My Isekai Fantasy Is All Wrong!

Chapters

Chapter 12: Time Crunch
Chapter 1: New Game
Chapter 2: Level Up
Chapter 3: Money Grind
Chapter 4: Learning Experience
Chapter 5: Preparations Complete
Chapter 6: Instance Dungeon
Chapter 7: Reject Magic
Chapter 8: Unknown Detected
Chapter 9: Chain Quest
Chapter 10: Taking Initiative
Chapter 11: Easy Pickings
Chapter 13: Tough Break
Chapter 14: Interlude - Scoroe
Chapter 15: Battle’s Over
Chapter 16: Suspicions Assuaged

Chapter 12: Time Crunch

As I approached the Mines, I couldn’t help but worry over how exactly it was that I was going to find all the other Diamond Dogs. The current situation was nothing like the hunt for Timberwolfs which could be sniffed out from miles away and danced around without any of the Betas being any wiser to it.

‘If only I had a Detection Skill or something,’ I daydreamed to myself before realizing that I could have something similar, not as a Skill but as an Ability. In fact, I should probably use up both of my Ability Points before I forget. Unlike Skill Points which weren’t necessarily required to gain and improve skills or Perks which had the full list of available to plan for, Ability Points were best spent immediately to unveil the next Tier of a Category.

The Gamer Category originally only had Observe as its sole Tier 1 Ability, but after I bought it, I got access to Tier 2 Abilities, and — wouldn’t you know it — one of the Tier 2 Gamer Abilities was just the kind of thing that would solve my current problem. Maybe. Hopefully.

[New Ability Unlocked!]
[Name: Quest Pathfinding]
[Description: Improves Quest Functions to more clearly define and point out objectives.]

I crossed my fingers and hoped that my line of thinking wasn’t too much of a leap in logic…

[World Quest]
[Name: Griffon Rescue Chain Quest 4]
…
[Progress (1): Ask the Griffon about the slave encampment ✔ | Establish a plan of attack ✔ | Clear out the encampment of slavers (10/34) | Free the slaves (1/63) | Bonus 1: Recruit the Griffon to help carry out the liberation of the camp ✔ | Bonus 2: Take out all the slavers without killing a single one (10/34) | Bonus 3: Kill all the slavers (0/34) | Bonus 4: Free the slaves without a single casualty (1/63)]

‘Close, oh so very close,’ I sighed, ‘But no cigar.’

I had hoped that as a function of helping me clear the Quest I would have all the slavers in the camp pointed out to me with the addition of a Minimap or a Compass Bar as was common for RPG games. Unfortunately, while I did get definitive numbers that would definitely help me clear the World Quest, I didn’t have the locations of all my objectives blatantly pointed out to me. In retrospect, it made sense when I considered that Observe also wasn’t as overpowered as it could have been.

Perhaps the limitations on both of my Abilities came as a result of my initial choice in difficulty. I had a feeling that had I chosen “Boring” over “Pussy,” my Abilities just might have been as crazy as I had hoped for. Still, what I got was good even if it had cost both Ability Points for being a Tier 2 Ability.

My mind snapped back into focus as the hall I was sneaking through straightened out to reveal that unlike the Detainment and Torture Room or the Barracks, the path to the Mines lacked a door. The hall simply opened up in width until it suddenly expanded into a massive open space that led deeper into the mountain.

As I continued my approach, my enhanced hearing began to pick up the sounds of rhythmic tapping. To someone like me who had grinded their Mining Skill to Level 5 it was unmistakable.

I stopped at the border of the hall and the open space to properly map out the room in my head. The area was a total mess. It was as unorganized if not even more so than the torturer’s “office” in the Detainment and Torture Room. There had been an effort made in zoning areas, but I still found it unsightly.

The open space was clearly divided in half between the slavers and the slaves. The slaver’s area had a cafeteria, benches, and tables, while the slaves had holes in the ground to hopefully sit or sleep in; I really hoped they were filled with waste from food or otherwise. The slavers also had a pile of raw gemstones while the slaves had a much larger pile of metallic or mineral ores take up more of their already tight space.

The whole place was incredibly large and yet felt utterly claustrophobic when I considered the number of slaves that had to be accommodated. It was also currently, almost completely empty except for two Diamond Dogs that I spotted. One was in the cafeteria and another one was…

‘Oh wow, they really put this guy here to guard the exit to the Mine all by himself,’ I could laugh as the poor sap had his back turned to me and kept his eyes locked between the branches splintering off the open area and the path leading down to the next level underground.

Instead of alerting the sole guard of the area, however, I kept up my stealthy approach. I took a couple seconds to confirm that the other Diamond Dog in the cafeteria was similarly zoned in on his task of butchering up a piece of pork before I used Subdue to knock out the guard and drag his limp back to the hall that I had come from. I put a set of Manacles on him before doing the exact same thing to the cook.

[+7 Exp]
[+6 Exp]

I turned once I heard the Griffon walk over to me. She reached out with a wing to touch me before saying, “Until it’s lights out for the slaves to sleep, the rest of the Diamond Dogs, except maybe the alpha, will probably be supervising one to three slaves each in the branches of the mine.”

“Lights out? Shit… Do you know what time that starts?” I asked, hoping I still had time to subdue all the Diamond Dogs. It’d be next to impossible if the times for the slaves to rest came before then and all the remaining slavers went to the open space at the same time.

“Well, supposedly, they claim that we get the six hours from midnight until sunrise, but I think they stop work at midnight and don’t count the time it takes us to haul our last loads of gemstone or ore for the day. Then we also have to separate the gems and ore from worthless rock and in the end, I’m pretty sure we get less than five whole hours of sleep,” the Griffon huffed.

“Midnight to sunrise… Six hours…” I muttered to myself as I checked my watch and frowned. It was currently 21:36 or a little less than two and a half hours to midnight, and I had absolutely no idea how long or deep the mining branches expanded out for.

Also, what a coincidence that time was segmented into twenty-four hours a day here as well. I needed to remember to ask about that when I wasn’t racing against the clock. So, I filed that thought away and explained to the Griffon why I would be picking up the pace.

She seemed intrigued by my watch when I showed it to her to explain how I knew what time it was but refrained from making further inquiries as we took off in a mild jog toward the rhythmic tapping that I’d detected before even entering the open space.

Counterintuitive to my expectations, it was actually coming from one of the branches towards the far end of the open space, opposite the hall I had entered from. However, after a little bit of thought, it made sense since it was likely one of the last branches assigned a slave to mine through with the ones closer to the hall being created and assigned first.

I slowed down the closer I got to the sounds of a pickaxe striking rock. Soon enough, I found the supervising slaver and wasted no time using Subdue on him from his blindside. Like all the other conscious Diamond Dogs I’d encountered, this last one had been completely focused on his task to the point where they might as well have been suffering from tunnel vision. It was somehow below the threshold for qualifying to have a Debuff included when I used Observe on them.

[+6 Exp]

As I went through the motions of locking the unconscious Diamond Dog in a set of Magic Suppressing Manacles, the Griffon began screeching something at the slave in the distance. She brought the— Is that a motherfucking Unicorn?!

It was too small to be a Horse Unicorn, but maybe a Horned Pony or Donkey, maybe?

I honestly had no idea why I was even surprised. I’d already encountered a Griffon and knew Magic was a thing in this world. For some reason though, Unicorns just had a bigger impact on me than all the other mythological, folklore nonsense things I’d seen. It must have been a thing of familiarity; Rapidash was among my favorite Gen 1 Pokemon, after all.

When I finished my business with the Diamond Dog, I got up and approached the Unicorn and Griffon after summoning the chain of keys from the Torture Room. There was a lot of screeching and neighing/whining being thrown back and forth, but the only thing I could pick up from their expressions was that the Unicorn was terrified of me and the Griffon not having much luck at calming him down.

“Look, we really don’t have time for you to calm down. Just let me get those chains off you and you can be free to run away or do whatever else you want. As long as, you know, it doesn’t jeopardize this operation I’ve got going on, you know,” I said as I approached the Unicorn who had been literally paralyzed with fear after I got within reaching distance.

With only the Griffon’s key stored separate from all the other ones in the chain of dozens, I spent another hot minute trying out different keys before I managed to get the Unicorn’s manacles off. As if a switch had been flipped, the moment they were off, the Unicorn’s unintelligible noises turned into English even after I had stopped making contact with him.

“Just a couple more moments and I’ll be free after five years. Five Years!” He had a British accent for some reason.

“Oh? I can understand you? Weird. Anyway, do you plan to run away, because I’d really appreciate it if you waited until you got past the common area before you started making any loud noises,” I said.

The Unicorn froze up for a split second before he looked at me and subsequently broke eye contact. Then, very quietly, he said, “As much as I’d like to, I can’t. I wouldn’t know how to survive on my own out in the wilderness without help, especially not after being in here for so long. I’ve thought about Greta’s words while you were busy getting the suppressants off of me and decided to only take that chance if your rescue plan looks like it’ll fail spectacularly.”

He looked at the Griffon — Greta? — and continued, “If her words are to be believed and you have already taken down more than a dozen of the Diamond Dogs, then I’ll set aside my worries and count on you for now.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, I guess,” I said.

We walked back to the open space where the Unicorn said he’d rest for the foreseeable future. I think he would bail if he heard a fight break out or enough slaves were rescued and agreed to leave with him.

Ignoring him and the fact that I could understand him for now, I got my head back in the game and headed for the nearest branch in the mine. I could not hear mining sounds from the open space after rescuing the Unicorn, so I’d be following this strategy until I cleared out this ground floor level.

Chapter 1: New Game

You ever do something you know you’ll regret immediately? Something so obviously and absolutely stupid, you question your own intelligence even as you’re actively following through with your terrible decision?

Well, I doubt anyone can top my single-digit IQ play of the day; especially today. You see, unlike people with functioning survival instincts, I decided to play the hero during the mall shooting which I just so unfortunately happened to be caught up in.

It was a spur-of-the-moment thing, honestly. One second I was minding my own business, walking around and trying to kill some time before it was time to go to the company holiday party, and in the next, there were rapid loud bangs going off right next to me and people screaming all around me. It took a couple moments, but I quickly found the shooter; he had been just a couple dozen steps away and looking away, with his back towards me as he gunned down the people in front of him.

Instead of running, as I’d previously imagined I would have done in that exact situation, I charged the psycho instead. I was close enough that I didn’t manage to get up to my maximum sprinting speed, but as a 6’3” 210-pound guy who regularly lifted weights that didn’t change the fact that I still hit the considerably smaller man like a runaway semi.

Unfortunately, just tackling the guy didn’t knock him out and in the process of trying to take the gun away from him, I got shot in the gut. I didn’t even notice at the time as we were both on the floor and I was probably hyped up on enough adrenaline to get away from a chasing cheetah.

In the end, I managed to take away the pistol and subsequently unload its remaining ammunition onto the lunatic until it was completely empty; long after he had stopped moving. Having gone to a shooting range pretty often in my adolescence I knew just enough to get the magazine to drop and on its slide lock before I tossed it away.

One moment, I’m trying to catch my breath, waiting for the ringing in my ears to stop and the thundering pulse of my heart to slow, and in the next I’m lying down in an ambulance. One of the paramedics is saying something to me, but I can barely hear them, let alone understand them.

Then, I blink and I’m in a different room, in a different bed, with a bunch of doctors in scrubs operating on me. I blink again and I go from lying down to standing, and just to keep my confusion as high as possible there’s a holographic screen in front of me claiming that I died.

[Game Over]
[You Died]
[Continue?]
[Yes/No]

“Is this supposed to be the afterlife?” I ask the void.

When to no one’s surprise I am met with silence, I decide to humor the macabre screen. After just a little bit of thinking, I decide it’s just as likely that I’m dead as it is that I’m just dreaming all of this up while in a coma at the hospital.

‘Dead or not, what else can I do but roll with the punches?’ I think before confirming the “No” that isn’t greyed out and struck through on the holographic screen.

[Starting New Game+]
[Choose Difficulty: Boring, Pussy, Mid, Impressive, Unforgiving]

“These are… some of the difficulties of all time,” I snort to myself before choosing the “Pussy” difficulty.

First and foremost, I was not completely convinced this wasn’t real, so on the off chance that this wasn’t a dream and I was literally getting the chance to determine how easy my next life would be, I wanted it to be relatively easy. Secondly, I was more than a little wary of the potential metric this “difficulty” was being determined by. Going off context clues, it seemed to me like my next life might be comparable to that of some type of action game. The classifications sounded more like Doom than Call of Duty, so I’d much rather be called a bitch by some arbitrary system or omnipotent being than die like one just to appeal to my ego.

[Choose Goldfinger: Divine Artifact, Boundless Martial Art, Extreme Physique…]

“Oh… Shit,” I muttered as I looked through the options. “So this is a ‘Reincarnated In A Chinese Web Novel’ type of deal, huh.”

There was no one around to ask, but as I read through all the “cheats” I could accept, the answer became less and less certain. I came to that conclusion when after going through a bunch of stereotypical “Goldfinger—” the standard cheat of a protagonist in one of those aforementioned Chinese Web Novels — I began to read through powers-ups, abilities, and techniques from outside Chinese media.

When I found Gamer as an option, I almost couldn’t stop my finger from smashing into the holographic screen without a second thought. I didn’t stop it, anyway, but that was a conscious decision on my part; The Gamer as a power set was just way too notorious for its propensity to create absolute monsters in the realm of fanfictions to pass up on.

[Choose Flaw: Terrible Unavoidable Origins, Sealed Goldfinger, Post-Reincarnation Memory Wipe…]

And this was where the other shoe dropped because, of course, I can’t just have nice things. Whatever. At least, I could pick exactly how I was going to be shafted in my next life, dream, or whatever else.

It took a while as I tried to read through many of the countless options, but after I scrolled past hundreds, I decided to just go with Randomized World. Out of all the options, it seemed the least likely to blow up in my face considering the difficult setting I chose. Moreover, with the Gamer power, as long as I didn’t immediately die, I could probably quickly grind my way up to invincibility in just about any fictional setting.

[Now Loading New Player Instance: ETA 59… 58… 57…]

Welp, with the countdown quickly approaching zero, I had little to do but hope I didn’t suddenly find myself on the Ninth Circle of Hell or somewhere worse, like Brockton Bay. Best case scenario was that I was dropped into some parallel world to Earth — I was thinking something along the lines of a Sports Anime or the setting for a Late Night Sitcom — but I would be grateful for just about anything so long as I didn’t appear right in the heat of some tense situation or imminent danger.

Eventually, my time was up and the countdown reached zero. A moment later, my vision was temporarily blinded by an all-consuming white light and then I was standing at the peak of a mountain.

Immediately, I felt the biting cold winds against my bare skin and my first thoughts were a string of incoherent curses. What god-forsaken monster would spawn me at the top of a freaking mountain without clothes? I couldn’t even appreciate the beauty of the sights all around me as I was more concerned about stopping the painful tick damage I received every single second from being exposed to the elements.

[Health: 991/1000]

[Health 975/1000]

[New Skill Unlocked!]
[Name: Cold Resistance Lvl 1 | +10 Exp]
[Description: You can now proudly claim to be part of the “Shorts and T-Shirt While It’s Freezing” club.]

Yeah, that was nice and all, but my Health was still ticking down; only it was now once every ten seconds instead of every second. It was a marked improvement, but I would still eventually die if I didn’t do something productive, like hike down the mountain or somehow figure out how to make myself clothes out of thin air. I didn’t have much faith in the latter over the former, so down the mountain I went.

I kept an eye on my health all the while and occasionally saw it jump up a point before summarily losing a couple more. After a while I calculated the rate of my Health Regeneration to be one point every minute or 0.1% per minute; kind of a bummer, but then again I had just started out.

By the time my Health hit 900/1,000 I decided that I probably wouldn’t make it down the mountain in time if I kept walking. That left me with two options: Attempt to climb down the steep mountain faces or jog/run down the relatively tame incline I’d been previously walking. Given, I had literally no experience with rock climbing, I chose to jog and later run when I figured out that neither could exhaust me.

[New Skill Unlocked!]
[Name: Sprint Lvl 1 | +10 Exp]
[Description: Makes use of those Stamina Points and move marginally faster.]
[Active Cost: 10 Stamina per Second]

I activated my first Active Skill and learned two things. One, I had 1,000 Total Stamina just like I’d started out with 1,000 Health. Two, Level 1 Sprinting was kind of useless. I mean, technically I knew that any boost was good, but the effect it had on my running speed was 5% tops. Hopefully, it wouldn’t take too long to level up the Skill to the point where it was much more useful.

I kept the Sprint Skill on until my Stamina reached 500 then stopped to measure its regeneration rate. I was immensely pleased to see it quickly recover at a rate of around 2 per second; a factor of 120 times that of my Health Regeneration.

To keep myself relatively prepared for any sudden, hostile encounters, I let my Stamina fully recover then trained up my Sprinting Skill until I was back down to half my total Stamina before rinsing and repeating the cycle. I still didn’t have a clue as to what kind of world I was in, so I thought it prudent to not just dump all my energy into grinding carelessly.

After a while, the cold damage I previously received once every 10 seconds dropped down to a rate of once every 20 seconds, then once every forty seconds.

[Skill Level Up!]
[Name: Sprint Lvl 1 → 2 | +20 Exp]
[Description: You can now put those Crocs into Sports Mode.]
[Active Cost: Level 1 - 8 Stamina per Second | Level 2 - 20 Stamina per Second]

Eventually, I stopped taking cold damage entirely. My only question then was, “Now what?”

Author's Note

I tried to continue writing for Equistria's Inventor, I even managed to write out a few more chapters... But ultimately my acoustic tendencies led me to write out this much more "mathematically involved" story. I wrote the first couple thousand words, thinking I'd get bored or tired like I always did when working on a story that features Gamer or System Mechanics. But, well... It's been a week since I started and I haven't been able to stop. I'm up to over 30,000 words and done with the first "major arc" of this story.

I can't really make any guarantees that I'll be able to complete it. So far my track record for that has been Oh for One, but hopefully, I can keep a few people entertained for a little while. I'll be posting small (~1500-2000 word) Chapters up to Chapter 16 over the next couple days; those I've already completely drafted and only need to be proofread. But anything else will depend entirely on whether I can complete another story arc and keep the writing streak I've had going.

Anyway, Christmas Eve, Happy Holidays... Or Whatever Else.

Chapter 2: Level Up

I took stock of my current situation. I was alone and naked in the middle of some forest which may not even be on a version of Earth. So far, I hadn’t ran into any hostile wildlife. I’d seen some birds, a couple different types of bugs, and a scant amount of small squirrel-like rodents. But, I hadn’t seen anything that could be a threat to me aside from maybe the one deer I saw with massive antlers. Although, it had ran off before I’d even noticed it, so maybe not; ironically the loud getaway it made while trying to “escape me” was what caused me to notice it.

What did I need? Food and water were debatable since I now had the body of a video game character. Unless there were survival mechanics embedded in my Gamer power, I could theoretically already be functionally immortal. So far, I hadn’t seen anything about a Hunger or Thirst Meter like I had for my Health and Stamina, so I dropped the issue of food and water to consider the need for shelter.

Again, it was debatable that I’d need a place to rest and recover when I already recovered my Health and Stamina at a fixed rate, seemingly in perpetuity. At the end of the day, this question would also depend on whether my Gamer power allowed me to function without sleep and face no repercussions.

Although I wouldn’t be thrilled to have no base of operations established and live as a nomad for the foreseeable future, I would certainly go through with it if I had to. Then again, perhaps it would be for the best to seek out a temporary shelter and experiment with my powers before I did something so needlessly reckless.

I was still far from the base of the mountain, but I was closer to it than I was to the summit. So, I carefully began to make my way around and down the mountain as I looked for caves to camp out at. I found a few that were either way too small or way too deep before finding one that was just deep enough for the sunlight to illuminate its end before I settled down for the first time since being dropped in this world. It was just in time, too as the sun had started to set.

I decided to continue using my Sprint Skill through the night until I felt tired enough to sleep, but similar to my experience with jogging and running for hours during the day, the exhaustion never came. It was a boring way to spend hours, but it was useful in confirming the fact that I didn’t strictly need to sleep.

When daylight broke the next day, I left my little cave and went around looking for sources of food and water just in case there was some threshold for sudden dehydration or starvation debuffed I was about to cross.

[Milestone Quest Complete!]
[Name: Survive 1]
[Description: Make it to your 1 day anniversary.]
[Reward: +10 Exp, +1 Skill Point]

[Debuff Inflicted!]
[Debuff Inflicted!]
[Debuff Inflicted!]

For a moment I braced myself only to find that I was in the same state I’d been in prior to randomly gaining three debuffs. Nothing seemed out of place, so I was a little annoyed to have been spooked. It was only after I wondered to myself if there was some screen, panel, or [Status] function that let me look at my full Stats that I figured out what happened to me.

[Status]
[Name: John Doe]
[Level: 1 (50/100)]
[Status Effects: Thirsty (-80% Stamina Regen), Hungry (-20% Total Stamina, -50% Health Regen), Sleep Deprived (-10% All Stats)]
[Health: 900/1,000 (900/900)]
[Stamina: 658/1,000 (658/720)]
[Strength: 10 (9)]
[Constitution: 10 (9)]
[Vitality: 10 (9)]
[Agility: 10 (9)]
[Perception: 10 (9)]
[Intelligence: 10 (9)]
[Wisdom: 10 (9)]
[Luck: 10 (9)]
[Charisma: 10 (9)]

Yikes. Guess, I couldn’t just skip out on drinking, eating, and sleeping without facing some sort of inconvenience. I was still countless times better off than I would have been without my Gamer powers, but I’d rather not have to deal with these debuffs if I could help it.

Fortunately, I already had remedies for the Thirsty and Hungry debuffs. I’d found a stream flowing down the mountain within an hour of exploring around my cave home and it just so happened to be surrounded by bushes of some sort of berry. Now, when I say “some sort of berry” I mean, they were identical in appearance and texture to blackberries; I just wasn’t knowledgeable enough in foraging or horticulture to confidently claim them as blackberries for sure.

As I made my way to the stream where the berries were located, I debated the pros and cons of eating them. On the one hand, it was a gamble that could potentially end my life if the berries turned out to be uber-poisonous lookalikes. On the other hand, I had Gamer powers which should help me out if it turned out the berries were poisonous in the end.

Cold Resistance as a Skill was already a confirmed thing; why wouldn’t Poison Resistance follow suit? Moreover, I had that Skill Point from the Milestone Quest as my ace in the hole. At this very moment, I could spend that Skill Point to raise either one of my Skills to the next level. So, if I ate the berries and they turned out to be poisonous, not only would I have an almost assured Poison Resistance to hopefully eliminate the threat, but I could bolster that Poison Resistance immediately to greatly increase my chances of survival.

The gamble thus remained, only it became much more aligned in my favor. I didn’t have to gamble on whether I could survive any poison, but something that even a Level 2 Poison Resistance could not handle in the very worst-case scenario.

Should I take the risk?

“Fuck it, we ball,” I muttered to myself before tossing a berry into my mouth and chewing on it.

It tasted amazing; sweeter than any blackberry I’d ever eaten, yet not obscenely so like the high-fructose corn syrup candies I was familiar with back on Earth. I waited a second, and checked my Status, before waiting a minute and checking again. When nothing changed, I shrugged my shoulders and cleaned out all the berries I could find by the bushes until the Hungry debuff went away.

I then started drinking water from the stream.

[Debuff Inflicted!]

I frowned as I checked my Status only to roll my eyes at the new Debuff that had replaced “Thirsty.”

[Status]
…
[Status Effects: Infection {Bacteria} (-80 Health/Hour - 4 Hours), Sleep Deprivation]

It took a couple minutes, but I managed to Unlock an Infection Resistance Skill which halved the effective time of the Debuff to 2 Hours and reduced the damage over time to -20 Health/Hour. All in all, I was content with saving up my Skill Point for now.

I decided to wait for nightfall to sleep away the Sleep Deprivation, so as my next course of action while the sun was still up, I tried to call up a [Quest] Function much like I’d done for my [Status] and [Skills] to see if there was anything else I could do to earn rewards that didn’t involve recklessly chugging more bacteria-infested water or Sprinting back to where the higher altitudes did Cold Damage to me.

[Quests]
[Daily Quest]
[Name: Strongest Workout Routine]
[Description: 100 Sit-Ups, 100 Push-Ups, 100 Squats, 10 Kilometer Run]
[Reward: Full Recovery, +10 Exp (First Completion Only)]

[Given Quest]
[None]

[World Quest]
[None]

[Milestone Quest]
…

There were tons of Milestone Quests to go through, none of which were feasible for me at this very moment. So, aside from the Daily Quest which was rather underwhelming for a One Punch Man reference, there wasn’t really anything I could do. Oh well, guess that means, I was going to be working out for the rest of the day.

Or not.

The Daily Quest was hardly a challenge when you were a freak of nature who couldn’t physically tire. It was honestly unsettling going through the entire workout routine without pause and no change to my body. I didn’t lose my breath, I couldn’t feel my heart rate spike, nor did I even sweat after what felt like maybe an hour of constant exercise.

There were still a couple hours left before the sunset by the time I was done, so I decided to continue exploring around my cave before eventually retreating to sleep. I didn’t use the Full Recovery I earned from the Daily Quest, for the same reason I never let my Stamina dip below 50%.

As it turns out, I got the Full Recovery treatment regardless once my Sprint Skill hit Level 3 and I personally Leveled Up to Level 2.

[Skill Level Up!]
[Name: Sprint Lvl 2 → 3 | +30 Exp]
[Description: For when you need to run like your life depends on it.]
[Active Cost: Level 1 - 5 Stamina per Second | Level 2 - 16 Stamina per Second | Level 3 - 50 Stamina per Second]

[Level Up!]
[Full Recovery!]
[+3 Stat Points]
[+1 Skill Point]
[Shop Function Unlocked!]

Chapter 3: Money Grind

The Shop Function would almost single-handedly illuminate the path I would take going forward. After exploring its contents for a bit, I learned that I could buy anything from Skills to tangible items from pretty much any world I could think of… for the right price of course. It was a shop after all and given how dead broke I was without even clothes on my back, I currently had nothing to pay for the many, many things I wanted from the Shop.

Fortunately, along with a section for Buying, the Shop came with a section for Selling and Trading. I could sell or trade pretty much anything I could physically pick up. Yet, the only thing worth anything in my immediate vicinity were those berries I previously ate to get rid of my hunger; even then, they were barely worth anything, coming in at an abysmal 1 Shop Credit per Kilogram.

Now, a single Shop Credit had a sort of undefinable value in the sense that it didn’t line up with currency in a way that made sense to me. 1 Shop Credit could get me a Mars Bar or it could get me a Kilogram of Copper Ore. It could get me a “Basic Fishing Pole” or it could get me a copy of the smartphone I left on Earth. This proved to be both convenient and not as I looked for things that would help me out and was pleasantly surprised at times then utterly crushed moments later.

“Welp, the Sharingan might not be in the cards anytime soon, but at least aiming for a full set of clothes is feasible for today. I only had to harvest… probably all the bushes in a fifty-meter radius,” I muttered to myself before getting back to work.

[New Skill Unlocked!]
[Name: Harvest Lvl 1 | +10 Exp]
[Description: It’s a Quality of Life thing; just… not very good right now.]
[Active Cost: 5 Stamina per cubic meter]

When I tried my new Skill out, I instantly understood its initially confusing description. Harvesting allowed me to instantly pick the berries of the bush I was touching, but it only picked like 10% of the total with each use. It was a terrible waste of Stamina right now, but looked to have good potential. The decision had nothing to do with the fact that I was getting frustrated with the mindless menial work that was involved with finding and stripping off all the berries after the tenth bush.

Besides, I totally had to keep using the Skill regardless. To test the carrying capacity of the [Inventory] Function all the harvested berries went to once I used the Skill, you know? So what if I quickly figured out how to keep adding the berries I manually picked to the stack that carried all the berries in my inventory afterward? The Skill needed grinding, damn it!

Unfortunately, despite having reached my minimum goal of 25 Kilograms of “Wild Berries,” I did not make my ideal goal of clearing out all the berries I could find by the stream by the time the sunset started settling into dusk. I returned to my mountainside cave, traded 10 Kilograms of the ~16 total I had in my Inventory for enough Shop Credits to buy myself a set of wool clothes, a water filtration kit, and a set of traps which I then set — just in case — before going to sleep.

The night passed without incident and I woke the next day to a Status screen devoid of any debuffs. I spent my early morning clearing the Daily Quest which was a repeat of yesterday’s endeavor before heading off to the stream to fill up my nifty new water filtration kit with a gallon of water. After securing water away in my Inventory, I picked up where I left off yesterday and continued Harvesting berries until a thought occurred to me.

‘If this was anything like Stardew Valley, I bet I could get way more money from chopping some of these trees or trying my luck mining deeper into the cave for whatever the walls are made of.’

The dirt and grass were worthless to the Shop, but surely pieces of stone, cobble, or wood would fetch a pretty penny. Eventually. Maybe… It was something to think about as I continued to clear out berries as quickly as possible.

[Skill Level Up!]
[Name: Harvest Lvl 1 → 2 | +20 Exp]
[Description: Still pretty bad, but far more convenient regardless.]
[Active Cost: 4 Stamina per cubic meter, Max Range of 1 meter from the user.]

With the Skill leveling up, I went from having to use it 10 times on average to clear out a bush to only having to use it 4 times for the same effect. It really was much more convenient being able to use the Skill with a range of 1 Meter as I no longer had to stop and crouch down or bend over before every bush to strip them of their berries.

Moreover, because the range to cast was 1 Meter from me, that meant I could apply the Skill to all the bushes in that area so long as I had the Stamina to cover the increased volume. Which I wouldn’t have an issue with since bushes were actually much less voluminous than they appeared with all the gaps between their branches. By the time I completely cleared out the stream of berries, I capped out at 8 Stamina per cast.

That left me with hundreds of Kilograms of berries, and a choice of whether I should continue looking for more or change over to chopping trees or mining rocks to hopefully find a much better source of income.

The Shop had no shortage of things I wanted, but most of all it had access to Skills that might lead me to civilization. Unfortunately, everything I wanted was expensive, so I had to keep grinding for credits right now.

I decided mining would probably pay better than tree longing off the notion that it could only go up from whatever base pay I would get from mining stone or whatever it was that the cave walls were made of. I traded 10 Kilograms of berries for a Steel Pickaxe and promptly smashed it against the wall at the end of my cave.

Aside from my pick harmlessly bouncing off and only slightly cracking off a couple tiny rocks, nothing substantial happened. I sighed and prepared myself for a rough time before lifting up my pickaxe and smashing it against the cave wall again and again until I had enough to sell off a Kilogram of Raw Limestone. Seeing that it also went for 1 Shop Credit per Kilogram, I traded the pile of rocks I currently had and a couple dozen more Shop Credits for a solar-powered smartwatch and loaded up a stopwatch app to time how long it took me to get another Kilogram.

It took five minutes. That would make it considerably less profitable than harvesting berries even before my Skill for that improved. Then again, I had access to a virtually infinite supply of Limestone from the cave wall while I would have to waste time looking for more berries. Also, there was a very high chance that I was on the cusp of getting a Mining Skill, not to mention I also had those three Stat Points from when I personally Leveled Up in reserve.

How much faster would the process for mining be after I increased my Strength by 1? What if I used all 3 instead?

There was no time like the present to find out, so I happily increased my Strength to 11 and, sure enough, my every subsequent hit with the pickaxe cracked the walls harder and loosened out bigger chunks of Limestone rock. It took me a good three minutes to work out the mental math after timing myself again, but it looked like the increase I got as around 15% since my time to gain 1 Kilogram of rock went from approximately 300 to 261 seconds.

I dropped another point into Strength and as expected I got a total of 30-ish% faster than I was originally, only needing around 227 seconds to mine a Kilogram. Luckily, I did not get tired or sore anymore as I could only imagine how harsh the constant mining I did would be on my body.

[New Skill Unlocked!]
[Name: Mining Lvl 1 | +10 Exp]
[Description: A small boost to help you turn big rocks into little rocks.]

After getting the Mining Skill, it was like I’d gotten another boost to my Strength Stat, only marginally better since it increased my proficiency by another 20% instead of the 15% intervals that each Stat Point yielded to my mining speed. It was a nice boost even if the passive effect only applied to either pickaxes or actions meant for mining.

Anyway, I focused on mining as much material as I could until it was time to go to sleep. Soon enough into my mining escapade, the lack of light became an issue, so I traded a good 600 Kilos of Limestone and Wild Berries for a “Weak Magic Generator,” an “F Grade Magic Crystal” and enough cable LEDs to fully furnish a Best Buy.

[Milestone Quest Complete!]
[Name: Shop Broker 1]
[Description: Earn or Sell 1,000 Shop Credits (Both actions count towards this Quest Line’s progress)]
[Reward: +10 Exp]

Ironically, even though I had literally just bought a smartwatch mainly for the purpose of keeping track of time inside the cave, where the sun and moon cycles couldn’t guide me, I managed to get myself into a mining trance that I only broke out of when I absentmindedly thought of checking the time once my Mining Skill reached Level 3.

[Level Up!]
[Full Recovery!]
[+3 Stat Points]
[+1 Ability Point]
[Shop Function Expanded!]

Author's Note

In the first Chapter's notes, I mentioned this story was much more "mathematically involved." Here's where you see the start of the madness I've orchestrated. Don't worry though, once actual dialogue between characters is introduced, the Gamer prompts get tampered down... somewhat. But! Before it gets better, it'll get worse. Way, way worse.

Chapter 4: Learning Experience

“That can’t be right. 10:36? I thought I set this thing to Military Time,” I grumbled to myself as I checked the settings of my watch and confirmed it was indeed set to Military Time, meaning it should be the middle of the morning and only an hour and a half to noon.

I turned around and grinned slightly at the long stretch of cave I’d carved through to get to where I was. It was honestly very amusing to see the path I’d mined out brightly lit up by all sorts of prismatic colors. Currently, the LEDs were set to “Static Rainbow” but if I wanted I could turn the cave into an esoteric rave room. I wouldn’t though, because that would quickly grow annoying as an affront to my eyes.

I checked my Inventory and somehow, over the course of a couple hours I’d dug out a couple metric tons of rock; not just Limestone, because there was also Marble, Coal, and “Gypsum—” Whatever that was. That didn’t really make sense even if Mining Level 2 gave me another point or even two to my effective Strength with regards to mining, so there was some investigating to be done.

Later.

Right now, I had better things to do, like check out what the deal was with the Ability Points I just got or figure out what I’d be trading most of my useless supply of rocks for.

When I thought [Abilities] similar to [Status], [Shop], or [Skills], a new holographic screen appeared before me. This time, though, instead of receiving information in lists, I was shown a couple different skill tree diagrams where only the first tier of “Abilities” of which I could invest my sole Ability Point into were visible.

Abilities were grouped into four separate categories: Combat, Progression, Support, and Gamer. The options for Combat made it easier for me to pick up and improve different types of fighting Skills; unarmed, melee, ranged, etc. The options for Progression made it easier for me to get more personal Exp from various sources. The options for Support made it easier to pick up and improve non-combat Skills.

And the options for Gamer… well, there weren’t really “options” per say, as there was only one Ability for the first tier of that category. It was also the Ability I chose as I’d been trying to get it as a Skill all this time to no avail.

[New Ability Unlocked!]
[Name: Observe]
[Description: Appraises any target in sight and provides a short description with only relevant information for your convenience.]

Wanting to know how overpowered the “Ability” was, I looked at the end of my cave tunnel and cast Observe on it.

[Observe]
[Name: ??? Mountainside Cave]
[Description: A hybrid cave system that is part of the ??? Mountain in the ??? Region of the ??? Continent of Planet ??? Used to be naturally formed until the Human, John Doe, began mining it for resources. Structural Composition for the next 50 meters on the same layer is: 57% Limestone, 21% Gypsum, 15 Marble, 6% Coal, and ~1% Other Trace Materials]

Ok then. Pretty overpowered, but not hilariously so. Kind of unfortunate for me, though, since if it just told me the names for any of the unknowns, I would simply be able to look up a book or some texts in the Shop and figure out where I was and how best to prepare or proceed.

Oh well, I was doing well enough anyway. It was only day three and I was already capable of earning thousands of Shop Credits in a couple hours. That might not put even a drop in the bucket I’d need to fill to get a cool supernatural power as a Skill, but it was enough to afford modern luxuries and commodities I was used to back on Earth; or magical alternatives, same difference.

I bought myself a self-inflating air mattress, a magical stove, a suite of cookware and all the ingredients to make myself a traditional English Breakfast for nearly a thousand Shop Credits. Usually, I would go for the American Breakfast, but for whatever reason I really wanted baked beans, mushrooms, charred tomatoes, and sausages with my eggs instead of bacon and pancakes.

As I set about cooking up the sausages, I continued looking through the Shop and picked out a couple “Tutorial Texts.” According to the descriptions on the Shop, the Tutorial Texts would give insights as to how certain aspects of my Gamer power worked. They cost a pretty penny, but would be worth it if they saved me time wasted on figuring out what a World Quest was or what exactly my Luck Stat did.

Unfortunately, despite coming in book format, I couldn’t just magic them into my mind palace like I’d been hoping. All in all, I was down nearly 1,750 Shop Credits worth of rocks and only had a delectably aromatic breakfast that was still in the middle of being prepared to show for it. Oh and the air mattress too, though, I hadn’t even started inflating it.

[New Skill Unlocked!]
[Name: Cooking Lvl 1 | +10 Exp]
[Description: Adds an extra kick to meals you cook; kinda like MSG, but better.]

Now, a Cooking Skill could mean one of two things. I put my hands in prayer as I wished desperately for the superior version to be true before I cast Observe on my fully loaded plate.

[Observe]
[Name: English Breakfast (131%)]
[Description: A traditional English Breakfast. Good for staving off hunger and keeping the body hard at work. Sells for 50 Shop Credits.]
[Effects: Cures - ???, ???, Hunger | Fortify (4 Hours) - Constitution (+5), Vitality (+5) | Instant - Health (+300), Stamina (+500)]

“Yes! Yes!! Yes!!!” I chanted as I did a little happy dance around the magical cooktop in praise of my bountiful feast. I liked Cooking without all the added benefits, so I knew a ton of different recipes as well as how to cook without instructions. I could only imagine how that would play into the system that magically determined what Buffs I would get.

Wait a minute. I stopped and turned off the stove to keep its admittedly weak power source lasting as long as possible; both the stove and generator powering the lights would at best only last 20 Hours of concurrent use. I then opened up the shop and looked up that Mars candy bar I’d previously seen going for 1 Shop Credit and bought it.

When I Observed it, I nodded in understanding. Unlike the breakfast I had personally cooked, the Mars Bar didn’t have any Buff; guess that would have been unreasonable. Oh well, the candy bar would serve as a snack for later or maybe dessert if I decided to eat something for dinner.

I chucked the candy bar in my inventory and began to eat my breakfast. It wasn’t particularly good, since the only spice I’d bought to bring out the flavor came in a small salt mill. Still, it was a pleasant experience even if I wasn’t eating because my body was craving it.

[Buff Incurred!]

I stopped my fork from shoveling the next bite of food into my mouth as I looked at my Status and then what remained of my breakfast on the plate. There was almost a full quarter of the total food I’d prepared still waiting to be consumed, yet I’d already gotten the Buff? I thought back to when I Observed my breakfast and recalled the 131% next to the name.

“Hmm, that was probably telling me something about the serving size. Probably,” I shrugged before continuing until I cleaned out the plate.

When I was done with my meal, I stored the dirty plate away in my Inventory before pulling out the first of the Tutorial Texts I’d bought. I planned to go through all of them, then do my Daily Quest before anything else.

I had a Tutorial Text for the Status, Skills, Abilities, Shop and Quest Functions of my Gamer Power as well as one for each of the Skills I’d possess; even Cooking since I bought it immediately after reading through all the other Tutorial Texts.

When I was done reading, I had a lot to think about as I went through the motions of the Daily Quest. I now knew what Stats did. I knew how Skills worked and the intricacies of the Shop. The Abilities and Quests Tutorial Texts, however, were kind of a wash, but that was because their purpose was pretty self-explanatory.

The single most important thing I learned was that I could only increase my Stats with Stat Points, and that at the end of the day Stats determined which Skills I could learn and use. Stat Points only came from Leveling Up personally or completing certain Quests. So, if I wanted to eventually punch a mountain into dust, I’d have a lot of grinding to look forward to.

Or… I could gear up for a long expedition away from the cave in search of people to pick up Given Quests or encounter World Quests. Speaking of, World Quests were less “Quests” and more interpersonal dynamics between me and the World. They ranged from choices I would need to make in the heat of a tense situation to full-on political campaigns where I would try to build up rapport and reputation with the different “Factions” of the world. I could only imagine what that meant, but it didn’t sound too appealing to me.

Still, I was tempted by the promise of more Stat Points via Quests once I knew exactly how they worked. As it turns out, I was very wrong about the incremental value of them. Instead of a linear 15% increase, they pretty much doubled their effective use for every five points invested. So every five Strength would see my carrying capacity and force output double; every five Agility would see my max velocity, acceleration, and overall acrobatic ability double; every five Vitality would see my Health Regen and Max Health double; and every five Intelligence would not do anything because I didn’t have an internal magic source.

Yeah, I didn’t know why Intelligence or Wisdom were a thing for my Gamer Power if they couldn’t do anything for me; increasing them didn’t even make me literally smarter or wiser! Although, I wouldn’t count them out for now. They currently only served very niche and situational purposes, but I personally felt that they were too suspiciously useless for there to not be something else at play that I simply didn’t know of even after reading their respective Tutorial Texts.

Unfortunately, despite wanting to go out on an expedition, I was still woefully unprepared for such a task. I needed more gear, more Skills, and some more magical cooking to hopefully carry me through any tough encounters. I still had about a thousand Shop Credits worth of rocks in my inventory, but that wouldn’t be nearly enough to get everything I wanted.

I sighed, knowing there were definitely a few more days of mining ahead of me.

Chapter 5: Preparations Complete

[Observe]
[Name: Raw Ruby Stone Vein]
[Description: A Gem Vein mostly made up of Ruby Stone. Approximate total is 5,667 Kilograms, 1.4 Cubic Meters, or 17,000 Shop Credits]

“This is new,” I let out a low whistle as I reared back my pickaxe back and drove it a couple inches into the Gem Vein.

With Mining Level 5, I had an effective +7 to my Strength when Mining. Added to my Base 12 Strength, nearly made me four times as strong as I’d originally been. That was all to say that in next to no time at all, I’d cleared away every trace of anything even remotely red from the cave wall I’d been digging into for the past couple days.

This unexpected windfall was enough to finally afford all the Skills I wanted before leaving for an expedition. I’d already prepared everything else. I had the camping equipment, a weapon, a set of armor, various cooked foods and snacks to give myself an edge while traveling, I’d even Leveled Up, and completed another Survival Milestone Quest.

[Milestone Quest Complete!]
[Name: Survive 2]
[Description: Make it to your 1 week anniversary.]
[Reward: +20 Exp, +1 Skill Point, +1 Stat Point]

Since spending two Stat Points on Strength, I’d been saving all the rest. I also hadn’t yet used even a single Skill Point — of which I had four; two for each other Level Up I earned and two from the Quests. Hopefully, it would all pay off now that it was time to buy my new Skills.

In one swift push, I hit the button that confirmed I wanted to make the transaction. It pained me to see the tens of thousands of Kilos of mined rock drop down to less than a hundred, but at least now I had three scrolls to read.

“This is bullshit! Bullshit, I say! The tutorial texts, I can understand, but why are these not instantly converted into Skills, damn it?!” I may have lost my composure for a second. But, could you really blame me? I thought I was buying Skills, not “the means to learn” said aforementioned Skills.

Whatever.

This was fine. Everything was fine.

I took a deep breath, opened the first Scroll, and tried to read its contents. The operative word being “tried” as the scroll was written in what I could only describe as incomprehensible hieroglyphs that reminded me more of Wingdings than Ancient Egyptian.

Before I could get any more upset, the words on the scroll began to glow and the next thing I knew I had been transported to a grassy field that looked nothing like the mountainous forest outside my cave.

“The Foundational Sword is the origin of all Sword Techniques. Its creator is unknown, but…” In front of me, a suit of armor began to expound on the history of the Skill I’d bought. It talked about how it was created to teach anyone how to fight and how many different clans and noble families took the principles of the Foundational Sword to create their own signature techniques.

When it was done, it went through all the basic motions that were involved in each movement, explaining in excruciating detail even the most seemingly mundane aspect of why the sword needed to be held a certain way or one’s posture needed to be either soft or rigid to deliver a strike with maximum effect.

For whatever reason, the suit of armor had my full attention during the entire time. It was like I couldn’t even get bored or distracted even if I wanted to. When the full explanation of the entire skillset was over, this effect was broken as the suit of armor commanded me to strike it with a basic side swipe.

“Wrong! There is no torque to your waist!”

“Wrong! Even if you can’t find it in your heart to strike me like you mean it, you must never slacken your grip!”

“Wrong!” “Wrong!” “Wrong…!”

It took a while but eventually, I made it through all the basic attacks without the suit of armor screaming in disappointment. Alas, offense was only half the battle and once I passed the benchmark for performing all the attacks, the suit of armor shifted its posture rather aggressively as it spoke.

“Prepare yourself to defend.”

“Against an Overhead Slash!” It called out before lashing out with hardly any telegraphed movements I’d been specifically looking out for, from the moment it had taken an offensive stance.

Of course, I couldn’t block it in time, so its sword cut right through me.

“Again!” It cried out, while I was still waiting for the pain of being slashed to come. It never did for the first attack nor the second as my body parted around the sword only to reform entirely unharmed fractions of a second afterward.

“Again!” It took me until the seventh try to actually catch the attacking sword with my own. But even then, with just a bit of finesse, the suit of armor deflected past my block to cut me down anyway.

“Again! Soft defends against soft!” It yelled out, but it still took me another five tries to fully comprehend what it wanted me to do.

I kept on getting my block bypassed because of how tense I was immediately after catching its sword. Only when I loosened up and adjusted to its movements, did I manage to not come out of an exchange with any part of my body sliced through.

“Now, Against an Upperleft Swing!” I got cut ten more times.

“Against a Center Thrust!” I got cut nine more times.

“Against a Crosssing Right!” I got cut seven times.

We went through all the basic attacks, with me slowly getting better until he tripped me up with the more advanced Feinting maneuvers.

“I have nothing else to teach you.”

[New Skill Unlocked!]
[Name: Foundational Sword Lvl 1 | +10 Exp]
[Description: Hooray! You passed Basic.]

I bought the Tutorial Text for the Foundational Sword and breathed a sigh of relief once it was made clear that it would give me a passive 10% Bonus to my Strength and Agility when using its principles with a sword.

“Welp, that’s one Skill down. Two more to go,” I sighed before opening up the next scroll and going through a similar process to get the Iron Body and Cartography Skills down.

Between the three Iron Body took the longest for me to learn because it involved manipulating my muscles in a way I was pretty sure was impossible for conventional human biology. Cartography was the easiest because I was already proficient in drawing and a lot of the principles explained in the scroll were simple enough for me to instantly understand.

Of the three Iron Body was also the only one with a barrier of entry I needed to meet before I could learn the Skill. It required a Constitution and Vitality of 12 each, so there went half of my eight Stat Points. I think it was worth it since the technique had both passive benefits of 20% additional Consitution and Vitality when preparing myself for receiving an attack as well as an active effect that could raise that bonus to 50% temporarily for a steep Stamina cost.

Depending on the Food Buff I took, I could currently get my Constitution and/or Vitality up to the lower 20s if I needed to; and that was with Iron Body at Level 1. I could only imagine how much more ridiculous the bonuses would get once I improved the Skill with either a Skill Point or through continuous use.

For now, though, I would keep my Skill Points in reserve. Speaking from the experience of getting Mining to Level 5, it took exponential effort to increase Skill Levels. It was to the point where I doubted I’d see Level 6 Mining even if I continued grinding it out in my cave for the next week straight.

Anyway, now that I had a way to defend myself and map out my progress, just in case I wanted to come back to my cave if the expedition failed, I could finally set out. I was already in the Iron Armor Set I picked out and had all my valuables and belongings stored away in my Inventory. The only things I wouldn’t be taking with me were all the lights I had set up in my cave to continue mining. Those were cheap enough that if I needed more, for whatever reason, I would simply buy them on the spot.

Thus, my long-awaited expedition began!

Naturally, as any Gamer would, I took off in a hysterical sprint through the least tumultuous path I could find and kept the Skill by the same name active all the while. It would be a crime to do anything else when there would be no repercussions for my otherwise insane actions.

Unfortunately, I needed to make tons of slight adjustments while on the run since there weren’t any paved roads to smoothly travel through. It made charting my path through Cartography at every stop I made a bit of a hassle, but that was fine because I was making olympic levels of progress regardless.

[Instance Dungeon Found!]
[New World Quest!]

I nearly tripped on my face at the unexpected prompt. When I finally slowed down my sprint to a full stop, I checked out my Quests and couldn’t keep a grin from forming on my face.

[World Quest]
[Name: Dungeon Crawl #295]
[Description: You’ve chanced upon one of the twenty Common Timberwolf Instance Dungeons. Clear it of Monsters for fun and profit.]
[Reward: +50 Exp, Common Dungeon Chest]

Chapter 6: Instance Dungeon

To enter the Instance Dungeon, I had to manually accept the World Quest while in the immediate vicinity. When I did so, the world around me shifted slightly such that the sky turned red and the previously clear forested terrain took on a heavy fog.

I’m not going to lie, my first thought after seeing such ominous changes was that perhaps I had been a bit too excited and got ahead of myself. What the hell was I thinking, instantly accepting the quest and letting myself get dragged into this situation?! I had no idea what a Timberwolf was or how many of them I might need to hunt down to leave. Hell, I didn’t even know how to hunt in the first place!

After a bit of anxious pacing back and forth, and paranoid over analyzation of everything I could see, I calmed down a bit when I realized there were clearly defined bounds to the Instance Dungeon. A couple paces directly behind me, stretching out to a couple hundred meters into the sky and off to the distance, there were veils of completely opaque clouds à la Dark Souls. Touching them gave me the option to leave the Dungeon at will, but at the cost of forfeiting my right to complete the World Quest and create the Instance Dungeon again.

So, I could leave whenever I wanted and the area I needed to comb over to hunt these Timberwolf things was easily identifiable. That made me feel a lot better, but I was still rather worried about the idea of fighting anything bigger than a chihuahua. Sure, I had my newfound Skills to hopefully come out of a serious fight alive, but I didn’t have any experience beyond my initial sword training.

“Alright, that’s enough bitching for today,” I muttered to myself before slapping my hands against either side of my face. I then looked through my Inventory before summoning a quick snack to raise my chances for the imminent hunt.

[Observe]
[Name: Coffee Granola Bar (100%)]
[Description: A home-style granola bar made of oats, nuts, chocolate, and coffee syrup. Has enough sugar and caffeine to wake up the average Snorlax. Sells for 12 Shop Credits.]
[Effects: Cures - Hunger | Fortify (1 Hour) - Agility (+3), Perception (+3) | Instant - Health (+50), Stamina (+75)]

After eating the granola bar, I incurred the Buffs and drew out my sword before delving deeper into the Instance Dungeon to seek out the Timberwolfs. The +3 to my Agility didn’t show as I didn’t run into the unknown like an unhinged maniac, but the same could not be said for my Perception. Three extra points to my Perception effectively increased it by almost exactly 50%. It made my eyesight better, it made my hearing better, and most important of all, it made my olfactory sense better.

Honestly, I never thought I’d get the best benefit from being able to smell things better, but in this particular situation, it was both a blessing and a curse.

[Observe]
[Name: Timberwolf Beta]
[Description: A common Timberwolf pack member. It is a magical construct made up of chaotic energies, tree branches, and soil. Not sentient or conscious at all, it only seeks to augment itself by devouring living beings and subsuming more magically dense tree matter.]
[Level: 2]
[Health: 500/500]
[Strength: 10]
[Constitution: 8]
[Vitality: 5]
[Agility: 10]
[Perception: 10 (1)]
[Intelligence: 10]
[Wisdom: 8]
[Luck: 0]
[Charisma: 0]

Apparently, when you combined chaotic energies with organic matter like the tree branches this thing was made of, you got the equivalent of a sulfur bomb to my enhanced perception. I don’t know how I wasn’t gagging as I sniffed out the awful smell which only got more potent the closer to the Timberwolf I got, but it was truly the worst thing I’d ever had the misfortune of encountering.

Fortunately, the Timberwolf did not look like it would be much of a challenge. Not only was I stronger and faster than it, but it was also suffering from something that wasn’t a Debuff that left it with an effective Perception of 1. The only thing I could think of was a quirk in its anatomy or pseudo-biology. Perhaps, because it was a mass of animated wood without an actual olfactory sense, it could only perceive with magic things that had magic; Magic, which frankly, I didn’t have.

Whatever the reason, the Timberwolfs abysmal senses would only make what was to come easier for me. I steeled myself and got as close as I could, amazing getting within reaching distance with my sword, before lashing out with a sneak attack and destroying the Timberwolf instantly.

[Sneak Attack!]
[Critical Hit!]
[+889 Damage!]
[+2 Exp]

“Jesus Christ,” I muttered to myself while looking at the remains of the Timberwolf. All I’d done was swing at its head and its entire body had exploded into hundreds of pieces of scrap wood. I guess this was what overkill looked like in real life.

I tried to use Harvest to quickly loot up all the pieces of wood to no avail. When I collected enough to sell off a kilogram of Timberwolf Scrap for 5 Credits, I decided it was worth it to store the remaining pieces and later sell. For my troubles, I was rewarded with the unexpected find of an Unrefined F Grade Magic Crystal in the midst of my looting. It went for 10 Shop Credits on its own.

When I was done, I put my nose back to the proverbial grindstone as I tracked down the next source of foulness. The next Timberwolf I encountered was similar to the first, but not a one-to-one copy, and yet it died the same way due to their shared terrible sense of Perception. A smack to the head yielded a Critical Hit, while an attack against an unsuspecting target triggered a Sneak Attack.

And on and on I carried on against the next couple of Timberwolves before I was unexpectedly tackled from the side. I could hear it coming only a fraction of a second before it happened, and thus couldn’t do anything to protect myself.

[Sneak Attacked!]
[-158 Health!]
[-12 Health!]
[-15 Health!]

I landed with the massive five-foot-tall amalgam of tree parts and dirt trying to bite through my Iron Armor as its likely hundreds of kilograms of weight held me down. I cast Observe on it as I smashed down the pommel side of my sword on its snarling face to hopefully stop it from continuing to thrash around and cause more health lost with its every move.

[Observe]
[Name: Timberwolf Alpha]
[Description: Fit to be the leader of small Timberwolf packs. It is superior to its Beta subordinates in all aspects.]
[Level: 5]

[Critical Hit!]
[+55 Damage]
[Critical Hit!]
[+59 Damage]
[Critical Hit!]
[+70 Damage]

It was only after I drove the blade side of my sword into one of its eye holes that the Alpha withdrew from biting into my armor and I managed to kick it off of me. By the time I had gotten up to my feet, the Alpha had also recovered and began circling around me. It let loose a loud howl to which I immediately charged it.

‘Ain’t no motherfucking way I’m letting this thing get help from more of its cronies!’ I cursed internally as I stepped toward the Alpha and swiped at it with an upward slash.

Thanks to my Buffed up Agility, further empowered by the Foundational Sword Skill, I was almost twice as fast as I normally would be. This was enough to easily track the Timberwolf as it sought to evade my blade.

[+158 Damage!]
[+144 Damage!]
[Critical Hit!]
[+280 Damage!]

The Alpha was terribly outclassed against me once I had the autonomy to attack it with full-powered swings. It was also probably not the smartest monster around as it didn’t immediately run away even as the seconds passed without it managing to harm me in the slightest. Even if it had been banking on its Betas to join in the fight and gang up on me, it should have retreated temporarily or at least stalled for time. Instead, it adamantly continued trying to bite down on any part of me that it could latch onto, even after I proved time and time again that I was fast enough to block anything I couldn’t outright dodge.

[Critical Hit!]
[+256 Damage!]
[+6 Exp]

I did not have time to celebrate my victory as the sounds of various approaching Timberwolfs sounded off several alarms in my head and I only had a couple seconds to prepare myself. It was not enough to eat something and recover my health or add more fortification Buffs to my Status.

“Ugh, damn it all to hell,” I groaned as I followed through with an impulsive decision to dump all my free Stat Points into Agility.

The — debatably present — line of thinking behind the thought was that my best shot at minimizing risk was by taking the fight to the approaching mobs before the unknown quantity of them could gang up on me. As I was with my previous effective Agility of 14.3, I was already capable of easily beating the Alpha. That alone might be enough to avoid any attacks from a single stronger foe, but I was almost certain it would not hold up against a group of even two weaker ones.

I was hoping that after the point dump into Agility, I would be fast enough to manage at least two Beta Timberwolves head-on while I blitzkrieged my way through them. The absolute worst-case scenario would see me get locked down by more and more Timberwolves until I couldn’t even fight back, at which point no amount of increased Strength, Constitution, or Vitality would save me.

Was I being melodramatic? Probably. Perhaps, a bit of a cowardly bitch? Sure. In the end, though, my choice proved to solve my problem better than I could have hoped for.

With a raised Base Agility of 14, augmented to 17 by the Coffee Granola Bar, and then boosted an additional 10% due to using the Foundational Sword Skill, I had an effective Agility of 18.7. That made me ridiculously fast; inhumanly fast; and, unexpectedly, it also raised my raw damage output.

The overall damage per second I expected, since I was able to dish out more attacks faster than before, but the numbers themselves were higher than I anticipated.

[+381 Damage]
[+366 Damage]
[+2 Exp]
[Critical Hit!]
[+712 Damage!]
[+2 Exp]

The only explanation I could come up with was that while my Gamer powers followed a clearly skewed logic, there was still basic physics having an effect. My maximum speed and acceleration had increased, and as Force was a function of Mass times Acceleration, the outcome was self-evident.

I cut down two Timberwolves that had approached together, moving so fast and with such enhanced reaction time that I felt confident I could take on two more with the same outcome, before going on to kill three more before the madness stopped.

[World Quest Complete!]
[Name: Dungeon Crawl #295]
[Description: Got rid of all 13 Betas and the Alpha.]
[Reward: +50 Exp, Common Dungeon Chest]

[Level Up!]
[Full Recovery!]
[+3 Stat Points!]
[+1 Perk Point!]
[Shop Function Expanded!]

Chapter 7: Reject Magic

I stood in the middle of the forest, watching as the heavy fog around me cleared up and the sky shifted back to its normal blue, not fighting to catch my breath or wait for my pounding heart to slow down because… you know. But! I was left a little rattled by the end-phase assault of the Dungeon Crawl. It left me wondering if there was anything I should have done differently besides, well, everything.

I could have been more careful while hunting down the Timberwolfs and maybe saved myself the hassle of being ambushed myself. I could admit that after half a dozen kills under my belt, I had gotten brazenly careless against what I thought were senseless, idiotic beasts. Could anyone blame me, though? All but the Alpha had an effective Perception of 1!

I also probably could have hunted down the five remaining Betas after killing the Alpha without using up any of my Stat Points on Agility. Now that I thought about it, even if they had been called over, I could have just moved from the spot the Alpha had called them to and with their abysmal Perception, likely hidden myself right under their figurative noses. Hell, I hadn’t even used my Sprint Skill during the fight at all!

Oh well, there was nothing I could do about that now.

Instead of dwelling on my mistakes, I decided to focus on the positives. For starters, I’d Leveled up again, getting a Full Recovery and three more Stat Points for my troubles. There was also the new Perk Point to investigate. Not to mention the Common Dungeon Chest, which might as well have been called a Gacha Token since they essentially did the same thing. Also, more Agility meant more speed, which meant faster running and hopefully encountering civilization sooner.

I decided to look at my [Perks] first.

Perks were… odd. They were kind of like Abilities in some respects, kind of like Skills in others, and hard to holistically separate from either. Some Perks did the same things Skills could do, others did the same for with regards to Abilities; all the ones that followed this trend were supremely better in the form of a Perk. It made sense though, as Skills and Abilities could Level Up, while Perks could not. Moreover, if they followed the example of Skill Points only showing up every other Level Up and Abilities Points showing up every third Level Up, it made sense if Perk Points could only be gained every fifth Level Up.

The Perk List was long, with dozens if not hundreds of options, but I only met the qualifications for less than ten, going on potentially two more depending on how I allocated my remaining free Stat Points. Anyone familiar with the Fallout games could see the similarities.

Of the many Perks I could pick from, though, there were really only two that I wanted. Unfortunately, they were a mutually exclusive sort of deal, but that was probably for the best, given either option was bound to make me hilariously overpowered compared to what I currently was.

[Perks]
[Available Perks]
[Name: Impossible Existence (Origin)]
[Description: You are a magicless being in a magical world. Everything is supposed to have magic and yet you don’t. In fact, you refuse it, subverting reality itself to adapt to you instead of it being the other way around.]
[Effect: Permanently prevents you from acquiring an internal source of Magic. Grants you absolute Magic Immunity and total Magic Absorption which allows you to convert absorbed Magic into Free Points.]

[Name: Impossible Existence (Terminal)]
[Description: How long do you plan on existing as a glitch in the Matrix? Fix the errors of your being to align with that of the world and see exactly why it is that Humans are considered myths and legends in this Realm.]
[Effect: Grants the user a Mana Bar and the ability to use any kind of Magic. Grants the user a predetermined Magic Skill based on their character and a new Ability in the Magic category that will be unlocked with this Perk’s purchase.]

I went with the Origin option over Terminal for no other reason than it sounding a lot more powerful long-term. Absolute Magic Immunity and Total Magic Absorption made me invincible against Magic-based attacks, clearing up who knows how many miserable ways I might get killed without even knowing.

It nearly brought a tear to my eye knowing I would never personally wield magic, but if I was being honest with myself, I didn’t really need it. Not if I built myself up to be a physical fighter and especially not after I made myself invincible to magic users. Besides, if I took on the other Perk and gained the ability to use Magic, I’d probably need to worry about balancing out how I would increase my Intelligence and Wisdom with the rest of my Stats. Going forward though, increasing either would only be situationally useful at best.

Without my own Magic, the only Intelligence did was raise my Magic Resistance in the same way Constitution raised my Physical Defence. Wisdom on the other hand increased my Elemental Affinity and that would only manifest a tangible benefit if I used an external Magic Source or any non-Magic-based Elemental Energy.

Speaking of, just because I gave up Magic didn’t mean I couldn’t use other supernatural phenomena to achieve similar feats. Ninjas from Naruto didn’t use Magic. Capes in Worm didn’t use Magic. And there was no shortage of trashy Xianxia or Xuanhuan power systems that were meticulously built without any mention of Magic in their world-building.

Was it sad that I wouldn’t be able to Avada Kedavra my enemies for an easy win? Perhaps, but I’d likely be able to achieve the same effect with a punch backed by a high enough Strength or Agility rating. Besides, the “Physical Specimen” trope in any action-packed media was among my favorite. What better “Fuck You” was there in a world of magic and superpowers than being able to one-up anyone with just your body?

Cough, having a killer body would also be nice, cough. I mean, I was already pretty well-built before dying. Ever since, the increases in my Strength had improved my muscle definition slightly, but it was still nowhere near Hollywood levels of unreasonableness. I wanted it to be obvious that my body fat percentage was in the single-digit range. I wanted my biceps to peak at over twenty inches and my abs to look dangerously cut.

“Maybe I should invest a bit in Charisma,” I muttered to myself before shaking the treacherous thought from my head.

Returning back to more important matters at hand, I confirmed that I wanted to open up the Common Dungeon Chest I’d earned.

[Common Dungeon Chest Opened!]
[You have received: 5 F Grade Magic Crystals & 20 Kilograms of Timberwolf Scrap]

Honestly, it was kind of disappointing, especially as a follow-up to the Perk I’d just taken. Then again, where was I getting grand expectations from when the rewards had come from something with the “Common” classification?

I dismissed the screen and went to the bodies of the Timberwolfs I killed after being ambushed by the Alpha to pick them clean of all their loot. Since they hadn’t been overkilled to the point of total deconstruction, I actually had to somewhat dismantle the wood pieces from a cohesive core of soil at the center mass of each Timberwolf.

I didn’t have any issues ripping the branches out, taking only five minutes or so with each Beta Timberwolf on average before moving on to the Alpha.

[New Skill Unlocked!]
[Name: Dismantle Lvl 1 | +10 Exp]
[Description: Like Harvesting, but for corpses. You know the deal…]
[Active Cost: 5 Stamina per cubic meter]

True to its description, Dismantle achieved functionally the same work I would have done manually at the same level of proficiency as Harvesting; for Level 1 that was getting about 10% of the total loot per cast. For such a cheap cost, I just spammed the Skill until the entire Timberwolf Alpha collapsed in on itself as a pile of loose soil.

With all my spoils from the battle safely stored away in my Inventory, I took a second to update my map and work on my Cartography Skill before carrying on with my expedition. There was still nearly half an hour to go before the Buffs from the Coffee Granola Bar expired, so I activated my Sprint Skill at its lowest setting and settled into a comfortable 60 Mile per Hour run across the flattest path in front of me. I traded some of the Timberwolf Scrap I looted for a speedometer to check and found that I peaked at a little over 76 Miles per Hour when I found a decent stretch that was completely straight.

I traveled over and around a couple mountains before the sun started to set, at which point I stopped to set up camp in the most secure place I could find — another cave, naturally. I ended the first day of the expedition likely traveling over a hundred miles, but if I checked against my hand-drawn map, there were only a couple dozen miles between my current position on my original home cave.

I went to sleep wondering how many more days I’d have to rough it out in the wild before I encountered people, or at least non-hostile sentient life. Then again, I couldn’t be sure it’d be for the best if I did end up encountering the natives of this world. If they were humans, I’d have to constantly watch my back around them, in case they found out about my Perk-given anomalous nature.

In a magical world, I had chosen to reject Magic. I wouldn’t be surprised if an opposite case — a magical being entered the mundane world of Earth — was found out and caused people back home to capture, experiment, and vivisect the odd one out in the name of the greater good, the betterment of humanity, or whatever other nonsense excused such terribly unethical behavior.

“Great, now I’m going to have nightmares if I end up dreaming tonight,” I grumbled to myself before closing my eyes and putting a lid on the thought machine that ran wild in my head.

Author's Note

Oof, the story got temporarily taken down (I'm hoping) because there weren't more direct associations with MLP in the previous chapters. There won't be for a couple more Chapters, but if you're seeing this it'll be because I posted enough to eventually get there and meet the submission requirements.

Chapter 8: Unknown Detected

[Skill Level Up!]
[Name: Sprint Lvl 3 → 4 | +40 Exp]
[Description: You’ve heard of hysterical strength. This gives you access to hysterical speed.]
[Active Cost: Level 2 - 10 Stamina per Second | Level 3 - 30 Stamina per Second | Level 4 - 100 Stamina per Second]

It was the second day of my expedition and almost time for me to camp out again when my Sprint Skill Leveled Up. Besides that, the only noteworthy event I could recall for the day was Cartography advancing to Level 2 shortly after I stopped to complete my Daily Quest. I had to keep reminding myself that the Full Recovery Reward from those expired every day, both to make sure I did them on a daily basis, and not forget they were a resource like I’d neglected during the Timberwolf fiasco on the previous day.

With the sun barely creeping over the horizon as I made my way down yet another mountain, I had been planning on looking for a cave to camp out at when I spotted something very interesting.

I probably wouldn’t have noticed it without my currently augmented Perception courtesy of another Coffee Granola Bar — I’d made three batches that each gave me 10 servings and had other types of snacks I could quickly scarf down while on the run to save myself time from settling down to eat entire full meals while on the run.

It was over on the next mountain. A grey shape I probably wouldn’t have been able to pick out from the background with my ordinary vision. With my enhanced eyesight, though, I could make out that the grey shape was vaguely humanoid, if a bit short. It was also making gestures that I was growing increasingly certain were of it smoking a cigarette. I could tell because it got increasingly easier to make out the cherry of the cigarette as it got darker.

Intrigued, yet more than a little hesitant, I decided to take note of where the shape was located before finding a camp spot to load up on more food buffs before making contact.

When I found a suitable camping spot I brought out five dishes to prop my Status to its limits given my current resources; with the exclusion of using up any of the Stat Points I currently had available, of course.

A Medium Rare Skirt Steak to double my effective Strength, with an extra five points, and Health Regeneration to an underwhelming two points per minute. A serving of Mashed Potatoes and Gravy for similar effects to my Constitution and Stamina Regeneration. A Honey Dressed Caesar Salad to refresh my Agility and Perception Buffs and increase their effectiveness from +3 to +5. My dessert for the evening would be a Vanilla Bread Pudding which would raise my Max Health by 1,500 and my Max Stamina by 800. And I’d wash everything I ate down with an Iced Match Latte to boost my Luck and Charisma.

I had plenty of other dishes in stock in my Inventory that I’d personally cooked for the bonuses, but had yet to find a way to increase my Vitality, Intelligence, or Wisdom. The latter two, I could not care less about, but the lack of improved Vitality was a shame I would carry with me until I figured something out.

In any case, I decided now would be a good time to check on my overhauled Status before diving into the deep end, so to speak. I wasn’t anxious or worried and trying to cope with the slightly improved numbers.

Shut up…

[Name: John Doe]
[Level: 5 (482/500)]
[Status Effects: Fortify Strength (+5), Fortify Consitution (+5), Fortify Agility (+5), Fortify Perception (+5), Fortify Luck (+5), Fortify Charisma (+5), Well Fed (+10% All Stats)]
[Health: 1,320/1,320 (3,058/3,058)]
[Stamina: 1,320/1,320 (4,140/4,140)]
[Strength: 12 (18.7)]
[Constitution: 12 (18.7)]
[Vitality: 12 (13.2)]
[Agility: 14 (20.9)]
[Perception: 10 (16.5)]
[Intelligence: 10 (11)]
[Wisdom: 10 (11)]
[Luck: 10 (16.5)]
[Charisma: 10 (16.5)]

“What the hell? That’s not… No, that is the right effective Health and Stamina!” I could barely believe it even after working out the math. Vitality determined Max Health and its Regeneration, while Constitution determined Max Stamina and its Regeneration — and physical defense too, but that was currently irrelevant.

It was one thing to conceptualize the power of my Stats doubling every five points and another thing entirely to see it expressed mathematically. Sure, it wasn’t like my current effective Max Health and Stamina weren’t being significantly improved by Buffs unrelated to Vitality or Consitution, but I had the paperwork to show that purely off Stats, my Max Health had increased by about 60% with just 3.2 extra points while my Max Stamina had more than tripled with 8.7 points compared to where I had started.

This kind of growth seemed ridiculous until I remembered I literally couldn’t increase my Stats unless I Leveled Up or completed certain Quests. It made me wonder exactly how I compared to the rest of the world. Was I overpowered or underpowered?

The only way to find out was to stop stalling and investigate the grey blob for more information about the world. I couldn’t pull anything concretely from my tumble with the Timberwolfs because, one, they might not even be a thing in this world — for all I knew they were created by the Instance Dungeon through my Gamer powers — and two, even if they were of this world, there was nothing else to compare them against. For example that pack of Timberwolfs might have been a mid to high-level threat to a prehistoric human tribe, an extreme threat to an unprepared amateur hiker of Modern Earth, or a nonexistent threat to the full might of the United States Armed Forces.

Reciting to myself that my Status did not take into account the effects of my Skills, I took a deep breath and set out towards the unknown target. ‘20.9 Agility is before any Level of Sprint or Foundational Sword is active. The same goes for Strength. The same goes for Consitution and Vitality with regards to Iron Body.’

Despite being capable of superhuman feats that I could bolster at will, I took the utmost caution as I approached the cliffside where I’d previously spotted the grey blob. I was so cautious that the sun fully set before I was within 500 meters of my target. The darkness didn’t bother me much with my enhanced perception and the fact that there was a barely noticeable light coming from the cave beyond the cliff face only made it easier for me to hone in on the target.

The closer I got, though, the slower I moved as I did everything in my power to make as little noise as possible. I didn’t want to step on any loose branches or ruffle any bushes.

[New Skill Unlocked!]
[Name: Sneak Lvl 1 | +10 Exp]
[Description: For when you want to snoop around.]
[Active Cost: 10 Stamina per Second]

I quickly bought the Tutorial Text for the Skill and confirmed it had the same mechanism as Sprint only instead of increasing my speed by 5% at Level 1, it would “decrease [my] presence” as its effect.

I immediately cast the Skill and kept it active. My effective Stamina Regeneration rate was about 6.6 per second, so I could keep it active for a pretty long time. If it progressed anything like Sprint did, I would hopefully level it up pretty quickly. That would let me keep its first level active for even longer and give me a bigger boost if I needed it in a pinch.

I was almost tempted to use one or more of my Skill Points on Sneak right then and there. Taking the stealthy approach appealed to me, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to commit to a Rogue or Ninja build over the traditional Warrior or Swordsman. I could feel myself getting distracted once again and pulled myself out of my thoughts.

‘Investigate the grey blob and mysterious lights coming from the cave first, debate Class builds and optimization strategies later...’

I had been doing just fine without the Sneak Skill until now. There was no need to dump my Skill Points into it for now.

I continued my approach and eventually made it to the same cliff where I found the grey blob smoking by. Towards the cave, even as close to it as I was now, I doubted I would have been able to spot the lackluster amount of light leaking out of it unless I had previously caught sight of the grey blob and focused my efforts on being aware of everything in its general vicinity.

The secrecy involved in keeping the place hidden worried me, but there were any number of reasons as to why people might be camping out in such a fashion. I couldn’t just assume the worst, though I would certainly prepare for it.

Author's Note

Here's the math I obsessed over; this is as deep as I go for now, anyway. It would have gone in the story after the first paragraph after the Full Status was shown, but this is probably better.

Math Work for Effective Max Health - 13.2 (Effective Vitality) - 10 (Original Vitality) = 3.2 (Calculated Exponent) | If every 5 Points doubles the effects of a Stat, every point increases it by a ⁵√2^(Calculated Exponent), this can by proved by raising the ⁵√2 by 5 and seeing that every multiple of five doubles the effect; i.e. ⁵√2^5 = 2, ⁵√2^10 = 4, ⁵√2^15 = 8, etc | With a Calculated Exponent of 3.2 the effective bonus is approximately ⁵√2^(3.2) or 1.558 from the base of 1,000, yielding ~1,558/1,558 before the other bonus of +1,500 Max Health.

Math Work for Max Stamina - 18.7 (Effective Constitution) - 10 (Original Constitution) = 8.7 (Calculated Exponent) | With a Calculated Exponent of 8.7 the effective bonus is approximately ⁵√2^(8.7) or 3.340 from the base of 1,000, yielding ~3,340 before the other bonus of +800 Max Stamina.

Chapter 9: Chain Quest

Coming up on the cave, I hugged the walls and kept a very slow pace as I slowly entered into the unknown. At a moment’s notice, I was prepared to activate Sprint and Iron Body. I had my sword in hand, my eyes peeled, and my mind ready to expect the unexpected.

A couple dozen meters into and around a bend in the cave, I found the source of the lights.

[Observe]
[Name: Magical Lantern]
[Description: A mechanically simple and effective lantern that can be powered by any Magical Source. This one is powered by an F Grade Magically Refined Sapphire. It’s over a decade old, yet still as useful as it was on the day it was made.]

Every couple meters at approximately the same spacing, I found similar lanterns until I reached a crossroads that split that cave into three different paths. With my enhanced hearing, I could make out noises coming from the middle path. The left and rightmost paths were equally as quiet, which I interpreted as meaning they had fewer people and a lower chance of being discovered, so it was down the left path that is where I went after quickly making up my mind.

I continued making headway through the leftmost path until I spotted a door that was left ajar. As I continued to approach, I could start making out the sounds and to put it simply… they did nothing but inspire dread in me. The sounds came in a pattern that left little to the imagination.

Smack! Screech! Whine…

Smack…!

If I didn’t know any better I would say it sounded like someone was being tortured…

Correction. It was some thing rather than a someone. For the next couple of whips, it didn’t even occur to me that I should cast Observe on either the torturer or the torturee. I was too busy taking in the ridiculous sight, not even knowing what to question first.

These things were not human. At best, the torturer was vaguely humanoid if partial to canines while the torturee was a certified Rank 4 Furry on the Lando Scale. What snapped me out of my wondrous state was the torturer stopped its rhythmic whipping to bark out in a suspiciously intelligent manner. It was obviously conveying a message to the torturee, but to me, it just sounded like unintelligible grumbles, growls, and barks.

When the torturee started screeching back in its own suspiciously intelligent way, expressing far too much emotion on its avian face, I resorted to casting Observe.

[Observe]
[Name: ???]
[Description: ??? is the meanest and toughest Diamond Dog of his pack. Consequently, he has been assigned the role of torturer, which he happily accepts for the praise and status that comes with the gig. He doesn’t mind getting his hands dirty for the pack’s alpha.]
[Level: 9]
[Health: 2,700/2,700]
[Strength: 15]
[Constitution: 19]
[Vitality: 16]
[Agility: 9]
[Perception: 15]
[Intelligence: 4]
[Wisdom: 3]
[Luck: 5]
[Charisma: 5]

[Name: ???]
[Description: ??? is an adventurous Griffon. She had grand plans of traveling across the world, but her bad luck ended with her camping out in the immediate vicinity of a pack of errant Diamond Dogs while on her travels. She is currently being whipped as punishment for refusing to continue working as a slave.]
[Level: 4]
[Status Effects: Thirsty, Hungry, Malnourished, Sleep Deprived, Magically Suppressed]
[Health: 488/600]
[Strength: 2]
[Constitution: 3]
[Vitality: 3]
[Agility: 3]
[Perception: 8]
[Intelligence: 0]
[Wisdom: 0]
[Luck: 2]
[Charisma: 2]

‘What the fuck even is this?’ I lamented, feeling overwhelmed by the situation.

[New World Quest!]
[Name: Griffon Rescue Chain Quest 1]
[Description: The first of a potential chain of decisions you need to make to resolve the situation before you. Choose between (1) Saving the Griffon, or (2) Leaving]
[Reward: (1) Griffon Rescue Chain Quest 2, (2) +10 Exp]

Wow Game, just…. Wow.

The whole world had just frozen over in a monochrome of black and white. Time had stopped and was apparently waiting for me to make my decision. Like there was even an option for me after reading through the Observed descriptions. Clearly, the Diamond Dog was in the wrong and the Griffon was just an unlucky guy— er, gal.

And yet I hesitated to accept the first option. With all the time in the world to evaluate the situation, I could afford to take the time to properly think over the implications that would come from trying to play the hero. To save the Griffon, I needed to take out the Diamond Dog. Yet unlike the Timberwolfs I’d dealt with previously, I wasn’t dealing with an unfeeling magical construct without sentience. The Diamond Dog was a living and intelligent — kind of… — being.

Even if I could commit myself to the act, I didn’t know if I could instantly kill it with all the Health it had. If I couldn’t and a fight broke out, I didn’t know how many more Diamond Dogs or other slavers in this encampment might arrive as reinforcements. This particular Diamond Dog might be the “meanest and toughest” by I had no idea by what margin.

Now, assuming everything went perfectly according to the optimal outcome I could imagine with regards to dealing with the Diamond Dog, after I miraculously managed to knock it out without killing it or drawing any attention, what the hell was I supposed to do with the Griffon when we couldn’t understand each other? I could very well be the first Human it would encounter and there was no way to tell what its reaction might be after I managed to free it.

“Fuck me and my bleeding heart,” I cursed at the void as I chose Option 1 despite all the ways it could spectacularly backfire on me. It seemed that getting killed off once hadn’t been enough to teach me when I was better off fleeing over fighting.

I just had to be a nice guy.

Damn.

[New World Quest!]
[Name: Griffon Rescue Chain Quest 2]
[Description: The second of a chain of decisions you need to make to resolve the situation before you. Choose between (1) Loud Approach, or (2) Stealth Approach]
[Reward: (1) Double Exp until the encampment is cleared of hostiles (Conditional on Griffon’s Survival), (2) Griffon Rescue Chain Quest 3 (Conditional on Sucess)]

I expected the world to resume time in order for my actions to speak for themselves. When it didn’t, I thought of accepting the second option and the strangest thing happened.

[Strength Check: 18.7/15 (Passed!)]
[Agility Check: 20.9/12 (Passed!)]
[Detection Meter: 0/50 (Passed!)]
[Overwhelming Success!]

My body began to move on its own as the world slowly sped up to the normal rate of time. It methodically approached the Diamond Dog from its blind spot, refusing to make a single sound despite moving at superhuman speeds. Then in one smooth motion, it took the Diamon Dog into a rear naked chokehold and squeezed the consciousness out of it.

[+14 Exp]

[New Skill Unlocked!]
[Name: Subdue Lvl 1 | +10 Exp]
[Description: It's not CQC that Big Boss would approve of, but it’ll get the job done.]
[Active Cost: 25 Stamina]

[Level Up!]
[Full Recovery!]
[+3 Stat Points!]
[+1 Skill Point!]
[+1 Ability Point!]

The world promptly froze over after the Diamond Dog slackened in my grip and I dropped its limp body on the floor.

[New World Quest!]
[Name: Griffon Rescue Chain Quest 3]
[Description: The third of a chain of decisions you need to make to resolve the situation before you. Choose between (1) Looking for the Key to Free the Griffon, (2) Attempting to Break the Restraints Yourself, or (3) Attempting to Communicate with the Griffon]
[Reward: (1) Variable (Conditional on Success), (2) Variable (Conditional on Success), (3) Variable (Conditional on Success)]

I decided to go with the option that was least likely to succeed on the hunch that failing would let me at least attempt a different method. On the off chance it didn’t and the chain of quests promptly ended, I was happy with having gotten this far with my rescue efforts.

Option three it is!

With my decision made, the world unfroze and I was given my bodily autonomy back. Hooray!

Screech! Screech!

And… I had a screeching Griffon looking at me like I was the scariest thing it had ever seen. Its facial expressions would put the best Hollywood actors to shame… somehow. Yet I was supposed to try communicating with it. However, could this go right?

I tried the universal gesture for “I come in peace;” at least for humans. Taking a step back I broke eye contact with the terrified Griffon, turned my head down, and put both my hands up. It seemed to be working as the Griffon’s screeching died down quickly enough. When it went totally silent, I tried to make eye contact again and managed to hold it without the beast going hysterical on me.

Not knowing what else to do at this point, I went with the first thing that came to mind: Speaking.

“Look, I know you probably can’t understand me. I definitely couldn’t understand you and this Diamond Dog if you two were having a conversation. But, well, I’m trying to help you.”

Screech?

It was another bird-like screech, but it was suspiciously intoned in a way that transcended spoken languages. Paired with the sudden look of hopeful intrigue that I still couldn’t believe an eagle-faced beast could pull off, I could imagine it asking, “Really?” if it was as intelligent as I presumed it to be.

I shot for a hail mary and asked, “You… Surely you can’t understand me, right?”

It nodded. Slowly, but unmistakably, it nodded.

“Nod if you can understand me,” I said and it nodded.

“Ok, now, just to make sure this is really happening, screech or speak — honestly it’d probably sound the same to me either way — three times if you can hear me and I’ll fully believe you.”

Screech! Screech! Screech!

What kind of bullshit was this? It could understand me, but I couldn’t understand it— her, whatever. This was unfair! Unjust! An affront to my Status as the one with Gamer powers! Speaking of, what gives? Where were my rewards for figuring out how to communicate with the Griffon? Or was finding out that it could understand me not enough?

Screech!

The Griffon called out to me, drawing me out of my thoughts. Right, I had better things to worry about. Like how I was going to use this one-way communication to my advantage. I defaulted to the obvious and tried asking a series of true or false questions.

“So, do you have any idea where the key to free you might be? Screech once for Yes and twice for No.”

Screech!

“Great! Is it in this room?”

Screech!

“On the Diamond Dog I knocked out?”

Screech! Screech!

“Welp, there’s a lot of places it might be stored at in here; too many for me to ask one by one so, uh… Make more noise the closer to the key that I get? Yeah, that could probably work.”

The Griffon hesitantly nodded and I promptly went to seek out the key.

With the Griffon’s help to act as a makeshift key detector, I made my way around the room before settling on one of the many bookshelves that lined one of the walls of the room. To my surprise, the keys to all the cells in the room ended up being on top of one of the bookshelves towards the middle of the ensemble. I would have never guessed it would be there in favor of a more sensible place; like… the numerous cabinets by the desk and chair on the opposite side of the room.

I spent a hot minute trying to pick out the right key from the dozens that were chained together, all the while doing my best to ignore the periodic lowly chirps of distress that occasionally came out of the Griffon. On the one hand, it was an annoying waste of time, which I spent looking like an idiot despite there not being any reasonable expectation that I would know which of the dozens, if not hundreds, of keys was the right one. But on the other hand, I was glad to see the keys being so underutilized. Amidst all the ones chained together, there was only one that needed to be used for the single victim in the room.

I didn’t know if that was because it was rare for a slave of the encampment to rebel or if there simply weren't that many slaves for a sizable minority to need periodic discipline. Hopefully, it was the latter, but anything could happen in this alien world that I’d apparently been dropped in.

Chapter 10: Taking Initiative

As I was in the middle of figuring out which key would finally open the restraints locking the Griffon, I nearly dropped the whole chain of keys at the most unexpected series of sounds. It was clear, feminine, quiet, and tinged with palpable worry. But most important of all, it was intelligible and articulate English coming from the Griffon.

“Oh Gods, what am I going to do!?”

“What? How are you speaking English all of a sudden?”

“English? What are you talking about? I’ve been speaking Standard Pony Equish this entire time!” The Griffon looked down for a second as she muttered under her breath, “Everyone is supposed to know it, even the Diamond Dogs that captured me did.”

“Well, I don’t know any Equish and yet here we are with me somehow capable of perfectly understanding you,” I said before sliding over another key to try to free the Griffon again.

“That’s—” When the next key resulted in yet another failure, I pulled it away from the lock and the undetectably accentless English that was coming out of the Griffon switched back to unintelligible screeches jarringly quickly.

“What the—? I can’t understand you anymore. I wonder…” I said as I looked at the keys and the Griffon who had grown quiet. I hesitantly reached out with another key to try and free her. It failed. But, I kept the key in the lock and said, “Try saying something.”

“Like what?” She responded.

“Interesting,” I muttered before letting go of the key and asking her to repeat herself.

Screech!

“I need physical contact to understand your speech?” I wondered to myself before reaching over to touch one of her claws.

“Careful! I haven’t had time to trim my talons and blunt their edge!” She worriedly blurted out.

“Guess that answers that question.”

[World Quest Completed!]
[Name: Griffon Rescue Chain Quest 3]
[Description: Perfectly Cleared]
[Reward: +1 Stat Point, +1 Skill Point, Griffon Rescue Chain Quest 4]

[Milestone Quest Complete!]
[Name: Perfect Clear 1]
[Description: Achieve a Perfect Clear on a Quest with Variable Outcomes.]
[Reward: +25 Exp, +1 Ability Point]

[World Quest]
[Name: Griffon Rescue Chain Quest 4]
[Description: The fourth of a chain of decisions you need to make to resolve the situation before you. Choose between (1) Asking the Griffon about the slave encampment, (2) Refrain from asking about the slave encampment until the Griffon is out of its effective territory.
[Reward: (1) Variable, (2) Variable]

Welp, things had been going way too smoothly until now. I had a feeling my decision would end ruinously for me either way, so I chose to ask while it was still an option.

“Thanks for the heads up,” I lamely said to her concerned question. I kept my foot touching her as I took back my hand from her talon and continued looking for the right key to free her. “Say, what’s the deal with this place.” I vaguely asked.

“Oh, it’s just horrible!” The Griffon didn’t hesitate to start venting, “I know it's in bad taste to stereotype, but these Diamond Dogs aren’t helping their case. I thought it was just tasteless rumors going off ancient history that there were still Diamond Dog packs that legalized slavery. It might have been foolish of me to have camped out in Neutral Territory, but still…”

“Slavery is a known practice for the Diamond Dogs?” I asked.

“It was, several hundred years ago. In school, I’d been taught that the Canian Empire outlawed it to maintain relationships and economic prospects with the rest of the world, but more than one of my frequent flier buddies had warned me to look out for rogue tribes that followed their own laws. I wish I had taken them seriously.”

“That’s… Never mind,” I said stopping myself before I could start on a tangent. “You know, I wonder what’s going to happen when I manage to free you.” When the Griffon looked at me with confusion, I clarified, “I mean to the rest of the Diamond Dogs or whatever other race of slavers are here.”

“Well, if we manage to escape, they will definitely find out about their dead and our getaway before authorities from my home country of Griffonstone can arrive to expunge them. There might be a chance that they arrive before the remaining slaves that are left behind in restraints starve or dehydrate to death, but I wouldn’t count on it. It’d take me at least a couple days of almost nonstop flying to get home in my best state and I’ve been malnourished for weeks in this place.”

“Uh… I didn’t kill that Diamond Dog,” I said, gesturing at the unconscious body. “But, your military would be ok with it? No arrest and capture followed by a court trial or something more humane— er, civilized?”

“Sure, for an upstanding citizen of an established country. For these barbarians who practice enslavement and have committed other unspeakable crimes under the purview of Neutral Territory, they’ll be issued orders to be killed on sight.”

“Sounds fair enough to me,” I shrugged, coincidently right before finally getting the right key to open the Griffon’s restraints.

As I helped the Griffon out of her restraints, she stretched out her wings and— Holy shit, she must have a good three to four-meter wingspan. For someone who had been admittedly malnourished, poorly treated, and was more than likely unkempt, the only way I could describe her as she continued to stretch her body to wring out all its kinks and numbed muscles was “fucking majestic.” I’d probably be intimidated if there wasn’t a veritable mountain of reasons to be comfortable in her presence.

“So, what now?” She asked and the only reason I could understand her was because she had the wherewithal to approach and touch me before she spoke after I’d stepped away to let her stretch in peace.

“Well, I have a couple more questions I was hoping you could answer me before I escorted you out of here.”

“Shoot,” she simply said. I almost asked her how she could possibly know that kind of slang, but refrained as time was of the essence. At any moment, another slaver could walk in and potentially sound the alarm.

“Here’s the deal, with murder being much more acceptable than I expected I want to try my chances at clearing out this encampment. The problem is, I have no idea how many slavers or slaves there are, or even the layout of this place. So, any information you have that might help with that would be appreciated.”

“Are you packing some serious magic because, and forgive me if I come off as rude, you don’t look like you can take the average Diamond Dog on in a direct fight, nevermind the dozens that are part of the pack in charge of this place,” she said while poking a wing at one of my armor covered arms.

Yeah, I wouldn’t be so confident in my chances either without my Gamer powers. Compared to the Diamond Dog I’d knocked out, my arms were like three to four times smaller and though my legs were much longer, they weren’t any thicker or looked tough enough to really do any damage against its bulky frame and thick coat of fur.

“I can take care of myself in a fight,” I brushed aside her comment. “Don’t worry, I won’t ask you to help me. In an ideal world, I would subdue all the Diamond Dogs here and manage to restrain them all without killing them. But I’m confident I can take on even a large group of them at the same time.”

“If you say so,” she clearly did not look like she believed me, “I can recall 25 of them, maybe 26 distinct Diamond Dogs but there could be more I just never ran into while working in the mine. Also, there were way more slaves; too many for me to accurately tell. There’s at least fifty and that’s on the conservative end of the spectrum.”

“As for the structure of this place… You must be familiar with the entrance up until the three-way split. You took the left path to get to the Detainment and Torture Room, here. The middle path takes you to the Mine and the right path takes you to the Barracks where most of the Diamond Dogs go to rest. If you go down the middle path towards the Mine, on the first level before the Mine proper is the dwelling area of the slaves. That’s where we’re only allowed to be there to eat and sleep for six hours every day.”

“The Mine itself is structured like a typical mine with a branch dug out for each individual slave to mine rocks and gems out of. Depending on the strength of each slave, they are assigned to different levels of the Mine. The weaker ones are placed higher up as the rocks and gems get more compact and harder to extract the lower down the Mine you go. The only other thing I can think of that’s worth mentioning is that the alpha of the group and his ‘posse’ are rumored to live somewhere between the middle to lowest levels of the Mine. I’ve never seen the alpha or his group, but that’s what I’ve heard.”

That… That was a lot of information. The situation in this enslavement camp was worse than what I was hoping for, but far from the worst thing I could imagine, and anything better than that had to be good enough of a motivator for me to continue.

“How likely am I to encounter a Diamond Dog alone, like buddy over here,” I asked.

“What?” The Griffon tilted her head in a way that I was tempted to label “cute.”

“I mean, how well trained are they? Where I come from, it’s a standard practice to have at least two people in these sorts of authoritative positions — law enforcement, military, to clarify — to have each other’s backs. What am asking is whether or not I just got lucky to catch this guy alone. If I ran into more than one Diamond Dog at a time, I can’t see how I’d maintain the cover of stealth.” I was specifically asking because of the 4 Intelligence that “buddy” had.

“Oh. Well, I think you’ll be fine. Now that you mention it, whenever I have seen guards or members of the military back home, they are always in pairs, aren’t they?” She shook her head, “But to answer your question, it’s rare to find a group even as small as two Diamond Dogs together. Unless they need to interact with each other to get something done, they tend to put all their attention on whatever their job or task is. They’re also known to be pretty dumb, which I’d like to claim is a stereotype… But hopeful, it turns out to be true!”

The enthusiasm and sheer schadenfreude she gave off with that last comment was frankly unsettling. I couldn’t fault her for it, though. I’d probably feel the same if I was in her place.

Author's Note

And so we have dialogue... At last!

Hopefully with Diamond Dogs, Griffons, and actual speaking being introduced to the story, the story will be back up after I submit it for manual approval.

Chapter 11: Easy Pickings

“What,” I was so surprised that the intonation of my confusion did not come out as a question.

“Like I already mentioned, I’m not exactly feeling my best,” The Griffon said in between bites of a plate of food I had brought out of my Inventory for her, “With this space-time magic, you’ve convinced me you’re the real deal. So,” she licked her lips and smiled in a deceptively human way that just barely failed to trigger an uncanny valley response, “I was thinking of following you and helping.”

“You want to fight?” I took a glance at her and then the Diamond Dog that was still unconscious a couple steps away from us.

She shook her head and swallowed the piece of steak in her mouth before saying, “I really can’t with my body in this state even if I wanted to. Sorry,” she looked genuinely remorseful until she saw me wave her concerns away. I’d observed her Status, so I’d been expecting her to leave this place the first chance she got.

“I’ll help you by talking to the other slaves. If they’re like me and you can’t understand them unless you’re touching them, I can talk on your behalf.”

“Right, right… I hadn’t thought of that,” I admitted.

I’d already told her how I planned to liberate this encampment. But just to reiterate before jumping back into action, I said, “Alright then. I guess, after you’re done eating, we’ll start with the Barracks. That could be either the most or least dangerous part of the operation, so if the plan crumbles at that point, don’t hesitate to run for the exit. I feel pretty good about my chances of either fighting my way through all the Diamond Dogs here or running away if I need to, but not while also simultaneously protecting you.”

When she nodded and turned back to her meal, I made my way across the room and over to the desk that presumably belonged to the torturer I’d knocked out. On top of it and spilling off towards one of the desk's sides was a mound of chained manacles of various sizes. While I’d been looking for the keys to free the Griffon, the manacles were among the first five things I spammed my Observe on.

[Observe]
[Name: Unkempt Pile of Magic Suppressing Manacles]
[Description: Made up of 83 different sets of Magic Suppressing Manacles, all rated for C Grade threats, there are various different size accommodations ranging from XS that were made to capture young foals to XXL that were made to contain even the largest of adult Diamond Dogs. Once these Magic Supresing Manacles are installed, they feed off their target’s magic to fuel its enchantment array and prevent any spellcasting or internal magic manipulation. Any attempt to bypass this effect simply wastes that accumulated magic gathered if it is in small quantities or delivers a powerful shock fueled by the target’s own magic.]

I stored the manacles away in my Inventory as they would be instrumental in limiting the number of lives I took. The plan was to use Subdue on as many Diamond Dogs as I could before resorting to likely life-or-death combat. Every Diamond Dog I knocked out would be restrained by these Manacles, left considerably weakened, and easy enough to contain even for a slave like the unfortunate Griffon. I knew as much because I’d put a set of manacles on the unconscious torturor and watch his Status nosedive to a fourth of most of its original Stats; its Intelligence and Wisdom outright dropped to zero.

When the Griffon finished her meal, I gave her a bottle of water — which she somehow managed to deftly drink out off — before we set off from the Detainment and Torture Room. After reaching the end of the hall that splintered off into the Mine, Barracks, and Exit, I gave the Griffon a look that she nodded back towards before we headed over to the Barracks.

She kept a solid ten-meter gap between us and took as much care as I did to stealthily sneak over to the Barracks. When we managed to reach the door that would lead to the Diamond Dog’s resting area, I took a second to give her another look as if to say, “this is your last chance to bail before the shit hits the fan,” but she just smiled and nodded with a determined resolution.

I reached over to the door handle and slowly turned it before opening up the door ever so slightly to take a peek inside. There were eight Diamond Dogs, lying down on… not beds, but carpets or fur rugs on the floor. My first thought was that this was too good to be true; way too suspicious to not be bait.

So I cast Observe on every single Diamon Dog in the room and was pleasantly surprised to find that all of them shared the same “Sleeping” Debuff. Curiously, their Perception Stats were still pretty high, reaching up to 9 at the highest, which was odd because the torturer's had dropped to zero once I’d knocked him out. Then again, that also made sense because I knew light sleepers could be alarmed or alerted in their sleep, but not if they’ve been rendered unexpectedly comatose.

I made a quick prayer to an unnamed God that I didn’t believe in, mostly out of habit, before I entered the room and cast Subdue on a sleeping Diamond Dog. The Skill made my body move on its own, with preternatural stealth that I didn’t think I could achieve without a lot more manual practice on my own. It positioned me over the Diamond Dog I was targeting and had me drop a forearm right into its windpipe.

[+6 Exp]

Aside from a scarcely perceptible thud to my enhanced Perception of 16.5, my actions made no noise. Thus I continued on to the next target, and the next, and the next, and…

[+6 Exp]
[+6 Exp]
[+8 Exp]
…

In less than two minutes, I took out five Level 6s and three Level 7s, fully clearing out the room without a single misstep. The “Knocked Out” Debuff I left them in would last for half an hour, so took a moment to breathe out a sigh of relief and nearly died of a heart attack when multiple screens flashed in front of my face.

[Skill Level Up!]
[Name: Sneak Lvl 1 → 2 | +20 Exp]
[Description: Makes you blend in perfectly with your surroundings… If it's fully dark out… and you’re wearing the right camouflage… and there’s a heavy fog lowering visibility.]
[Active Cost: Level 1 - 8 Stamina per Second | Level 2 - 20 Stamina per Second]

[Level Up!]
[Full Recovery!]
[+3 Stat Points!]

My panic left me as quickly as it was instilled. Like a jumpscare I’d fallen for, but for a movie that wasn’t all that scary to begin with. It left me disgruntled for a moment before I got over it and went back to business, bringing out several Magic Suppressing Manacles to restrain the unconscious Diamond Dogs.

As I went about placing them, I took note of the physical differences between my targets. Even with them being a totally new and different species to me, I could easily make out the characteristics that differentiated them.

To make a callback to my initial description of the Griffon, these were also certified Rank 4 Furries on the Lando Scale, only instead of trending slightly over 4 like the Griffon did, these guys were slightly lower if only because they were considerably more anthropomorphized. On a closer inspection though, it became obvious that they were literal dogs as their wildly different proportions and coat colors liked them to my favorite pets back on Earth.

The Diamond Dog I was currently restraining was obviously a kind of Pug breed while the one next on the chopping block was shoe-in for a Greyhound. The fact that they might as well have been literal dogs made me feel bad for them… until I remembered that they were intelligent and sentient yet complicit and engaging in slavery.

My nascent compassion for them died a swift and unceremonious death as I quietly finished putting all the subdued Diamond Dogs into a set of Magic Suppressing Manacles. When I was done I left the room and approached the Griffon.

“I didn’t hear any agonizing screams, so I can only guess that everything went off without a hitch?” The Griffon said.

“Yep,” I flashed her a thumbs up and pointedly ignored her macabre comment. “There were eight of them there, so roughly 25% to 30% cleared according to your estimations.”

“You ready to hit up the Mines?” She asked.

“Ready as I’ll ever be, I guess,” I sighed.

We left for the Mines with the same amount of caution as we took to get to the Barracks. It paid off almost immediately when I picked up the barely audible pitter-patter of footsteps approaching from around the bend in the hall. I put up a hand to signal the Griffon to stop and after a couple moments passed for me to confirm that I was hearing footsteps getting closer, grumbled lowly curse before ushering the Griffon back to the Barracks.

“It sounds like there’s just one coming our way. Let’s ambush them in the Barracks right after they open the door,” I said to the Griffon.

When she hesitantly nodded, we picked up our pace slightly and closed the door to the Barracks to lie or trap. It took a couple minutes which felt like hours, but eventually, the target got close enough for me to hear them through the wall. Then, the footsteps stopped and the door began to creak open.

Grr?

I waited precisely for the Diamond Dog to cross into the room and be taken aback with confusion before I used Subdue on it. It managed to just barely make eye contact with me before I twisted its head to the side while cutting off its circulation of blood to the brain; that was the goal, at least; if its biology worked in any way similar to a person’s, anyway.

[+7 Exp]

“Welp, that’s nine down. Twenty-ish more to go,” I lamely said before looking at the Griffon who looked back at me neutrally as I put a set of Manacles on the Diamond Dog.

“Are you like special forces for… whatever it is that you are? That’s twice now, that I’ve seen you bust out crazy ninja moves that are straight out of Neighpon films.”

“Special forces, Ha! That’s hilarious,” Nothing could have prepared me for that kind of question. It cut through all the tension that had been building and made me involuntarily let out a belly laugh. “To answer your question, though, I’m definitely not nor have I ever been part of a military group for Humans or otherwise.”

“Human? Is that what you are? Even without the armor covering your entire body, I doubt I’d be able to recognize what kind of creature you are.” The Griffon tilted her head again as she muttered to herself, “I could have sworn I’d heard something about that term once, but I can’t seem to remember. Guess, it doesn’t really matter right now, huh?”

“Yeah, probably not,” I said as I got up from crouching next to the Diamond Dog after restraining it. “Let’s just get this over with, yeah?”

When she nodded, we left for the Mines and actually managed to make it there on the second try without further incident.

Chapter 13: Tough Break

I settled into a routine after rescuing my sixth and seventh slave. Go down a branch, take out the single supervising guard, before dealing with the terrified slaves and insufferable chain of keys, and getting everyone back to the open space.

Sometimes I found a Diamond Dog watching over a single slave worker, other times I watched them guarding a point in the branching paths that split up into two or three more sections; each section containing a different working slave. I found more Griffon slaves, Pegasus slaves, Unicorn slaves, and even regular Pony or Zebra (pony-sized) slaves.

I even found a Diamond Dog effectively working as a slave, but I had to Subdue it after reading its Observed descriptions and finding out it wasn’t really a slave, but rather a slaver that was being temporarily punished for doing something that upset the alpha of the pack.

Anyway, as I went through the rounds, time continued ticking down. I was working with a tight deadline but was confident in being able to get all 34 Slavers Subdued in time at the rate I was going at. Then, after clearing out all the branches on the ground level and heading to the first underground level, I measured that I started to take more than twice as much time on average there as I did on the upper floor.

By the fourth time going down a path that must have been around a kilometer long, I realized the truth for what it was and had to make a decision: Speed the hell up and risk getting noticed before I could Subdue guards with a 100% success rate or fail to Subdue who knows how many slavers in time which would lead me to have to face all of them at once after the shit hits the fan and they returned to see dozens of freed slaves in the open space.

I choose to speed up for one simple reason. I rationalized that it was better to be noticed by one guard which I could almost certainly take down quickly in a straight-up fight — None of the Diamond Dogs that I’d ran into yet had better Stats than me. True to Greta’s previous comments, aside from in the Barracks and the common area just before the mine proper, I had yet to run into any groups of Diamond Dogs.

Almost immediately, my decision to speed up blew up in my face.

I managed to subdue an additional two Diamond Dogs without alerting them and a third that I managed to choke out without it being able to fight back, similar to the straggler Greta and I had laid an ambush in the Barracks for. The very next Diamond Dog, however, managed to block and throw me off from my attempt to tackle it into a chokehold.

Grawh! Hwaug?!

I could not understand it nor prevent it from reaching into its jacket pocket — strange how all the Diamond Dogs only wore them for clothing, now that I think about it — and throw whatever it was that it had retrieved into the ground. Whatever it was, it exploded into a plume of blue smoke that washed over for dozens of meters including me and the Diamond Dog.

[Observe]
[Name: Simple Magic Encoder Residue]
[Description: The remnants of a used Magic Encoder. Its sole signal has already been broadcast. Its residual magic is all that remains and will be difficult to erase without specialty equipment or potions. The residue has a half-life of five hours.]

The blue smoke clung onto my armor and might have even made contact with me through its gaps, but it didn’t do any damage. I didn’t get any Debuff either, so I dismissed my Status, took my sword out of my inventory, and proceeded to smack the Diamond Dog with the pommel until I found a chance to successfully use Subdue on it.

Every time I used the Skill, my body would move automatically, but there was a chance it would fail the more capable the target was to resist it. Kind of like trying to capture a Pokemon, there was a higher chance of succeeding after wearing down the target’s Health and or capitalizing on a moment of their weakness.

“Uh oh,” Greta said after hurrying over to my side and touching me, “that was a Magic Encoder! All the remaining Diamond Dogs must have received the signal by now.” She lowered herself towards the Diamond Dog I had just knocked out and ran the primaries of her flight feathers into its jacket with prehensile tact and pulled out a strange device.

“Just as I thought, look,” she showed me as she manipulated the device, “Everyone with a transceiver that’s hooked up to receive the Magical Encounter’s signal will be able to find your position. They’ll be able to be able to track everyone and everything that was hit with the Magic Encoder’s Magic Signature.”

Welp, it had been a good run up until now. Damn near, perfect I would say. But, my luck was bound to run out eventually. And to be honest, it was already a miracle that I’d managed to get as much as I had done for someone whose closest experience with tactical stealth missions was guiding Venom Snake around in The Phantom Pain.

“Alright, here,” I gave the Griffon the keys, “I’m going to go focus on rushing the Diamond Dogs. Help out that poor… mare—” I had to use Observe to tell without bending down and checking “—and please head over to warn all the other freed slaves. Thanks for your help so far, but I can’t really ask you to stick around for what’ll happen next. I’m still pretty confident I’ll be able to take down all the remaining Diamond Dogs, but don’t feel obligated to stick around while I have a target painted on my back.”

Greta frowned but nodded. She took the keys and bade me farewell before I took off in a dead sprint back towards the center hall of the first underground level. By the time I reached the center hall, there weren’t any Diamond Dogs there yet, so I continued down the next branch and literally ran up on the Diamond Dog who looked to have been caught off guard until the very last moment, where I’d charged into it.

The only thing it managed to do before I smacked it a second time in the head and managed to knock it out, was to throw another Magic Encoder at me. As I went about restraining the unconscious Diamond Dog in magical suppressants I yelled out to the slave who was watching me in horror, “I am trying to liberate this camp. There are already many freed slaves on the upper floors. I can not understand you. Go to the other freed slaves and seek out a Griffon named Greta. She has the keys to unlock your restraints.”

The moment I was done securing the Diamond Dog, I took off towards the next branch and the next branch; each time managing to secure victory with the Diamond Dogs only managing to throw more Magic Encoders at me. And by the third branch, after my cover had been blown, the supervising slavers had started to anticipate my arrival. I found the third and fourth slaver waiting for me, prepared to fight back.

For some god-forsaken reason, they always chose to use their Magic Encoders as their first move despite the first one presumably being more than enough to track me. They also managed to get a few hits in, but… Well, at best they managed to graze me, when I had the overwhelming Agility advantage, and with my armor giving me an extra +2 Constitution that wasn’t taken into account by my Status, I was seeing Health losses in the 20s at the highest.

The sixth slaver I encountered after “going loud,” so to speak, did something that surprised me. Not only did they expect my arrival, but they met me with leverage. They took one of the slaves they were watching over as a hostage!

I uh… Kinda panicked.

I had a thousand different thoughts all running at a million miles an hour through my head. Like, ‘I’m boned if I stop now. What else can I do but continue? I can’t even understand these things unless I touch them. Maybe there’s still a chance I’ll be able to stun it into inaction and subdue it without the hostage getting hurt. What was that famous Reagan line again? “We don’t negotiate with terrorists?” Fuck!’

I was put into zugzwang. There was no move I could see that wouldn’t end terribly, so I went with fight over flight yet again.

[Bonus Objective Failed!]
[World Quest]
[Name: Griffon Rescue Chain Quest 4]
…
[Progress (1): Ask the Griffon about the slave encampment ✔ | Establish a plan of attack ✔ | Clear out the encampment of slavers (21/34) | Free the slaves (36/63 → 62) | Bonus 1: Recruit the Griffon to help carry out the liberation of the camp ✔ | Bonus 2: Take out all the slavers without killing a single one (21/34) | Bonus 3: Kill all the slavers (0/34) | Bonus 4: Free the slaves without a single casualty]

Motherfucker!

I let my anger get the better of me and undid the reverse grip I had previously taken to use my sword pommel side up for blunt force damage. Feeling extremely vindictive for the life I had just watched get snuffed out in front of me, I did the same thing the Diamond Dog did to the poor pony it had been holding in its clutches; only I was more brutal.

[Critical Hit!]
[+9,999 Damage!]
[+7 Exp]

[Level Up!]
[Full Recovery!]
[+3 Stat Points!]
[+1 Skill Point!]

[Bonus Objective Failed!]
[World Quest]
[Name: Griffon Rescue Chain Quest 4]
…
[Progress (1): Ask the Griffon about the slave encampment ✔ | Establish a plan of attack ✔ | Clear out the encampment of slavers (22/34) | Free the slaves (36/62) | Bonus 1: Recruit the Griffon to help carry out the liberation of the camp ✔ | Bonus 2: Take out all the slavers without killing a single one | Bonus 3: Kill all the slavers (0 → 1/34) | Bonus 4: Free the slaves without a single casualty]

Instead of merely slitting the Diamond Dog’s throat, I completely decapitated it with a single slash of my sword.

I felt the terrible sting of regret almost immediately afterward.

That was… incredibly dark. But, I didn’t have time to dwell on my feelings or mourn the losses. Shit just got real, real fucking quick and I needed to end things before they could spiral any more out of control than they already were.

Author's Note

So, I forgot to mention this in the previous chapter's Author's Notes, but "Greta" is actually the name of a cannon Griffon in the show. My immediate reaction to finding that out was to swap all instances of her name before it was introduced, but then I thought it'd be fine to keep it as I originally wrote it to make this character and backstory change part of the Alternate Universe this world is set in. If I manage to make the story continue past this first "Slave Camp Liberation" Arc (Final Name still pending), it'd be a small change in the grand scheme of things.

Chapter 14: Interlude - Scoroe

Life as the top dog of a pack was the best. It hadn’t been all that great for an ambitious type like Scroroe when I was still in the middle of climbing up the hierarchy and taking the pack for myself, but Scoroe wasn’t a whiny bitch. Scoroe was the fiercest, most patient, most cunning, and smartest Diamond Dog of all time!

So fierce, and patient, and cunning, and smart was Scoroe that ever since I became the alpha of the pack and changed how things ran around here, the pack thrived better and faster than ever before. Scoroe had been born when there were only nine members and under father’s leadership, I never saw it peak over twelve. We were nomadic then, primal and stupid, hunting like wild animals.

When Scoroe saw what life was going to be ahead of him, I put my first genius plan together and poisoned father days before challenging him for the position of alpha. Unlike the rest of the idiots around Scoroe, I paid attention to everything and everyone. Scoroe learned from his mom and the other bitches, things that the males deigned were beneath them; like which herbs made healing salves and which ones combined into fast or slow acting poisons.

After becoming the alpha and killing Scoroe’s predecessor easily, my power scared all the others into complete submission. Then the changes made by Scoroe started paying off and that motivation by fear shifted to motivation from respect, and admiration, and loyalty!

Under Scoroe, there was no more need to risk our lives out in the wild. There was no need to wander around aimlessly. It took a long time to establish connections with other wandering packs in the area, but after a year, those connections made their own connections and they all funneled back to me.

Those connections gave Scoroe access to trade and there was no shortage of commodities and luxuries I wanted for myself, but I didn’t want to work hard for an honest living. Scoroe also knew that even the idiots around me would not be happy if I made them work and took all of their resources for myself. Thus, Scoroe planned out yet another genius resolution and made it his “work” to seek out and capture slaves to do the actual hard work for him.

At first, Scoroe needed the full might of the entire pack to force a small group of slaves into working the Mine. Back then, Scoroe couldn’t even afford anything but the cheapest of Magical Lanterns. Scoroe was patient and cunning, however, as I never took on more than half as many slaves as there were pack members for us to guarantee that they couldn’t escape.

Scoroe waited until he could afford magical suppressants to expand his budding slave empire. It wouldn’t do if a single slave escaped and brought the full might of a country on the pack. That was why Scoroe chose a secluded cave in the middle of nowhere to establish his operation. That was why Scoroe never took on any significant risk with the number of slaves his pack could manage.

Over time, the resources piled up and after trading with the connections Scoroe had built, I traded for the means to secure more slaves. The more slaves Scoroe had, the faster the resources built up, and the faster the resources built up, the more I could spend on improving the pack’s quality of life; Scoroe’s above everyone else’s first, of course.

Where once the pack had to hunt for their food systematically, it then only had to hunt once a week, then once a month, then once a year, and finally nevermore! Where once the pack had to rely on the bitches to prepare healing remedies, now it had a full stock of healing potions and various other alchemical products to combat illness and disease.

The warrior male class could afford to laze around all day, at most only exerting their superior strength whenever a slave acted up or the hunting group found another prospect for capture. The bitches were entirely freed of any responsibilities or work. Their sole “job,” if any of them even considered it as much, was to open up their legs for Scoroe whenever he demanded it and to take care of his young when the time came that he wanted them. This wasn’t enforced with violence, it was simply his pack’s way of life and any bitch who rejected Scoroe would be kicked out; the same as any other pack in the Neutral Territory.

Twelve years had passed since Scoroe had become alpha and in those twelve years, nothing, not a single hiccup had disrupted the pack’s continued prosperity. No one had died in battle, no one had starved or died of thirst. One older dog had passed, but that was due to a birth defect that couldn’t be remedied and gave rise to chronic health issues.

Now, on a random Spring night, Scoroe was helpless as I watched my entire life’s work crumble before my eyes. Scoroe could barely believe there was an issue going on when the first alarm rang out. After all, while it was rare for a slave to rebel and make enough trouble for one of Scoroe’s grunts to call for help, it wasn’t impossible. The fact that the distress signal was coming from the first underground layer instead of the ground floor only increased the chances that it would happen since captured slaves got stronger the deeper into the Mines one went.

Then a second distress signal appeared on Scoroe’s transceiver and then a third… There was no mistaking it for anything else, Scoroe knew this wasn’t a simple slave rebelling, rather his camp was under attack! However, given the lag time in between signals, it looked like there was only one attacker. Scoroe knew he needed to act fast and decisively.

The fact that the signals had started to come from the first underground level could only mean one terrible thing: The intruder had managed to get all the way down there without alerting anyone. Moreover, with how quickly the distress signals were piling up, it wasn’t because they lacked the strength to charge in head first, but because they had likely been trying to keep up the cover of stealth.

Scoroe used a special Magic Enconder that only he personally carried with him. Unlike the ones all the grunts supervising the slaves used which were blue and signaled “Help!” Score’s Magic Encoder exploded into a small cloud of gold smoke that signaled “Attack the threat,” and “The alpha is here!” on the other transceivers.

Scoroe wasted no time in running out of his private resting quarters and sprint towards the intruder after adding a few different potion vials to his emblazoned leather jacket; my most prized possession and the height of my status in the pack.

Several more pings sounded out from Scoroes transceiver even as he channeled all his Magic into running as quickly as physically possible and had a line of sight on The Demon in less than ten minutes. After taking just a glance at the horrifying blood-stained giant in the suit of armor, Scoroe knew I needed to take drastic measures if I ever hoped to overcome this disaster.

Scoroe stopped dozens of meters away from the demon and uncorked two potions that would massively enhance my speed and strength. In the time it took Scoroe to do that and bring the vials up to my lips, enough time passed for me to watch the demon punch one of the grunts so hard they flew into the walls of the hall so hard they left a sizable crack, only to follow up with a kick to a different grunt which visibly shattered their leg before the other one had collapsed on the floor.

The demon ducked under a swing from a punch from a third only to completely absorb the tackle fourth Diamond Dog without so much as buckling. It then proceeded to grab the offender by the scruff of their neck and throw it at a different Diamond Dog, before taking a swing at a different one of the stupid bunch that were too stupid to realize it was a hopeless situation for them.

Scoroe grimaced, balked, and shook my head. Scoroe had to go even further against this absolute nightmare of a monster. Scoroe took out a third potion, one that I’d resolved to only take as a final resort — one that I’d only imagined needing to stand a chance against a full task force of Ponies or Griphons — and accepted the risky gamble.

Malachite Madness was a potent stimulant that would grant its users effects so extreme they needed to literally transform to not be broken down from the influx of power, but it came with a terrible cost. In the best of cases, riding out the effects without getting wounded from battle still only had a 50% survival rate. Worse yet, the accounts from those who had survived or talked to survivors of the potion said that they often wished they didn’t due to the long and agonizing period where they were left debilitated and recovering.

But Scoroe had no choice. Against the demon, nothing but my trump card could stand a chance and the alternative was death; there were no two ways about it. It would either be immediate death by the hands of the demon, ego death if Scoroe was somehow left alive at the end of this incident, or countless other ways my end might be made manifest.

After drinking the vial of Malachite Madness the effects hit Scoroe almost instantly. Scoroe’s muscles began to expand and bulge in a way that even I had to admit were grotesque. Scoroe could see that I was getting taller as my point of view noticeably increased in fractions of a second. The Magic in Scoroe double, no, tripled and surged so violently it leaked out of my body and formed a sort of dark green cover that was visible to the naked eye.

“You have got to be fucking kidding me,” the demon cursed, surprising Scoroe. To Scoroe, in the short amount of time I had been exposed to it, I had been convinced that it was a living suit of monstrous armor; unfeeling and mechanically predisposed to slaughter everything in its path.

“I’m only going to give you one warning. Stand down and accept being restrained by a set of magical suppressants. Unlike the rest of your little group, I won’t be able to afford holding back against you,” the demon spoke even as it finished off two more of Scoroe’s grunts; the last two by the looks of it.

“I accept,” Scoroe said, taking a step back and looking away from the demon.

“Yeah, I can’t understand you. But apparently, you can understand me, so if you’re accepting then get on your knees and hold up your arms for me to restrain,” the demon said.

Scoroe complied. Scoroe got on my knees, kept my arms raised over my head, and continued to look down. Compliant, waiting… For just the right moment, to—

Smash!

The stupid demon was truly too careless and dimwitted to see through Scoroe’s peerless tact and sheer genius! It got too close and suffered a point-blank punch from a hyped-up Scoroe who held nothing back.

“Alright, you motherfucker. I was planning only knocking out the rest of you, but I’ll make an exception for you,” The demon let out a ghastly cough and a stream of blood flowed down from its headpiece.

“That almost fucking killed me,” it sounded mad. Then the demon flashed with a golden aura and the blood on its body and sword vanished without a trace.

It moved and if not for Scoroe’s augmented speed and strength, I would have received worse than an inch-deep wound running along the arm I’d raised to defend myself.

Scoroe tried to defend himself and fight back, but the demon was too fast. Scoroe had the strength and durability to outmatch the demon, but not enough to survive a death by a thousand cuts. Escape was impossible when the demon could evade and deflect all of Scoroe’s attacks and with no other cards on the table, there was nothing else I could do but try and hope for a miracle until the bitter end.

Unfortunately, none appeared and after a couple minutes which felt more like hours, Scoroe’s body and mind gave up involuntarily. The last thing Scoroe saw was the demon plunging the sword it had used to carve out dozens if not hundreds of slashes on my transformed body into my heart.

“I didn’t want to do this,” were the last words Scoroe heard as his consciousness and life faded.

Chapter 15: Battle’s Over

[+26 Exp]

[Level Up!]
[Full Recovery!]
[+3 Stat Points!]
[+1 Ability Point!]

Standing almost literally on top of the monstrous Level 15 Diamond Dog I’d managed to finally kill, I stewed in a deluge of warring emotions. I was glad that the fighting was over. I felt pride in the fact that I managed to beat the veritable Boss of this real-life dungeon. I was happy to have Leveled Up yet again. But for every positive emotion, there was a negative one that swallowed every bit of joy I might have found at the moment.

I was angry at myself for my reckless carelessness in approaching the motherfucking mutated monster of a Diamond Dog. I felt dirty and ashamed after killing yet another sentient, intelligent being even if I could fully justify and defend the action against the biggest threat to my life that I had encountered thus far. But most of all, I felt tired; not physically, but rather from an emotionally drained standpoint.

Over the course of the last hour, I’d been put through a rollercoaster of emotions which, were it not for my illogical body that worked off Gamer powers, I was sure would be crashing from a maelstrom of hormones. I also learned a valuable lesson about the nature of my existence. That being, that even if I had Gamer powers, this second life should not be treated like a game.

All I wanted to do right now was find the nearest bed and go to sleep. But I couldn’t do that because there were still slaves around that were probably in need of freeing or, at the very least, being told that they didn’t have to worry about the unhinged maniac who had arrived to beat the ever-living shit out of all the Diamond Dogs in the underground layers of the Mine or kill the ones that pissed him off.

I took a deep breath, sighed, and straightened out my piss-poor posture before taking out more suppressants from my inventory and shackling them against all the Diamond Dogs that were still alive, as I made my way back up the underground layers. I was only marginally surprised to find that none of the slaves had stuck around while I had been in the middle of my rampage.

They had plenty of time to escape while I had chipped away, ever so slowly against the alpha Diamond Dog’s ridiculous Health Pool and even crazier Constitution-backed physical defense. I didn’t time it, but I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that the battle of attrition had lasted more than ten minutes.

I guess the silver lining to overcoming that particularly insufferable ordeal was the new Skill I’d unlocked during the fight.

[Skills]
…
[Name: Anti-Magic Core Lvl 1]
[Description: It’s looking more like an “Anti-Magic Grain Of Sand” right now. Has enough Magic built up to allocate 1 Free Point and is 21% of the way there towards the next one.]

The Skill had appeared after I’d taken the initial sneak attack from the alpha Diamond Dog and improved with every subsequent hit I deflected and redirected to the best of my ability. The only thing I could make of it without reading the Skill’s respective Tutorial Text was that it improved whenever I absorbed Magic from the alpha’s obviously magically enhanced physical attacks. Clearly, it was a Skill derived from my Impossible Existence Perk.

[World Quest Complete!]
[Name: Griffon Rescue Chain Quest 4]
[Description: Impressively Cleared.]
[Progress (1): Ask the Griffon about the slave encampment ✔ | Establish a plan of attack ✔ | Clear out the encampment of slavers (34/34) ✔ | Free the slaves (62/62) ✔ | Bonus 1: Recruit the Griffon to help carry out the liberation of the camp ✔ | Bonus 2: Take out all the slavers without killing a single one | Bonus 3: Kill all the slavers | Bonus 4: Free the slaves without a single casualty | Bonus 5: Defeat the Mutated Alpha Diamond Dog ✔]
[Rewards: +33 Exp, +1 Perk Point, +Large Reputation Increase with Various, Griffon Rescue Chain Quest 5.]

[New World Quest!]
[Name: Griffon Rescue Chain Quest 5]
[Description: The fifth of a chain of decisions you need to make to resolve the situation before you. Choose between (1) Resolving to consider the rescue effort over, or (2) Pledging to continue helping the freed slaves until they reach safety outside the lawless domain of the Boundless Territory]
[Reward: (1) +100 Exp, (2) Variable]

‘What? Why did the Quest clear now?’ I wondered before defaulting to the second option. I mean I’d already come all this way. A paltry 100 Exp was nowhere near enough to tempt me to pick the morally worse — in my opinion — option.

When I returned to the open space of the uppermost level in the mine, I found out when I saw the massive congregation of all the freed slaves all looking back at me as I climbed out of the stairs.

For a long moment, I just stared back at them, not really knowing what to say or do. But then, Greta broke the tense atmosphere by approaching and touching me before she spoke.

“Um, not to be rude, but you look absolutely terrifying with that blood-drenched armor you’re wearing. Could you maybe take it off, while we discuss what we’re going to do next?” She asked.

A part of me wanted to vehemently deny her request, with the memory of my carelessly given trust backfiring spectacularly with the Mutated Alpha Diamond Dog. But, my better reason won out quickly enough and I decided to comply. After all, the only people around were the slaves I’d freed who almost certainly made up the “Variable” group of individuals I’d been awarded a massive reputation gain with. I didn’t know what exactly that did for me from a Gamer power perspective, but from common sense and actual video game experience, it should mean that they’re much more likely to like and trust me.

Not to mention that even without the Magic Suppressing Manacles on, the recently freed slaves couldn’t hope to do anything against me even if they all tried to fight me at the same time; not when they were still overrun with various Debuffs like Sleep Deprivation, Hunger and Thirst at the very least. And especially not when after my every Level Up, all the Buffs I’d stacked before embarking on the Rescue Quest had their duration refreshed along with the rest of my Status with the free Full Recovery.

“Is this better?” I asked as I swapped my Iron Armor for the spare set of regular wool clothes I put on when I was not actively prepared to fight; it’s what I wore when cooking, mining, or traveling for the expedition.

“...Yes,” Greta looked taken aback and it didn’t seem like it was just because I was pulling off what she would call Space-Time Magic with my Inventory shenanigans.

“Are you sure? Because you look more worried than you were before I took off the armor,” I said.

“I’m just surprised. I didn’t expect you to be so, um… hairless. I was expecting something more like a slimmer Minotaur or a taller Diamond Dog with more proportionate arms.”

“Oh, you haven’t seen hairless yet. I haven’t prioritized grooming ever since I was dropped in this place and found the time to clear up this mess of a beard I have going on along with my nonexistent mustache and goatee,” I let out a small snort of amusement. I never had been able to grow any respectable amount of facial hair. It always grew in patchy and unappealing to me, so I took the time to keep myself clean-shaven every day before work; you know, back before I died.

“Is this really the time to talk about that? How are we going to survive a journey back to our homes!” A familiar British voice called out from beyond Greta’s spot between me and the rest of the freed slaves.

“I don’t know,” I bluntly said. “I don’t even know what planet I’m even on, never mind where on it we are relative to wherever it is that you or anyone else here used to live before being enslaved.”

“What are you some kind of extraequstrial?”

Screech!

“It could be an angel.”

Hisssss!

Neigh! Whinny!

“I agree with the gentlepony. It must be an alien.”

Amidst the sudden “argument” that broke out amongst the freed slaves, one particular Pony caught my attention above even the fact that I was learning I could only understand the Unicorns without holding physical contact. I let the conversation continue as I discretely looked at the anomalous Pony who had hissed and used Observe on it.

[Observe]
[Name: ???]
[Description: ??? is a Changeling who was recently freed from being enslaved. He is currently using his innate Magic to disguise himself as an Earth Pony while waiting for the opportunity to escape and return to his Hive.]
[Level: 7]
[Status Effects: Thirsty, Hungry, Malnourished, Starvation (Extreme), Sleep Deprived]
[Health: 150/150]
[Strength: 1]
[Constitution: 2]
[Vitality: 1]
[Agility: 1]
[Perception: 5]
[Intelligence: 2]
[Wisdom: 1]
[Luck: 1]
[Charisma: 1]

Holy… This guy had the absolute most abysmal stats I’ve ever seen. He’s not just running on fumes, he’s well and truly standing at the precipice of being technically alive.

Also, Changeling? After Diamond Dogs that was the next race of creatures I’d been introduced to in this world that I had previously never heard of. Although, off just the principle that it was either a shapeshifter or an illusionist, I found it more interesting.

“Everyone!” I called out to the quarreling masses. When I had their attention and the open space quieted down, I said, “How about we all get something to eat and drink before we discuss our next move? You haven’t had the chance to rest from today’s, uh, work and chaos I caused while beating up all the Diamond Dogs here, right?”

No one had any complaints about that. And when I offered to cook anything and everything they wanted in exchange for the pile of mined rocks and raw gemstones in the open space, I not only got a massive influx of equivalent Shop Credits but also the chance to grind out my Cooking Skills for a bit.

Even at the expense of buying some pretty ridiculous ingredients like Filet Mignon for some of the Griffons or White Truffles for some of the Ponies, I still came out with millions of Shop Credits.

[Skill Level Up!]
[Name: Cooking Lvl 1 → 2 | +20 Exp]
[Description: Good enough to avoid Gordon Ramsey’s abject disappointment.]

All was good… except for the fact that the disguised Changeling, the main reason I’d thought to even suggest cooking for everyone, actually turned down the chance to eat. It didn’t refuse no, but it asked for a simple salad then went off to a corner by itself and hadn’t taken a single bite when its compatriots that had received their food requests half an hour after it had long since licked their plates clean.

When I finished preparing the last requested meal, I made something for myself and used it as a pretense for sitting next to the Changeling and speaking to it.

“You mind if I eat here and talk to you for a second?” I asked it.

Aside from the hesitance and wariness I’d expected from all but Greta who had gotten the chance to get used to me, the Changeling didn’t react oddly. It nodded and patted the spot next to it as if to gesture that I should sit there.

When I sat down on the dirt floor next to it, I said, “To understand you, I’m going to need to make physical contact.”

It voluntarily stretched out a leg and had it touch one of mine.

“Thanks. Now, I’ve been wondering,” I said while staring pointedly at its face to see how it would react when I said, “Why are you keeping up that disguise with a body that’s on the brink of collapse?”

Chapter 16: Suspicions Assuaged

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.