"What does 'check our status' mean?" I ask Ben.
We had all left the throne room and were headed towards the castle town, but it was a bit of a walk, so I figured we had time for some possibly important questions.
"Do you see the three dots on the bottom right corner of your vision? Focus on those."
"Oh I did notice that, but I thought I just had something in my eye." Katagi responds.
"Woah!" Both me and Katagi exclaimed when screens appeared in front of us. Well I assumed a screen popped up for him too.
My screen said:
Ash Kane | LVL 1
ATK: 9
DEF: 11
MAG: 6
MDEF: 9
SPE: 10
I guess if I'm a brawler, my magic wouldn't be very high. I'm surprised my defensive stats are as high as they were though. There were also a bunch of secondary stats like Strength, Vitality, and Endurance. There were a few more, but they didn't look important. Strength was I guess how physically strong I am. It's pretty weird that how hard I can hit and how much I can lift could be different. They weren't, but it's possible someone's attack could be wildly different from their strength. Vitality appeared to be how well your body reacted to poisons and sicknesses, and Endurance was physical stamina.
"This is like a video game…" I start saying. Katagi is seemingly having a harder time understanding this.
"Are these my capabilities as a numerical value?" Katagi asks
"Yep." Replies Ben. "How are your stats looking?"
"Well I'm level one, and I assume Katagi is too. My stats seem pretty focused towards defence and speed, but still with enough attack to pack a punch."
"Yes, I am level one too. All of my stats are 11?"
"Oh those are very good stats for level one. Understandable, since the weapons are making you stronger than you'd normally be. For a normal person in this world, their stats at level one are between 5 and 8."
"Why are his stats all higher than mine?" I ask Ben
"His Sword is a Holy weapon, which is more powerful than our Legendary weapons. At my level he'll most likely be stronger than me too."
Ben is being pretty helpful, but I realize if he's a resident of this world, and somebody who fights…
"Ben, how about your stats?"
Ben's smile grows even wider like he was waiting for me to ask that question.
"Well if you must know, I'm level 29, and my attack stat is over 100!"
My eyes widened in surprise. He had such a lead on us! Although if I had to guess the stat spread of the axe, it seems likely his highest stat would be attack by quite a bit. Katagi had been pretty silent through this.
"Hey Katagi, how are you doing?"
"Ah! I was looking through the menus we have access to and I found a help menu."
Ben immediately looks deflated upon hearing that. He probably wanted to boast about his knowledge on the weapons a bit more. Me and Katagi read through the help menu while we were going towards the main town. Ben had apparently read it earlier.
I'll summarize what I read. Our weapons can absorb materials to gain new abilities and stat boosts, so I should try to absorb everything I can find. My weapon can also copy other weapons of the same type, and gain bonuses from those as well. The weapons I get have two stats, the ones I get when I equip it, and then some permanent boost I get after having the weapon equipped for a period of time, called Equip Bonus, and Unlock Bonus respectively. There's also something that sounds exclusive to me, being called the "Gauntlet Power Up Method". This power up method makes me receive one point every time I level up, then allows me to allocate those points to skills to make them more powerful. It's useless to me until I get a skill, but it sounds like it will be very helpful later on. One last thing, all heroes have access to something called SP. I don't know what it stands for, but it's the energy consumed when heroes use their weapon exclusive skills. For that reason, only heroes are aware of SP.
On the way to the market I absorbed a pebble, a stick, and a leaf and got some unimpressive looking weapons out of it.
Rock Gauntlet, Unlock Bonus: +1 DEF
Equip bonus: +1 DEF
Wood Gauntlet, Unlock Bonus: +1 MAG
Equip Bonus: +1 MAG, -1 DEF
Leaf Gauntlet, Unlock Bonus: Plant Appraisal
Equip Bonus: +1 ATK, +1 SPE, -1 MDEF
Each of these weapons also affected my stats by some kind of multiplier, although the multipliers for these weapons were really low, with the highest being x1.1 defence from the Rock Gauntlets, and the lowest being x0.75 magic defence from the Leaf Gauntlets. At least plant appraisal sounded pretty useful. For the time being I kept the Leaf Gauntlets equipped to unlock it. I had also tried putting a silver coin in my gauntlets, but instead of giving me a new weapon I saw a new number in the top right of my vision: 100G. I asked Ben about this, and he explained the money of this world for me. One silver is worth 100 copper, and one gold is worth 100 silver. Platinum coins exist too, but they are very rarely used, and are worth 100 gold. I tested if I could take the silver out again, and I could, so I put half of my money into my gauntlets.
It seemed like a pretty long walk, but we finally arrived in the market. I took a look at produce to try and guess how much this money is worth compared to money in my world and concluded one silver coin is about ten dollars. It looked like the cost of raw materials was the same as my world, but finished products were cheaper in comparison. Even now that I'm at the market I don't know what I'm going to get. Of course there isn't just produce here, there's shops for almost everything around here, but I didn't come here for anything specific.
Ben puts his hands on me and Katagi's shoulders.
"Alright gang let's split up!"
Ben then dashes away from us, leaving me and Katagi in the middle of the market. Both me and Katagi stood there for a minute just looking around and unsure of what to do. It appears neither of us are very social.
Katagi then spoke up "I'm going to find a weapon shop." Katagi then set out in the opposite direction Ben did.
That was a good idea, but would I find Gauntlets at a weapon shop? If it was a general smith maybe, but if not, I should probably look for a shop that sells specifically armor, since I'd be more likely to find Gauntlets there. I tried buying some produce to see if it would unlock more weapons, but after putting some produce in it it's clear I wouldn't get much more weapons out of that.
Fruit Gauntlets, Unlock Bonus: Fruit Appraisal
Equip Bonus: Mp restore (small), -1 DEF
Vegetable Gauntlets, Unlock Bonus: Vegetable Appraisal
Equip Bonus: Sp restore (small) -1 MDEF
Meat Gauntlets, Unlock Bonus: Meat Appraisal
Equip Bonus: Hp restore (small) -1 ATK
I believe the restore bonus increases my natural regeneration of that thing. Unfortunately I haven't unlocked Plant Appraisal yet, so I don't know how the appraisal skills work. I still think Plant appraisal might be the most useful out of those.
I went back to looking for an armor shop, although I ran into a problem I never considered. The signs are written in a language I don't know. I just look for a sign that has either an anvil or armor on it. As I'm walking down the road looking at the signs as I go, I end up walking into someone.
"Oh I'm sorry, I was looking at the signs"
The person I bumped into was a girl with black hair. Somewhat thin, but looked to be also somewhat muscular. She looked to be about my age.
"I'm sorry too, I was looking at the produce.."
"Why are you over here then?"
"It's probably best if I stay away from it. I can't buy it anyway…"
Her stomach growled.
Ah what the hell I don't have much else to do at the moment anyway.
"I'll buy some food for you. In exchange could you please show me where the armor shop is?"
"Really?!" She was looking at me with stars in her eyes. "Ahem" she calms down a bit.
"Are you a starting adventurer too?"
Well I guess I am
"Yes?"
"I'll also show you the ropes as well! Well as much as I can. I've only officially been an adventurer for a few days."
"That's a few more days than me, so sure thing."
We ended up going to a restaurant. The food was about one silver, close to what I was expecting. I tried some of the food in this world as well. Compared to food from my world it tasted a little off, probably due to different worlds produce evolving differently, and it also tasted pretty thin. The thin flavor I couldn't figure out. The hungry girl looked like she liked it though. Oh yeah, I'm going to break that habit, and I'll start by asking her name.
"What's your name?"
"My name is Maria. I've always wanted to be an adventurer, but my family was against it. I ended up spending the last of my money buying my equipment. It doesn't help that I also picked the worst time to become an adventurer…"
"What do you mean by worst time?"
"Starting about two days ago the level of all the monsters in the area went up. Since then the only thing I could hunt on my own were the Cardboard snakes right outside of Castle Town. But they don't give any exp, and the cardboard they leave behind barely sells for anything. The last thing I ate was an apple I could just barely afford.."
"What monsters were you hunting before?"
"The next strongest monster in the area is a Killer Rabbit. The last time I fought one it almost managed to bite my hand off. Now that it's stronger than last time I don't want to try my luck."
"How about we travel together? Maybe together we could beat that rabbit and get out of this catch 22."
"What's a catch…- never mind, I understand what you're trying to say. That sounds good to me. I'll send a party invite."
Party? Oh yeah I think I saw something about that in one of my menus, but I didn't put any thought into it. I definitely didn't think I'd be travelling together with anyone this early.
Party Invite received from Maria Alsely
I accept it.
"It's still pretty early in the day, so let's get going!" Maria stands up from the table.
"Yeah, I think it's about time to get started!" I replied with a smile.
After we finished our meal, Maria and I set out for my first adventure. The outside of castle town was an open field, with tall and wild grass, tall enough to go up to my waist. I had tried putting some of the grass in my Gauntlets, but got no reaction. I guess it's too similar to the leaf to count as a different weapon.
"This is the outskirts where the cardboard snakes are, right?"
"Yes that's right! I'm glad you were listening."
Maria clearly had a lot more energy after eating, which I'm glad for. We were about to fight monsters after all.
"How strong are the cardboard snakes?"
"Weak enough even a child could beat one"
Makes sense being a trash mob that gives no exp. It's better we just stay on track to killing a Rabbit. We trekked through the tall fields, which was more tedious than hard, and eventually arrived at a light forest, where surprisingly the grass was very short.
"Alright be careful, the rabbits climb up the trees and hide behind them."
I was pretty curious how she fought, as I didn't see any weapons on her, until she pulled out two yoyos?
"I am the source of this power. Reinforce my weapon and freeze my foes. Erste Ice Enchant."
A cool mist started to flow from her yoyos. I assumed they were freezing cold now, but she doesn't seem bothered by it.
"Hey speaking of teaching me the basics, do you think you can teach me magic?"
"Not at the moment, but it's pretty easy to learn. For simple spells like this, knowing the incantation and having an affinity is good enough. Serious learning is only required for Zweite level spells or higher."
"Zweite?"
"The second level of spells. After Erste."
I was about to make a sound indicating understanding, probably 'ah', but out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a blur of white, and managed to raise my Gauntlets just in time to block a rabbit lunging at me. It had curled its body around my Gauntlet, and was currently chewing into it. Maria noticed and threw her yoyo at it, while I tried pushing my arm towards her yoyo. The yoyo struck the rabbit, and Maria's enchantment made some ice form on its body.
"This is what I thought of after last time. I had a hard time hitting them due to their speed, so I should slow them down. I guess it's a good thing it tried doing to you what it did to me."
The rabbit had fallen to the ground, and it jumped onto the side of a tree. It was still in sight of us, and when it jumped up it was noticeably slower than when it lunged at me.
"Keep its attention," Maria tells me. I walked around the rabbit slowly, careful to make it not react, until we've surrounded it. She waited until the rabbit's focus was on me, before swinging her yoyo. It wrapped around the tree, hitting the rabbit in the face, causing more ice to form on it, then I dashed at it as it was falling to the ground. I grabbed it before it could touch the ground and slammed it into the tree, before throwing it up towards Maria, who swung her yoyos up behind her, doing a reverse Around the World, and slammed them both down on the rabbit. Now the rabbit was frozen and weakened enough it couldn't move. I jumped at it and finished it off with a stomp. Blood erupted from its body.
+10 exp
"Plus ten? Last time I beat it I only got two exp."
Maria seemed to be confused about something, but I just couldn't take my focus off of the rabbit's corpse. The sight of all the blood around it made me feel sick and weak. It dawned on me I just did to another creature what was done to me. Maria noticed me staring at the corpse with a nauseous expression.
"Hey!" Maria is now in front of me, blocking my gaze from seeing the rabbit. "Don't let it bother you. It was us or it, alright? You won't be able to make it as an adventurer if you're this sensitive to the sight of blood."
I gulped and tried to suppress the feelings of sickness, guilt, and weakness swirling through my mind. Taking my gaze off the corpse certainly is helping.
"If you need, you can sit down by that tree. I need to butcher the corpse anyway."
"Alright. Thank you."
"No problem, and thank you for helping me kill it."
I sat down by a tree, and tried to do some deep breathing. After a little while she started some conversation.
"You fought really well there. What level are you?"
"Well I should be level one." I check my status
Ash Kane | LVL 2
ATK: 12
DEF: 14
MAG: 8
MDEF: 12
SPE: 13
Overall I got some reasonable stat increases, although a few of those points were from the Leaf Gauntlets.
"No way, you were level one?"
"What level are you?"
"Ah, there's a function in the party system, you can request to see someone's status. It'll let both people see each other's status. Are you alright with that?"
"Yep"
So we both took a look at each other's status.
Maria Alsely | LVL 4
ATK: 10
DEF: 8
MAG: 11
MDEF: 8
SPE: 12
"Your stats are really high for level two!" Maria exclaims.
That did seem true. She was two levels above me and our stats were pretty close. If anything my stats were a bit higher. I recall Ben had said something about our legendary weapons making us stronger than we'd normally be. So this is about how strong a normal person in this world is?
"My higher stats are probably due to my gauntlets."
"Oh they have a stat boosting effect?"
"I guess you could say that. They're the legendary gauntlets."
"Wha-!" Maria's face distorts into complete shock. "So you're telling me... the person I just so happened to bump into, and am now on an adventure with, is the Gauntlet Hero?! No way. I don't believe you."
My stomach had settled enough for me to look at the rabbit corpse she was butchering. She had just taken some of the fur off it.
"Could I have some of that fur? I'll pay you two silver for it."
"Oh, uh sure. That's a pretty high price, but if you're willing.."
She gave me the fur, and I closed my hand to manifest the mini-buckler with the gem on it, and absorbed the rabbit fur.
Rabbit Fur Gauntlets, Unlock Bonus: +2 MDEF
Equip Bonus: Forest Speed+
I then changed my Gauntlets to the rabbit fur gauntlets.
Maria's face currently looks like her soul is leaving her body. I should probably stop here.
"So.. I think I'm feeling better now. Could you please walk me through butchering the rabbit?"
Maria manages to shake off her shock, and by going through what she knows, she returns to normal. As an additional plus, I learned more about butchering!
Throughout the rest of the day until it was about sunset, we kept adventuring through the forest. We killed several rabbits, and even came across a stronger creature, some kind of weird goat. It was like a goat from my world, but it could shoot its horns. Fortunately it couldn't regrow them, so if you just avoid the first two then the fight isn't very hard. By the end of it all, I'd risen to level 6, and Maria was level 7. From absorbing all the materials from the rabbit and goat, I did get two notable weapons.
Rabbit Foot Gauntlets, Unlock Bonus: Quick Rush
Equip Bonus: +5 SPE
Goat Horn Gauntlets, Unlock Bonus: Air Strike Bash
Equip Bonus: +4 ATK, +4 DEF
Quick Rush was a skill that allowed me to close the distance very quickly, and also empowered my first strike after using the skill. Air Strike Bash was basically a ranged punch. It wasn't like a rocket punch unfortunately. I hope I get a rocket punch skill at some point. After all that time I finally unlocked Plant Appraisal. I tried it on any plants I could find, and found the feature to be quite handy.
Weed: This plant serves no useful purpose
Nightshade: This berry is poisonous
Dandelion: This plant can be used to make coffee
Well its usefulness was limited, but at least it can tell me if a plant is harmful to me. At the moment though I think I'm better off unlocking the skills the Rabbit Foot and Goat Horn gauntlets gave me.
Once it was about sunset, Maria and I headed back to the city.
"Maybe the increased experience was caused by the monster's level going up?"
"That could be it…" That was the theory me and Maria had come up with for why she got so much more experience from the rabbits than the last time she fought one.
"But I'm amazed how much easier fights are with someone else helping! We beat so many monsters today!"
Both me and Maria are carrying the remaining fur and meat from the animals we killed that I didn't absorb.
"Yeah. I don't want to think about how hard it would be if I started on my own."
I really was glad to have walked into Maria. Well… that sounds strange to say, but I mean she taught me quite a bit, and even helped me get my level up. In terms of combat power, she's very flexible. Her output might be lower than mine, but she used quite a bit of different enchantments, matching the element and effects needed to what we were fighting. She even did a healing enchantment. I was pretty confused when she hit me with her yoyo and I felt better. She's certainly a valuable person to have.
"So now that we have some free time, how do I learn Erste level magic?"
"We have to visit a magic store first. They'll tell you your affinities, then you can directly learn incantations for those elements."
A cardboard snake emerged in the grass and… slithered? It was kind of more like crawling though. It crawled towards us, and we killed it with no problem.
+1 exp
"What?" And now we're back to Maria being confused.
"I killed one of these things yesterday and I got no exp. What's going on?"
With our theory of the increased exp being from the monsters being higher level crushed, we went back to town.
We sold and split the profits from all the animal parts, which meant we ended up taking home about 10 silver each. I just took enough of my share to replenish what I'd spent today, and gave the rest to Maria. She was very thankful. We decided to keep our party intact in case we wanted to adventure again the next day. A bit after we split up I realized both me and her forgot about the Armor and Magic stores.
"Hey man so this is where you've been!" While I was wandering around the city trying to decide where to go Ben ambushed me, coming up behind me and putting his arm around the back of my neck. I pushed him off me.
"And where were You all day?" I still haven't forgiven him for just leaving me and Katagi in the market when the king had told him to show us around.
"Well I was mostly keeping an eye on the sword hero, since he seemed to be taking this less in stride, but he was completely fine. He formed a nice relationship with the blacksmith. Turns out he's quite the nerd and I think those two are friends now. Where have you been? I haven't seen you around town at all."
"I ran into someone who was an adventurer, and we went out for the day. I've already gained a few levels and got some weapons that gave me skills."
"Impressive. You still look a bit mad at me, so let me ask you; Do you think me showing you around the city would have prepared you for being an adventurer as well as this did?"
He did have a point. Actually being on an adventure did help me get used to what the hero job may be demanding from me. It would have been bad if I had my first fight and got stunned from killing something, and didn't have anybody else with me to snap me out of it.
"You have a point, but showing me around would at least help me know where all the important shops are."
"Ha ha, true, true. How about I do that now?"
Ben showed me where the magic, armor, and medicine store were. I also bought a map of the world. It appeared Einsbrey was a large kingdom in the middle of the continent. The whole world was like one giant continent, surrounded by a bunch of small country sized islands. I couldn't read most of the names, in fact the only name I could read was Einsbrey via guessing. Ben read the rest of the map to me. Far to the west the edge of the continent was Heralds bay. North, East, South-east, and South-west were all small villages. Sort of like rest stops on your journey around the continent. The one to the south-east was fairly big though, and is a place where a lot of adventurers meet. The one to the north was apparently a criminal hotspot. Most of the continent is very uptight and lawful, but not there. If you want something super valuable, or illegal, the black market there is the place to go. The rest of the villages didn't seem too remarkable. The other countries were Nialosord, Mocoastre, Ciasy, Gauntland, and Saintraxe. Ben had never been to any of them, or heard much about them, so I don't know much either. Anyway, I still had two places to visit.
"Alright Ash, just be back at the castle in about half an hour. I'll find Katagi and tell him the same thing."
"Alright, see you then."
Ben showed me where the magic and armor stores are, so I'm going to visit them.
"Ah hello dear." A kind sounding old woman spoke out to me when I entered the magic store. The store itself had a chic feel. It looked a little old and dusty, but considering the style of the store, that just came off as part of its charm. The store looked quite a bit like a library, but there were noticeably wands and staves on display too, as well as a crystal ball on her counter.
"Hello, I'm here for an affinity reading?"
"Of course, please touch the crystal ball on my desk."
I touch it, and afterwards I can vaguely see some movement in the ball. The old lady puts on some glasses and looks closely at it.
"Hmmm, it appears your affinities are for Wind and Support magic."
I don't know about wind, but support magic sounds pretty nice.
"Now don't you need spellbooks for those affinities you have?" Her tone shifts to something with a bit of an edge to it. I sense some intense pressuring incoming.
"You look like a strapping young adventurer, don't you want to learn magic past Erste? Not that these spellbooks won't help with that, they include incantations for Erste level spells as well-"
Her pressuring went on for quite a while, until I'd bought two spellbooks, one for both Wind and Support. I spent way too much time there, and money as well. I managed to talk her down a bit, but I only have 19 silver left over. Even if I went to the armor shop tomorrow I doubt I'd be able to afford anything. Anyway, I should go back to the castle to meet up with Ben. I've definitely spent longer out than he was expecting me to.