I sighed, rolling my shoulders as the shopkeeper finalized his measurements. I'd had a suit tailored once when I was younger, for a cousin's wedding, but this was nothing like that. Thanks to the appraisal magic the shopkeeper had employed, it had only taken him a few minutes to get his measurements.

Together, we had come up with a nice combination of enchantments for my custom armor, ones that would definitely be useful. The armor, once it was complete, would be enchanted with anti-rust and basic protection magic, of course, but it would also be imbued with temperature controlling magic, so I would always be at just the right temperature for any environment. Not only that, but the cape would also be given elemental resistance magic, so it could be used to shield party members in the case of an emergency.

I had been a bit surprised when he brought up a cape so nonchalantly. I'd asked about it, but he insisted on keeping the design under wraps. He'd promised it would look cool, and I trusted him. He'd sold me the simple chainmail shirt for a measly seventy silver pieces, assuring me it was a discount for letting him 'go wild' on my armor, whatever that means. I'd given him the money without question, trusting him not to rip me off. I'd even paid 200 of the 400 silver pieces for the armor up front, as a down payment so he wouldn't lose all his money if I ended up ditching the project once it was finished.

"Thanks a ton, man. You've been a huge help," I told him. The sentiment was completely earnest. For a guy who I'd originally taken as a grumpy old shopkeeper, he'd been exceedingly kind to me. He gave me a nod, and I headed out of his shop. I looked around for a moment, trying to find Myne, only to spot the redheaded girl waving at me from down the street. I waved back, jogging through the throng of people to reach her.

"Well?" I asked, curious to see if she'd spent the money. She patted her leather satchel happily.

"We've got everything we need," She assured me, "So let's get going! I'm excited to start our adventures together!" My face softened. For all my distrust of her, moments like these sure made me want to like her. That smiling face was really something else.

I gave her a thumbs up. "Agreed. Let's head out." She led me down the cobblestone street. The buildings steadily became thinner and thinner, as we headed for the outskirts of town.

Then, as soon as we passed the border of the town, everything was green. All that was left was a dirt road, weaving along hilly green fields. It's beautiful. Nothing but soft, green grass as far as I could see. I stepped onto it, pressing my feet into the grass with a happy sigh. "Man," I said, turning to Myne, "This place is amazing. I've never seen such a beautiful place."
She chuckled. "This field is filled with basic, fairly weak monsters. You might not believe it, but it's true. Battling these monsters will surely be a good way of getting some experience in."
I nodded thoughtfully. "Good idea." Hero or not, level one is just too low to do anything. Some easy monster grinding was just the thing I needed.

"Go ahead, then." She bowed her head.

"Uh… what?" I shot her a quizzical look. "Are you saying you won't fight?"

She waved me off. "I will, yes. But I should gauge your ability in combat first, no? That way, I can help you focus on your weaknesses while we train."

That… seemed reasonable. Sure. Besides, this was the tutorial area. No way I'd actually have any trouble here. I stepped forward into the area. She followed a few steps behind me. We poked around the field for a bit, looking for a monster Myne thought I could handle. After a moment or two, we finally spotted something. It looked like an orange balloon, just sitting on the ground.

"There, Hero. That's called an Orange Balloon. They're very easy to defeat."
I couldn't help but chuckle at that. Nice naming sense. Still, this thing wasn't intimidating at all. Was it really supposed to be a monster?

Then, it turned to face me. It opened a mouth full of sharp teeth and two squinty, mean looking eyes, and bounced right towards me. I swung my ofuda to knock it away, but it only did a few points of damage.

When it bounced at me again, however, I remembered something. The status tab had listed 'Basic Attack' as a spell, right? The next time the Balloon jumped at me, I tried invoking that spell, mentally calling out its name as I tried to channel magic.

The kanji on the front of the ofuda began to glow. Suddenly, a translucent white fist shot out of the front of the ofuda, slamming into the balloon's face and popping it. While it definitely was not an immense amount of damage, it was better than just swinging the ofuda at it.

I gained one experience point, and the balloon left behind some orange balloon pieces on the ground. Of course, being the savvy otaku I was, I immediately collected them all and put them into the jewel at the top of my ofuda.

One piece was absorbed, unlocking the 'Orange Balloon Ofuda,' and the rest were placed into my inventory. I checked the Orange Balloon Ofuda. It was pretty similar to the original, with a dark orange staff holding the ofuda and the kanji for 'Balloon' on the front.

Orange Balloon Ofuda

Exp: 0/50

Level 1

Rarity: C

Skills:

Basic Attack(0/5)

First Air Burst(0/5)

Interesting. First Air Burst sounded like some kind of magic spell. Well, I could always look into it later. For now, I turned back to Myne, giving her a thumbs up. "Pretty impressive, huh?"
She nodded. "You know," She said, "I have heard that the Hero of the Ofuda can create copies of the ofuda and use them for traps. I'm not a mythological scholar or anything, but rumors say that you can just put one down and use it as a trap."
So that's why they were saying that stuff about cowardly traps, then? That sounded seriously useful. I opened my status menu once again, heading to the help tab and searching for a mention of that trapping technique. According to the help page, just by thinking about it, a copy of any ofuda could be created in the off hand. Any unlocked ofuda, at least. The copy would be much smaller than the actual ofuda, about the size of a post-it note. Then, an activation condition would be set, and it would activate whenever that condition was met. The skills used by copies aren't as effective as the main ofuda, but still. That seemed pretty impressive, and my mind was racing with ideas on how to use it.

"Why don't you try another, Hero? Then we can work together." Myne seemed to be more confident in my ability to fight on my own now, at least.

This time, before I went over to mess with one of the balloons, I summoned the Orange Balloon Ofuda. Then, I focused for a moment.

Sure enough, in my left hand, a paper slip appeared. I squatted down, pressing it into a tuft of grass. I set the activation condition to be something passing over it. Then, I stomped over and shouted, "Hey! Get up, you balloon bastard!"

The Orange Balloon spun and growled at me. I leaped back, baiting it towards the hidden ofuda. It leaped straight over it, charging for me, but then the ofuda activated. A weak blast of air shot out of the ofuda, shooting the Balloon right up into the air. The Ofuda dissolved immediately afterwards. While the blast was pretty weak, it still managed to kill the even weaker balloon, popping it into shreds. I couldn't help but chuckle. I mean, the potential of this ability was seriously limitless! Who cares if it's cowardly- if I could get strong with it, people would really respect me!

I glanced behind me as I heard the sound of shouts, only to spot Ren. Surrounded by his party, he was swinging his club like whack-a-mole. Each time he hit a balloon, it popped. He was practically running through every balloon that came for him. It's a bit glum, but it gives me something to work towards. I looked back at Myne with new fire in my eyes.

"Let's go, Myne. I want to keep up with the others." She nodded, though something about the way she looked at me says she doesn't think that was really possible. "I think it's your turn to fight one, right? Go ahead."
"Yes, Hero." She rushed in, and three Orange Balloons leapt at her. In one sweeping slash, all three were popped. She didn't even look like she put all that much effort into the strike. Seemed like I'd gotten myself a pretty powerful teammate. I gave her a grin.

"Nice one, Myne! Let's keep it moving!" From that point until sundown, we kept fighting through the fields without rest. Orange Balloons fell with ease at my ofuda and her sword strikes. It was a bit odd how I didn't get any xp for her kills- aren't you supposed to get xp whenever your party member kills something? Regardless, the Orange Balloons posed absolutely no threat to either of us, and while I took a bit longer to actually kill them, we both got the job done. I'd killed enough, in fact, that the Orange Balloon ofuda had leveled up, allowing me to put one skill point into the Air Burst.

Still, as the sun was going down, Myne warned me that we should head back into town earlier than later. Apparently, while this place is a tutorial area, some more difficult monsters do come out in the dark, which might make it dangerous for us two. As far as I could tell, Ren had decided to leave as well.

"Well, alright. We made plenty of progress anyways." I opened my inventory tab. I had a ton of orange balloon scraps, now. "Hey, Myne. How much do you think we could get if we sold these balloon scraps?"
She shrugs. "A few copper, I suppose? I'm not well versed in that." That sucked, but it made sense. These things were super easy to kill. Most adventurers could probably handle it, if they really wanted to.

"Alright. We can worry about that later. For now, I suppose we should get ourselves a hotel room, shouldn't we?" I really had no clue what the price of lodging was around here, and I didn't feel like I was welcome to go back to my room at the palace, now that I'd left.

Myne nodded, pausing to think for a moment. "I know just the inn. Here, follow me, I'll take you there." I followed easily. What reason would I have to dispute her local knowledge, when I'd only been in this world for a day?

The building she ended up taking us two was a small, quaint wooden building. It seemed homely, and I could hear the sound of a fire crackling inside. The innkeeper informed me that it was 30 copper a night.

"Two rooms." Myne said, shooting me a cold stare when I opened my mouth to ask for one room rather than two. I immediately closed it. I wasn't willing to get yelled at just to sleep in the same room as a woman. I forked over the silver piece, got my 40 copper in change, and took one of the keys, handing Myne the other.

The innkeeper led us up the stairs, wringing her hands nervously. It was slightly odd to me. Then again, she might have been one of the people who thought of me as some cowardly thief, so she could have been worrying I'd rob her or something. Yet another person who thought of me like that! It was becoming more and more clear that I'd need to prove myself if I ever wanted to lead a normal life here.

Once she showed us where our rooms were, she left. We headed back downstairs to eat a home-cooked dinner in the attached restaurant. The food was delicious- a hearty piece of meat, with roasted vegetables and a big bowl of rice. They'd also provided a glass of wine with the meals, but I didn't really drink. I didn't like the idea of having my inhibitions taken away, and I never got very drunk at all anyways, no matter how much I drank.

"So," I said, setting the map I'd picked up on the way to the inn down to the table, unraveling it. "We were just here, right?" I pointed out the meadow we'd just been hunting in.

"That's right, hero." She responded, shifting my finger a bit to make my pointing a more accurate representation of the location.

"Okay. So, if we continue on past there, we hit the forest. Are there good hunting spots there?" Myne shook her head.

"Well, yes, but I had a different idea." She pointed at a clearing in the forested area. "There's a small village here, Lafan. On the outskirts of that village, there's a beginner level dungeon with plenty of good materials and experience."

It's not marked on the map, but if she says it's there, it probably is. Having her as a party member already seemed to be paying out in dividends! An easy to explore dungeon filled with valuable materials? Things were seriously looking up.

"Don't get me wrong," Myne said, obviously noticing the excitement in my face, "It's not going to make us rich. But it's a good place to explore as a beginner." Right. Don't get too excited. This is still just a low-level area, there's no way you'll be finding high-level loot in a place like that. I brought my hand to my chin, lost in thought, when she spoke up once again.

"Say, Hero, do you not drink?" She picked up her glass of wine, taking a small sip.

I shrugged. "It's not that, I just don't really enjoy it."

"Really?" She hummed, disappointed. "You wouldn't want to have just one glass with me? It's lonely, drinking alone."

I furrowed my brow. Is she seriously going to try to peer pressure me? "No, thank you. I don't like alcohol."
Now she was frowning too. "Alright, I suppose…"

"Tomorrow," I began, "Let's head out into the forest. Maybe we can make it to that village, yeah?" She nodded. "Alright, good. I'm headed to bed, then. Good night, Myne."
She gave me another odd look. "Yes. Good night, Hero."

I turned my back on her, heading up the wooden stairs to my room. I slipped off my chainmail shirt, setting it on a chair nearby. On a whim, I made a copy of my Orange Balloon Ofuda, pressing it onto the nightstand and setting my coin purse on top. Then, the activation condition was set to be if the coin purse was removed. That way, if anyone tried to rob me as I slept, they'd be met with a pretty nasty surprise.

With the added security of the ofuda, I felt a bit more comfortable. I laid down on the bed, and, after a moment, I went to sleep.