《The Unwilling Adventurer - [Litrpg crafting progression]》


 Ch 1: Reincarnation Sucks

    I didn''t know who invented reincarnation, but it kind of sucked. There were the two main kinds of reincarnation. The one where you remembered your past life and the one where you didn''t.


    As you can probably guess, I got reincarnated and now I was sucking on some random lady''s breast for nourishment. With the context of a full life, sucking on a breast for nourishment felt weird. I did it anyway, because I had already died once. I didn''t want to do it again anytime soon.


    Growing up was strangely harder this time around. Knowing what life had to offer, it was harder to stay motivated to keep on going.


    As you probably already suspected, I reincarnated into a fantasy world. I liked fantasy growing up, but I never considered that I would live it one day. Blasting things apart with fireballs or slashing them with a sword were fun for make believe, but in real life? Just think about how much back splash you''d probably get from both those activities.


    I didn''t need to be covered in animal or monster guts all day. Reincarnate me in the realistic world. The one I came from. Things sucked, but at least I didn''t have to worry about being killed by the flu. They never covered that sad reality in fantasy books.


    My "mom" died of consumption¡ªwhich is just an old-fashioned name for tuberculosis¡ªwhen I was twelve in this new life. With modern medicine, also known as antibiotics, she could have been cured and stayed alive and kept this shitty family from falling apart.


    But no, none of the so-called healers in town could cure her, because of course they couldn''t. These healers who could heal stab wounds but not a simple bacterial infection of the lungs. Bunch of useless assholes.


    No, I didn''t cry. Only losers cry over the death of their second mother. Someone who still gave them life, despite not being the first to do it. Regardless of how much care and kindness she put into everything she did. Despite how much her family loved her. None of that mattered, because she was dead. And she wasn''t coming back.


    Sure, maybe she''d reincarnate into a modern world and live a whole new life there. Whoop Dee Doo. What good did that do for her loved ones? For the people she left behind. Her name was Alimay, by the way. If you cared.


    With my mother dead, our family limped on. We never fully recovered from that loss, but we survived. It''s not much of a consolation prize, but at least my father didn''t die shortly after, as is often the case with loving marriages in a medieval setting.


    "Oh, he fell off a bridge" or "he got trampled by horses" people would say, as if that was something people could accidentally do. Anyone with a brain knew what really happened, but medieval societies weren''t socially sophisticated enough to face the awful truth. So they just swept it under the rug, like a bunch of cowards.


    And then there was the system. That awful, stupid system. It plagued my view all day and night, just begging me to click on it. It wasn''t until my 18th birthday, when my father coincidentally died by falling off a bridge, leaving the family business to me, that I finally decided to click on the system screen.


    The screen prompt just said "Start New Game." Nothing fancy or elaborate. I mentally clicked on the button. A title screen showed. The title was "The Glorious System." How humble. Then backstory text scrolled slowly down the screen. I didn''t read any of it.


    It made me choose a character name, to which I put my real name in, "Gwen." You may be wondering, Gwen? Isn''t the protagonist of this story male? He is. I mean, I am. My mother just really wanted a girl so badly that she never even considered coming up with a male name, and when I was born, she named me Gwen anyway.


    I used to hate the name, but ever since my mom died, I''ve worn it proudly, punching anyone in the face who dare laugh at the name my magnificent mother gave me. The assholes. Served them right. What''s a few broken noses in a medieval fantasy setting, anyway? Half the people here broke their noses at least once before their eighteenth birthday.


    It gave me starting stats with no ability to spread additional stats among my starting ones. I didn''t know what that was about. Most games gave you some starting points to spread out, but not this one.


    My starting stats were Strength 5, Dexterity 4, Constitution 3, Intelligence 6, and Charisma 2. Damn. What a low charisma stat. I''d have to work on that if I could. With everything I wanted to achieve in such a short time, I would need a good charisma stat. Besides, a good charisma stat often let you skip crappy encounters.


    I hoped this was one of those hard work systems rather than max level systems. Max level systems, you had to choose a deliberate character build and allocate your available points wisely, because there was a maximum number of points you could gain.


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    The problem with max level systems is they operated on efficiency of economy. You had to make choices that provided the most utility per point possible.


    There were many combinations of ways to do that, but almost all of them relied on the ability for the player to start the game over and use gained knowledge to refine their build.


    Since there was no indication whether I''d be able to start over when I died, I was going to assume I couldn''t. It was better to assume that and be wrong than the other way around.


    On the contrary, hard work systems allowed you to just gain stats and skills as you learned them in real life. Which meant there were no real limits, other than the time limit of your eventual death to natural causes or a dragon stepping on your ass.


    What I would have preferred more than anything was to have a family and live out my boring life helping my still alive father run an adventuring gear shop, while my still alive mother tended to the house, as unfortunately was tradition in this alternate historical era.


    I would have liked to have a family that wasn''t ripped out of my grasp like the last one so recently was. Although that had been due to old age and dementia, it still stung. That wasn''t the case, though. My mother and father were dead, and I was all alone in the world.


    Well, I wasn''t all alone. I had a brother and sister to worry about, too, which was worse than being alone. If I didn''t have the lives of others to worry about, I could''ve just accidentally fallen off a bridge too, and tried my luck in the reincarnation pool again, if that is what fate had decided for me.


    But saddled with this responsibility, I wouldn''t shirk it. I wasn''t that much of a coward. And so that left me with one option. Play the game. I was barely eighteen. While I could legally run the shop, I was going to need all the help I could get.


    My father had me and my brother to help him, and he was a big, strong man. I was a scrawny eighteen-year-old boy. And I''d lost the biggest help we had, my father. Now it was just me and my little brother who could barely sweep the dust off the floors.


    I''m going to pause because I feel like we''re getting off on the wrong foot. I''m not a heartless bastard, even if I come off that way in my head. I cried my eyes out over my second mother''s death, and I silently cried in the bathroom after I heard my second father had died.


    All I''m trying to say is life was hard out here. Harder than they make it out to be in books and shows. But for your sake, I''ll try to complain a little less, and just shoulder the burden like a real tough guy would. I was going to do my best for my brother and sister, and I''ll do the same for you.


    I hoped to get something good with this system, but so far it was just gamifying skills I already had. Was this just going to be life, the game, or was I going to get some cool abilities to help me not die and not make my brother and sister starve to death in the house?


    Next was character background and race. It said I couldn''t choose those though. They had already been chosen for me when I was born. It did, however, tell me what they were, and it showed grayed out images of the choices to the left and right of my background and race.


    Despite being grayed out, they were still mostly visible. The names weren''t displayed, but I could guess by context what they were based on the images. The background on the left of mine had an image of someone working a field. Must have been a farmer''s background.


    The one on the right had an image of a man wielding a sword. That must have been a soldier or a knight''s background. I assumed soldier since it was less prestigious. Knight seemed more like something you would work toward rather than move on from.


    The background I was given based on my upbringing was called "Merchant''s Son." It gave me proficiency with a few different skills. The specific proficiencies I was given were bartering, appraisal, and repair.


    These were the most basic level of proficiency, known as apprentice proficiency. I could only assume there were many proficiencies above that, and anything you didn''t have a proficiency in, you were shit at. Or at least only as good as any other random person without experience in the skill.


    Next were the race options. The race options weren''t anything cool, or I didn''t expect. The one on the left was a short stout man, who was clearly a dwarf, and the one on the right was a beautiful tall thin man with pointy ears, who was clearly an elf.


    I was hoping for something cool, like demons or orcs or goblins, but supposed it was for the best that those weren''t options next to mine. I would want them too much.


    I had played more than my fair share of fantasy role-playing games in my adult years. I''d even played some table top rpg''s. They were fun, sure, but I never wanted to live them. They were fun because there were no real consequences.


    You could pretend to be a badass hero, but when push came to shove, you didn''t have to put anything on the line. You had nothing to lose, especially not your life. Not your real life, at least.


    Maybe it was karmic justice that I be thrust into this position, since I had no interest in being in a real life fantasy scenario. I didn''t know what I had done to deserve this, but who knew what made the gods do what they did? It could have been as simple as the fact that I didn''t want it that made them do it.


    Either way, I was here. Looking at my selected race, I wasn''t surprised. It was human. It gave me the racial benefits of starting with proficiency in five skills rather than the standard three. It also gave me a 20% experience boost, but what good was an experience boost when everyone in your town had the same boost?


    I knew no one else had this system, but that didn''t mean other people didn''t level up and gain skills like I would. They just didn''t have a way to directly interface with the mechanics.


    Since I started with five skill proficiencies, but only three had been assigned by my background, I had two left to allocate. I chose blacksmithing and alchemy.


    They seemed like the most relevant skills to running the shop since we sold adventuring gear and supplies. That included weapons, armor, potions, and elixirs. So if I could make a few extra on the side or learn how to improve what I already had, I could make some extra profit and feed my family for another day or two.


    I was hoping I''d at least be able to choose my class. As soon as I clicked past the background and race options¡ªeven though they were chosen for me¡ªa "Choose your Class" option appeared. Nice. This is where the real fun would begin.

 Ch 2: Choose Your Class

    The "Choose Your Class" option seemed cool at first. There were a number of different options to choose from and you could see the mechanics for the starting abilities, bonuses, and skills they gave you.


    That got old really quick when I realized that the list of classes didn''t end. I read the first dozen class mechanics and then I just started reading the class names and assuming I knew the gist of what they did.


    I sure as hell couldn''t be bothered to read them all. I had to open the shop. I understood now why the system called itself glorious, but holy cow was this a lot of options. There was literally any possible class you could think of in a fantasy setting and even some you couldn''t.


    I wasn''t seeing anything that spoke to me, so I just started scrolling rapidly through the options without reading them. I figured I would scroll to the bottom and then work my way up instead.


    Rather than that happening, I just ended up spending entire minutes scrolling through hundreds of classes. This was getting ridiculous. Just when I thought the list would be infinite, I hit the bottom. I scrolled through the classes at the bottom until I finally found something that took my breath away.


    "Krinkler, Tinkler, Maker," I mumbled to myself. Maker. Boy, was that a class name if I ever heard one. I clicked on it immediately. I couldn''t wait to see what it did.


    "Jack of all crafts, master of none. Can make anything you put your mind to, with enough levels, materials, and time."


    Interesting. This was exactly the vague kind of everything crafter class that I was looking for. I ran a retail store for adventurers. The more I could make, the more I could sell.


    This was perfect for my circumstances. My favorite part is that it gave me proficiency in all crafts. All of them. Sure, it was only apprentice level proficiency to start, but I was sure those could be improved.


    The hardest part of learning a craft was going from someone who knows nothing to apprentice level. So the hardest part was out of the way for me.


    One of the downsides of the class was that it didn''t give me any starting abilities or bonuses. All I started with was proficiency in all crafting skills. Oh, and I had no weapons or armor proficiencies.


    Nothing combat related. So I was basically useless in a fight. Who needed combat skills, though, when you could make and sell everything?


    I could turn my shop into a booming business and then just hire adventurers to fight for me. Or better yet, I could hire them to teach me how to fight.


    I didn''t know if Makers could learn how to fight, but there was nothing in the starting mechanics that said you couldn''t. I still had an attack and defense skill, which was a good sign. They were only unarmed skills, but if I could learn new proficiencies from experts, I''d be set.


    Oh, and I didn''t specify this, but skills also had numbers associated with them. Everything I had apprentice level proficiency in was set at 3 and everything else was set at 2. So 2 must have been the baseline for stats.


    Everything that I already had apprentice proficiency in got bumped up to journeyman proficiency. So my bartering, appraisal, repair, blacksmithing, and alchemy skills were all statted at 4 now.


    Well, then my charisma stat wasn''t so bad. It was just at the baseline. That made my other stats overly impressive. A 5 in strength and a 6 in intelligence? I was skinny-strong, sure, but a 5? Huh. I guess I wouldn''t complain.


    And a 6 in intelligence. I was smart, but I wasn''t that smart. I mean, I could take apart and put nearly anything back together, and I could repair almost anything even if I''d never seen it before, but that wasn''t too unusual, was it?


    I spent the remaining time before opening time making sure my shelves and racks were full, my floors were cleaned, and my money in the drawer was stocked.


    I opened the doors to the shop. Then I placed the stand up signs on the left and right sides of the doors to prop them open and advertise the shop. They read "Quality gear at affordable prices!" and "Beginner gear for the true beginner!"


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    We didn''t stock anything fancy. Just beginner to intermediate weapons, armor, and supplies that we bought from suppliers. We didn''t make anything in house. We could do minor repairs with a small forge we had in the back, but it wasn''t anything fancy.


    You could probably make stuff with it, but it would be long and tedious because the heat was produced in such a small area. You couldn''t just heat up a whole length of steel and pound out a sword.


    I had a feeling with my maker class, I''d have to use these meager pieces of equipment to make my first items and gear. Oh well. I can''t blame anyone but myself in this instance.


    I chose the class. I could''ve been a fighter class and just slashed my way through anything that came my way, but no, I had to choose the fancy class that had actual utility in my day-to-day life. I say that like it''s a bad thing, but it''s really not.


    It just meant I''d have to rely on others to gather materials for me. Speaking of, a customer walked into the shop. They looked like a regular person. They didn''t have any armor or weapons on them.


    They just looked like a regular peasant. Certainly not someone who could afford to buy gear. I walked up to them.


    "Is there anything I can help you with?" I asked.


    "Yeah, uh," she said, "I''m looking for fighter gear and supplies, but it seems like I can''t afford anything here except maybe a healing potion. I heard you guys had the lowest prices, but I still can''t buy anything here."


    Gears began turning in my head. How could I make this work in my favor?


    "We do rentals," I said. "You can either pay up front for the rental, or you can pay with a portion of the loot you bring back."


    We didn''t do rentals. Too many people died in the dungeons or just never came back for that to be profitable. But this woman seemed like the honest type, and I needed someone to gather materials in the dungeons for me if I wanted to make anything worthwhile.


    Sure, I could buy supplies in bulk to make basic things like common health, mana, and stamina potions, but anything above common required materials that people weren''t selling. Anything they risked their lives for, they were likely to keep, even if they couldn''t do anything with them.


    Which was dumb, but people were dumb. I couldn''t necessarily fault them for that. Even I was dumb sometimes. Well, more than sometimes. I probably had a low wisdom stat if I were to guess.


    "You rent gear?" she asked. "No one does that anymore! I hear too many people run off with the merchandise or lie about their findings."


    "You''re a smart one," I said. I was trying to flatter her, so she liked and trusted me more. "You''re right. No one rents anymore, and neither did we up until today. Officially, we still don''t, but the ownership of this shop just fell to me, and you seem like the honest sort, so I''ll make a deal with you."


    "I''m listening," she said.


    "If I rent gear and lend supplies to you," I said, "I''ll let you pay me back at cost for the supplies and gear when you finish your first dungeon incursion or hunting expedition or whatever it is you plan to use the gear and supplies for. Obviously, you''d want to keep the gear for future trips.


    "The only thing I ask for in return is you give me all the crafting materials that you come across. The more you bring back, the better things I can make and the better gear and supplies I can give you for future trips, so it''s in your favor to gather as much as you can. That includes weapons and armor if you can carry it."


    She put her hand on her chin and thought about it, or at least pretended to. That would''ve been manipulative though, and again, she didn''t seem the type. So I figured she really was thinking.


    What about, I don''t know. The deal I was offering her was a once in a lifetime opportunity for a peasant who couldn''t afford gear. What was she going to do? Punch the goblins and giant rats to death?


    "I''ll agree to it," she said, "under one condition. You come with me. We can gather more materials with two people and I want you to bring extra supplies in case I need to borrow more during the trip."


    "You want me as your portable merchant shop companion, huh?" I asked. "I can do that, but I get to keep all the loot from anything I kill or find, assuming I do either of those things. You can keep the enormous chest of gold at the end, assuming there is one."


    "I can agree to that," she said.


    We shook on it, and a bond was instantly forged between us, is what I want to say, but what really happened was two people grabbed each other''s hands and lifted them up and down.


    I had no idea if she was going to go back on our deal or what. For all I knew, she was going to kill me in the dungeon and loot my corpse. But there was no reward without risk, and I needed this, so I would be taking that risk.


    Our business was on the decline in this town. The problem with only selling beginner to intermediate gear without traveling around is that everyone who bought the gear either died or graduated to needing higher level gear. So overtime clientele eventually dried up.


    And we were getting near the end of our savings, just keeping the shop open. So I had to do this, or I''d have to close the shop and eventually starve to death or get a job, and a single job wouldn''t make enough to feed me and my siblings.


    The harsh reality was that I needed this shop to start making money again, and in order to do that, I needed to sell higher level gear. Since I couldn''t afford to buy higher level gear, I''d have to make it, and in order to do that, I''d have to go into the dungeons or hunt for materials.


    So like it or not, I was going into danger with a random woman who I knew nothing about. At least she was tall, broad shouldered, and a fighter class. That would give me the best chance of survival.

 Ch 3: The Catacombs

    Don''t get me wrong. I was upset about my father''s death. He wasn''t a bad father. I wish he''d talked to us about how he was feeling before acting, though. And now I had to use the last bit of money left in our savings to pay for a funeral and burial.


    My siblings needed closure, and it would be nice to have a place to sit and talk to myself and think while pretending I was talking to my father''s spirit. I mean, I know I seem gruff and shitty, but I would still talk to him.


    I just wouldn''t expect a response. Not unless I performed necromancy on him or something. While that would be fun, I couldn''t afford the schooling or the fines for desecrating a grave and disobeying the natural laws of life and death and all that.


    As far as my siblings were concerned, it had finally sunk in that our father wasn''t coming back. They were beginning to mourn, just like they had with our mother, but that had been a long process, so I expected this one to take a while, too.


    That meant I was on my own for running the shop for a while. Brent wouldn''t be coming around to sweep anytime soon. Delia was taking it the hardest. She had been young when our mother died, so she didn''t have the previous experience to lean back on.


    I assured them everything was going to be alright, and that I was going to fix everything, because that''s what you do with younger siblings when everything is about to fall down around your ears. You lie, and you hope that it''s true.


    "Really? Are you going to bring mom and dad back to life?" Delia asked.


    "No, I''m not quite that amazing," I said. "I''ll make sure we survive and I''ll feed you hungry little munchkins."


    I tickled her, and she giggled.


    "Stop, that tickles!" she said.


    "That''s the point," I said, "but I will stop if you wish."


    "Gwen," my brother Brent said, "can I come sweep tomorrow?"


    "No," I said, "you rest and just deal with our recent loss. When you''re ready to come back, I''ll tell you."


    "Are you sure you can do it by yourself?" he asked.


    "I''ll be fine," I said.


    I wasn''t going to be fine. Well, I would be if tonight''s journey went well. The woman who was going to take me through the dungeon and I waited until after I closed the shop to head to the nearest dungeon. It was only an hour''s walk south of the town.


    It was called the Necromancer''s Catacombs of the Undead. Spooky right? Originally, it had served as the catacombs for a kingdom long since lost to time. Then, as the story goes, a powerful necromancer bent on the destruction of the kingdom entered the catacombs and brought them to life.


    He led an army of the undead to destroy the kingdom and everyone in it. The only thing left of the kingdom now were the catacombs buried deep underground. The necromancer apparently still lives at the bottom of the catacombs as a lich, but no one has ever made it far enough down to even fight him, let alone defeat him.


    Every so often, a horde of skeletons will exit the dungeon and attack the town. Which is why people tried to adventure into them as frequently as they could to quell the hordes of skeletons that continued to come out of the place.


    We were two such adventurers. Well, Valda, my companion, was an adventurer. I was just there to supply her with gear and pick up loot. Or so I thought.


    My father had ventured into the catacombs in his own younger years, gathering gold and resources. He had done quite well for himself in there, and that is the money he used to marry my mother and open the shop. Those resources were dwindling in recent years and he wasn''t the same man he was twenty years ago. He didn''t have the ability to go back in.


    I figured it was one of my best chances of gathering crafting materials. We could always hunt and forage out in the wild for materials as well, but there was no place nearby more dense with resources than the catacombs.


    There were rare bugs that wandered the catacombs, mushrooms, lichen, enchanted jewelry that elite skeletons wore, among other things. There were even rumors of enchanted artifacts at the bottom of the dungeon.


    When we were about to enter the catacombs, I saw a hand-painted sign outside that said, "Don''t go in there. There''s skeletons." Ignoring the helpful sign, Valda and I walked down the steps to enter the wide open doorway to the catacombs.


    Our footsteps echoed on the stone floor as we walked. We came to a junction with multiple tunnels.


    "Which way should we go?" Valda asked.


    "I don''t know," I said, "but wherever we decide, I''m going to keep a log on how to get back."


    "Good," she said. She pointed at the far right tunnel. "Let''s go there."


    "Ok," I said.


    I made a note in the notebook I brought along. Before following her down the tunnel, I lit one of the torches I brought along. Warm orange light spread through the tunnel as we walked.


    It started with sarcophagi lining the tunnel on the left and right. Most of them had been opened and were empty. I grabbed a few mushrooms and scraped some bioluminescent lichen off the wall, put them in a cloth bag and placed it in my pack.


    The floor was littered with bones. We crunched on them as we walked. The first enemies we came across were unarmed skeletons. They just kind of reached at us as they walked like zombies.


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    Valda gasped for a moment and froze.


    "What are you doing?" I said.


    "I don''t know," she said. "I can''t move."


    "Yes," I said, "you can."


    I grabbed her weapon arm and swung it in front of her. It hit a skeleton''s skull and smashed it to pieces. That seemed to break her out of her trance.


    Valda smashed the remaining skeletons to bits with the mace I gave her from the shop. Skeletons were vulnerable to blunt force damage more than slashing or stabbing. And you couldn''t hit them with arrows. They''d go right through.


    I hadn''t brought a weapon for myself, but I supposed I could use one of the ones I brought for Valda. I didn''t know how I would swing a war hammer while holding a torch in one hand and a notebook in the other though.


    I clicked through the system interface as we walked. I wanted to see if I could find an analyze ability that would allow me to see enemy names, descriptions, and health bars. I found it under the options menu.


    There were instructions on how to do different things and even a tutorial mode. I didn''t know how distracting the tutorial mode might be, so I kept it off. I just skimmed through the instructions to find an analyze mode.


    I found out that it was actually a clickable option in the display menu. I clicked to turn on the ''display stats'' option and suddenly a bunch of neon blue words and outlines cluttered my vision.


    Then I realized it was just because I was standing too close to Valda. When I stepped back, I could see the stats without it making me blind. Above Valda''s head was her name (Valda Steelheart), level (1), her health bar (100/100), mana bar (10/10), and her stamina bar (100/100).


    It also said she was a fighter class, which I already knew. Nothing else was displayed. I looked through the display menu more and found a ''highlight collectibles'' option and clicked on it.


    A yellowish-orange glow highlighted a ton of materials that I was missing in the dark. I started collecting everything I could see until I saw my pack was half full. I stopped after that. I figured it might be better to wait until we were further in to collect more valuable items.


    As we ventured further into the depths of the catacombs, we encountered other enemies, such as giant rats and skeletons with weapons and armor. There were also these huge dark blue beetles that I made Valda kill for me.


    They didn''t attack us, but the display showed them as collectible items, so I figured their carapace could be used in potions.


    "Why are we killing these things?" Valda asked.


    She crushed another beetle with her mace.


    "Because I can use them as crafting materials," I said.


    "Uh," she said, "ok, I guess."


    I picked up another vanquished beetle, placed it in a bag with all the others and put it in my pack. I eventually figured out, looking through the instructions some more, that there was an analyze ability.


    You needed to have the ''display stats'' option on and then you just had to stare closely at a material or item and a name and description would pop up next to it.


    I checked one of each of the materials I had picked up and they all said they were used in various potions and elixirs. Most of them were just for making higher-quality health, mana, and stamina potions, but the midnight beetle carapaces could be used to make dark sight potions. Dark sight allowed you to see even in pitch darkness.


    Some races had it automatically¡ªlike elves¡ªfrom what I learned in school. I analyzed the weapons and armor that the skeletons were using and they were useless or poor quality.


    The worst were labeled as ''rusted''. I supposed that the weapons and armor would get better the further in we went. Valda''s arms shook occasionally, but I couldn''t tell if it was from fear or exhaustion.


    "Do you need to rest?" I asked.


    "No," she said, "I can keep going."


    Her heavy breathing told a different story. I grabbed her shoulders and pulled her to the ground as I sat myself.


    "Sit," I said. I popped the cork on a bottle of green liquid and gave it to her. "It''s a stamina potion. It''s only common quality, but it should help you regain your strength."


    "Uh, thanks," she said.


    She drank the potion and I could tell she instantly felt better. She began to stand up, but I pulled her back down. I pulled out some jerky, bread, and water.


    "Eat," I said. "Unfortunately, there''s no such thing as a food and water potion, yet. You have to eat and stay hydrated."


    "Why are you being so nice to me?" she said.


    "Many reasons," I said. "You''re my lifeline. If you fall, I fall. Also, you seem like a decent person, and I don''t want to see you keel over to something preventable, like hunger or exhaustion."


    "Uh, thanks," she said.


    She bit into the bread and a look of relief and pleasure spread across her face. After that, she devoured the food and drank heavily from my canteen. Don''t worry, I had several hanging off the sides of my pack and there was more food where that came from.


    I would have eaten myself, but I wasn''t hungry yet. I hadn''t been doing much work. I just drank some water, and I was good. I came prepared, and while I have no training with weapons, yet, I''m no slouch. I can carry a lot of weight.


    The first thing I''d probably make when I got back, though, was a bigger pack with more straps so I could haul more loot. I hated that I was having to leave loot behind.


    "So, where are you from?" I asked.


    "Skimbal, just like you," she said.


    "Well, I know that," I said. "I mean, what''s your background?"


    "Building houses," she said. "Family business."


    "Oh, nice," I said. "Same here. My father passed the shop onto me when he died."


    "I''m sorry," she said. "You seem so young for that."


    "I am," I said. "But you move on."


    "Yeah," she said, "I guess so."


    After we ate and rested, we got back to it. We ventured further into the catacombs. We came across stairs down every so often, as well as forks in the road, so to speak. I made sure to catalog every turn. We were going deeper and lower in the labyrinth of tunnels.


    As such, we began to encounter tougher enemies. The skeletons were faster and more skilled with their weapons and the rats were bigger and more ugly. Valda had leveled up a couple times since we started (3), but she didn''t seem to notice. I supposed that the stat boosts were automatically allocated for her, since she had no system interface.


    She seemed to get better at swinging the mace too. I analyzed her more closely and stats popped up around her. Her strength was a 6, her dexterity a 5, her constitution a 5, her intelligence a 2, and her charisma a 3. Under skills, next to ''bludgeoning weapons'' was a 3 and (apprentice).


    Nice. She must have improved her skill since being in here. With her not having any weapons or armor coming into my shop, I expected her to have zero experience as a fighter, and she did.


    Since there were no system interfaces, choosing classes in this society was like choosing a profession. You just said you wanted to be a certain class and then you did it. Some classes you had to have an aptitude for, like a sorcerer, but that didn''t mean you had to choose that class. You''d just be an idiot not to.


    She must have just chosen one day she was going to be a fighter and then came to my shop and did it. I wondered why she quit the family business. Maybe I''d ask her that later.


    I drilled down further into her stats and found an experience progress bar. It didn''t say how many experience points she was gaining, but it told the percentage of progress towards the next level. Her progress towards level 4 was (28.4%) and her progress towards journeyman skill in ''bludgeoning weapons'' was (11.2%).


    I must have had my own experience bar, so I checked my levels. I was still level 1 but my progress towards level 2 was a whopping (5%). I guess I shouldn''t be surprised since I wasn''t fighting and I wasn''t making anything. The things I assumed would level me up. The (5%) must have come from gathering materials.


    We finally hit skeletons with actual useable weapons and armor. They were all labeled as ''Delphian steel''. I wasn''t sure what that was, but it must have been good. Otherwise, it wouldn''t have a name.


    I started strapping the weapons, especially the swords, to my pack. I was going to take them back with me and see what I could do with them. They had tons of nicks and scratches in them, so I figured I''d have to hammer and sharpen them, but they should sell with a good makeover.

 Ch 4: Hope for Something New

    As we delved deeper into the catacombs, I began to find new rarer materials. A soul crystal here, web silk there, and a big pile of poop. Wait, that wasn''t poop. It was a slime. A tarry black slime.


    The system identified it as an oil slime. I assumed it meant crude oil. What an incredible find! Crude oil in a dungeon? How lucky could one be? And then Valda''s mace splattered it on the ground. The rest of the tiny slime stuck to her mace.


    "Hey," I said. "Let me have that."


    "Why?" she said. "It''s gross, and it smells terrible!"


    "Please?" I said. "I can make stuff out of it."


    "Fine," she said, "here you go."


    She peeled the squashed slime off her mace and placed it in the bag I was holding open. Nice. With that secured, we carried on. There were more of the little shits.


    Valda squashed them left and right and I put them in bags, but my pack became full very quickly. I had stopped saving room and just kept putting more and more oil slimes in, recognizing the value of crude oil in a fantasy world.


    With the right equipment, I could do all kinds of things with it! I could make gasoline, rubber, plastic, diesel fuel, jet fuel, heating oil, propane and butane, asphalt, lubricants! The list continues, but I''m not going to exhaust it.


    What I really needed, though, was one of those endless bags that could contain infinite items and you could somehow pull out the right item every time you searched inside the bag.


    That was probably far off into the future, though, considering it was some form of magical engineering. Enchantment? Probably enchantment. If I was being honest with myself, what I needed was something new and exciting in my life.


    I didn''t want to just make the same modern conveniences in this world as there were in the last one. Some of them would be fantastic to have, like the crude oil, but I needed magic in my life, for lack of a better term to describe it.


    You know what? That''s what I was going to do. I wasn''t just going to make old stuff in my new world, I was going to make something magical! I''d be a tinkerer, or an artificer, or an enchanter!


    Create wonderful items that bring joy back into my life. Being a civil engineer in my past life, I was tired of building infrastructure. Modern conveniences in a modern world.


    Magic was my answer! Magic itself would bring magic into my life! I just needed to reach out and grab it. And with this maker class, I''m pretty sure I could do it. I''d have to check my proficiencies, but if the class gave me proficiency in all crafting disciplines, then tinkering, artifice, and enchantment should already be available to me.


    My bag was full, though, so we needed to head back. A bag of holding is what I needed, and that was the first thing I was going to make!


    "Valda," I said, "I can''t carry anymore stuff. Let''s get out of here."


    The tiny slimes swarmed us and attached themselves to our feet. It became very hard to move. Thinking quickly, I took out a canteen and poured water on them. They dissolved in the water. I could see them still sort of moving around, but they were floating on top of the water, rather harmlessly.


    I poured more water at Valda''s feet and we escaped. As we were leaving and taking the path back that I had kept track of in my notebook, we began to hear rattling bones coming from in front of us.


    Lifting my torch, which I luckily didn''t drop on the highly flammable slimes, we saw a horde of skeletons ahead. They must have come from one of the other tunnels we didn''t go through.


    I handed Valda a stamina potion, and she drank it down. She looked ready to pummel some skeletons. These skeletons were wearing armor and carrying Delphian steel blades. They wouldn''t be as easy as the first ones.


    Valda, however, was not to be outdone. She charged and raised the mace above her head. It glowed yellow and when she brought it down, there was a small explosion when it hit the ground. The swing itself took out three skeletons at once, and then the explosion took out the legs of several others.


    She did it several more times, and then called out to me.


    "Potion!" she said.


    I tossed her a stamina potion as carefully as I could and she caught it easily. She stepped back from the recovering skeletons and drank it, renewing her energy. Then she did the glowing yellow move three more times, and the skeletons were toast.


    I must have had my mouth open because she cheekily put her finger under my chin and closed my mouth for me.


    "What?" she asked. "You''ve never seen an impact strike before?"


    "Uh, no," I said, "actually. I haven''t. That was cool."


    I checked her level and stats. Her level was 4 already and Impact Strike was listed as one of her abilities now. She must have gained it when she leveled up. It must use up a lot of stamina to do, since she asked for another potion after just three blows.


    "Well," she said, "you better get used to it."


    Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.


    She brushed imaginary dirt off her shoulder, like she was all that and a bag of chips.


    "Hey," I said, "I can do cool stuff too, you know. Just not on the battlefield."


    "I''d pay to see this," she said.


    "Ugh," I said. "Let''s get back to the shop and we can talk about it over some coffee."


    "What''s coffee?" she asked.


    "Oh, nevermind," I said. "Old habit. It''s just a saying where my mother came from."


    "Oh," she said, "okay."


    <hr>


    "So what now?" she asked.


    She was eating a sandwich I made for her out of cured meat, because refrigerators hadn''t been invented yet.


    "What do you mean?" I asked.


    I took a bite of my sandwich. It was dry. Mayonnaise hadn''t been invented yet. Honestly, if I didn''t just turn this place into the modern world except with magic by the end of this journey, I''d be disappointed in myself.


    Cheese had been invented, though. At least that was one luxury I had to look forward to. I couldn''t afford it on a budget of zero coins, but I was hoping this trip and future trips would fix that.


    "I mean," she said, "are we gonna do this again or do we go our separate ways?"


    "I''d like to do this again," I said.


    "Me too," she said.


    I finished my sandwich.


    "So are you just going home now?" I asked.


    "Yeah," she said, "about that. I don''t have a home anymore. My parents disowned me."


    "Why?" I asked.


    "Let''s just say we don''t agree on a lot of things," she said.


    "Alright," I said. "I suppose you''ll be wanting to stay with me then."


    "Would that be alright?" she asked.


    "Yeah," I said, "but I have a condition. You better be planning to stay, because you''ll become my siblings second mother, and if you leave, they''ll be crushed."


    "I have nowhere else to go," she said. "Where would I leave to?"


    "If this works out the way I think it will," I said, "you''ll have more than enough money fairly soon. Oh, and one more thing. You have to help me in the shop."


    "Deal," she said.


    "Good," I said. "Now, let''s go to sleep."


    "Where?" she said.


    "At my house," I said.


    "Oh, right," she said.


    <hr>


    When we got to my house, my siblings were already asleep.


    "You''re staying in my parents'' room," I said. "I''ll be staying in mine. I''ll see you in the morning."


    "We''re not sleeping together?" she asked.


    "Why would we do that?" I asked.


    "So you can have sex with me?" she said.


    "Uh, what?" I said.


    I think she broke my brain in that moment. I didn''t know how to respond. Where was that 6 in intelligence now?


    "Isn''t this where you take advantage of my vulnerability to sleep with me?" she asked.


    "First off, that''s wrong," I said. "And second, do I really seem like that kind of person?"


    "I don''t know," she said. "It''s in all the books I read."


    "Maybe you should read different books then," I said. "Now go to sleep."


    "Okay," she said.


    She saluted me and walked off to my parents'' bedroom.


    "Weird," I said.


    I went to bed and nothing happened in the night to wake me up.


    <hr>


    I was shaken awake by my brother Brent. And then Delia jumped on me.


    "Oh, Jesus!" I said. "What is it?"


    "Who''s the lady in mother and father''s bed?" Brent said. "Is she your girlfriend? Do you have a girlfriend? Why do you get a girlfriend?"


    "Who''s Jesus?" Delia asked.


    "I can only answer one question at a time," I said. "She''s a friend who''s helping me with the shop. She has nowhere to go, so I figured since we have an extra room, she could stay here. Is that alright? Also, I don''t know who Jesus is. It''s just something I say."


    "Ok," Delia said, "I don''t believe you."


    She grabbed her teddy bear from off my head and walked out of the room.


    "Yeah, that''s fine," Brent said. "If she''s not your girlfriend, can she be my girlfriend?"


    "I''m pretty sure that''s not how girlfriends work," I said. "The other person has to want to be your girlfriend."


    "Oh," he said. "Well, how am I supposed to do that?"


    "I don''t know," I said. "That''s why relationships are hard to get. Now can we stop pondering life together? I have to make breakfast for three people now."


    "Oh, right," he said.


    He got off me and left the room.


    "Geez," I said.


    Delia poked her head back into my room.


    "Who''s Geez?" she asked.


    "No one," I said. "It''s just an exclamation."


    "Geez!" she said.


    She left again, but I could hear her walking away.


    "Geez! Geez! Geez!"


    "I guess it''s a Monday," I said.


    They always had the most energy on Mondays, like their bodies knew it was the beginning of the week.


    I cooked breakfast and Brent and Delia sat around the table patiently waiting, but when I served out the plates, Valda wasn''t sitting at the table.


    I opened the door to my parents'' bedroom. Valda was still sound asleep. I flicked her forehead. She immediately opened her eyes and put a knife to my throat.


    "What are you doing?" I asked.


    That knife felt sharp. Where did she even get a knife? I didn''t give her one.


    "Defending myself," she said.


    "First, you expect me to take advantage of you," I said, "and then you defend yourself with a knife like I''m about to take advantage of you. Make up your mind, woman!"


    "Oh," she said. She put the knife away. "The knife isn''t to defend against sex. I thought you were going to try to kill me. Well, not you specifically, but someone."


    "Huh," I said. "That says a lot about the life you''ve lived up to this point, but I''m not going to pry into that right now. I just want you to come eat breakfast with us."


    "Ok," she said.


    She didn''t make any moves to get out of bed.


    "Are you coming?" I said.


    "Unless you want to see me naked," she said, "I''d suggest you wait outside."


    "Oh," I said.


    I waited outside until she opened the door.


    "Hey, you haven''t been sexually assaulted or anything, have you?" I asked.


    "No," she said. "Why?"


    "Oh, good," I said. "The way you talk suggests that."


    "Oh," she said. "I''ll try to talk different then?"


    "Thanks," I said.


    I walked down the hall and into the kitchen. That was probably an unreasonable thing for me to ask, but my nerves were fried at that point. I barely slept, got assaulted by my siblings, and then had a knife held to my throat by someone I let stay in my house. Give me a break.


    "Hi!" Delia said.


    She waved at Valda, who was sitting right next to her.


    "Hi," Valda said. "Nice to meet you both. I''m Valda."


    "Hi, Valda!" Brent said. "Are you Gwen''s girlfriend?"


    "Who?" Valda said.


    And then I realized I messed up. In all that time, I hadn''t told her my name. She told me her name, and I just didn''t say mine. Maybe I was being self conscious.


    "Uh, me," I said, sheepishly.


    "Your name is Gwen?" she said.


    I could tell she was about to laugh, and then she shut it down and her face went placid.


    "No comment. Also, no, Gwen is not my girlfriend."


    "That''s not what he," I said. "You know what? Nevermind."


    We all sat around the table and ate breakfast in perfect silence, except for when Brent or Delia blathered about something random. So, not silent at all, basically. I would dictate what they said, but it''s genuinely not relevant to the story, so I will refrain.


    Ok, I''ll summarize some of it and you''ll see what I mean. Brent asked if Valda could be his girlfriend. Valda said he''s too young. Brent said he''ll wait. Valda and I both gave Brent concerned looks.


    Then Delia asked Valda when her boobs were going to get as big as Valda''s. Valda responded that she didn''t know. Delia was disappointed by the interaction.


    See? Not relevant. I would have called it a boring morning if someone didn''t kick my door in.