent the message to his father to let him know that he is safe so the two kingdoms don''t go to war over his death. Good thinking. I really thought that the use of magic crystals and orbs for communications would be common in a fantasy word but I was utterly disappointed when I saw the brat using a bird to deliver the message and he was supposed to be a prince. How is it any better than earth? This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version. Anyway, I told the brat to change into less showy clothes and more travel friendly clothing and Sumila approved so he went in his carriage again and after going through all of his clothes he picked up a light blue tunic and and dark trousers.They were a lot less lavish but still were of better quality than mine but that was to be expected as he was supposed to be a prince. I also grabbed a bag of a knight, I am only guessing but I doubt assassins would have brought any bags. I stuffed a comfy blanket from carriage in it and also took a bit plainer white shirt and brownish trouser from prince''s clothes as he almost had same size, perks of being young again. Well atleast I have change of clothes now, wearing same things for 4 straight days isn''t exactly pleasant. I also changed my short sword with a good double edged long sword of the knight captain cause having longer reach is always better. After finishing up we put the bodies of knights together and after paying some respect to the dead set them on fire as we really didn''t have time to dig hole for all of them and set off to the town of Li''stth. I still feel a bit weird about this brat for some reason. Maybe because he has been looking at your kitty like a lost puppy so... A rival''s instincts or something like that? Oh please...like you''d ever agree to date a girl again. And isn''t he bit too young for her? Well...unlike a certain masochist, getting hurt once was enough for me. And who knows maybe she is into reverse ageplay? And she doesn''t even have to worry about the law so..all the fun but no hassle. I am not masochist! and it''s still better than having a trigger happy split personality. .... Our journey was without any incident till we reached the marshes. I continued to practice my tai chi and attempt at meditation. I got relatively more sleep now as there was one more person for the watch duties so I only had to keep watch for one third of the night after that Sumila would take over and some time later the brat. We only came across bandit one time in three days and Sumila took care of it while Ken kept giving me weird look...maybe it''s weird to let the girl handle all the fights, after all, but hey she was the one who said I am a bully. After reaching the marsh though, we encountered something troublesome. They looked like humanoid alligators so I aptly named them ma-lligators...Sumula however corrected me and told me they were lizard-man. They were bit like goblin as they weren''t exactly mindless beasts but they were still treated as monsters. They were about 2 meter tall hulking green monstrosities, covered in scales, their long alligator like mouth full of pointy teeth and had long claws and if that wasn''t enough they carried spears and swords in their hands. Sumila could only handle 2 or 3 at a time because unless she hit them in their eyes, the scales prevented taking too much damage from her throwing knives and they also seemed bit resistant to the slashing attacks so they were bad match up for her style. She gave me free rein to do whatever I wanted, after the first encounter so I joined in the fun from then. They were tough, well atleast tougher than goblins as they didn''t get their head blown to pieces with a light punch but still died or were knocked unconscious. So I got bolder and after bit of experimentation I found out that they could take upto 15% percent without going boom, give or take a few percentage cause like I mentioned it''s hard to control or accurately measure your punch''s strength.He stopped giving me weird looks like before after I smashed up few malligators...or atleast he wasn''t as open about them as before. After a day and about 10 or so malligator encounters we were through the marshy region and after another day of travel the town''s wall came in my sight. that''s more like a fantasy town...much better than that village. Why do I feel like something is off though... Shut up and stop jinxing everything...