As I approached the castle I noticed Ben and Katagi waiting by the gates. Ben had his usual smile, and Katagi seemed composed with his eyes closed. Meditating while he waited I guess?

"Hey man where have you been? You were supposed to be here seven minutes ago."

"I got caught up with the old lady at the magic shop… And how are you keeping track of time?"
"Oh yeah, she got me too when I first arrived." Ben replied sheepishly. "And as for time-" Ben's axe turned into… Well basically it was a clock at the end of a stick.
"I tried having my axe absorb a whole grandfather clock and this is what happened."

I was speechless at that. Katagi opened his eyes and said what I probably would have said in a few seconds.
"You didn't try a smaller clock?"
"Naahhh I figured I'd get the best weapon out of the biggest clock I could find!"

That does bring up the question of if absorbing higher quality materials gets you a stronger weapon than normal, but we don't really have a way to test that.

"Anyway, we've spent too much time out here already. We should go meet back up with the king." Ben ushers us in.

"Welcome back Heroes. I trust your introduction to our city was informative and thorough?" The King asked us. Once again when we first walked in he looked worried, but when he looked at us he put up his royal demeanour.

Also, informative and thorough? Ben didn't even show me around until about an hour ago! Although I do admit his method of preparing me to be an adventurer did work out perfectly, but that was just a coincidence.

"Yes, I learned quite a bit about this world, and have gotten to know a lot of shopkeepers around town as well." Katagi answers. He had a sheath for his sword now, so he wasn't carrying it everywhere. Ben did say he became friends with the blacksmith, but I guess Katagi got to know a lot of other shopkeepers while Ben was looking for me.

"I learned a lot too. Ben did a great job preparing me to be an adventurer." Just because I believed it was a coincidence it worked out, doesn't mean it isn't true.
"I'm glad the Axe hero was able to help you two so much on your first day here. For tonight, I have rooms set up in the castle for you, and a banquet being prepared."
I saw Ben do a little fist pump at that.
"Tonight, relax and get to know each other, for tomorrow you three will have your first major assignments."
"Assignments?" I asked.
"Correct. While you have to prepare for whatever is coming in one month, there are also natural disasters claiming lives and harming many more all around the world. Your first assignment will be to go to where one of these disasters is occurring and help the people there. I will decide which of you goes to which location tomorrow."
"We aren't travelling together?" Katagi asked.
"Unfortunately not. There are too many disasters to dispatch all of the heroes to one at a time. However tomorrow I will have prepared some adventurers to accompany you. I understand how dangerous it can be at a low level, even for a hero, so I will see to it that you aren't travelling alone."
I pipe up "What if I've already found someone to travel with?"
The king had to think about it for a moment. He probably didn't expect me or Katagi to find someone else so quickly.
"Ben must have prepared you well if you've already found someone you want to be your companion. All I ask is that you show them to me tomorrow, and I will permit it."
"Understood your majesty. I'll be taking you up on that."

All three of us are guided by the king attendant to what looks like some kind of study room. It's got a nice table in the middle, with bookshelves all around, and the room is surprisingly well lit. Overall the whole room has a very polished feel.
"Please wait here until the banquet is ready. If you need to use the bathroom, there's one across from this room."
Me and Katagi sit down at the table, while Ben goes around for a bit scanning the books.
"Nah nothing interesting" Ben sits back down. None of us say anything for a bit.
"You two really aren't that social are you?"
Katagi looks down shamefully. "I was always busy and didn't have much time to talk to people, so I'm just not used to it."
I wince a little at what Ben says. "I just don't much enjoy talking."
"Alright looks like I'll have to get the ball rolling on icebreakers. Where are you two from?"

Katagi answers first. "I'm from modern Japan. I died trying to prevent someone from committing suicide."
He sounds like quite a noble person. Oh boy, the way I died is definitely embarrassing in comparison.
"I'm from modern Canada. I, well, my death wasn't nearly as noble. Someone with a knife attacked and killed me"
Ben and Katagi both winced.
"Yeah that's not a good way to go. I certainly wouldn't brag about dying like that."
Leave it to Ben to be the blunt one. Something just occurred to me, we're all from different places with presumably different languages, yet we're all communicating in English?
"What language are you speaking?" I ask both Ben and Katagi
"I'm speaking Japanese, why?" Katagi responds.
"What's Japanese? I'm speaking Common" Ben responds.
"I thought it could be something like this. I'm speaking English, and I'm hearing all of you in English too"
Ben and Katagi appear to put it together.
"Huh I thought languages could just be the same in other worlds." Ben said.
"I'll admit I haven't given it any thought, but it would be weird if one language was used across all worlds. Perhaps our weapons act as translators?" Katagi responds.
That would make sense. If our weapons can drag us to other worlds, they should at least have some translation function so we can communicate with whoever we're supposed to save. But why don't our weapons translate text too?
Before I could linger on that train of thought, the king's attendant returned.
"Heroes, your banquet is ready."

All of us ate quite a bit of food. Just like at the restaurant I found the food to taste pretty thin. Katagi felt the same way, equating the food's flavor to 'a watery soup'. The food wasn't bad though. If there's any indication the food was good by this world's standards, Ben was having the time of his life feasting on everything. I was pretty nervous. This may just be the last time we'd have to relax for a while.

By having the Rabbit Foot Gauntlets out while I was awake, and by keeping the Goat Horn Gauntlets out while I was asleep, I managed to unlock both of the skills those gauntlets offered. I'm certainly feeling a lot better about the prospect of fighting something now. I confirm my status

Ash Kane | LVL 6
ATK: 21 + 4
DEF: 24 + 4
MAG: 15
MDEF: 19
SPE: 22

My stats are about double what they were when I started, plus I got a good stat bonus from my weapon and a few skills to help me. With the points gained from my power up method, I increased Quick Rush to I, and Air Strike Bash to II. To explain my power up method a bit more, I get 1 point per level up, and the cost of upgrading a skill is equal to the next level I'd be upgrading it to, and each skill starts at level 0. In total, I'd need 6 points to get both skills to level II, and I have 5 points from levelling up five times. The level of skills was always displayed in roman numerals for some reason.

Since me and Maria kept our party intact, I was able to find her the next morning. The party system doesn't tell me her exact location, but just the direction she's in. I found her in the restaurant of an inn having breakfast.
"Oh hi Ash!" She noticed me and called me over to her table.

"Hi Maria."
"Did you want to go adventuring again today? I think we can make it out much further than yesterday and encounter some higher level monsters."
"About that…" I lower my voice. "The king wants me to go somewhere to help disaster relief, and doesn't want any of the heroes to go alone while we're still low level"
Maria's eyes widened in understanding.
"You want me to accompany you? Where will we be going?"
"I don't know yet. The king wanted to meet you before he would let me go."
Maria seems to become hesitant, but appears to regain her energy.
"Alright, let's go."

We went back to the palace, and stood before the king. He takes a look at her.
"Your name please."
"M-Maria, your majesty."
"Hmm" The king strokes his beard and looks over to his attendant. They seem to be whispering to each other.

"Clear of any criminal records, but…"

"I see, she's… I think I understand the situation well enough"

I couldn't hear everything they were saying. I looked over to Maria, and she's still bowed, as if hiding her face. She looks far more nervous than before.
"I have come to my decision. Ash, you may travel with Maria."
Both of us broke into smiles. Maria looked incredibly relieved.
"I will provide a carriage, two guards to ensure your safety, and some sand from the Dragon Hourglass."
That last one sounded important. I've only ever absorbed common materials, or materials from weak monsters. What kind of weapon will Dragon Hourglass sand give me?
"Your assignment will be to go to the village to the south-west. They are currently experiencing an abnormal amount of monsters attacking their village. The monsters don't appear to be too individually strong, but the number of them is causing problems with the village's crops, and overall safety. If it becomes too dangerous, flee north towards Heralds Bay, that is where I have stationed the Axe hero to help with the damages caused by a recent tsunami."
Now that we know our mission, we head to the Dragon Hourglass to collect the sand.

Level 50 Requirement
Dragon Hourglass Sand Gauntlets, Unlock Bonus: Transport Gauntlet, +8 ATK, +10 DEF, +5 MAG, +10 MDEF, +10 SPE
Equip Bonus: +7 ALL

This is an insanely good weapon! At least compared to what I have now. I'm sure at level 50 those stats will look a lot smaller, but even so that is a very big permanent increase I'd get from unlocking them. Plus, Transport Gauntlet sounds like a teleportation skill, which I didn't expect to get from the hourglass. Just what was the hourglass for anyway? The Dragon Hourglass was directly below the throne room, several floors down. Even though this was basically a basement, it was very well kept down here, well lit, and everything was polished. The smell of sand and the feeling of magic filled the whole room.

The whole time Maria was practically gushing with excitement.
"This is great! I can finally see the world, go beyond what I know, meet new people! The world is our oyster! Isn't this amazing Ash?"
"This does feel like the real start of our adventure." I still had a lot of questions. Fortunately the king's attendant was with us to take the sand out of the hourglass.
"What is the hourglass supposed to do?" I ask
"The dragon hourglass is used to break the level 40 limit."
There was a level limit? Well I assumed the limit would be 100, but I was surprised to hear it was 40.
"However Legendary heroes are not subject to any level limits. Documents suggest heroes of the past had even gone above the level 100 limit."
Ah so there was a limit at level 100. The way he said that suggested there was no known way for someone to break the level 100 limit.
"The ritual to break the level limit is called a 'Class Upgrade', where upon breaking the limit, that person also gains an increase in stats. Usually about a 25-35% increase."

Well that was all pretty handy to know, although not much of that seemed relevant to me, it would help Maria at least. The part where heroes aren't subject to any level limits was very interesting. Doesn't that mean theoretically we heroes could become infinitely strong?

Armed with this new knowledge, Maria and I headed to the carriage.

The trip to our assigned village was pretty dull. It's three days travel, and not much to do in-between. There were some occasional monsters that our guards let us fight, provided it didn't look like we were struggling much, and by the time we arrived, both Maria and I made it to level 10. All the unlock effects I gained from those monsters were stat boosts, and with all the time I had I was able to unlock all of the appraisal skills, and a couple stat increases. Only Meat Appraisal did much for us, because we had rations and monster meat, we didn't need to do any foraging. Over that time I had tried to learn magic from the books I had bought, but I couldn't read them. Maria tried to teach me some basic magic, but the incantations she used didn't work for me. She said that for Erste level magic just knowing the incantation is enough to cast the spell, so I'm not sure why I can't do it. I'm also not sure if I should be proud of this, but killing monsters is taking far less of a toll on me than before, as if I just care less about their deaths. Killing isn't something I thought anybody should get used to, and I am worried about what this means for me.

It was pretty clear when we arrived at the village. It was surrounded by walls made of sharpened tree trunks, and was also surrounded by dozens of these weird blob creatures. They moved like slime's, but looked more like marshmallows.

We all jumped off of the carriage and ran towards these creatures.
"Ha!" I punched one, and Dear God it also had the consistency of a marshmallow. By which I mean, my punch didn't do very much. Maria caught on quickly, and with Fire Enchant she was able to take them out without much trouble. The knights also had no trouble, those lucky bastards could wield a sharp weapon. Oh yeah I haven't tried wielding a sharp weapon yet.

There was one time where I used Quick Rush to uppercut one of them into the air, and Air Strike Bash to knock it back down, and drop kicked it like a soccer ball. That was pretty fun, but for the most part I didn't kill very many of them.

I tried absorbing one, and got some weak looking Gauntlets.

Boink Gauntlets, Unlock Bonus: +2 DEF
Equip Bonus: -2 ATK, Bludgeon Resist Up (Med)

So these things are called Boinks? Who came up with that name? Although we did get some really good exp from them, especially considering how weak they were. Both me and Maria rose to level 13. After we had cleared out all the Boinks crowding around the village walls, we entered. Inside the walls, it looked like a pretty standard medieval village, with the exception of the lack of bustle and all the hungry people. And the vandalized house.
"Hello sir Gauntlet hero, I have been notified of your arrival. Thank you for clearing those creatures from around our village." The person who I presume is the mayor is speaking.
"It was no problem. I'm glad to help, although for some reason I don't think I solved the whole problem."
"Wasn't it pretty hard for you to kill them?" Maria whispers to me. Dammit Maria we're supposed to be on the same side!
The mayor speaks again "Of course not. Those creatures are quite weak. If killing them was all it took to solve our problem, we could have done that ourselves."
"With how weak these monsters are, what threat do they pose?"
"With their high numbers, they raid our farms and storehouses. If we don't get rid of them soon, we won't be able to plant early enough to harvest before winter. We are already suffering from food shortages. In about a week's time we likely won't have enough to eat."
"Do you have any idea what to do?"
"Well… there may be one person who knows what to do, but we haven't forgiven her for what she's done."
"Who is she, and what did she do?"
"She is an evil alchemist. She is the one who made these monsters and made them attack our village in such high numbers."

Making monsters? Alchemy is advanced far enough to create new life? On another note, how evil could she be if she made weak marshmallow monsters? I still have to do what I can to stop this, or these people would starve. By making the assumption that Boinks are just living marshmallows, you could eat them, but not survive on them.
"Do you know where she is?"
The mayor then points to the vandalized house in the village.
"We… are too scared of her to try and force her to leave. If you could get her out of here, please do."

I suppose I know my objective now. Go into the house, determine if she's truly evil or not, and find out if the king would like an alchemist on his side. If she truly was evil, I would have to fight her. I'll be honest, I'm still pretty low level, and this will be my first time fighting another person since I last died back in my own world. Swallowing my nervousness, I approach the house, with Maria, and two of the knights as backup.